My Point, Made

I've been hearing for 8 years about how important it is for me to hold my nose and vote for the assclown with the 'R' after his name, if for no other reason than to assure that the Supreme Court isn't taken over by "dangerous" Liberal elements. My principled stand has been that voting for anyone whom you truly believe to be a bad choice is worse than not voting at all. What was needed was a test case to show I was right.

Today I was proved right.

Republican George W. Bush -- for whom I was told to hold my nose, shut up, and vote -- appointed alleged "conservative" John Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during his reign of error. And it was Chief Justice Roberts who cast the deciding vote that made the Constitutional horror show that is Obamacare the law of the land.

Do not EVER again tell me to vote for a candidate who doesn't reflect my vision of what this country should be "to protect the country from a Liberal Supreme Court" -- or for any other reason, for that matter. In fact, do yourself a favor and stop voting entirely. All you do by voting is to lend legitimacy to the charade.

A government that can force you to buy health care is a government that can force you to do anything. We have officially passed from citizens to serfs. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Neutral? Hardly.

The lame duck (with heavy emphasis on the "lame") Congress is trying to force through all manner of ill-conceived legislation.  Gays in the military.  The DREAM act.  The START treaty.

But that stuff is merely a distraction.  There's something more sinister afoot than any of that.  Matt Drudge is posting one, after another, after another, after another, link to stories that identify a threat far more dangerous to our freedoms than anything else in the news right now.

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on Dec. 21 on whether to adopt regulations that ban the blocking of lawful traffic but allow Internet service providers to ration Web traffic on their networks.

So? What's the big deal? This is.

The fixers here are pursuing something called "net neutrality," which will change the way certain Internet providers pay for privileged rights to the Web and charge their customers accordingly. "Net neutrality" sounds good to anyone not paying attention, but it must be accomplished by a seizure of authority to do so, a seizure not by Congress (which would be scary enough), but by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Here's the skinny. The Internet is currently the last bastion of freedom. It exists, for the most part, free from interference from government or regulators. It is the one place where an American citizen can still speak his or her mind unfiltered.

While the Internet is pooh-poohed as being frivolous and "experts" insist that it is not subject to the protections in place for Big Media (the BM for short), the fact is that a number of extremely important news stories, including Matt Drudge's breaking of the Monica Lewinsky story, have had as their mode of conveyance the "frivolous" Internet.

An authoritarian government seeks to restrict freedom of the press at all costs.  Ours is becoming increasingly authoritarian.  The BM is already working under the thumb of government regulation.  They are also tied to corporate masters whose survival hinges on government's selective picking of winners and losers.  The BM is no threat to the government.  The Internet is.

If you understand government, you'll understand that the FCC won't be content with setting "fairness" rules.  They'll also want to regulate content.  Politically charged speech would most surely be restricted ("We have to stamp out hate speech!").  The writings of this particular blogger, fond of referring to the past two Presidents as King George the Dim and Il Duce, would most certainly fall under their definition of hate speech.

But, hey.  You go right on sweating gays in the military, the DREAM act, and the START treaty.  Nothing to see here.  Move along now.

The Tea Party

You may have sensed a certain lack of enthusiasm on my part when it comes to the Tea Party movement.  It's not that I stand in opposition to their objectives and ideals.  It's that I'm certain it's doomed for failure.

"Oh come on, Vulture!  How can you say that?"  How?  Quite easily.  Let's start with the basics.

The Tea Party hasn't officially aligned itself with Team Elephant, but Team Elephant is doing its damnedest to align the Tea Party with it.  This is bad.  Very bad.  I knew from the very beginning that if the Tea Party didn't align itself with an existing third party or create a political party of their own, they would be co-opted by the Elephants, who would run candidates who pay lip service to the Tea Party ideals but are beholden to (and thus, voting in every way like) the Rockefellerites.

"But Vulture!  The Republicans have changed!  They've seen the light!"  No, no they haven't.  They are still promoting Taxachusetts health care creator Mitt Romney as a conservative.  They still have RINO Michael Steele as their party chairman.  And they have actively worked to promote "establishment" candidates over newcomers.  The Elephants will ruin the Tea Party and destroy the movement forever.

The other problem the Tea Party has is that it's "solutions" (for lack of a better word) revolve around getting people elected -- and the people around whom they've rallied leave quite a bit to be desired.

The first two "endorsed" candidates put forward by the Tea Party are Scott Brown and Marco Rubio.  Brown is a total RINO, and Rubio is showing signs of being the same.

Then there is the person who comes closest to being the face of the Tea Party, Sarah Palin.  Let's cut to the chase, shall we?  She's a Big Government Republican through-and-through.  Yet, to hear the Left and Big Media (the BM for short) -- or is that redundant? -- tell it, she's somewhere to the right of Ghengis Khan.  The Tea Party is being duped by Caribou Barbie.  She isn't any more conservative than King George the Dim was.

It pains me to rain on the Tea Party parade.  It really does.  I would have loved for them to succeed.

But they won't.  Not so long as they continue to believe that the Elephants are their friends.

Suing for -- what?

If this isn't the damndest thing.  The federal government tries to pry itself into every nook and cranny of our lives, to regulate every single minute facet of of our existence.  Perversely, enforcement of our borders, one of the few powers granted to the Federal government by the Constitution, is the one area where the federal government has no interest in inserting itself.  So when Arizona attempts to do it for them -- they sue. 

The federal lawsuit against Arizona's tough new immigration law focuses heavily on a question that has been in the spotlight repeatedly the past decade and dates back to the Founding Fathers: The right of the government to keep states from enacting laws that usurp federal authority.

The feds have basically stated, in so many words, that not only are they not interested in enforcing our borders, but they'll be damned if they'll let anyone else do it!

And before you "conservatives" start jumping on the "blame Obama" bandwagon, don't forget that your champion, King George the Dim, was worse than Il Duce on border security, and your last candidate for President, "conservative" (ha! in a pig's eye!) John McCommie was the driving force behind Scamnasty.

Our "leaders" don't care to enforce our borders.  Is cheap labor really worth the dangers to which the citizens of borders areas are subjected? 

I. just. don't. get. it.

"Weak economy? We're shocked!"

The people effing up our economy (and the sycophants who obediently shovel their propaganda) simply can't believe that their counter intuitive deliberate efforts to save destroy our economy aren't are working.  The latest news?  Weak numbers (for weak minds).

Fears that the economic recovery is fizzling grew Thursday after the government and private sector issued weak reports on a number of fronts.

Unemployment claims are up, home sales are plunging without government incentives and manufacturing growth is slowing.

Meanwhile, 1.3 million people are without federal jobless benefits now that Congress adjourned for a weeklong Independence Day recess without passing an extension. That number could grow to 3.3 million by the end of the month if lawmakers can't resolve the issue when they return.

All of this worries economists.

NOW you're worried?!?!?!

Anyone who's been paying attention - particularly those who follow Vox Popoli - knows that government bailouts and incentives have only served to prolong the pain and postpone the inevitable crash.  We're in the midst of a profound economic earthquake that has only just begun to rumble.  We would have been a lot better off - a whole lot better off - had King George the Dim simply let the economic chips fall where they may in 2008.  We'd probably be pulling out of the deep, deep recession it would have caused right about now.  Instead, we'll be subject to Great Depression 2.0 in dribs and drabs as our political class tries to salvage their own careers rather than do the right thing.

Now THERE'S a cheery message for a Thursday evening, eh?

Even a stopped clock is right twice each day

Ron Reagan is dumber than a bag of hair.  Of this there is no doubt.  But the other night, when Deadeye left the room, leaving the TV tuned to CNN Headline News (She has this habit of leaving me alone with HLN.  I don't like it.  I can feel my IQ dropping by the second.), I caught the following comments from Mr. Reagan in an exchange with Joy Behar and insipid uber-leftist Janeane Garofalo.

GAROFALO: I would hope so, but there should had been regulation. You know, I mean, there should had been regulatory reform as he came into office.

BEHAR: When he came into office.

GAROFALO: Yes.

BEHAR: Yeah. Why didn’t, Ron, why didn`t he do that?

REAGAN: Well, because he`s a corporatist like all our other Presidents have been for a long, long time. That`s what`s being revealed here. Barack Obama is just as much a corporatist as George H.W. – or George W. Bush was. He`s a little less obvious about it. I think maybe his heart isn’t quite as in it.

I'm impressed. He gets it that Il Duce is the same kind of corporatist tool that King George the Dim and his predecessors were.

Of course, then he turns around and says some of the ass-stupidest nonsense ever uttered.

REAGAN: He`s not an actual oil man himself, but listen, he`s between a rock and a hard place here. He just proposed that we open up a lot of our coastline to deepwater drilling here, to offshore drilling. Completely ignoring the fact that any dependence on oil by America is dependence on foreign oil. That`s the thing that I think a lot of people don`t understand here.

Exqueeze me? Oil produced by America is dependence on foreign oil?  Do you even listen to yourself?

Oh well.  At least he gets that we're being ruled over by plundering Corporatists.  I suppose that counts for something, right?

Those who fear technology hate freedom

My assertion is this: fear of technology is emblematic of a hatred of individual freedom.  To buttress this claim, I present Exhibit A.

US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.

Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.

The key phrase in this ode to intellectual incuriousity (say, wasn't that the knock on King George the Dim?) is this: "[N]one of which I know how to work..."

It's funny - it feels like just yesterday I was lambasting Justice David Souter for this same failing.  Notice something here?  Both individuals refuse to embrace technology.  And both individuals embrace policies that are anti-individual freedom.

Oh, c'mon, Vulture!  Two examples?  That's all you can muster?

There'll be more.  How do I know?  It's like this: people who are engaged in free, productive activity in society utilize technology to make them more competitive, productive, marketable, etc.  They use technology in the free exchange of ideas.  They use technology to make their lives and the lives of others around them better.

People who stand in opposition to individual liberty disdain such activities.  The get their money the old fashioned way: they loot it.

How to make a Vulture's head explode

It's easy, really.  Add one part King George the Dim, one part news story like this.

Is George W. Bush about to start a political comeback?

Written off as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history when he left office, the 63-year-old Bush has been keeping a low profile, fading from view as the country turned its attention to his successor, President Barack Obama .

Now, some events might be turning in Bush's favor just as he and his family emerge to tell their side of the story, first with the release this week of Laura Bush's memoir, "Spoken From the Heart," then in November with the release of his book, "Decision Points."

"The rehab's well under way," said Mark McKinnon , a Bush confidant who still bikes with the former president in Texas .

"His loyalists have always believed that history would be much kinder to the president than public opinion was during his term. We also believe that leaders who make tough decisions are rarely popular when they're president, but that history puts things into context."

That loud noise you just heard? That wasn't yet another gift from the Religion of Peace in Times Square. That was my head.  Sorry if I got any brain gook on you.

King George vindicated by history? Not if I have any say in the matter! The man was a disgrace as President! He did more to grease the skids for the loss of our freedoms than any President since Woodrow Wilson. He has ruined the financial future of this nation with his profligate spending, and doomed us to perhaps decades of futile warfare with his foreign wars of aggression. And he made the Presidency of Il Duce possible.

His place in history should be that special cesspool where the memories of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson and other horrific Presidents reside.

Let's just say that when he dies, what I'll leave on his grave won't pass for flowers.

Man bites dog

Criticism of Il Duce and his administration by Big Media (the BM for short) and popular commentators of the Left (is that redundant?) has been virtually nonexistent up to this point.  But the times, they are a changin'. It seems that the near non-response of the Duce administration to the impending ecological catastrophe about to hit the shores of the Gulf states is a chicken come home to roost.

Of all of Il Duce's cheerleaders, no one has been as "in the tank" for their Messiah as the editorial writers of The New York Times.  Until now.

BP seems to have been slow to ask for help, and, on Friday, both federal and state officials accused it of not moving aggressively or swiftly enough. Yet the administration should not have waited, and should have intervened much more quickly on its own initiative.

A White House as politically attuned as this one should have been conscious of two obvious historical lessons. One was the Exxon Valdez, where a late and lame response by both industry and the federal government all but destroyed one of the country’s richest fishing grounds and ended up costing billions of dollars. The other was President George W. Bush’s hapless response to Hurricane Katrina.

Now we have another disaster in more or less the same neck of the woods, and it takes the administration more than a week to really get moving.

Wow! You could knock me over with a feather.  Every word of that critique is true.  And damning.  And, had the President in question been King George the Dim, this singular criticism would be echoing from every media orifice.  But, given that so much of Big Media follows in lock-step behind The Times, more criticism should be forthcoming.

But if you think that The Times criticism of the administration is unbelievable, this is even more unbelievable.

HBO's Bill Maher on Friday asked an extraordinary question of his guest panel: "Why isn't Barack Obama getting more s--t' for the oil spill in the Gulf?

Almost as surprising, the studio audience applauded after the "Real Time" host said this.

Talk about your "man bites dog" moment! Bill Maher, as big a Lefty as you'll ever find in a "political" context, a man who excoriated King George without mercy, questioning why his Messiah wasn't being (correctly) criticized for his lackadaisical response.

Just when you think you have it all figured out, something like this happens [/sarcasm].

I'm the first to criticize the BM and pundits like Maher when they go 24x7 hammering on something that matters to them and harms opposing points of view and then, predictably, fall silent on issues that make "their side" look bad (Climategate, anyone?).  So I salute The Times and Bill Maher for breaking from the pack and criticizing where criticism is due.

Well done, chaps.

Naivete shattered

They believed in him.  They REALLY believed.  He was going to ride into Washington on a white steed and undo all of the evil things perpetrated by their enemy, King George the Dim.  He was their candidate.  He was their guy.

Funny how "change" (or, as I called it during the election cycle, the DoublePlusGoodHopeChange) didn't change a thing.

The Justice Department's decision to subpoena a New York Times reporter this week has convinced some press advocates that President Obama's team is pursuing leaks with the same fervor as the Bush administration.

James Risen, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for disclosing President George W. Bush's domestic surveillance program, has refused to testify about the confidential sources he used for his 2006 book "State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration."

"The message they are sending to everyone is, 'You leak to the media, we will get you,' " said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In the wake of the Bush administration's aggressive stance toward the press, she said, "as far as I can tell there is absolutely no difference, and the Obama administration seems to be paying more attention to it. This is going to get nasty."

Waaaaa! The nerve of Il Duce!  How dare he and his dastard administration investigate a member of the Fourth Estate for something as petty as the exposure of classified information!

It's no secret that I am no fan of Il Duce.  But he scores a win here.  I've been waiting for years for SOMEONE in Washington to take leaks of classified information seriously.  It started with Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers and has continued unabated since.  And never, EVER, has the Justice Selective Prosecution of Only Those We See Fit to Persecute Department had the cojones to prosecute.  If you or I...you know, the mundanes, as William Grigg has aptly named us....were to leak classified information, we'd spend the rest of our lives in Leavenworth sharing an intimate cell with a guy named Bubba who considers himself our "boyfriend".

But the press, the Sainted Protectors of our Nation, THEY can leak classified information with impunity and, rather than receive punishment, they become famous.

I, for one, hope that has changed.  Congrats, Duce.  You got this one right.

And, to Big Media, let me just say, "Bubba says hi."

The case for a third party

There is a particular litmus test I have for whether or not someone is serious about restoring this country to its former state as a Constitutional Republic.  That test is this: are you opposed to the creation of a third party whose purpose is to elect candidates committed to a return to the Constitutional rule of law?  If the answer is "no", then you've shown yourself to be yet another duped sheeple drinking that Team Elephant Kool-Aid.  I cannot in good conscience take you seriously.

Many blathering heads take umbrage with my stubborn insistence that the current political parties are totally co-opted and cannot be reclaimed.  They quote Ronald Reagan, who said, waaaay back in 1977:

I have to say I cannot agree with some of my friends—perhaps including some of you here tonight—who have answered that question by saying this nation needs a new political party.

I respect that view and I know that those who have reached it have done so after long hours of study. But I believe that political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved. For one thing, the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over.

Rather than a third party, we can have a new first party made up of people who share our principles. I have said before that if a formal change in name proves desirable, then so be it. But tonight, for purpose of discussion, I’m going to refer to it simply as the New Republican Party.

At this point they follow up with a rather childish, "See? See? The great Ronald Reagan said it! We need to stay Republican and save the Party."

There's only one problem with that illogic: Reagan failed.

For all of the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan as President, he was unsuccessful in his quest to fundamentally change the character of the Party.  Look at the last four candidates for President in the post-Reagan era:

• George H. W. Bush, Rockefellerite
  


• Bob Dole, Big Government true believer
  


• George W. Bush, Neocon
  


• John McCommie, RINO
  

That's not the slate of candidates a party espousing individual liberty and small government foists upon its followers.

"But Vulture!  The Republicans have changed!  They've really changed going in the 2010 elections".

No, no they haven't.  They haven't changed one bit.  You know how I know that?

• Michael Steele is still the RNC chairman
  


• John McCommie is being pushed by Party elites over J. D. Hayworth because he's "more electable"
  


• Party elites are still pushing for Mitt Romney to be the standard-bearer in 2012
  

Here's the rub.  We know that Team Donkey wants power to implement their vision of Big Government.  But the same is true of Team Elephant - they want power to implement their vision of Big Government.  Neither gives a rat's ass about you or your personal freedoms.

A strong third party will offer a chance for real change in Washington, if done correctly.  It can be a haven for small-L libertarians, small government conservatives, and independents, as well as for current members of Team Donkey fed up with the Fascist takeover of their party by the toxic 60's generation.

Perhaps even more import is the impact it would have on the two big Parties.  Both would be forced to move from their current entrenched positions - either further to the Left or drawing back to the Right - in order to attract voters away from the new party.  For the first time since Reagan, libertarians and conservatives wouldn't have to hold their noses to vote.  That alone is reason enough for me.

Think I'm full of it?  Hit me with your best shot.  I'm dying to see where you think I'm "wrong".

Big Media finally asks the question

A question that has been asked thousands of times in hundreds of different ways by those of us who are not ideologues has finally found its way into an opinion piece in the Washington Post. That question is: Why are liberals so condescending?

Though I suspect that the author of the article is himself left-leaning, he demonstrates the kind of intellectual honesty that is so rare among the Left. To this point, I was aware of only one left-leaning writer -- Camile Paglia -- whom that could be said of.

Two ideological pompous douchbags in particular come away from the article looking extraordinarily bad. Those individuals would be Il Duce and Markos Moulitsas (the Daily Kos).

Do yourself a favor and read the WaPo article. Regardless of your political perspective, Left, Right, Center, or Libertarian, you'll come away with a better understanding of why Leftists are soooooooooooo condescending.

I commend the Post for printing such an extraordinary article. It's not the kind of thing one expects from that pro-Stateist rag.

One last thing - don't you on the right celebrate this article too loudly. You're still on the hook for King George the Dim!

Wiener of the Decade

I've been awarding a Wiener of the Week since November of 2007. I've been awarding a Wiener of the Month nearly as long. I've awarded a Wiener of the Year three times as well. Now, in the year 2010, with the end of the nameless decade I'll call 'The Aughts', I'm presented with a rare opportunity for a new, first-time award: the Wiener of the Decade.

So many things happened during the course of The Aughts that negatively impacted our lives.

9-11 was an attack on America; what our President and Congress did in its aftermath -the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHSS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSSA) [two S's required in each name, because you can't spell Schutzstaffel without the double S] - was an attack on Americans and American freedoms. That last sentence is sure to inflame True-Believer Republicans who are convinced that the aforementioned affronts were an important concession necessary for a nation at war with radical Islam. I dispute the benefit. The detrimental aspects of those actions, however, are beyond dispute. The worst part is that we've yet to see the Patriot Act exercised to its fullest by a mendacious, cruel ruler of the type that Il Duce has the potential to become.

The fraud that is AGW began to gather a head of steam in The Aughts. Al Gorebells, the chief propagandist for Big Warming, actually won a Nobel Peace Prize for his fraudulent over-the-top propaganda movie, An Inconvenient Truth. It was the single most outrageous example of the politicization of the Nobel Prize until 2009, when Il Duce was awarded his Nobel for.....uh....well, no one has figured that one out yet.

Two wars raged throughout the decade, in Afghanistan and Iraq. While American popular support for the war in Afghanistan was justifiably high, that support fell off in a hurry when the Iraq conflict because a quagmire where our men and women in uniform were left in an untenable situation.

Pop culture became more and more debased. The "reality show" became a staple of network television. Janet Jackson flashed a nipple. Bono dropped an F-bomb. The government responded to those two events in the only way government knows how: by further restricting freedoms.

Technology, particularly the exponential growth of the Internet, has made it possible for more and more voices to weigh in and, to a small degree, has broken the grip of Big Media (the BM for short) regarding "truth". The Dan Rather forged documents scandal was an example of bloggers - simple citizen reporters and opinion writers - fighting the BM and bringing out the truth. Rather was forced out by CBS as a result. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Okay, enough with the history lesson. Let's review the also-rans first.

• Al Gorebells. Very few people had as much impact on the world in the past decade than Mr. Gore. His bald-faced propaganda, coupled with complicit "science" and an even more complicit media, have led to treaties and legislation designed to create global governance and to tax away the wealth of the West. Mr. Gore is a hypocritical enemy of freedom and a scumbag. Wiener-worthy, to be sure. But, alas, he's just an also-ran.
  


• Alan Greenspan. Mr. Fed fed the dot-com boom-and-bust, then turned around and drove interest rates lower and lower, creating first a credit boom, then a housing boom, both of which went bust. The current economic woes we are experiencing would have occurred sooner and would have been less severe had Mr. Greenspan just done...wait for it....NOTHING! Wiener-caliber? No doubt!
  


• Big Media. The BM called King George the Dim everything but a Child of God during the course of his presidency, then has the audacity to grumble about the "incivility" of politics now that their guy, Il Duce, is running things. And make no mistake, he is THEIR GUY; the love affair between Il Duce and the BM during the 2008 election was absolutely appalling. What occurred in that election cycle was nothing short of journalistic fellatio. Were they capable of shame, I would say that they should be ashamed. I wish I could give them the Wiener, but, alas, they too are also-rans.
  


• John McCommie. Not since Bob Dole has there been a Presidential candidate less appealing or more curmudgeonly. Not even the addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket could make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. And let's not forget First Amendment-shredding McCain-Feingold! Definitely a Wiener; just not the winner.
  


• Team Elephant. A dispassionate observer might well conclude that the Republicans threw the 2008 election by pumping a 70-something, nasty, borderline Socialist candidate as the "conservative" alternative to Il Duce. In my opinion the Republican party has spent the last 20 years trying to pay penance for Ronald Reagan. True Wieners, this crowd.
  


• Congress. What a collection of elitist, out-of-touch, officious douchebags. These collectivist bastards wipe their collective fat asses with the Constitution daily. Their contempt for ordinary Americans is breathtaking, particularly Nancy "Air Force 3" Pelosi. Bastile Day would be too good for those scumbags. Definitely Wieners. Definitely.
  


• The Supreme Court. Talk about judicial malpractice! These clowns actually ruled that McCain-Feingold was Constitutional! Are you effing kidding me?!?!?! WHAT is more indicative of the founders' insistence on free speech than POLITICAL SPEECH?!?!? Yet these fossilized crypt-keepers turned their backs on the Constitution and upheld that completely absurd and freedom-limiting POS. Wieners for sure!

That's quite a collection. I grudgingly omitted additional candidates such as "Judge" Barbara Walther and Prosecutor Mike Nifong since they were previously named Wiener of the Year. Their Wiener-worthiness is indisputable.

The Wiener of the Decade is the man who stood largest, for better or worse, throughout the decade. Indeed, one cannot think of The Aughts without thinking of the biggest ZERO of a decade of zeroes: George W. Bush, AKA King George the Dim.

If you look at the events of The Aughts, GWB's fingerprints are all over everything. While he was borderline brilliant in the aftermath of 9-11, pretty much everything he did thereafter was cover-your-eyes awful.

He was the force behind the Patriot Act and the creation of the DHSS and TSSA. He and his Neocon cronies pushed and pushed to get us a war with Iraq, and disingenuously made Iraq an extension of the war on terror.

He pushed for yet another government-provided "entitlement" with the Medicare prescription drug benefit. I said at the time that the Medicare legislation was the camel's nose in the tent, that King George had set the table for Hillary Health. Little did I know how right I was.

He pushed for the gigantic 2008 bailout of the financial sector ("They're too big to fail!!!"). He tried to appoint Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. That woman isn't qualified to be a CLERK of the Supreme Court!

But the worst thing he did was to make Il Duce possible. It has been said for decades that it took Jimmy Carter for us to get Ronald Reagan. Conversely, it took 8 years of King George the Dim to give us Il Duce. Of all of the unforgivable things King George did, THAT is the most unforgivable.

Congratulations, GWB - you're the Wiener of the Decade.

Better than WHAT?!?!?!

Has the DoublePlusGoodHopeChange jumped the shark? Apparently it has, so much so that even King George the Dim's dismal reign is seen as preferable to 44% of a recent poll's respondents.

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

Gee, what a surprise [/sarcasm].

It may well be the biggest insult that one can make to a President. "You suck so bad I'd rather have a dim-witted Neocon with the common sense of a lamp post than you."

Consider the question as posited by the pollsters. Which practitioner of Fascist economics would you prefer, the Neocon, or the Neo-Commie? It's like asking you about your preference for your own execution: death by fire ants, or death by drowning.

I noticed that the poll results didn't add up to 100%, so perhaps the missing 6% of respondents answered (as I would have) with a resounding, "You want me to pick one of those two bozos? Go sell crazy somewhere else!"

Attempted balance

In a post last week, I excoriated the Left for their penchant for GroupThink. I certainly stand behind what I wrote. But it did get me thinking. Well, that and the Team Elephant leadership and their BS "big tent" (read: "Donkey Lite") electoral philosophy.

GroupThink isn't limited to Leftists. Life-long Republicans are just as guilty. "What?!?!?!?", you say. "Not ME!!!" Really? Answer honestly, dear Republican. Have you ever said or thought:

• A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for the Democrat.
• A vote for a third-party candidate is a wasted vote.
  
• It doesn't matter who the candidate is, I vote for the guy with the 'R' after his name.
• Our nation's well-being can only be assured by Republicans.
• A RINO (i.e. John McCommie, Olympia Dukakis) is STILL better than a Democrat.
• The Republican party has the REAL interests of America at heart.
• Oh, he just says that stuff during the election to get moderate votes - he doesn't really BELIEVE those things; after all, he's a Republican.

If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, you need to take a little quiet time to think things through. Because Team Elephant is led by individuals that are every bit as venal as those from Team Donkey and Team Elephant's record on ethics is every bit as tawdry as that of the Donkeys.

The fact is that every one of the statements in the bullet points is demonstrably false. A vote for a third-party candidate? It's an absolute DUTY for individuals in this country to vote their conscience and to vote for candidates -- regardless of party -- who reflect their beliefs. The only wasted vote is a vote for some despicable assclown for the sole reason that they have an 'R' after their name. If you have to hold your nose in order to vote for a candidate (i.e. John McCommie) then YOU'VE wasted your vote, NOT the individual who voted third-party.

RINOs have made much of the road to serfdom under a Fascist economic system possible. RINOs have made the abuses of the Education Department possible. RINOs -- particularly NeoCons -- made King George the Dim's Eternal War possible.

The bullet point that you need to rethink more than any other is this one: "Oh, he just says that stuff during the election to get moderate votes - he doesn't really BELIEVE those things; after all, he's a Republican."

It was THAT little gem of illogic that got King George the Dim elected.

What's that sound?

That whirring sound you heard all day yesterday? That was our Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.

Far from viewing July 4th as an uplifting holiday and a cause for giving thanks to God for our blessings, I view Independence Day with mourning.

The oligarchs and special interests have effectively destroyed the work of our Founders. Need proof? Look no further than the news of Sarah Palin resigning as Governor of Alaska. The politics of personal destruction strikes again; it has become impossible for anyone resembling a human being to be part of the political process in this country. Only sub-human reptilians need apply. People (and I use the term loosely) like Il Duce, John McCommie, Vice-Hairplugs Biden, Succubus of State Hillary Clinton, Little Nancy "Air Force 3" Pelosi, Harry Reid, "Big" Dick Cheney, King George the Dim, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

Go ahead and celebrate, if you wish. But I won't be celebrating anything. Rather I'll be mourning that which we've lost.

Fascism for Dummies

I've grown tired of having to provide a parenthetical or footnoted explanation every time I describe the current direction of our country as Fascism. I wouldn't have to, except that, as a result of the dumbing-down of 4 generations of public school graduates, people have no clue what the word really means. To most, the word is synonymous with repression. While repression was a major component of nearly all Fascist regimes, that isn't the sum of what Fascism was and is.

This post is my attempt to enlighten the dumbed-down as to what Fascism really is so that they don't resort to the kind of knee-jerk emotional response most commonly associated with calling someone a Fascist.

Fascism, or Corporatism, as it is sometimes called, can be described thusly.

[A] system of economic, political, and social organization where corporate groups or interest groups, such as business, ethnic, farmer, labour, military, or patronage groups, are joined together under a common governing jurisdiction to try to achieve societal harmony and promote coordinated development.

I would condense that wordy definition even further: Fascism is the marriage of government and corporations whereby the means of production are owned jointly in a private/public partnership. Think of it as oligarchy-friendly Socialism.

Socialism? But Vulture, isn't Fascism an ideology of the Right? That would be 100% wrong. 60+ years of disinformation have resulted in most people associating Fascism with the Right, when, in fact, it is most commonly identified by its adherents as the "third way" alternative to Communism or Capitalism. The third way....hmmm, wasn't that Clinton's pet identifier for his policies? But I digress...

Fascism is, by point of fact, a Leftist ideology, falling somewhere on the political spectrum between Democratic Socialism and Communism.

Fascism has been attempted - always with predictably bad results - in Italy (1920's-1940's), Germany (1930's-1940's), Spain (1930's-1970's), and Argentina (1950's). Spain? Argentina? Nobody told us about THAT in public school. No shit! That's because, for whatever reason, our "betters" want us to associate Fascism with brutal totalitarianism and attempted world domination as demonstrated by the Third Reich and the Italian Fascists. While it is true that both the Argentine and Spanish Fascists were authoritarian and repressive, neither attempted world domination and both were extremely popular with the so-called "workers".

So the next time I speak of Fascism, I won't be using parenthetical explanations nor footnotes. I'll simply link back to this post. I want it understood when I say that King George the Dim and Il Duce led this nation into Fascism I'm referring to things like the government take-over of the banks and auto industry and (coming soon to a Fascist nation near you) health care.

That and nothing more.

Government: doing everything (except the things they're SUPPOSED to)

It seems like the government is involved in everything these days. And the things they're not yet involved in to their level of satisfaction are the things most in their cross hairs (like health care). But what about the things that government is SUPPOSED to do? You know: enforce the law, protect our borders, etc.

One of the duties expressly spelled out in the Constitution that the Feds are responsible for is BORDER SECURITY. In the bizzaro world in which we live, that which the Feds are required to do, they ignore.

Our oligarchs are bound and determined to turn this country into a third-world shithole by allowing unfettered masses of migrants to swarm into it. (Note that I said 'migrants', NOT 'immigrants': immigrants are people who LAWFULLY enter another country in accordance with established procedures and prerequisites. Migrants are swarms of people who spew across national borders and turn the host nation into the very same place they're fleeing). Il Duce, King Barack of Kenya, is no different than his predecessor, King George the Dim, in this regard.

President Obama voted in the Senate to provide additional funding for a program targeted for elimination by his budget that provides states a federal subsidy to offset the costs of jailing illegal immigrants.

Killing the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAPP) would save $400 million, according to Obama's budget for fiscal 2010 released Thursday. It's one of the largest non-defense discretionary cuts proposed in the president's budget.

Yeah, that $400 million is going to put a HUGE dent in the $11 TRILLION deficit. Oh wait. That money will probably just get pissed away in the coming Hillary Health II. Never mind.

Obama gets one right

King Obama, Lord and Savior of Big Media (the BM for short), finally got one right. After weeks of misstep after pratfall after faux pas after f-up, Obama finally enacted a policy that is Constitutional.

Raids by the federal government on legally sanctioned medical marijuana facilities will become a thing of the past. President Obama is averse to using federal funds for this purpose, particularly when state law provides for medicinal marijuana use. Moving forward, decisions on medical marijuana raids will be left up to state government.

FINALLY, a reversal of the ridiculous and patently unconstitutional policy of King George the Dim! Our Constitution explicitly provides for states to make their own laws and for those laws to supercede Federal law except in cases where it directly violates the Constitution or the Constitutional rights of the citizens of that state. This is the first step towards more individual freedom undertaken by this administration. Hell, it's the first step toward more individual freedom that I can remember in a very, very long time.

Regardless of how you may personally feel about drugs and drug abuse, there's one true unassailable fact: the Drug War is an absolute failure. It's a cluster eff on a biblical scale. It's done nothing but ruin lives, both here in the US as well as in the drug producing and drug importing countries. Look at Mexico. Mexico may erupt in civil war at any moment - drogistas against federales. And for what? Did we learn nothing from Prohibition? Absolutely nothing?

Apparently.

So give credit where credit is due. Obama scores major libertarian points with this new policy. It's a start.

Vulture Droppings - The World Economy Craters

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

---

You may have noticed that I haven't spent much time commenting on the impending financial implosion that will wreak havoc across the entire planet. Were I a betting man or a prognosticator, I'd say early to mid Summer should be the center of gravity tipping point for a number of the world's economies. Mexico won't last through the Summer. Eastern Europe (with the exception of Russia) is teetering. Much of Western Europe is wobbly as well. And South America? Fuhgedaboutit!

Who can save us from this dire dilemma? Why, His Eminence, King Obama! A trillion here, a trillion there...pretty soon we'll be talking serious money! But it's going to work. All of the Keynesian economists say so. That Keynesians are pretty much wrong 90% of the time is beside the point...

---

Okay, Vulture. You've had your little chuckle. Now get serious. Is it really that bad? To be honest, I don't know. I only know what I read. You see, given the location in which I live and the career field in which I'm employed, I'm extremely sheltered from the gyrations of the economy. I'm not saying that so as to brag; on the contrary, my situation makes me even more worried. Things aren't hunky-dorree in these parts; how bad can it be in, say, Michigan or California?

---

So...is King Obama's "stimulus" going to help? Are you sh**ing me? Of course not! Nor was it ever supposed to be anything more than expensive window dressing.

---

I'm of the opinion that King Obama would be all kinds of happy if the entire American financial system collapsed. After all, it's only in extreme times that extreme measures (like Fascism and Communism) can be made palatable to the sheeple.

While Obama's reputation is that of a lifelong Communist, his actions belie different leanings; he's a Fascist through-and-through. Lest there be any misunderstanding, by "Fascist" I mean a proponent of the Private/Public ownership of the means of production as implemented by Benito Mussolini. I am NOT using the word in the traditional Leftist pejorative way, which is, as a means to tar one's enemies.

And truth is we've been living in a Fascist system for years. It just wasn't codified until King George the Dim implemented his infamous bailouts last Fall. His bailouts established the precedent that profits belong to the corporations, but losses belong to the sheeple. If that's not Fascism, what, then, is it?

---

Okay, Mr. Gloom-and-Doom. So what can we do to protect ourselves? How the hell should I know? I'm just an ordinary man who happens to live in extraordinary times. I have no reference point nor sufficient knowledge to have the first idea what we the common folk can do, short of storming Congress carrying torches and pitchforks.

Times are hard, and they're going to get harder. The Russians are fairly certain that we're going to self-destruct.

If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.

Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels.

As much as I hate to say it, if the scenario painted by Mr. Panarin plays out, we will do in 2009 what the mighty Soviet Union did in 1989-1991; we'll splinter into regional factions with an impotent central government trying vainly to hold it all together. Perhaps we'll be as lucky as Russia and manage to hold together enough substance in one of the splinters to serve as a counterweight to the Russians and Chinese. But I doubt it.

---

Feeling good and depressed yet? Feeling hopeless? Don't. There is One far mightier than those pitiful perfumed princes and princesses who lust after the power to rule over us all. My trust is in Him, though my actions may not always reflect that.

Paul said it best:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -- Romans 8:38-39

Amen.