I may be just a Homer Simpson as Cass Sunstein posited, but this Homer has a few observations to make. Since voter fraud is going on in many states, aided and abetted by the Obama/Holder DOJ, are the citizens of that state not being defrauded by an illegal dissolution of their vote’s value? As inconvenient as it may be shouldn't we be able to seek peaceful redress through that other inconvenience a.k.a. the Judicial branch?

If so, can we not sue for enforcement of validating a voter’s citizenship? I’d be happy to provide my bona fides such as my birth certificate and my passport and to demand that the registrars demand that of me. I don't think in this post modern world we would object to the same requirement as was common when I got my driver's permit.

I can understand that in decades past this wasn’t done due to the sketchiness of records and abuses practiced against blacks. All well & good. But we are well past thinking of the old century at this stage of the game. I’d even be willing to accept setting a birth year like 1930 as the entry point for proof of citizenship.

Let’s get back on course and ensure the validity of our elections, stop creating incentives like amnesty and control immigration to levels we know we can absorb without impoverishing the people who are already citizens.

You know, it's funny how when we’re exporting jobs we’re schooled on how it’s a global economy but when it comes to illegals coming here and taking jobs we’re being schooled how they vitalize the economy. If that were looked at as a single presentation we would conclude a global economy would not necessitate the need for illegal construction workers at the Colin Powell household since unemployed people already here with at least the same skill set would be more than happy for the work.

With a real unemployment rate of over 21% [not the published 9.8% and definitely not counting the underemployed] and an "official" black unemployment rate of almost 17% which is probably more like 39.5 or higher - isn't is curious that Obama, who enjoys overwhelming support of the black community, is selling them cheap for illegal votes?

I seem to remember something in the oath of office about, preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States. Or has that gone out of fashion lately?

The Cordoba House Cultural Center

Were I to take the Cordoba Initiative's statements at face value, as so many have, I would believe that they are seeking to establish a cultural center in Lower Manhattan which just so happens also has a prayer space. According to their website they are about, "Providing expert knowledge of Islamic Law and other technical subjects for use in the public square." They go on to say that the results of this engagement of the thought process has resulted in, "Raising the bar of Islamic governance in Muslim-majority countries." Nice ambiguous Obama type language. What bar will they be raising?

I take it the community center won't be hosting Sadie Hawkins or Gay Muslim Men dances. But what exactly will they be offering the community? Perhaps some courses in Sharia Law:

Beheading 101 - One Stroke or Two? Skills development seminar.
Stoning 115 - Right Sizing Your Stone Selection to make it last.
Beating Females 267 - Within an inch of their life or go for it? What Would Mohammad Do?
Nose and Ear Bobbing 397 - Keeping your young wives, daughter or sisters in line all the time.
Dancing and Makeup 001 - (For pre-pubescent boys only.) This course explores the essentials of keeping the customers satisfied.
Trans-Generational Marriage 000 - For pre-pubescent girls only. Learn how to keep your 50+ new husband from beating and disfiguring you ... too much.
Neurological Severing 499 - The definitive advanced course in fine tuning that Sharia Standard.

Well, I've got to go now. I want to be off the street before the call to prayer comes blasting through the WTC site ... for the 5th time today.

Cui Bono?

Townhall.com

There is nothing amazing about the flood of illegal Mexican immigration. For Mexico, the Mexican-American War did not end with their signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) nor with their signing of the Protocol of Querétaro (May 26, 1948). To bastardize von Caluswicz, 'it is the continuation of war by other means.'

THE MEXICANS: The interests of the majority of Mexican people here illegally are apparent as are the interests of the more nefarious. The first group is well represented by humanists, one worlders and the rest ... the second by conspiracy theorists, NORML and the rest of that contingent.

What is being studiously ignored is the Mexican government's policy of active encouragement of emigration to the extent they are in a panic that the status quo might change. The benefit to the Mexican government is at least two-fold. First, the least desirable, unemployable bottom layer of their society goes away. It is no longer their problem to feed, clothe, house or provide medical care to the rabble that might otherwise be aroused against the corrupt governments that permeate Mexico's political infrastructure.

The other benefit is the Billions of American dollars that flow in from the emigrants to families back home (est. $10 Billion in 2003); the drug cartels income from the export of controlled substances (est. $39 Billion USDOJ) and of course the U.S. Government's Billions spent or given to Mexico for the "drug war". For Mexico it's a win-win situation all around.

THE EMPLOYERS: Again, nothing new here on the part of the employers themselves. Lower costs equal fatter bottom line. What is a new, and curious, wrinkle is how unions such as SEIU and the AFL-CIO have taken on the role of advocate for the very people who are diluting their member’s wages and work opportunities. You have to ask, "who's paying who for what?"

THE AMERICAN POLITICIANS: As noted above their motivation is also pure greed. They sell amnesties from the law as the Catholic Church did with indulgences before Martin Luther.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: Opposed by the illegal immigrants, passed over by the employers and ignored by the corrupt politicians – the people need to wake up and stay in to game more than part of an election cycle to counter the abuse they are suffering and demand either a restoration of their freedoms and protections from the government and the dilution of those rights caused by the reformation that has been underway in America or, as Jefferson pointed out, dissolve the bands and start the formation of a new republic.

RIGHTS & responsibilities

I'm not holding my breath, but I'd love to see the old marriage of "Rights & Responsibilities" get back together in the social contract. There was a wonderful coupling if ever there was one.

The marital trouble started back in the 1960's when Rights social esteem rose dramatically while Responsibilities was pushed to the background staying at home taking care of the chores that maintain the American family. It was under the Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) administration that many historical wrongs that existed in the order of things were being addressed. While great, deserving strides were made - the overall approach elevated Rights but set the stage for the divorce by not also emphasizing personal and corporate responsibility.

Certainly the liberation radicals were having a field day. As radicals do, they took their cause to an unsustainable extreme. The government, stuck into a morass of it's own creation by dalliance and micro mismanaging of the military in Viet Nam, failed to effectively manage the domestic issues of that day.

Continuing into the Richard Milhouse Nixon (RMN) administration the liberation movement expanded to include the feminists, the homosexuals, and any other group that now defined itself by their perceived disenfranchisement. Still faced with the Viet Nam involvement (to call it a war is a misnomer less for the lack of a formal declaration of war and more because it was never fought as an all out war - more a large police action) the Nixon administration sought to secure the south and turn the fighting over to the South Vietnamese.

While seeking a second term Nixon's people at the RNC were caught running an espionage operation against the DNC which culminated with the Watergate Impeachment Hearings and Nixon stepping down amid his Vice President, Spiro Agnew having been indicted after investigation on of extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy. The fact that his hand picked successor, Gerald Ford, granted him a full pardon one month after taking office as POTUS was the last nail in the coffin of confidence in any public official by a large cross section of the population.

This was the final act that that placed personal responsibility in a coma and set RIGHTS on the unmitigated drunken bacchanal that has led to the current sense of victimization and unlimited entitlement. Presidents and politicians, with a rare exception of sorts in Ronald Reagan and a few others, have acted as enablers making excuses and providing the money to keep this self destructive bender from ending in the inevitable consequences and the necessary intervention.

We now find ourselves in a recession, the economic consequence of too much exuberance and without the resources to continue as we have the past 45 or so years. But the intervention has yet to take place. The enablers that have set aside personal and corporate responsibility are still in denial regarding their role in causing it's ongoing comatose state.

There is a reckoning coming. The party will end and very few in authority want to tell the partiers it's gotten late and it's time to call it a day. The current demonstrations demanding even more RIGHTS from the enablers in education, health care, job creation, unemployment coverage will only grow more frequent and - in all likelihood - more violent once the inevitable day dawns.

Doggereletic Diarrhea

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For Mrs. Smith & Her Compatriots

Irene Smith, who lost her son Leon, a firefighter at Ladder Co. 118 in Brooklyn Heights, lays bare a truth that startles me every year at this time. "Throughout the year, I always feel I'm going fine, but as soon as 9/11 comes around, I feel like I'm back to square one. I feel like it was just like yesterday. The families will never forget -- rain, hail, shine, whatever."

Thankfully, I am not in that same group. My daughter-in-law was not at her desk on the 22nd floor of the South Tower that morning. My grandson, a first grader a few blocks north at P.S. 89 on Warren Street was picked up and evacuated by a family friend. My brother-in-law got clear even though he was caught out in the open when the South Tower came down. I made it through and can sit here eight years later and write this piece. Still, each in our own way, we note the day. Each in our own way feel the weight of our own remembrances.

For me each year brings the determination to stoically face it this time. Each year brings the anger. Each year reopens the unhealed wound. Each year brings the flood of unbearable sorrow and the unstoppable tears.

Here it is, September 12th. The two blazing beacons are gone from the night sky. The tears have dried. The alcohol I consumed last night is sufficiently gone from my system that, with a deep exhalation, I will pick up the chores left undone yesterday. The images of sweet faces and hellish horrors recede into the shadows of my mind to wait upon their next calling forth by a date, by a low flying aircraft, by a page of paper floating by on a beautiful cloudless autumn day.

Never gone.

Never forgotten.
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Exactly Whose Pants Are On Fire?

I know this wasn't directed at Joe Wilson alone. The speech was in the can well before his "spontaneous" outburst. We could all benefit from heeding the thoughts expressed by President Obama last night, no matter who wrote them.

"You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no ...matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter - that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to ...solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves."

One of two things appear to be true. Mr. Wilson may well be a temperate, mature fairly accomplished former aide to Strom Thurmond. It is an unfortunate smear on South Carolinians, the United States Army and it's officer corps that he left the first two qualities on the cloakroom floor - again - last night and chose to instead to behave like an ill bred, uneducated, unprincipled, ill manner lout - for the second time in his seven year congressional career.

In 2002 Wilson called Congressman Bob Filner (D-California) "viscerally anti-American" and charged that he had a "hatred of America". He later offered his mea culpa saying he, "didn't intend to insult his colleague".

On the other hand it far more likely that Mr. Wilson, as an experienced litigator, was merely practicing a rudimentary artifice of that craft. Mr. Wilson was Staff Judge Advocate in the South Carolina Army National Guard assigned to the 218th Mechanized Infantry Brigade until retiring from military service as a Colonel in 2003. As such, he is well aware of the value when seeing the opposition gaining ground to break the flow of the moment by making a statement that though stricken from the record, will not 'unring the bell' in a jury’s mind. It is more than fair to say that the American people were in the jury box in the court of public opinion last night. It beyond belief that a military officer, even a reservist, lacks the discipline to refrain from emotional outbursts.

Be that as it may, it may well be instructive as to the source of all the out poured vitriol when we look over the landscape of the health care debate over the past month or so and see the same feverishly pitched, overly emotionally biased over the top rhetoric. Death panels, red menace, socialistic Nazism, government takeover of citizens rights, government bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor (never mind the insurance company bureaucrat that’s already there) are the red herrings we have all heard ad nauseam all sung to rousing Sousaesque background music replete with waving flags cynically used as cheap props.

It is clear that health care in this country is in dire need of serious reform. That reform will not come from Wall Street which calls the insurer’s tune. It will not come from the Trial Lawyers who benefit from spurious claims over the smallest perceived harm that sucks life's blood leaving behind the necrotic flesh that is the two headed serpent of defensive medicine and the basis for the insurers to jack up malpractice coverage costs. Both drive up costs dramatically. Real reform must come from the laws of the land. Real reform must serve We The People, not those with the deepest pockets who can buy our lives, our liberties and our pursuit of happiness at their whim and at the gain of those who prostitute the sacred trust to attend to, "the people's business" into a quest for personal glory and gain.

What that law should become must be discussed. Name calling should stay in the school yard where the monitors can properly instruct, and correct, the unruly children who make a practice of it. The laws must see to it that at the end of the day, We The People come first and foremost. That is why We The People created the government in the first place.

It is the flag of We The People that our forefathers went to war and died for. It is the flag of We The People that we pledge allegiance to. It is the flag of We The People that I hope to see flying from every window, porch, column, lamp post and antenna tomorrow, Patriot's Day September 11, 2009.