Look in his Eye - See the Lie

Its time someone grabbed Rocky Mountain News columnist, Bill Johnson by one of his partisan ears and introduced a few knuckles of reality to his agenda-filled head. After threatening to drag a local talk radio listener off (Rocky Talk, 2/28/07), to the home of a recent military casualty, for a “true discussion of the war” - Johnson does nothing of the kind. Instead, Johnson presents a biography of that fallen soldier and the sadness of his mother. No ‘discussion ‘ about the honorable motivations of this man, just another attempt to shove a microphone in the face of someone who’s still grieving a recent loss, in order to maximize the emotional impact of the war, rather than presenting an intelligent discussion of the facts about Iraq.
Furthermore, Johnson tries to minimize the soldier’s volunteer service, by focusing on his underprivileged background, in an attempt to create the impression that both he and his mom are victims - rather than patriots.
Everyday dozens of dedicated public servants; policemen, fire fighters, bus drivers, etc. are killed in the line of duty. Why do reporters, like Johnson, rush all the way up to Fort Carson to feature this soldier’s death, while ignoring the sacrifice of so many others? Why does the Rocky zero – in on every casualty halfway around the world (in Iraq), when there are 50x more dead on America’s highways every day, 7x more pedestrian deaths every month and an near equal number of Law Enforcement Officers/Fire Fighters killed in the line of duty every year? Did Johnson or any other Rocky reporter bemoan military deaths during the Clinton Administration, which regularly exceeded annual U.S. losses in Iraq? Does Johnson seek to honor this fallen hero or use his sacrifice to further erode the resolve (of his readers), to prevail in Iraq and buttress the advance of Islamo-Fascism and if so – why?
Perhaps the talk show caller, who almost hacked Johnson right off the road, already answered that question…its all politics.

The Press – Fighting for freedom in all the wrong places

The past six years certainly have been busy ones for the Main Stream Press (MSP) or, as they are more affectionately called here on the Right side of the dial, ‘The Drive-By Media’. Every effort by the Bush Administration to fight the War on Terrorism has been met, by the MSP, with righteous accusations that our Civil Liberties are being trampled upon: imbedding reporters, interrogating enemy combatants, intercepting terrorist communications, investigating terrorist finances, incarcerating enemy prisoners, enacting military tribunals and observing rules of engagement. So far, despite their best imaginative and conspiratorial thinking, the MSP has failed to actually unearth any violations of our Civil Rights.
Meanwhile, these erstwhile defenders of Freedom have failed to report on the actual demise of democratic institutions in other parts of the world such as; Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Obviously, it would be unrealistic to think that the MSP would be courageous enough to investigate Civil and Human Rights abuses under the dictatorial control of truly oppressive regimes. They are called the “Axis of Evil” because the term ‘Lawless’ just doesn’t quite capture the human deprivation that they tolerate.
The MSP has been effective in one regard. Through their relentless campaign of unfounded accusations, they have effectively weakened President Bush politically, to the point where he didn’t have the international support to champion internal, democratic reforms being undermined by Putin, Ortega and Chavez. Despite the falsity of their reports, the President’s moral stature was constantly undermined by the MSP making it possible, for the real violators of civil and human rights, to deflect legitimate criticisms away from their own repressive policies.
For all the MSP’s ‘supposed’ efforts to protect the powerless people in society, Americans have never been freer, more prosperous and more educated than at any time in history. Sadly, the same cannot be said for many millions of people around the world, who’ve seen their hard-fought freedoms disappear, during the past decade, while (the great self-proclaimed defenders of democracy and human rights) the MSP kept silent on their behalf.

"Pay to Play" Politics

Rocky Mountain News guest columnist, Bill Blomberg writes in SPEAKOUT (2/23/07), that Support for the Electoral College system would vanish, if the Federal Income Tax rate for each state was adjusted to equal a state’s relative electoral strength. Under such a plan, residents of states with big populations would pay lesser Income Tax rates while people in the smaller states would (proportionately) pay a much greater share of the national tax load.
Blomberg forgets that we live under a ‘Representative Democracy’ not an actual democracy. Congress is made up of 535 elected representatives not 300,000,000 voting individuals. In fact, those Congressional seats (and consequently the number of Electoral votes) are now and have always been, awarded based on relative population. The key word there being ‘relative’ as would be related to ‘representative’.

Under Blomberg’s ‘pay to play’ tax system, people would be financially motivated to move to the tax-subsidized states of: New York, Florida, Illinois and California, thereby further exacerbating the population disparity between the big and small states, which would in turn, further increase the tax incentives for folks to abandon the small states.
On the other hand, if states with the greatest populations were proportionately assessed for tax expenditures such as: national defense, low income assistance programs, education and administration, much of Blomberg’s tax disparity would be equalized. Perhaps those living in the big population states should be charged proportionately higher fees for: energy, food and telecommunications & programming services, since they produce so little yet consume so much.
Maybe the founders, who created the Electoral College, understood the value of ‘representative government’ as opposed to ‘a government of individuals’ and perhaps we should have the wisdom to avoid the temptation to tinker with it.

George Karl must go!

The 2007 Denver Nuggets are now composed of many excellent players that apparently just can’t get it together. With a roster full of NBA veterans, the only missing ingredient is team leadership and that’s what Coach Karl cannot provide. I say that George Karl can’t do the job because he is not a leader, not a man of conviction and not the guy that these players will follow into battle - what he is, is a democrat. Now before anyone says that the Coach’s politics are irrelevant, I would remind them that, George Karl himself injected his own liberal leanings on the broadcast of Wednesday, November 8th. That morning, I purposefully tuned into Sports Radio in order to avoid listening to any partisan gloating, after the 2006 Mid-term elections. In an unsolicited remark, the first words out of Karl’s mouth were, “Thank g-d that the democrats finally won”.
Not only should the Coach have kept his politics to himself but, by revealing who he is ‘politically’, he gave us all we need to know about why the Nuggets are now mediocre at best.
Democrats may be capable of leading in peaceful times (i.e. Clinton), but in times of strife, when true leadership is required, a Liberal is a liability. A wishy-washy, politically correct, ‘let’s all just get along’ mentality is a formula for failure. Real men, like the Nugget players, do not respond well to a leader like Karl, they sense his internal weakness and his lack of personal conviction and fortitude, which is exemplified by his self-proclaimed Liberalism.
The Nuggets will never be winners while their coach is a loser – send George Karl back to Seattle, his latte is getting cold.

Long on Opinion - Short on facts

Apparently, InterMountain Jewish News columnist, Jay Bushinsky (Shrinking Planet 2/9/07), is clairvoyant. Without the benefit of actually speaking to any members of the Bush Administration or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Bushinsky has divined what people, like the President, were thinking prior to undertaking the liberation of Iraq. Bushinsky is so much smarter than our elected officials, that he knows what they didn’t even know themselves and he knew it before they even began that task, Hallelujah, it’s a miracle!
Furthermore, the ‘Great Jay’ proclaims, that two cities which he’s never even gazed upon – Gaza and Baghdad, are “mirror-like” and reminiscent of another town he’s never been in – Beirut. How does he do it? How fortunate are we to have the profound insights of an armchair, second-guessing MENSA from planet Bushinsky to enlighten us with his truths.
Unlike himself, Bushinsky chides the Foreign Press for relying on local Palestinian and Iraqi translators to get their stories, fearing that such ‘go-betweens’ may be influencing the Press accounts from those areas. Fortunately, Jay Bushinsky has a better, smarter, more nuanced way to gather his news – he makes it up. Why waste time actually traveling to these distant lands? Why risk actually learning something by interviewing those elected to make the hard decisions? And how stupid it would be to rely on locals as guides in places where you don’t know your way around or speak the language.
Bushinsky complains that there is an excess of weapons of “individual destruction” in the Middle East. I would contend that relying on individuals, such as Jay Bushinsky, for information about the Middle East is indeed a formula for America’s defeat and Israel’s destruction.

Barack to Ausies, "Up Yours"

Just one day after first-term U.S. senator, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 democrat nomination One, Australia's prime minister, John Howard criticized Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war and his pledge to remove all U.S. combat forces from that country by March 31, 2008. Australian’s Prime Minister, a staunch U.S. ally who has sent troops to Iraq and faces his own re-election bid later this year, said Obama's proposals would spell disaster for the Middle East. "I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," Howard said on Nine Network television. "If I were running al-Qaida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama but also for the Democrats." Howard has repeatedly defied domestic opposition to the war by keeping about 1,400 non-combat Australian troops in and around Iraq and refusing to set a deadline for their withdrawal saying, "If it's all right for us to go, it's all right for the Americans and the British to go, and if everybody goes, Iraq will descend into total civil war and there'll be a lot of bloodshed."
Obama issued a statement saying that Howard wasn't in a position to be overly critical. "If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home," he said. "It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices."
After years of democrats advancing the perception, that President Bush has alienated America’s friends oversees, its instructive how the ‘great Uniter’, Barack Obama has succeeded in creating a real rift with one of our staunchest allies and it only took him two days. In truth, you would be hard pressed to find a single instance of President Bush saying anything derogatory or demeaning about anyone, save our sworn enemies. Never mind Press Releases that pass in the night, George W. Bush remains presidential even when confronted, face-to-face, by such rude antagonists as Senators Webb, Pelosi and Reid or foreign fascists like Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Bin Laden.
Is this what Obama’s campaign means by “changing the way we do things in Washington”?

P.S. In his very next diplomatic effort, Obama said, "We now have spent $400 billion (in Iraq)and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."

Super Bowl 41 – Good for America

It wasn’t too long ago that many Americans felt like they needed to take a long shower after watching TV on Super Bowl Sunday. Not so with this year’s broadcast. Beginning with the Pre-Game Show intro, featuring the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, teachers and mentors of various players, this montage recognized the years of encouragement and sacrifices, made by family and friends and was both sentimental and spiritually uplifting.

Besides for Chicago’s “Tank” Johnson having been called as a witness to a recent shooting, there were no players on parole, under suspicion of domestic crimes or suspended by the Commissioner. With no Tony Kornheiser, in the announce booth, trying to insert his liberal agenda into every aspect of the game, the play-by-play of Jim Nantz was straightforward and professional.

The Piano Man sang our National Anthem and fortunately, didn’t have to drive himself off the field. The Color Guard was respected and the Air Force flyover was low and loud and right on time. The singer formerly known as Prince, who’d embraced religion, looked and sang a lot like Prince, but without the sleaze or any ‘wardrobe malfunctions’.

Big time commercials by Coke and Budweiser actually promoted good citizenship and a kind of ‘pay it forward’ philosophy. And with the possible exception of the wet T-shirt contest going on over at Go Daddy.com, it was a family friendly broadcast from start to finish. And what a finish it was. Tony Dungy, a man who lost his son to suicide, showed us all how he dealt with that adversity by coming back to win the Super Bowl just 14 month later.

But it was Coach Dungy’s post-game comments that provided the high point of the entire day’s spectacle. When asked about how felt about (both he and Chicago coach Lovie Smith) being the first Black coaches to reach the Super Bowl, Dungy said, “I’m proud to be representing African-American coaches… but more than anything Christian coaches, showing than you can win, doing it the Lord’s way…that you can win professionally, you can win with class.”

Peyton Manning, the greatest active Quarterback in the NFL and all around good guy, was humble and gracious in victory. Manning’s Super Bowl triumph after nine seasons illustrates to all Americans how to persevere and win! Friends, family, teachers and coaches who share the dream – the two best teams in the Country, quality players, wholesome entertainment, uplifting commercials, and a physically combative game…
Mix in a dose of patriotism, a dash of determination, and a lot of praise for the Lord and you’ve got a Red State nightmare – a truly inspirational football game.

See you next year at the Super Bowl.