Frank Was Frank

My former sister-in-law’s father – my nephew’s grandfather - passed away from emphysema this week at the age of 75. He and his wife had been married for 53 years.

While my brother and his wife were off pursuing their careers, Frank and Carol watched over my nephew and practically raised him. I often wonder what my generation is thinking, when they choose making money over raising their own kids. Who’s going to raise their grandchildren, if they’re still busy working on their careers?

Frank is gone now and my nephew is an adult, heading off for graduate school. My ex sister-in-law and her brother put up a photo display of their father. In one shot, you saw Frank as very young man, working hard to build his property, before there was even a road.

His own father having died when he was young, Frank was raised by his mother and stepfather, a wealthy businessman and landowner in the town. He gave a piece of his land to his stepson. He could not have bestowed the gift upon a more grateful recipient.

Frank loved the country and loved his land. What did he think of Agenda 21 and the plan to divest all property owners of their land? Frank was no land baron. Just a hard-working Italian-American who wanted a small parcel of land to call his own, to raise his son and daughter (and grandson) in peace and security.

When my brother and sister-in-law were married, Frank, in his turn, made a gift of part of the land to them. My brother felt as Frank did, which is why (after the disastrous first date when my brother showed up in his customized sin wagon van) they remained friends and neighbors, even through the divorce.

Frank was hardly a perfectly man, as his family would be the first to admit. He was blunt, brusque, and critical, particularly when he drank. But he was honest and worked hard, and admired those he did. As I helped my brother clear the land for their house, Frank watched me approvingly, as I dragged heavy tree trunks off into the deep woods, falling into puddles, but never giving up.

I admired him (and his wife and his mother) for taking John under their shelter when John’s parents followed the money instead of their parental instincts. Frank loved his land and loved his country. He lived the American dream. His home and his family were his life. He would have had some deeply sarcastic, and very likely profane, but honest (as his son said at his wake, “Frank was frank”) response to the notion of being a hobbit, one of the common people.

When you hear of Agenda 21, or one o fits many aliases, Smart Development, think of Frank – a very smart, hard-working American property owner – with deep admiration and respect.

Arguing with Little Hypocrites

Tomorrow, as you’re doing your Saturday morning chores – mowing the lawn, cleaning the windows, doing the laundry and so forth – and enjoying the peace and quiet of your suburban neighborhoods, chatting with your neighbors, and just generally minding your own business, you might want to give a thought to Smart Communities.

On the Fujita scale of socialist tornados, this program ranks about a ten and its heading your way to tear up your homes, and whisk away your cars, washers and dryers, your swimming pools, and yes, even your air conditioners.

All on your time, and the chances are, your town council is already a signatory to this Granddaddy of all socialist, redistribute-the-wealth, save-the-planet, and brainwash-your-kids government programs.  The Socialists know how bitterly affluent America would oppose this program.  My town has signed onto it.

Communities throughout America are implementing the global political-economic program generally known as “Sustainable Development.”  Sustainable Development is the action plan being used Across America and around the world to implement the United Nations’ Agenda 21 program.  At its 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the U.N. publicly launched the global movement known as “Agenda 21”, another of its many deceptive nom de guerres.

Maurice Strong, the Secretary General of the Earth Summit conference said,  “…current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.”

According to freedomadvocates.org, “178 nations signatories to the 288-page Agenda 21,” including the United States, with President George H.W. Bush signing on behalf of our country.  “Since Agenda 21 was ‘soft law’ and not a treaty, Congress had no role to perform.  Instead, the cabinet agencies of the Executive branch of the government were charged with implementing this ‘global to local’ program.

“In 1993, President Bill Clinton established, by Executive Order, the President’s Council on Sustainable Development.”  Since then, “every cabinet agency has undertaken its role in advancing Agenda 21/Sustainable Development policy in the U.S.”

Among Sustainable Development’s goals are:

·         The gradual abolition of private property, primarily through the implementation of the Wildlands Project and Smart Growth

·         Education of youth to prepare them for global citizenship

·         Control and ultimate reduction of human population

Sustain Development’s propaganda would not be complete without symbols to herd the sheep in the right direction.  They adhered to the three E’s:  Equity, Economy and Environment

·         Equity means to restructure human nature and to enforce that restructure by shifting our system of justice from one that adheres to the principle of equal justice and unalienable rights to one that implements the concept of “social justice.”

·         Economy means shifting from free enterprise to “public-private partnerships” in which the government controls the means of production and labor and the enterprise receives its “profits from the government, meaning the taxpayer.  It also means establishment of a global economy where goods “freely” cross national borders in order to redistribute financial, natural and human resources in order to “equalize” the income distribution within and between nations.

·         Environment means giving plants, animals and even inanimate objects status equal to or even greater than rights of human beings

Smart Growth development standards will be implemented in every metropolitan area, including concentration of high-rise living, “mixed use” buildings (in Holland, senior apartment housing is built over shopping malls), “walkable communities with mass transit and bicycle trails.

Implementation of the Wildlands Project will include destruction of dams, closure of roads, the prohibition of resource extraction including timber and oil, centralized control over water, and other “mechanisms” designed to force people into Smart Growth communities.

The financial meltdown was no coincidence; the plan has long been in place, since at least 1977 with the Community Reinvestment Act.  Homeowners were lured into buying large homes at very low interest rates that would be beyond their ability to pay off in the event of an economic downturn.  Meanwhile, our government bureaucrats have been taxing our businesses and our jobs away.  Eventually, homeowners will be forced into smaller condo units, with no property and very little equity.

Meanwhile, an educational system operated from Washington mandates child assessment instead of child testing.  The program is designed to brainwash children into accepting global citizenship.  New technology will lead to the passage of regulations that allows monitoring of individual activity.

Finally, the government will create what Freedom Advocates calls “a funny money” system where all money is created out of thin air (with no backing by any precious metal) and managed by globalist bankers.  Money will be issued to government, business and individuals as debt owing back to the globalist bankers.  The concentration of profits from this world-wide scam will finance the conditions necessary to advance Sustainable Development and world governance.  Under Sustainable Development, the recognition of the right to life, liberty, and property will vanish.

Right now, the average American doesn’t have to worry about the government controlling their lives; their own children are doing a very professional job of leading parents around by the nose.  Just as my own parents predicted, the Communists would use clueless children, with their inherent nagging power, to transform the family unit and get it marching to the Progressive beat.

That’s the first thing Americans must and can change.  When little Emily or Matthew comes home with the agenda, the first thing you need to do is tear it up.  Children have been trained to tag after their parents, reminding them to turn off lights, save water, and so forth.  These are reminders Conservative parents need.  The time has come to turn the tables on your little Nanny State Naggers.  If you can’t outthink a 5^th grader, you need to go back to school yourself.  Here are some comeback tips:

Kid:  We’ve got to recycle!

Parent:  You’re absolutely right.  You can start wearing your older brother/sister’s hand-me-downs.

Kid:  We’ve got to conserve water!

Parent:  Yeah, you know, we’ve been thinking the same thing.  So we’re getting rid of the swimming pool.

Kid:  We’ve got to stop using fossil fuels!

Parent:  You think so?  Well, okay.  I’ll call Coach Smith and tell him you’re dropping out of soccer.  [And start dialing].

Kid:  We’ve got to clean up the planet!

Parent:  We sure do.  By the way,  have you cleaned your room?  Go clean your room right now and then we’ll talk about your ideas for saving the planet.

Kid:  The icebergs are melting and the polar bears are dying!

Parent:  Hmm.  That reminds me, did you remember to put water in Max’s water dish?

Kid:  We’re wasting electricity!

Parents:  That’s right.  Go shut off the TV and do your homework.  You got a C in math last semester.

Kid:  We’ve got to save the animals!

Parents:  Good.  Here’s the brush.  Go brush Fluffy.  She’s shedding.

Kid:  We don’t really need this big house.  We should live in a condo.

Parents:  Really?  Well, you’ll have to decide who you want share your room with, Bobby or Jane.  You’ll have to share your computer with them, too, and we’ll have to get rid of the plasma tv.  It’s not going to fit.  We’ll probably have to get rid of your x-box as well.

There was a reason why couples in the 1960s moved out to the suburbs:  crime.  Living in densely populated areas is dangerous and psychologically damaging.  The crowded conditions lead to more aggression, violence, and depression.  The kids who don’t join gangs, cower in their apartments/condos, afraid to go out.  That leads to more eating and less exercise, and overweight kids.  And adults.

Living that way also leads to groupthink.  There is no separation between neighbors and privacy goes out the window.  What does Glenn Beck say in one of his filler spots about living in a NYC apartment and meeting the head of GE on the elevator?  Instead of taking this enemy of capitalism and individual freedom on, Glenn squeaks like a mouse to himself.  His radio cohorts lambaste him for not “standing his ground” but Glenn does finally manage some sort of meek comeback.

Residents living in condos can tell you that the association boards have a host of rules about what residents can and cannot do such as hanging flags out, that home and property owners can.  This is about the destruction of the individual, transforming man into a mechanical cog to serve the purposes of the greater society.

And when that cog can no longer serve society’s purposes, they’ll just shut off  the air conditioning.  That’s certainly one way of getting rid of the pesky, hobbitish Tea Partier, who are mostly older people (at the moment).  This is one of the most alarming elements in the Sustainable Growth program:  “control and ultimate reduction of the human population.”

One of the reasons China has a huge workforce and we don’t is Sustainable Growth.  Back in the Sixties, these organizers called it “Zero Population Growth.”  They also used Women’s Liberation to encourage women to have careers instead of children.  Not being able to completely eliminate the natural urge to procreate, they started setting up daycare centers, where the children could be indoctrinated at ever younger ages.  The reduction in population also means a reduction in the workforce.  There aren’t enough workers to make production profitable in this country.  Businesses are fleeing to countries like China and India, where it is.

You can find these plans in the 150-some year old Communist Manifesto.  When you’re going through your checklist of chores tomorrow, take a look at the Communist checklist as well.  Then turn off your TV, cancel your kid’s soccer meet, and attend the town council meeting instead.

The Barbarians at the Gate

In 793 A.D., the Vikings raided the Priory at Lindisfarne, a little island off the northeast English coast in Northumbria.  The monastery was founded by Saint Aiden who was sent there in 635 A.D. to create a base for a Christian mission.  The monastery was famous for its library, particularly a handsomely illustrated version of the Bible called the Lindisfarne Gospel.

The Lindisfarne Gospel was rescued during the raid, but many other books were destroyed.  The Great Library at Alexandria was either destroyed or closed (mainly destroyed) at least four times, the last by raiding Muslims.  After that, the library was never rebuilt.

Alfred the Great saw that the native people of England were being overrun by the Vikings.  He united the clans in the South to fend off the Vikings.  He also recognized that the common people, uneducated in the Latin language, were being ministered and controlled by clerics they didn’t even understand.  He taught himself English and opened schools to educate his subjects.

About a century earlier, Charles the Great – Charlemagne – had done the same thing.  In the Dark Ages, kings didn’t know how to read.  They paid scribes to write down the history and the laws and read to them what they needed to know.  Charles didn’t want his children growing up illiterate.  He paid tutors to teach them and taught himself Latin, even though he was in his middle ages.

The Gutenberg Press was the great education equalizer.  Publications could be mass produced, rather than being written out by hand by scribes and monks.  Information was available to the common man.  In spite of what anyone might say about the American colonists, they were not ignorant peasants; just as in England, every town had a public school and a schoolmaster.

Then along came Benjamin Franklin and his kite.  Along with other scientists, he discovered the conductivity of electricity.  While the knowledge of electricity had been around since ancient times, no one knew how to harness it.  By the late 19^th century, the mechanical inventions men had devised for communications such as the typewriter, could be run by electricity, making them faster and more productive.

The inventions of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison – the telephone, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, would eventually be melded into one invention called the television.

The television propelled us into the future, but also sent us back to the Dark Ages.  The written word was bypassed, as one would toss aside a manual for a Model T Ford.  The men of ancient times searched hard for ways to make the written word more accessible and ultimately permanent for a reason.  For an civilization to survive, its laws had to be codified (Hammurabi), written down and acknowledged by the people (Draco), made just (Solon – he repealed Draco’s all-purpose penalty for breaking the law - death), acknowledged by its rulers (the Magna Carta), and guaranteeing the rights of the people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (declared in the Declaration of Independence, forged into reality by the U.S. Constitution).

These laws and our form of government were given to us precisely to counter such specious arguments as the one made by the looter girls in England, who had been drinking wine looted from a local store:  “We just showing the rich that we can do what we want".

The Democrats made similar assertions when they passed Obamacare:  “You can read the bill after we’ve passed it.”

Our society has become too dependent upon electronic gadgets for communications and even driving.  The Progressives have tossed aside our country’s owner’s manual, The U.S. Constitution, as obsoleted and replaced it with thousands of pages of bureaucratic regulations and unconstitutional Supreme Court decisions.  We sit before our television sets, nodding before our television priests as they babble on incoherently.  The communication is decidedly one-sided; all we can is sit in dumb silence.

Calling our representatives depends on what affiliation they hold, Liberal/Progressive or Conservative.  The party doesn’t matter much, except to the extent that Democrats are pretty much all Liberals.  To the last of them, they are lawyers, more highly-educated and better read than we are.  It’s no wonder that Sen. McCain and the Wall Street Journal could tilt their elite noses up at us, sniff, and dismiss us as “hobbits.”

Frodo, the hobbit, though, was a well-educated, literate hobbit, taught by his Uncle Bilbo to read, write, study, and think.  Even Sam learned to read and write from Bilbo.

I held a meeting last night, to which no one came but a friend, on these very matters.  I don’t like discussing plans on my blog because this is a party line – and I don’t mean tea party, either – and the enemy is listening.  There’s nothing to fear, though, for all they’ll really do is laugh in derision, thinking the plan I have in mind will never work.  Let’s hope they keep on laughing and underestimating.

No matter how sincere our efforts, we can’t take these people on if we’re not on the same intellectual level as these people.  These are people who attended private schools, received a classical education, and went on to top universities.  If you want to debate them eye to eye, you’re going to have to start reading.

And not just any one of you individuals, but all of you.  You have to as well-versed in the classics, the philosophers who influenced the Founding Fathers, the biographies of the great figures in history, the general history of the world as well as the United States, economics, and the great battles of history, right up to the War on Terror.

This requires a brave step on your part, and especially your children.  Turn off your televisions and read.  E-books are fine for the kids if that’s what they want.  But be aware that anything electronic, that you can access on the Internet, can disappear in the blink of an eye.  Just look at the Kennedys, the miniseries.  Except that you can’t, because Caroline Kennedy bribed, and probably threatened, anyone who would dare to broadcast this excellent series.

Among the buildings that were burnt in England, was one of the branches of the Salford Public Library.  Salford is a town of about 73,000, or maybe more, within the precincts of Greater Manchester.  A manufacturing town, it once had a mainly white population, but that has obviously changed.  Salford has become one of the most economically depressed and violent communities in all of England.

An interesting note about Salford:  theirs was the first completely free public library in England.  But with the austerity measures, three of its five branches closed their buildings, with the collections moved to a hospital, an office building, and a sports arena.  The remaining branches have reduced hours and services.  The barbarians burned down one of the closed library buildings.

The same thing could happen here.  My charge to the Book Keepers would have been to visit garage and library sales to collect up a list of books that I’ve created (and am still adding to and categorizing).  A man in California is doing that very thing.  But the intention here is not merely to keep the books safe, but to read, study, discuss, and circulate these books among family and friends and widen the circle to those independents and undecided.

I would have charged any members to encourage courage among their own followers.  A big problem with the moderate voters is that they’re afraid to offend their Liberal friends.  That’s nonsense.  My mother is friends with a couple who turned one of their unused bedrooms into a shrine to the Clintons.  From time to time, Mom and my brothers would argue politics.  The couple would get mad and stomp away when we didn’t agree.  But Mom held her ground.  If that’s the way they felt, fine, go away.  “Who needs them?!” Mom would thunder.  But they always came back.  My Liberal friends were the same way and I treated them the same way.  We can be friends, but I’m not backing down on my politics.

We need to get that message out to the young Conservatives, to dithering Moderates, and to the general public.  That’s why the rallies were important.  But so is this.  We’re the Common People.  We must become the Uncommon People.  The Progressives would nail us into an economic and intellectual coffin, with themselves sitting on top of it, holding us down.

I’m willing to make the list available to anyone who wishes to have a copy of it (once I’m finished with it, which should be the beginning of September).  You must not be daunted by its length.  There are various subject matters which will interest you more than others.  Gather yourselves into small groups, with each member become an expert on a specific topic (i.e., economics, the Media, certain periods in history).  Then go out among the moderate sheep and herd them in the direction that will save our country.  Turn the sheep back into intelligent, literate, patriotic Americans.

Books are a great conversation-starter.  Even with kids.  You can make the comparison between Draco of the Harry Potter series and Draco the Greek law-giver.  Begin today, for you can be sure the barbarians are even now organizing themselves into violent mobs and will start beating at our gates and burning our libraries down, literally or figuratively.

Tempis fugit.

While England Burns

Someone by the name of John Petrie -  http://jpetrie.myweb.uga.edu/bulldog.html -  has a website collection of Winston Churchill’s best quotes.   As England once slept, it now burns.  For our conservative British friends overseas, here are some of your former prime minister’s best inspirational quotes.  God speed and God Save the Queen and her subjects:

·         We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

·         There is no such thing as a good tax.

·         Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.

·         The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

·         We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

·         An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last.

·         The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

·         From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.

·         A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

·         Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.”
Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.”

Nancy Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison.”
Churchill: “If I were your husband I would take it.”

·         A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

·         Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened.

·         If you are going to go through hell, keep going.

·         It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

·         You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

·         If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.

·         You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.

·         History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

·         Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

·         The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

·         A sheep in sheep’s clothing. (On Clement Atlee)

·         A modest man, who has much to be modest about. (On Clement Atlee)

·         I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

·         The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

·         A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

·         To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

·         Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

·         Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

·         Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

·         Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

·         The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

·         It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

·         Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

·         The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

·         From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. -“The Sinews of Peace” speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1945

·         If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

·         Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

·         Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.

·         The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

·         If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

·         You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

·         We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

·         Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.  Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour!”

The Kennedy Mystaqe

When I subscribed to Netflix, through my Roku box, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were other offerings besides movies. Netflix has television shows and documentaries – National Geographic, History Channel, and so forth. To my big surprise, one of the offerings was the new miniseries, The Kennedys, which Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver immediately ordered A&E and The History Channel not to air.


Still, there it was on Netflix. So I began watching and it was very, very good. I don’t know what the big FBI secret about the series is supposed to be that Caroline and Maria didn’t want us to know about their clan. Anyway, the news came out today that the UK Mail had run a series about Jackie Kennedy – how she had a revenge affair with William Holden and how she, of all people, was JFK Conspiracy Theorist who thought Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination. Having your husband’s brains land in your lap will do that to you, I guess.

Up until this point, apparently no one told Netflix they couldn’t run the series. It’s been running in Great Britain and in Europe, to great – and deserved – acclaim. I was up to Episode 6 of the 8-episode miniseries. I was all set to show my family what all the hub-bub was about. But the series had disappeared. Where it’s title box had been, there was a blank space. “Content not available.”

I was very disappointed, needless to say. Six should have been about the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and the president talking on the television. Greg Kinnear is made to have an eerie resemblance to the late president. Katie Holmes is just luminous as Jackie.

The miniseries is very well-done. It seems to be a fair-minded account of JFK. Yes, he’s shown to have flaws, as every other character on television is show today, but he’s not made out to be a monster. His infidelities are handled as discreetly as they were when they occurred. Other than being a philanderer, he comes across as a pretty good guy.

Bobby, in the words of an FBI agent, is “squeaky clean.” Not that he isn’t arrogant and high-handed with J. Edgar Hoover, as every account of Bobby has ever made perfectly clear. Still, he’s there for his brother when he needs him.

Joe Senior is definitely the patriarch of the family, though. From the family compound and their home in Palm Beach, he calls the shots all the way up until Jack takes the oath of office. Even then, he still manipulates behind the scenes. During the election, Bobby frets that they might lose Chicago.

But papa Joe assures him that Jack will win; he’s certainly thrown enough money at the district that they don’t have to worry. Caroline and Maria complain that there are discrepancies in the telling of this story. I wonder how they would know, since Caroline was all of 6 when her father was killed. Maria wasn’t even born yet. Was Caroline’s brother taking notes while he was under his father’s desk in the Oval Office as a little boy that they know what’s true and what isn’t?

Who do they think they’re fooling? Evidently, they’ve inherited their grandfather’s mania for power and think their vast fortune is there to obscure inconvenient (and inconsequential) truths and intimidate anyone who tries to tell any story but the heroic, Camelot myth. The Kennedy’s is about as mild a Kennedy soap opera as you’re ever likely to see. They’ve planted the Kennedy seal of disapproval on this miniseries, but have nothing to say about the totally ridiculous, although very entertaining, JFK.

Greg Kinnear’s portrayal of Pres. Kennedy is right on target. Unfortunately, he and the other actors lacked the one quality the real Kennedy’s demanded – they weren’t made of alabaster marble.

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall

Hard on the heels of downgrading the United States’ credit rating from AAA to AA+, credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s lowered the credit ratings for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fridays’ downgrade means the United States is no longer considered among the safest financial risks in the world.  Despite raising the debt ceiling, which Obama vowed would help America discharge its debts, S&P still downgraded our country’s financial rating.  A steep drop in the stock market on Friday and another anxious day today, with a 300 point drop this morning, does nothing to allay anyone’s fears for the U.S. economy.

David Beers, global head of sovereign and international public finance ratings at S&P, told Fox News Sunday  that governments and Congresses come and go, but spending on entitlements persistently drags U.S. debt further into the red.

“The key thing is, yes, entitlement reform is important because entitlements are the biggest component of spending, and the part of spending where the cost pressures are greatest," Beers said. 

Beers said he faults both Congress and the Obama administration for "the difficulty of all sides in finding a consensus around fiscal policy choices," but any agreement must command the support from both political parties in order to be durable.

As it lowered the U.S. outlook on Friday evening, S&P said that political gridlock has prevented the U.S. from reaching a workable solution to its financial difficulties.  Last week’s agreement to reduce the nation's debt by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years “fell well short” of comprehensive reforms that some had advocated, the ratings agency noted.

S&P foresees the select congressional committee to be organized to find additional savings will likely avoid raising taxes or doing any significant entitlement reform. 

“It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key
to long-term fiscal sustainability,” S&P announcement reads.

S&P’s forecast of Congressional reluctance to raise taxes is fodder to the Democrats’ and particularly John Kerry’s “Tea Party Downgrade” talking points.  Liberals are well-known for their selective hearing.  Like adolescents, they clasped their hands over their ears and eyes when the Tea Parties demanded not one but three things – no new taxes, spending cuts, and limited government.

Right now, the Federal debt per citizen is $46,760.  The debt per citizen is $130,363.  That means the average citizen is supporting two other children.  While that generally means their own children, with double incomes and smaller, modern families, the average family is still supporting two other people.

A taxpayer making $60k a year would have to donate their income for two full years in order to pay off “their share” of the federal debt, as well as those other two people they’re carrying on their back.  To pay it off over a ten-year period, they would have to submit $13,000 of their income per year on the principal alone, not counting interest, and the U.S. debt is already overblown due to interest charges.  We’re nowhere near paying off our principal as a country.

But the Progressives and John Kerry want to hang this fiscal malfeasance around the necks of the Tea Party.  He expects us to print out buttons that read:  “Tea Party Downgrade.”   We’re more likely to print out a button that says:  “Read Reckless Endangerment”.  S&P apparently did, or realizes that at least one person in the Tea Party has read that book, and got its act together and not only downgraded the United States but its dependents, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The downgrade sent a direct message to the United States:  reform the entitlements.  The other two credit agency culprits, Moody’s and Fitch’s, are still on the side of the government fat cats.  According to the Cato Institute, a number of small ratings agencies warned of the impending 2008 meltdown but no one listened to them.

Welcome to the Tea Party, little credit agencies.

MoveOn.org is planning a “raid” on a Tea Party meeting this Wednesday in Scotch Plains, N.J.  They must be really unnerved to carry on this way.  They managed to bully the Republican House of Representatives to sign onto their diabolical debt ceiling deal.  Apparently, absolutely no dissent is to be tolerated in our new socialist world.

Once you read Reckless Endangerment, Tea Partiers, take a look at Walter Lippman’s Public Opinion and Edward Bernays’ Propaganda.  The Progressives don’t want us to read.  They want us to remain ignorant and uneducated, while they establish themselves as the educated elite, making decisions for us.  Yeah, right.

That should sound as a klaxon alarm to all Tea Party activists:  Get thee to thy library (or e-reader)!  Like Minds:  see you at the EEMPL on Wednesday!  And bring your e-readers.

Down, But Not Out

Yesterday, 38 American and Afghani forces were killed when their chopper was shot down by the Taliban insurgents in the Kapisa province in the remote Maidan Wardak Valley, 50 miles south of the capital, Kabul.  The helicopter was gunned down by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades on a nearby hillside as it was trying to take off after a rescue mission.  Some of the 30 U.S. soldiers were from the Navy’s SEAL

Team 6.

Just two weeks ago, the U.S. handed over control of the military command to the Afghans.  The shooting was reminiscent of many scenes in Vietnam, in which the Viet Cong would stand at the edge of the airfields, hidden by the jungle, and shoot down aircraft as they took off with the same weapon – rocket-propelled grenades.

Years ago, a short time after we had entered Afghanistan, when asked, a military friend said we returned the Taliban’s weapons because we “had to.”  Something about the Geneva Convention.  Yesterday was an example of why you don’t return the enemy’s weapons to them.

Clearly, this was revenge for the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  We must not falter in our conviction that taking Bin Laden out was the right thing to do.  The Islamists are famous for their thirst for revenge.  They believe they must have the last act, the last victory, and the last word.  It’s their way or the highway.  They present themselves as fearless and determined, hoping we’ll quail in the shadow of their omnipotence.

Nuts to that.

We grieve for the families of the men/women who died in the chopper crash.  We pray that they’ll find solace in the presence of God, in whom lies eternal life.  We pray that the remaining members of SEAL Team 6 will not despair of whatever mission they’re assigned to accomplish. 

Meanwhile, we here on Earth struggle on against a relentless enemy.  We need to be just as relentless, determined and stalwart in our belief in freedom and God.  We don’t need the Muslims to tell us how to worship.  Nor do the Jews, the Hindus, the Buddhists or any other religion.

Say a prayer of thanks to those on SEAL Team 6 who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.  God be with their brothers and sisters.