This and That

General Stanley McChrystal used surprisingly poor judgment in a Rolling Stone magazine article, where he openly criticized and, at times, unabashedly mocked President Obama, Vice President Biden, and other senior officials. As the Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A), McChrystal has been a no-nonsense and an American hero.

However, as much as what the General said may well have been true, the fact is that a general - no matter how many stars he has - is still a subordinate to the President of the United States. And as such, can not, nor should not, say something that will embarrass his superior.

The question is, will President Obama pull the trigger? I guess that depends on how badly he wants to keep the general quiet. More than any American today, General McChrystal has the ammunition to completely embarrass Obama on his handling of the war. How much worse will it be for Obama if relieves the general and the general decides to start talking?

Could make for some serious drama.

What I find most interesting about all of this is how the main stream media is attacking this story. For the most part, they are all in lockstep calling for McChystal's resignation. The pundits mostly agree that embarrassing the President is needed to restore honor to the White House. While I agree with this point, I'm curious why when the roles were a bit different, when George Bush was in office, the media openly supported criticism of the President by his generals.

Well, I know the answer to that. In today's media, a scandal isn't a scandal unless it's caused by a Republican.

And speaking of scandals, it's now been 62 days since the Deepwater Horizon explosion started spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, in what has become the worst environmental disaster in American history. And what did the media focus on this weekend? The fact that the CEO of BP spent Saturday with his son, watching a yacht race that he had entered.

Some people, apparently, had a problem with this. I didn't. For one thing, BP CEO Tony Heyward has passed on the responsibility of the containment to BP Executive Robert Dudley. So for all intents and purposes, there isn't much Heyward can do. And besides, considering how awful a job Heyward had done, do we really want him on this?

But the same people who are furious with Heyward for spending an afternoon with his son, seem to always be giving a pass to President Obama. Granted, as he said, he can't suck the spill up with a straw (very Presidential comments, by the way). However, Obama did say, repeatedly, that he "will not rest until this is fixed."

By judging from the President's schedule since he made this statement, it appears that he really hasn't rested. Unfortunately, he hasn't actually done anything about the spill, either. Doug Ross has an accurate timeline about how laser-sharped focus the President has been in response to this crisis. And this was done before he partied with Paul McCartney and played round after round after round of golf. His dereliction of duty has become so transparent that even MSNBC, including the sycophants Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, have openly criticised Obama.

Adding to the misery in the Gulf, Obama used his speech last week to not only suspend all drilling in the Gulf, which puts not only a lot of people out of work, but will cause a tremendous trickle down effect on gasoline prices (a federal judge just struck down the ban, but of course, the White House is appealing the verdict), but he also used that platform to push for cap and trade, which is the absolutely dumbest idea one can do in the throws of a bad recession.

As we are all aware, Rahm Emanuel has always advised Obama that he should never let a good crisis go to waste. It was the financial crisis that allowed Obama to seize banks and car companies. It's the rising cost of health care that allows his to nationalize medical care. Now, he is attempting to control every aspect of our energy independence through cap and trade. Aside from the fact that the idea of cap and trade was based on the fiction of Global Warming, the fact remains that cap and trade is disastrous for our economy and must not be allowed to pass.

The idea that Obama could mismanage this crisis so badly speaks volumes about his executive inexperience and extreme left ideology. No, I don't necessarily expect Obama to cap the well. But instead of sitting on ass, or golfing, or looking for more ways to transform this country into a third-world hell hole, I'd expect instead for him to start appointing capable, EXPERIENCED people to fix this mess. From my vantage point, it almost looks as if this crisis was exactly what he wanted in order to advance his ideological plans. The more he sat on it, the worse it became and the more power he could grab because of it.

This spill is destroying the region and it must be contained and cleared. That Obama turned down equipment that would have done just that after just three days, seems to be to be an impeachable offense. He has proven to be incapable, immature and a bully. If not before 2012, he must be sent to the ash heap of history, before he causes even worse damage.

Why Don't They Get It?

Brain dead. That's what David Horowitz says and I agree with him.

That's the only explanation I can logically deduce about our media, and by extension, our culture.

Or perhaps a better definition is suicidal.

Here we have a man, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim with an Internet site praising Islamic suicide bombers as defenders of their comrades. As an officer in the U.S. Army, he had access to military intelligence and lethal weaponry. In fact, the military was well aware her was an Islamic fundamentalist as e was under investigation for six months because of his anti-American, jihadist rantings.

But despite the fact his beliefs were counter t the very ideals he swore to protect, and despite the fact he was being investigated for his possibly treasonous actions, the U.S. Army allowed him to remain an officer and continue to counsel soldiers, in his job as a psychologist - even after complaints were levied on him for abusing his position by attempting to convert his patients to Islam

Yet the media, and not just here in America, continue to question what possible motive Hasan might have had for the shooting death of 13 soldiers at Ft. Hood. Even when they do mention the fact that he was a "Palestinian," it is often done so with the charge that it is "Islamophobic."

Forget about the fact that had this been a Republican "tea-bagger", there would be no end to the bashing of all things conservative. Keith Olbermann would host a 3 hour special about the "New Nazis - the GOP" (although, in retrospect, I think he does that nightly on MSNBC anyway).

Had this been a Jew, the condemnation of Zionism, about dual-loyalties and about how Jews are filled with bloodlust would lead to another UN resolution and mass self-flagellation of Jews worldwide.

But because Hasan was a Muslim, the press bends over backwards to play dumb and ignore the obvious.

I really appreciated what Mark Steyn wrote on the National Review blog:

The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:

Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0

Mr. Horowitz asks, "is everybody out of their mind?"

In response, former CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) news producer, Deborah Gyapong, had this interesting observation:

Yup. And those who aren't out of their mind get banned from university campuses and tracked by human rights commissions.

As Jim Treacher tweeted recently:

If this idiot had been wearing an I Kill Unbelievers 4 the Glory of Allah t-shirt, they'd still be going, "Whuh-whuh-why did he do this?"

Adds Gyapong, "Our culture is suicidal, folks. Somehow the part of us that is still awake has to rouse the lethargic body and grab the phone and call 911. As I said, this is NOT about Muslims. It is about the decay of western civilization and its embrace of some strange death wish. We're the ones who love death---our own."

I'm not sure it is all of us who feel this way. But the same blindness that led to the election of Barack Obama is leading us down a very dark and dangerous street. I was never a fan of Bill Clinton. But I was never afraid about the future of my country when he was President.

This fear is neither Islamophobia, or racism. It is my taking the blinders off and actually looking at the world around us. Unfortunately, our nation has been so deceived by political correctness, we are now impotent to notice.

But there is still yet hope for us. The election results in New Jersey and Virginia confirm that the Obama phenomenon was, as Charles Krauthammer so eloquently stated:

"The '08 election was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points."

It really is no wonder why Nancy Pelosi was so desperate to pass her monstrosity of a health care bill so quickly. She knew darn well that with each passing day, the Obama "mandate" diminishes to nothingness. Even though the bill barely slipped through congress yesterday, the fact that it passed by only 5 votes (in a House that is over 60% Democrat) sends a clear signal that is destined to fail in the Senate.

What all this means is that while the media, and the Obama administration may still have their heads up their proverbial asses, more and more Americans are waking up to reality.

I can only hope it isn't too late.

Following the Wrong People

There is a failing campaign out there to boycott all the advertisers of the Glenn Beck show on FOX News, Aside from the absurdity of it all, this smacks of Marxist theology. Even though these radicals have managed to strong arm their way into causing certain companies to drop Beck, for the most part, this is a losing proposition. It's becoming increasingly clear - at least to those who have followed the latest Nielsen ratings - that the ore publicity this boycott receives, the higher Beck's ratings become.

It is so ridiculous that had Beck been a liberal talk show host, I would accuse him of starting this boycott himself to generate ratings.

But what is it about Glenn Beck (or Sarah Palin, or any other passionate conservative) that scares liberals so much?

Oh yes, I've heard it all from the left - "Glenn's a crybaby", "Palin wants to de-legalize abortion", "Beck only cares about rich white people" and my favorite "Palin isn't really a woman."

Seriously! People, listen to yourselves. Do you know why you believe these things to be true? Honestly, ask yourself this question - "Have I actually watched and listened to Glenn Beck?" "Have I actually listened to what Sarah Palin has said, or seen for myself what she has accomplished?"

Chances are, most of you have these impressions of conservatives from listening to liberals. You may have watched Katie Couric, when she wittingly edited her interview to make Sarah Palin, a woman thrust into the spotlight so quickly that she faulted a bit in an interview. Or you may tend to think Keith Olbermann is cool because he used to be on Sportscenter.

But these voices in the mainstream media have never been even handed. Much of what you hear - especially the majority of this country who get our news from Jon Stewart or Perez Hilton - is left-wing propaganda to begin with.

All I can ask is that you open your eyes and see what is happening. I'll give you five questions to ponder:

1. Why does Obama have the need for 27 "czars?" Isn't a czar by definition an "autocratic ruler?" Wasn't the Russian ruler the Czar? Is that what this country is trying to emulate?

2. Haven't we been taught, since a very young age, that if you really want to know who a person is, look at those he follows and befriends? Have you ever seen one friend of Obama - whether it be as a child, or as an adult, who was not a radical - or greatly influenced by one?

3. If you are personally $10,000 in debt, how is spending $100,000 more going to make you solvent? Isn't that what Obama is doing to this economy?

4. If universal health care is really the answer, why are Canada, the United Kingdom and a number of other nations strongly considering abandoning theirs?

5. This last question is something you need to consider even more intensley: If humans truly are the cause of global warming, what then caused the globe to warm before man was even on the earth? If "everyone" agrees that climate change is man-made and can be reversed, why are there still so many scientists who disagree? Furthermore, we have always been told that in investigating an issue, follow the money. So why do we ignore it now with Al Gore, and the amount of money he's earning to peddle his "sky is falling" rhetoric?

People, it's time to educate yourselves. It's really time to get your heads out of your asses and begin to understand what is transpiring. As Don Henley said (whether it was about Republicans or not doesn't make a difference), "we get the government we deserve."

Instead of allowing ourselves to be called "hate-mongers", "racists", "right-wing thugs" or "Nazis" by our elected representatives, take a stand and remind them that they work for us, not the other way around. Congress has become so arrogant and self-serving that it has long ago become a joke. They take you for fools because they know when the time comes, Jon Stewart or Oprah Winfrey will make sure you vote for the "right" people.

They are the wrong people to listen to. You don't have to listen to me, either. Just open your eyes. The pain of reality is much, much less painful then the pain we will experience if we don't stop them.

If you have the courage to understand what I mean, I urge you to watch this video: