As The Stomach Turns
Earlier this year, I posted here about how the presidential primaries were much like a reality show. That seems like a lifetime ago, and now that the race is down to the two main parties and a few others that may get more votes this time around than ever before, the 2016 presidential election is much more like a soap opera than a reality show.
Like all good soap operas—if there really is such a thing—certain characters and story lines always show up. Two adversaries who used to be friends (apparently) are battling it out for the highest office in the nation. On the one hand, is Hillary Clinton. From the media’s point of view and her own, she’s the eternal victim. A poor struggling female who, as a young woman, attached herself to a slick but charismatic hillbilly from Arkansas that ended up being the President of the United States.
As she is portrayed in the daily series given by the mainstream media, Hillary is much put-upon and deserves to be president. The Democrat party owes this to her for sticking by her lecherous husband while he was the Arkansas governor, and then after that when he was the philandering president caught having an improper relationship with a White House intern not much older than his own daughter. Hillary, always calculating her own political future, blamed her husband’s troubles on a “vast right-wing conspiracy”, and stuck around, enabling him in his philandering and even being the one to personally denigrate the women he used for his personal playgrounds. In all of this, Hillary championed herself as a defender of women.
After leaving the White House, she and her husband set up residence in New York City in order for her to run for a senate seat there. She chose New York for its ultra-liberal constituents (the city, not the state), and she knew she would need those electoral votes to win the presidency someday.
The soap opera took an unexpected turn as they so often do back in 2008, when Hillary, poised to be the first woman president, lost her opportunity when a young whippersnapper named Obama swooped in and legions of voters who were supposed to vote for her made him the first African-American president. In Obama’s early years as president, he made Hillary his Secretary of State, at least for a time. That was all she agreed to do, knowing that she would need time to run for president again once 2016 rolled around.
When it finally did, the soap opera continued as Hillary battled it out for her party’s nomination with a full-out admitted socialist played by Bernie Sanders (as opposed to a closet socialist like herself). In spite of many years of scandals that were more than just tabloid rumors—her mediocre record as a senator, her many severe lapses in judgement as Secretary of State, and her frivolous lack of care of classified emails—she became the Democrat nominee for president.
Her worst fear was to be running against a Republican from a different generation than herself. Fresh faces with new ideas and more Millennial appeal such as Rand Paul, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio had her campaign shaking in its shoes, as was proven by more October surprises from the now-ever-present WikiLeaks.
Right on cue, however, the Republicans relieved her fears by nominating the candidate she most wanted to go up against: the boisterous real estate mogul-turned-reality show star named Donald Trump. Once a strong supporter of Hillary’s previous political campaigns, Trump appealed to those Republican voters in the primaries who have felt ignored by everyone in Washington for years. Portraying himself as the Every Man Candidate who “tells it like it is”, and helped along by an over-zealous media anxious to see a Clinton-Trump race—millions flocked to his rallies.
The voters, in their understandable anger, turned out in droves for the primaries to vote for the orange guy with weird hair. Others, such as Cruz and Rubio, put up a good fight but were unable—even with some of the most conservative voters—to overcome the adolescent name-calling (“Lyin’ Ted”, “Little Marco”), the media that pushed hard for Trump, and the voters who saw them as Washington insiders and therefore part of the problem.
As was written in that post from months ago, I said that whoever won the Republican nomination would then be taken down by the media when it came to the race against Hillary. The mainstream media is a major character in this drama because they are like the “bad girl” who does whatever she has to in order to get a man, only to drop him for the man (or in this case, woman) she really wants at the first opportunity. The guy who got dumped never seems to realize that she never wanted him all along.
Added to the chaos of the story have been Hillary’s health problems (even some rumors of a Healthy Hillary twin–an interesting twist to the soap opera staple of the Evil Twin); and more October surprises for Trump in the form of his alleged bawdy shenanigans with several women who just happened to come forward at this time to talk about his mistreatment of them. (This is where a good soap opera writer would throw ominous background music into the script and leave the audience hanging).
Much of the audience—the American voters—are hanging. With less than two weeks until Election Day, millions of people have already cast their ballots, and others are just putting off the inevitability of “picking our poison” for as long as possible. They’re scratching their heads wondering where all those women and convenient videotapes of Trump were during the primary, wondering why Hillary isn’t in jail…wondering how we ended up here. Out of more than 300 million people, is this the best we could do?
The thing is, whether you pick the poisonous berry over the poisonous mushroom, you’re still going to get very, very sick.
Who Are We?
Today is the last day of Hanukkah, and since this is a place where both “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukkah” can still be spoken side by side, I thought it was a good time to share an interesting bit of trivia that I found in a book I read a while ago. On each of the 8 nights of Hanukkah, a candle is lit and prayers are recited. One prayer is a blessing, which begins with the phrase, “Barukh atah Adonai”, which means, “Blessed are you, Lord our God”. Then it went on to explain the word “barukh” means “blessed”, and the Hebrew word it comes from is “barakh” (“to kneel to bless or to kneel to make rich”).
If these ancient words look vaguely familiar, it’s where the African language got its word for “blessed”…”Barack”. This may make you want to scoff and I wouldn’t blame you a bit. Oh, the irony that we should have a president who has a name that means, not only “blessed” but one who kneels down to bless or to make rich. This implies an intentional action to bless.
I would say our president doesn’t live up to his name. The average household has less expendable income than before he was elected. More people are on food stamps. Race relations are worse than they’ve been in many decades, and his idea of “leading from behind” has led to a leadership vacuum here and especially in the Middle East.
Since nature hates a void, it left the door open for the true believers of political Islam such as ISIS to take hold of large swaths of that part of the world, and it remains to be seen how our own lack of real leadership will unfold here in the U.S. Whenever a tragedy strikes, such as the terrorist attack in California, Obama takes that opportunity to lecture us on “who we are”, usually by using the phrase, “That’s not who we are”. Pay attention, and you’ll notice: he says that A LOT.
The truth is, he really has no idea who we are. A married couple, who are now believed to have been part of a terrorist cell, shoot up an office Christmas party and somehow it’s the fault of the guns, or the lack of gun laws…or it’s the internet’s fault. The media and political gymnastics that have occurred in the days since the shooting have been amazing and disgusting to watch. Blaming anything other than the two people and those supporting their attack makes them into victims themselves rather than vicious jihadi Islamists fighting infidels for allah.
So we are told we have to have more gun laws or government restrictions on the internet because “it’s not who we are” to allow mass shootings to keep happening. We’re told we have to open our borders wide to let in more people, even though terrorists have admitted that they have planned to infiltrate the refugee program in order to get here to do us harm. But we can’t ask them too many questions, especially about their religion because that too, is “not who we are”.
Who we are, if the president or any other ideologue cared to ask, is a people who are the first ones to help whenever there is a man-made or natural disaster anywhere in the world. Americans give more than any nation, and have done more than any nation in the history of the world to reach out to poor and oppressed people all over the world. We’re not racist, bigoted people who need lecturing from a person who doesn’t live up to his own name to serve and bless other people. It might be wise for all of us, as we prepare to go into an election year, to remember who we are, where we’ve been, and where we want to go. American exceptionalism isn’t just a platitude used by conservative talk show hosts or an idea denied by liberals—it’s a fact supported by history.
Later this week, I’ll share an example of what every day Americans are doing to go beyond words to action when it comes to saving lives in the Middle East—-and they’re doing it without a lot of fanfare. (check back Thursday afternoon…)
Hats Off!
There’s a comical TV and radio commercial that recently started playing for a bank that’s meant to appeal to the current crop of new college graduates now entering the “real world’. It has a commencement speaker giving the new grads his words of encouragement for their futures. But even as he tells them what bright futures they have, he slams them with the cold hard truth. He tells them they face a future “where student debt crushes your dreams and you’re forced to clean your neighbors’ gutters for gas money…where you move back home and share a bathroom with your younger sister…and the only lasting impression you make is on the cushions of your couch.” Unfortunately, that’s too often true, but that speaker sounds like a graduate of the Barack and Michelle Obama School of Commencement Speaking.
Traditionally, graduation speeches are meant to uplift, encourage and challenge the young people as they begin a new chapter of their lives. It’s supposed to be about them, and the parents and families that helped them make it to their big day. But never underestimate the ability of an Obama to turn a commencement speech into a political rally, saying more about themselves and their pet projects than about the graduates.
Last week, Michelle ranted about race and how unfair her life has been in America when she spoke to graduates at Tuskegee University: “The road ahead is not going to be easy,” said Michelle, “It never is, especially for folks like you and me.” Apparently forgetting she’s married to the most powerful man in the world, she went on to “inspire” the Class of 2015 by listing off all the “slights” she’s had to deal with in her life: “…the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores. The people at formal events who assumed we were the help.” Michelle wants to party like it’s 1964.
Not to be out-done by the missus, BHO spoke to the graduates of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy about an “immediate national security threat.” Did he enlighten them about the horror stories of ISIS beheadings and how that group now has a training camp just 8 miles south of the Texas border? Did he talk about China or Iran and the Middle East? No…in the world according to Obama, the biggest threat that will come to us is from climate change. He goes through the all the old, tired reasons climate alarmists give such as the breaking up of Antarctic sea ice and last year being the warmest ever…blah, blah, blah. Another wasted opportunity.
In contrast, two other famous African Americans were much more uplifting and less self-centered when called upon to address the Class of 2015:
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice spoke to the graduates at the College of William and Mary in Virginia last weekend. She said as educated people, they have a responsibility to pursue their passions and to be optimistic, telling them, “I know that cynicism sometimes comes with education, but we have reached a level of prosperity and freedom never seen before and although there are still problems, educated people should be hopeful of solving them.”
…And at Dillard University in New Orleans, actor Denzel Washington took an unabashed spiritual approach by telling the graduates to “put God first in everything you do.” He said, “True desire in the heart for anything good is God’s proof to you sent beforehand that it’s already yours. … When you get it, reach back, pull someone else up…Don’t just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.”
Now those are words you can build a life upon.
Unfortunately, the Obamas have squandered every opportunity they’ve ever been given to really inspire and bring people of all backgrounds together. They could have told their stories from the point of view that less than 50 years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible for a half white/ half black man to be president, but look how far we’ve come. They could have encouraged the students by letting them know that when they put their minds to it, they can achieve great things in America.
The only consolation is that few, if anyone, ever remembers what a commencement speaker says on Graduation Day…when the Obamas speak, that’s probably for the best.
One-Man Nation
There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” Well really, it’s more of a curse that one might speak to an enemy.
Yesterday, progressive Republicans joined their fellow progressives on the other side of the aisle and voted to confirm a far-left radical as Attorney General. Loretta Lynch has promised to continue the same utter contempt for the Rule of Law (The Constitution) that her predecessor practiced. She didn’t say that in those words, but that’s what she has to offer…more of the same lawlessness. In voting for her, those senators are condoning the current business-as-usual, where laws the president doesn’t like are ignored. They agreed to not reign in a president gone wild, so the next year and a half should be interesting to say the least.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz didn’t stick around for the actual vote (mostly because he rejected the idea of this person being considered at all given her radical views on issues like amnesty and border control). He did vote against her when they were deciding whether to bring the issue to the floor, which he considered to be the more important vote. He had a few words to say before votes were cast however: “We have a nominee who has told the United States Senate she is unwilling to impose any limits whatsoever on the authority of the president of the United States,” Cruz said. “In the next 20 months, we are sadly going to see more and more lawlessness, more recklessness, more abuse of power, more executive lawlessness.”
As usual, the vote to proceed to the vote that confirmed Lynch came about after weeks of back-and-forth: then Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell made a deal. The Republicans in charge would vote to continue with her confirmation if the Democrats would stop stalling on another bill involving human trafficking. Apparently, Democrats were holding out on some wording in that bill involving abortion funding with taxpayer money. Also as always works for Democrats, they claimed Republicans were being racist and sexist in holding up the Lynch confirmation (she’s the first Black woman in the AG role).
So even now that Republicans hold both the House and Senate, they still can’t seem to agree to do anything but agree with Democrats, who they want us to believe are the Spawns of Satan during election seasons…but really they are not any different. The result is still the same: President Obama will continue to shun The Constitution and insinuate himself into more and more areas that our Founders never meant to be controlled by one person who’s totally out of control. Congress, for whatever reason, doesn’t want the responsibility demanded of them under the Constitution. They just want to get ready for their next elections.
The Hand That Holds the Pen
Once upon a time, in the 1980’s through the ‘90’s NBC had a Thursday night primetime line-up of shows that were such power houses at the time, they used to refer to that night as “Must-See TV”. Tonight, that should be the case when the president takes to the microphone—and to his teleprompter—to let us know that he’s finishing his fundamental transformation of this country with an executive order that he’s planning to sign tomorrow making legal citizens out of millions of illegal aliens. Normally, I wouldn’t think any speech by this president is worth watching since he’s already proven time and again to be an adversary to the truth.
But this is different. Tonight, by his own definition, he stops being our president and becomes the emperor. This should be a speech every network would want to air, but they most likely won’t because normally, when the president speaks, his people would request that time so the speech can be shown in primetime. The administration never requested the time for this speech, but what’s more interesting is which network he did want to be seen on tonight. Obama’s speech will be shown on Univision, the network for Latin America, on a night when it will have a large audience watching the Latin Grammy Awards. In fact, the awards show will be pausing to air Obama’s speech so he can be sure that those he most wants to hear his words will hear them.
On this night, our president will thumb his nose at the Rule of Law; at the voters who recently rejected his policies, the immigrants who are here legally, working and saving their money to go through the proper channels toward citizenship…and to the black community and lower-income workers that even he once admitted would be hurt the most from mass amnesty.
What he’s about to do is not welcomed by most Americans, whether they were born here or not. Criticism for his pending actions is being made all over conservative media, but no one makes a better case against Obama than the man himself. In 2006, in his autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, he said that large numbers of illegal immigrants coming across the border are detrimental to those already struggling here since it will harm “the wages of blue-collar Americans” and “put strains on an already overburdened safety net.”
That wasn’t just something he said in the book. He stated similar concerns while he was running for re-election and told his pro-amnesty followers that he didn’t have the authority to do what he is about to do tonight. He said it so many times, it makes it seem like he’s a man that protests too much. After almost six years in office, he’s shown that he’s calculating enough to have been planning to do this all along…especially if his party ever lost control of both houses of Congress. With nothing to lose himself, and apparently no will among enough of the leaders in Washington to hold him accountable, Obama is a government unto himself.
Before you think that this is just the rant of some blogger living in Red State America, check out a compilation video from Washington Free Beacon that highlights Obama Past criticizing the actions of Obama Present. Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States once said, “It’s not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It’s the hand that casts the ballot.”
However, President Truman could never have imagined Obama’s America, where up is down; solid is liquid, and the Constitution is…well, it’s treated much like a baby treats a diaper.
Turkeys Can’t Fly
I love vintage television, and one of my favorite old shows from when I was growing up was WKRP in Cincinnati. If you’re familiar with it, you might know what I’m about to write. One of the most memorable episodes was a Thanksgiving episode where the station manager, Mr. Carlson, had planned a big surprise radio promotion at a shopping mall.
Carlson’s plan was to have a helicopter, pulling a banner proclaiming “Happy Thanksgiving from WKRP”, flying over the shopping center—while dropping live turkeys. While the station’s newsman, Les Nessman, gives the play-by-play of what’s unfolding at the mall, Dr. Johnny Fever and the other staff members are back in the studio listening to the whole fiasco. They all know what Mr. Carlson didn’t know: turkeys have wings- but they don’t use them. Later, a very disheveled and exhausted Carlson returns to the station and delivers the classic line, which is a twist on an even older classic line: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Maybe that’s what Barack Obama thought in the days following the launch of Healthcare.gov, the error-ridden website that serves as the gateway to his signature “reform” of healthcare for our nation. You see, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has an appearance of being both affordable (hence the name), and of increasing access to care for those most in need of it. However, there’s no wind beneath the wings of this over-sized turkey.
Millions of Americans, once content with the healthcare they’ve been receiving and the doctors and hospitals they use, are being told they cannot keep the plans they liked. Many are being steered towards other plans that, while comparable to what they had, are costing them more, and require them to give up the doctors they’ve built relationships with over time.
So bad have the bad stories been that BarackObama.com has put out a video—aimed at young people, of course—that encourages families to have “The Talk” about healthcare over your holiday meal. This is meant to encourage young healthy individuals—on whose backs Obamacare must be carried— to sign up for coverage. Coverage they can neither afford nor do they need (do young, unmarried men really need to have maternity coverage and free mammograms?). The video conveniently leaves that inconvenient information out of “The Talk”.
Bringing up a topic like Obamacare before, during or after your Thanksgiving dinner is generally a very bad idea. I have visions of mashed potatoes flying across the table and gravy boats “mysteriously” ending up in liberal laps.
Not to worry. If you chicken out of having The Talk over turkey, the media will help Obamacare rise from the ashes. One supposedly “non-partisan” organization, Families USA, was given a $1 million grant to help find people who actually have good stories to tell about Obamacare, and then make sure the media highlights them. Families USA has close ties with the administration and George Soros—so much for being non-partisan. The grant they received was from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which just so happens to be located in the same office building as Families USA and Enroll America, an organization begun by the Families USA co-founder and executive director in order to raise money to fund enrollment in Obamacare. Not only do these entities share the same building, they share the same office suite. How cozy is that?
The next deadline for having the Healthcare.gov website up and running at full steam is this Saturday. However, administration officials are encouraging people to “take turns” so to speak in signing up for it, fearing that the website will crash again from being overwhelmed by healthcare shoppers. Reports say it was designed for about 50,000 users at a time. That’s fifty thousand. If Amazon and Ebay worked this way, we would never have heard of them. Adding to the website’s problems, it was announced today that small businesses have been given a one year delay for when they must sign up.
So as you sit down to your turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, don’t think about the turkey that one party shoved down the throats of Americans via Obamacare. Think about all the things we still have that we can be thankful for like our families (even the knuckle-headed liberal relatives) and that we live in America…and for the brave men and women standing in harm’s way for us. And if you are lucky enough to have either not gotten through to sign up for healthcare, or are just planning to pay the fine— you can be thankful your name and other personal information are not yet in the hands of faceless government bureaucrats.
When Leaders Lead
Today is Veterans Day. Some people may have this day off from work or from school, and as with any other holiday, retailers have found a way to make some extra money as we all (hopefully) take this day to thank those who serve—and have served— this great and very blessed nation.
Those currently serving in the armed forces need extra prayers these days. It seems like their own government is preying on them rather than praying for them. Their training and resources are being cut. Those of the Christian faith are forbidden to share their faith with their fellow soldiers, and Obama’s war on the chaplains during the government shutdown was big news (on conservative news sites at least). It’s ironic that the very people who are right now defending our rights to speak our minds are having their own rights curtailed. They have to serve under a Commander in Chief who neither respects them, nor goes out of his way to boost their morale. It was his administration who concocted the asinine motto, “leading from behind”.
It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when Commanders in Chief and other military leaders were men of honor…true patriots and people of faith who did hard things, even when it wasn’t popular. Many of them led, not from behind, but from beside and even from below: as in down on their knees, in prayer for those they were leading into battle, and for the wisdom they needed during turbulent times. Here’s just a few, in their own words:
“The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training—sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him.”- General Douglas Mac Arthur
“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul…if we don’t have a proper fundamental background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!”- Harry Truman, 33rd president
“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” – General George Patton
“Peace fails when we forget what we stand for. It fails when we forget that our Republic is based on firm principles, principles that have real meaning, that with them, we are the last, best hope of man on Earth; without them, we’re little more than the crust of a continent. Peace also fails when we forget to bring to the bargaining table God’s first intellectual gift to man: common sense.” – Ronald Reagan, 40th president
Finally there was the Father of Our Country, President and General George Washington, who is portrayed in the famous painting in prayer at Valley Forge. He said, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
It may be time to pray for another George Washington, but until such time that a strong Commander in Chief is raised up to lead our dedicated armed forces…may they be safe in whatever situation they find themselves in at the moment, and may they return to their families very soon…and if you happen to be a veteran, thank you for your service!
A leader prays for his nation.
My Dad in the Air Force in Korea in the early 1950’s
The Great SNAFU
The scene plays out time after time in Washington, D.C.: a crisis is looming for the American people and our economy, such as we need to raise the debt ceiling again to keep from defaulting on our debts or some such thing. Some Republicans (Ted Cruz, Mike Lee,), concerned as to what this constant spending and borrowing will mean for the future, hold out in some way. They might use their Constitutional authority as the entity with the power of the purse to refuse to fund an enormous law (or parts of that law) that was passed with dubious tactics. They appear to be standing strong against their opponents for a couple of weeks…even the weepy Speaker of the House (John Boehner) seems to want to get some traction in favor of more fiscal responsibility. Under pressure from the opposing party and the public relations department of the Obama Administration (The Media), resolution turns to surrender. At the last minute, usually within hours that the supposed calamity is set to hit, the Speaker along with his too-long-in-the-tooth cronies in his party (John McCain, Bob Corker) come together to “compromise” (give in) to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. Democrats celebrate because this time, they not only got everything they wanted without having to give anything, but they have the added bonus that Tea Party Republicans like Cruz and Lee and the whole Tea Party movement as a whole are finished.
At least that’s the story they’re sticking to for now. After the smoke cleared, McCain and others took to the airwaves to lambaste the junior senator from Texas (Cruz) for causing a government shutdown and “holding the country hostage” over the funding of Obamacare. He was called a racist, fascist and a terrorist.
People should know that it wasn’t the Tea Party Republicans holding the nation hostage over Obamacare; it was Obama himself and his party. Many resolutions were passed by the Republicans in Congress that could have avoided the government shutdown, such as allowing the American people to be freed from the mandate to sign up for coverage (as Obama did for big businesses) and making sure that Congress, the President and their staffs would also be subject to the mandate. Obama would have none of it, and Harry Reid refused to even entertain such “nonsense” in the Senate. So there was a shutdown.
The only ones who actually stood up for the people they represented were Senator Cruz and those who supported him. These are people who won their elections because they promised to do all they could to get rid of the (un)Affordable Care Act. It doesn’t seem to sit well with the mainstream media and political hacks from both parties that someone would actually do what they were sent to Washington to do. Obama likes to remind his opponents, “I won.” Well, so did they!
Now, just days after Ted Cruz was called a fascist for attempting to delay Obamacare (especially given its disastrous launch), Democrats in the Senate are calling for the very same thing. They aren’t being called “hostage takers”, “fascists” or “racists”. What just last week was an extremist point of view to media morons now seems like a sane and logical idea when it’s coming out of the mouths of members of the party they support. Funny how that works. But those guys are more worried about the 2014 election and what that could mean for anyone running with a “D” behind their names. Obamacare was, after all, a Democrat creation from start to finish, and passed with no support from the other side of the aisle.
GOP establishment-types like Boehner and McCain make a big mistake in thinking the Tea Party is dead. They seem to suffer from the same ailment that Obama’s signature law has: SNAFU. The military slang means “situation normal: all fouled up” **keeping it clean for a family-friendly blog**
According to Wikipedia, SNAFU means that the “situation is bad, but that this is a normal state of affairs. It is typically used in a joking manner to describe something that’s working as intended” [Emphasis mine]. Republicans seem to like things as they are and don’t enjoy new ideas from any young whippersnappers like Cruz and Company. They’re afraid of success and they lose a lot of elections…and they like it like that! They don’t do a whole lot to differentiate themselves from the other party these days. At least that’s how it seems, and they will keep losing as long as they continue to ignore, chastise, vilify and debase those who were elected because they were true conservatives.
Meanwhile, now that the debt ceiling is being raised again (think of it as giving Obama a blank check) we can all rest easy until it needs to be raised again in February. Actually, the next crisis has been unfolding for some time as Obamacare’s website Healthcare.gov continues to leave people scratching their heads and wanting to throw their computers out the window. Jay Leno summed it up well when he commented, “Today there were more problems with the website. It seems when you type in your age, it’s confusing, because it’s not clear if they want the age you are right now or the age you’ll be when you finally log in.”
Obamacare, a SNAFU that’s working as intended? Yeah, probably so.
Re-creating a famous Monty Python scene…
Liberty Belle Blog 
Fallen Hero’s Parents Write Open Letter to Obama (Guest Commentary)
***NOTE: The following letter to President Obama was written by Billy and Karen Vaughn, parents of Aaron Carson Vaughn of SEAL Team VI who was killed in action in Afghanistan on 8/6/11. It was originally published on WorldTribune.com 2 weeks ago and is re-printed here with the Vaughns’ permission. Learn more about their story at www.forourson.us.
After finally choosing to view the barbaric, on-camera beheading by ISIS of freelance war correspondent James Foley, I have been left with a level of rage known only to those of us who have sacrificed unspeakable offerings on the altar of world peace.
My offering was my only son — Aaron Carson Vaughn. Aaron was a member of SEAL Team VI. He was killed in action when a CH47D Chinook, carrying thirty Americans and eight Afghans was shot down in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011.
Many times over the past three years, I have been asked what drove my son to choose his particular career. What made him want to be a Navy SEAL? My answer is simple.
Aaron Vaughn was a man who possessed the courage to acknowledge evil. And evil, once truly acknowledged, demands response. Perhaps this is why so few are willing to look it in the eye. It is much simpler — much safer — to look the other way.
That is, unless you are the leader of the Free World.
As Commander-in-Chief, your actions — or lack thereof — Mr. President, cost lives. As you bumble about in your golf cart, slapping on a happy face and fist-pounding your buddies, your cowardly lack of leadership has left a gaping hole — not only in America’s security — but the security of the entire globe. Your message has come across loud and clear, sir: You are not up to this job. You know it. We know it. The world knows it.
Please vacate the people’s house and allow a man or woman of courage and substance to seize the reigns of this out-of-control thug-fest and regain the balance we, America, have provided throughout our great history.
Thanks to your “leadership” from whatever multi-million dollar vacation you happen to be on at any given moment, the world is in chaos. What’s been gained, you’ve lost. What’s been lost, you’ve decimated. You’ve demolished our ability to hold the trust of allies. You’ve made a mockery of the title “President.” And you’ve betrayed the nation for which my son and over 1.3 million others have sacrificed their very lives.
But this should come as no surprise, since your wife uttered a vile statement on Feb. 18, 2008, during the primary campaign — one that speaks volumes of your true convictions. “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country,” she said.
I am sure my deceased son thanks you for that, Mrs. Obama. Oh, and you’re welcome.
Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such despair and such growing fear that the world’s last best hope, America, has finally been dismantled. Perhaps the better word is transformed — fundamentally transformed. Come to think of it, it’s become difficult — if not impossible — to believe things haven’t gone exactly as you planned, Mr. President.
Amazingly, in five short years, your administration has lurched from one disaster to another. You spearheaded the ambitious rush to end the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan — with no plan on how to do so effectively. Also, the release of “the Taliban five” in exchange for one American — without consulting Congress — is on your shoulders.
You have been at the helm during unprecedented national security leaks — including, but not limited to the outing of SEAL Team VI on the Bin laden raid, the outing of the Pakistani doctor who provided the intelligence for that raid, the outing of Afghanistan’s CIA station chief, and the outing of your personal “kill list” to make you look tough. In addition, 75 percent of American deaths in Afghanistan and 83 percent of Americans-wounded-in-action have occurred on your watch, according to icasualties.org.
And now, we have this recent, heinous event: the beheading of an American citizen by a barbaric organization you foolishly referred to as “the JV team” in your statements to the New Yorker magazine in January.
You, sir, are the JV team. It’s time for you to step down and allow a true leader to restore our honor and protect our sons and daughters.
America has always been exceptional. And she will be again. You, Mr. President, are a bump in our road.
Chief Petty Officer Aaron Carson Vaughn of SEAL Team VI