Oh, how the increasingly irrelevant mainstream media (MSM) like to take very few facts and blow them up into a sensational story to garner TV ratings or gain some newsprint readership. Hence, some play in the liberal MSM lately that recent domestic terrorist attacks lend credence to, perhaps even "validate," the April DHS "intelligence report," which DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano had to subsequently "apologize" for and withdraw for revision and update.

First, keep in mind that the April DHS report was supposed to be secret and issued only to law enforcement agencies across the country. So much for transparency in government. Second, remember that DHS Secretary Napolitano had to ineptly "explain" the poorly written report only because it was leaked and became known to the public, ending in her nonapologetic "apology" -- the typical political, "If YOU were offended, then WE'RE sorry." What, sorry that you got caught putting out such a so-called "intelligence report"? Or sorry that it was so indefensible that you had to offer at least some kind of apology for it? Third, the report was insulting, not only to anyone who is legitimately against illegal immigration or holds anti-abortion positions but also to our veterans, our currently serving troops, and any conservatives who generally disagree with Obama's left-wing policies, his spendthrift ways and his fascist takeover of, so far, three major sectors of the American economy. In addition, the DHS report was largely based on speculation and opinion rather than on empirical information or credible, citable intelligence.

Next, "Civil rights activists say a string of recent attacks blamed on right-wing extremists..." Did I miss something in the news recently? Let's see, (1) there was the killing of Dr. George Tiller, the "Baby Killer," by a lone, right-wing, anti-abortion nutjob with a pre-existing history, (2) there was the random gunning down of an American soldier outside a recruiting station by an American Black Muslim domestic "jihadist" bent on revenging an eye for an eye for what U.S. soldiers are doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and (3) there was the killing of a security guard at the Holocaust Museum, again by a lone, right-wing, white supremacist nutjob with a long history of anti-Semitism, white supremacy and Holocaust denial.

Well, since one of the three incidents involved an American Black Muslim domestic "jihadist," he's obviously not exactly a right-winger. And although two of the three incidents involved right-wingers, I still fail to see how that becomes "a string of recent attacks." Don't you need more than just two for there to be "a string"?

And since even those two incidents were perpetrated by long-time right-wing nutjobs, how does that in any way lend any credence to the DHS report which predicted a rising, current or future danger from those with any of several conservative positions in opposition to Obama's policies? Obama hasn't even been in office that long.

No, the attacks by the two right-wingers were based on long-standing feelings and beliefs as much as anything to do with Obama or his policies, as amazing as that may seem to him and his adoringly slavish media pals. In fact, one could argue that the attacks by the two right-wingers were almost personal, instead of political. Tiller's killer no doubt personally hated Tiller himself, not only what he was doing in performing late-term abortions of convenience by the thousands and becoming a millionaire while doing it. And von Brunn, the right-winger who killed the Holocaust Museum guard, probably blamed any- and everybody working at the museum for the Holocaust which he schizophrenically both despised and denied. However, for the Black Muslim murderer, his act was ideological and his victim selection was random. For him, any soldier to shoot and kill as a "symbol" would do.

Being Vegetarian Shrinks Brain

Becoming a vegetarian could be good for the planet, but it's bad for your brain. Scientists at England's Oxford University have found that vegetarians are six times more likely to have brain shrinkage than those who include meats in their diets. The cause could be a lack of vitamins. Vegetarians are more likely than meat-eaters to be deficient in vitamin B12, which is mainly found in meats, and a B12 deficiency is known to cause anemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Oxford researchers examined 107 people between the age of 61 and 87 using physical exams, memory tests and brain scans. When the same volunteers were retested five years later, those with the lowest amounts of B12 had the most brain atrophy. And here's the political twist -- you knew there had to be one, right? -- more liberals than conservatives are vegetarians. Ba-rump-bump!

Obama Claims Health Care Costs Will Be Reduced
 
Obama has secured the commitments of six major trade associations to reduce the cost of health care spending by 20% over the next 10 years. The groups involved say that the success of their commitments rests on the passage of Obama's health care reforms (well, of course they do -- they had a meeting with the president and he wants universal health care - besides, maybe they're afraid he might just take their companies over, too), but no concrete methods of reducing spending have been detailed (then, uh, how do they know they can reduce health care spending by 20% over the next 10 years?). Obama predicts cost savings of $2,500 a year for a family of four. Huh? If you don't yet have a plan (there's that pesky word again -- like with GITMO) and you therefore don't know if you can realize the 20% savings, how can you say that would result in savings of $2,500 for a family of four? Just because it sounds good? Guess so. It's something like Team Obama saying all the time that they will either create X-number of jobs or save X-number of jobs. Create, I can understand, because you can check to see how many they created, but saved gives me a problem, because it seems a lot like proving a negative. You know, like, here's how many we didn't lose. Again, huh? How do you know, even if you hadn't done whatever it was that you did, that you still wouldn't have lost them -- that they might have been saved, or survived, in spite of whatever you did? Just askin' - Just sayin'.

Obama's Budget

Consider these facts, compiled by the Institute for Policy Innovation: Under the Obama budget, the nonpartisan, non-ideological Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the national debt will soar over the next 10 years from 40 percent of GDP today to 82.4 percent. Obama's budget also states that total federal borrowing will grow by $2.7 trillion this year alone, an increase of 27 percent in one year! The budget Obama proposed for this year increases federal spending by an incredible 34 percent, just compared to the previous year, with a total of $4 trillion in federal spending, the highest ever.

Pelosi's Tuna

Star-Kist Tuna's headquarters are in San Francisco, Pelosi's home district. Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods and is a major contributor to Pelosi. Paul Pelosi, Nancy's husband, owns $17 million dollars of Star-Kist stock. Star-Kist is the major employer in American Samoa, employing 75% of the Samoan work force. In January 2007, when the minimum wage was increased from $5.15 to $7.25, Pelosi had American Samoa exempted from the increase so Del Monte would not have to pay the higher wage, thereby making Del Monte products less expensive than their competition's. In 2008, when the huge bailout bill was passed, Pelosi added an earmark to the final bill for $33 million dollars for an "economic development credit in American Samoa." Can we all say "payback"? Or is that "payoff"? And Pelosi has called the Bush administration corrupt? Oh, please! So, remember to serve your next Star-Kist tuna dish with ample side dishes of hubris and hypocrisy, please. 

Napolitano Again

Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano recently declared that "...crossing the border illegally is not a crime per se." What? Makes me want to ask what part of "illegally" don't you understand? Or, if se didn't do it and it therefore wasn't per se, then who did it? I couldn't make this stuff up, folks. I'm just not that imaginative. Napolitano is definitely gaining on Biden for gaffes.....but I don't think she'll ever catch him. 

A little dated now, but still a goody -- my untiring communiques with my U.S. Representative and Senators

"I cannot believe you voted FOR the pork-laden Omnibus Act of 2009. At a time when our economy is struggling, at a time when President Obama has at least said he forswears earmarks, this legislation contained 8,500 - 9,000 of them, 60 percent by Democrats and 40 percent by Republicans. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

At least President Obama was ashamed enough about going back on his promise to eliminate earmarks that he signed it into law behind closed doors instead of at a public signing. I guess even he doesn't have that much hubris.

And why pass the Omnibus bill anyway? Why not just do a CR (Continuing Resolution) to fund the government for the rest of the year? The Democrats set up the current half-year funding requirement by only appropriating enough for the first half of the FY, probably in hopes that 'their guy' would be in the White House by the time it was time to fund the second half and with the intention of loading it up with pork in the process.

Shame on all of you who voted for this abomination of an Omnibus Act and shame on President Obama for not sticking to his word. He should have taken his red Sharpie and lined the pork spending out, vetoed the bill and sent it back to Congress. Shame on all of you who voted for this overblown and 'oink-ful' legislation."
 
Guess it's a good thing I didn't feel like telling them what I really thought, huh?

AIG 90% Bonus Tax

Here's a "barn burner" I sent my U.S. Representative, Gerry Connolly, back in March. I got an automated reply thanking me for my "interest," but I haven't seen much change in his performance since then, sad to say:

"Although you're still a freshman Congressman, your voting record so far is making clear that you vote lockstep along Democratic party lines and in keeping with Speaker Pelosi's desires. Your motto seems to be -- No independent thinking or action here, thank you!

Have you ever thought that maybe you were elected to be a Blue Dog Democrat? One with a little independence, one at least sometimes more concerned about his district, his state and his country than just his party?

Your voting for the targeted and punitive AIG 90% Bonus Tax is just the latest example of your Democratic party compliant ways and was an outrageously flagrant abuse and overreaching of the Congressional taxing authority.

Not only was it ex post facto, a bill of attainder, and therefore an unconstitutional overreach by Congress, it was also Democratic party political posturing of the most obvious and egregious kind -- done to appease the public that its Congress identified with its outrage and was doing something, as well as, and more pointedly, to obfuscate how many Democrats (at least Senator Dodd, Secretary Geithner, and some senior White House staffer, if not the President himself) were involved in allowing the AIG bonuses in the first place. You know, tucked away in that legislation which nobody read but Democrats produced and rushed to overwhelmingly vote for? Haste does sometimes make waste, or at least cause problems, doesn't it?

It's one thing to cast a populous vote "for the people," to symbolize the outrage of Americans over bonuses being paid to the very people who caused their companies to collapse and necessitated the use of taxpayer money to bail them out. But it's quite another thing to connive to vote as "cover" and "distraction" for mistakes your party made, and still quite another thing yet to ensure that such a vote is at least constitutional. You were elected to not only do the popular thing, your party's thing, but also the right thing, the legal thing, the constitutional thing. Your oath of office says so.

This is not a time in our country when simply going along to get along will suffice, Congressman. Increasingly, the American people are dissatisfied with their Congress, and not only the two major political parties but also individual Senators and Representatives are being tracked and examined. Accountability is not now expected of only your party but also of you personally.

We are watching, Congressman Connolly, and counting on you to do only the right things."

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, our homeland security nanny who increasingly seems to have only a nodding acquaintance with her job and is quickly gaining on VP Joe Biden in the verbal gaffe department, recently released a so-called "intelligence assessment" report, which was based on policy and opinion rather than citing supportive studies or fact-based intelligence trends. Even more troubling, this "report" was never meant to become known to the public, much less to the people it targeted. It was released to law enforcement agencies only. Therefore, it was actually an attempt by a powerful agency of our government to act in secret, identify or "target" a sector of our population by inference, opinion and policy differences rather than any actual facts, and to have American citizens so identified "investigated" and "reported." But the so-called "intelligence assessment report" was somehow "leaked" and picked up by news media who made it public.

This report profiled and targeted veterans, Americans opposed to the social policies of President Obama, and those who oppose abortion, same sex marriages, restrictions on firearms ownership, and one-world government -- as "right-wing extremists" and "potential domestic terrorists."

Even worse, Napolitano called on state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to investigate and report on these so-called "right-wing extremists."

Well, up until recently, I thought of myself as a more-or-less friendly neighbor and a pretty good citizen, father, grandfather and friend. I was and am a conservative and an unashamedly proud American, but I didn't realize before this "report" that I might also be considered a "right-wing extremist."

Let's see, what would make me think that Secretary Napolitano would think I am a "right-wing extremist"? (1) I am a 26-year military veteran. Worse than that, I am a Vietnam veteran. And a disabled veteran to boot. Wow, look out! (2) I actually am opposed to many of Obama's social policies and think he and a Democratic Congress are pushing this country to the left as far and as fast as they can, using the current economic crisis as rationale (read: "cover" or "distraction") -- an economic crisis, by the way, clearly traceable back to at least 2001 and Democrats in Congress for refusing to regulate the GSE's (Government Sponsored Entities) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac whose collapse started the fall of the financial house of cards. And (3) I am opposed to: (a) abortion, except for cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's physical health, (b) same sex marriages but not civil unions, (c) any restrictions on Second Amendment rights to firearms ownership or use, and (d) one-world government, also known as "globalization," and advanced by such things as LOST (the Law of the Sea Treaty), the Kyoto Accords and other world-wide measures, often designed to inhibit developed nations' capabilities, co-opt their sovereignty and create some ideologically and idealistically utopian, world-wide "level playing field" in which nations yield their own vital self-interests to cooperate and compromise for the "betterment of all." (Of course, we should just wait for Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and others, to include any smart sovereign nation, really, to actually do that. Wait, but don't hold your breath.)

But, I digress. The point of this article is to "out" myself, I guess, and admit to my friends and neighbors that, at least according to Nodding, Nanny Napolitano, I must be a right-wing extremist -- and I live just down the street or across town from you and, for Madame Secretary, I live within 20 miles of Washington, DC. So, I guess you should all be afraid -- be very afraid. Not of me, but of your increasingly out-of-control, out-of-touch and inept government. After all, any government big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take all you have, or words to that effect by one Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Remember him? He seemed to know about Big Brother long before Orwell and 1984. I wonder if he would have been thought of, say, by the British and perhaps some of his own fellow Americans, as an extremist, too? Just a thought.