A Prayer for Veterans

First of all, allow me to wish you all a very happy Veterans' Day. I've always found the history of this particular holiday to be sort of interesting.

It was the end of World War I. The carnage on all sides had been unimaginable. It has been said that WWI wiped out an entire generation of European men, and for this reason (among others), it was sometimes called "The War to end all Wars". Officers from both sides met to discuss ending the conflict. They decided, in a flurry of poeticism, that the armistice should take effect "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1919 - a reference to "the 11th hour" term which is used to describe something that happens right at the last moment.

This day was remembered as early as the next day, when President Woodrow Wilson declared that "Armistice" Day should be remembered on 12 November each year.

In the early 1950s, shorty after the Second World War, there was a movement to expand the holiday to include all veterans, not just those who served in WWI. This caught on, and Veterans Day in its present form was born.

We veterans these days are an odd bunch. It is unlike years past when the vast majority of American families had a veteran among them. Now our numbers are dwindling. Relatively few families really understand the sacrifice made by those who wear the country's uniform. This is tragic. It leads to decision-making that fails to factor in what is best for the military, and by extension, best for our security as a nation.

I'm not saying that because I am a veteran I should have special privileges. The fact that I and others served ensures that all Americans have equal privileges. Instead, I am filled with a special pride and honor. And I feel that I have definitely earned my right to have an opinion, whether or not it is agreeable to people.

We veterans are small in number. This is why we must be large in voice. We have a special responsibility to share what we know to be true about the world - that there will always be bad people who desire our destruction. That wars, although a horrible thing, will likely always be necessary to confront and defeat those people. That diplomacy would be great - if it worked to secure our liberty the way military might does.

Today I pray earnestly for the safety of our men and women in uniform. I pray for all those who have ever answered their country's call to service. I pray that we will all continue to do what we swore to do, years ago in some MEPS Station, to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic".

This is our duty, my fellow Veterans. Our country needs our voice again. Our country calls. May God give us the strength and will to answer.

Happy Birthday

Today is the 233rd anniversary of the founding of the United States Marine Corps. For those of us proud to be able to claim the title of U.S. Marine, this date, 10 November, is affectionately known as "The Birthday".

In 1775, war appeared to be looming between the American colonies and Great Britain. On 10 November of that year, the Second Continental Congress began organizing a military to confront the threat. Part of that military force was to be "two battalions of Marines", whose function was to be the defense of ships at sea, protection against mutinies, and offensive operations from ship to shore. Their organization began at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Marines have served in every American war and military operation since that time. The name "Marine" still inspires fear and awe in America's enemies, and a kind of pride and love that can only be fully understood by those who have proudly worn the Marine uniform. No other fraternity is as loyal. One of the best things about the Marines, in fact, is the loyalty between us. I can honestly say that if I were ever to fall on really hard times - if I were to be stranded in the middle of nowhere, whatever - there are 4 or 5 people I know for a fact would come to help me. That is rare in this world.

Charlie ("ChuckEddie") was one of those people. Charlie was my longest-term friend in the Corps. We served together for 45 of my 48 months on active duty. We were roommates in the barracks. We were close as brothers. I knew all his stories and he knew all of mine - good, bad, and ugly. There was no other Marine who better exemplified what being a Marine means. He was always there to help a friend in need. He was always quick with a hand, quick with a beer, quick with a joke, and poison with a gun. I would have trusted him with my most prized possessions. I'd have trusted him with my life. I am honored beyond words to know that he'd have trusted me with his. I looked forward to telling the old stories with ChuckEddie in our old years, on a porch somewhere in the American West that we both loved. We lost ChuckEddie in May. I miss him every day. The world, my life, and the Corps are poorer for his loss. This Birthday is bittersweet for those of us who loved Charlie.

I wish all my brothers and sisters in arms a very Happy Birthday, wherever they may be.

Semper Fidelis.

The Hope and Change Cabinet: Secretary of State (part 2)

Contender #2: Senator John F. Kerry

Biography

John Forbes Kerry was born in Aurora Colorado in 1943. His father was a U.S. Foreign diplomat and his mother was a daughter of the very well-to-do Forbes family. John spent his early years traveling the world and summering at the Forbes family estate in France. He attended several very prestigious Massachusetts boarding and prep schools, where he rubbed shoulders with such American notables as the John F. and Teddy Kennedy, Richard Pershing (grandson of General Pershing) and future FBI director Robert Mueller.

From 1962 to 1966, Kerry attended Yale University. He graduated with a B.A. in Political Science. He was a member of Skull and Bones. Even at Yale, as the Vietnam War was beginning to heat up, he was beginning to argue against what he called “American Imperialism”, and did so eloquently enough that he won the Ten Eyck prize for oration in 1965. He continued this argument against American foreign policy when he gave his class commencement speech at graduation in 1966.

Kerry began his much-analyzed and much-criticized military service by accepting a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve in August of 1966. He served honorably for 3 ½ years, and achieved the rank of Lieutenant (O-3). He asked for and was granted early resignation so that he could run for Congress. He spent the years from 1970 to 1972 engaged in a number of highly-publicized anti-war activities, perhaps most famously throwing his medals over the fence at the U.S. Capitol and accusing the U.S. of war crimes.

Kerry lost his first bid to become a U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts in 1972. Instead, he became an activist and advocate for a number of civic organizations. Eventually, he went to law school and graduated with a J.D. from Boston College in 1976. After passing the Massachusetts bar exam, he became a prosecutor of some success, trying a rape case and a murder case successfully. He opened his own practice in 1979 which was successful. He left law, however, in 1982 to run for Lieutenant Governor with Gubernatorial candidate Michael Dukakis. They won handily. Two years later, when Paul Tsongas announced his retirement from U.S. Senate, Kerry ran for his seat and won.

Senate Career Highlights:

· Supported and defended Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, against the strong opposition from the Reagan White House. Ortega was accused of strong communist ties, which Kerry denied. Kerry’s interference convinced Congress to vote against funding for Ortega’s enemies, the Contras. The next day, Ortega flew to Moscow to receive a $200 million donation from the USSR.
· Embarrassed by the Ortega incident, Kerry spearheaded the effort to embarrass the Reagan administration; he personally outed NSA operative and Marine Colonel Oliver North in 1988. He was assisted in this effort by Senator Christopher Dodd. North was eventually exonerated on appeal in 1991, but his career and work were ended prematurely by Kerry’s arrogance.
· Stumbled onto corruption in the London bank BCCI while investigating Panamanian president Manuel Noriega
· Spoke at 1996 Democratic National Convention
· Was on Al Gore’s short list for V.P. candidate in 2000
· Ran for President in 2004 – lost.

Positions

Life

Supports abortion on demand during any trimester for any reason

Supports experimentation on human embryos

Opposes the death penalty

Liberty

Supports radical gay agenda, and supports gay marriage

Property

Supports punitive progressive taxation

Bill of Rights
Amendment 1
1. Supports free speech, especially protest and flag-burning
2. Opposes free speech through lobbyists / special interests
Amendment 2
1. Opposes through numerous limits and restrictions (infringements)
Amendment 4
1. Supports through Patriot Act domestic surveillance opposition
Amendment 9
1. Opposes through supporting special rights and protections for alternative lifestyles and minorities
Amendment 10
1. Undermines by supporting large and powerful central government

Qualifications for job

Closeness to President? NO
i. Besides endorsing Obama early (in January 2008), the two don’t really seem to have much to do with each other. Their styles are very different.

Effective communication with diverse audiences? NO
i. Kerry’s elite upbringing and blue-blood show through, and his arrogance is likely to alienate the young and equally arrogant Obama.

Appropriate face of American foreign policy? NO
Kerry has made only a few calls in his long career in the service of America. He’s gotten 100% of them wrong.
1. Vietnam – supported Communist North Vietnam.
2. Vietnam – accused U.S. of war crimes (like Genghis Khan)
3. Nicaragua – supported Communist Sandinistas.
4. Iran-Contra – outed and discredited true hero Ollie North
5. Iraq – supported, then opposed, then supported (lost track)
6. Iraq – opposed surge, which worked.

Aggressively pursues American interests – NO
i. John Kerry, through ignorance or through design, actually seems to pursue America’s downfall. I have to believe it’s intentional, because if not, he’s the unluckiest S.O.B. of a gambler in history.

Final score?

John Kerry seems like the worst possible choice (even of these three crappy choices listed) for Secretary of State. If they had a cabinet department for clowns, he’d be a shoe-in.

Amen, Sir. Amen.

'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.

We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!'

Rev. Billy Graham

Prayer for America

2008

The Hope and Change Cabinet: Secretary of State

The Job:
The Secretary of State is the highest ranking member of the Presidential Cabinet. He/she is the head of diplomatic efforts and official foreign affairs.

Contender #1: Governor Bill Richardson
Biography
Bill Richardson is a 60-year-old Latino and self-described Roman Catholic. He was born in Los Angeles California, but spent his youth in Massachusetts, where he attended Middlesex H.S. in Concord, then Tufts University in Medford, where he earned a B.A. in 1970. He subsequently earned a M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford in 1971.

After college, he immediately went to work for Massachusetts Congressman F. Bradford Morse. He then worked on congressional relations under Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon. He moved to New Mexico for the first time in 1978 to run for Congress as a Democrat in 1980. He lost. He tried again in 1982 and won this time, in a newly-created Congressional district. He served as a U.S. Representative from 1983 to 1997. In 1997, he succeeded Madeline Albright as U.N. Ambassador under then-President Clinton. He served in this post until 1998 when he was named Energy Secretary – a post he occupied until G.W. Bush took over in 2001.

He then returned to New Mexico, and began to work in several academic and corporate positions, until he ran a successful campaign for Governor in 2002, a position in which he remains. He ran an unsuccessful campaign for Democratic nominee for President in 2008.

Positions on Life, Liberty, Property

Life

• Supports abortion on demand during any trimester for any reason
• Supports experimentation on human embryos

Liberty

• Supports the radical gay agenda and special protections for alternative lifestyles
• Supported and signed medical marijuana legislation in N.M.
  

Property

• Opposed Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that vastly expanded communities’ rights of imminent domain over private citizen property holders
• Supports punitive progressive and redistributionist taxation policies

Positions on Bill of Rights
Amendment 1:
o Opposes free speech & petition through lobbyists / special interests
o Supports free speech through a free and open internet
Amendment 2:
o Supports right to keep and bear arms
Amendment 4:
o Supports through resistance to Patriot Act domestic surveillance
Amendment 5:
o Supports through resistance to Kelo case
Amendment 9:
o Undermines by supporting special rights and protections for alternative lifestyles and minorities.
Amendment 10:
o Undermines by supporting large and powerful central government

Qualifications for job
1. Closeness to President? YES
Richardson ran against Obama in 2008. After suspending his campaign however, he eventually turned on his long-time friends, the Clintons, to support Obama, a decision for which he was labeled a “traitor” by long-time Clintonista James Carville. The two seem rather close, bonded more completely by this show of faith by Richardson.

2. Effective communication with diverse audiences? YES
Soft-spoken and calm, almost to a fault, Richardson gives the impression of a cool head under pressure.

3. Acceptable face of American foreign policy? YES
No stranger to the world diplomatic stage

4. Aggressively pursues American interests? NO
His two previous most high-profile diplomatic efforts in Sudan and Palestine/Israel were both complete failures.
His one notable success was in diminishing U.S. sovereignty by more completely tying us to ridiculous U.N. mandates for environmental goals.

The Hope and Change Cabinet: Introduction

It’s been said that you can know someone by the company they keep. Since our new President-elect has chosen not to reveal much about himself over the past 21 months of campaigning, we’ve had no alternative but to use this old axiom to try and define him. In that process, names like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and Louis Farrakhan kept popping up.

In the interest of moving forward, though, let’s just pretend that didn’t happen. Let’s just look forward to our new President’s administration. Over the next few weeks will follow what I hope will be a series of investigations into the people that are being mentioned for the main cabinet posts. Maybe by seeing what they’re all about, we’ll get a clue to the character of the Enigma in Chief.

Congratulations are in order.

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Barack Hussein Obama
President-elect of the United States

Don't fret, my friends. Long after this slimy Chicago marxist is gone, we will, God-willing, still be here. Still "bitter". Still "clinging" to guns, "clinging" to religion, and "clinging" to our antipathy to people who aren't like us (i.e. Commie terrorist apologists who think that the nearly 50% of us in this country who voted against him are simply ignorant rubes who stand in the way of his rightful ascendancy). Who knows? If we are strong, we may still even cling to that old, tattered wisp of the Constitution that remains after all his attempts to discredit and destroy it.

This fight is not over. It is now joined. Until and unless we are denied our God-given right to "petition Government for a redress of grievances", this blog and hundreds of others like it will continue to expose, continue to criticize, and continue to "defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign...and domestic". We will subject him and his socialist ideals and radical colleagues to twice the scrutiny we have endured during these last few dark years. One difference - we will actually tell the truth about what he says and stands for. And the set of ideas that make us unique and special will survive. Somewhere in the world, Liberty will survive. May God ordain that it will be here on this land.

Welcome to hell, Barry. You earned it.