Are These Obama Sycophants Serious?

Got this (above) posted on my Facebook wall this morning. I just had to wonder whether the guy was serious or just wanted to make me blow up and waste the rest of the morning arguing with him and his cronies.

It's odd. They are trying so hard to revive Obama's rep and its ludicrous.  I mean, Obama owned the House and Senate his first term and the Democrats had owned the senate and house for two years BEFORE he became president so they were able to do a lot of prep work (like crashing the economy) before he got there. They arranged a Nobel Prize for him less than a month after he became president and he hadn't even done any serious damage to the United States yet.  And with the padded head start they gave him, this man is still blaming Bush for everything. He piled up trillions in debt in just his first term. He managed in just 4 years to out spend all 46 previous presidents put together. 

Yeah, if it weren't for those pesky Republicans obstructing him at every term, we might have a national form of socialist government by now and what a joy that would be. Imagine if he could have "done more"?!!

Okay, let's imagine if president Obama could have successfully nationalized the economy and given us real state socialism  Except, let's take an example from history where a nationalized state socialims was tried out.The leader of that nation also claimed he had a "better" version of Marxiswm all figured out far better than the Communist kind. He and his followers assured everyone that this new brand of kinder, gentler socialism would "work this time" because, unlike previous disastrous attempts at Marxist socialism, this time they had the "right leaders". The Leader (that's what they called him - "the leader") complained that a certain group was "obstructing his reforms at every turn" (probably early Republicans I bet) and with the assent of the people, he did manage to quietly remove those obstructionists rather effectively - some six million of them.

He loved nature and children, enacted rigorous gun control laws for the safety of the people. Only the authorities, he argued, needed to bear arms. Without guns in the hands of the proletariat, civil unrest was abruptly ended and peace reined.

He rammed through strict environmental laws to save the forests because nature was good "for the people." Then the leader's ministers built huge estates on the lands confiscated by the government so they could protect those beautiful natural vistas from encroachment by "the people", because nature must be protected for the good of everyone, it was argued. 

Churches, priests and pastors - were stripped of their protected status if they criticized what was going on.  The Leader arrested thousands and executed many hundreds who opposed his policies - including world reknown theologians and churchmen.

This great visionary leader wanted the government to control all those evil corporations that were exploiting the people. He got that too and proceeded to enact policies which turned those industries into slave labor camps and eventually reduced those industries to rubble.

Remarkably (if you believe the newspapers), everybody just loved him and wanted him elected to a third term.... Remember this lovable guy?

"The Leader"  (you might remember him as "der Fuerher" -
the man with the better brand of Marxism!)

Have these "Occupy" people never sat in a history class in their lives?


© 2015 by Tom King

Dr. Ben Carson is No Politician

That's why I like him...

Somebody called me "ignorant" today for supporting Ben Carson for president. He also called Carson "dumb as a brick" about politics.  To me that's a big plus for the retired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon. I don't think the gentleman's concern over the "ignorance level" of Carson supporters is the problem with our nations leadership these days.

I think it's arrogance on the part of those, who believe that a leader must be a "good" politician, to dismiss honest men like Carson as somehow unfit to lead our nation.  Being a good politician isn't what makes a good leader and folk like the know-it-all Jeb Bush supporter that called me ignorant is mistaken in his belief that leadership is or even should be the sole responsibility of the politician - one trained in the art of manipulation, lying and subterfuge. Career politicians are a curse on our nation. Senators are the finest politicians on the planet and they turn out to be some of the lousiest chief executives of all time.

It would be far better, I believe, that our nation should be led by intelligent men with good character than to be "controlled" by slippery politicians - habitually corrupt characters who use "ignorant voters" to accumulate power for themselves. Note that those who criticize Dr. Carson, usually confine their criticism to vague accusations and put-downs that make them sound like one of those so-called "elite" members of society. You know, the ones who believe it is their destiny to rule over the ignorant masses. Well, I got news dudes and dudettes. The founding of America ended the rule of the hereditary nobility - in this part of the new world at least. The progressive movement is little more than an attempt to recreate, under the rubrik of social Darwinism, a genetically favored "nobility", made up of politicians, Harvard, Yale and Columbia graduates and the scions of wealthy families.

Why can't a brilliant brain surgeon who grew up poor in Detroit and who educated himself to become perhaps the world's foremost neurosurgeon, figure out how to do the right thing as president of the United States? So what if he's not very good at political manipulation? I say that's a good thing. Politics is not brain surgery. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone in the oval office, who is smart enough to actually DO brain surgery, though?  I suspect the man should be able to figure out how to run the country successfully given the level of intelligence required to reach the pinnacle of scientific achievement he has attained. 

Why should we need a politician-president? Arguably, the most talented politician to occupy the oval office in the past century was Lyndon Johnson and look what a mess he made of things. He was brilliant at getting things done legislatively. Trouble was, what he wanted done, was terrible for the country. He lost a war his predecessor started and started a war that all of his successors have been steadily losing for the past 47 years! And by all accounts he was a man of low characters.

Great politicians are the very jackasses that got us all into this mess in the first place. Maybe if someone like Dr. Carson were elected, he'd bring in a few other honest men and women on his coattails. Wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air in the halls of Congress, even if it's only the last hurrah of American exceptionalism just before we disappear into the gray quagmire envisioned by the progressive socialists? When progressives fantasize about a manageable proletariat where everybody is "happy and safe" and "equal" (by which they mean "the same"), it is always created by legislative fiat and a vast governmental system arises so that we members of the proletariat may be properly managed by our betters. Oddly enough, certain privileges are inevitably reserved for the motely collection of elite hard-working talented politicians who assume the mantle of "Dear Leadership" - for our own good of course.

© 2015 by Tom King

People Died, The Press Lied

If you weren't alive 14 years ago when two airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into the ground killing almost 3000 perfectly good human beings in a single day, you probably believe George Bush was a lousy president based on what you hear in the media. And by "alive" I mean, fully a grownup with a family, kids, a job and some adult responsibilities. Most grownups at the time expected leadership from our president after that catastrophe.

And we got it.

Other pundits than me, those who pontificate with perfect hindsight, find much to criticize the former president for. I believe they gain this "perfect hindsight" from the fact that their heads have been shoved up or are in the process of being re-inserted into a place from which perfect hindsight is the only possible view available (if only for a short moment before things go dark).

At the time of the attacks, I was watching the new president with interest. My job at the time was writing federal, state and local grants on behalf of nonprofit organizations. About that time, I had spent some months studying the changes that were happening in the federal government.  The president had issued instructions to all departments to take a hard look at their agencies and re-evaluate what they were doing, looking for waste, fraud and corruption. At the time, I thought, "Good for him!"

As president, Bush sent millions in US relief
to fight Aids in Africa and continues
to raise money for the cause today.

Meanwhile, the career bureaucrats in the various departments just about had a collective aneurism. Here was a president telling them to make their departments lean and more effective, rather than to fatten themselves up as much as possible. They were actually asked to spend less than they received and to return any savings to the treasury. The president instructed the human services agencies to create partnerships with nonprofits and faith-based ministries to leverage the power of these agencies to supplement government welfare programs.

It worked too. In East Texas alone, community-based and church-run food banks gave away so much food that food stamp applications dropped dramatically; so much that the feds were able to cut a whopping $800,000 from the Food Stamp agency's budget in just one year in that one region alone. The bureaucrats nearly had a stroke. They began a frantic $200,000 "marketing" campaign to increase food stamp applications again to get their budget back up. At one regional meeting they blamed the budget cuts on church food bank programs.

In the months leading up to 9/11, President Bush, dissatisfied with the security reports he was getting, issued instructions to the CIA to stop telling him what they thought he, the commander-in-chief ought to hear and to start telling him what was actually going on. About this time, I had a sit down supper with a career CIA officer who worked at the bureau in Washington. He was very upset about President Bush's instructions, calling Bush the worst thing ever to happen to this country and to the CIA. The complaint? The president wanted to see raw data, not an "interpreted" version of the data as prepared by Langley. This career spook really believed it would be better if the president were kept like a mushroom by the CIA - in the dark and fed a steady diet of horse manure. That's not how he put it, of course, but that was the upshot.

Of course, what happened nine months into his presidency, rather confirmed Bush's opinion with regard to the quality of information he was getting from his so-called "intelligence" services. Had 9/11 not happened; had the CIA's cadre of Clinton-era bureaucrats done their job better and given the president the information he needed, things might have been very different budget-wise under President Bush. For all intents and purposes, it looked like, in the early months of his presidency that W was planning to follow, not so much in the footsteps of his father, but in the footsteps of his father's old boss - Ronald Reagan.

The "Bullhorn Speech"

As it was, George W. wound up fighting a war that the American people, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks demanded. In the months following the 9/11 attack, sales of American flags went through the roof. Bush's dramatic speech from the rubble of the twin towers electrified a nation. Military recruiters had young Americans lined up in front of their offices to volunteer. President Bush's memorable bullhorn speech united our nation in a way we had not been united since President Reagan called for us to be a "city on a hill" after the dismal and shame-inducing Carter years.

Tragically, believing that no good crisis should go to waste, the career bureaucrats, Democrats and other fans of big government began immediate efforts to refatten the federal budget, tacking new spending for signature Democrat "social justice" programs as a condition of passing spending appropriations for the Afghan and Iraq wars. Don't forget, Saddam had promptly booted out weapons inspectors in the aftermath of 9/11 (after he first did a little dance of joy at the news). Without a way to insure the craziest leader in the Middle East wasn't building nukes, everybody wanted the lunatic taken out - even Democrats.

John Kerry really was serious when he said he was for the war, before he was against it. Once the war was safely underway and the likelihood of Saddam planting a nuke under the Russel Building was dramatically reduced, of course Democrats like Kerry had to turn against the war. How better could Democrats force the president to allow their pet programs to fatten back up, than to hold the war effort hostage?  When, in our naivety, the American people put the Democrats back in control of the Congress in 2006, they went hog wild as we say in Texas. The Democrat driven housing collapse at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ensued and within 18 months, an economy that had been going along pretty well, even with the war effort, was thoroughly in the dumper.

About the only thing that was still going well was the war effort. We'd not had a single terrorist attack on home soil since 9/11, Saddam was swinging from a rope and Ben Laden was huddled in a cave pooping in a bucket. So, of course, that success had to be turned into a failure and W's successor managed to do that quite thoroughly and in short order.

George Bush meeting troops at DFW Airport

Bush talks to local kids while building
AIDS treatment centers in Africa.

And here we sit six years after President Bush with the DNC and their minions in the press blaming him for the 17 trillion dollars in debt the Democrats and President Obama have run up. We're seeing terrorist attacks again on American soil. Everybody in the world apparently hates us even more and, what's worse, they don't respect and fear us anymore either - not after the President's multiple "world apology tours".

And what's Bush doing? Well, he's not criticizing President Obama for one thing, which is the gentlemanly thing to do. The president visits wounded soldiers in hospitals, shooing away any cameras that don't belong to the soldiers and their families. He meets returning soldiers when they fly into DFW when he can. He and Laura have continued their aid work in Africa which started with W's AIDS eradication efforts when he was president. The couple have been very busy building clinics and medical facilities and raising money to address the AIDS epidemic in Africa. No fanfare. No crowds of TV reporters and cameras of the sort that follow Jimmy Carter around. Thousands of grateful Africans are the only ones who take notice. Bush is very popular for his humanitarian work in areas that have been devastated by AIDS. The trouble is these sorts of people aren't Hollywood producers or gay actors or slutty actresses who picked up a social disease - just people who need help. The media doesn't pay much attention to such people, particularly if they don't support the "progressive" agenda the media is desperately promoting.

Meanwhile, back in the states the liberal media and the "progressive" left continue blaming the former

The George Bush tube top - a popular
fashion accessory in central Africa.

president for everything from global warming to outbreaks of toothache in pot-bellied pigs. You'd think they'd get tired of singing the Nanny Nanny Boo Boo Song after a while, but apparently the Progressive Agenda demands it.

I get tired of seeing a good man mocked and ridiculed for doing what he believed was right. On most things, I agree with what Bush tried to do. I think the former president did what he thought was right based on the information he had. That is far different from how either his predecessor or his successor did things. Both Clinton and Obama seem to operate on the "do what is expedient to get what I want" principle of political leadership.

Being President is not brain surgery, but
wouldn't it be nice to have a president
who could do brain surgery if he wanted to....
because he's smart enough?

I respect President Bush and I can't say that about a lot of politicians these days. There's maybe one or two in this current crop of presidential candidates that I can support as whole-heartedly as I did President Bush. It doesn't appear, however, as if the RNC is going to let either of them win, even though they both are running high in the polls. I'd love to see Ben Carson or Ted Cruz shake things up. I don't think the powers that be will ever give us a chance to vote for them though. But how cool would that be if we could get them both - a brain surgeon and a Hispanic businessman running the country. Bring back Condi Rice for SecState and I'd be a very happy man.

Sadly, all we can really do is pray at this point that Jesus comes before this world blows itself up around us. If the last few elections are any indication of where we're going, the next president will probably be the sort that stands upon the rubble of the next massive terrorist attack, wrings her hands and squeals, "Oh my God, they tried to blow me up. How dare they?" Then she'll whip out the old briefcase and start pressing buttons that will turn the Middle East into a sea of glass like Revelation talks about.

I just hope Jesus has the bus gassed up and is coming to get us soon. I have a skin condition that doesn't respond well to radiation.



© 2015 by Tom King

The War on Poverty is a War on the Poor

I am a card-carrying member of "the poor" (or at least I was till a few days ago).  They've apparently revoked my card.  I had a Medicaid card which I used three times last year because I couldn't find a doctor who would take me without either that or insurance.  In February and March, I got a contract job which paid me $1400 over a three week period. My Medicaid was canceled because I made too much money that month (my wife is on full disability too - $700 out of which they take a goodly chunk for Medicare). 

The Washington State Healthcare Exchange informs me that, now that I've been on Medicaid, they have my medical records (and by an interesting coincidence, so does the IRS). But never fear. The WSHE tells me I can now get an affordable health care plan through the exchange for a mere $1,154 per MONTH - a good $500 more than I made in May. I can, they assure me, use an earned income tax credit they are sure that I will get from the IRS as a partial payment for the insurance.

Oh, joy! I may, if the IRS cooperates, be able to get a health plan for only $200 more than I make (not including the deductibles I'll have to pay, if I actually use it).  As a 61 year-old type II Diabetic with high blood pressure and sleep apnea, I can't just go pay a doctor to prescribe my meds. I can't buy a CPAP mask to replace my old one that's beginning to spring leaks unless I have a doctor's okay and I can't get that without health insurance and if I buy health insurance I can't afford to buy the mask anyway....................or food or keep the lights on or the Internet which is my lifeline because the little I make is all done online - the last free market on the planet.  That probably won't last for long now that the FCC has declared the Internet a public utility, but I should be dead before that happens anyway (see scenario below).

The War on Poverty isn't working anyway (see the chart above).  We're not shrinking the number of poor people. We're maintaining it at a more or less constant level, unless there is an election coming and then, somehow, there are suddenly more of us and to my horror, I found myself one of them.

I did not get to be a member of the poor on purpose. It sneaked up behind me and grabbed me. I am the principle caregiver for my wife who is disabled and I can't safely leave her alone while I hike 3 miles to and from the nearest bus stop to ride for another hour on the bus to get to a job somewhere that I can't even find and gave up trying to find a long time ago.  I can't leave home for 12 to 13 hours a day and leave my wife alone.

I am one of the millions of uncounted "unemployed" workers. To survive, I'm working off the grid for myself.  Like other uncounted workers, I am no longer even trying to find regular "countable" employment anymore and therefore I am no longer being counted by the Obama administration Labor Department; a fact which accounts for the falling unemployment rates.

So much for "Obama is for the poor."  I is one and he ain't helpin' me a bit.

If you are a card-carrying member of the poor, it is a full time job, just filling out the paperwork and being careful not to make too much money so you don't inadvertently knock yourself off the poor list and lose your benefits.  I'd burn my card, but it won't do any good. The IRS has a record of it and they never forget anything.  It is my contention that the so-called war on poverty is not about curing poverty. It's about maintaining the poor as a reliable voting block for Democrat Party. Nothing cures progressive socialism like making money on your own hook. Of course, progressive socialism contains within it, some rather dark tenets.

They say Obamacare doesn't have death panels, though it has been suggested that the end-of-life planning element of the Obamacare scheme is precisely that. Differences of opinion notwithstanding, whatever they have seems to be a quite effective way to kill off the aged and infirm.  Take me, for instance. In my current Obamacare predicament, I can't afford health care insurance. It's astronomically high now, probably because its mandatory now that you have health insurance. It is also FREAKING MANDATORY! It is, therefore, better for me to just not go to the doctor at all and pay for the meds that I can afford, at least until the prescriptions run out. Of course, the IRS is going to fine me for having no health insurance, but if all works out, I'll be dead by then.

If I stop using health insurance at all, I won't spend more than I make.  Then, I can go ahead and die from my various diseases at least at a slightly slower pace than I would if I paid everything I make for health insurance and die more quickly from starvation and homelessness, which would be the case if all of my money and then some is going into health insurance.

By dying more quickly, I will make a place for the young and far more useful members of the proletariat, who are, generally, a lot less trouble to the dear leaders than useless people like me. That was an idea favored by George Bernard Shaw, an early adopter of progressivism. His favorite method of dealing with useless people was a "humane gas" - something to put you down once you were of no further use to society. He, in fact, suggested that you have to report to and justify your continued existence every 5 to 7 years to a panel of community leaders (see the video in the link above if you don't believe me). If you weren't producing more than you were using, you'd get the gas. Sounds like a death panel to me, but who am I to have an opinion on the matter when my betters have it all worked out they tell me.

They should probably take away any guns I have at this point.  While I don't actually have any guns because of the high risk of suicide among members of my household, if I did have guns, I'd probably be on the NSA's list of potential domestic terrorists. After all, I do write a lot of stuff critical of the government and you know how easy it is for people who criticize the government to whip up a fertilizer bomb and become terrorists.

I don't have a gun, though I do have a sword. I plan to go down swinging. I'm not doing the gas thing, however humane they make it.

(c) 2015 by Tom King

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Field Guide to Marxist Thought: Politics