Forward to the Past

Are they recycling used years now?

(c) 2011 by Tom King

It feels like they’re handing out used years now. I think they gave us this one back in 1978. I remember it felt exactly like this. If everything goes like it did then, we’ll be doing gas lines this summer and buying it only on even or odd days. Inflation should hit double digits by August. Now if the president starts taking foreign policy advice from his daughters…..

He’s already tried to blame the whole mess on our poor attitudes. The very least he could do is go walk around the Japanese nuclear reactors that melted down like Carter did at Three Mile Island. That sort of thing is awfully reassuring you know.

I also remember when a gallon of gas passed the price of a gallon of milk. I remember back then wondering whether they could figure out how to run a car on skim milk instead of petroleum. I mean petroleum only leaves you with plastics and asphalt after you refine out the gasoline. With milk you get cheese and sour cream! How much better is that?

Tom King – Tyler, TX

Infiltration - The Greatest Threat to the Tea Party Movement

(c) 2011 by Tom King

The dreaded two-faced troll.

Lost a couple of friends this past week. One I blocked. He's a "moderate' and we've had some interesting discussions, but lately he's allowed a phony conservative to post bigoted racist comments while posing as a Christian and good conservative. Any real conservative would have been kicked off Leon's threads for that, but this cartoon "redneck teabagger" has been allowed to post with impunity. I think they're hoping he'll help them "out" conservatives like me that they are sure really are closet bigots, but we're just pretending to believe the things we say. They I've discovered that progressives hate reasonable conservatives.

The second guy defriended me after he launched an attack on Glenn Beck, hot on the heels of one on Sarah Palin. Skip's pretended to be a conservative for a long time, but he's struck me as a bit too organized for what he purports to be - just a guy talking about politics. The 2012 election is approaching and progressives know that the conservative opposition MUST be disorganized and fractured as it was in 2008 if they have a hope of a chance at getting this president re-elected.

Subterfuge is one of the devil's most cherished tools. Sewing confusion and discord is one of his favorite methods of over-coming the forces of goodness and light. And you needn't ask - I absolutely believe my side is the side of the angels just as progressives believe their path is the righteous and holy way to world peace. Why should I not believe we are doing God's work in defending liberty and the constitutional principles this country was founded on? Why should we be ashamed of that?

Subterfuge works like this. You send imposters into the ranks of your enemy. They attack your morale, sew confusion in the ranks and do their best to sully your reputation at large by committing heinous acts in your name.

Based on what I've observed in the past months, there seems to be an organized effort to attack the Tea Party from within. It's difficult to do since the Tea Party movement has no elected leaders. That's why so-called tea-baggers are such a danger to the progressive movement. The "leaders" are all at that local level by and large. Without a central brain, the beast is too hard to kill. The progressives are adept at neutralizing centrally-organized groups like the Republican Party by going after their leadership. Leaders make an easy target and the Republican Party leadership is pretty well riddled after years of focused attacks by progressives.

The only thing remotely like leaders the Tea Party has are Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the talk radio lot.  Their apparent strategy right now appears to be to go after Palin and Beck by appearing to snipe at their credibility from within the Tea Party itself. It's as though somebody recently signalled the trolls and sleeper cells to start finding fault with Palin and Beck. There was first a Palin wave and now they're hitting Beck. I believe, you are going to hear a lot more anti-Palin and anti-Beck stuff coming out on the conservative blogs and forums in the coming months. At this point, they only take occasional swipes at Rush as he's far too well-respected and too cagey an old bird to be much damaged by that sort of thing. But you can tell they are watching for a chink in El Rushbo's armor.

The purpose of all of this is to occupy conservatives by encouraging them to snipe at one another instead of at the president. For those still interested in an honest discussion about conservative issues', that's still to be had out there. As for the trolls and imposters that keep popping up among us? I'd just ignore them. Don't let them lure you into anger or name-calling. It doesn't help the cause at all. 

Take a cue from my favorite conservative, Ronald Reagan. It's best to simply be above that sort of thing. Say your peace and ignore the yapping lap dogs that nip at your heels - no matter how tempting it is to occasionally punt one of them through the nearest open window.

Just my opinion,

Tom King

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ms. Palin?

(c) 2011 by Tom King

Sarah Palin gets it from both sides. The left practically froths at the mouth every time you mention her name. On the right, there's a nasty-tempered lot that call her "quitter" and a "lightweight" and all manner of other perjoratives. It's a symptom of the fascination of political hacks with candidates who have "political savvy" - as if possessing political smartness somehow gives you the magical power to fool the ignorant masses into voting the way your side wants them to.

The charges that Palin abandoned her post are at the very least overblown. At worst, they are the product of "political savvy" which makes those who believe those charges part of the "ignorant masses" the politicoes count on swaying to win elections.

If you remember what was happening at the time, Palin was being overwhelmed by frivolous lawsuits and attacked from every side by the media. She had almost got to the point where she could not do her job. To her credit, she took into consideration, not what would be best for her own political future, but what would be best for Alaska's future. She had a splendid lieutenant governor and once she stepped aside, she drew virtually all the political firestorm being ginned up from the left to her.


The left had no interest in the new governor, so he was able to complete what Sarah had started. She knew that it would likely destroy her chances for future office, even among her supporters. All her advisors and practically every pundit you cared to listen to said so. Better to weather the storm than be considered a quitter.

Instead, Governor Palin did what was right for Alaska and she did so at great personal cost. Enough people understood that. Few of us had seen that sort of selflessness in politics in so long that it thrilled us.  We demanded to hear her speak and rewarded her for doing so.  She actually made money. Of course, the left criticized her for that. You knew they would. They will not be satisfied until she is dead or politically discredited with every man, woman and child in America. She quit to make herself rich on speaking fees they charged.

That's a flying load of fertilizers. Palin had NO way of being sure that any of her supporters would stand by her after she resigned.  Her advisors warned her that everyone would turn on her. Many did turn on her. Yet, many also believed she was right to do what she did for Alaska, even at risk to herself and her political career.  Sarah was rewarded because enough people saw the good sense and bravery in what she did.

Good on' her I say. You can, of course, make a strong case for her not having political "sense" in resigning as governor. The question is, do we want someone with good "political sense" in public office or someone who cares about getting done what's best for the people who elected her.

Sarah, in essence, fell on a grenade to save her state. If she'd have continued, the horde of leftist locusts that had already descended on the state would have drained millions in taxpayer dollars from Alaska's treasury. Alaska would have exhausted itself dealing with lawsuits and legal maneuvers that would have crippled the government of a state that is long on resources and land and kind of short on taxpayers and the kind of big state political machinery it would have taken to cope with the onslaught from the left and their "willing accomplices in the media" as Rush calls them.

Sarah is still drawing fire from the rabid left, which gives us the opportunity to find a candidate for president that they haven't swarmed and mauled yet. It's sad that the left will apologize for and excuse their guy despite his miserable record. They forgive him everything he's done or not done. Meanwhile, the right turns on our best, most honest and intelligent leaders at the merest suggestion from the media and the CINOs (conservative in name only) in our midst. They move among us stirring us up against each other; taking down anyone who looks remotely like Ronald Reagan. They can never let that happen again. They took Reagan for a bumbling, elderly actor with no political savvy and didn't consider him a serious challenge to the "man of the people" the Democrats had created in Jimmy Carter. Reagan buried them by being honest and real and genuine, without guile or craft.  They cannot let that happen again. And THAT is what scares them about Palin and why they can never stop piling on to her.

I say God bless Sarah for her sacrifices for the cause. I hope she gets richer than Midas off her speaker fees!  I'd vote for her in a heartbeat if she ran for president, even if not one other person in this whole blessed country did so. The rest of you go look for some plastic candidate with oodles of political savvy. I like my leaders to be real people.

Tom