LEATHERNECKM31

Smoking gun: Obama lieutenant admits Obama Green Jobs is cover for ‘Complete Revolution’ Away From ‘Gray Capitalism’

I wrote most of this last night, but failed to post; I’m glad I waited and it didn’t take long for the following to confirm what Real American conservatives have been focusing on for sometime.

Just one of our major enemies in the Obama White House is on tape admitting that the ultimate goal of green jobs is to crush capitalism and bring complete revolutionary change to America.

It is important that you listen to this short audio clip from Breitbart.tv  via HotAir.com of something called “Uprising Radio” in which Obama’s green jobs czar” blatantly admits what “hope and change” really means.

The admitted Communist urges “complete revolution” which has already begun as a “small sub-set” of Obama’s greater goal:

“The green economy will start off as a small subset and we gonna push it, and push it, and push it, until it becomes the engine for the transformation of the whole society.”

Let’s take a further look back at perhaps the most radical member of the Obama fascist regime:

I’ve been watching videos of Van Jones, Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar”, and hearing him speak makes it even more clear; he’s just another ghetto-speak, race-hustling thug… a shrewd, Ivy League educated, con artist clone of Obama. 

Except he is far more crude; he is Che Guevara to Barack Obama’s Fidel Castro.

And like Obama, he often speaks in rambling platitudes, but when it comes to means, motive and opportunity, he is remarkably candid as you heard in the above audio tape.

This avowed Communist, apparently we need to:

• “retrofit, reboot, repower the nation”
• seek “environmental justice”
• “I am not scared [of the economic situation], because from breakdowns come breakthroughs,”
• To envirobots: “The reason you were born is to be fully expressed - right now. The seeds of ideas you’ve had in notebooks…the ideas you haven’t moved on, this is the moment to act them.”

More important than all this is that, Jones is the prototypical commie-turned-environmentalist I’ve written about for years. This is the collectivist takeover by stealth; Jones is no more interested in “green jobs” than I am, which is zero.

Here’s what he really is: He speaks of  how "green jobs" will be the initial beachhead by which to completely defeat the "status quo" with this revolutionary "new democracy", to further not only environmental issues but a variety of other political causes in America.

And like Obama, who clearly stated that he was going to “fundamentally change America”, Jones has said, "I'm willing to forego the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends."

He couldn’t have said it more plainly.

After becoming a communist in jail, Van Jones apparently found most groups were not radical enough for him, so he co-founded  Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement -- or, as it was known on the street, "STORM."

The organization’s goal was to resist "U.S. imperialism" worldwide, standing proudly with the likes of Karl Marx and V. Lenin in support of a "commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism."

STORM’s manifesto, Reclaiming Revolution, was recently scrubbed from the internet when Jones surfaced on Real America’s radar, but thanks to many sources it survives in pdf format here.

This radical communist is collaborating with the president to destroy your country.

Though he serves as one of Obama’s more than 30 senior advisors who are answerable only to him and were not vetted in any valid manner, I can only find a single photo of Jones and Obama together on the internet.   

Not a big deal… just interesting.

Jones uses his green cover very well. 

He will wear the $1,500 suit, adopt the title and use the environmental buzz words, talk about polar bears to the children, so he can camouflage himself among the useful idiots of the so-called “green movement”.

When asked on tape what his job is in the Obama administration, Jones replied, “What I do, to kinda make it simple, I'm basically a community organizer inside the federal government."

There… doesn’t get much plainer than that.

And like Obama, he followed the same radical left-wing path to power, getting help all along the way from some of the same people.

Cliff Kincaid, editor of the Accuracy in Media Report writes:

“Jones' meteoric rise was assisted by many different liberal-left foundations, including the Open Society Institute of George Soros, which helped finance his ‘Green for All’ organization. His book includes endorsements from Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, TV host Tavis Smiley, former Senator Tom Daschle, Arianna Huffington, and Larry Brilliant of Google.”

Jones’ name is on the cover of his book, but I can guarantee you that the professional ghost writer and lefty “activist” Ariane Conrad who is credited inside the book, is all but completely responsible.

Sound familiar?  Who do you think might have written “The Audacity of Hope”?

Obama’s second book drew such howlingly laughable praise as, “… the best writer in the White House since Lincoln.”

Let us behold this superiorly talented author in 1983 before he was groomed, paid, and connected: 

“The belief that moribund institutions, rather than individuals are at the root of the problem, keep Students Against Militarism energies alive. -----"Breaking The War Mentality," in the Columbia weekly news magazine Sundial, March 1983.

That’s Obama without a ghost writer.

Writing in The American Thinker Jack Cashill reports, “He wrote this after eight years at Hawaii's best prep school and after four years at two good universities.”

Many critics and literary types believe that large portions, if not all of Obama’s second book, were written by Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Over and over, the same names come up again and again.

Out of nowhere literary agent Jane Dystel asked Obama, still in Harvard Law in 1990, to submit a book proposal to an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The publisher liked the proposal and advanced him about $125,000. Several years passed and Obama was too busy finishing law school and embarking on his career to get the book done. 

Simon & Schuster canceled the contract, which probably meant that Obama had to pay back at least some of what he had received of the advance.

Dystel, resurrected the project five years later and got “Dreams of my Father” published; at 10,000 copies sold it was a modest success. Obama’s second autobiography (cheeky for a man so young, no?) The Audacity of Hope became a the best seller and has made Obama millions.

Jones’ book, The Green Collar Economy, only has his name on the cover. But it appears that the book was largely written by Ariane Conrad, an activist and writer whose name appears on the inside, as in, by "Van Jones, with Ariane Conrad."

The use of "with" is morally obligatory and suggests that she helped out in some way with the actual writing.

Conrad says on her blog that she "helped Van write his first, New York Times-bestselling book" and describes herself as someone who has "specialized in working collaboratively with authors, especially first-timers, to produce non-fiction books."

However, the Jones book relies on discredited "experts" such as charlatan crackpots Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrlich, who exaggerated environmental dangers and ushered in stronger government controls and regulations.

The book denounces the "Indian-killing Teddy Roosevelt," nuclear power, and the Iraq War and, sounding like Obama, Jones says that "we will have to fundamentally restructure the U.S. economy." He urges a new global warming treaty.

I wonder who “helped” Jones buy his house. I wonder if we can get his college writings, grades, classes…. we cannot get his boss’.

How ‘bout this:

“If we can get these (black) youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they’ll become managers in five years and owner

s in 10. And then they become inventors. The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people—while honoring the Earth. We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country."

Got that? uneducated, crack-smoking Crips will become installers of solar panels and in short order, own the company and then become “inventors” who will eventually save the planet and its polar bears from what, exactly, I know not.

Tens of thousands of prisoners be put to work “installing solar panels” with the prison guards acting more as job foremen.

What could happen?

America, our enemies stand arrayed against us, and it is time to stop them where they stand.

It is not enough to turn back the thinly-cloaked “health care reform” or cap and trade; the Obama Administration must be ground down to inaction and the 44th President of the United States must forced to resign or be impeached.

The buck stops in Marxist’s Vineyard….

Yesterday, faithful reader and friend Hap Arnold responded to my criticism of Barry Obama going on vacation “while his troops are in the field” observing that any/all presidents being away from the Oval Office was more than understandable.

“….. headin' off to the ranch outside Crawford, TX or Santa Ynez, CA…. the Prez's policies are certainly open to warranted criticism. A 10-day vacation with the wife & kids? Not so much.”

Of course Hap is correct…. at least since the telegraph was invented a POTUS “vacation” is a contradiction in terms;  I’d go further… since George Washington turned down the chance to be “king”, the work hours rendered by the President long ago achieved a theoretical “24/7”.

Here’s the rub….

LM31 no longer worries about stating/restating the obvious; it’s like when I battered John Kerry about the head and shoulders for the very suspicious circumstances surrounding his Purple Hearts and Silver Star.

“Former Navy Secretary John Lehman has no idea where a Silver Star citation displayed on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign Web site came from, he said Friday. The citation appears over Lehman's signature.

“’It is a total mystery to me. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me’," he said.”

Lehman was SecNav from 1977 to 1981; Kerry’s Silver Star was awarded in early 1969.

Given this, I will not be forced to add politically correct platitudes such as“… but the senator served honorably…” blah, blah, blah.

I’m just giving the Left all the consideration and benefit of the doubt they did us since there’s been a Left…. none.

Can’t criticize their First Lady? They should have thought of that when they were bashing Mrs. Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush… and so on and so on.

It’s something like the guy in the glass house being critical of others… after a time, it’s unproductive to note that the Emperor has no clothes… is quite evident.

Obamacation Update:

• Barry pleaded for privacy on this vacation because he wasn’t in Marxist Vineyard “to make news”; today he announced that he will retain Ben Bernanke on as Fed chairman.
• Barry’s golfing partner yesterday was Secretary of the Treasury tax cheat Tim Geithner .
• The Obamas are in residence at a secluded 28-acre private estate that rents for $35,000 a week; meanwhile, Social Security announced that there will be no cost of living increase for seniors for “the next two years”. Uh-huh, just two years. 

Must See TV:

TiVo alert—Tune in or DVR Glenn Beck this afternoon for the rest of the week—(5 pm Central Time)—as he deconstructs the Apollo Alliance and Van Jones, just one of the uber radicals and communists in the Obama Administration.

Apollo helped design Obama’s stimulus package which has only stimulated cronies of the Obamastration and is just another name for “pork”. According to Beck guest Phil Kerpen, director of policy for Americans for Prosperity, yesterday:

“They put out a draft stimulus bill last year in 2008. It included almost everything that ended up being in the final stimulus bill. Harry Reid has thanked them for helping design the final stimulus package that was enacted into law. And they brag on their Web site that they helped design this thing and push it through.”

See my Aug. 6 post: And ACORN begat Apollo.

And from my July 15 post:

I have myriad examples of this “clear and present” danger; let me end with the following:

Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar”—Communist Anthony “Van” Jones:

Current Position:

Special adviser on green jobs, enterprise and innovation to the White House Council on Environmental Quality

Got that?

In a span of less than two years, Jones (the really black guy in the photos with the First Black President, the guy who invented the Internet and the first Half-Black President) rose from near obscurity (just like Obama) in the grassroots organizing scene to the leadership of a national movement to spur the “green economy”.

Jones, 40, is another “community organizer from the Saul Alinsky School of Communism—just like Obama. He is a perfect example of cloaking Soviet style communism in the “green movement”.

After all, who could disagree with saving the rain forests?

Exhausted.....

Random thoughts amid the debris....

Last night I watched HBO's "Into the Storm", a very nicely done character study of Winston Churchill, 1940-1945.

As actor Brendan Gleeson deftly portrayed this giant of the 20th century, I was happy (at least as much as I get) for the 105 minute reminder of a small nation fighting... alone... against all odds for survival, liberty and freedom; and if necessary, unto its very death.

It was long said of the British Empire that in her darkest hour, a leader always steps forward.

Sadly, all that's left of that England, its people and leadership, are just stories from long ago.

Considered "the savior of the Nation" by virtually all Britons at the end of WWII (his approval rating, never below 78 per cent, stood at 83 per cent). Yet he was turned out of office later the same year.

One scene from the film has particular resonance for our country now. I paraphrase:

An opposition party member reminded the prime minister that "the war's over; the people want a new social order that would ensure better housing, free medical services and employment for all."

Churchill would simply not believe that the people who defeated the Nazis would surrender to socialism.

I know how he feels.

 

Was talking with one of my oldest and dearest friends, TSC, the other night and we agreed that since we are well into the back nine of our time perhaps we should immigrate to Israel.

Israel, too, is a small nation alone fighting against all odds for survival, liberty and freedom; and if necessary, unto its very death.

I could sign onto that at any point in my life. The day is coming that I will likely not be able to say that of this nation.

 

Now it's GM -- Government Motors.

Like Churchill, I would have never in my wildest... imagined this wholesale scuttling of American free enterprise.

If this disastrous leftist take-over remains unchecked it will mean the death of not just the U.S. auto industry, but capitalism.

Quick... name a Russian car, a Cuban auto or even a motorcycle, Africa? There is one socialist car that is well remembered.... as the worst car in history; the 1985 Yugo CV... from where? Soviet-bloc Yugoslavia.     

"Malcolm Bricklin, he of the Bricklin SV1, wouldn't be satisfied until he had forced every American to walk to work. To that end, in 1985, he began importing the Yugo GV, which turned out to be the Mona Lisa of bad cars. Built in Soviet-bloc Yugoslavia, the Yugo had the distinct feeling of something assembled at gunpoint.

Interestingly, in a car where "carpet" was listed as a standard feature, the Yugo had a rear-window defroster — reportedly to keep your hands warm while you pushed it. The engines went ka-blooey, the electrical system — such as it was — would sizzle, and things would just fall off. Yugo. Or not."

There is nothing.... let me emphasize--nothing, in the federal government that is run efficiently, within a budget and meets its stated goals and projections.  Government projects and departments just get bigger, more expensive and less efficient. Everyone in America has always known that, socialists like Obama included.

Socialists do not care, that's not the point; socialists do not seek success, improvement, and growth as does business; socialists seek only ever-expanding control and power.

I just heard Dear Leader explain to me that I will be sacrificing my last years for the good of this collective... a Brighter Day... a Workers' Paradise.

“... more jobs will be lost, more plants will close... you will be making a sacrifice for the next generation. It’s a sacrifice you may not have chose to make, but a sacrifice you are nevertheless called to make so that your children and all of our children can grow up in an America that still makes things, that still builds cars, that still strives for a better future,” he said.

This is no "sacrifice"... unless is it redefined as an altruistic decision with a gun held to your head.

 

You may recall the film and book "On the Beach"... a grim look at the end of the human race after a nuclear war. The few remaining survivors in Australia awaited The End with various mindsets. One, played by Fred Astaire, spent his last days driving his race car at full bore like a maniac, until his final drive in the garage, listening to the roar of the engine.   

I always believed the character represented America.

Columnist and author P.J. O'Rourke sums up what all this means to America and Americans in his WSJ piece, The End of the Affair: 

We’ve lost our love for cars and forgotten our debt to them and meanwhile the pointy-headed busybodies have been exacting their revenge. We escaped the poke of their noses once, when we lived downtown, but we won’t be able to peel out so fast the next time. In the name of safety, emissions control and fuel economy, the simple mechanical elegance of the automobile has been rendered ponderous, cumbersome and incomprehensible. One might as well pry the back off an iPod as pop the hood on a contemporary motor vehicle. An aging shade-tree mechanic like myself stares aghast and sits back down in the shade.

I don’t believe the pointy-heads give a damn about climate change or gas mileage, much less about whether I survive a head-on with one of their tax-sucking mass-transit projects. All they want to is to make me hate my car. How proud and handsome would Bucephalas look, or Traveler or Rachel Alexandra, with seat and shoulder belts, air bags, 5-mph bumpers and a maze of pollution-control equipment under the tail?

Take a few minutes to read the entire piece... you'll find yourself nodding in agreement and fond memories, just as I did last night watching England arise.

On the Waterfront.... 2009

The banana republic-style nationalization of our free market continues.

After firing the CEO of General Motors, and threatening to symbolically break the legs of the businesses previously known as "The Big Three"... Obama has now slashed the current marketing and advertising budget of the Chrysler brand in half. 

The community organizer who has never run as much as a Dairy Queen, now runs the American auto industry and also moonlights as an ad exec.

In his spare time he is commander-in-chief of the vanishing United States military.  

• Chrysler had planned to spend $134 million dollars on advertising during its supposed nine weeks of bankruptcy, but the Auto Task Force has reportedly cut the figure in half.
• Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez (showing clearly that he attended law school and not business school) opined that he wasn't even sure 50% spending was necessary, saying "idle plants, why market?"

Indeed... while your plants are closed for months only a fool would run ads insisting that Chrysler was not finished for good, but regrouping in order to return with a better, safer, more attractive product when plants reopened.

That kind of 14k solid thinking is why we have a "car czar".  

And this follows the Obamanists' preemptive attack on Chrysler two weeks ago when the creditors in the Chrysler deal were summoned to the Emerald City to be informed they would only get cents on the dollar for their investment. The rest was going to the government and the UAW, though I don't understand the distinction between the two.    

Here in simple math is how is panned out....:

• The government-union ownership structure -- in which the United Auto Workers Thugs' retiree health care fund would own 55 percent, Fiat would own 20 percent, the U.S. government would own 8 percent, and even the Canadian government would own 2 percent (Canada is “home to several to several large Chrysler facilities,” according to the Wall Street Journal,)  -- also has little to do with repaying taxpayers.

This clearly violates the 5th Amendment. By law the creditors were first in line but ended up with table scraps. You think that this has a chilling effect on private investors having any interest in projects in which the government is involved?

How Obama wields the scalpel:

"The sources, who represent creditors to Chrysler, say they were taken aback by the hardball tactics that the Obama administration employed to cajole them into acquiescing to plans to restructure Chrysler.

• One person described the administration as the most shocking "end justifies the means" group they have ever encountered. 
• Another characterized Obama was "the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet-and I knew Kissinger." Both were voters for Obama in the last election.

These are the people with reps as brilliant money people?

They didn't see this coming...? good God, Joe The Plumber saw this coming; these idiots deserve the punch in the throat they got from His Holiness's Politburo.

Come big or don't come at all. 

• Another participant in negotiations said that the administrations presented what one described as a  "madman theory of the presidency" in which the President is someone to be feared because he was willing to do anything to get his way. The person said this threat was taken very seriously by his firm.

The White House has denied the allegation that it threatened anyone.

Un-huh.

So why does the UAW come out smelling like a rose in this government controlled stockyard?  

I'll make it simple for 68 million Americans and the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals:

The government/ organized labor theft of the troubled corporation(s) was, if nothing else, simple and executed flawlessly... like most everything in the Obama socialist blitzkrieg to destroy America,

• UAW gave $1,000,000,000--with a "B"-- to the democrats for the last election.
• Obama steals 55% of Chrysler and hands it back over to the UAW, so the union can take the future proceeds from Chrysler and give it back to Obama... and so on; I'm sure you get the idea.

These allegations add to the picture of an administration using intimidation to win over support for its Chrysler plans--and then categorically deny it.

Can "Card Check" be far behind?

And how about a little auto dessert?

Obama Budget Cuts Funding for Hydrogen Car

After investing billions of your tax money and many years on the development of the whiz-bang Buck Rogers Hydrogen car (It Runs On Water!!!!), The Messiah has ordered 60% cut from the 2010 budget--$100 million-- from research on hydrogen vehicles in order to shift to technologies “with more immediate promise.”

They be green... just not green enough. Sorta like Clarence Thomas ain't black enough, but Obama The Halfrican-American somehow is.

President Nixon started this nonsense back in 1970 and each president since has poured billions down an environmental rat hole to curry the slightest amount of eco political support.

... and just to come to this.

See what happens when the government is involved in our business...?

Waste, waste, more waste and in the end, failure.

A car to nowhere. 

Patrick Serfass, a spokesman for the National Hydrogen Association in Washington, expressed disappointment with the administration’s request and said his group – which represents companies like Chevron Corp., General Motors Corp. and Honda Motor Co. – would appeal to Congress."

I'm sure they hydro boys will be in full-court press... they just saw the gravy train slowing to a halt. Even in America taxpayer money is not an infinite resource.

... though in the end, that will required a 100% tax rate. 

(But they thank gawd for Congressional earmarks... you'll have to pay either way.)

Earth Day... 1970-2009; Idiots' delight

You say it's yer Earthday
It's my Earthday too--yeah
They say it's your Earthday
We're gonna have a green time
I'm glad it's your Earthday...
Piss off, ya bloody wanker

It seems like only yesterday when my generation started this garbage in 1970 because of "rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam a national day of observance of environmental problems...."

I was unable to show my concern for the environment then as I was still in the hospital due to the "intensity" of the Vietnam War.

In service to the truth I'd like to point out the following (thanks for the reminder, Rush)....

• ---The founder of Earth Day, Ira Einhorn, (left) is doing life for murdering his girl friend (not doubt because she found a real man and was surprised at the complete difference), and kept her body in a trunk until the neighbors complained.
• ---Theodore Kaczynski the murdering Unabomber was an environmentalist. Thank gawd his brother didn't believe in "blood's thicker than water."
• Daniel Andreas San Diego, 31, an "animal rights activist", is still at large after he was charged with bombing two California offices in 2003. According to the FBI, San Diego is ranked 24th on its wanted terrorist list, and the only domestic terror suspect.

.... But returning US war heroes are labeled "potential terrorists" by the Obama administration.

So this year I celebrated the 39th anniversary of this great day... by:

• dawdling in the drive-up line at Starbuck's for at least 10 minutes while overweight women ordered a 2,800-calorie, triple-cream-butterscotch-whipped-Latte Supreme with M&Ms...idling the holy Ned outta my Nissan pickup's 32-valve 5.6 L V8 engine which generates 305 hp at 4900 rpm and 379 ft·pounds of torque at a very reasonable 3600 rpm. Oh, the full-throated sound of good Americ Japanese iron!
• driving over the speed limit and switching lanes as often as possible, I hustled to my VA appointment in Denton... alone! No car pool for me; don't like to ride with strangers--they might actually believe in global warming.
• Back home I have the AC set on 70 (because that's where I like it) and I have three! ceiling fans going.
• Two computers are running, as is my XM radio.
• Tonight I'll symbolically (and literally) turn on all the lights in every room of the house, keep the computers and scanner running as well as the HD wide-screen TV.
• hell, I might even grab a couple of flash lights and wave them around since batteries will end up in the land fills and hopefully get lodged in the throats of seagulls (this last being a psychotic reaction of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull").

I do not recycle; when the plastic grocery bags build up I take them to my neighborhood store and toss them in the trash can which is next to the container that says: "Be Green... Recycle your plastic bags!"

Thank gawd this great Amercian city doesn't force you, like a Soviet bloc "citizen", to sort the damned garbage and separate into color-coded containers... for only $8 more a month. I'm not an idiot, I know when someone's in my wallet. 

I only buy water in plastic bottles and I thrown them all away... sometimes just because I don't like their attitude. 

I stopped watching "24" because the only villains portrayed are traitorous Americans (no rag heads) and because "Jack Bauer" is turning into a ballerina, as well as the insufferable propaganda of the following:

"Hello, I play Jack Bauer on '24'. It seems I'm always dedicated to saving America... but I'll tell you what's really important--saving the world from the horror of global warning."

Your kid is crying about a dead polar bear named "Buddy" that he saw in a brain-wash cartoon...?

Tell him I have Western boots made out of Baby Harp Seal and a nifty patent leather duo made of Snail Darter--just for formal occasions.... cost a pretty penny.   

Whenever I encounter a Prius (especially carrying a "Green" family) I rejoice because it's only a matter of time until a 1963 Dodge Dart destroys it in a head-on.

It's simply Darwin at work.

I've noted this most often when driving in towns like Boulder and Austin (if one must) because of the frequent city-wide, Prius-induced "smug alerts".

So Earth Day is very important to me just Like August 6 and 9 each year when I celebrate Atomic Energy Day and how quiet Japan has been for almost 64 years.

Bite me, Algore, you fat ass.

Notes of Interest:

April 21 is the birthday of John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club. It was not lost on organizers who thought that April 22 was Muir's birthday.

And by-the-by, April 22, 1970, was the 100th birthday of Vladimir Lenin......... komrade.

You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave....

                             I'm going back to Cali, Cali, Cali
              I'm going back to Cali... hmmm, I don't think so -- LL Cool J, Esq.

Some of the best years in my life were spent in California.

Those 11 years, age 15-26, were life-changing. But after returning to Colorado in the mid-70s and visiting California often over the decades, I saw the decline, the congestion and the encroaching socialism; I struck forever California from my list of places to reside.        

There are a lot of songs about California (though not nearly as many as Texas songs--which by my last count totaled 8,347) and almost all of the well-known ones are upbeat, promising... even joyful, full of fun in the sun, and its promise to make you feel "safe and warm, if I was in L.A."

The Golden State.

But, nobody there is singing any more.

And with good reason. America, if you want to see your future--a dull gray future controlled by democrats' unfettered agenda politics, class warfare and fascist environmentalism--look West to the sea.

Writing in the current Newsweek, Joel Kotkin sees the "Death of a Dream: -- California has come back before, but 'hysterical greens' aren't helping."  I encourage you to read it.

The NYT's insufferable leftist Paul Krugman is even more direct: "... Now the Golden State is degenerating into a banana republic. Can the nation be far behind?"

Of course he sees the demise as George Bush's or Republicans' fault... or something, but at least he realizes that Rome is burning.

California snapshot:

• Unemployment--roughly 10 percent, ahead only of Rust Belt basket cases like Michigan and East Coast calamity Rhode Island."
• California ranks 4th in the national for mortgage fraud offenders in 2007. Florida is number 1, Nevada, 2, and Michiganistan 3.
• Net outmigration should reach well over 200,000 by 2011. This flight would be worse, were it not for residents who cannot sell their homes and are essentially held prisoner by their mortgages.
• California-based Intel Corporation will invest $7 billion over the next two years to upgrade U.S. factories for its computer chips, but none of it will be spent in California. All the money will go to expand existing facilities in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon, where it will be used to support more than 7,000 existing jobs. (You don't become Intel by allowing the fruits of your hard work to be stolen by socialists). 
• Barely 3 percent of the state budget goes to building roads or water systems; in the early 60s it was nearly 20 percent. These hundreds of billions instead now fund golden pensions and lifetime guaranteed health care to public employees.
• Near-unlimited migration of illegal aliens has swollen public entitlement programs which help stress the budgets of large and especially smaller communities to the breaking point.

My old stomping grounds--Kern County--ranked fourth nationally in foreclosures during 2008's third quarter.

In 1960 Neil Morgan described San Francisco as "the narcissus of the West," a place whose fundamental asset was first its own beauty, followed by its own culture of self-regard.

This is wonderfully illustrated by the fact that no other city in the world would insist on being call "The City."

It's remarkable that "The One"--Barack Obama--didn't grow up there, and even more surprising that he was able to build within himself such monumental narcissism without long-term exposure to the Bay Area.   

And what group is mostly responsible for all this across the board...? I'll wait.

It is The Worst Generation (mine) which created the politics of narcissism that  Kotkin agues, is at the core of the current politically-correct, green, Prius-owning, recycling, mindless self-indulgence that prevents them from understanding that milk comes from cows, and arugula from the San Joaquin Valley.  

Case in point: Kotkin writes that the entirely self-absorbed enviros who dominate in California's beautiful Central Coast, oppose "the expansion of wineries that might bring new jobs to a predominantly Latino area with persistent double-digit unemployment."

It strains credulity, but it seems they don't like the wineries (which produce some of the best--and therefore quite lucrative--wines in the world) because it interferes with their "viewshed"; yes, I know, it's a seldom-used, California word which means that which you see from a fixed point such as your living-room window.

See...? Narcissism on steroids.

And so what?

Well, my crystal ball is only that, but I firmly believe that if Real America does not prevail, and soon, there will be a wholesale march into the quick sand that stretches from San Diego to Eureka.

Or is that a mouse in your pocket….?

I’m taking a day off from really trying… it’s become increasingly clear that any sane person will become soft in the brain if exposed to repeated Obama remarks, statements, press confabs, photo ops, planted sycophantic audience members and their rehearsed questions, his continuous impression of a North Carolina Baptist pastor…. or any more of his lying, tax-cheating cabinet members.

So what about the above photo?

Well, that’s the Pelosi Mouse… or more accurately, the oh-so endangered “salt marsh harvest mouse” which luckily for it habits in San Fran Gran Nan Pelosi’s San Francisco Bay Area district.

Why lucky?

Because Pelosi just powered through a $30 million all-pork earmark for the little rodent’s “wetlands” swamp as part of Porkulus I—the $789 billion economic spending monstrosity which will rob your childrens’/grandchildrens’ future.

The Washington Times reports:

"One of the proudest boasts of Democrats supporting their trillion-dollar spending plan is that it doesn't contain earmarks. But it seems like powerful Democrats will still find a way to bring home the bacon," said a frustrated Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, who took direct aim at the mouse.

"This certainly doesn't sound like it will create or save American jobs," Mr. Steel said. "So can Speaker Pelosi explain exactly how we will improve the American economy by helping the adorable little critter”?

A Pelosi spokesman said Republicans "fabricated" the claim.

That’s the response? Hell, she doesn’t even see any need to defend herself.

Mouse… game, set, match.

The below headline says it all…… That’s is why I wrote yesterday that I hate liberals, because they’ll get me killed.

From Brian van de Graaff at “Watts Up With That” reports: “We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down…”

The worst wildfires to ever hit Australia, the ferocious "Black Saturday" bushfires which devastated huge swathes of south-eastern Australia, and killed more than 200 people and destroyed 1,000 homes, didn’t claim Liam Sheahan’s property or the lives of his family.

The Sheahan family’s 2004 decision to defy Victoria’s leftist, enviro-wacko government and cut down the trees that surrounded their property near Reedy Creek, Victoria, saved their house and their own lives.

(A big huzzah! for Liam--above--, one of the true, rugged individualists of the kind who founded his country and ours.)

The Sheahans were charged, convicted and fined $50,000 by the Victorian government… the eventual cost, including legal fees, was $100,000.

“The house is safe because we did all that,” he said as he pointed out his kitchen window to the clear ground where tall gum trees once cast a shadow on his house.

“We have got proof right here. We are the only house standing in a two-kilometre area.”

At least seven houses and several sheds on neighbour-ing properties…were destroyed by Saturday night’s blaze.

“The council’s planning laws allow trees to be cleared only when they are within six metres of a house. Sheahan cleared trees up to 100 metres away from his house.”

Australia’s draconian native vegetation management policies are responsible for the many of the dead and loss of property, just as their California counterparts’ “no cut” regulations are responsible for a good percentage of the annual wildfire deaths there.

It’s even worse than that… one of the readers to the WUWT blog commented that his boss had “offered various aircraft to water down the fires (before the fires) but the Victorian Government (or greens in parliament refused) because “those planes” contributed to too many emissions….There you go… very very sad and very very stupid.”

Smoke on the wind? No wonder I hear fiddles

Well, well, that didn’t take very long.

AP: WASHINGTON – Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband's foundation, an Associated Press review of her official correspondence found.

And during her Senate confirmation hearing this morning, how was this handled by Republicans? Fight the nausea and read on:

During Clinton's confirmation hearing Tuesday, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Foreign Relations Committee's senior Republican, said the foundation's charitable efforts "should not be a barrier to Senator Clinton's service," but he acknowledged the potential that conflicts of interest might arise: "Work of the Clinton foundation is a unique complication that will have to be managed with great care and transparency."

But brother, you can count on Lugar to lay down the law:

Lugar told Sen. Clinton… that her husband's foundation should not accept any more contributions from foreign governments.

This is a prime example of why we will continue to circle the drain until or unless there is nation-wide “throw the bastards out” political massacre at the polls.

The very thoughtful and faithful reader Fire@Will who watches campaign speeches and congressional hearings for me (I should pay him) reports:

Each of the Democrats who spoke would introduce the next speaker with a treacly-sweet speech about what a wonderful human being they were – the kind of testimonials you’d expect for a retiring Lion’s Club President, or the funeral eulogies for a beloved family member. 

Of course, all the members fawned about Hillary (as well as her daughter, Chelsea).  Finally, Hillary gave an opening address that sounded like her first campaign speech for the 2012 elections.   A lot of the same generalizations about all of the world’s problems.  We are apparently going to fix everything, for everyone, everywhere. 

Perhaps the most troubling part of her speech, for me, was when she reminded us that she, the President-elect, and most of our government are in agreement that not only is man-made global warming a “fact”, but that it should be one of our highest priorities.

Indeed, I‘ll bet my Gulfstream G250 and my limos that the only “green” Hill’s interested in is in her Swiss and offshore bank accounts.

Government by the highest bidder.

And…

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday that a massive stimulus bill proposed by president-elect Barack Obama could provide a significant short-term boost to the economy, but he cautioned that more is needed to ensure a long-lasting recovery from the deep recession and the "extraordinary stress" in global financial markets.

A quadrillion here, a quadrillion there and pretty soon you’re talkin’ real money.

And proving once again there isn’t an idiot that George Bush wouldn’t appoint--- Sec. of the Treasury Henry Paulson, who once served as chairman of the Nature Conservancy and co-chair of the environmental group Asia-Pacific Council, is a  global warming zealot.

(CNSNews.com) –  The U.S. Treasury and other finance ministries around the world should play a major role in fixing climate change, outgoing Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Monday at an event sponsored by the environmental group Resources For the Future. The discussion was titled, "How Markets Can Help Address Climate Change and Other Major Environmental Problems."

CNS News quotes Steven Milloy, an author and the publisher of JunkScience.com, a popular Web site critical of global warming alarmism, said that for Paulson, the “number one issue” is the environment. He said he expects Paulson to take an active role in combating climate change once his post at the Treasury expires.

“Keep in mind that Paulson is no different than Al Gore,” said Milloy.  “He is as crazy on the environment as Al Gore. He has a huge fortune and he says he is going to give to environmental charities.  He is just as extreme as Al Gore.”
Milloy also accused Paulson of using his position at the Treasury as a bully pulpit to promote his own agenda on global warming.

And I used to say, “Cheer up, things could be worse.”

After preserving our liberty, will we forfeit it?

Most of my life I've been thunderstruck at the idiocy of Americans who, simpletons that they are, insist that the money spent on our national defense would be better put to use for midnight basketball or "for the children".

It never makes a sliver of difference to these numbskulls that we spend more on social give away programs every year than we do at the DoD; the ability to read and understand facts is for them, an elusive skill at best.

So this from Cyber New Service seems to a more-than-adequate debate ender to keep at the ready:

"The total value of the bailouts undertaken by the federal government in 2008 now exceeds the combined cost of every major war the United States has ever engaged in, according to a comparison of war costs calculated by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the value of the bailouts as calculated by Bloomberg News or Bianco Research."

• the fed bailouts of 2008 total $8.5 trillion.
• All major U.S. wars (American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, but not the invasion of Panama or the Kosovo War), cost a total of $7.2 trillion in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars. 

So our freedom for the last 233 years, our great fortune to live in the greatest nation in the world was purchased for a little more than $7 trillion; what did we get for the $8.5?

Come to think about it, I think I'm even more amused (and frustrated) by the girly men whose biggest concern seems to be "the environment." Such trilobites actually believe in "energy independence" can be achieved by not using fossil fuels.

This slap in the face by noted economist Arthur Laffer who concisely puts smothers this fairytale with a concise dose of truth in the WSJ:      

"The U.S. currently imports some 60% of the oil we use. To imagine an energy-independent U.S. today is to envision gas at $20 or more per gallon and a true depression. President Dwight D. Eisenhower tried oil import tariffs in the 1950s, as has every president since. Yet never before has America's reliance on foreign oil been greater than it is now. 

"It's telling that Mr. Obama and his appointees kept pointing to the successes achieved by California as examples of what should be done on a national level. Whenever California's current policies -- full of taxes and regulations that are crippling its economy -- are held up as a model, you know the speaker has a lot to learn."

Because I'm an economic genius, I was able to do in-depth research in the last two minutes and found that a number of towns in California are headed for bankruptcy:

"California's troubled towns can't expect much help from the state. A state board voted Wednesday to shut off $3.8 billion in financing to hundreds of infrastructure projects to preserve cash, as the nation's most populous state struggles under a budget deficit that officials say could balloon to more than $40 billion over the next two years.

"California's fiscal house is burning down," California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer said.

And not only is California a role model for the New Obamaocracy, he's also decided that spending trillions on "infrastructure"--road and bridges-- is the way to economic salvation.

He might just stop and ask of Cali's RINO Gov. Arnold, "how's that workin' out for ya?"  

And since His Immenseness is billing himself as the first Black/Green President, he going hammer and tong with "smart electric meters."

Here are some words of warning from my favorite gun-toting lesbian, Tammy Bruce:

These meters display the exact amount of electricity being used, giving the consumer the ability to "manage" usage. Smart meters have recently been made mandatory in the UK. They're talking about home energy "inspections".

Here's a look at Britain and our future if we allow this government intrusion, which is already well underway in the US:

At 500, the meter is set to sound an alarm.

"I've become like one of Pavlov's dogs — every time it bleeps I think I'm going to take one of those pans off the stove," Brenda Marchant said.

As Bruce points out:

What troubles me is that I can see where this is going. Carbon taxes. What is promoted as a helpful tool for the consumer will eventually be the helpful tool for the tax collector, not to mention Big Green Brother deciding to turn off your stove because you've had too many cups of tea today.

So right there on the wall you can watch the government watching you, but more important than that, "smart" meters have the capability of turning your power off when some bureaucrat from the "Office of Environmental Abuse" deems you're in violation.

... and it will make no difference that it's 110-degrees outside and you have your 85-year-old grand mother and an infant in the house.    

After all, it's for the environment.

For those of us on the dark side of 50, the brave new world envisioned by socialists, enviro-Nazis and Muslims won't have much impact for very long. But to young Americans, I have two words:

Off Grid.

A subject for another day......

There's no fixin' stupid...

I'm seldom wrong about such things.

Some of the most humorous moments of my life occurred during the run up to the gigantic world-wide disaster known as "Y2K"... oh, the humanity.

I'll always remember where I was when it happened; Parker Colorado... I watched two large grocery store's supply of bottled water completely disappear the last week of December, 1999.  

I even pointed out to one of the store managers that I for one, did not miss seeing that he'd raised the prices in the weeks preceding The New Year.

You do recall that not long ago our most pressing need was to deal immediately with G.B., don't you?   

And now each day brings me closer to the moment when the predicted horrors of Global Warming (sic) are proven to be be a scam and a fraud... but an effective one, having bilked billions of dollars from governments and the private sector, and stole two Oscars and a Nobel Prize.    

I always get a flu shot because I know that one cannot get the "flu" from an inoculation containing killed viruses; I long ago stopped trying to explain that to urban myth devotees who insist to the contrary... based on their personal experience. It's delusional.

Here are a few more you may have forgotten:

• Widespread heterosexual AIDS
• Bird flu
• Allergic-to-everything-in-the-world syndrome
• nuclear winter
• catastrophic overpopulation
• world's oil resources depleted in (10, 17, 23, etc.) years.
• global cooling
• Killer bee catastrophe and/or the bee extinction catastrophe

There are dozens more myths that are both maddening yet highly entertaining.

Gosh, how do I avoid being swept up in such stupidity?

Simple... as the man said, "my momma didn't raise no fools".

This is also how I can easily discern between John McCain and Barack Obama, Bush and Carter, Bush and Kerry, Bush and Al ("Is it hot in here?") Gore.

I also know the difference between Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Weasley Clark, and the difference between George Patton and Michael Jackson--both famous white men.

Yeah... it's a gift.

Oh, and I also know that when Mr. DImbolique Nashar, Esq. e-mails me offering $14 million in exchange for my Social Security Number and my bank information, I should hit "delete".  

Thus, it comes as no surprise to learn that new research indicates the "self-esteem movement" of 1980s, has gone too far, does not improve confidence or enhanced ones life, and could even be detrimental.

Gosh, who knew? I was sure that doing away with letter grades, valedictorians, First Place, and printing millions of "My son is a great kid at Oak Tree Elementary" bumper stickers was gong to produce the next Greatest Generation. 

Instead, we have this:

"Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.

As an example, Jean Twenge, the study's lead author and a professor at San Diego State University, cited a song commonly sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques" in preschool: "I am special, I am special. Look at me."

"We need to stop endlessly repeating, 'You're special,' and having children repeat that back," said Twenge. "Kids are self-centered enough already."

"Twenge,... said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism, and favor self-promotion over helping others."

Now, add this one from yesterday:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy can conduct sonar training exercises off the southern California coast without restrictions designed to protect whales, dolphins and other marine mammals, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a defeat for environmentalists.

The 40-year-old training program of the Navy's sonar technicians is critical to our national security, even Cub Scouts understand that, but not enviro-traitors.

These zealots are communists and traitors; they have no flipping idea whether sonar waves harm their precious whales and snails; the truth is they don't care if our valiant sailors of the Silent Service are killed.

Liberal: "Oh, GA, isn't that a little harsh."

GA: "Aren't you a little stupid? What do you call someone who fights the US Navy for decades trying to prevent our military from protecting themselves from enemy subs?"

The SCOTUS vote was 7-2, but remember the times in which we live:

"We don't know what the Supreme Court decision means for the next go-round. We will have a new commander in chief. It's a new game," said Mark Delapaine, an analyst with the California Coastal Commission.

Exactly... we have entered fully The Age of Stupidity.