Are you still supporting AARP?

If so, why?  They have caused far more damage than any benefit to your personal pocketbook could overcome.  Remember, they supported the prescription drug plan.  Have your prescriptions gone down? No, I didn't think so. Mine have gone up a lot.
Legal Insurrection has a lot to say about the AARP and Consumers Union.

When Will AARP, Consumers Union and AMA Be Held To Account for Obamacare?

The Daily Caller (h/t Instapundit) has an interesting post today on the push back by Tea Party supporters against corporations -- particularly in the pharmaceutical industry -- which cooperated and cut deals with the Obama administration to help pass Obamacare. The Washington Post had a similar article just after the mid-term elections, focused not so much on Tea Parties but how the Republican establishment was taking note.

But what about AARP, Consumers Union, and the AMA, each of which provided invaluable cover and support to the administration, as documented in my prior posts:
* AARP Rides To Obamacare's Rescue, Again
* Alphabet Soup of Health Care Delusions
* AARP Shills for Kennedy
* AARP Prepares To Sell Out Seniors
* Consumer Reports' Specious Stand On Health Care Reform
* Consumer Reports' Massive Fail
* AARP and Consumers Union Should Put Their Money Where Their Pro-Tax Mouths Are

In November 2009, as the House prepared it's Saturday night vote on Obamacare, I noted the role of the AMA and AARP:
Don't have much time this morning to comment further, but note the irony that today the jobless rate hit a 25-year high at 10.2%, and tomorrow night Democrats in the House of Representatives are planning to push through a health care restructuring bill that is guaranteed to kill more jobs. The Democrats refuse to wait until Monday for a vote and insist on a special session Saturday night....

Oh, and AMA and AARP - you people have no idea of the damage you are doing by supporting this last minute rush towards madness. Or maybe you do, but you don't care.

It is time to hold all institutions -- not just for-profit corporations -- which helped pass Obamacare to account for what they did. AARP, Consumers Union, and the AMA would be a good start.

Update 11-28-2010: For the record, I let my Consumer Reports subscription, which I had for many years, expire last year, and I throw out all the membership cards and info. from AARP which show up in my mailbox. As my readers know, I'm not a big fan of organized boycotts, but that doesn't mean I have to give them my money.

Tax Refunds for Illegals? What about illegal do they not understand?

This is from Gateway Pundit, and by the way, Gateway has moved to rightnetwork.com

NY Advocacy Group Helps Illegal Aliens Get Tax Refunds
by Jim Hoft

The Neighborhood Economic Development Agency, an advocacy group in New York, is helping illegal aliens recoup tax refunds.
The Daily News reported:

A Manhattan group is helping illegal immigrants recoup unclaimed state tax refunds – even if they used fake Social Security numbers to work.

The Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project got back thousands for a dozen undocumented New Yorkers who overpaid.

One bodega worker from Jackson Heights had been paying taxes since 2002 but never got a refund – until the group helped him get back $670 from his 2008 return.

“It really helped – we have two young kids,” said his wife, who says they pay taxes because “it’s the right thing to do.”
(ed.note: this is one of the most pitiful statements I've ever heard, does she not realize what Undocumented or illegal means? It seems as though she actually has very good intentions.)

Thousands more could be due a windfall from the Department of Taxation and Finance.

“We’ve been getting calls from people who say they’ve been filing taxes for more than 10 years, and they’ve never gotten a refund,” said Deyanira Del Rio, the advocacy group’s associate director.

Since 1996, a growing number of undocumented immigrants have filed taxes using a special ID number, without alerting immigration officials.

Hispanic Voters in Texas and Elsewhere

the Washington Post has an opinion piece on the Repbulicans share of Hispanic Voters.  It seems we are seeing more and more of them.

The GOP's other Election Day victory
By Lamar Smith
The conventional wisdom has already settled like a blanket over Washington. Allegedly, Hispanics flocked to the polls to punish Republicans for the Arizona immigration law. They "saved" the Senate for Democrats. And on and on. The conventional wisdom, however, is wrong. The 2010 election actually paints a very bright picture of the Republican Party's relations with this country's growing Hispanic population.

Exit polls reported by CNN and updated this week reveal that a historically robust 38 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots for House Republican candidates in 2010 - more than in 2006 (30 percent) and 2008 (29 percent). In fact, since 1984, Republican House candidates have only won a higher percentage of the Hispanic vote in one election: 2004. This level of Hispanic support for Republican candidates came despite widespread pre-election claims by advocates for illegal immigration that the Arizona law and a pro-rule-of-law stand would undercut Hispanic support for Republicans.
[....]
Hispanic workers face the impact of illegal immigration head-on. Among native-born Hispanics without a high school degree, 35 percent are either unemployed, are so discouraged that they have left the labor force or are forced to work part time.

Many Hispanics indeed voted for the very Republican candidates most identified as having a pro-enforcement or anti-amnesty stance.

Read the rest and the statistics here.

Teacher Education

The Washington Post has an editorial called "Teaching the Teachers."  In it they call for teachers to have more hands on  experience from the beginning of their training, to making sure we get teachers who are at the top of the class.

What they are trying to say is the old adage I heard for years "those who can, do; those who can't teach."  That is an insulting way of saying many teachers are in it because that is all they are capable of, want the many benefits and complain of the long hours.  I know we all have teachers we remember because they were so very good, impressed us with their knowledge, and to this day we use what they taught us.

Most of the teachers I have known personally were good teachers.  I think I could tell because of the way they spoke of their students. If they saw the students and their parents as the enemy it is a pretty good bet they were not good teachers. It they spoke enthusiasticaly about what was going on in their classes it was a good bet they were good teachers, those who would be remembered for a lifetime.

Here is a little of what the Washington Post has to say:

TEACHERS, LIKE DOCTORS, should receive their training through clinical practice. That conclusion of a national report calling for teacher education to be "turned upside down" makes sense. But if medicine is the model, this country also has to figure out how to attract its most accomplished graduates to teaching. Training is important in improving teacher quality, but so is making teaching a career that appeals to the best and the brightest.

Last week a panel of education experts convened by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education issued a report proposing an overhaul of how teachers are trained. It recommends a shift from the focus on classroom lectures and course work to practical hands-on experience. Those who aspire to teach would, from day one, be immersed in the actual work. Other suggestions include rigorous accountability measures for education schools and targeted research into which programs are most effective. It's an ambitious agenda, and it's unclear whether education schools, accrediting agents and individual school districts will have the will or the resources to sign on. But it's encouraging that a group generally not seen as on the cutting edge of reform is advancing these ideas and that eight states already have signaled their intent to add more clinical practice to their teaching training programs.

More attention also must be paid to the quality of those seeking to be trained as teachers. The report calls for raising admission, performance and graduation standards for aspiring teachers but leaves largely unanswered how to attract top talent.

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to wish all my friends a Happy Thanksgiving. We all have so much to thankful for, yet at the same time we  must all remember that we have a tremendous task before us if we are to keep America the home of the brave and the land of the free.

November the 2^nd was an important first step in preserving our country for future generations, but we must remember that it was just a first step. The socialist who have gained control in Washington led by President Obama will fight tooth and nail to keep America on the path to socialism and unless we stand firm our recent gains will be lost. I find it exciting that the many of us who are in our latter years can make our voices heard and can still turn this great nation over to the next generation intact and free.

Lets us remember that it wasn’t long ago that it seemed inevitable that America would be lost and that those who desire to bring to our country the dubious joys of socialism would be victorious. But now millions of freedom loving Americans have refused to go down in history as the generation that lost America.

I ask all of us as we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow that we remember those who have fought to keep America free and that we look forward to the opportunity that we have to wage the good fight to preserve America and our God given rights and that we can still keep America free for all generations to come.

Malcolm Dieckow

 

Ground Zero Mosque Applies for $5 Million Federal Grant

Adding insult to injury - how stupid will New York prove to be?

Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located two blocks from ground zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The former Burlington Coat Factory building that will make way for the Cordoba House (the 'Ground Zero Mosque') is seen in lower Manhattan on Jul. 29, 2010 in New York. (Photo: Timothy A. Clary, AFP / Getty Images)
The audacious move stands to reignite the embers of a divisive debate that dominated headlines surrounding the ninth anniversary of the attacks this fall, say people vested in the issue.

The application was submitted under a “community and cultural enhancement” grant program administered by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation (LMDC), which oversaw the $20 billion in federal aid allocated in the wake of 9/11 and is currently doling out millions in remaining taxpayer funds for community development. The redevelopment board declined to comment on the application (as did officials from Park51), citing the continuing and confidential process of determining the grant winners.

Article here.

Gore: U.S. corn ethanol "was not a good policy"-By Gerard Wynn

He explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions.

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."

Who Knew?! All of us with our eyes wide open!! If even Al Gore knows the real scoop, isn't it about time the rest of the greenies gave up? And especially when he admits it was to buy votes!

Go here for the entire article.

VDH on Calling a Swede a Swede and the News you Didn't Read in the newspaper or see on TV

Anyone who reads this blog is familiar with my love of what Victor Davis Hanson writes.
Today he has hit it out of the park again.

Calling a Swede a Swede
Imagine an alternate universe where terrorists are Scandinavian — Swedes, to be specific.

Imagine, if you will, an alternative universe where perception is slightly altered to reflect a different reality. In this universe, terrorists are Scandinavian — Swedes, to be specific.

We should not generalize, and it is clear that not all Swedes are terrorists, but all terrorists are Swedes. These radicals have perverted the beautiful Nordic religion of peace and turned it into an ideology of hatred.

The facts clearly show that the men who try to smuggle bombs onto airplanes have blond hair, blue eyes, are between twenty and forty years old, believe in the supreme god Odin, and carry names like Ingmar Johansson.

They talk funny and they love smorgasbord, which is a traditional Nordic meal with lots of raw fish, and every Swede can drink alcohol in amounts that would kill six reindeer within three minutes.

How do we make sure these bomb-laden Swedes don’t board our airplanes? How can we recognize these radical Nordic terrorists? Should we check dark-haired Asians called Honda? Italians called Ferrari?

Would it be acceptable to single out Swedes trying to travel by air? Or should we, trying to avoid offending Swedish sensibilities, check every person with an airline ticket in general and especially focus on inspecting their crotch? After all, Swedes love to wear their bombs in their underwear, so maybe non-Swedes also wear bombs in their underwear, right?

Read the rest here.

And now for the news you didn't read:

When News is No News

Here are a few important developments that remain strangely ignored. I say strangely, but most readers understand why some news becomes news and some does not.

1) Iraq. The United States military between 2007 and 2009 crushed al-Qaeda in Iraq. It destroyed cadres of radical Islamists and Baathists. It stabilized the country. It was one of the most stunning military performances in modern history, and helped to destroy the image of a competent and scary al-Qaeda. Yet everything from the recapture of Fallujah to the sheer number of Islamists that were taken out of Anbar Province was largely ignored. It is as if we went to sleep in 2007 with “Iraq is lost” and then woke up in 2010 with “Of course, it is quiet now. Why wouldn’t it be?” — but with little thought of what transpired in between. We know few names, fewer stories of the heroic Americans who turned Iraq around after 2006 — or kept it from imploding from 2003 onward.

But wait there's more:

2) Chinese Roguery. China’s Communist Party predicates foreign policy on mercantilism — period.
3) The Gulf Oil Hysteria. We were told that aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico would be ruined for generations.
4) The Great Obama Flip-Flop. For over a year of hope and change, we were told by Obama that renditions, preventative detentions, and tribunals were anti-constitutional, that Guantanamo was synonymous with a gulag, that Iraq was lost, that Predators were a sort of airborne terror, that KSM and other terrorist killers should be tried in civilian courts — and what happened? Suddenly the world was turned upside down and what was once bad was now tolerable. And not a whimper about why, just the quiet assumption of “that was then, this is now.”
5) The Europe-America Cool-Off. Europe wanted Obama, got Obama, and now its elites are quietly whispering: “Why did you fulfill our childish wishes?”
6) The EU Meltdown. Surely the great story of the age is the serial meltdown of Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece and the furor of Germany and more Protestant northwestern Europe — all at a time when the September 15, 2008 ,Wall Street implosion supposedly had proved the triumph of socialism over the free market system.
7) The Implosion of the Green Movement. (be sure to read all of this one.)
8) The Nexus between California’s Financial Plight and Illegal Immigration. The state has the highest income, sales, and gas taxes and the largest deficits — and the largest number of illegal aliens.
9) The Implosion of Debt. There is very little said about the failure of Keynesian economics to restart the economy.
10) Obama and Race. We read of occasional slips from Obama and his associates, but never of the effect of lots of slips in the aggregate.

Be sure to click this link to read ALL of these listed topics.
If you have not read Victor Davis Hanson before this will show you why I think so highly of his intellect and reasonings.

Actually we noticed the water was boiling in time to change the Congress

Even so this is a good column.

The Frogs Finally Notice the Water is Boiling
by Arnold Alhert

...“but what we’re doing, what we’re putting up with, what we’re accepting at this airport is so symbolic of us just not standing up and saying ‘enough is enough.’”—Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)

Maybe it really did need to come to this. Maybe Americans had to literally have their privates groped by a government bureaucrat to finally realize that they have been the proverbial frogs sitting in a pot of water, unaware that they are being incrementally boiled to death. For those of you who still don’t get it, let me make it clear:

The ultimate destination of Political Correctness is totalitarianism.

For decades, Americans have tolerated the drip, drip, drip of Marxist-inspired progressivism right under our collective noses. We’ve watched our public schools eliminate the Pledge of Allegiance, because patriotism is “unseemly.” We’ve watched the same do-gooders eliminate keeping score in kids’ sports because competition is “evil,” and anything which produces winners and losers—including free-market capitalism—is “damaging to one’s sense of self-esteem.”
[....]
One more thing: if the Republics have an ounce of guts, they’ll offer up a bill on the floor of Congress. It will state one thing: every law Congress subjects Americans to, they will live under as well. That goes for everything from enduring the same pat downs inflicted on ordinary Americans at airports, to the same Social Security and Medicaid programs good enough for the rest of us, and everything in between.

Like Ron Paul said: enough is enough.

Read it all, it's very good.

Krauthammer Redeems himself with this editorial on Scan and Pat

You might ask, "why does he need to redeem himself?"  Well, some of us were very upset with him when he came down on the side of the elites in the recent election of some of the Tea Party backed candidates.  With this I see his rational self is back again.

Don't touch my junk
by Charles Krauthammer

Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who's ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube - where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a "flotation device" - has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many.

Who cares that the crazed steward got arrested, pleaded guilty to sundry charges, and probably was a rude, unpleasant SOB to begin with? Bonnie and Clyde were psychopaths, yet what child of the '60s did not fall in love with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty?

And now three months later, the newest airport hero arrives. His genius was not innovation in getting out, but deconstructing the entire process of getting in.. John Tyner, cleverly armed with an iPhone to give YouTube immortality to the encounter, took exception to the TSA guard about to give him the benefit of Homeland Security's newest brainstorm - the upgraded, full-palm, up the groin, all-body pat-down. In a stroke, the young man ascended to myth, or at least the next edition of Bartlett's, warning the agent not to "touch my junk."

Not quite the 18th-century elegance of "Don't Tread on Me," but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm, it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.

Don't touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter. Don't touch my junk, Obamacare - get out of my doctor's examining room, I'm wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don't touch my junk, Google - Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I'm a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?

More to read here.

Who donates to which party?

A very interesting list From Opensecrets.org, the Center for Responsive Politics.
Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2010
Here's the top 20:

Rank Organization Total '89-'09                          

      Dem %            Repub %                     Tilt

1 AT&T Inc $45,662,025                                                   44%          55%
2 ActBlue $43,181,888 *                                                      99%            0%

3 American Fedn of State, County &
 Municipal Employees $43,026,461                                   98%            1%

4 National Assn of Realtors $37,623,999                           48%           50%        tilt

5 Goldman Sachs $32,899,102                                            62%          37%

6 Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $32,685,295        97%          2%

7 American Assn for Justice $32,683,029  **                     90%          8%

8 National Education Assn $31,114,380                             93%           6%

9 Laborers Union $29,816,800                                           92%           7%

10 Carpenters & Joiners Union $28,945,308                       89%          10%

11 Service Employees International Union $28,889,882      95%           3%

12 Teamsters Union $28,876,759                                         93%           6%

13 American Federation of Teachers $28,224,891              98%            0%

14 Communications Workers of America $27,958,106       98%             0%

15 Citigroup Inc $27,594,316                                             50%             49%      tilt

16 American Medical Assn $26,854,670                            39%             60%

17 United Auto Workers $26,509,902                                 98%               0%

18 Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union $26,151,277  98%                0%

19 National Auto Dealers Assn $25,613,758                       32%              67%

20 United Parcel Service $24,994,164                                36%               62%

See the rest here.

*ActBlue is a United States political committee established in June 2004 that enables anyone to fundraise on the Internet for the Democratic Party candidates of their choice.


**The AThe American Association for Justice (AAJ), formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) is the leading organization for lawyers representing plaintiffs in the United States.merican Association for Justice (AAJ), formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) is the leading organization for lawyers representing plaintiffs in the United States.

Sorry I could not get the numbers in the list to line up accurately,  just hard to do a complete copy in the blogspot  editor.

Busy day links - be sure to read them, Soros, TSA, Democratic donors, military votes

DOJ’s Military Voting Mess Continues Post-Election, but Congress Now Paying Attention 

TSA Hit With Lawsuits As Revolt Explodes

Crashing the big Democratic donors' D.C. meeting
 
Soros: China has better functioning government than U.S.

Does McConnell actually get it, or did he just give in?

From The Hill:

GOP Senate leader McConnell backs down, agrees to earmark ban
By J. Taylor Rushing - 11/15/10 08:41 PM ET
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) announced Monday that he would join a GOP effort to ban congressional earmarks, a stunning turnaround that reflects a huge victory for the Tea Party movement.

A senior member of the Appropriations Committee, McConnell has been one of the Senate’s strongest proponents of local pork, but watched the practice fall into disfavor amid growing public anger over Washington spending that fueled GOP victories in this month’s midterm election.

“There is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight,” McConnell said Monday in a speech on the Senate floor.

“And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government,” he said.

McConnell’s decision puts another nail in the coffin for earmarks, which for years have been tucked into appropriations bills by members of both parties to benefit projects in their states and districts. Earmarks have been a lucrative business on K Street, where lobbyists seek to work with members to insert favored projects in spending vehicles.

Now those halcyon days appear to be a thing of the past.

Read it all here.

A "National Opt Out Day" is coming

Opt of of the TSA search and scan.  The designated day is Nov. 24th. But some are saying why not opt out any day and time. Read both articles. If you are planning to fly there may be some good tips for you.
Steve Graham of Tools of Renewal has some very good words on the legality of the TSA searches.

Don’t Tread on Me, but Grope me if You Must

The Price of Dignity: One Boarding Pass
Back when George Bush was President, it was a gigantic invasion of our civil rights when the TSA asked us to take off our shoes. At least that’s what many prominent liberals told us. Then Obama got elected, and Jim Carville said it was okay with him if the TSA measured his genitals. Not that there is a double standard, mind you.

[....]

This is the kind of thing the Bill of Rights was written to prevent. If you think otherwise, you are probably very stupid. At best, you are ignorant of history. The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to prevent government excesses. We were fleeing British tyranny, and the crown had a long record of torturing, confiscating property, performing unreasonable searches, prosecuting people without trials, and so on. We wanted to prevent our government from doing these things to us, so we drafted the first ten Amendments to the Constitution.

[....]

The Bill of Rights was not written just to keep you from being thrown in jail or executed or impoverished. It was also written to force the government to be polite. That is no exaggeration. So when the government demands the right to photograph or feel your vagina or scrotum, even for a few seconds, it ought to have a very good reason. And there is considerable doubt as to whether the TSA has good reasons for doing these things. The Israelis don’t do them, and their air safety record is second to none.

The sad truth is that it’s better for a few hundred people to die in midair explosions than for an entire nation to submit to sexual abuse. If that sounds crazy, think about the things our soldiers die for all the time.

Read it all, Steve is very smart and he lays out a very good case against the extreme searches. (that is the polite way to refer to them.)

Some of our Educators need to be Re-educated

Possibly some of the teachers need to have a re-indoctrination. Arnold Ahlert in Jewish World Review tells it this way:

Taking Back Our Country, One School At a Time
Despite the ridiculous levels of cover the mainstream media have given the Obama administration and the Democrat party's assortment of progressivist hacks, more and more Americans are coming to realize the level of contempt so many of these people have for our country. Yet far fewer Americans make the ultimate connection: such contempt is an acquired skill. One must be taught to believe America is a fundamentally broken nation requiring a top-to-bottom make-over. And where are they taught such things? In thousands of public schools around the nation. Latest case in point: Denair Middle School in California.
[....]
Americans have long understood that college campuses are hotbeds of progressive radicalism. What they might not realize is that those same campuses are nothing more than finishing schools for a process which, as Denair Middle School makes evident, begins far earlier. Day in day out, year after year, millions of children are being taught that America is a seething cauldron of racial unrest, an imperialist country with a "heartless" capitalist economic system, and an environmental "hog" consuming far too many resources. They are being given the message, both overtly and subliminally, that America is one big mess of a country.

Read it all here.

Another "Gee, who knew?" article on the environment

This from the Daily Mail online from the UK.

Environmentalists 'exaggerated' threat to tropical rainforests from global warming
By David Derbyshire
The threat to tropical rainforests from climate change may have been exaggerated by environmentalists, according to a new study.

Researchers have shown that the world's tropical forests thrived in the far distant past when temperatures were 3 to 5C warmer than today.
They believe that a wetter, warmer future may actually boost plants and animals living the tropics.
The findings, published in the respected journal Science, come from a study of pollen trapped in rocks during a natural period of global warming 56.3million years ago.

Science may be getting around to the truth instead of politics.

"the country is just not into you"

That is part of the closing line of of the last paragraph of one of the most interesing analogies I have ever seen.  In a post written by  by Oleg Atbashian.  He compares Obama's lies with a teenage boy trying to score with a girl.  He says, "When my old lies didn't work(ing) anymore and I needed to up my game, I sounded exactly like post-midterm Obama.

He goes on: I wonder how many American voters had elected Obama, not because they shared his theories or understood any of his hope and change rhetoric, but simply because they shared the same political hormones. Perhaps the number of voters with the hormone-impaired thinking can roughly be calculated by taking the amount of votes for Obama in 2008 and subtracting the much smaller amount of Democratic votes in 2010. Easy come, easy go.

I know how American liberals feel. Most of my Ukrainian girlfriends in my younger years must have been archetypal conservatives, while my endocrinal excesses made me an untrainable liberal. I thought I had their mandate, I didn’t listen, I pushed my agenda, and they voted me out of their lives.

Go read it all, it's a very interest concept.

I got this at Wizbang and I'm impressed.  It's General Colin Powell and veterans and veterans day.  Rick says this,  "Colin Powell is someone who infuriated me during the 2008 Presidential campaign and I find it hard to look past that but I'm liking what he has to say in this CBS video about our troops and I suspect you will as well:"  He was right I liked it, and I'm sharing it with you.

Thank You Veterans

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky                          
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

We don't think of this poem often enough.  When I was a child we did hear about it.  It is hard to believe so many more have died for our country since that time to keep us safe at home and to help the enslaved in other countries.  We are a remarkable nation.  We have have been blessed.  We have had so many willing to give their lives for our country.

 I do not know the number of military we have at this time.  I know the ones in our military now are all volunteers, that includes my grandson and grandchildren of my siblings. My brothers who are old and in ill health both volunteered at a time when the military wasn't volunteer but they remembered their uncles in the Marines and Navy in WWII. 

Today we honor them all. It's Veterans Day. 
For more on "In flander's Field" go here. and here. and here.

Reward the Faithful Republicans

From the Washington Examiner

House GOPers who stayed true should be rewarded, not tossed aside
By: Mark Tapscott

Molly Hooper of The Hill has a long piece today on Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann's challenge of Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling to succeed Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana for House Republican Conference Chairman.

As Hooper notes, Bachmann is portraying the contest as the Establishment GOP versus the Tea Party. Such a narrative probably makes sense to liberal journalists, but it misrepresents a key aspect of the struggle in recent years between faithful House GOP conservatives like Hensarling and those such as Jerry Lewis and Hal Rogers who went whole-hog for the old politics of earmarks and pork barrel.

Tea Party advocates are absolutely right to take down the Lewis and Rogers brand of Me-Too Republicanism, but what about those like Hensarling among the House GOP caucus who have been fighting the congressional GOP's drift leftward for many years?

Molly Hooper makes a good point. Read the rest.