The Central Irony in “The Age of Obama”...

These are certainly "trying" and I fear, increasingly "harder (especially economic) times" in which to live.

We've overspent and borrowed ourselves into a disastrous state due primarily a leftward lurch by our government, caused by politicians seeing the need for more government action everywhere and have yet to feel the full consequences of that.

And this profligacy didn't start with Barack Obama....not by a long shot.

Our leftward lurch, itself, probably started with Woodrow Wilson a liberal Democrat (and avowed racial bigot) who oversaw the passage of the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment (the progressive income tax)...it followed through Warren Harding's one term, with a brief Conservative respite with Calvin Coolidge's tenure, before roaring back to life under the first "Progressive President of the USA" - Herbert Hoover, who started many of the programs that FDR built the New Deal upon!

Hoover also had the U.S. Army engage in one of its most shameful acts - firing upon hundreds of WW I Vets who had come to Washington, D.C. to claim their promised "Bonus Checks." That incident, the attack on the "Bonus Marchers,” was led by, of all people, General Douglas MacArthur!

Here's one account; "On 28 July, 1932, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the police evacuation of the Bonus Army veterans. When they resisted the police shot at them, killing two. When told of this, President Hoover ordered the army to effect the evacuation of the Bonus Army from Washington.

"At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, Fort Myer, Virginia, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch the U.S. Army attack its own veterans. The Bonus Marchers, believing the display was in their honour, cheered the troops until Maj. Patton ordered the cavalry to charge them — an action which prompted the civil service spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"

"After the cavalry charge the infantry, with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, entered the camps, evicting veterans, families, and camp followers. The veterans fled across the Anacostia River to their largest camp and President Hoover ordered the assault stopped. However Gen. MacArthur, feeling this exercise was a Communist attempt at overthrowing the U.S. Government, ignored the President and ordered a new attack. Hundreds of veterans were injured and several killed "

That was probably the worst abuse of power, yet to be unleashed on American soil, against American citizens and by America’s own government! Fittingly it occurred under the auspices of “the Jimmy Carter of his day,” Herbert Hoover, who, like Carter was a man noted for his brilliance, a trained engineer and a modern “progressive,” who inanely believed that “Every problem has a scientific solution best implemented by a benevolent government.”

That liberalism continued unabated through FDR's four terms...

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...After WWII (the event that finally ended the Great Depression) America was reborn (economically) as the sole super-power (the last nation standing) after that conflict and reaped decades of easy prosperity that later fueled the disastrous 1960s and the unbridled excesses of the LBJ administration, followed by the equally onerous and equally Keynesian policies of the Nixon-Ford administrations, until we had our second major economic calamity under the aforementioned Jimmy Carter, who until today reigned as "the most liberal President in American history." He is now second to B Obama.

But Congress STILL overspent during Reagan's tenure, during Bush Sr's tenure and under Bill Clinton UNTIL 1995, when the "Gingrich Congress" came in and halted government spending.

After Gingrich left office in late 1998, the GOP Congress (under DeLay and later Hastert) became as spendthrift as almost any Congress had been, either Democrat or Republican....UNTIL the Pelosi-Reid Congress who've overspent and run the U.S. economy aground since 1997!

And G W Bush can be charged with having helped the Pelosi-Reid gang, or at least, doing little, if anything to stop them.

So by the time Barack Obama's first term ends, America will have suffered 100 years of (almost unabated and unchecked) big government liberalism....an ideology that turned America's Founding principles on their heads!

One of the great ironies of America’s rise to greatness is that it's the prosperity generated by Capitalist entrepreneurialism that forged so much of this nation’s excessive generosity and so much of its activist/equalizing and redistributionist "liberalism."

Now the days of cheap energy and cheap commodities are quickly coming to an end....we are competing for that energy, that water and those commodities with billions of others in quickly industrializing nations and the result is higher energy, water and commodity prices, making it harder to make the kinds of profits that earlier on, generated so much of our overly optimistic generosity.

We are not only heading into harder economic times due to decades of excessive government spending (politician's generosity with other people's money) and Keynesian economic policies (BOTH G W Bush and Barack Obama have been stalwart Keynesians), but we're doing so as the tectonic plates, both culturally and economically, shift beneath our feet.

The new realities (higher prices for energy, water and other commodities that will make generating Capital more arduous) that are already upon us will all but eradicate that sense of optimistic generosity that is the foundation of the West's egalitarian liberalism.

There are even some on the far-Left, who've suggested that Barack Obama, who has said to have been enthralled by Milton Friedman while at the University of Chicago and later surprised people as the editor of Harvard's law Review in seeking out "ideological diversity," in the form of more Conservative voices, may have been a stealth candidate set up to discredit and destroy liberalism in America once and for all.

That last bit is surely merely the paranoid ramblings of some on the extreme-Left, but it is ironic that "the most liberal President in U.S. history" would preside over its shockingly sudden implosion.

Who would have thought, fifteen months ago, in the wake of American liberalism having risen so high and so fast that it had many political pundits speculating that “Conservatives may not win any significant number of elections for a generation or more,” that it would fall so far, so fast, and with so little hope of reality cooperating with any liberal resurgence?

Deliberate or not, American Conservatives almost certainly do owe a great debt to Barack Obama. This administration has over-reached and turned a tone deaf ear to a populace clamoring for jobs and economic security and instead has busied itself attempting to deliver an ill-conceived healthcare takeover that would cost MORE instead of LESS. In so doing they have galvanized Conservative opposition and turned liberalism and progressivism into a dirty words in less than a year!


It took Jimmy Carter a full three years to accomplish all that!

H/T to Maria (namaste) of MyVoiceontheWingsofChange and Robert at WiseConservatism for stimulating these thoughts.

Joseph Stack – a “Conservative Tea Partier," Of Course....

This is a GREAT cartoon that appeared in Red State a few days ago.

It captures the essence of the media spin on IRA kamikaze, Joseph Stack.

What it doesn't explain is the equally ridiculous back-story - stung by a bona fide far-Left loon and ardent Obama supporter Amy Bishop gunning down colleagues at the University of Alabama, the MSM did what it always reflexively does, to grab at another incident and shout, "You guys do it TOO!"

Except of course, Conservatives DON'T!

It’s Happening!...

For over a year I’ve been saying “the worst is yet to come,” because I knew this Keynesian-triggered recession would not be brief and would NOT spare those usually spared – government workers.

Back on January 11^th, 2009 I said, “Think things are bad now?

Wait till we see tens of thousands of cops, teachers and other Municipal workers getting pension “buyouts” of pennies on the dollar, screaming about the “broken trust.”

http://workingclassconservative.blogspot.com/2009/01/coming-economic-strom-and-what.html

Aside from taking credit for yet more prescient prognostication, I take no pleasure in documenting how right I’ve been.

Today, California teeters on the edge of bankruptcy and about a dozen states are not very far behind, if behind Cali at all.

In New York, the MTA is laying off 1,100 transit workers. The City of New York is looking at massive layoffs of teachers, police officers and firefighters and New Jersey is facing the same kinds of draconian cuts.

Yes, a lot of those spoiled, insular Americans (mostly government workers) who wrongly thought they were immune from recessions are finding that’s far from true!

Turns out that the law of gravity applies to them too.

Fact is, without a vibrant PRIVATE sector, there can’t be a large, well paid PUBLIC sector.

NEED counts for nothing.

If NEED made those jobs necessary, OR if public sector jobs “were as good for the economy as private sector ones,” then Zimbabwe could find prosperity by merely hiring an Army of bureaucrats!

No, a country must first produce goods and services in demand by others in order to afford to care for the “needs” that the public sector services provide for.

And make no mistake, this is just the beginning! The WORST is STILL “yet to come!”

I’m not at all happy to say that.

Not So Funny Story - Joseph Stack (the IRS Kamikaze Pilot) Turns Out to Have Been a Raging Leftist....

You know what’s really pathetic about the post-event coverage of Joseph Stack’s kamikaze attack on a Texas IRS office?

It’s the mainstream media’s bending over backwards to make Joe Stack into a “Right-wing, tea party going, radical tax protester.”

Funny stuff, especially in light of Stack’s rambling LEFTIST tirade, that also served as his suicide note, in effect, his “dying declaration.”

His rant starts off, “We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.”

He then rambled on about the abuses of American businesses, “Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.”

He then turned his attentions to the Left’s favorite past time, “(GW) Bush bashing”; “As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough).”

And another favorite past time of the Left, “religion-bashing”; “Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.”

One of his rambling anecdotes also centered around corporate abuse; “...at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.”

He ended his rant with this raging anti-Capitalist sentiment;

“The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

“The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”

Just as surely as Herbert Hoover was an outright and self-proclaimed Progressive,” a man who claimed that “Every problem has a scientific solution, best implemented by a benevolent government,” Joseph Stack was an ardent anti-Capitalist and a passionate leftist. Stack’s dying declaration bashed G W Bush but never even mentioned the current President, Barack Obama.

Does that sound at all like a “Right-wing, Tea-Partier”?

No, not at all, but it DOES sound very much like any generic Leftist.

UPDATE:

A GREAT post on the media's linking IRS Kamiakze, Joseph Stack to the Tea Party Movement can be found over at Sweetness and Light:
Media Link Joseph Stack To ‘Tea Party’

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/time-wapo-link-joe-stack-to-tea-party

Rep. Alan Grayson Reviles Free Speech...

Rep. Grayson of Florida wants the owner of a parody website imprisoned for five years...for “running that website”

U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson of Orlando, Florida (pictured above) has taken such offense at a parody website aimed at unseating him that the freshman Democrat has asked that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder investigate the Lake County activist who started the anti-Grayson website “mycongressmanisnuts.com,” a parody based on Grayson’s own “Congressmanwithguts.com.”

Rep. Grayson accuses Republican activist Angie Langley of, among other things, lying to federal elections. His four-page complaint highlights the fact that the Clermont resident lives outside his district, but that Langley still uses the term “my” in “mycongressmanisnuts.com.”

“Ms. Langley has deliberately masqueraded as a constituent of mine, in order to try to create the false appearance that she speaks for constituents who don’t support me,” writes Grayson. “[She] has chosen a name for her committee that is utterly tasteless and juvenile.”

Alan Grayson has requested that Langley be fined and “imprisoned for five years.”

Sounds about right, for a very REAL anti-1^st Amendment fascist.

The Oath Keepers – Constitutionalists Among America’s Military and Emergency Services....

 







“We are...Americans [who’ve sworn an oath to the Constitution] who want the Constitution returned to its legal and rightful place, intact, as the ultimate Law of the Land.”

So states one of the tenets of a new group of “Oath Sworn Americans” (active and retired military, police and firefighters) who have joined together to support the U.S. Constitution and Constitutional governance.

As you might expect, the far-Left in America takes a very dim view of such folks!

“Oath Keepers, the militia/“Patriot” extremist group made up of law enforcement officers, military personnel and veterans...”

Southern Poverty Law Center Blog

by Rob Waters

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/10/21/oath-keepers-say-theyre-on-patrol-in-iraq/#more-3449

“Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, a conspiracy-minded, antigovernment organization composed mostly of active-duty police and military officers and veterans...”

The Southern Poverty Law Center

by Larry Keller

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/02/01/gun-rights-advocates-to-march-against-phantom-threat/#more-3599

So, who are the Oath Keepers?

Well, in their own words, from their own website (http://oathkeepers.org/oath/);

“Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, and firefighters who will fulfill the oath we swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.

“Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and we will not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders, such as orders to disarm the American people or to place them under martial law and deprive them of their ancient right to jury trial.

“We Oath Keepers have drawn a line in the sand. We will not “just follow orders.”

“Our motto is “Not on our watch!”

“If you, the American people, are forced to once again fight for your liberty in another American Revolution, you will not be alone. We will stand with you.

“There is at this time a debate within the ranks of the military regarding their oath. Some mistakenly believe they must follow any order the President issues. But you can rest assured that many others in the military do understand that their loyalty is to the Constitution, and understand what that means.

“The mission of Oath Keepers is to vastly increase their numbers. We are in a battle for the hearts and minds of our own troops. To win that battle, Oath Keepers will use written and video testimony of active duty military, veterans (especially combat vets), and peace officers to reach, teach, and inspire our brothers in arms in the military and police to fulfill their oaths and stand as guardians of the Republic.

“If you are currently in the military, are a veteran, or are a peace officer, please submit your written and/or video testimony on your oath, so you can help us win that battle for hearts and minds. Your submission may be anonymous.

“Guardians of the Republic, fulfill your oath. Join us.”

Stewart Rhodes (pictured above) even defines what the Oath Keepers are NOT;

“What We Are Not

“We are Not advocating or promoting the overthrow of any government whether local, state or national. We want our governments to return to the Constitutional Republic which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution defined and instituted.

“We are Not advocating or promoting violence towards any organization, group or person. We are determined to Keep our Oath to support and defend the Constitution.

“We are not advocating or promoting the removal of any person from his or her elected office. We want all elected persons to live up to their Oath to “support and defend the Constitution” as it is written or to leave of their own volition.

“We are not advocating or promoting that anyone in the Judicial Branch be removed or replaced. We want the Justices in the Judicial Branch to follow the Constitution as written without interpretation.

“We are not advocating or promoting any particular form of government other than the Constitutional Republic which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution defined and instituted.

“We are not advocating or promoting the rewriting of the Constitution nor are we asking for an Amendment thereto. We are insisting on the Constitution being Enforced as it is written.

“We are Not advocating or promoting any act or acts of aggression against any organization or person for any
reason including, but not limited to; race, religion, national origin, political affiliation, gender or sexual orientation.

We hope for a return to a Constitutional Republic free from fear and hatred. We hate only tyranny.

“We are Oath Sworn Americans who want the Constitution returned to its legal and rightful place, intact, as the ultimate Law of the Land.”

I support the Oath Keepers and strongly believe my fellow Americans should, as well. While only military and emergency service peace officers can join as full members, every citizen can join as “associate members.”

Their website is; http://oathkeepers.org/oath/

Rosie O’Donnell – “Your Feelings are MORE Important Than Your Facts”...

In case ANYONE needed any more proof that (A) liberalism really IS an emotional disorder and (B) that Rosie O’Donnell is a bona fide moron, there’s THIS from her own Sirius Sattelite radio show, talking with Janette Barber (her executive producer) about how she created Elizabeth Hasselbeck;

                                 

O'DONNELL: “Nobody ever really paid [attention to Hasselbeck] until I got on that show. It was me. I created that monster. Nobody really gave a s--t what she said before, right? So then I'm on there and I'm fighting with her, and then she got invited to the White House. I remember thinking when she told me that, 'Oops, the beginning of the end.' ”

JANETTE BARBER: “...Before you got there, every day was Desperate Housewives and 'Who wants to buy a new purse?' The nature of the show did change, and, I will say, very much for the better.”

O'DONNELL (imitating Hasselbeck): “'Can I just say one thing?' ”

O’Donnell (AS HERSELF): “'No' - That's what I always wanted to say... 'You can't say anything else, 'cause you're yelling and you're not that smart.' She wanted her facts. I kept telling her, 'Your feelings are more important than your facts. Anybody can Google your facts, Elisabeth, but you have to show your humanity. What are your feelings about this?' ”

THAT’S the problem with liberals, facts aren’t important to them, “feeeelings” ARE!

That’s why I call liberalism “emotional thinking.”

Rosie O’Donnell, 9-11 Truther (“This must be the first time in recorded history that fire melted steel” – FACT: Steel melts at appx. 2700 degrees Fahrenheit AND loses 80% of its strength at 1800 degrees F) and emotional thinker (“Your feelings are more important than your facts” - FACT: Not in the "fact-based reality we all actually live in).

What’s that Rosie said about Hasselbeck?...(“...you're not that smart”).

Maybe Rosie should look in the mirror a little more, at least while saying things like that.

Thoughts on James O’Keefe...

 

In my view, James O'Keefe (pictured top), in surreptitiously entering Mary Landrieu’s (pictured bottom, in red) Senate office in Louisiana, committed a tactical, but not a criminal error and despite being charged, he will, in all probability, eventually be cleared, since O’Keefe and his companions had no bugging equipment and, as citizens, they did have a right to examine the actions of their servants in government.

Certainly, O'Keefe should rethink and refine his strategies, but no public official should ever be free from the prying eyes of the public, let alone investigative journalists and sad to say, the ONLY real difference between James O'Keefe and our mainstream "investigative journalists" is that James O'Keefe doesn't work for a media company so in bed with the government that it exempts most public officials from its investigations.

For instance, 60 Minutes wouldn't dare investigate any elected official so vigorously, now-a-days.

IF Mary Landrieu's office DID indeed ignore calls from irate constituents, they and she, as public servants, had no right to do that and they SHOULD be held accountable for that. If members of Congress really are that unresponsive and unaccountable than there should be an army of James O'Keefe's working for a Congressional Oversight Committee.

Just as ACORN, as an entity receiving government funds had no right to privacy regarding their malfeasance and misuse of those funds, no government officials have any legitimate expectation of privacy concerning any of their questionable actions.

Today, cops are routinely video taped doing their jobs, in fact, most police cruisers are equipped with dash board cameras. If those public servants can be subjected to such scrutiny (and they legally CAN BE), than so can our elected officials and those entities, especially "non-profits" that rely on government funds for their existence.

What I don't get is so many self-proclaimed Liberal Americans, who appear to have such a huge problem with unaccountable and unresponsive corporate leaders, not only seemingly have little problem with unaccountable and unresponsive public officials, they actually often tend to actually bend over backwards to kiss government ass at every opportunity.

Abusive government is far more threatening than abusive corporations. The over 1 BILLION people murdered by various socialist governments throughout the last century proves that.

In fact, there is no greater threat to democracy and more importantly to INDIVIDUAL Liberty than corrupt and abusive/over-reaching governance. We're all finding out the very painful reality that it is the PRIVATE sector that allows the PUBLIC sector to exist....and NOT the reverse.

What’s Going On Over At MSNBC?...

MSNBC has long made its stock and trade in left-wing nuttiness, from Chris Matthews “tingling legs,” to his referring to West Point as “enemy territory,” to his inane State of the Union Address “post-racial” gushing, “It's interesting: he is post-racial, by all appearances. I forgot he was black tonight for an hour"...to David Shuster’s inane tweet directed at James O’Keefe “@JamesOKeefeIII a) you are not a journalist b) the truth is you intended to tap her phones c) it's a felony d) you will go to prison,” all the way to Keith Olbermann’s calling Scott Brown, the new Senator from MA., “a homophobic, racist, teabagging, ex-nude model,” and even more recently,  MSNBC has done its best to alienate mainstream America, while plumbing the depths of cable news depravity.

All of which is almost certainly why the most recent ratings scoreboard looks like THIS:

The Scoreboard: Monday, Feb. 8

By Kevin Allocca

Tuesday, Feb 9^th, 2010

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_monday_feb_8_151592.asp

25-54 demographic: (L +SD)

Total day: FNC: 455 | CNN: 144 | MSNBC: 116 | HLN: 155

Prime: FNC: 792 | CNN: 181 | MSNBC: 241 | HLN: 185

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	Beck:	Baier:	Shep:	O'Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O'Reilly:
	835	629	559	1154	734	478	448
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Brown:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	89	109	158	141	178	225	184
MSNBC	Matthews:	EdShow:	Matthews:	Olbermann:	Maddow:	Olbermann:	Maddow:
	46	112	205	302	230	181	157
HLN	Prime:	Prime:	Issues:	Grace:	Behar:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	119	97	129	245	167	155	143

It’s gotten so bad at MSNBC that even the business channels are speculating about the demise of one of its stalwarts. DailyFinance even asked, “Is America Getting Over Keith Olbermann?”

In that piece, it noted that, “Ratings for Olbermann's Countdown have been soft recently, and the 8 p.m. shows on CNN and HLN have narrowed the gap. In the important demographic of adults 25 to 54 - the group advertisers are looking to reach - Countdown was down 44% year-over-year in January. It averaged 268,000 viewers in that demo, only 3,000 more than Nancy Grace's show on HLN, and 12,000 more than CNN's Campbell Brown. Fox News's O'Reilly Factor dominated the hour with 964,000 viewers age 25 to 54, and was the only cable news show in the time period to increase its audience, by 55%.”

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/is-america-getting-over-keith-olbermann/19337944/

For his part, Olbermann responded with his typical aplomb, calling DailyFinance "a right-wing site" and accusing them of “cherry-picking” ratings data.

MSNBC’s far-left tilt was initially bankrolled by GE, but they’ve sold NBC and its affiliates to ComCast Cable and the dismal ratings at MSNBC can’t possibly sit well with a real media company!

Maybe GE’s Jeffrey Immelt would subsidize a televised version of Air America, but is ComCast Cable really going to do the same?

And why even bother?

Especially with “Countdown’s” pulling in only slightly more than a QUARTER of O’Reilly’s viewership.

All of this has had MSNBC president Phil Griffin forced to respond:

"Keith has been our tentpole," he says. "I watch the show every night. It's a great show. It's as smart and clever and fun as any out there, and I'm pleased with where we are."

Griffin claims to attribute Olbermann's January ratings slip to a news cycle in which international news, rather than domestic politics, was the No. 1 story. "On big, breaking international news, CNN tends to do better than us. They did a great job in Haiti, and I tip my hat to them," he says. "We're the place for politics, and there are times when politics does great, and there are times when it doesn't." Looking ahead to this year’s primaries and the coming midterm elections, he says, "I think we'll get our momentum back."

Hardly a ringing endorsement, eh?

Sounds more like what you hear when a sports team is looking to unload an aging player.

For the final word, Keith Olbermann retreated, appropriately enough, to the Daily Kos, where he wrote, “Let me cut to the chase (since this is besides the point, except insomuch as it contradicts the meme): the show isn't about to be cancelled. It isn't slumping. MSNBC isn't worried about it. NBC isn't worried about it. It is making them a - damned fortune, in fact (and they'd owe me a - damned fortune if they did cancel it, which they aren't going to).”

TRANSLATION: “Alright the jig appears to be up, but MSNBC’s going to pay through the nose for firing me...I sure hope Sports Center’s saved a spot for me...Dan?...Dan Patrick???...Hey bud...How ya doin’?”

At any rate, I have three questions for old "Red Bell Bottoms" Olbermann; (1) When your station's President has to acknowledge that a competitor "does international news stories better than we do," isn't that a cause for concern?...(2) Would you please define "damned fortune" for us?...and (3) "Tentpole?" That sounds waaay too close to A$$hole, doesn't it?!

Recent Rasmussen's Polls Tell a Fascinating....and Hopeful Story....

Last Summer, liberals were shocked at the Gallup Poll that showed there were almost twice as many self-identified Conservatives (40%) in America as there are Liberals (21%), but three recent Rasmussen Polls show where the majority of the American people stand on things even clearer.

In one, titled, Politically Speaking, Populist Isn’t Popular, But Conservative Is, Americans prefer the affiliation “Conservative by a very wide margin, when compared to populist, progressive, liberal or libertarian!

In fact, that poll breaks down like this;

Affiliation   POSITIVE  NEGATIVE

CONSERVATIVE    40%       16%

Progressive     22%       35%

Libertarian     18%       31%

Liberal         14%       39%

Populist         8%       36%

The ONLY affiliation with POSITIVES over 30% is CONSERVATIVE, likewise the ONLY affiliation with NEGATIVES UNDER 20% is CONSERVATIVE!

The affiliation with the 2^nd HIGHEST positives was “progressive” with 22% (nearly half that of Conservatives).

The affiliation with the 2^nd LOWEST negatives was LIBERTARIAN with 31%.

The affiliation with the HIGHEST negatives was LIBERAL with 39%, followed closely by both “progressive” and “populist” at 35% and 36% respectively.

Populist was the ONLY affiliation with POSITIVES under 10%!

That would seem to be VERY good news for Conservatives and VERY BAD news for the Left...no matter what they call themselves!

Still another Rasmussen Report, titled, 75 Percent Are Angry At Government’s Current Policies, declares that a national telephone survey “shows that 75% of likely voters now say they are at least somewhat angry at the government’s current policies, up four points from late November and up nine points since September. The overall figures include 45% who are Very Angry, also a nine-point increase since September.

“As the economy continues to stumble along, 59% of voters believe cutting taxes is better than increasing government spending as a job-creation tool, but 72% expect the nation’s elected politicians to increase spending instead.

“Looking back, most voters still don't approve of the multi-billion-dollar government bailouts of the financial industry and troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler.”

Seemingly proving that voters voted in Democrats in 2008 to CUT spending and reduce the deficit, and are angry that they chose to do the reverse!

And in yet a third recent Rasmussen Report entitled, Americans Reject Keynesian Economics, there is even more bad news for left-leaning, Keynesian Liberals.

“John Maynard Keynes would say it’s best to increase deficit spending in tough economic times, only 11% of American adults agree and think the nation needs to increase its deficit spending at this time. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% disagree and say it would be better to cut the deficit.

“In fact, 59% think Keynes had it backwards and that increasing the deficit at this time would hurt the economy rather than help.

To help the economy, most Americans (56%) believe that cutting the deficit is the way to go.”

As far as what’s causing our current problems (too much government SPENDING and intervention), the voters seem very well informed.

That is almost certainly why politically, no matter how you spin it, more Americans are angry at their government, more are opposed to government spending and larger deficits and perhaps most promising of all, by an overwhelming margin favor candidates who affiliate with the term CONSERVATIVE than any other. In fact Conservative and Libertarian had the two LOWEST negatives, while “populist” was the only affiliation to have positives UNDER 10%!

Like that information or not, it would seem to be vital data when pondering the next election, coming up in about nine months.