Columnist.
It's no secret that the Left tends to be totalitarian in nature. Whether it was Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Russia, Castro's Cuba or Mao's China, there's nothing that pleases a Progressive more than a dictator with his boot on the neck of those they regard as a lower form of animal life: namely, conservatives. We can now add Obama's America to the long and dismal list. Whether it's using the IRS to punish his political foes; the Justice Department to spy on members of the press; the State Department to provide cover for the Benghazi massacre; or his own executive power to circumvent Congress and the Constitution by altering the Affordable Care Act on a weekly basis, Obama has decided it's good to be the dictator.
In my book, "67 Conservatives You Should Meet Before You Die," one of the questions I asked of all my subjects, who ranged, alphabetically, from Ablow, Keith, a prominent psychiatrist, to Zucker, David, a famous screenwriter-director, was which eight people who had ever lived, they would invite to a dinner party. Being conservatives, it wasn't too surprising that two people who would never have to pay for another meal if they ever showed up ready to tie on the old feedbag, were Jesus Christ and Winston Churchill. I have a feeling that if I had, God forbid, interviewed liberals, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and even the phony Indian, Ward Churchill, would have wound up with a lot of meal tickets. Although perhaps by this time, Ward might have to give up his seat to make way for that other phony Indian, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, at the big pow-wow.
It's been called to my attention by a few readers -- a little too gleefully in a couple of cases -- that I goofed when I recently passed along the news that Barack Obama had opened up gas stations in certain urban enclaves that, thanks to a little known section of the Affordable Care Act, were offering free gas to poor people. Apparently it was part of a satirical piece that had been posted on the Internet and red-flagged by Snopes. Okay, mea culpa. I wish I hadn't spread misinformation. In my defense, I can only say that it certainly sounded like a stunt that Obama would pull off in order to rev up his base in preparation for the 2014 elections. Besides, as we all know, my mistake today could easily be an Obama brainstorm tomorrow.
I don't recall a time when it was so profitable to be in the polling industry. It seems as if there's a new one every five minutes, and most of them, you've probably noticed, show Obama cratering at the speed of light. As a result, Republicans can hardly conceal their glee. I, on the other hand, look at the numbers and I feel like tearing my hair out. That is, I would if I had hair. Instead, I'd settle for tearing out someone else's; perhaps Chuck Hagel's or Harry Reid's. I know I should celebrate the fact that 59% of the electorate think Obama is doing a lousy job, but that means that 41% don't see it that way. How can I feel good as an American knowing that 83% of the people believe that our country is weaker and less powerful than it was six years ago? For one thing, that's not a situation in which I ever want America to find herself, but for another, it means 17% think we're stronger and more powerful since Obama took office, and they can't all be smoking pot in Colorado.
We have heard Obama blathering for so long about seven million sign-ups to the Affordable Care Act being a sure sign of success that, like the audience at a magic show, we have fallen for the misdirection that is the secret of every magician's sleight-of-hand. To begin with, we are being asked to ignore the fact that millions who have signed up used to pay for their own health insurance before ObamaCare forced their policies to be ruled null and void. Next, we are asked to ignore the fact that a large percentage of those people being counted haven't even made their first payment and, therefore, aren't actually enrolled. And, finally, we are asked to overlook the fact that, initially, we were told that 40% of the new sign-ups had to be young and healthy -- the so-called "invincibles" -- the latest estimate is that the number is closer to 25%.
Because it's so easy and so much fun to belittle politicians, and because the fun isn't limited to just Republicans or Democrats, we often lose sight of the fact that these folks are not members of royal families who inherit power the way others may inherit a farm or a family photo album. They actually have to run for office and be elected, even if their names are Bush, Clinton or Rockefeller. That being said, can you even imagine how stupid people have to be to elect Sheila Jackson Lee to represent them in Congress for the past 19 years? In spite of having a BA from Yale and a JD from the University of Virginia's Law School, Ms. Lee recently said, "We have survived for 400 years under a Constitution that defines what is constitutional and what is not." Even if you overlook the fact that she hasn't uttered a single negative word about the way Obama has trampled on both the Constitution and the House of Representatives, you would have assumed that a member of Congress would be aware that the Constitution is only 227 years old, not 400. I guess it's safe to assume that those degrees owe far more to affirmative action than to Ms. Lee's scholarship.
Even the good news these days is tainted. For instance, the department of Homeland Security has granted the Romeikes, the German family seeking asylum, indefinite deferred status. That means they will not be deported back to their homeland, where they faced losing custody of their children because of their insistence on home-schooling the kids. The bad news is that our government took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which wound up denying them asylum on a technicality. What was the point? To frighten them? To prove America can be as intolerant as Germany? To show that even in the midst of the longest recession in our history and all of those pricey Obama vacations, we still have money to waste on pointless legal exercises?
When my dog Angel and I take off on her two daily constitutionals, we merely circle the block. Under normal circumstances, it would only take me about 10 minutes. Instead, it usually requires half an hour. That's because Angel needs to stop and sniff just about every bush, tree, wall and fire hydrant, we pass. It was driving me nuts until I realized that my email is her peemail, and God knows I spend far more time dealing with mine. I suspect in the dog world, it's regarded as all the news that's fit to spritz. Also, having recently debuted my new webcast (Wednesday from 1-1:50 P.M., at K4HD.com), it occurred to me that as much as I hate speaking on the phone, I enjoy speaking into my mic. The difference, I've decided, is that I'm prepared to speak to the callers. That's why I'm sitting there, whereas when my phone rings, it's interrupting whatever I may be doing with its shrill and incessant demand to be answered. Furthermore, when I'm doing my show, nobody is calling trying to sell me a loan, a renovated kitchen or, worst of all, a politician.
According to Harry Reid, "There have been plenty of horror stories being told about the Affordable Care Act, but they're all untrue." My initial reaction was to ask if people were going to believe Harry or their canceled health insurance policies. But then, after thinking about it a while, it occurred to me that the real horror stories are the lies Obama and his collection of sock puppets keep feeding us. From Harry Reid's point of view, the facts regarding low enrollment numbers, the small percentage of enrollees who are young and healthy and the inevitable loss of Senate seats to the GOP in November, are far more horrific than anything even I could conjure up.
The health and fashion magazines keep telling their readers that 60 is the new 50, and 50 is the new 40, and so on. We now have further proof that college is the new high school. It seems that the SAT, an exam that is supposed to establish which 18-year-olds are college material and which ones should consider getting into politics as soon as possible, is not only making the essay portion optional, but removing difficult words from the vocabulary part of the exam. Apparently, anyone who can spell c-a-t and is willing to hock his or her future for a college loan is now deemed to be college material.
It seems like almost every day someone sends me pictures of George W. Bush riding dirt bikes with injured military veterans or greeting returning vets at a Texas airport. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a fine thing for him to do, but I can't help being reminded that he was the same guy who sent them off to fight two of the stupidest wars we've ever waged. What it mainly reminds me of is John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." The mentally deficient Lennie is eternally grateful to his cousin George for saving him from drowning; having forgotten it was George who pushed him in the river in the first place. In similar fashion, young women and blacks are grateful for the welfare that the Democrats provide, ignoring the fact that it's Barack Obama's policies that have kept them in poverty by drying up the job market, promoting dependency and driving up our national debt to over $17 trillion, thus ensuring that they, their children and their grandchildren, will remain hooked on welfare, the worst addiction of them all.
I am not a warmonger, but isn't Vladimir Putin just begging for a major slap-down? He has said that the worst event of the 20th century was the breakup of the Soviet Union, and he has done everything in his power to restore it to its former, let us say, gory. He longs for the empire that had half of Europe under its heel and he yearns to be another Stalin, who was every bit a match for Hitler when it came to spilling human blood. Putin invades Ukraine, and Barack Obama says "There will be costs." Heck, Putin knows that there will be costs. It's not cheap, after all, to invade another country. But it is clearly a price he is willing to pay, knowing full well that neither Obama nor any of the European pipsqueaks is likely to challenge him. But, then, neither are the Ukrainians. He sent a force of 2,000 Russian soldiers in to take control of two Ukrainian airports and the local radio and TV stations, and nobody even booed them.
In the ongoing battle between those on the right and those on the left, the big difference is that the former approach it with one hand tied behind their back and the other hand clutching the Marquis of Queensbury rulebook, while those on the left will knee, gouge and use blackjacks whenever necessary. All things considered, when liberals merely settle for lying, they're being on their best behavior. That's why when it was discovered that Obama had been lying for three years when he repeatedly told us that we would all be able to keep our medical insurance and our doctors, he wasn't compelled to say, "That being the case, let's toss out the Affordable Care Act and start over. After all, its passage was based entirely on fraud, and that's just not the way we do things in America."
In one of her classic comedy bits, Lucille Ball, as Lucy Ricardo, once got a job working on the conveyor belt packing chocolates. Every few seconds, the belt would speed up and she started packing the chocolates in a panic. Some went into boxes, others went into her mouth and still others went down the front of her dress. There are times I feel like poor, bedraggled Lucy. The news just keeps getting worse and worse and it keeps coming our way faster and faster, and none of it tastes anything like chocolate. For instance, people call Obama a dictator, and with good reason. After all, he keeps trampling on the Constitution and treating the House as if it were more like a motel. And with a disregard even for the optics, he employs the IRS and the EPA as his personal bully boys, using them to punish conservative groups and those companies whose owners have neglected to contribute to his political campaigns.
I apologize if some of you read the title of this piece and leapt to the conclusion that Joe Biden had ascended to the Oval Office, not that that would be cause for dancing in the street. Biden, after all, is a great champion of the Affordable Care Act and has been wrong when it comes to foreign affairs for nearly as long as Obama has been alive. No, I was referring to Obama's lack of punctuality. He is not only late when it comes to delivering his annual budgets, laughable as they are, but he's even late when it comes to delivering his speeches, and we all know how much he loves the sound of his own voice.
As you have probably heard, John Kerry, who is nearly as screwy as Al Gore, has announced that climate change "is the most dangerous, most fearsome, weapon of mass destruction." Inasmuch as Obama and his underlings have once again dragged out this bugaboo in hopes of currying favor with their base and redirecting attention away from the stench of the Affordable Care Act, it would be better described as a weapon of mass distraction.
Several centuries ago, Vlad III, the king of Romania, was so notorious for his cruelty that he singlehandedly put his birthplace, Transylvania, on the map and was nicknamed the Impaler for his preferred means of torture and execution. Years later, he served as the model for Bram Stoker's Dracula, thus providing everyone from Bela Lugosi to George Hamilton with a handsome livelihood. In his own way, Barack Obama reminds me of Vlad. For one thing, he is merciless when it comes to his enemies. And he regards anyone who is not a friend, aka a contributor to his war chest, as an enemy.
Ever since Vladimir Putin decided to restore the former Soviet Union, I have admired his restraint. I'm serious. I mean thus far, all he's done is venture a little way into Georgia and, as of this moment, into a small section of Ukraine. Surely, judging by the response from Obama and the various garden gnomes heading up the nations affiliated with NATO, I see no good reason why he hasn't taken back Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the eastern section of Germany or all of Europe, for that matter. Obama's defenders like to say that it wouldn't matter who was in the Oval Office because Putin would do whatever he likes because he's Putin. I beg to differ. It was Obama who refused to supply Poland and the Czech Republic with promised missile defense systems because he didn't wish to irk Russia's dictator. It was also Obama who let Putin get away with consorting with the mullahs in Iran and Assad in Syria. And that was after decreasing our nuclear arsenal at Putin's request. Every school kid knows all too well that if you give in to a bully even once, he'll just keep taking your lunch money.
There are times, I'm sure we'd all agree, when it seems that good news is a thing of the past. But if you look hard enough, sometimes you'll spot a nugget. For instance, I recently learned that in Russia, 25% of the men die before the age of 55. That's because, on average, their consumption of vodka is three half-liters of fermented potatoes every week. If my cavalier attitude strikes you as inhumane, I can only say that any nation that goes from Czar Nicholas to Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin in less than a hundred years doesn't warrant anyone's sympathy. So, bottom's up, comrades. You may have noticed that when they're not calling conservatives racists, retards or homophobes, liberals like to say that we're to the right of Genghis Khan, even though there was nothing even remotely conservative about the Mongol leader. But, following their example, I would suggest that conservatives begin referring to liberals as being to the left of National Socialist (Nazi) Adolf Hitler.
It's easy, not to mention great fun, to ridicule liberals. But so long as you're not totally devoid of the compassion gene, it's hard not to feel sorry for them. For instance, imagine you voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because you believed all the high-sounding hooey he spewed, ignoring his background and his associates. Because you gave him the key to your heart, you found yourself unable to complain about an additional five or six years of mounting casualties in Afghanistan, drone strikes, Guantanamo or even the Patriot Act.
