Sunday, May 28, 2017

Some Verse for Memorial Day


I’m sick and tired of hearing this young generation denigrate the men and women of the American military. Without them there would be no Memorial Day because there would be no soldiers. There may be no America because there would be no soldiers fighting for it.

So here’s this bunch of no-accounts defaming the people who have and are protecting the homeland. These people have contributed nothing, have nothing to offer, and have no clue about what freedom means. They’ve always had freedom, never had to fight for it.

A lot of this attitude can be put squarely on American politicians and American middle school and high school teachers for failing to teach American history to students who desperately needed to learn the subject. Without history they had no way of knowing of the tyrannical governments that were everywhere before our own Revolution (and are still everywhere in the world, for anyone who cares to look around).

I sometimes wonder why former soldiers don’t confront those howling anti-American slogans and slamming those who go to war to protect the rights of our people. It could be they are prohibited from doing so, (it sounds like something BO would arrange. I understand ex-military were disarmed before being allowed to go home.



Below is a poem I ran across, written by a guy named Gary Huddleston (if you know him, be sure to tell him I attributed his poetry).



It’s called Battle of the Flag.



A protest raged on a courthouse lawn,

Round a makeshift stage they charged on,

Fifteen hundred or more they say,

Had come to burn the flag that day.

A boy held up a folded flag,

Cursed it, and called it a dirty rag.



An old man pushed through the angry crowd,

With a rusty shotgun shouldered proud.

His uniform jacket was old and tight,

He’d polished each button shiny and bright.

He crossed that stage with a soldier’s grace,

Till he and the boy should face to face.



“Freedom of speech,” the old man said,

“Is worth dying for, good men are dead,

So you can stand on the courthouse lawn

And talk us down from dusk till dawn.

But before a flag gets burned today,

This old man will have his say!”



“My father died on a foreign shore,

In a war they said would end all wars.

But Tommy and I wasn’t even full grown,

Before we fought in a war of our own.

Tommy died on Iwo Jima’s beach,

In the shadow of a hill he couldn’t quite reach,

Where five good men raised this flag so high,

That the whole world could see it fly.



“I got this bum leg that I still drag,

Fighting for this same old flag.

Now there’s but one shot in this old gun,

So now’s the time to decide which one.

Which one of you will follow our lead,

To stand and die for what you believe.



“For as sure as there is a rising sun,

You’ll burn in Hell ‘fore this flag burns, son”

This riot never came to pass.

The crowd got quiet and that can of gas,

Got set aside as they walked away

To talk about what they’d heard that day.



And the boy who had called it a “dirty rag”,

Handed the old soldier the folded flag.

So the battle of the flag this day was won

By a tired old soldier with a rusty gun

Who for one last time, had to show to some,

Our flag may fade, but the colors don’t run.



I could almost see this happening. It’s too bad we don’t hear about it happening. Maybe more than the kid in the poem would see the light.

Friday, May 19, 2017

Clemency: A dangerous legacy?


This business of Bradley/ Chelsea Manning getting a pardon for treason is incomprehensible. What the hell was B. Hussain Obama thinking when he deemed to set free a person who betrayed his/her country and put us all at risk? And what about our intelligence agents overseas?

I remember seeing, a number of years ago, a movie in which a foreign agent acquired a list of American agents working in Europe. A number of agents were done in by agents from Russia and other enemies of the U.S. Of course the star of the movie got away but only by the skin of his teeth. I must apologize for a failing memory, but I do not remember the name of the movie.

Not only is the pardoning of Manning a travesty (there should be a rule that states when a dangerous  convict  is set free by an irresponsible president, the next president, or an act of Congress) has license to revoke the discharge and return the dangerous criminal to jail where he/ she belongs.) But Obama set free nearly 2,000 prisoners, many convicted of serious crimes, like rape and murder, treason, of course, being the most heinous. There’s something to be said for the concern of Obama in attempting to empty federal prisons of nonviolent criminals, which he claimed was his intent. There are many stories of people (and not just minorities) receiving long sentences for paltry crimes. This should be rectified. No one should be in prison for twenty or thirty years for having a couple of joints in his pocket. And judges should be barred for handing out such sentences.

But when Presidents consider  clemency for hard-boiled felons, he should have an eye on public safety. A couple of reasons why should suffice to illustrate the point.  Some of you may be old enough to remember the 1988 presidential campaign, Republican George H.W. Bush vs. Democrat Michael Dukakis. Dukakis had just vetoed legislation that would nix a controversial weekend furlough program in Massachusetts. One prisoner chosen to participate in the program was a guy named Willie Horton, a convicted murderer. Horton went on the road and did not return to prison. He did, however, kidnap a man and his girlfriend, stab the man and rape the woman, then steal the man’s car. Dukakis’ continued support of the furlough program cost him the election. Horton’s case is the most notorious, but there are plenty of others. For instance, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee can tell you about Maurice Clemmons, who was serving a 108-year sentence for robbery and theft. Governor Huckabee commuted his sentence to 47 years in 2000, making Clemmons eligible for parole. Nine years later, in November 2009, Clemmons walked into a Tacoma, Washington-area coffee shop and shot to death four police officers.

An observer of such proceedings must ask just what the hell these presidents think they are doing. If they offer early parole to inmates, why not chose those convicted of less-violent crimes. Chances of success would be must greater. Although the recidivism rate is higher than fifty percent, an opportunity to lower the number must be appealing.  And if one is running for president it may be a wise move to abandon the practice well before the election. (Huckabee lost any chance at a nomination due to his, dare I  say, stupid commutation of Clemmons sentence.

This near-the-end-of-term leniency isn’t the only foolishness these guys are up to. Under Obama’s reign, the U.S Sentencing Commission lowered the guidelines for a broad range of crimes, and made the reductions retroactive.  BO went crazy! The move triggered the largest release of prisoners  in U.S history. Something like 6,000 inmates found themselves free – they had served their sentences! I’ve been insisting for nine years that BO is an idiot – or he has intentions of destroying the country. He couldn’t quite pull it off himself so he’s released a gang of thugs to finish the job. I wonder how many of us will be robbed and killed because of the former president’s poor choices.

Of course, large and small groups of dumb-assed Democrats were (and are) sitting around sipping port wine and some kind of tea exclaiming that those who received pardons and reduced sentences are leading productive and law-abiding lives, and contributing to the community in meaningful ways. Well, maybe half of them are. The other half choose to go back for some of that yummy jail chow.
(I wonder how many of these ex-jailbirds have joined the rioters and anti-Trump crowds who are plaguing

Monday, May 15, 2017

Libs Support the Ridiculous


As has become obvious over the years, Liberals have a fondness for the ridiculous. In fact they sponsor it, and always vote for it when something ridiculous shows up before Congress. These people have no clue as to what is ridiculous and that which makes sense.

To wit:

As most of you know the EPA is crammed right full of Liberals – I don’t know how this fact could possibly escape anyone, given the agency’s track record. It seems that about fifteen years ago a Cornell – yes an Ivy-League school, no less, where professors are supposed to have brains, professor, last name Gregg (first name unremembered) was granted permission to plant trees in Manhattan, and more in the surrounding rural areas. Professor Gregg naturally surmised the trees in the suburbs would grow better than those in the smog-laden, polluted city. But after three years the professor was shown to be wrong. Turns out the trees planted in the city grew much faster than those in the outskirts. Instead of accepting the obvious – that something in the pollution favored tree growth – CO2 perhaps? – the professor hatched a brand-new theory! The researcher theorized that pollution migrated from the city to stunt the growth of the country trees. It was further thought (and I must paraphrase): “I know this sounds crazy but it’s true. City-grown pollution – ozone in particular – is tougher on country trees. It is obvious to me that by the time ozone is formed by the pollution in the city, the air mass has moved out to the suburbs.”

The point here isn’t what caused the trees in the city to grow faster but that this college professor took it upon his-/ herself to make up something to cover for the unexpected evidence – that CO2 – a greenhouse gas - causes plants to grow. Duh!

Oh, by the way, as you probably guessed, the professor was hired by the EPA.

Who says you have to be half-smart to be a teacher? Think the term “dumbing down” is just an expression? The New York State Board of Regents doesn’t think so.

The board will no longer require teachers to pass the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) in order to become certified. After all, why should teachers have to be literate? The ALST proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower levels than white counterparts. The ruling comes after a federal judge ruled in 2015 that ALST was not biased, because it measured the skills necessary to teach.  Well that didn’t seem to make any sense to the liberal nitwits sitting on the Regents board. In fact, the board ordered that teachers who fail the test measuring practical skills (like lesson planning) to be certified anyway. And if they fall a little short of a passing grade, pass them anyway. This of course will make test taking more fair to prospective teachers, but it would seem to drop students deeper into the hole of ignorance because of dumb teachers. Dumbing down is not the right way to solve the problem of non-white teacher candidates failure to pass qualifying tests. What needs to be done is to make course material available to these people that will enable them to become smarter, hence become better teachers. American education has been sliding for years, and as long as the Regents board continues to make qualifying tests ever easier to pass, it cannot get any better.

If you’re wondering why today’s students have a tough time spelling or adding, look to the Regents board. These sorry liberal thinkers are responsible for the poor performance of both graduates and current students. They need to be replaced.
There are many, many more examples of Liberal idiocy, but there is space here for only a few.  We can explore more in the future.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Liberals Stole Their Education


It saddens me to read the many errors in grammar on Facebook (and other sites as well.) So many words are misspelled, the wrong words are used. And it is mostly adults doing the writing.

 What happened to the ability to correctly spell the words that make up our language ? Is it a simple case of being in a hurry and not caring about proper usage and spelling? I suspect some words are misspelled because the writer doesn’t know the correct spelling. It’s true, sometimes they don’t care, and that’s a shame. What happens when the writer is asked to write an intelligent letter (a resume) or a report for school. College professors are appalled at the lack of ability to spell and use words properly of students "graduating" from high School. I don’t think this is entirely the writer’s fault. I think poor spellers had a lot of help becoming poor spellers. It may have happened like this:

My pal Red State Louie and I were indulging in adult beverages at a patio table at the Golden Gulp and Glug Cocktail Joint in Washington, D.C. We were quietly discussing the political conventions, as were many around us. Politics was in the air!

We were marveling at how easily liberals accept HRC’s excuses for losing the election she was supposed to have won by a landslide. Suddenly, down the street came our barely bearable buddy Pud Politico, a real honest-to-gosh liberal hack. Pud wore a jokers-style hat and vest, checkerboard pants that he thought were the coolest thing around.  He was strumming his lips as he rode in on a skate board, mumbling “Hillary’s Great, Hillary’s Great.” He kicked the board up into his hand and dismounted, a stupid grin stretching his features into a “Gotcha” look. He tucked the board under his arm and flopped down in a chair at our table.

“That Hillary’s great, ain’t she?” he asked no one in particular. “Wow, what a woman, huh, Newshawk?”

“Are we talking about the same person, Pud?”

“Yeah, the woman who should be president, you know the one.”

“Yep, the one who looks and speaks like she wakes up with a bad taste in her mouth every morning.”

“She’d be a great president. Did you hear her concession speech?  Hillary would have made life better for everybody.”

“Pud,” said Red State Louie, “all her campaign rhetoric was the same stuff the Democrats have been promising in every election for at least the past 50 years. More jobs, lower taxes, better healthcare, fix the education system, national security. Yadda, yadda. But there’s been no change.”

“Yep. Yep, that’s right. Democrats are good at promising …” Pud’s eyes were bugging out now as his excitement grew.

“And doing nothing. Liberals have been promising black people a leg up for years – but have never delivered.”

“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah!,” sputtered Pud. “Why do they keep voting for Democrats then, huh?” This last in the same childish manner of a fourth-grader. We were surprised he didn’t stick his tongue out at us.

“I dunno. It’s obvious the libs have no plans to help blacks – or anyone else, for that matter. If they were they could have made huge changes for the better in the past eight years. Instead, they’ve made everything – and I mean everything – much worse,” I said.

“Yep,” drawled Red State, “healthcare’s a disaster. The economy, no matter how many times they lie about how good it is, is in the tank, and our education system went from being among the best in the world to pretty durn bad.”

“Mister, oh, mister,” called a young woman sitting at the next table over. “Aren’t you the Newshawk?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind answering a question for me.”

“If I can.”

“In Mrs. Clinton’s speech she spoke briefly about an incident that happened in Philadelphia many years ago. It sounded very important, but I don’t remember hearing about in school. It started with an R, I believe.”

“An important historical event that started with an R?”

“How about the Renaissance?” suggested Red State.

“No, that wasn’t it,” replied the girl.

“Thur was a French explorer named sumthing-or-other Radisson who trapped fur in Canada at one time,” mused Pud. “They named a string of hotels after him – big ones, too,” wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“How about retarded,” I suggested, nodding toward Politico.

“Reconstruction, perhaps,” said Red State.

“Or redistribution. We’ve seen quite a bit if that lately.”

“No, it had a V in it. Rev, something, I think.”

“Oh,” says Red State perking up. “You mean the Revolution. The American Revolution.”

“The what?”  asked the girl, her faced wrinkled in an ’I don’t know what you’re taking about’ way.

“The American Revolution was a war fought here in the United States. Americans were fighting England for their independence and ultimately their – and our – freedom.”

“We had to fight for our freedom?” she asked, taken aback by the idea. “Wow. That’s cool. That makes it so much more precious than just having it. But my dad says we’re losing our freedom.”

“Freedom. Fiddlesticks. Now you’re gonna blame liberals for losing our freedom. Ain’t ya?”

“Just what do you think political correctness is all about,” I asked.

“PC is cool, man. Gives you control over people.”

“Exactly.”

The girl, looking sad, asked, “Why didn’t I learn about the American Revolution in school?”

“The education establishment, owned and operated by democrats, elected to deprive grade school and high school students an awareness of their heritage. It’s much easier to turn young minds against their country when they have no knowledge of it or pride in it,” I explained.

“To bad you and others your age couldn’t sue government agencies involved in stealing your education, but they would never allow it.”

The sad young woman looked around as if lost, then asked, “What can I do?”

Red State and I thought for a minute, then shrugged.

Pud sat picking his nose.