Regarding One Trick Ponies.

The cover from this month’s edition from my teacher’s union magazine:

Minnesota, like many other states, is about to become a “Right To Work” state, and it is the unions themselves that are unwittingly helping it to happen.

The unions and the democrat party have long had a nearly exclusive, symbiotic relationship. As long as the democrats remained in power, the unions were protected by the democrats; and in turn, the unions were free to act in a blatantly partisan fashion and be an unrepentant, militant arm of the democratic party.

Because of this relationship, the unions never had to worry about public relations. They could afford to be as-in-your-face-nasty-as-they-damned-well-wanted-to-be. Conservative rank-and-file members were summarily ignored. They didn’t care what the average non-union person thought. They didn’t care about winning the hearts and minds of the average American voter. They were quite comfortable in their roles as the enforcement/thug/footsoldier arm of the democratic party. But now that the democrats are largely out of power in Minnesota, as well as in a host of other state legislatures, the unions are suddenly finding themselves in the precarious position of being the toady left on a street corner whose protector has suddenly left the scene.

Now, given that “Right To Work” will no doubt make it on the ballot this November as a Constitutional amendment in Minnesota (and other states) , one would think that the unions’ very survival would depend on improving their public image. One would think that the unions would be running a full court press on public relations, running ads 24/7 extolling their virtues, and the services that their members provide to the public.

But instead, the public unions, including the teacher’s unions (of which I’m a member) have doubled-down on their self-serving, narcissistic thuggery. They haven’t yet awakened to the fact that with Right to Work going to the ballot this fall, it will no longer be the legislators (whom they used to have in their hip pocket) that they’ll have to convince. They’ll have to convince the very voters of Minnesota why they should remain a viable, omnipotent, political force.

Ergo, when the union leadership organize angry demonstrations like so many 60s hippie throwbacks or a cadres of Bolsheviks running roughshod in near-riotous mobs, they’re not doing themselves any favors. At the same time, they just don’t seem to have a clue as to just how precarious their position is, or how to fix it.

Up to this point, Minnesota’s teacher and other unions, having had the luxury of being able to act like spoiled teenagers; largely without consequence, have been virtual one-trick ponies in terms of defaulting to in-your-face, thuggish tactics to get demands met.

But as Minnesota native Bob Dylan once crooned, “Oh the times, they are a changing.”

If Minnesota’s unions want to survive, they better damn well change with them.

The Beach Head Has Been Established...

Many would like to portray the supposed #OccupyWallStreet movement as a spontaneous, grass roots effort.

Nothing can be further from the truth:

Billionaire financier George Soros’ fingerprints, for example, have been all over the anti-Wall Street campaign from the very beginning. And this week, the infamous hedge-fund boss publicly announced his sympathy for the protesters and their complaints about bailouts — despite the fact that he lobbied for even greater unconstitutional handouts to bankers in 2009.

“Actually I can understand their sentiment, frankly,” he told reporters while announcing a large donation to the United Nations. “I can sympathize with their grievances.”

But Soros’ support for the protesters goes far beyond his tepid public statements. In fact, the original call to “Occupy Wall Street” came from the magazine AdBusters, an “anti-consumerist” publication financed by, among other sources, the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.

And today, I received this email from Chris Browers of the Daily Kos:

Occupy Wall Street is spreading like wildfire. There are now supportive groups for the protests in over 250 communities in the United States and Canada.

Almost wherever you live, there is an Occupy Wall Street group near you. Many of these groups have already started their own local protests, while the others are planning upcoming events.

Daily Kos is joining with SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, to help grow this new movement of the 99%. We need to let the 1% know that we will no longer be silent in the face of the economic pain they continue to inflict on everyone else.

Please, pledge to join an Occupy Wall Street group near you. After you sign, you will be redirected to a comprehensive list of local groups.

Solidarity is beautiful,
Chris Bowers
Campaign Director, Daily Kos

Make no mistake about it, folks. The far left Soros sock puppets, under the direction of George Soros himself, have established a beach head. What was once ostensibly a grass roots effort are now the marshaled forces of Soros, SEIU, and other fellow travellers.

Much has been said by the usual suspects on the left of this country that #OccupyWallStreet people are just the leftward version of the TEA Party. But when did you ever see a TEA party demonstration in which its members provoked violent confrontations with law enforcement as a means of creating a propaganda opportunity?

And make no mistake--they mean to do violence. In fact, the violence is already occurring.

Note that President Obama has already signaled his not-so-tacit approval.

The ultra far whacko left of this country is making their stand, and have made their intentions known that they will resort to violence and outright revolution in order to meet their nefarious ends.

We are in a fight; a fight for the very heart and soul of America that could very well turn into the next civil war.

Be on watch, my friends. Be on watch.

So That...What?

A number of years ago, while in a strategic planning meeting, my then-supervisor stated thusly:

"We do this, so that___. If you can't fill in the blank, then you shouldn't be doing what you're doing."

Enter Mark Dayton.

Despite the fact that the MN GOP-controlled legislature has given Governor Dayton everything he wants in terms of both K-12 spending and health care spending, and despite the GOP's dropping of their demands for tax relief in their budget, Governor Dayton remains singularly, myopically hyperfocused on one battle cry: "Tax the rich!"

Now, back to my boss' axiom:

"Mark Dayton wants to impose job-killing tax hikes on the 'rich' so that______"

Mr. Dayton has yet to fill in the blank.

Now, given the fact that Governor Dayton has received nearly everything he wants in terms of spending, whatever is left, no matter how sensical, must be the reason for his continued insistence on his tax increase, that will necessarily kill Minnesota jobs. We are left with these three possibilities with which to fill in the blank:

1. Mark Dayton wants to tax the "rich," to tax the rich.
2. Mark Dayton wants to utilize the tax increase as an excuse to shut down government so as to teach Minnesotans a "lesson" that in his mind will somehow ensure democrat majorities for years to come.
3. Both of the above.

Given that Mark Dayton is who he is, a trust-fund limousine socialist, and given that democratic majorities in the state houses will assuredly increase the chances of his agenda moving forward, I would necessarily say that possibility number 3 fits the bill.

However, Dayton has never been known with being the brightest bulb on the chandelier. Dayton is counting on the notion that Minnesotans will pin any chaos and/or inconvenience of a government shutdown on the GOP-led legislature, and that Minnesotans are not aware nor intelligent enough to be able to put two and two together (projection is yet another fatal flaw in the liberal psyche). Given, however, that the most recent KSTP-TV/USA-Today poll reveals that only 8 percent of Minnesotans favor an increase in spending, beyond some unionized state workers, Dayton will necessarily have to look far and wide to find a critical mass of Minnesotans that will be sympathetic to his cause.

In the end, in terms of practicality, Mark Dayton may indeed sadly find that he wanted to increase taxes so that democrats will remain in minority status in perpetuity.

Only He Who Risks, Is Free..

I met a very interesting character today on Twitter.. specifically, an individual that goes by the handle, ObeyMyObama; whose profile states:

The people want PROVISIONS supplied & RISK removed. Statist gov't only option. Statism works with fair & just leader like Obama. AcceptCopeObey

At first I thought that this was obviously a sham account; one that was created tongue and cheek.. but the more that I observed this fruitcake, the more I saw that this person was actually serious:

http://bit.ly/edmSn0 We believe a strong central government, led by a honorable, fair & just authority is most efficient & equal. #p2 #tcot

And...

We don't think that freedom is most important thing. Equality is most important. Government is the answer. #p2 #tcot

So I decided I make contact with this person:

>>@obeymyobama <<

to which this sad, sad person replied,

Communism failed, unfortunately. Statism will work this time w/ fair & just leader. Obama removes risk & provides provisions.

To which I retorted,

@obeymyobama And who provides Obama with the provisions to provide to you? Is it the magic provisions dust that Obama carries in his pocket?

To which she retorted:

@Leo_Pusateri those that can provided, must provide. Equality is the foundation to a fair and just society. Don't hate, give if you have.

Can one believe that such people exist in our United States? Someone who wants to be taken care of, womb to the tomb, so willing to give up their liberties in lieu of a life supposedly free of risk.

This exchange made me think a lot about how some people are quite comfortable with living their lives in economic squalor, devoid of liberties, so as to provide themselves with a false sense of security. This harkened back to me in the form of a poem from the 1980s that had been shared with me:

Only a Person who Risks is Free

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach for another is to risk involvement.
To expose your ideas, your dreams,
before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To believe is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the
greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The people who risk nothing, do nothing,
have nothing, are nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but they cannot learn, feel, change,
grow, love, live.
Chained by their certitudes they are slaves;
they have forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.

- anonymous

The Kos-Kids Death Wish...

I received this in my email box yesterday morning:

	Mnred, On Friday, I sent you an email about how the Blue Dogs, even after losing half of their members in the 2010 elections, were trying to oust Nancy Pelosi as the leader of Democrats in the House. Apparently, the Blue Dogs want to bring their special brand of magic--caving to Republicans, and then losing to them anyway--to the entire House Democratic caucus. A couple of hours after I sent you that email, Speaker Pelosi fought back, and announced she would run for re-election as House Democratic Leader. She did so because of the overwhelming support she received from progressive members of Congress and tens of thousands of members of the Daily Kos community in the face of the Blue Dog threat. The leadership battle is on now, and both sides are trying to round up as many supporters as possible. The Blue Dogs have Wall Street on their side, so it’s imperative we let Nancy Pelosi--and all House Democrats--know the grassroots are firmly on her side. Sign the petition showing your support for Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic Leader. I should have an opportunity to deliver the signatures to her personally later this week, so she will know you've got her back.

So, after the drubbing the democrats took in both the U.S. House and the State houses, they keep on coming back for more?

In the words of George W. Bush, "Bring it on."

That is all.

The Chamber of Commerce is a Radical Right Wing Group..

At least, according to Barack Hussein Obama. From an email I received from Mitch Stewart at BarackObama.com (emphases mine):

"This is a threat to our democracy...And if we just stand by and allow the special interests to silence anybody who's got the guts to stand up to them, our country's going to be a very different place."

That's what the President just said about the Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing group spending $75 million to beat Democrats this fall, and reportedly taking money from foreign corporations -- some even owned by foreign governments.

These groups are trying to buy our elections, backing candidates who want to tear down everything that makes the middle class strong in this country: things like Medicare, Social Security, even the minimum wage.

So now the Chamber of Commerce is an extreme right wing radical group??

What's next, the Jaycees?

Oh. My. God.

GAG ME--NOW.

Yep folks, your tax dollars at work. How's that hopenchange working for you. 40 miles of 'clean energy,' courtesy of electricity supplied from a local coal-fired plant. How environmentally...err..friendly.

When Iowahawk uploaded this video in December of 2008, little did he know how prescient he would be:



(h/t Legal In-sur-rec-tion)

They needs to turn in their man-cards--NOW.

There was a 'human rights' complaint against "Ladies Night" in five Minneapolis bars:

Free drink specials that women receive at some Twin Cities bars during ladies’ nights may be a violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act, according to the state’s Department of Human Rights.

The department is currently investigating the drink specials at five Twin Cities’ bars and restaurants in response to complaints of gender discrimination, department spokesman Jeff Holman said.

Ladies’ nights generally consist of one or two hours of free or reduced-price drinks for women while men pay full price.

“Gender-based pricing violates the Human Rights Act,” department Commissioner James Kirkpatrick said in a statement.

The department would not comment on the establishments involved, as the investigation is ongoing.

Holman said if an establishment is found to have violated the Human Rights Act, it may be forced to pay damages to complainants or end the ladies’ night specials ruled discriminatory.

I really want the 'complainants' names to be made public, so they could be publicly and mercilessly ridiculed, be forced to wear panties, and ostracized from every institution that real men hold dear.

What have we come to, that we must now have such a sanitized, politically correct existence that some smarmy, pencil-necked geek (or geeks) have to complain about a long-standing institution as "Ladies Night," reaching the tentacles of political correctness into every aspect of our lives, including our social lives?

As far as I'm concerned, vive le difference! and let it go at that.

Taxin' Tarryl Clark on 'humility'

From a "Your Turn" article in the St. Cloud Times (emphases mine):

During my five legislative sessions, we produced balanced budgets, but we fell short of creating long-term financial stability for our great state. Unfortunately, there were times when those maneuvering for political advantage won over sound policy and fiscal responsibility, which too often stalled needed progress on improving the lives of working families, veterans, children and senior citizens.

But I have been among several leaders — from both parties — to pursue a different path to move Minnesota forward. And in those five sessions, I'm proud of what we have achieved.

We put job creation front and center. This session alone, we created or saved more than 22,000 jobs by jump-starting infrastructure projects across our state and encouraging small-business growth including through an "angel investor" tax credit.

We made it clear that early childhood education is important, and I'm proud to say that the governor signed my early childhood bill into law.

We took the lead on closing the achievement gap by preparing our students from their first day in school, and ensured we continue to have world-class colleges and universities.

We took on the big insurance companies on behalf of Minnesotans. Even after they sunk more than $1 million into defeating our bill, we scored a big victory for consumers, ensuring they get what they pay for from their insurance policies.

We stood up for our veterans and their families, welcoming them home through the Warrior to Citizen campaign and the nationally recognized Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program. We expanded the GI Bill, providing counseling services, leaves of absence and tax breaks for service members and their families.

We worked directly with law enforcement to give them more of the tools they need to combat violence and drugs in our communities.

We helped seniors stay in their homes by protecting them from predatory lenders, we made utilities more affordable, and we expanded the cold weather rule preventing power shutoffs, because we don't leave seniors and families out in the cold in Minnesota.

We made huge strides in building Minnesota's transportation future, including the opening of the vital Northstar Corridor. You can be sure I will keep working to finish the job and bring it all the way to St. Cloud.

We worked with our federal partners to ensure Minnesota wasn't punished for a health care system that focuses on quality outcomes instead of quantity of procedures.

And, when some federal partners didn't want to be part of solutions for Minnesota ... we stepped up and got the job done anyway, because it's what Minnesotans expect and deserve.

We said no to the status quo — demanded accountability, transparency, and cut a whole lot of red tape. We made it easier for local governments to cut costs, and for everyone to innovate.

We've done all this even while dealing with significant economic challenges. It's meant making tough choices that sometimes have been the subject of unfair or dishonest partisan attacks. But I have always stood on my principles and put people ahead of politics, and I think we could use more of that these days: leaders who are willing to be a part of the solution, who tone down the rhetoric and focus on results, and who get the job done for the people they represent.

And now, for Taxin' Tarryl's closing money quote...

Get this....

That's the kind of leader I've tried to be, because I believe, as President Harry Truman once said, "It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit."

I'm sure that ol Harry Truman is spinning wheelies in his grave right about now.

"What a doofus"

The 12-Step Program for the whacko left..(with apologies to Bill W.)

Not much to blog on today, so I thought I'd resurrect an old post:

(The following was originally posted on May 30, 2005)

America Haters Anonymous...

1. We have admitted we were powerless over our left-leaning, America-hating ways--that our hatred for America had become unmanageable. But at the same time we were loathe to admit this, even though our every word spoke it.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves, mainly the ACLU and its followers, could restore our society to fit our Marxist-Leninist beliefs.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our nannystate government as we understood it.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves--wait--scratch that... errr.. made a searching, nonjudgmental inventory of.. errr.. Oh never mind!

5. Preached to ourselves, to the mainstream media, and to other fellow travellers the exact nature of George Bush's and America's wrongs, and how it is, to us, the most
evil and vile force ever to occupy the world's surface.

6. Were entirely ready to have the ACLU, the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, and the NEA remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked them to confiscate the wealth of the nation and redistribute it.

8. Made a list of all conservatives that we despise, especially minority conservatives, and became willing to assassinate their characters and to make examples of them all.

9. Made direct, unfounded and inflammatory attacks to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure our own cause.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly said that it's how we feel and it's our intentions that count.

11. Sought through activist judges to remove God from public discourse as we understood him, knowing that secular humanism is the one true religion.

12. Having had an awakening of consciousness as the result of these steps, we continue to carry this message to all, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Sound right?

What hath Algore and the Warmers Wrought?

All in the name of faux science:

Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their daughter and her toddler brother before killing themselves.

Their son Francisco, two, died instantly after being hit in the back.

However, their unnamed daughter cheated death after the bullet from her father's handgun missed her vital organs.

Police were alerted by worried neighbours who discovered the massacre three days after the shooting and the girl was taken to hospital.

The youngster is recovering in hospital in the town of Goya in the northern Argentine province of Corrientes, where doctors say she is out of danger.

Her parents said they feared the effects of global warming in a suicide note discovered by police.

So not only have Algore and the warmers cost our society untold billions of dollars in wasted money, people are now committing suicide, feeling themselves unworthy of life itself as a result of the failed religion of global warming.

Despite the fact that the data behind the faux science of global warming have been fudged, disproved, and outright falsified, the high priest of the Church of the Global Warmers, Algore, remains a bitter clinger:

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.

Or is that unhinged?

Word to “Reverend Al”–not only are people bankrupting themselves–they’re starting to kill themselves over your faux religion.

Think you can tone down the rhetoric?

A Fisking Unlike Any Other..

Berg nails Lambert to the cross.

Read it.

Really.

SCSU, is this the best you can do?

Regarding the Islamic Cartoons posted in St. Cloud recently,

Luke Tripp, a professor of community studies, said the same "conservative white" mind-set led to the election of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater.

Tripp cited a history of racially motivated high school fights as evidence of the animosity that Somalis encounter here.

"There has been a series of hateful attacks against the growing Somali community since they began arriving here," Tripp said.

I have nothing against Somali Immigrants. Immigrants (legal ones) are always welcome, as far as I'm concerned. But I DO have problems with a blockhead college perfesser who is so intellectually vacuous and vapid as to paint those who disagree with him and don't vote for the candidate of his choice as RAAAACIIIIIISTS!If I was a student of Tripp's, I'd immediately demand my tuition money back, and call for his firing. Not for what he said, but because an imbecile such as Tripp has no business teaching college-level courses.

Additionally, if I were to equate any political ideology with racism, it would have to be the neo-socialist ideology that brought us the New Deal, racial quotas, and other such nonsense that are designed in such a way as to not uplift minorities, but keep them in an endless cycle of squalor. The endless cycle of inner-city poverty, the breaking up of once strong poor families and the encouragement of the absence of the father in poor families is an unconscionable and direct result of the liberal/neo-socialist agenda.

How do you like them apples, Mr. Tripp?

(***UPDATE*** For the benefit of Eric, /SARC)

So This Is How Obama Pulled A Fast One...

But thankfully, as with many incantations, the spell only lasts so long...

Hate-filled vitriol on parade right now...

Since the hospitalization of Rush Limbaugh, within the last few minutes:

@Tyler_Durden209: @chillydog61 Hey douche-bag how does Rush Douchebag's dick taste like? All that #tcot semen in ur mouth turns u on. #p2 #topprog #tlot #420

@malthusiandrill: @Leo_Pusateri not as sorry as that dead racist,who basked in the suffering of the dead and paralyzed! how's oxycontin treatin ya now rush?

@johndracula: #RUSHLIMBAUGH YOURE GOING TO DIE SOON, YOUR HATEFUL SMALL DICK LIFE WILL END AND YOU WILL BE ENGULFED IN THE ETERNAL VOID #tcot

@eddiescorz22: Having a heart attack does not change the fact Limbaugh is a racist, homophobic bigot. #tcot #tlot #teaparty #p2 #hcr

@nostromosil: All these do goody mommas boys saying how awful it is about the Rush hate, STFU grow a pair, go play in your sandbox, RUSH #FAIL #p2 #tcot

Yeah. Class.

Indoctrinate U-You Will Be Assimilated!

So say the Stalinists at the University of Minnesota, according to Katherine Kersten:

In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U's College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of "the American Dream" in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace -- and be prepared to teach our state's kids -- the task force's own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.

Read the whole thing. And while you're at it, if your insides can take it, read the document upon which Kersten's article is based.

While matriculating at the School of Arts & Sciences back at UW-Eau Claire in 1988, there was a mandatory prerequisite for graduation called, "Human Relations." True to liberal doublespeak form, rather than being a class that centered on how relationships are formed, it was a wall-to-wall, semester-long diatribe about how whitey was oppressing everyone else. Every week, a guest speaker from the "victim group" du jour would walk into class, grab the podium, and bash every white male student in the room as to how they were oppressing the victim class, simply by breathing.

The only saving grace regarding the "Human Relations" course was that when you were done with all the nonsense you could go about your life and leave the hoop behind. Back then, they didn't actually demand an oath of loyalty to that rubbish as a prerequisite to earn a livelihood.

To wit:

The first step toward "cultural competence," says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize -- and confess -- their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China's Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an "autoethnography" report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their "cultural" motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a "cultural intelligence" assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other "isms." They "earn points" for "demonstrating the ability to be self-critical."

The task group opens its report with a model for officially approved confessional statements: "As an Anglo teacher, I struggle to quiet voices from my own farm family, echoing as always from some unstated standard. ... How can we untangle our own deeply entrenched assumptions?"

And what of those who resist? Well, as they, as they say, "Haff ways..."

The task group has Orwellian plans for such rebels: The U, it says, must "develop clear steps and procedures for working with non-performing students, including a remediation plan."

I wonder if the "remediation" plan includes being sent to a 're-education' camp.

And what of the great unwashed who managed to escape the ivory tower all-seeing eye of the diversity police at U of M in past years without the benefit of their all-knowing indoctrination?

"Requir[e] training/workshop for all supervisors. Perhaps a training session disguised as a thank you/recognition ceremony/reception at the beginning of the year?"

Well Komrades, nothing left to do now but cue the music!!

Ladies & Gentlemen, The Vice President of the United States..

Paging Neville Chamberlain...

Bush administration policies made it tough on tyrants. Saddam Hussein was toast. Mohammar Khadaffy, seeing the writing on the wall, suddenly turned into a good guy. Even Kim Jong Il thought twice about beating his chest and preening his trollkin hair in touting his nuclear capabilities.

Yep, to paraphrase a rap song, during the Bush administration, it was hard out there for a tyrant.

Enter Barack Hussein Obama: Since his inauguration, Ponyang has re-started its nuke program, Ghadaffi is now supporting Iran's nuclear program, and Iran is...well, kicking its thermonuclear program into full gear.

Ain't it a caution as to the difference nine months can make, now that Barack Hussein Obama is doing his level best to make the world safe for tyranny...

President Obama dismayed America's allies in Europe and angered his political opponents at home today when he formally ditched plans to set up a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The project had been close to the heart of Mr Obama's predecessor, President Bush, who had argued before leaving office in January that it was needed to defend against long-range ballistic missile attacks from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.

But it had hobbled relations with Russia, which considered it both a security threat and an unnecessary political provocation in its own backyard.

This of course, comes on the heels of this news:

VIENNA — Experts at the world's top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.

The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency's leaders share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities.

It appears to be the so-called "secret annex" on Iran's nuclear program that Washington says is being withheld by the IAEA's chief.

The document says Iran has "sufficient information" to build a bomb. It says Iran is likely to "overcome problems" on developing a delivery system.

At any rate, since Putin and the neo-Soviets in Russia got their way, at the very least, Obama's decision to pull a Nancy will reap dividends in getting Russian cooperation, right?

Not so fast, appeasement breath:

"Those who are talking about a concession to Russia are primarily those who are looking for a bargaining chip in seeking extra dividends of some kind from us," said Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian envoy to NATO, in remarks carried on the Interfax news agency. "In actual fact, the Americans have simply put their own mistake right. And we are not duty-bound to pay for someone to put their own mistakes right."

The Obamateur makes the world less hostile to tyrants, destabilizes the balance of power, and continues to weaken the United States to the point of impotence in the process.

A socialist utopian trifecta.

There. Don't you feel safer, now that hopenchange is here?

Regarding Pots & Kettles...

They're telling Congressman Joe Wilson to apologize on the House Floor for yelling, "Liar," (or face censure) when, in effect, Obama told a lie.

Given all the smarmy, self-righteous chest beating by the usual suspects on the left, somehow, I've yet to hear an apology on the House floor for Jack Murtha calling brave Marines in Haditha who were following ROE cold blooded killers.

I may have missed something, but I haven't heard a peep out of Harry Reid for loudly proclaiming that the Iraq war was lost in a preemptive attempt to sabotage the well-being of our troops in hopes that the Petraeus-led surge would fail.

I may have been out to lunch, but I must have missed the time on the House Floor when Nancy Pelosi issued her apology for labeling the CIA liars, or when she publicly labelled George Bush a total failure.

I may have missed the boat, but I still can't remember when John Kerry apologized on the Senate Floor for saying all our soldiers did was to terrorize women and children in the dead of night.

Perhaps I also missed the apology from Algore in his now infamous "HE PLAYED ON OUR FEARS!!!" rant.

I most certainly must have missed the apology issued by then-Senator Hillary Clinton after she as much as called General Petraeus a bald-faced liar, right to his face, during the Senate hearings that supposedly were conducted to assess the success of the surge.

But I don't think I've been living under a rock. I don't think I've been sleeping at all. Because an elitist democrat, no matter how despicable his or her words or actions, NEVER apologizes.

But this-- no, this was the unforgivable sacrilege of Joe Wilson, a Republican slandering not only a democrat, but "The One" himself, by actually-gasp-telling the truth!

Having no leg to stand on to challenge the simple two-word assertion by Wilson (You lied!), just like they had no substantive argument against Joe the Plumber, or against Sarah Palin, the leftwing fever swamp, including their toadies in the media, have now swarmed like a bunch of brain-dead zombies in an all out concerted effort to attack the character of Joe Wilson. Even by going so far as to say--now get this--that he's a--double gasp-- caffiene addict (hey--desperate times call for desperate measures)!

Projection, the tendency to project one's own failings and character flaws onto others, has always been a hallmark of the left.

Their latest senseless tirade against Congressman Joe Wilson is nothing less than symptomatic of their own pathologies.

These points need to be made at ALL town hall meetings: