Resistance is futile!

Thirteen years

Thirteen years ago this minute, the world changed.

Have we reverted back?

Could it happen again?

I can think of no bettter tribute to give than the one I gave this day, five years ago. Please go back and read it again.

Also, this.

June 14 is FLAG DAY

Be sure to properly display your U.S. flag today to show your love for your nation:

Trying to get a thing going...

I am trying to get a theme going across blogs, facebook and twitter. Post your own "dear Obama" message warning him that the Muslim Brotherhood is doing some trivial thing democrats waste time accusing Republicans or the Tea Party of doing. Here are some I've already thought up:

Dear President Obama: the Muslim Brotherhood does not provide women with free contraception.  Please send Sandra Fluke to negotiate.

Dear President Obama: the Muslim Brotherhood has over a billion dollars of taxpayer money, and some of it might be invested in a Swiss bank. You should check that out while you are investigating Mitt Romney's tax returns.

Dear President Obama: I heard the Muslim Brotherhood might require members to have a photo ID. You should look into that.

Dear President Obama: children of the Muslim Brotherhood are eating more and more high fructose corn syrup. Please, think of the children!

Dear President Obama: I hear the Muslim Brotherhood is bitterly clinging to guns and religion. You may want Eric Holder to look into that.

Dear President Obama: I hear the Muslim Brotherhood may be supporting a War on Women. How about cutting their funding and donating it to breast cancer research instead?

Dear President Obama: I think the Muslim Brotherhood may not have all their tires properly inflated. They may be contributing to global warming. Please look into this!

Dear President Obama: I don't think the Muslim Brotherhood has enough Latino members. Maybe you should ask your Diversity Czar to check into that?

Dear President Obama, I think that some members of the Muslim Brotherhood actually believe in "legitimate rape." Please check into that.

Dear President Obama: I saw your allies, if that's what you think they are today, in the Muslim Brotherhood driving large, gas guzzling SUVs. Maybe you should buy them Chevy Volts instead!

That's enough to get you started. Share these, post your own to blogs, facebook and twitter, make them go viral!

I remember

Today is 9/11.  The date is seared into my memory.  Rather than simply remind readers what happened 11 years ago, I will remind them what happened THREE years ago.  You'll see why.

Apologies to Percy...

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is OBAMANDIAS, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Why am I using Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" to reference Obama?  Oh... no reason...

Romney-Ryan 2012: A Winning Ticket!

Well, there you have it:

As you can see from my earlier post, I was wrong.  Romney, however, was right.  Ryan is an unbelievably great candidate.  In my earlier prediction, I didn't consider Ryan simply because I didn't believe Romney would be bold enough to choose him.  I am glad to be wrong!

Ryan is the best possible choice for transforming government.  I don't just mean reforming.  I mean TRANSFORMING.  Government has grown so much and is so far from what the Founders intended, mere reformation is not enough.

Ryan is a man of policy and ideas, not simply someone who fills in important boxes on a checksheet.  I was afraid Romney would bow to pressure from certain demographics, and think he had to choose a running mate in order to appeal to "the Hispanics" or "the women" or "the evangelicals" or "the South" or "Ohio."  Nope.  Romney chose a man based on principles of policy and ideas.  This signals two important things:

1) Romney is a man who will govern according to the principles of policy and ideas, and,

2) Romney is confident he can win with these principles, instead of needing to rely on "the Hispanics" or "the women" or "the evangelicals" or "the South" or "Ohio."

In other words, this choice exudes both principle and confidence in principle.

This is a good day for America.  A VERY good day.  Up until now, I was only hopeful that Romney could beat Obama because people dislike Obama more, and then Romney would simply not be as bad.  Now, I am hopeful Romney and Ryan can beat beat Obama and Biden because America WANTS Romney and Ryan, and that together they will repair our nation.

And notice, the "O" hand signal!

My choice for VP

There is a lot of talk today about Condi Rice for VP.  I like Condi and all.  But it won't be her.  She is perceived as a moderate - probably unjustly so, but the fact is, on some social issues, she is distrusted by the conservative base.  This conservative base is already skeptical of Romney, so Romney needs a reassuring pick, not a controversial one in this regard.  She is also closely associated with the Bush administration.  Now remember, for the most part, I liked Bush.  This is not a bad thing for me.  But Obama wants to run against the last two years of the Bush administration - two years that went south, largely because Pelosi and Reid were running Congress... but I digress.  Romney needs to be able to say that he would not be just another Bush Republican.  Condi on the ticket negates that.  Finally, unlike most other politicians who say it, when she says she never wants to run for office, she convinces me.  So who should Romney choose?  I say, Bobby Jindal:

Jindal would be perfect for many reasons:

1) Let's get the obvious out of the way - Jindal is an Indian-American, and Romney is a boring white guy.  Jindal on the ticket would be abother historic first, and would forever change the race debates in this nation.  The GOP would no longer be the white people party.  And it would highlight the racial double-standard of the left: to liberals, if you are black or Mexican, you are a special minority.  But if you are Asian, you are nothing to them.  However, Asians have just surpassed hispanics as the fastest growing immigrant group.  They are an important voting bloc, and have been largely ignored by politicians across the country.  This would be big.  Real big.

2) Jindal is both the second coming of, and at the same time, the polar opposite of, Sarah Palin.  Palin and Jindal agree on most issues, excite the tea party and conservative base, and break ground as historic minority figures.  Jindal would add needed fire to the Romney campaign as Palin did for McCain.  But elites hated Palin, unfairly, because she is a "low brow" figure who took more than four years to graduate from a podunk state college and went on to do things like work on fishing boats instead of working at law firms, universities, or major corporations like "respectable" people.  Jindal is at home with blue collar working class folks, but has elite cred up the wazoo (see below).

3) Jindal would be one of the most intelligent, best educated candidates on a ticket - just like Romney.  Obama fans brag about his Harvard Law degree and tenure as a professor.  Well... Romney graduated with honors from Harvard Law AND Harvard Business.  He needs a running mate with similar achievement, to avoid diminishing his own.  Jindal graduated from Brown with honors (double majoring, in just three years), then went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, graduating with a Master's degree in Political Science, and was a consultant for McKinsey and Company and president of University of Louisiana - that's real brains, with the paper to back it up.  It would be impossible for anyone to say with any credibility that the Republican Party is the "stupid" party with Jindal on the ticket alongside Romney.

4) Jindal has government experience and executive experience that defies belief for someone so young.  Jindal was the head of Louisiana Health and Human Services, president of University of Louisiana, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Congressman, and Governor of Louisiana - all before age 40.  He is younger than I am by a year.  I feel so pathetic in comparison!  Romney's big advantage - his private sector experience - is also a weakness in that people expect a President (especially after the Obama nightmare) to have extensive experience running GOVERNMENT.  Romney has only his one term as a governor; adding Jindal to the ticket would add incredible balance in that regard.

5) Jindal excites the tea party.  Romney doesn't.  A Romney-Jindal ticket unites the big tent of establishment GOP, moderates, conservatives, and the tea party.  Romney needs that.

6) Jindal is right on the issues.  He favors limited federal government, states' rights, low taxes, less regulation, secure borders, life, liberty, guns, babies, God and country.  Jindal is top rated by Right to Life, the NRA, and Club for Growth.  He has the right vision for America, and will help reassure those on our side who fear Romney lacks a conservative vision or core conservative principles.

7) Jindal has experience that Romney lacks.  Jindal served on the Homeland Security Committee in Congress and has national security expertise.  This helps make up for a significant Romney weakness while the U.S. is still engaged in the Global War on Terror and faces new threats from the likes of Iran.

8) Jindal is a turn-around specialist, like Romney, but with government instead of private business.  As head of Louisiana HHS, Jindal wiped out a $400 million deficit and created a $200 million surplus.  As governor, he rescued his state's credit rating.  He has the same vision for rescuing failing organizations with sweeping changes for improved efficiency as Romney - but has experience doing it with failing governments.

9) Jindal's greatest area of expertise is healthcare policy.  The GOP is running on repealing Obamacare.  The left keeps saying the GOP has no vision for replacing it.  Romney's greatest weakness is that he implemented Romneycare as governor.  Having Jindal on the ticket demonstrates a commitment to making actual healthcare REFORM, and not just Obamacare repeal, a top priority.

10) Jindal is Catholic.  Romney is Mormon.  Many voters will not support a Mormon.  The Catholic Church has been, historically, one of the most critical anti-Mormon organizations.  A Mormon-Catholic ticket would be an incredible thing, more so (in my opinion) than a Mormon-Protestant ticket.  While there are many Protestant evangelicals who will not support Romney, I believe their biggest problem with him isn't religion so much as perceived weakness on social issues like abortion, gay marriage, and gun control.  Jindal would do more to help with this than probably any Protestant other than Mike Huckabee - and Huckabee would do more harm with tea party conservatives than he would help with social conservative evangelicals.

11) JIndal has been vetted.  He has been elected and re-elected congressman and governor.  Louisiana is a tough state for politics.  If there was dirt on Jindal, it would have already derailed him.

12) Jindal has handled crisis.  He succeeded in leading during the Gulf oil spill and Hurricane Gustav when other states failed, and in stark contrast to Katrina before he became governor.  When the 3 a.m. call comes, Jindal will have a cool head and get right to work solving the crisis.

13) Unlike some other potential candidates, Jindal was not in Congress during the end of the Bush years, and therefore does not have a TARP vote to rationalize!  He has congressional experience (important, as VP is also President of the Senate), but without a long history of bad votes to drag him down.

14) Jindal has a strong family story.  He is the child of immigrants.  His parents came to America to make use of their education in a free country.  His siblings are all successes.  His wife is a chemical engineer with an MBA working on her PhD.  Everyone in the family has strong personal values.  There won't be any embarassing uncles showing up drunk or children being born out of wedlock.

And that brings up something that needs discussed: there is a lunatic fringe of the birther crowd who will claim Jindal is not eligible under the Constitution.  Let's just clear this up.  HE IS.  Jindal was born in the United States.  His parents came to America legally, under a visa, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.  Anyone saying otherwise is a fool, allowing a non-issue to distract us from the REAL issue at hand: Obama, whether born in Hawaii or not, is a FAILURE as President who must be replaced because of his bad policies.

So that's my take.  Jindal would be best.  You can agree or disagree.  But regardless of who Romney chooses as his running mate, my vote is with Romney to defeat Obama.  I hope you and I can agree on that!

Those scary tea party terrorists

This is a must watch:

The Waco reference really helps put things in perspective.

A friend I never met - and never will

Tragedy in Oregon today.  Lisa Zielinski, an integral member of AM radio KYKN in Salem, was murdered in what appears to be domestic violence.

Lisa was one of my many facebook friends - one of many Oregon conservatives who shared her thoughts on the news and events with like minded Oregonians.  I have never met half of my facebook friends in person.  Now there is one I can never meet.  And that is a loss for me, for the community, and for Oregon.  I didn't "know" Lisa - but I read what she wrote.  I made a connection with a wonderful person.  Now that connection - that person - is gone, and I am sad I never got to actually KNOW her.

I am trying hard not to be political as I write this.  But with Arizona still on our minds, I can't help it.  Earlier today, before I heard this news, President Obama was on television giving a speech about the Arizona shootings.  I didn't watch it.  I didn't think the President needed to be there giving a speech in front of grieving family.

I don't have the figures in front of me, but I am guessing something like 20,000 people are murdered each year in this country.  As a general rule, the President doesn't respond directly to most of them.  In any given year, the President doesn't directly respond to ANY murders.  The President only did this because it seemed politically appropriate.

Then I got online, and learned what happened to Lisa.

The President will not speak out about Lisa.  But then, he doesn't need to.  Lisa will be loved by her surviving children, her friends and her community - always.  And Lisa is loved now by her Eternal Lord in Heaven.  Love and faith will heal and restore in ways no political speech ever can.

R.I.P. Lisa.