The White House blog, The Blog, in a post by Macon Phillips called Facts Are Stubborn Things, asks people to notify them of posts or people they deem to be spreading untruths about the Obama health care proposals.

 

Mr. Phillips writes, There is a lot of disinformation about health care out there. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag at whitehouse.gov

 

Notice that the White House now refers to the intended destruction of the most successful medical system the world has ever seen as “health insurance reform”, tempting us to believe they intend a minor tweak, nothing to worry about. Move along, folks, there’s nothing going on here.

 

 

‘Tis but a step, with whispered smile

He said, To catch what’s fishy

To having all the names on file

Whose politics are squishy

Those folks who dare to disagree

With things that we are doing

While on this little spending spree

That some think is ungluing

The country that was forged in pain

And sacrifice and valor

And seem to think that there’s no gain

In bleeding down to pallor

All once held dear by all who claim

To love the country dearly

And yet will not accept the blame

For poor health care that yearly

Causes deaths and broken dreams

While costs are nearly tripling

And tea parties with right wing teams

Are very nearly crippling

Our plans to take this country down

The road to wrack and ruin

Those folks outside this DC town

Don’t know what they are doin’

 

 

Polls indicate that President Obama’s policies have fallen below fifty percent approval, while his personal popularity has remained high. This seems a contradiction, so I asked a woman why she liked Obama. She thought a moment, then said:

 

 

Obama brings us hope and change

He makes me feel so very strange

I like him

Obama brings us change and hope

The dreams he dreams are vast in scope

I like him

I know the country that we knew

Will be no more when he gets through

But lordy how I’m telling you

I like him

 

But will the Obama presidency change for the worse the country we knew? Will the country we knew be no more? I suspect if we keep our heads we can keep the worst from happening. A man I know, who voted for him, expresses the beginnings of doubt.

 

 

Obama brings us hope and change

And though his plans are off the range

I like him

Obama brings us change and hope

And while I’d not give him more rope

I like him

Of course we’ll have to rein him in

To keep the country like its been

With luck he’ll not be Ho Chi Minh

I like him

But then when I think of the crimes

In other places other times

What he’ll do now will surely pale

With what will happen if we fail

To guard our liberties and homes

So when the writers write their tomes

About the times we live in now

The people then won’t scrape and bow

And sing Obama, Father’s Son

We know you surely are the One

And though my doubts have now begun

I like him

 

 

Bill Maher, a self-described comedian, says America is a stupid country, full of stupid people who are too dumb to know what’s good for them, meaning, of course, that we are too dumb to appreciate the genius of Barack Obama, not to mention the genius of Bill Maher and his fellow lefties. In the Huffington Post, Maher writes, “Just because a country elects a smart president doesn’t mean it’s a smart country.” The leftist, as always, thinks he is smarter than those who are not leftists. The Democrats always characterize Republican presidents, like Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush, as stupid, so having a lefty like Maher call you dumb puts you in good company.  

 

 

The wit and wisdom of Bill Maher

Is simply quite delicious

I do believe he is a star

Though clearly meretricious

I mean that in its nicest form

He’s lost in his pretensions

Believing he is but the norm

Of intellect’s dimensions

He thinks we’re dumb and more or less

Too stupid to be trusted

To vote for now just let me guess

The guys who just now busted

The bank and socialized the cars

And now will do to health care

What LBJ by lowering bars

Forever did to welfare

I could go on about Bill Maher

With words right on the money

But even looked at from afar

Was he ever really funny?

 

 

Well noted for their catchy acronyms, the Federal Government has instituted the CARS program, Cash Allowance Rebate System, which attempts to stimulate the automobile industry while at the same time healing the perceived by the left sick environment. The bill authorizes car dealers to offer up to a $4,500 rebate to buyers who traded in their clunkers for more fuel efficient models. The program allocated a billion dollars for this purpose, which was supposed to last four months, but which lasted 4 days. The Congress has now added another 2 billion to the program, which, if recent history holds, will last about 8 days. But the problem is not that the government underestimated the number of people who would take advantage of the program, it is that the government has mandated that the clunkers, many in good running condition, be utterly destroyed. This has the direct consequence of reducing the inventory of used cars available to those less fortunate souls who cannot afford a new car, and by interfering in the market, the government has made used cars more expensive. But the fact that poor people will have to pay more for a used car is quite beside the point to the government, who are congratulating themselves on a program that will, they believe, reduce the carbon footprint those poor people are inflicting on the planet by driving used cars, defending themselves by pointing out that while used cars may be more expensive for poor people who need them to drive to work, the government has also addressed and solved that problem by substantially reducing the number of jobs there are for poor people to drive to. So from the point of view of the Obama administration, this is a win win situation.

  

 

There’s nothing wrong with a nice trade

That takes cars off the market

You get a nice car newly made

And have a place to park it

And even though some low class slob

Could use some transportation

To get him to his low class job

The government’s creation

Of this fine plan will lead to more

Clean air on this fine planet

And show those clunkers out the door

At least that’s how they plan it

Of course we know all guv’mint plans

Lead down to deep perdition

So I intend to keep my vans

Regardless of condition

 

 

John Brennan, head of the White House security office, says that the administration will no longer use the term “war on terrorism”, but from now on will use the term “at war with al Qaeda” exclusively, explaining the change was the result of Mr. Obama’s views being “nuanced, not simplistic; practical, not ideological.” 

 

I have had my disagreements with President George W. Bush, the greatest being his inability or unwillingness to call the war what it was, a war declared by Arab and Persian Muslim terrorists in 1979 against the West in general and the United States in particular, and everything it and we stand for, opting instead for the mushy non-descriptive War On Terror. So while there was a war on terrorists, I agree with the Obama administration on this one thing, that there never was, nor could there be, a war on terror. Terror was simply a tactic in the terrorists’ war against us. What I fear is that the Obama administration, in declaring the war on terrorism dead, will also, as a matter of nuance, quietly declare the war on terrorists also dead.

 

 

Brennan says the war’s against

Those known to be al-Qaedas

And all the others we have fenced

Are simply freedom fightahs

That’s why we’re closing down the clink

In Cuba where we hold ‘em

If we’re nice to them we all think

They’ll show their hands and fold ‘em

Iran now we think is a plus

Elections there are crookit

But Acorn does the same for us

It works and you can book it

The Norks can seize our womenfolk

And hold them both for hostage

We get them back for pigs in poke

Don’t watch us make the sausage

Nuance is as nuance does

The world is just our plaything

And we’ll continue thinking fuzz

Until it’s that doomsday thing

 

 

On August 5^th a great lady, Maria Corazon “Cory” Aquino, was buried in Manila. Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club, has a beautiful post on Mrs. Aquino titled “And Last”.

 

In August of 1983, Cory’s husband, Senator Benigno Aquino, the leader of the opposition to the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was murdered on Marcos’s orders as he stepped off the plane upon his return to the Philippines under safe conduct from exile in the United States. Cory Aquino, a simple housewife, became the rallying force against Marcos. In the presidential election of 1986 she ran against  Marcos, and although Marcos was declared the winner in a fraudulent election, Cory Aquino was installed as the 11^th president of the Philippines by the peaceful 1986 People Power revolution. A tiny lady in a yellow dress had toppled one of the world’s most oppressive dictators. During her term as President, 1986 to 1992, she gave to her country a new Constitution that guaranteed liberty and human rights for all. She died August 1st, 2009, of cancer, and is buried in a simple grave next to her husband. Three hundred thousand people lined the twelve mile funeral procession, many in yellow shirts or dresses.   

 

 

The woman who in yellow dressed

Confounded those who would attest

That might makes right and force will rule the day

She had no ships, no guns no tanks

And yet the world owes her its thanks

For showing us that courage is the way

And now she joins the chosen few

The ones who stood for what they knew

Was right and just, with light that lit the world

That shone in every darkened place

Where diktat dared to show its face

And gave her country freedom’s flag unfurled

 

 

House Blue Dog Democrats are reluctant to embrace the Obama health care scheme because they got badly burned by voting for the Cap and Trade carbon tax that was later shot down in the Senate, leaving them politically vulnerable back home, where the districts they represent are majority Republican. With Obama sagging in the polls, and the public increasingly opposed to Obamacare, it looks like Obama’s desired destruction of the finest health care system the world has ever known is on hold, at least for now. By the time Congress returns from August recess, having spoken to their constituents, Obamacare will be deservedly dead. The public is well aware that nationalized health care means rationed health care, which the government will spin as efficiency and savings, and rationed health care means many will die who would otherwise have lived. Like grammom and grampop.

 

 

Efficiency and savings are all that we crave

Which is why we suggest you die now

And of course we will speed you to your waiting grave

And our doctors will tell you just how

Just lie down be comfy and smile while we work

It’s over in just little time

A needle, a pinch, you will find we don’t shirk

Just remember you’re not in your prime

And what is more sir please remember that you

Voted straight Democrat in the Fall

So needless to say you’re the head of the queue

With the line stretching far down the hall

We really don’t like offing gents of your age

But it’s for your own good, really, pops

The road that you’re taking is now all the rage

And you’ll find that our caskets are tops

 

 

There was a time pirates were hanged when caught. A few months ago a Portugese warship caught a bunch of pirates on the open sea with a boat full of grenade launchers, AK-47s and an aluminum ladder for climbing aboard a passing merchant ship. They caught them, but let them go, because there was nothing in Portugese law that dealt with piracy. Lawyers in Britain have advised the Royal Navy not to capture any pirates lest they seek asylum in Britain. In today’s West, pirates have rights just like every one else.

 

 

I say we take them at their word

Though some word combos sound absurd

Somali is a word that sings

Trips off your tongue like bluebird wings

But trouble comes when e’re I hear

The word Somali placed too near

A word that sounds like government

It’s then I sniff a certain scent

That tells me something is not right

And caution forms afore I bite

The simplest thing I guess to do

Is arm the willing merchant crew

Then when the pirate grapnel flies

The first man up the ladder dies

 

But we no longer hang pirates, we interview them. Scott Carney of Wired has interviewed a Somali pirate, asking when do they decide to kill hostages, who gets to go free, how do they set the ransom price and so on. It turns out the pirates have financiers, just like any other business. Read the whole thing.

 

 

So now the guys have financiers

Who plot out the hijacking

Arranging everything in tiers

And see that nothing’s lacking

And hostages are graded for

Ethnicity and value

A white man can be traded for

Whatever they can cow you

Into giving them what they

Think you by george are good for

And so because you always pay

They know what you have stood for

They raise the price in many ways

And we have always paid her

We need to get back to the days

Of old Stephen Decatur

 

 

The US Treasury Department reports that 2^nd quarter 2009 tax receipts are down from 2^nd quarter 2008 receipts. Individual Income Taxes are down a staggering 43.5%; Individual Employment Taxes are down 1.5%; Corporate Income Taxes are down a mind-boggling 57.3%; and All Other receipts are down 8.3%. We are getting deeper and deeper in the financial hole. The money is running out, as is President Obama’s political capital. It is heartening though, despite the financial picture, to see that the Blue Dog Democrats are stiffing the attempted coup to impose socialized medicine on the country, and the planned destruction of the American economy through carbon taxes via the odious Cap and Trade fraud will now not likely see the light of day. It is becoming increasingly clear that we have a fighting chance of saving our country from the radical lefties who seek to destroy it. 

 

 

We must take heart even though we art

In doo doo deep and troubling

With O in charge it’s looming large

That taxes will be doubling

Cap and trade puts in the shade

All taxes gone before

It’s a good bet our national debt

Will melt our finance core

Economies when taxes ease

Rebound with mighty force

But O it seems will take our dreams

And stomp on them of course

When will it end when can we send

Chicago’s men back home

In three short years we’ll quell our fears

And elect the gal from Nome

 

 

Bloomberg reports that the Department of Commerce now believes the first 12 months of the recession was twice as bad as previously thought. Are we heading deeper into recession? Does the staggering debt load the Obama administration has strapped to the already overburdened backs of the American taxpayer portend even worse economic news? Are we heading for a 1930s rerun? Does anyone remember what that was like? Listen to Bing Crosby, 1931. Brother Can You Spare A Dime. Lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney. With apologies to Messers Harburg and Gorney, I have added additional lyrics to fit the times.

 

 

They used to tell me he was building a dream

And so I followed the mob

I thought that I was really part of a team

And so we gave him the job

Once I built a factory and I made it run

We made cars all the time

Now he’s given it to the union and they’re having fun

Brother can you spare a dime

 

On the campaign, gee we looked swell

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum

Marching with Acorn, giving them hell

And I was the kid with the drum

 

Say don’t  you remember, we called him Barack

It was Barack, Barack all the time

Say don’t you remember, Barack was our pal

Brother can you spare a dime