REFLECTIONS

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy -

In this issue:

1. Missile Defense 2. Honduras 3. Racist
4. Illegals 5. Salazar 6. Walrus

1. Missile Defense. The Obama administration sucker punched our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic last week by reneging on a Bush era promise to install ground based anti-missile systems in those nations. Instead, the Barack Hussein Obama administration cooked the intelligence estimate last May with a conclusion that there was no ICBM threat from Iran. This conclusion is somewhat startling in the face of the fact that the Iranians launched a satellite last August, indicating the ability to field an ICBM. Nice work on threat analysis once again, guys. The Russians were violently opposed to deployment of the anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe. Today, they are quite pleased with their recent Good Luck. The Obama administration orchestrated the announcement on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland with a discussion that the missile defense would be based on sea based Standard missiles that would have to be stationed in either the Eastern Mediterranean or in the Black Sea to provide coverage against launches out of Iran. Unfortunately, they don’t provide any defense against a launch out of Russia. This attempt to curry favor with the Russians will serve only to embolden them to attempt to continue their expansion into the Ukraine and other Eastern European nations over the next months to years. One of the things that the administration apparently believes is that they can get the Russians to help rein in Iranian nuclear development. Fat chance with that, as the Russians are actively supporting Iranian nuclear weapons development. And in a related story, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez visited Russia last week with a request for their assistance in developing his very own nuclear program. Nothing like putting a democrat in the WH to ensure nukes popping up in every two-bit, Castroite wannabee dictatorship in the world. All while we are actively shafting our former allies. Nice job, guys.

2. Honduras. This week the UN will do what it does best: Recreate the Star Wars bar scene. Most of the worst dictators are expected to attend a General Assembly meeting midweek. Attendees are expected to include Ahmadinejad from Iran, Chavez from Venezuela, Putin from Russia, and Khadafy from Libya. Only the Castro brothers and Kim Jong Il are not expected. Interestingly enough, the lawful President of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti will not be attending, as Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s State Department revoked his visa last July. The visa was revoked after the Honduran Supreme Court and Legislature ordered the lawful and constitutional removal of former president Zelaya, after he tried to force a referendum with a predetermined outcome that would have allowed him to overturn the national constitution and become President for Life. The one country that has its government acting according to the rule of law is not allowed to attend meetings at the UN. We hope this constitutional republic will forgive us. I also hope they remain strong and do not back down.

3. Racist. Democrats resorted to their tactical playbook last week, accusing everyone who opposed Obama of being racist. It is an interesting accusation, especially from the same side of the political divide that spent eight solid years calling President Bush every name in the book. Perhaps they are demanding affirmative action treatment for this president, as he is not quite up to the task. On the other hand, this is a great opportunity to defeat this tactic, the accusation of being a racist as a vehicle for shutting down all argument. One of the most powerful Alinsky techniques is ridicule. And ridicule against the charge of racist could be done via a version of the great Jeff Foxworthy series of redneck jokes: If you do this or that, you might be a redneck. For instance:

If you believe in the Second Amendment, you might be a racist.

If you don’t believe in manmade global warming, you might be a racist.

If you think ACORN is a criminal enterprise, you might be a racist.

Do about a thousand of these and suddenly the charge begins to lose its power for shock and awe.

4. Illegals. Mixed signals out of both the democrat congress and the WH on medical coverage for illegals last week. Unfortunately, the mixed signals were all meant to be a smokescreen. A senate committee voted to prohibit medical coverage for non-citizens under the Baucus plan last week. In response, the House Hispanic Caucus weighed in, making all the usual charges. The WH, mostly in response to Joe Wilson’s (R, SC) charge that Obama was lying when he said claimed that ObamaCare wouldn’t cover illegals, reiterated that illegals wouldn’t be covered. A couple days later, Obama spoke to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and called for complete amnesty of all illegals here in the US. The next day, he gave the same speech to another national Hispanic organization, so there was no mistake. If they are no longer illegal, they are all eligible for coverage under ObamaCare. And they are all eligible to get registered to vote for democrats for the next several decades, which is the ultimate goal. Fact of the matter is that most are already covered, as emergency rooms don’t refuse patients (except those in Chicago hospitals under a program administered by Michelle Obama and David Axelrod in the years before the election). I think there is a Plan C also at work. This one is via the courts. One of the many things happening in California that has blown the budget up is court-ordered public goodies for illegals. These include public education, welfare, public assistance, etc. When the Ninth Circus wrote this opinion many years ago, it was appealed to the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS refused to hear the case, allowing the Ninth Circus opinion to stand as law. It is very possible that a sufficiently politicized and corrupt federal court system will order coverage of all people in the US by ObamaCare if it passed.

5. Salazar. Alaskan Governor Sean Parnell went to Washington DC, hat in hand, in an attempt to get the Department of the Interior to get off the dime and approve oil and natural gas exploration off the Alaskan coastline in the outer continental shelf. Salazar patted him on his hear, and condescendingly told the governor that he was in no hurry to make a decision. Salazar is “studying” whether or not to revoke a 5-year Bush administration drilling plan for offshore oil and natural gas exploration in Alaska that is in effect through 2012. Meanwhile, gasoline prices here in Anchorage are around $3.30/gallon and there is fresh snow upon the mountains.

6. Walrus. Our local fishwrapper reported Friday that federal biologists spotted hundreds of dead walrus on and near Icy Cape, about 140 miles southwest of Barrow, on the northwest coast of Alaska. Walrus haulouts are not uncommon. Either are hundreds of dead that get trampled when the herds are stampeded by polar bear, brown bear or human activity. The final common cause of death is walrus poaching, as the tusks are a great simaculrum for elephant ivory which is getting increasing difficult to get on the open marketplace. A few years ago, the feds discovered 70-80 dead walrus without heads on the western coastline of Alaska. Poaching is a definite possibility here, thought the greens are falling all over themselves blaming it on manmade global warming. The story went on to all the expected handwringing about walrus being forced onto the land because of the thinning Arctic sea ice coverage. Of course, walrus, like polar bears, have been around for millions of years, enduring and thriving during interglacials when the Arctic sea ice coverage was much thinner than today. The Medieval Warm Period from 800 – 1300 AD was the most recent very warm period and there are apparently enough walrus around to kill one another off during a stampede. In the old days, when there were too many animals for the local environment to support, they died off or were killed off. Perhaps this is nature being nature. Perhaps we have managed and protected the walrus to the extent that there are too many of them and need to start hunting them again. On the other hand, we might just need to clamp down on ivory poachers another notch or five. Just a thought.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the Town Hall Conservative group.