No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Ben Franklin said that “God helps those who help themselves,” but government helps those who don’t. In his recent book “After America,” Mark Steyn points out how many Americans have become dependent on government: “ . . . by 2004, 20 percent of U. S. households were getting about 75 percent of their income from the federal government [and] another fifth of households . . . receive about 40 percent of their income from the feds . . .” Is that the kind of republic Franklin had in mind when he worked at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia? No. I don’t think so.

So, government is supporting over 100 million of us, but can the rest of us afford to continue paying for it? No again. Under President Obama, we’re borrowing forty cents of every dollar we spend. We’re borrowing money we probably can’t repay. We’re borrowing money our children and grandchildren will have difficulty paying back, and we’re spending it on ourselves, not them. This is sinful.

Forty percent of Americans are hugely dependent on government. It’s also true that forty-seven percent of Americans pay no federal income tax. How much overlap is there between those two populations? Are we talking about the same people? In most cases, yes. How many of them are likely to vote for a congressman or a senator who says we must stop spending money we don’t have? Not too many when they discover that the only way to eliminate deficit spending is cutting back on the checks they get. We’re a country more and more divided between those who pay and those who get paid.

How long can we take money from our most productive and give it to our least productive? How long can we borrow from foreigners? Not much longer. The whole rest of the world doesn’t have enough money to keep lending to us - especially when they know we’re paying interest with dollars printed under Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s policies of “quantitative easing” and artificially low rates.

Too many Americans have learned that it’s easier to let government support them than to support themselves. Reflecting back on thirty-six years of teaching since my recent retirement, I saw a similar pattern in our government schools. A school district’s eligibility for federal money is often figured based on how many parents fill out forms that enable their children to get free or reduced-cost breakfasts, lunches and dinners. The higher the percentage of families who qualify, the more money the school or the district gets. Schools, therefore, are naturally disinclined to scrutinize financial data parents put on the forms. The tendency is to qualify all who apply. Parents and schools both benefit. Not all kids do, however, because some them will grow up to become the citizens expected to pay back the forty cents of every dollar spent on “free” lunches this year. The old adage still applies after all: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Just as an aside: if you saw how much of that food qualifying students throw in the wastebasket every day it would make you sick. People tend not to value what they don’t pay for, students included. Early in my teaching career, I noticed that custodians would save the discarded food for local pig farmers. Then federal government regulators ruled they couldn’t do that. Ever since, it’s gone into the waste stream.

The percentage of students dependent on expensive federal programs is increasing right along with the percentage of adults dependent depend on federal government checks. Students qualifying for federally-mandated special education are “coded.” Even though I earned an advanced degree in special education decades ago, I still have trouble deciphering criteria for certain codes. For a while at least, the simple explanation for someone qualifying as “learning disabled” was functioning at a grade level lower than what would be expected with his/her measured IQ score. The truly disabled had some measurable perceptual or processing deficiency. Others didn’t, but were nonetheless functioning below grade level, and were, therefore, coded. They received the special assistance of a teacher or an educational technician all through school. Several I got to know well over the years, and it was my personal and professional opinion that they simply didn’t want to do the work. They learned early to be helpless as teachers would administrators would lower the bar for them to pass on to the next grade. Every year I’d have several, and it was rare for even one to be kept back. Much more was spent on such students per capita than on those who did the work expected of them.From Motifake.com

Others were coded for behavior problems and that designation changed periodically as well as euphemistically. Some years it was “Behaviorally Handicapped.” Other years it was “Emotionally Disturbed,” and so forth. Some even got their own “educational technician” to follow them around throughout their school day acting as personal secretary or manservant. Parents of these children qualifed for so-called “crazy checks” amounting to several hundred dollars per month. The Urban Dictionary describes them as “often approved for simple and common conditions such as a child (usually in a single-parent household) who can't behave in school.” If their children learned to behave, their crazy checks would stop.

Teachers are encouraged to believe that every child comes to school ready to learn. Trouble is, too many learn that if they don’t work, others will support them. That’s the lesson they carry with them throughout their lives.

And we wonder why America is going bankrupt.

Don't Vote For Dummies

The mainstream media being the only source of news for most people, it’s very likely you know that liberals are smart and conservatives are dumb. People my age remember how smart Jimmy Carter was running for president against Gerry Ford. Carter was a nuclear engineer. Ford was a football player and famously dumb. Lyndon Johnson said he played football too long without a helmet. Saturday Night Live showed him tripping over something every week.



The highly-intelligent Carter won, then made a weak economy many times worse. When our ally the Shah of Iran was deposed by radical Muslims, Carter sat on his hands while Americans were humiliated for a year and a half in the hostage crisis. Radical Muslims gained confidence and started believing they could bring down all of western civilization. After one term, Carter was seen as the worst president in the 20th century, if not for all time.



He was wicked smart though.



In spite of his vast intelligence, Carter lost the 1980 election to a dumb conservative. Reagan, the “amiable dunce,” presided over one of the greatest economic recoveries in American history by dismantling much of big government built up by the wicked-smart liberals. Reelected by an overwhelming majority, he proceeded to win the Cold War. Hard to understand how he accomplished all that being so dumb.



When his term was up in 1988, media found another wicked-smart governor in Massachusetts whom they figured would make a great president but they couldn’t sell him. Americans believed him a nerdy automaton and elected the first George Bush instead.



In 1992, however, the media found another wicked-smart southern governor in Arkansas whom they thought would make a great president. He was actually smart enough to realize soon after inauguration that Americans didn’t want nationalized health care and abandoned it. He was also smart enough to go along with the dumb conservatives who took over Congress halfway into his first term. He made their programs of scaled-back government and balanced budgets look like his ideas and finished two terms. He wasn’t very smart in his personal life and almost blew everything, but he managed to hang on for eight years.



Then media told us how smart his vice president was. He invented the internet. He figured out that burning coal, oil and gasoline was melting ice caps, raising oceans and killing cute polar bears. As you might expect, he was running against another dumb conservative - this one a cowboy governor from Texas and son of a former President. The media understand that all presidents have to go to church and pretend to believe in God in order to get elected. This guy was so dumb, however, that he really did believe, and didn’t try to hide it either. Somehow though, he won.



Then media found another wicked-smart nerd from Massachusetts to run against him, just like they did against his father. This guy had three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star for bravery. People listened to him and questioned just how smart and brave he really was, but he wouldn’t release his college transcripts or his military records. Then it came out that the dumb cowboy got higher grades they he did at Yale, and other soldiers claimed that, while he puffed his chest a lot, he really wasn’t very brave either. He got medals for minor scratches and the dummy won again.



Then we got a wicked-smart guy from Chicago who was going to fix everything and lower the oceans too. He gave good speeches with his teleprompter, even bringing it to a fifth grade classroom. Media tell us he is so smart, he has an IQ of 160 - but he won’t release his college transcripts either. When he talks without reading he doesn’t sound smart and people are wondering about that IQ. Plus, he’s screwing up the economy even worse than Carter did. He said he’d been to all fifty-seven states, and didn’t know how to pronounce “corpsman,” saying “corpse-man” instead of “core-man.” Media ignored it, but those pesky conservatives on AM radio, the internet, and Fox News didn’t. People are thinking now that maybe he’s smart like Jimmy Carter - especially the ones who are out of work.



Wouldn’t you know it though, it looks like another dumb governor from Texas could be running against him next year. This guy actually believes in God too - and he shoots coyotes. He’s like a male version of that dumb woman from Alaska whom conservatives put up for vice-president. Saturday Night Live sure did a number on her, just like they did to Ford thirty years before. She actually believed in God too and shot caribou. Plus, this guy is even more of a cowboy than the last one. Like the Alaska governor, he didn’t go to ivy league schools either. What intelligent person ever came out of a state university?



This time the media aren’t wasting any time showing Americans how dumb he is. They started right after he announced he was running. They’re going to make sure this time that people don’t elect him over the wicked-smart president we have who only needs another four years to really fix things.

Right Rick

Was Texas Governor Rick Perry out of line to suggest that bald, bearded Ben Bernanke would be almost treasonous to print more dollars? No. I don’t think so. His remarks got a rise out of President Obama right away. Even former President Bush’s advisor, Karl Rove, criticized him. Bush, after all, was first to appoint Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, perhaps on the advice of Rove. Obama re-appointed him when he took office and it looks like Bernanke has been doing his bidding ever since.



Speaking in Iowa, apparently in response to an inquiry about the Federal Reserve, Perry said, “If this guy [Bernanke] prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. I mean, printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history, is almost treacherous, er, or treasonous in my opinion.”Perry at CPAC 2011



When I was born, pennies were made of copper. Dimes, quarters, and half-dollars were made of silver. Even if people were to lose faith in the government that minted their coins and whose images they bear, citizens could still depend on the copper and silver being worth something. Paper dollars could be redeemed for a certain amount of silver or gold back then too. The paper dollar was understood to be the same as the personal check, and they’re about the same size as checks too. When I write a check to someone, he or she must have confidence that there’s enough cash in my account to back it up. I’m instructing my bank to “pay to the order of” whomever, a certain amount of cash. Paper dollars back then were called “silver certificates” which were instructions for government to turn over a certain amount of silver maintained by the federal government for such purposes. People didn’t cash them in for silver as a rule, but were confident they could if they wanted because they trusted their government.None of that applies anymore. Pennies are made of zinc with copper paint. Dimes and quarters are made of copper with silver paint. The paper dollar cannot be redeemed for precious metal anymore either - in any amount - unless you choose to buy gold with it from a private dealer. Not too long ago, you could buy an ounce of gold for about $40. At this writing, it would cost over $1800 and by the time you read this in a newspaper in a few more days, an ounce of gold might cost over $2000. Why? Several reasons, but mostly it’s because people don’t trust the US Government as much as they used to. Why not? Because Ben Bernanke has been printing trillions more dollars without putting any more gold or silver in Fort Knox to back it up. Why is he doing that? Because he can. Why can he? Because President Nixon took us off the gold standard in 1973. The amount of dollars isn’t tied to the amount of gold in Fort Knox anymore. It “floats,” say the economists.



A February, 2011 article in the newsletter Imprimis compared “floating” the value of the dollar with “floating” the weight of a kilogram. Seth Lipsky wrote that “a global scramble is under way to define this most basic unit after it was discovered that the standard kilogram—a cylinder of platinum and iridium that is maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures—has been losing mass.”



Then he asked why not just let the kilogram float like the dollar? “After all,” he wrote, “when you go into the grocery to buy a pound of hamburger, why should you worry about how much hamburger you get—so long as it’s a pound’s worth? A pound is supposed to be .45359237 of a kilogram. But if Congress can permit Mr. Bernanke to use his judgment in deciding what a dollar is worth, why shouldn’t he—or some other Ph.D. from M.I.T.—be able to decide from day to day what a kilogram is worth?”Lipsky described how the Second Congress “established the value of the dollar at 371 ¼ grains of pure silver. . . . [and] did not expect the value of the dollar to be changed any more than the persons who locked away that kilogram of platinum and iridium expected the cylinder to start losing mass. In fact, in this same 1792 law, they established the death penalty for debasing the dollar.”We should demand a rubber glove and KY jelly at least



The death penalty? Hmm. That was the punishment they established for anyone committing treason as well. That's how seriously the Founding Fathers (many of whom were in Congress at the time) took their constitutional power to coin money.



Tea Party conservatives know the US dollar isn’t floating. It’s sinking, because Bernanke is printing them wildly. Those of us who have saved up dollars are losing wealth with every dollar he prints - and all that hard-earned wealth is going down the black hole of the federal government. It’s a hidden tax. Bernanke calls his money-printing “quantitative easing,” but it could also be called counterfeiting. It’s linguistic legerdemain for theft by a federal government which is driving America into bankruptcy.Maybe Bernanke and the president who appointed him think printing money is good for the economy and will save America. If they do, they’re both fools. If they don’t believe it, they’re intentionally sinking our ship of state along with our dollars. Tea Party conservatives like Perry see the practice as foolish at best and treasonous at worst.



Governor Perry is entitled to his opinion that it’s the latter.

Pogo Was Right

About ten years ago, my cousin told me of his bankruptcy settlement. I wondered how it was possible that he could have so much debt forgiven and still keep his house and his truck. I figured I’d wait and see. When we were kids he had been so hyperactive and impulsive that I could only hang out with him for short intervals before feeling so drained I had to keep my distance for several months. He had moved to Florida and I hadn’t seen him for a few years, but he called me every month or so and even his phone calls left me feeling tired.

He had told me a couple of years earlier that he had over $40,000 in credit card debt and I was shocked. He had owned a house in New Hampshire at the time though I don’t know what the mortgage was. We were riding in his then-new, four-wheel-drive pickup truck equipped with every option, and I didn’t think he and his wife together made $40k in a year. He said he was worried and I could believe that. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I were in his shoes, yet somehow, he was able to sell his house in New Hampshire and buy another in Florida, and that’s where his questionable bankruptcy judgement was made. It was all difficult to swallow and that’s how it had always been with my cousin.

I’ve been thinking a lot about him while watching the debt talks in Washington. My cousin said he was able to keep his house and his truck, and if he was, it was only because his creditors had to eat his debt. Others would have had to pick up the slack for him because he wouldn’t discipline himself enough to control his spending. I believed he would get himself right back into debt again if he were ever issued more credit cards - and I don’t see our government behaving any differently either unless we pass a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution.

The eleventh-hour budget compromise in Washington will supposedly prevent bankruptcy for the USA, but I’m not confident it will. How can this congress bind future congresses for the next ten years? Doesn’t the Constitution allow them to tax, borrow and spend under Article I, Section 8? Without a balanced budget amendment they can do what they please and I don’t trust them to change any more than I do my cousin. Both sides claim there are huge cuts to government spending included in the compromise. How can that be true when the plan adds $7 trillion to the debt over the next ten years? Presidents and congressional leaders set off my internal BS alarm just as much as my cousin always did. The way they conduct their personal lives is similar too, but there’s not enough space in this column to go into any of that.

My cousin depended on everyone else when he went belly up, but if the USA goes bankrupt, who would save us? China? According to one Chinese official, we’ve already defaulted on our debt to them because we’re paying interest on it by printing dollars that are worth less than the ones we borrowed. US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke likes to call it “quantitative easing” but you could also call it counterfeiting. He reminds me of my cousin too.

Another of our creditors, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said the other day that: “They [Americans] are living beyond their means and shifting a part of the weight of their problems to the world economy.” The way he describes us Americans, we’re all seeming more like my cousin, no? Putin went on to say, “They [Americans] are living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar”

Is he right? I’m afraid he is. How did we get to the point when a communist Chinese official and the former head of the Soviet KGB are making more sense than the US Federal Reserve Chairman and the President of the United States?

As I think about all this, it occurs to me that, for decades, my cousin would call me after a long hiatus and I would go and hang out with him again. It also occurs to me that we Americans keep electing presidents and members of congress who act like just like him. I believe Pogo was right when he said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Adult Children of America

When my parents were born, Americans took care of themselves. They didn’t depend on government to feed them, clothe them, house them, or pay their doctor bills. If they fell on hard times, they got temporary help from family, friends, church, or private charity - none of whom were obligated to help, but who did so out of human compassion. Now, millions of Americans - perhaps even a voting majority - cannot imagine life without government paying for all their basic needs from birth to death. Obama’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said the other day: “We write 80 million checks a month. There are millions and millions of Americans that depend on those checks coming on time.”

When Americans got help from family, friends, church, or private charity, they tended to be grateful. They were motivated to give back after getting past their hard times. Both giver and receiver got something out of the dynamic. Extended families became closer. Bonds were strengthened. Communities were fortified. Americans today, however, feel entitled to whatever assistance they get from government. They don’t even know who contributed the revenue they receive and don’t care either. They may not even know who their next-door neighbors are. All they know is, a check comes in the mail. This kind of big-government “assistance” doesn’t strengthen us as a nation. It weakens us at every level.

What happened? How did we become a nation of dependents in only three generations? It began with FDR’s New Deal, expanded with LBJ’s Great Society, and now is disintegrating under BHO’s (Barack Hussein Obama’s) Devastating Debacle. These were Democrat Administrations constantly expanding the scope of government and its cost. They’ve changed us from a nation of independent citizens into a nation of dependent children afraid of life without the indulgent-parent government taking care of us cradle to grave - adult children of the nanny state.

Between the above administrations, Republicans have either made half-hearted attempts at dismantling big-government entitlements, or actually expanded them as George W. Bush did with his prescription-drug benefit. Federal and state governments are going bankrupt because they cannot afford to pay for the promises they’ve made since the 1930s. The money simply isn’t there, and won’t be there in the future either.

Take Social Security for instance. Passed during FDR’s New Deal in 1935, it was designed as a trust fund people pay into all their working lives and then draw from it when they retire. Americans visualize it as a pile of money built up by millions of citizens. Al Gore counted on that illusion when he promised to put it all in a “lock box” while running for president eleven years ago, but there is no pile of money. Government has already spent it all - every last cent - around $2.6 trillion. Last week, President Obama inadvertently admitted as much when he warned that, unless Congress raised the debt ceiling beyond $14.3 trillion by August 2nd, he couldn’t send out Social Security checks August 3rd - “because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it." The only things Al Gore would have been able to put in his lock box were piles of IOU’s from the federal government.

Most of the federal budget is spent on social programs and interest on the debt, not on defense or infrastructure. The federal government has largely become a vehicle to suck money out the wallets of Americans who work so as to send checks to people who don’t. The former group is dwindling and the latter group is growing. At some level, we understand that this cannot go on forever. Yet, still, we borrow trillions from the rest of the world, and when they balk at lending us more, we simply print it.

“Progressives” in the White House and Congress insist that if the rich would pay more of what they earn, the gravy train could continue for everyone else. This kind of class warfare rhetoric is the progressive stock-in-trade. Yet even if “the rich” were taxed at 100%, there would still be mounting deficits passed on to our children and grandchildren to pay back. Nonetheless, President Obama stokes the fires of class envy by repeating the mantra of “corporate jet owners” at least six times in just one press conference June 30th. Granny and Grampy are starving because rich people fly jets. America’s adult children don’t want to take care of Granny and Grampy themselves anymore. They’d rather put aging parents in nursing homes and let government pay.Lee speaking for the Congressional Black Caucus

Left-wing progressives refuse to acknowledge the borrowing and spending must stop, that government cannot continue supporting a nation of dependent adult children. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), for example, blames Tea Party conservatives in the House for “manufacturing” the debt crisis because they’re calling attention to it - because they’re insisting that there be real cuts to unsustainable, pie-in-the-sky, entitlement programs. According to Lee and the millions of Americans who think as she does, the problem isn’t progressives like her who spend us into insolvency, the problem is with conservatives who make us face up to it. They don’t want anybody pointing out that we’re about to go off the cliff if we don’t reverse course.From Gateway Pundit

America was founded on the principle that “We’re endowed by our Creator with . . . rights . . . to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We’re not guaranteed happiness - only the pursuit of it. We’re not children and government isn’t our mommy or daddy. It’s time those among us who don’t understand that to grow up, and soon.

Clueless Commander

Israel’s enemies and our enemies are the same. Why doesn’t President Obama know this? This guy is supposed to be brilliant? Either he’s clueless or he’s conspiring to turn our biggest ally in the Middle East over to our mutual enemies. I cannot think of any other reason why he would make a major speech saying Israel must return to its 1967 borders. Doesn’t he know this would invite still another invasion of Israel by the hostile, Arab-Muslim countries which surround it? They’ve already invaded three times: First in 1948, then again in 1967, and still again in 1973. These countries didn’t want peace with Israel. They wanted Israel gone.The Amin al-Husseini, Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, cooperated with Hitler during WWII, recruiting Muslims to serve in Himmler’s SS to kill Jews during the Holocaust. During their attempted 1948 Arab invasion of Israel, Nazis were recruited to kill Jews again. At least some Palestinian Muslims were advised to get out of the way because the invaders intended to kill Jews and it would be nasty, so thousands left for Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt lest they get in the way. They expected to return when the Jews were all killed, but it didn’t work out that way. Those pesky Jews, with their backs to the wall and fighting for the first time in two millennia for their own homeland, prevailed over much larger invading Arab armies whose humiliation was intense. Afterward, they had all those Palestinian Arab refugees in their home countries to whom they’d bragged about their military prowess. These hapless Palestinians were now homeless and unwanted even by their fellow Arabs. Arab Muslim humiliation was so intense they invaded again in 1967, but again were defeated by scrappy Jews. This time though, Israel retained the West Bank from the invading Jordanians, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from invading Egyptians, and the Golan Heights from the invading Syrians. Even though those countries invaded Israel again in 1973, Obama wants Israel to give those strategic lands back to the invaders as a way to “achieve peace” in the region? What planet does he live on?Yours truly at the Temple Mount (taken from Palestinian East Jerusalem)

After 1967, Jews were in possession of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount - their holiest place - for the first time in 2000 years. Constructed on top, however, was the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, as an “in-your-face” gesture to Christians and Jews more than 1200 hundred years ago. Nonetheless, Israeli allowed Muslims to maintain control over their shrines on top, and were content to worship at the Wailing Wall below the Temple Mount in the back - all that remains of Herod’s Temple. Now President Obama expects Israel to give it all over to the radical Muslims in Hamas who are dedicated in their very charter to destroy the Jews. Is he crazy?Church of the Nativity

If Israel went back to the pre-1967 borders as Obama insists, not only would Israel become indefensible, Hamas would also control the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Old Jerusalem. Those are the holiest sites in Christendom, where Christ was born, where he died and where Christians believe he rose from the dead - sacred places for 1.5 billion people around the world. What could we expect with radical Muslim control of these sacred sites if it becomes a Palestinian state?Church of the Holy Sepulcher

In 2002, Muslims assaulted the Church of the Nativity - oldest Christian Church in the world and held it for 39 days. It is located in Bethlehem, of course, which is in the West Bank. Radical Muslim Palestinians shot it up, ransacked it, urinated and defecated inside and held Christian clerics hostage. When I was there in May, 2007, it still hadn’t been completely cleaned up.

Israelis know what their Muslim enemies have planned for them even if President Obama doesn’t, and they won’t go like sheep to the slaughter as they did under the Nazis. Radical Muslim Iran is building nuclear weapons to “wipe Israel off the map,” but Israel has had its own nukes for fifty years. Does Obama really think Israel is going to lay down and die to appease Muslim pride?

If he does, he truly lives in La-La Land. His proposals won’t lead to peace in the region. Instead, they’ll make a wider, more devastating war more likely. It’s time for Obama to become our former president.

In Dubious Battle

There’s a war in Libya and we’re in it. Obama Administration officials don’t want to call it a war and they don’t want to call it a battle either. They prefer to call it a “kinetic military action.” President Obama ordered our military to protect civilians in Libya who were being killed by Colonel Kaddafi as he tries to wipe out rebels there who want to overthrow him. It’s much more complicated than that though, as wars always are. We’re taking the side of the rebels in a civil war. They’re going to benefit as we restrict Kaddafi’s forces, but who are these rebels we’re helping? If and when they take over Libya, will they be better than Kaddafi? Let’s hope. Might they be worse? Evidence exists that they could be worse, both for Libya and for us. We don’t know, and that’s the problem with what President Obama is doing.

Does our president have a long-term policy in the Middle East or is he just reacting to events as they occur? Is he operating under the auspices of the United Nations? NATO? Is the United States leading this operation or following? Who is with us and who is against us? None of that is clear. If we’re protecting civilians from a dictator, why are we doing that in Libya and not Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Bahrain, or Iran in which civilians are suffering fully as much as they are in Libya?

Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, advised him that Libya was not a threat to America and we had no strategic interests there. Several weeks ago, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, advised him that we needed to establish a “no-fly zone” in the country as soon as possible and so did Senator John Kerry but Obama did nothing for two weeks. He claims to have been a professor of Constitutional law, but then he acted without consulting Congress, which is constitutionally dubious and which prompted Ohio Democrat Congressman Dennis Kucinich to call for his impeachment.

We have a commander-in-chief who can read a speech from a teleprompter very well. While campaigning, he can appear confident and smart to voters, 52% of whom elected him. Reading from a teleprompter isn’t enough anymore, but it’s increasingly evident that he isn’t good at much of anything else. He’s president now though, and he has to make tough decisions. He can’t just vote “present” the way he was accustomed to in the Illinois legislature, but he’s avoiding decisions until he’s absolutely forced to make them - and Libya is the result.

Is there some other way to make sense of all this? It looks to me like Obama epitomizes the worst of the liberal baby-boomer world view. He’s a reflection of the people who elected him. Baby boomers blame their parents for the evils of the world; Obama blames George Bush. He believes the world would be a better place if it were not for capitalism and US foreign policy. Rather than believing that America is an exceptional country in the history of the world, he sees America as a problem. He’s a utopian who thinks people around the world would get along fine if they weren’t “exploited.” The world would be all smiling happy people holding hands if it weren’t for US imperialism.

Obama admires a Europe which has spent two generations apologizing and flailing itself for colonizing Africa and Asia and then expanding socialist welfare programs for everyone, including illegal immigrants. Now it looks like he’s earnestly trying to copy those policies here in the United States. That both Europe and America are going bankrupt as a result seems not to bother him.

As for dealing with the Middle East, President Obama’s actions so far indicate that his plan has been to make nice speeches in Muslim countries apologizing for American “arrogance” and all will be well there, but it isn’t working. They’re burning him in effigy just as they did George Bush. That the rebel commander we’re helping in Libya fought against the United States in Afghanistan, that he recruits al Qaida terrorists to his side doesn’t seem to trouble our president. That they’re murdering black immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa doesn’t trouble him either.Rebel Commander Abdel-Hakim Al-Hasidi from Daily Telegraph UK

Until last week when he intervened, Arab Muslim terrorists were killing each other in Libya and we didn’t have to do anything but watch. What could be better than that? Why mess that up? I just don’t understand the rationale and neither, it seems, does our president. I listened to his speech Monday night, but came away still not understanding why we’re going further into debt and further committing our already overstretched military to install a government in Libya that shows all signs of being worse than terrorist, transvestite, mentally-disturbed Colonel Kaddafi.

If our commander-in-chief is going to commit our soldiers anywhere, he has to know what the goal is, then use maximum force to achieve it as quickly as possible. Or, don’t go in at all.

How Much Will It Really Cost?

Back in the 1980s, The US Department of Energy had plans to bury “high-level nuclear waste” in the form of spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants in the eastern United States - under the towns of southern and western Maine and eastern New Hampshire. My own town of Lovell was on the northern edge of the site they were considering. Recent events in Japan have brought it all back to me.

I was in my first term on Lovell’s Board of Selectmen when volumes of bound studies as big as the Obamacare bill arrived at our town office in January, 1986 as well as every other town between Lovell and Westbook, Maine and Conway, New Hampshire. I didn’t know much about nuclear power and neither did most other town officials, so I went to an impromptu informational meeting somebody called at Lake Region High School in Naples, Maine. Interesting people from all over southern Maine appeared and lined up at the microphone.Guys who had served on nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers explained what they knew. Retired geologists familiar with what was under the ground in our part of the world explained gave their opinions. Retired federal employees explained what they knew. Guys who had been drilling wells all over the area explained what they’d discovered - and they all kept it simple enough for lay people to understand. Mostly, I sat and listened, very impressed by how many bright people from varied backgrounds lived quiet lives in rural Maine, and how well everyone cooperated to deal with this threat to the land we all called home.The "pluton" is light-colored on this portion of the 1985 Bedrock Geologic Map of Maine

The DOE (US Department of Energy) was implementing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act which had become law in 1982 and directed the DOE to find a “high-level nuclear waste repository” somewhere east of the Mississippi in which to “dispose” of all those spent fuel rods crowding storage pools in dozens of nuclear power plants. They said there was a “pluton” under the ground here at least 1500 meters thick, and it was flawless. It was contiguous. It had no cracks or seams. Vertical shafts could be cut down 1000 meters and lateral shafts could be cut horizontally. Spent fuel rods could be stored in those shafts deep down there and be safe for 10,000 years.

The more we studied their proposal, the more flabbergasted we became. We knew the “pluton” under us had lots of cracks in it because most of us had sunk wells into it and had been using the water that flowed through those cracks for years. It was anything but flawless. How could the DOE insist it was a seamless mass of granite? Were they fools? Did they think we were? This “pluton” underlay Sebago Lake - Portland’s water supply.

Other informational meetings were held. Thousands more came to learn and become outraged at what the federal government proposed for our state. Television cameras were set up, and wherever there were crowds and cameras, there were politicians. Whoever was running for governor, congress or the state legislature showed up to make speeches that didn’t seem to help much. Ironically, local citizen’s groups here in Maine adopted the yellow Gadsden Flag with the coiled snake saying “DON’T TREAD ON ME,” which is, of course, the same one citizens’ groups protesting big government and calling themselves “The Tea Party” have adopted. We especially liked it because the “ME” at the end is the postal abbreviation for Maine. I’ve had mine hanging right under the American flag in my classroom for twenty-five years.Reluctantly, DOE bureaucrats came to Maine and Conway, New Hampshire, conducted their hearings, and felt our wrath. From January to April, I was out at least three or four nights a week at meetings and hearings or organizing opposition. At one of those meetings in Casco, Maine on the night of April 26, 1986, we heard about the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev in the Ukraine. Right after that, the US Department of Energy abruptly discontinued its search for an eastern repository for its nuclear waste. The issue was too politically hot for the federal government to handle. The "Eastern Repository" idea was shelved and the DOE concentrated on "disposing" its waste inside Yucca Mountain, Nevada. We were off the hook. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, however, had the Yucca Mountain site in his home state of Nevada killed last year. The DOE is back to square one.

The still-unsolved problem of what to do with nuclear waste is the Achille’s heel of the nuclear industry. Today, just as liberal and conservative politicians in America are actively considering nuclear power again, Japan is shining a light on it for the world to see. It’s their spent-fuel-rod pool they’re having the most trouble with at this writing. When nuclear powered electric generation was introduced in the 1950s, some said it would be virtually free - too cheap to meter. Today, we still don’t know how much it really costs per kilowatt hour because we don’t know the expense of storing those mounting spent fuel rods or disposing of them - if we ever figure out how.

CPAC 2011 Friday Evening

Around lunchtime, I went to see Pam Geller of AtlasShrugged.com and her presentation of The Ground Zero Mosque controversy. She's is right in the thick of it as I've come to expect with her.The panel, with Spencer speaking

Her associate, Robert Spencer, said: "This is a mosque of triumph. “The Second Wave of the September 11th Attacks.” He compared the mosque to Muslims building the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque on the site of the sacred Jewish Temple Mount, which they did immediately after conquering Jerusalem in the 7th century.

Pam got up and said the trailer for her new film on the Ground Zero Mosque controversy might be too graphic for 9/ll family members to see. She had a hard time getting a hold of the footage and was told by authorities in NYC that the film clips were “embargoed.” She eventually got them and incorporated them into the film. When she began projecting the trailer for us, there were technical difficulties. We saw most of it and it was gut-wrenching. We watched footage of people who jumped. We heard the sound of them hitting the ground. We saw what remained of them on the pavement.The young woman in the middle lost her brother

One woman then spoke about her brother, a fireman, who died. She read from the autopsy report the family got when they identified his body. It was difficult even to listen to. Another woman from the 9/11 families had to leave because she became too emotional.This woman lost her son

Another woman lost her son. "My son is one of the 1100 victims who never were recovered," she said, fighting tears after almost ten years. "The authorities have been trying to suppress the horror," she said. Forty percent of uniformed victims were never found. She fought back tears throughout her remarks.

This was very emotional. This was powerful. Why does media suppress it? It needs to be part of a major propaganda campaign about Islam, about its history, about its lack of respect for other religions and for all those who have to live with the aftermath of terrorism done in the name of Islam. All this was made powerfully evident in that room today.

“[This was] an attack orchestrated by demonic cave-dwelling barbarians. My son is an angel murdered by demons,” the woman said. She was an extremely powerful speaker.

This was the most moving presentation I've seen so far at CPAC 2011.

Next was Texas Governor Rick Perry back in the big ballroom

I was reluctant to leave the 9/11 families presentation, but I wanted to see Perry. It was hard to readjust my mood from room to room, and they were late bringing Perry out. I had to listen to the tail end of the Ron Paul speech in the big ballroom and I had to flash my press credentials to get in past a long, long line of Paulies who couldn’t get access because of fire codes. Finally, though, Paul stopped talking. It was 12 minutes past the hour before all Paulies started filing out and that took longer. I was annoyed again because I could have spent the time listening to more testimony at the Geller presentation.

The guy who stepped up to the mike to introduce him said Perry went from tenant farmer to the Governor’s office. He got a very enthusiastic standing ovation when he came onstage.“I stand here to talk about the willful neglect of the federal government responsibilities,” he said with chutzpah. I liked him. He had passion. He discussed border issues and slammed the federal government for doing what it shouldn't be doing, and neglecting what it should - like policing the border. "The bad actors in Mexico are getting worse,” he said. “We still need a thousand National Guard troops on the border. We need predator drones. Our kids are being trained to operate these things. They could gather data and evidence." With which to go after the perpetrators, I guess.

“The tenth amendment casts a narrow role for the federal government and the governmnet closest to the people really governs best,” he said, and then recited it:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

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“Nowhere in there does it say the [federal] government is responsible for solving every problem,” he added. “Return to the vision of our founders. Heaven knows that the time is right.”

Perry went on about the meaning of last November's vote: “[Voters] said, ‘We are fed up. We’re fed up and want to take our country back.’ Americans are fed up with the so-called Progressive Movement," [and] “It cuts across party lines, I’ll tell you that.” He’s spoke without notes and he didn't look at the teleprompter. He used his hands. He was very into what he was saying.I like this guy.

“They ought to be pointing to Texas and saying, you know, that is what the rest [of the states] should be doing.”

He’s doing well, but he’s talking too long.

“At least two federal judges have determined that Obamacare is unconstitutional . . . We need to push back on this federal government."

Next was Herman Cain. Now he can speak. He's a former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and executive at Pillsbury and a conservative radio host in Atlanta. He spoke out last year against charges by the NAACP that the tea party is made up of "racist elements."Herman Cain

The problem with this country is too much “ations," he said. Regulation, legislation, etc. and Obamacare is a disaster. I'd never heard of this guy, but he had the crowd interested."The cost of regulatory compliance [with government] is $10,000 per employee," he said, and that was outrageous. That, and the uncertainty hanging over this economy because business people are afraid of what government may do next is holding everything back he claims, and I agree of course. He wants government to shrink drastically and let business thrive.

I liked Cain, but I was tired and hungry. I wanted to go to my room and have a glass of wine, and I did. Checking out some other sites, I'd saw on the Daily Caller that Jimmy McMillan, former candidate for governor in New York representing "The Rent is Too Damn High Party" showed up in the hallways of the hotel. I missed it. Could have used the comic relief.

With media credentials, I can be one of the people kneeling down in front of the dais snapping pictures. Nice results, huh? I love my 18-270 mm lens. Best photography investment I ever made.