Visiting the Squire

Here in the middle of the Big Bend on the Brandywine River is the home of the squire
of said property who is known throughout the kingdom for his good works, many
talents and bonhomie.

Somewhere down at the end of this passageway is where the squire holds forth day after day,
night after night, with good victuals and raucous good times with many friends from all
over the realm.

The Squire expresses his good humor and bonhomie.

The squire, an expert driver, readies the Four-in-hand carriage for
a ride with visiting friends from a western realm.

The Squire transports his guests through Revolutionary War terrain where another
squire, George Washington, led freedom fighters to eventual victory.

The Squire as raconteur entertains his guests before the evening's banquet..

Oh, and by the way, the squire cuckolds with remorseless bonhomie..

The Squire as architect/designer of the family's chapel.

And designed and created this stained glass window for the chapel.

The  entrepreneurial squire conducts tours at his realm renown museum.

Oil Independence -- available now

Diana West, no friend of any Muslim state, weighs in here with a number of reasons why we are suffering an unnecessary oil supply crises.  It has to do with the EPA and the environmental lobbies who combined appear to be consciously trying to make it difficult for the US to wean itself away from Middle Eastern oil producers -- particularly Saudia Arabia.  Why?  West in this column doesn't offer a specific why,  but here's one:  recall Obama bowing to the Saudi King Faisal on his first visit to The Kingdom after his election?  Then recall the huge sums of money from foreign sources visited upon the Obama campaign during the last presidential campaign.  These fund were from foreign sources by credit cards and were unaccounted for by the Obama campaign as required by law and as accounted for by the McCain campaign. Some of the estimates had the amount flowing to the Obama campaign from this source to be in the hundreds of millions.  So why would the Saudi's and other gulf suppliers presumably massively support the Obama campaign unless they had received some assurance of continued support for the  efforts of the EPA and the environmental lobby to limit US (and Canadian access) drilling and production which could lead to energy independence?  This may fall into the category of a conspiracy theory however all that bowing to the Saudis and O's hard line against the Israelis is a bit over the top in the absence of some good reason.  West suggests the Chinese are now courting the Canadians and may just capture the 3 to 4 million barrels of oil per day available from Canada because the US is unwilling to approve a pipeline to deliver the stuff to our refineries.  Something is rotten in the State of Denmark!

The crises in unemployment -- in the view of Walter Mead Russel

When one thinks about the unemployment problem in the US today, the idea of returning to the manufacturing economy pre China, comes to mind.  Everything would be okay if only we could correct those problems in the economy that were causing all our old manufacturing jobs, big and small, to flee to China. Not.  According to Walter Read Russell, at least.  He argues here that the solution is to reform city governments to remove all the restrictions inhibiting small businesses from emerging and thriving, much like they do in China and other emerging third world countries.  In short he argues a return to basic free market entrepreneurialism by eliminating all the current restrictions involving permitting, safety, and the like.  In other words roll back the nanny state and all its job destroying bureaucracy.  The "comments" section of Mead's article is particularly interesting.  He usually attracts intelligent responses probably because for an intellectual, Mead is quite rooted in real world common sense.  Obama should have him on the payroll instead of all those whacky overpaid socialists.

The very similar isms: Communism and Islamism

It seems obvious that the liberals in the western world go out of their way to protect members of the Muslim faith from criticism and and are extremely conscious of ensuring that the "rights" of the Muslims are protected.  Witness the movement in GB to allow aspects of sharia law to apply to Muslim citizens of that country, and the great sensitivity to the feelings of Muslims in the US with regard to the terrorism issue.  Jonah Goldberg has written a book that discusses the natural affinity of liberals to authoritarianism, i.e., Communism and Islamism.  From this lengthy and fascinating article in Big Peace by Andrew Bostom one sees this affinity and connection in spades.  Bostom begins his narrative with the history of Wittakker Chambers and his conversion from communism in the 1930's, and the discussion of Islamism in Chambers's book, "Witness", in which he discusses authoritarian Islamism in the context of authoritarian Marxism, arguing that both of these "movements" represent the union of church and state that define stotalitarianism.  For those in the West who do not take the threat of the Muslim faith to our freedoms and way of life seriously, this piece should be a wake up call.  The Muslim faith is every bit the threat to the West that Communism did and still  poses.  Both isms are antithetical to the freedoms we have all taken for granted in the West for a long time.

The looming local budget crises

As bad as the federal budget crises is, local governments budget crises are shaping up to be worse.  The idea that it's always a good idea to get government services as close to the taxpayers as possible for better citizen control, is proving to be a sham.  Local governments across the land are now facing crises largely driven by the pension obligations accrued over the past couple of decades.  Since local budgets are typically tied to property, sales taxes, and fees, look for substantial increases in these sources of revenue in the coming years, otherwise a lot of municipalities will be defaulting.  Steve Malanga of City Magazine lays out the dilemma here.  At least the federal government can default on its obligations by inflating them away thorough the printing press.  No such luck on the local front where the only recourse is to raise taxes.  It's probably safe to say this particular financial crises has been brought about by neglect on the part of local citizens who often work outside of their local district and tend not to follow budgetary matters closely.  That will change in the new world.

Union power

this brief post and the accompanying chart says it all.  Without union support, the democrat party would disappear.  Not enough people understand just how much the political field is tilted by the influence and money of the unions.

THERE IS REALLY ONLY ONE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP

And that is labor unions. Antony Davies of Duquesne has prepared a series of charts that summarize special interest political contributions from 1989 to 2009, based on data from Open Secrets. This chart is the most revealing; it shows that the overwhelming majority of special interest money goes to Democrats, and that unions dwarf everyone else. It’s actually even worse than the chart shows at first glance, since teachers’ unions are listed separately and account for another $50 million, virtually all of it given to Democrats. If everyone understood what this chart is telling us, there would be a lot more outrage about what's going on in Congress and in politics in general. Click to enlarge:

Via Veronique de Rugy at The Corner.

As I’ve said before, I think it is time to revisit the privileged status that unions are given under the antitrust laws. If we repeal Section 6 of the Clayton Act, unions will be on a level playing field with the rest of us.http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/06/there-is-really-only-one-special-interest-group.php

The un-American POTUS

From the outset of his emergence on the political scene, to many of us Barak Obama was a strange construct with whom we had no connection.  He was simply out weird, a kind of freak person who spoke in dulcet tones and flowery language but was largely incomprehensible and not real.  Obviously many others, a majority of voters in the US found a way to identify with him and his strange message of hope, or whatever, and he became the president.  The quote below from an ordinary citizen, Jay Clarke, writing in the American Thinker on 29 June 2011, pretty much sums up the feeling many of us had and have about this weird personality who now represents our country all over the world on a daily basis:

These and many other shared experiences before and since have created generations of Americans who cherish this land, this idea that is America.  They do so with heart and soul.  Standing on cue they remove their hats, place their hands over their hearts or salute, and then choke back the tears as the Star-Spangled Banner is played.  They are Americans within the very fiber of their being. 

Naturalized citizens often display this same love of country, for many have escaped oppressive regimes or economic hopelessness to come to America and be adopted as America's sons and daughters.  They came seeking their American Dream, the freedom and opportunity to build a better life for themselves and their families.  There's a common, deep, and intimate connection that Americans feel for their country.  The soul of America is maintained in the hearts of its people, fiercely loyal to the vision of our Founders and the ideas and precepts of our founding documents.

These same kinds of experiences did not shape the young Barack Obama.  His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was an atheist and politically extreme.  At the age of 6 the future president was ushered off to Indonesia where he attended school registered as a Muslim, recited the Quran in Arabic, and learned how to be a good Muslim.  In these studies, he would have learned that all non-Muslims were infidelsworthy of deception and ultimately, death.  Christians and Jews were the enemy.  Despite what Obama may say, the United States remains a Christian nation with a strong Jewish population and deep ties to Israel.  Judeo-Christian principles helped form and continue to influence our national identity with many signers of the Declaration of Independence having been clergy or devout Christians.  America remains home to the largest Christian population in the world.  What bigger infidel could there be than America?

Obama's teen years were spent living with his maternal grandparents on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.  There he met a family friend, communist, purported pedophile, and his eventual mentor, the radical poet Frank Marshall Davis. 

Obama's connections to radical leftists are numerous and well-known.  He's admitted to attending socialist meetings and participated in a rally organized by the Democratic Socialists of America.  In 1996, he sought and received the endorsement of the far left group The New Party.  He has worked with, supported, and attempted to shield from investigation the group ACORN which was recently convicted of massive voter fraud.  Obama's White House is chock-full of radical leftist, anti-American advisors.  As a 20-year attendee at Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama was steeped in Black Liberation Theology which is rooted in the collectivist philosophy of Karl Marx.  Marx's most oft-quoted excerpt from his work "Critique of the Gotha Programme" seems to foreshadow the future President Obama's stated belief in wealth redistribution: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

The reason that Americans feel unease when Barack Obama talks about America is that he is talking about a different America.  His words are carefully chosen and crafted to sound American, but the hidden meaning is much more malevolent.  His goal is "fundamentally transforming the United States of America" into a nation where social justice reigns and injustice is counted as fairness and equity.  He seeks a nation of redistribution where those who succeed through hard work, honest enterprise, financial investment, time, energy, and risk are rewarded with government confiscation of the fruits of their labor.  His is a country where communication systems, travel corridors, and private property are tightly controlled by the State.  It's a country where education is state-run and curricula are state-mandated.  In a fully implemented Obama-nation, it would be illegal to pass the accumulation of one's lifetime on to heirs.  This is the America of Karl Marx's dreams.

Barack Obama does not sound like an American because Obama's heart and soul are not American in nature.  His thoughts are not American.  His attitude and philosophy are not American.  He cannot speak from the heart about America because America does not reside there.  With a Muslim upbringing, a radical family, radical mentor, a myriad of radical connections, radical advisors, a radical theology, and some say a radical spouse, it's no wonder. 

Obama's agenda is informed by Marx and guided by years of close associations with extreme individuals and groups whose stated goals are the demise of America and America's influence in the world.  When he says he wants to "fundamentally transform America," he is dead serious.

For the first time in all of American history, we are at the mercy of an un-American American President.

May God truly bless the United States of America.

Jay Clarke is a businessman and lifelong conservative from Southern California.  He's a proud husband, father, and grandfather.