This might be seen as a stretch but the posting below is perhaps a parable for explaining my thoughts about the street protesters who have taken over. (See 1 below.)
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A black man responds to the Left's attack on Cain and, like myself, exposes the Liberal Leftists for who and what they are.
Black voters continue being played fools and will continue to be until such time as they step back and smell the roses of reality.
I say the same for Jewish Liberals. (See 2 below.)
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The economic reality of the destructive power public unions have achieved is highlighted in this article. (See 3 below.)
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Stratfor on Iran. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)The Light Turned Yellow
The light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up.
He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally....I assumed you had stolen the car."
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2)Blacks Still 'Played' and Controlled by Tired Old Democrat Paradigms
By Lloyd Marcus
A black website published one of my articles. The black publisher asked his readers to forgive me for being a black member of the GOP and review my article with an open mind.
In response, a subscriber wrote, "You can ask us to look past him being a GOP, but you can't ask us to look past his claim to be a tea party Christian."
Grateful for an opportunity to enlighten indoctrinated blacks, I asked the website publisher to publicly post my reply to the ill-informed subscriber's comment.
Please do not think me rude or mean by stating the following truth. The subscriber's comment reflects an ignorance of the facts and history prevalent in the black community.
Many blacks erroneously believe the GOP consists of rich racist white people. In reality, the GOP was founded to free blacks. Only five years after slavery, there were black congressmen, all Republicans. The KKK, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and denying blacks the right to vote where all birthed by Democrats.
Even today, Democrats are still "keeping blacks in their place" -- telling them they need lowered standards, affirmative action, special programs, and freebies to succeed. Democrats constantly send blacks the message they are not as smart was whites. For example, Democrats say having to show ID when voting disenfranchises blacks. This is merely a tactic by which the Democrats implement voter fraud. However, in the process, they are saying blacks are too stupid to find their way to the DMV or other places to acquire proper ID. This is just one example of numerous ways Democrats tell blacks they are inferior and need Democrats' help to succeed.
Republicans deal with blacks respectfully, as equals. Democrats thrive on blacks believing themselves to be victims, despite being blessed to be born in the greatest land of opportunity on the planet. Foreigners are trying to get to America in cardboard boats held together with duct tape. Democrats punish and hate blacks who compete with whites and succeed without Democrat lowered standards and involvement.
While sold as compassion and "fairness," Democrat programs are always about making as many people as possible dependent on government to secure/buy votes. In the long run, all Democrat policies and programs hurt people!
There are black idiot knucklehead racists who want to believe a lie rather than the truth. Yes, I said black racists. I reject and resent the satanic notion that because of slavery, blacks have a right to be racist. Racism is evil, period, whether it comes from blacks or whites. It you disagree, it is fruitless to continue reading this article. I will keep you in my prayers.
In reality, history confirms that the black community has been sleeping with the enemy for years by monolithically voting Democrat. News flash, black voters: the Democrats "ain't" your friends.
Every program which demeans and stifles blacks has come and continues to come from the Democrats. Republicans continue to be the party extremely supportive of black individuality, the party full of nurturers of black entrepreneurial success.
Democrats still want to keep blacks on their plantation of needing government handouts -- thus keeping blacks dependent on government, thus keeping blacks voting for Democrats, who promise to give them stuff via programs. To make their scam work, Democrats also tell blacks that Republicans are burning the midnight oil planning ways to "keep them down." Thus, you blacks need us Democrats to keep evil rich white Republicans off your backs.
In a nutshell, blacks are being played by the Democrats. So you can imagine my frustration and impatience with ignorant knuckleheads who trash me for being a Republican. I am working to liberate my people -- to ensure that they be treated with dignity and respect, and not as needy, inferior supplicants.
When I became supervisor of my mostly white department at a TV station, rather than celebrating me and my achievement, my liberal and Democrat friends demeaned my achievement by saying I got the job due to affirmative action. Wrong. I got the job because I proved myself most qualified. "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"
Now, let's talk about the Tea Party.
Again, all you folks who think the Tea Party is racist are ignorant of the facts and just plain wrong! I am sorry, but that is the gospel truth. You are being "played" by the Democrats and their liberal media buddies, who also "secretly" think we blacks are inferior and need their help to succeed.
As a singer and speaker, I have attended over three hundred Tea Parties nationwide, on five Tea Party Express national bus tours. I have been warmly embraced by the mostly white audiences because we share a love for America and are opposed to socialism. These Tea Party folks are not opposing Obama's skin color. They are opposing his agenda.
A Congressional Black Caucus member actually said the white folks at the Tea Parties want to "see blacks hanging from trees." Knowing what I know from my personal experience, the Caucus member's statement is irresponsible, absurd, shameful, and divisively evil -- all about ginning up racial hate and securing votes for Obama. Despicable!
Now, I know some blacks who are stuck on stupid and hate who want to believe otherwise. So be it. All I ask is that before you write me off as an Uncle Tom traitor, check you facts. And quite frankly, I do not care what anyone thinks of me, because I know I am on the Lord's side. God bless.
Lloyd Marcus, proud unhyphenated American, is the chairman of The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama and the spokesperson for the Tea Party Express. Please help Lloyd spread his message by joining his Liberty Network. Lloyd is singer/songwriter of the American Tea Party Anthem and author of Confessions of a Black Conservative, foreword by Michelle Malkin.
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3)The Public-Union Albatross
What it means when 90% of an agency's workers retire with disability benefits.
By PHILIP K. HOWARD
The indictment of seven Long Island Rail Road workers for disability fraud last week cast a spotlight on a troubled government agency. Until recently, over 90% of LIRR workers retired with a disability—even those who worked desk jobs—adding about $36,000 to their annual pensions. The cost to New York taxpayers over the past decade was $300 million.
As one investigator put it, fraud of this kind "became a culture of sorts among the LIRR workers, who took to gathering in doctor's waiting rooms bragging to each [other] about their disabilities while simultaneously talking about their golf game." How could almost every employee think fraud was the right thing to do?
The LIRR disability epidemic is hardly unique—82% of senior California state troopers are "disabled" in their last year before retirement. Pension abuses are so common—for example, "spiking" pensions with excess overtime in the last year of employment—that they're taken for granted.
Governors in Wisconsin and Ohio this year have led well-publicized showdowns with public unions. Union leaders argue they are "decimat[ing] the collective bargaining rights of public employees." What are these so-called "rights"? The dispute has focused on rich benefit packages that are drowning public budgets. Far more important is the lack of productivity.
"I've never seen anyone terminated for incompetence," observed a long-time human relations official in New York City. In Cincinnati, police personnel records must be expunged every few years—making periodic misconduct essentially unaccountable. Over the past decade, Los Angeles succeeded in firing five teachers (out of 33,000), at a cost of $3.5 million.
Collective-bargaining rights have made government virtually unmanageable. Promotions, reassignments and layoffs are dictated by rigid rules, without any opportunity for managerial judgment. In 2010, shortly after receiving an award as best first-year teacher in Wisconsin, Megan Sampson had to be let go under "last in, first out" provisions of the union contract.
Even what task someone should do on a given day is subject to detailed rules. Last year, when a virus disabled two computers in a shared federal office in Washington, D.C., the IT technician fixed one but said he was unable to fix the other because it wasn't listed on his form.
Philip Howard, chairman of Common Good, on abuses in public pensions. Photo: AP.
.Making things work better is an affront to union prerogatives. The refuse-collection union in Toledo sued when the city proposed consolidating garbage collection with the surrounding county. (Toledo ended up making a cash settlement.) In Wisconsin, when budget cuts eliminated funding to mow the grass along the roads, the union sued to stop the county executive from giving the job to inmates.
No decision is too small for union micromanagement. Under the New York City union contract, when new equipment is installed the city must reopen collective bargaining "for the sole purpose of negotiating with the union on the practical impact, if any, such equipment has on the affected employees." Trying to get ideas from public employees can be illegal. A deputy mayor of New York City was "warned not to talk with employees in order to get suggestions" because it might violate the "direct dealing law."
How inefficient is this system? Ten percent? Thirty percent? Pause on the math here. Over 20 million people work for federal, state and local government, or one in seven workers in America. Their salaries and benefits total roughly $1.5 trillion of taxpayer funds each year (about 10% of GDP). They spend another $2 trillion. If government could be run more efficiently by 30%, that would result in annual savings worth $1 trillion.
What's amazing is that anything gets done in government. This is a tribute to countless public employees who render public service, against all odds, by their personal pride and willpower, despite having to wrestle daily choices through a slimy bureaucracy.
One huge hurdle stands in the way of making government manageable: public unions. The head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees recently bragged that the union had contributed $90 million in the 2010 off-year election alone. Where did the unions get all that money? The power is imbedded in an artificial legal construct—a "collective-bargaining right" that deducts union dues from all public employees, whether or not they want to belong to the union.
Some states, such as Indiana, have succeeded in eliminating this requirement. I would go further: America should ban political contributions by public unions, by constitutional amendment if necessary. Government is supposed to serve the public, not public employees.
America must bulldoze the current system and start over. Only then can we balance budgets and restore competence, dignity and purpose to public service.
Mr. Howard, a lawyer and author, is chair of Common Good (www.commongood.org).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4)Iran’s Nuclear Program and its Nuclear Option
By Stratfor
Details and specifics of the forthcoming International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on the Iranian nuclear program continued to leak out over the weekend, with the formal report expected later this week. The growing rhetoric about Iran — including talk from certain Israeli and American corners about an air campaign against Iran — had already begun to intensify in anticipation of the report, which will say more explicitly than previous IAEA assessments that Iran is indeed actively pursuing a nuclear weaponization program.
There is a cyclical nature to this rhetoric, and the correlation with the most harsh IAEA report on Iran to date is hard to get past. But while the latest IAEA report is certainly set to contain new, specific information about Iran’s program, there has been little serious doubt in recent years that Iran has continued to actively pursue nuclear weapons. The impending IAEA report’s overarching tenor is not news to anyone — though it provides plenty of opportunity to talk about Iran’s program, point fingers at Tehran and once again raise the specter of war— something even those mostly looking to mount pressure for more aggressive sanctions may do.
Nuclear weaponization programs by their nature require large, fixed infrastructure that must be connected to significant sources of power. The development of such programs— particularly in countries operating without access to key, export-controlled materiel — demands considerable investment over many years. Any serious movement down this path is vulnerable to detection, which is likely to lead to an attack in short order as Iraq found out in 1981 and Syria found out in 2007. Essentially, if a country desires a nuclear deterrent because it lacks any deterrent at all, then it is unlikely to be allowed the uninterrupted space and time to develop one.
The counterexamples are countries — specifically, North Korea and Iran — that already have a compelling, non-nuclear deterrent. That existent, non-nuclear deterrent discourages pre-emptive attacks against the country while its nuclear development efforts are in their most vulnerable stages. In the case of North Korea, Pyongyang has demonstrated a very sophisticated ability to escalate and de-escalate crises year after year, keeping itself at the center of the international agenda but not inviting physical attack. One element of this is Pyongyang’s deliberate cultivation of a perception of unpredictability — the idea the North Korean dictator may not behave rationally— which convinces international actors to give the regime a wide berth. The other is continued ambiguity. North Korea has made a career out of crossing international “red lines” and has helped soften the blow of crossing those lines by doing so ambiguously, particularly with nuclear tests that are not overtly, demonstrably successful. Yet North Korea has a large but unknown number of conventional artillery and artillery rocket batteries within range of Seoul. North Korea’s real “nuclear” option is opening fire with those batteries before they can possibly all be destroyed. And that is what ultimately keeps the international response to North Korea’s nuclear program in check: the unwillingness to trade a difficult and uncertain military attempt to address a crude, nascent nuclear program in exchange for Seoul.
Tehran has three key deterrents. First, for years, the American troop presence in Iraq, particularly after post-surge quelling of violence, remained vulnerable to Iranian-instigated attack by Tehran’s proxies and with weapons provided by Tehran (something Iran demonstrated quite unambiguously that it had the capacity to do in the form of the explosively formed penetrator, a particularly deadly form of improvised explosive device). That dynamic will remain, after American troops depart, in the form of American diplomats and contractors, who will be protected by a small army of private security contractors. Second, Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal can target both American and Israeli targets across the region – and many missiles will likely be loosed before all their mobile launchers can be pinpointed and destroyed.
But the third deterrent is the critical factor. Iran has for decades cultivated the ability to essentially conduct guerrilla warfare in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.This is Iran’s real “nuclear” option. There are inherent vulnerabilities in such tight waters, in which Iran can bring to bear not just naval mines, but shore-based anti-ship missiles and small boat swarms. This threat might be manageable tactically (particularly if a massive U.S.-led air campaign surprised Iran), but even in the best-case scenario, no one can manage the markets’ reaction to even the hint of disruption to 40 percent of the world’s sea-borne crude.
This is the heart of the problem. Whether there are six key nuclear sites in Iran or 60 (and Iran presents a significant intelligence challenge in this regard), any attacker has to neutralize not just the nuclear targets and associated air defenses, but Iran’s dispersed and camouflaged military capabilities all along the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. U.S. participation was decisive in a far less sophisticated air campaign against Libya. In an Iran scenario where so much must be hit so quickly, the United States is the only country capable of even attempting to bring the necessary military strike capacity against Iran.
But even the optimistic scenario must anticipate the potential for an outcome reminiscent of the 1980s Tanker Wars. While the United States and Europe are focused on the global economic crisis (and particularly the euro crisis in Europe), they will want to avoid at all costs video of burning oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, which could panic already skittish markets. As long as that is the case, the prospect of a military strike on Iran is dim. And in any event, surprise is a key element for a successful strike on Iran. The moment Iran should feel the most secure is when Israeli rhetoric about war is at its peak.
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