Stalin

Sixty-six years ago, on June 6th, 1944, “Operation Overlord”, the allied invasion of Europe began. The purpose of the invasion was to gain an allied foothold in France, from which allied forces could eject the Nazi armies from conquered Europe. Allied forces included the Free French, Free Polish, Free Belgian, Free Netherlands, Free Norway, Free Czechoslovakia, Free Greece, Australia, and New Zealand. The vast majority however were soldiers, sailors, airmen, and merchant seamen from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Approximately 160,000 soldiers were landed on French beaches from over 5,000 ships and landing craft, manned by over 195,000 allied sailors, and supported by nearly 12,000 military aircraft. By July 24th, when the invasion phase of the liberation of Europe had officially ended, the allies had suffered a combined total of 120,000 killed and wounded.

You might note that of the allied forces at Normandy, Russia was conspicuously absent. (Granted that the Red Army was rather preoccupied with the Eastern Front at the time.) Russia however was represented… by three “Ost-Bataillone” of the German Wehrmacht’s 716th Infantry Division. These Battalions were comprised of former Soviet prisoners-of-war who had volunteered to fight for the Germans rather than endure the conditions in German POW camps, and were of somewhat dubious loyalty. (At the end of the war, Russian POW's in German hands were executed by Stalin, so volunteering didn’t help these unfortunates much.)

Bedford, Virginia, is the location of the National D-Day memorial, where the United States honors those American’s who stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day, in an effort to rid the world of Nazism. Yet on the 66th anniversary of D-Day, the memorial board quietly erected a monument to an even greater evil, a political system and a tyrant who murdered even more innocent people than the Third Reich ever thought of. Specifically, a monument to Iosif Stalin! Yes, Stalin and the Russians were a crucial part of the final victory over Nazi Germany, but Russian forces were not present at Normandy, and there is no reason to erect a bust of Stalin in the National D-day Memorial! FDR, Churchill, and several other Allied leaders certainly deserve to be there, but Stalin? To my mind this is tantamount to erecting a statue honoring Heinrich Himmler at the Holocaust museum!

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, minced no words about what he regards as this inexplicable addition: “Since the fall of the Soviet Union, statues of Joseph Stalin have been torn down all over Europe. The world is closer than ever before to a consensus on the evils of communism and Stalin’s primary role in the worst crimes of the last century.” Karl Altau, head of the Baltic American National Committee added: “No matter what they do to explain Stalin’s presence, it’s still going to put him on the same kind of level as the other leaders and their troops who were there at D-Day.” A plaque was finally added mentioning Stalin’s many crimes, as well as his role as a WW II ally, but critics still wonder what can justify the presence of a tyrant whose troops didn’t even play a role in the D-Day landings. William McIntosh, president of the D-Day Memorial Foundation, hasn’t been returning calls from reporters either, but had previously said that his group wanted to note Stalin’s role in winning the war. That “answer” isn’t likely to calm the uproar, and certainly doesn’t sooth my anger either!

Actually, Stalin’s addition should come as no surprise. Americans have forgotten what it was we fought, and our leftists have effectively rehabilitated the ideals of Socialism and Marxism. A Rasmussen survey of 1,000 American “Adults” conducted April 6-7, 2009, indicates that only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism, and 20% disagree, saying socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) aren’t sure. Adults under age 30 are divided with 37% prefering capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% undecided. Adults over 40 on the other hand strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better. On the partisan side, Republicans favor capitalism by 11-to-1, while among Democrats 39% say capitalism is better, while 30% prefer socialism. As for those with no party affiliation, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% prefer socialism. Interestingly enough, 15% of Americans say they prefer a government-managed economy.

Throughout the Cold War we resisted a foreign power bent on the expansion of “scientific socialism”, and we won, or at least Soviet communism finally collapsed thanks to its own shortcomings and western pressure. Our victory has been short lived however, as it now seems we have lost the war at home. Only marginally softer socialists came to power in our schools, our churches, and our media during the 1950’s and 60’s. They worked long and hard to convince our youth that free enterprise is evil and corrupt. They did this by pressuring our government to pass laws and regulations that severely restrict capitalism. They then blamed our problems on the “failings” of capitalism! Now of course they teach people that they are entitled to a free ride as well. In actuality, they have created a system somewhat similar to that of the Nazis. Government policy, lawyers, and special interests have warped the system, and that is because government (courtesy of the Progressive efforts), can strangle any business that does not “cooperate”. Fascism worked much the same way, where private citizens could own and operate their own businesses, but they had to be operated in a State approved manner, and their markets were controlled by state central authority. While it’s true that large numbers of Americans oppose Obama’s steady destruction of free enterprise, the fact is that a large number of Americans favor government control of the U.S. economy, despite the failures of such economies throughout history and all over the world.

Socialism is on the ascendancy in America, which is why we probably shouldn’t be surprised to see America honoring one of the world’s most evil men.

Oil Spill

The Washington Times recently announced that the National Debt has now surpassed the 13 trillion dollar mark. The problem is that Congress barely passed a Bill raising the debt ceiling to 12.394 TRILLION dollars. Mr. Obama, master of everyone else’s checkbook, signed it into law on December 28, 2009. Now, barely 5 months later, we’re some $600 billion beyond that! At $13 trillion, the debt has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion each and every day. That’s about three times the daily increase of $1.7 billion under the Bush administration. So, every time someone tells you that Obama needs us to cut him some slack, and that he’s doing the best he can with what President Bush left for him to deal with, remember that Mr. O has extended our debt almost 5 billion dollars a day as he continues to fail the Country. The present administration can’t manage the Auto Industry, Wall Street, Health Care industry, or the Insurance industry. It certainly can’t manage the economy! It can’t handle foreign affairs or military action, and it can’t stop petty dictators from getting nuclear weapons or sinking the neighbor’s ships! But failure doesn’t seem to slow Team Obama’s desire to spend more and more of our money in the hopes of finally getting things right. We’ve seen none of our problems “solved” since he’s been in office… and no return on our tax dollar investment either. This has got to be the most inept and incompetent Administration in recent history! And now, the latest attempt to manage a crisis in the Gulf of Mexico only reinforces that impression of incompetence.

Obama formed his commission on the oil spill and stated his reason; “…so that the American people will have answers on exactly what happened.” That’s all well and fine, and a goal I can agree with. But then he tipped his hand with: “We have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, and these are risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes. We also have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and our grandchildren.” Okay, here’s a minor technical point… The problem with the Deepwater Horizon well has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a 3-1/2 mile deep well. The problem is that it’s in water a mile deep! With that one sentence, Mr. Obama has combined deep-sea oil drilling with all oil and gas exploration. He’s also demonstrating his environmentalist leanings and that he probably wouldn’t know an oil well even if he fell into one! But, is it his intent to use this crisis to get Cap and Trade legislation back on the table?

In his latest appointments to the commission on the oil spill, Mr. Obama reveals that he’s going much further than finding out what went wrong aboard Deepwater Horizon and fixing it. The commission will include two more experts who have been global warming activists, and who will join former Florida Sen. Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency chief William Reilly. The background of these panel members suggest the commission will be looking at much more than just what went wrong, and will probably include the country’s conflicting problems of environmental and energy needs. According to the AP, other new commission members will be Donald Boesch, president of the Center for Environmental Science at the University of Maryland, and former Alaska Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer, presently a University of Alaska chancellor. So what, pray tell, has Global Warming and Wildlife got to do with the cause of a mechanical failure at the wellhead? Failing to appoint a couple of engineering specialists indicates the purpose of the panel is purely political, and has nothing to do with what actually happened or what to do about it. It’s somewhat akin to appointing a hairdresser to determine what went wrong in a brain surgery! At least Mr. Obama gets a chance to put his Alinsky teachings to work, beginning with: “Pick the target [big oil], freeze it [big oil always bad], personalize it [BP], and polarize it.[green energy=angels, oil=Satan].” This will allow him to slip into campaign mode (which he apparently confuses with leadership), and where he is much more comfortable.

Mr. Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar have done their best to shift the blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the Bush Administration, the Republicans, BP, and the supposed ‘cozy relationship’ between the Minerals Management Service who “turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of their oil and gas company buddies”. In reality offshore safety performance improved significantly throughout the Bush years, as did a greatly reduced blowout incident rate. Bush-era internal investigations led to a significant improvement in ethics throughout the organization. Bush also increased the offshore royalty rates for the first time in years. Still, there’s plenty of blame to spread around. BP is after all liable for the operational errors that led up to the explosion. MMS Director Liz Birnbaum, Mr. Obama’s choice of Minerals Management Service chief, has strong credentials… her qualifications include attending Brown/Harvard Law, a record as an environmental lawyer, and experience setting environmental policy. But experienced with oil and gas technology? Well… Her department heads were heavy on environmental activism as well, but rather light on oil and gas experience. Probably because ex-industry hands tend to develop ‘cozy relationships’ with the folks they’re regulating. Mr. Obama, who was quick to criticize President Bush for his appointment of lightly-qualified Michael Brown as FEMA director, has apparently learned little from his predecessor’s mistake.
Under Obama and Salazar, the Minerals Management Service has become little more than an instrument by which the government pushes its Green Energy/Green Jobs vision.

As to solving the problem, the Houston Chronicle reports that the Netherlands, a highly experienced oil producing nation, offered the United States help in dealing with the BP spill shortly after it started, but the Obama Administration turned them down flat. Additionally, the present “cap” on the well was the first thing BP wanted to attempt, but MMS officials refused permission. Now we have another bright idea from the White House, and I quote Mr. Obama; “I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick.” He’s talking to experts not to find out how to solve the problem but to find out whose ass to kick? Those are somewhat crude words from the President of the United States, but they are his own words. There is one well owned by one company leaking, and that was caused by the collapse of one oil platform owned by one company. Not only has Barack Obama overreacted and shut down every company’s offshore drilling, putting tens of thousands of people on the unemployment line, and he’s not talking to experts to figure out how to solve the problem, but to figure out who to assign blame to!?

That is not leadership!

More gun control

Those wonderful people who brought us rabid environmentalism, political correctness, the Stimulus program, and amnesty for illegal aliens are at it again. Once more we’re faced with the specter of “Gun Control” decreed by Washington. One of the leading mouthpieces for this is “Handgun Control Inc.”, who claims that it “only wants to keep handguns out of the hands of the wrong people”. Fine sounding words I suppose, if you’re a bleeding heart leftist. Really, these nuts all know that banning guns works to stop crime, and haven’t they told us that, time and again? I suppose we’re expected to ignore the fact that New York and Chicago have such high murder rates. Ignore the fact that Washington D.C. has strict gun controls and a murder rate of 69 victims per 100,000 population. Ignore the fact that Indianapolis, without severe gun laws, has a murder rate of only 9 per 100,000. Australia had a high profile mass shooting a number of years back that brought about a nationwide gun grab, yet their crime rate hasn’t declined... in fact it’s skyrocketed! Just last week in England, where all gun ownership is tightly restricted, a taxi driver described as "friends with everybody" went on a shooting spree killing 12 people and wounding 25 others. In America, rural areas with few gun restrictions have a surprisingly low crime rate, but urban areas with strict gun laws suffer the highest murder rates in much of the world! So the left claims that gun control works! But no, the feds are supposed to keep guns out of the wrong hands, so, leading with their usual left wing logic, if you are a law abiding citizen who happens to own a handgun, you obviously have the wrong hands.

Such logic further dictates that you can incapacitate an intruder with oven spray, but if you shoot him with a .357 magnum he will get angry and kill you. (Wanna bet!?) And of course a woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a live woman with a smoking gun in hand, and a dead rapist at her feet. The “evidence” often quoted by the left is from their usual line of impeccable sources, as we all know that the "New England Journal of Medicine" carries excellent articles on gun control, just as "The American Rifleman" carries such great articles about open-heart surgery. With all this, I guess we should consult Wall Street CEO’s about the nations economy, the loony left about our nations political problems, and Sara Brady for advise about firearms. We’re told that the Second Amendment to our Constitution, which was ratified in 1791, refers to the National Guard, which you might note, was created by Act of Congress in 1903, a mere 112 years later. Then of course logic tells them that “The "right of the people peaceably to assemble" and "the right of the people to be secure in their homes" refers to individuals, while "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers only to the state. Still, as most citizens cannot be trusted, we need strict firearms laws because we can trust our citizens to abide by them. The leftists don't get it -- criminals don't obey the law, only law-abiding citizens do. So how does denying the Second Amendment Rights of law-abiding citizens ensure that criminals won't have guns? Pardon me while I scratch my head and try to figure out all this.

Back in 2006, the UN adopted resolution 61/89, intended to develop an international treaty that would severely limit international trafficking in “conventional arms”. I’m sure that when this was first thought up, it actually was targeted at the international military arms trade. The Bush administration turned it down on the grounds that national controls would be more effective at limiting a very lucrative business, than would a rather broad based and difficult to enforce UN treaty. Now however, team Obama has reversed President Bush’s decision (why am I not surprised at that). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Oct. 14 last, that the U.S. would now support the treaty, as without U.S. support, the "negotiations would not have been conducted at a high political level". Now, representing the US, she’s signed on, and the “treaty” is due in 2012. If you are not familiar with most of this, you haven’t been following the firearms debate. Perhaps you haven’t been tuned in to the liberals who are trying to get their grubby hands on your shoot’in iron!

Essentially the treaty would include all weapons – all military, security and police arms, related equipment, ammunition, components, expertise, and production equipment. All types of transfer – including import, export, re-export, temporary transfer, transhipment, state sanctioned and commercial trade, plus transfers of technology, loans, gifts, aid, and all transactions including those by dealers and brokers, and those providing technical assistance, training, transport, storage, finance and security. This does not mean that weapons sales are outlawed, merely that any sale or transfer is required to have some sort of government permit that would be issued at the whim of… yet another federal bureaucrat! That would include your leaving Grandpappy’s old musket to the Grandkids! The plan is to develop a treaty that ensures no transfer is permitted if there is any risk that it is likely to be used in violation of human rights, act of genocide, or crime against humanity. Or, if it might facilitate terrorist attacks, gender based violence, violent crime or organized crime. The “violent crime” component instantly includes ANY sort of firearm, and I’d suspect knives, clubs, or a bow and arrow as well!

If the UN wants to limit international trade in tanks, artillery pieces, and machineguns, that’s understandable, and it might even be a good idea given the number of wars and assorted genocidal pogroms going on around the planet. But they can darn well keep their fingers off of my Constitutional rights! The 2nd Amendment of our Bill of Rights says that the people have the right to keep and bear arms. At the time the 2nd was ratified, that meant rifles, muskets, etc., as those were the weapons used by militias as well as for hunting and personal protection. As firearms technology expanded, the 2nd amendment expanded as well, to include weapons that are much more advanced (automatic weapons, high-powered rifles, "assault" rifles) than those used in the late 1700s. But there's also some limit on what arms the people are allowed to keep and bear. It's my opinion that at the time the 2ed amendment was written one of its functions was to insure that the citizenry had the ability to stop the government if it turned to tyranny. If that is the case, then the common folk would need weapons that could match the governments. The key here is that you have the right to keep and bear any arms, as long as you don't infringe on someone else's rights. My possession of any particular weapon doesn’t intrude on anyone’s rights, even though using it might be an infringment. (Launching an ICBM from my back yard might possibly cause major problems for the neighbors!)

As for me, I’ll keep my Constitutional Rights and my rifle. I will so inform my congressman of that fact… and he can have the change.

Memorial Day

Dateline Memorial Day, 2010. (As often happens, I’m running a bit late in getting this weeks column ready for press.)

I’ll start with reminding everyone that “Decoration Day” was begun by a group of Confederate women in Mississippi who, in the midst of our Civil War, while caring for the graves of their husbands and sons that had been killed in combat, noticed that the nearby graves of Union soldiers had been completely ignored and were being overgrown by brambles and weeds. Realizing that those Union soldiers had also left wives and sweethearts behind, the Confederate Ladies began caring for the Union graves as well. That kindness quickly spread to the North, and soldier’s graves across the nation were cared for, often by complete strangers, who understood what those soldiers had fought and died for. Following the war, Lt. Gen. John Logan, then commander of the Union veteran’s organization “The Grand Army of the Republic” issued the document that semi-officially made Memorial Day a national holiday. It reads in part;

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

General Logan’s order was posted to veterans of the Civil War, and was soon adopted by nearly all Americans across the land. Observed on the last Monday of May (May 31 in 2010), it was intended to commemorate U.S. soldiers who died while in military service, and was enlarged following WW I to honor American soldiers from all wars. A day of remembrance of those who answered the call, served their country in a most honorable manner, and who all too often didn’t get to come home again.

Mr. Obama’s relationship with the military is on somewhat shaky ground, so his decision to take a vacation with his family in Chicago rather than pay his Memorial Day respects at Arlington National Cemetery is somewhat hard to understand. Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Orson Swindle said of that decision; “The President seems to demonstrate almost weekly just how, at least to me, little he cares about this country and our history and our heritage,” “He seems almost to resent it, which is the most mind-boggling thing in the world, because without a country like America Barack Obama could not be President. He seems to dislike our institutions… and that’s a sad, sad thing.” Swindle is a decorated Vietnam veteran, and was Sen. John McCain’s cellmate in the Hanoi Hilton.

I’m not going to disparage Mr. Obama’s decision, even though it does seem rather strange to me. Rather than Arlington, he visited the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery south of Chicago (conveniently close to his vacation site), where the memorial ceremony was quickly cancelled due to rain showers. Still, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and advisor to Presidents Ford and Carter, Mr. Steven Hess said that “Presidents go to Arlington for three reasons, one is tradition, obviously when there’s a tradition, one prefers to follow it rather than break it.” Then, “The second would be just the size and importance of it, the number of veterans from all wars that are there and that’s significant. And the third is a rather practical one, it is very convenient. Presidents go across the bridge and there they are. Their time is valuable, I don’t mean that that’s much in their minds but it’s probably somewhat in the minds of their schedulers. I don’t know of previous Presidents doing what Obama’s done.” It happens that nearly every region in the country has a veterans cemetery, so Mr. Obama didn’t break with tradition all that severely I suppose. Still, David Corn, former editor of the ultra-liberal magazine “The Nation”, wrote that “So what the hell do these conservatives want out of Obama? And does it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb?” Well Mr. Corn, perhaps Memorial Day matters to the families of the soldiers whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and even more so to the families of servicemen who were killed in action and whose remains have yet to be identified and returned. Or ask the living Mr. Corn, ask the old vet standing at attention and holding a salute while Taps is being played. Or perhaps you might ask the young soldier proudly standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Those “leaves” you speak of, Mr. Corn, are placed there in respect for their sacrifice. Why Arlington you might ask? Well, consider… Of all the stones standing silent watch in these dangerous times, one modest white-marble slab on a green hillside stands out. On it is engraved:

Michael Joseph Mansfield

PVT U.S. Marine Corps

Mar 16 1903

Oct 5 2001

Private Mansfield did not fall in battle like so many soldiers whose last post is at our National Cemetery. Mike was fortunate to have lived to know his grandchildren, and he died at age 98, at Walter Reed Medical Center. In these days of greed and stolen honor, he ordered that his headstone disclose nothing more than that he shared a singular honor with millions of other Americans, that of holding the lowest rank in the US Marine Corps. Not that he had been America's ambassador to Japan, or that he was a United States senator from Montana. There’s no mention that he was our longest serving majority leader of the Senate, through unpopular wars, terrorism, battles for equal rights, filibusters and financial furies, mushroom cloud nightmares, clashes of church and state, guns and taxes, and even Watergate.

What's tragic is that at the end of his life Mike saw the America he'd fought for in a civil and respectful fashion, turn into sound-bite nastiness, TV slogans, Internet smears, blind faith ideology, and tempered by "gimme" power grabs. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan led the memorial service for the troops stationed there. "The fact that people are willing to stand up and do what's difficult, they're willing to stand up and do what's frightening, and they're willing to stand up and do what often costs, really is the measure of not just a person, but of a people." Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, urged that we all "take time today to think about those who made their freedom possible."

As for me, following Monday’s Memorial Day ceremony here in Grangeville, I went with another “old veteran” to hoist a glass, “To times long past, places far away, and friends who won’t be with us today”. And we both shed a tear for those long ago friends who gave their young lives to the nation that we all held so dear.

Primaries

Apparently established politicians consider primary elections to be of little importance (unless they’re running for one office or another), and the last few days seem to indicate the truth in that. I notice that the White House is busily ignoring the whole “Super Tuesday” massacre, with an explanation for each failure: weak candidates, campaigns that failed to sufficiently embrace the president, and a toxic political environment that is hostile to incumbents. But still, when the party in power looses over half the primaries held on that day, those primaries just might be indicative of considerable voter unrest. ‘Course the republicans didn’t do a lot better, with a number of officially approved candidates coming in a poor second or even third place. The real winners seemed to be the candidates supported by the Tea Party movement! A new poll says 63 percent of likely Republican primary voters in Idaho "generally support the agenda of the tea party movement," with one in six calling themselves members. The poll in Idaho, the nations “most Republican state”, came from an Idaho Statesman/KBOI-TV poll conducted May 17-19 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research in Washington, D.C. A national poll in late April found 27 percent supporting the tea party movement. Yet the same poll asked respondents of all political parties if they were "active" in the movement, and just 2 percent said yes. Asked a slightly different question in Idaho, "Do you consider yourself a member of the tea party?" 16 percent said yes.

Dealt a setback from an angry electorate, Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington have been studying the defeats of hand-picked candidates in hopes of learning lessons for other upcoming primaries, and probably the fall election as well. Any doubt about how toxic the political environment is for congressional incumbents and candidates preferred by party leaders disappeared when voters fired Sen. Arlen Specter, forced Sen. Blanche Lincoln into a runoff, and chose tea party darling Rand Paul to be the GOP nominee in Kentucky's Senate race. The message is clear: It's an anti-Washington, anti-establishment year, with voter frustrations fired by a sluggish economy, seemingly unending joblessness, bottom-of-the-barrel Congressional approval ratings, and only lukewarm support of Mr. Obama. People just aren't very happy with anyone linked to power it seems. Taken together, the outcome of the Super Tuesday primaries, following voter rejections of GOP Sen. Bob Bennett, and Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan in West Virginia, provides further evidence that anyone affiliated with Washington or traditional party organizations is at risk, regardless of their affiliation.

Future implications for both parties could be huge. Candidates like Paul and Sestak owe little or nothing to their respective parties. The art of coalition building could become a thing of the past if more freshman congressmen come to Washington as free agents with no political baggage, and disconnected from the usual party politics. Still, those victories are being called a rejection of the establishment by upstarts who beat the opposition of their party’s leaders, swept in by angry voters who are in no mood to take orders from assorted party bosses. This could also create a rather awkward situation for the White House, with candidates hungrily looking to the November election, and owing nothing to Mr. Obama, who, in order to see his agenda through, desperately needs the loyalty of all democrats. Seventy percent of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in Washington, including twenty-two percent who say they are "angry" about the situation. Only fifteen percent approve of the job being done by Congress.

Looking to the future, half of all Americans say that life for the next generation will be worse than it is now, while only twenty-eight percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in Washington, a number that includes less than one Republican in ten. Among Americans who describe themselves as angry, the top reasons given were not representing the people, partisan politics, unemployment and the economy, and government spending. That frustration crosses party lines, as both Republicans and Democrats are viewed unfavorably by a majority of Americans. Democrats' favorable rating has fallen from 57 percent to 37 percent, while the Republicans have improved (and that's not saying much) as 33 percent have a favorable view of the party, while 55 percent have an unfavorable view. Sixty-one percent currently say the county is on the wrong track, with only 32 percent saying America is on the right track. Were I a politician, I’d be real concerned with those numbers.

Personally I’m rather amused by this sudden flurry of “fire the incumbents” anger, as I’ve been saying much the same for quite a few years now. Like many of the Tea Party folks, I’m mad. I’m mad at the democrats for pushing their far left socialist agenda on America. I’m mad at the republicans for not fighting tooth and nail against that progressive socialism. I’m also mad at the republicans for their attempts at compromise with the progressives rapidly destroying my country! Compromise Hell! But most of all I’m mad… infuriated might be a better term, with the American voters, complacently sitting on their thumbs and constantly re-electing the same proven enemies of our freedom and democracy, while the nation goes down the drain.

Remember to vote in November, and while you’re at it, remember what the democratic majority has been doing to us for the last few years.