This Insanity Must End

I think I lack the writing ability needed to describe the range of emotions I’ve been experiencing in the last 48 hours or so; starting about the time Senator Nelson sold his vote to Harry Reid.

I’m probably having so much difficulty because what I’ve been seeing and hearing is so remarkably alien to me. It’s like a poorly constructed plot line from a bad novel – you know, the kind you stop reading because it’s just too improbable.

Well, the highly improbable seems to be happening right before our eyes; I can scarcely believe that this isn’t a nightmare from which I’ll eventually awaken - sweaty, but none the worse for wear. But I am not asleep, and this is not a dream.

It seems that what couldn’t be accomplished in 233 years by the mightiest armies in the world - the subjugation of the American people and their Constitution - is being accomplished by a Chicago punk and a radical Democrat Congress.

The reality of what we’ve actually been witnessing has become abundantly clear after the 60 majority members of the Senate, in the wee hours of Monday morning, voted to shut down debate on the federal takeover of 17 percent of the economy. It is nothing less than the non-violent shackling of the citizens of the United States by their own government.

It is the shredding of the Constitution by those who have sworn to protect it.

The final indignity was an insult to our intelligence known as the Reid amendment. That’s the one that, among other things, bought off Ben Nelson by agreeing that Nebraska would be indemnified against all Medicare increases caused by the bill in perpetuity!

Now, mind you, that’s not the Senators’ money we’re talking about here – it’s your money and mine.

See how this works? If you or I were to try to bribe a public official we’d obviously be breaking the law and would wind up in jail, but at least we’d be using our own money in the attempt. If you’re the Senate Majority leader, not only are you not prosecuted – you don’t even have to foot the bill for the bribe. The suckers will pick up the check.

The unmitigated effrontery of it leaves me breathless. The sheer insanity of it has me spinning.

And now comes news that there are provisions in the bill that would illegally change Senate rules – making it virtually impossible for the new law to be repealed or changed. This is what is meant by the tyranny of the majority.

The more I think about it the angrier I get. The reaction to this abomination should transcend party lines – lovers of America, of any political denomination, should be decrying this legislation for the constitution-killing piece of socialist dogma that it is. What we get instead are lies, spin and distortions, which they really don't care if we buy into it or not. Such is the level of their arrogance.

You know what? We’ll take a break to celebrate Christmas, we’ll let the New Year ring in, we’ll let the House/Senate conference make their changes – none of which will be able to prevent this bill from being a complete disaster - and then we'll pick a date and we will hit the streets.

Maybe I’ll be by myself. Maybe there’ll be a hard core of a hundred or two joining me. And maybe, just maybe, there will be thousands of you out there - because there damn well should be.

So go dig out your thermal underwear, your ski caps and your woolen socks.

It could be cold on New Dorp Lane.

The Contempt of Congress

When pollster and pundit Pat Caddell was asked recently why our elected officials seem to ignore the will of American citizens, his response was that Congress has “nothing but contempt for the very people they are supposed to represent.”

Sounds pretty harsh, doesn’t it? Surely, the good men and women of the United States Senate and House of Representatives have faults and make mistakes, but do they have “contempt” for their constituents?

Or, perhaps, is it merely that they see us as sheep; a flock of tiresome animals, possessing a bleating sameness, unable to determine what is really best for ourselves and our families, and incapable of making rational decisions about our own future?

Indeed, given the scope of recent legislation – all designed to take whatever decision-making autonomy we might have had out of our own hands and place it into theirs – it’s hard to dispute that they view themselves as our shepherds.

Here is what's in store now, or in the very near future, and in no particular order: they will tell us how much we can pay our executives; they will tell us what kind of cars we can drive; they will enslave us to the religion of global climate change; they will tell our bankers to whom they should lend money and on what terms; they will control the air you breathe by EPA fiat; they will tell your doctor how much he will earn and what treatment he may provide to you; they will force you to buy a product you may not need or want; they will usurp the majesty and wisdom of your creator and re-define the rights with which you were endowed – and worst of all, they will render impotent the ink and parchment we call the Constitution of the United States of America, making it an archaic relic of a glorious, but distant, past.

Caddell is right – it is contempt. When government elites pass, or attempt to pass against our will, various pieces of legislation that are so radical, so antithetical to our free market, capitalist roots, what else can we call it?

I find myself wondering what the breaking point will be for the American people, when it will come, how it will manifest itself.

And in my nightmares, I find myself wondering if there is a breaking point for the American people, or are we going to allow ourselves to be, like sheep, herded and penned up, oblivious to our fate, powerless to prevent the slaughter of our rights and the butchering of our future as free Americans.

We have always believed that we could never be defeated, that no foe could steal our liberty, that no army could bend our will, that we would know freedom not only for the rest of our lives, but for the lives of our children and grandchildren, and for future generations as of yet undreamed.

Today that is not so certain - so insidious has this radical administration and complicit Congress proven to be.

In April of 1775, when the shots rang out by the rude bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, the people of America knew they were at war and must fight to defend their freedoms.

In December of 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the people of America knew they were at war and must fight to defend their freedoms.

In September of 2001, as the towers fell, the people of America knew they were at war and must fight to defend their freedoms.

Now, as the first year of the Obama Administration draws to a close, our Constitution has come under assault by our own government - and even though no musket was fired, no bombs were dropped, and no buildings destroyed, once again the people of America must realize that we are at war.

And once again, we must fight to defend our freedoms.

A Short Course on Brain Surgery

Living in a DC Comic Book World.

During a Q&A session at one of the Meet and Greet events a few weeks ago, a young lady on our staff stood up and said she felt like she was living in Bizarro World, an expression I've used myself on many occasions.

For those of you too young to remember, Bizarro World was an invention of the fruitful minds of the writers of DC Comics, originally introduced in their Superman series in the early 60's. On Bizarro World, everything good is bad, everything right is wrong, everything beautiful is ugly.

Those who live on Bizarro World are hideously disfigured clones of their counterparts on Earth. As enunciated so clearly by Bizarro, the character after which the planet formerly known as Htrae (Earth spelled backwards, of course) is named, their credo is as follows:

"Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!"

It doesn't take a terrific leap of the imagination to see where this is going: the Obama Administration and the Democratic Majority have transported us magically, in less than one year, to what seems to be a bizarre alternate universe. Only, unlike the product of some comic book writer's imagination, this is all too horrifyingly and sickeningly real.

What makes this Administration bizarre? One scarcely knows where to begin.

What we as Americans have revered for centuries our own government now reviles. Our free-market, capitalist system, which made us the greatest nation in the history of the world, is in the process of being crushed under the boot-heels of radicals. Do you realize how successfully this Administration has made "capitalism" a dirty word?

They and their minions work day and night strip all the goodness and morality from it, to portray it as greedy and selfish - all the while ignoring that it is a system of true equality for all men, a system under which the poorest among us can rise - not simply to mediocrity - but to great heights, by the virtue of our own minds and our willingness to work hard for ourselves and our families.

Think about how far this President and the Democrats have come in denying you the right to keep what you earn. Think about how far this President and the Democrats have come in their fight to convince Americans that they, the bureaucrats in Washington, know better how to spend your money than you do - you, who have actually earned it.

Bizarre, indeed.

We are a country that, since its inception, bent at the knee before NO foreign power, yet now Obama bows and scrapes in a sickening display of groveling as if WE were the cause of the world's ills - not the best hope for a cure. Forgotten by Obama, or perhaps never fully understood or appreciated, are the sacrifices of 25 generations of America's youth, who died as protectors of liberty for freedom-loving people everywhere on the planet.

Yes, I would call it bizarre for an American President to refer to his own country as "arrogant."

And what would you call it when a country rewards terrorists with the finest legal representation in the world, and all the Constitutional benefits of the citizens of the country they despise and would destroy - yet imprisons three Navy SEALs, who bloodied the lip of an murdering jihadist during his capture, and now await a Court Martial.

What would you call it when, after an Islamic jihadist murders 13 American soldiers about to be deployed, in a blatant act of terrorism on American soil, the President of the United States reminds us immediately that we should not blame his Muslim faith, that we should not jump to conclusions as to his motives, and that we must not let "diversity" be a casualty. This is the same President that labeled the Cambridge Police "stupid" when they responded to a breaking and entering call while he knew none of the facts and only one side of the story.

He and the Democrats are so quick to blame America, and so quick to excuse those who would destroy us.

Almost since Inauguration Day we have had inflicted upon us crisis after crisis, all followed by a flurry of multi-thousand paged legislation, incomprehensible bills to be rushed through Congress - because, of course, there is no time to waste.

And yet our media, those brave watchdogs of democracy, sit mutely on the sidelines, their silence painfully indicative of their lack of objectivity, their rare questioning of policy a bone flipped to the masses, their smug belief in their own superiority barely concealed.

Yes, we live in bizarre times, but more than that we live in dangerous times. Those who are not on the inside of the strategy, all of us, are coming to the horrifying realization that the destruction of the America we know and love is imminent not because of the actions of some foreign dictator, but because of a dangerous and duplicitous rogue regime.

And because we are now living in Bizarro World, the rogue regime that would destroy America sits in the White House, and walks the halls of Congress.

The Way It SHOULD Be Sung

The Obama Administration: God DAMN America

Late on a Friday afternoon, with the President out of the country, the Attorney General of the United States announced that the mastermind of 9/11, and four of his cohorts, will be brought to New York for trial. In a courtroom that would be in the shadow of the Twin Towers - were they standing - will be the vilest America-haters in the world, and sadly, not all of them will be members of al-Queda.

At the forefront of these will be Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

This sub-human piece of garbage will be accorded the same rights granted to the American citizens whose lives he snuffed out, because he so believed in the twisted drivel that is radical Islam.

This sub-human piece of garbage will be granted a hearing in a way that his victims never were.

This sub-human piece of garbage will get a bully pulpit from which to publicly bash our country after killing thousands of its innocent citizens, and from the very place where those Americans died.

This sub-human piece of garbage will get to plead for his life in front of a magistrate, and with legal counsel.

I have some questions.

When the passenger on those jets realized that they had no alternative but death, to whom could they make a plea? When those poor souls working in the Towers - forced to choose between leaping out of a window or facing an inferno of burning jet fuel - had to decide how they wanted to die, who was there to give them counsel?

There is only one way to describe this decision by the Obama administration: sick and demented. Perhaps as sick and demented as the men they are bringing to New York to face the justice guaranteed to American citizens by a Constitution they so despise.

We have elected a diseased group of America-hating radicals, and must be turned out of office.

Interpreting McMahon

We can all feel very much gratified, for a number of reasons, when considering the vote of Congressman McMahon on HR3962 this past Saturday evening.

First and foremost, from my perspective, is the apparent affect your tireless work had on the outcome, forcing him to examine the roots of our opposition to the bill, and helping him to understand the reasonableness of our objections.

For his part, he listened, and that is big, and ultimately he voted against his party’s leadership. We’ll take as an act of faith that he voted his conscience.

But what if he didn’t? Should the Congressman be condemned if his vote was merely an act of political expediency? The more cynical among us will point out that Ms. Pelosi had 40 votes to play with – to pass, the bill needed a majority of 218 votes, and there are 258 Democrats in the House. This gave her, ostensibly, a pocketful of dispensations which could be doled out to nervous Blue Dogs - or other vulnerable Democrats. Michael McMahon is one of these, since he is a freshman D in a district that is reliably Republican - 28 years worth - in a district that voted comfortably for John McCain in the last Presidential election.

To be sure, Congressman McMahon listed a goodly number of appropriate reasons for voting against the bill – indeed, had he gone a little further, he might have been able to justify supporting the Republican version of healthcare reform, which came to be known as the Boehner Amendment.

In a statement, the Congressman said:

"I believe that we need to reform the healthcare system, reduce spending, cut waste, fraud and abuse and expand coverage for more Americans. Unfortunately the bill that passed the United States House tonight does not do that.

The cuts to Medicare will affect seniors in my district, the cuts to the Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) will make it harder for hospitals to service Staten Island and Brooklyn and the cost containment doesn't go far enough. There is no guarantee that this bill will reduce the cost of healthcare premiums for Staten Island and Brooklyn families."

To summarize, Congressman McMahon’s objections to HR3962 are as follows:

1. The bill does not reduce spending.
2. The bill does not cut waste, fraud and abuse.
3. The bill does not expand coverage for more Americans.
4. Medicare cuts will affect seniors in the district.
5. Cuts to Disproportionate Share Hospitals will affect service to Staten Islanders.
6. Cost containment does not go far enough.
7. There will be no guaranteed reduction in the cost of healthcare premiums.

A quick look at the Boehner amendment reveals that it would address many of these concerns; certainly the fiscal ones, according to the scoring by the Congressional Budget Office.

However, Congressman McMahon dutifully, and to no one’s surprise, voted against this Republican amendment, even though it would have overcome nearly all the hurdles that caused him to vote NO on the version that came to the floor. That may cause one to wonder if the stated reasons for voting against the bill were the real reasons he voted against the bill – or might he have voted NO to take political cover in his Republican district.

That would be known as having your cake and eating it, too.

(We should note that there is a distinct possibility that the bill will be back again for another vote, if and when the Senate passes its version. Having set a high bar, a bar any reconciled bill may not be able to hurdle, Congressman McMahon will be forced to vote NO once again. We certainly live in interesting times.)

Despite all of this, Congressman McMahon has voted the right way on HR3962, and in the end that’s all that we asked for. So kudos to the Congressman, and great big kudos to the tireless work of the hard-working, ordinary citizen-members of the Staten Island Tea Party.

We never stopped letter-writing, phone-calling, e-mailing, sign-making, trip-taking and generally being a tenacious bunch of pains-in-the-asses - and in the end, we learned that yes, we can make a difference.

I’m very proud of you all.

They Are Voting Us Into Slavery.

I don’t know what else you would call it. Nancy Pelosi’s version of HR3200, which is called HR3962, would essentially make slaves of us all.

Sounds dramatic, I know, but consider that never in the history of American law-making has the federal government ever mandated the purchase of anything.

Until now.

Passage of this bill will force every American to buy health insurance. For most of us reading this, the money that we use to “buy” something comes from our labor – OUR labor, not someone else’s. We trade the work product of our muscles or intellect for money, in a free exchange with our employer or employees. If the federal government forces you to buy something, it is compelling you to wake up and go to work some morning not to earn money for your own purposes, but to satisfy a bureaucrat’s vision of what he thinks is in the best interests of you and the nation.

Of course, you can choose not to make the purchase and pay a fine of 2.5% of your total income. Further, you can choose not to pay the fine. I don’t need to carry this exercise to its final conclusion, which I’m sure you have realized means, ultimately, being taken at the point of a gun to trial and eventual incarceration.

Your crime? Failure to turn your property, the sweat of your brow, over to a federal bureaucrat. In an earlier part of our country’s history, when a man was compelled at the point of a gun to work for the benefit of another, it was called slavery. It is still slavery today.

We expect our government to protect us from those that would enslave us.

How’s that for irony?

I have never asked anyone to send something I wrote to another, but I think it would be a good thing to make as many Americans aware of this as possible; if you agree, forward this to your email list.

If you’re a Staten Islander, or a Brooklynite living in parts of Bay Ridge or Bensonhurst, your Representative is Michael McMahon. Congressman McMahon has indicated lately that he is leaning towards voting for the bill. We have little time to persuade him not to. Here is where to contact him:

Congressman McMahon in D.C.:
Phone (202) 225-3371
Fax: (202) 226-1272

Congressman McMahon in Staten Island:
Phone (718) 351-1062
Fax: (718) 980-0768

Please call and fax.

Let him know that if he votes in favor of this bill, he will be supporting a massive intrusion of government into our lives.

Let him know that if he votes in favor of this bill, he is voting to forever change America – not to become a greater country, but to become a lesser one.

Let him know that if he votes in favor of this bill, he is voting to kill the rugged individualist spirit of Americans.

Let him know that if he votes in favor of this bill, he will be complicit in the bankrupting of the United states of America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world.

Let him know that we do not want any form of socialized medicine – it has failed wherever it has been tried – and it will fail here.

And finally, let him know that he will be held accountable for his votes.

The Stuff of Nightmares.

It is the stuff of nightmares.

I’m standing outside my own home, my wife and children are huddled alongside me, and my precious baby granddaughter is asleep in the arms of my eldest.

I am peering through the window, and in the house - my house - are faceless thieves. They are methodically stealing everything I have worked for in life – stuffing it into a sack that is bottomless and seemingly able to hold anything they are capable of lifting. I don’t know why, but I am powerless to stop them, frozen in place and mute.

All my life I thought that I was protected from this. I thought that what I was witnessing was impossible; after all, I worked hard, I saved, I was a good citizen, charitable and community-minded. I was, along with my neighbors, my fellow Americans, enjoying the bounty of a carefully planted and nurtured garden. What did I do wrong?

This wasn’t supposed to be happening. There were locks on the doors, defenses in place. There was a magical document (I had seen it!) which guaranteed that what I was witnessing could never, ever happen in this country. My father, and countless other fathers, sons, brothers and loved ones, fought to defend that document, and far too many paid the ultimate price to ensure its safety for all future generations.

They didn’t want to die, but they did. For a few lines of ink on an old piece of paper.

I'm confused. I don’t understand why the ones who are supposed to be protecting me from this crime are instead standing guard at the door, so that I cannot stop the looting, stop the destruction. I chose those protectors, and I pay them – very well. They are supposed to look out for us, especially for my grandchild, so vulnerable, so trusting, and with her entire life ahead of her. Her name is Emma, and she sleeps on, blissfully, with no idea that I am watching them steal her future.

What will Emma have if they take everything?

I realized as I watched in stupefied horror that they are snatching up all the things that made the house my house. Little by little, into that cursed sack has gone the precious freedoms that made me unique, that made me an individual before the eyes of God and man, the freedoms that guaranteed that I could take care of my family – I, not the thieves – to the best of my abilities, the freedoms that guaranteed me the right to make my own choices in life, according to the dictates of my values and my conscience.

In stunned silence, I watch them as they substitute their cheap, ugly and degrading ideas for mine. As they work, they mumble about my "greed."

After a while, I cannot recognize my house – oh, the foundation is still there, but it’s cracked and all manner of damp mold is forming. The frame is racked and worm-holed, the roof leaks, the plumbing's rusted, the wiring frayed and dangerous.

It has become ugly. There is no secure life there anymore. There is no presence of God; no grace.

The house, once so strong and safe, is now vulnerable. Unlocked as it is, vagrants wander in and out, gleefully stealing what they can. The protectors tell me that these strangers, the ones who had no part in building the house or working to make it what it was, have as much right to be there, to help themselves to the fruits of my labor, as does the peacefully-sleeping child in the arms of my son.

I wonder when I will wake up. I will wake up, won't I? This is, after all, just a nightmare.

Michael McMahon's Time for Choosing...

Sooner, rather than later, there will be a bill before Congress that addresses health insurance reform in the United States, and when it happens, it will be Congressman McMahon's time for choosing.

If he utters the word "YEA" on any of the bills now before the various committees, it will be the Congressman's way of telling us that he supports his party's thinly-veiled contention that the age of rugged individualism is dead. His yes vote will indicate his belief that the Age of Statism has come, because, grown fat and lazy both physically and intellectually, the American voter is less concerned with hewing his own path to success and prosperity than he is with being led down the gently-sloping paved road created by his federal government, replete, as it is, with low-hanging fruit to be effortlessly plucked from trees planted by stealing the labor of others.

This is not the excuse that will be given, of course, but make no mistake, it is the underlying truth. We will be told that the cost of doing nothing is greater than the trillion-dollar cost of another government boondoggle - oddly enough, however, no free-market solutions will be entertained. To the current administration, the only road to problem-solving runs through Central Planning City, loops around Entitlement Town and terminates at Dependency Depot.

All Congressmen wear two hats; that is understood. And when it comes to delivering the requisite tonnage of pork to his district, Congressman McMahon pulls into Staten Island driving a fully-loaded semi with admirable regularity. Bringing home the bacon requires skills, to be sure, but little tough decision-making.

However, when the Congressman dons his other cap, he becomes a legislator voting on issues that affect not only every individual in his district, but every individual in the country. It is then that a choice must be made; whether he will vote to uphold the liberties endowed by our Creator and guaranteed to us by our Constitution, or whether he will vote for the marginalization of those rights, and that document, by the moral busybodies of the left - who wish to substitute their best judgment for our own. There really is no middle ground.

The country is more divided now than it has ever been in my lifetime, and that includes the era of the Vietnam War. This great rift has not occurred because the Right has moved further right - Conservatives want what they have always wanted, to be left alone to earn for themselves and their posterity the best life possible, and to enjoy the freedoms that our Constitution was created to protect.

And as always, Conservatives continue to believe that capitalism is the single most moral political and cultural system in the history of the world, allowing, as it does, for the possibility that the individual who is the least among us can to soar to unimaginable heights - an opportunity no other system could have afforded him.

The Left, however, is a different story. This chasm between us has become immeasurably vast because the Left has drifted so far from our founding principles that it has rendered Democrats unrecognizable. They are clearly no longer a party that believes in the liberty of the individual; they have become naked collectivists and re-distributionists - indeed, such ideas were enshrined by our current President in his college thesis.

Liberalism is beginning to reek with the stench of the oppressor, and it tries to cover it by bathing in the sweet-smelling perfume of government handouts. It requires no great leap of imagination to see this for what it is - a systematic approach to creating a permanent underclass, so dependent upon government largess that they will unthinkingly supply enough votes to keep Leftists in power for generations to come.

So a simple "NAY" vote by our Congressman will not do; not if it is based on some minor funding technicality, or other innocuous and transparent bit of cover.

What it is necessary is a resounding repudiation of the underlying philosophy.

Congressman McMahon is now charged with taking a real stand. Will he vote to uphold our Constitution and protect the liberty of the individual men and women who made this country great and strong? Or will he vote to give it up to the collectivists?

Will he have the courage to demand free-market solutions, or will he vote to continue the headlong rush into American decline? The 13th Congressional District of New York waits and wonders.

Time to check the moral compass, Congressman McMahon, and let us know in which direction it is pointing.

The U. S. Marines: Tellin' it like it is since 1775

"I'd like to go somewhere where I can be free..."

"I’d like to go somewhere where I can be free."

That’s what I said to my wife this morning at the kitchen table, after hearing the news that the New York City Council passed a law banning the sale of flavored tobacco products.

I’m much more sensitive to that kind of thing now – this willy-nilly diminishment of my freedoms - and that’s what’s really at the heart of the Tea Party movement; a last-minute, almost desperate attempt to protect what’s left of our individual liberties. I guess, in our hearts, we know this is going to be an uphill battle, because the barbarians are not only at the gates – they're inside the fortress walls.

In a sense, we owe Barack Obama and his administration a debt of gratitude. The chip, chip, chipping away of our individual liberties had been going on for quite some time - we just slept through it. Because of their ham-handedness, though, we’re awake now; maybe even in time to do something about it.

Sneak thieves in the night, camouflaged as our elected representatives, have been stealing our liberties while we slumbered, filching a little independence here, a little autonomy there – hey, after a while it adds up. But here comes the Obama administration, stumbling and bumbling and crashing around like the novices that they are, grabbing everything in sight, stuffing it into their sacks, and making no attempt to be the least bit quiet about it.

Now, the rule is if you don’t make a lot of noise, and you only take the small stuff, I’m probably gonna keep sleeping. However, when you’re clumping around like a bunch of asses wearing cement shoes, trying to stuff the baby grand into a pillowcase, or the triple-dresser into a tall kitchen can bag, I’m pretty sure I’m going to sit up and take notice. Probably even raise an alarm. Call the cops.

It’s when the cops turn out to be the thieves that you know you’re in big trouble.

So, what’s the upshot of all this? And why the big fuss over flavored tobacco products? I don’t use them, and frankly don’t know who does – though the law is ostensibly on the books to protect children. I guess, when the synapses in my brain (aided by my morning coffee) really started firing, I came to understand that the City Council had decided that I couldn’t do a proper job teaching my children about the dangers of tobacco products – at least not to their satisfaction. So they took that right away from me and assumed it for themselves.

Along the way, they trampled the rights of the smokers who might have used and enjoyed the products, the retailers who sold the products, and, in essence, they mandated lower revenues for the companies that produce the products. Additionally, it’s not too great a leap to imagine that down the line this will lead to some measure of increased unemployment. But what chance do these “rights” have when there’s social engineering to be done?

If you’re reading this I’m pretty sure you’re not sleeping anymore, though you may still be sitting up in bed rubbing your eyes – probably in disbelief. And maybe, like me, your first reaction is to want to pack up and go to that mythical place – that place where we can be really free again. But, sadly, that place doesn't exist. In a famous speech, Ronald Reagan related this story:

“Not too long ago two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are! I had someplace to escape to."
In that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”

That speech was delivered on October 27, 1964, 45 years ago next week, on behalf of Barry Goldwater. It is perhaps the most famous of his speeches, certainly one of his most beloved. The title given to those remarks is A Time for Choosing; how much more prescient that speech could have been I cannot imagine.

It is, indeed, a time for choosing in America, because I believe that very shortly, meaningful “choice” in the manner in which we are governed might well disappear.

So we, the Tea Party movement, suffer the ridicule of our more “enlightened” friends and neighbors. We are routinely insulted, mocked, denigrated, vilified and marginalized as a fringe group. Did you ever imagine that people who believe in the Constitution of the United States, and the individual liberties it guarantees, are now a “fringe” organization?

But still we do it, and if you ask yourself why, the same great man can provide the explanation:

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here.

We did all that could be done.”

You're In the Army Now.

Maybe you’ve already served, and thought you were done. You’re not.

Or maybe, like me, you were caught up in traveling life’s highway and took America for granted, believing that the United States was the greatest country in the world and always would be - with or without our help. America didn't need us to do any fighting...

Well, guess what? We’ve been conscripted.

Think about how your personal world – and your country – has been flipped on its head in the last eighteen months or so, starting around the time you realized that Barack Obama could indeed become the Democratic nominee, and hence, might very well assume the helm of the ship of state - the most powerful state in the history of mankind. I suspect that the term for what you felt is “icy shivers.”

It was the stuff of political potboilers: "Our government falls under the control of nefarious characters - bent upon the destruction of the Constitution and the moral tenets that made us great..." This might be the subject of a “gripping” Cold War-era novel, but any such plot rooted in these constructs was purely fictional and always would be. That's what we believed, anyway.

So we slumbered. And worked. And raised kids. And shook our heads in wonderment as one-by-one, the institutions, morals and values with which we were raised became corrupted and politically incorrect.

“My, my, are they allowed to say that on television? Are they allowed to show that in a movie? I can’t say what without offending anyone? Am I really a racist, a xenophobe, a homophobe, unenlightened, misogynistic, uncaring, selfish and condescending? I hadn’t realized…”

While we slept, they crept. While we were engaged in out-of-hand dismissals of their attacks on the innate goodness of our country and political system, or watching the “counterculture revolution” happen from afar with bemused smiles, they worked insidiously and studiously to change our world. We accommodated them by staying busy with just plain making a living, and naively handed over our most precious legacy – our children – to their influence and instruction.

So now we find ourselves under the control of statists, socialists, a few communists, some failed 60’s revolutionaries, radical academics, revisionists, race-baiters and entitlement agitators. And that’s just in the White House.

Congress is really bad, because to all those characters listed above you must add another group: cowards. Lord knows there are plenty of those on Capitol Hill.

At the head of this motley collection sits a man with no qualifications for the job he holds – actually, he wasn’t even qualified for his previous job, and only barely so for the one before that, which was, as Mark Levin calls it, as a back-bencher in the State Senate of Illinois.

He came to office with no accomplishments other than a solid radical upbringing, nurtured by mentors and friends for whom the destruction of the United States was a consummation devoutly to be wished. And devoutly is the way he is following the script.

The time-honored premise that the government which governs least governs best has been shredded in less than a full year. In choosing to believe that human self-interest is greed, our President feels justified in subjecting such self-interest to a test: does it benefit the greater good? That such a philosophy will inevitably lead to a diminishment of personal freedoms and a country ruled by political elites does not concern him. Indeed, it is the goal.

These radicals, who have hijacked the Democratic Party, have already started to put in place the mechanisms by which they will perpetuate their power, including slowly but surely dismantling the guarantees of liberty Americans have taken for granted for more than 200 years. To get their way they will legislate if they can, but if they cannot they will regulate, tax, harass, restrict and intimidate.

They will expand the single, ever-growing constituency that will insure their elections in perpetuity: the entitlement class; the slaves that are beholding to the federal government for their food and shelter, insuring a permanent underclass that will go to the polls as instructed and vote for he or she who will provide their next meal.

Worse still, they will defend their actions by couching them in moral terms. C.S. Lewis said:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

To get their way they will spin the judiciary, ignore the Constitution, and make great use of the mainstream media to convince the people that their goals are lofty, enlightened and necessary.

They will demonize the right and try to control or silence its voices.

They will engage in census shenanigans – in full view of the American public – to re-shape electoral boundaries in a way that will ensure their party’s continued electoral dominance.

They will hammer away at the second amendment and completely bury the tenth.

They will try to create a two-party system in name only, with the Republicans merely providing a convenient cover for their one-party rule.

They will continue to use our own freedoms against us. Inherent in a democracy is the right to dissent, and within that right fulminates the cancer that gave rise to current Administration. Indeed, the free Americans they wish to subjugate are, in many cases, actually trumpeting the rights of the destroyers to do so.

We have met and defeated foreign enemies, and American blood has been spilled for the cause of liberty since the birth of our nation – but we now fight an enemy of a different stripe, an enemy within, and our military cannot help us now. Shouldering the burden of this battle is a task that falls to the citizens.

That would be you. And me. And while this war will not be fought with guns, or by force of arms, it will nevertheless be long, exhausting and brutal.

The challenge we face is real, and it is immediate. The 13th Congressional District of New York is currently represented by a Democrat, a good man but a man who will, when the chips are down, vote with his party on a preponderance of issues. I will not besmirch Congressman McMahon by accusing him of casting his votes for political expediency; I will trust that he has told us the truth when he said his votes are guided by his moral compass.

But his compass and mine point in different directions far too often for me to be comfortable with his continued representation. We are obligated, unless the Congressman does a philosophical about-face, to work against his re-election.

We have laid the groundwork. We have held the Tea Parties, marched on Washington, read the blogs, and watched our numbers grow. That was the easy part; the hard part is yet to come – translating our beliefs into concrete actions, actions that will make a real difference.

Be prepared.

Swamp Replaces Dump to Assault Our Nostrils.

We don’t generally get involved in local politics, but this is too much.

Those of you in Republican Jim Oddo’s 50th Council District – you know who you are – should be aware that he has accepted the endorsement of the Working Families Party, a coalition of ACORN, SEIU and other community activist organizations.

This “party,” besides having been accused of numerous campaign violations, and dirty dealings involving its for-profit company Data and Field Services, hardly represents the principals one would expect a Republican elected official to espouse; that they would offer Councilman Oddo their endorsement, and that he would accept it, can only be described as bizarre. It reeks mightily of quid pro quo.

So, while the country is focused on national politics and the healthcare debate, Councilman Oddo has quietly waded deep into the Staten Island political swamp; a festering, stinking amalgam of rotting cross-endorsements, murky deals, and, well, inbreeding.

As a Republican/Conservative, I always thought it absurd to have a Borough President - himself a Conservative - actively campaigning for a Liberal Democrat in a Congressional race. Did Big Jim not realize that Mike McMahon would not only bring home the bacon, but that he'd be part of the cabal to shove it down our throats as well? I guess we can't all look at the big picture, especially when doling out the goodies is what it takes to get you re-elected to yet another term.

Well, our Borough President no longer swims alone.

By accepting the endorsement of the Working Families Party, Oddo is effectively thumbing his nose at, and making fools of, the loyal base of GOP voters in his mid-Island district. That’s right - we now have a Republican Councilman who shares a soiled mattress with a party that's synonymous with ACORN and SEIU, the poster children of election fraud, hooliganism and intimidation. In fact, the WFP shares offices in Brooklyn with the ACORN group that turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to prostitution and sexual slavery, and is now under investigation by the Brooklyn DA's office.

Strange bedfellows, right? No, not the WFP and ACORN - the WFP and Oddo.

It’s hard to believe that he would take informed Island Republicans for granted that way – but that’s just what he’s done. He thinks he has his Republican/Conservative base locked up, and that they wouldn’t consider voting for any Democrat opponent he may face - so the swamp of Staten Island politics just gets a little deeper, and Councilman Oddo is the one doing the digging.

I mean, if he doesn't think you're well-informed, what does that mean he does think? That you're dumb? Or ignorant?

Well, Jimmy, there are Republicans who can look past the end of their noses, and who don't like being taken for granted while you play footsie with a party that is anathema to all they hold dear. We have to ask ourselves if a Democrat could be much worse - at least Pocchia is consistent, and true to his core beliefs, such as they are.

You? Well, maybe not so much. You're either being disingenuous by accepting the WFP endorsement, or disingenuous by calling yourself a Republican. I can hardly see any middle ground.

Is pulling the lever for whichever candidate is NOT endorsed by the WFP an impossible thing for Republican voters? I'm curious to know the answer. Are you?

Some acts of political expediency can be swept under the rug, some cannot. This one cannot

A Day That Can Only Be Described As Inspiring.

Rev C.L. Bryant, from Shreveport, Louisiana speaks to America on 9/12 in Washington, DC.

"You Lie!"

Yesterday, before a joint session of Congress, the Fearmonger-In-Chief took to his bully pulpit for the 112th time, in another attempt to sell his health care program to the American people. This is a piece of legislation that, if it were expressed in oil paint, would resemble a Jackson Pollock original.

Informed Americans realize that this is no more about health care than Cap-and-Trade was about global warming; it is merely a manufactured crisis designed to scare us into expanding the powers of the federal government - yet again. Of course, credit must be given to the spirit and innate intelligence of Americans everywhere, since Obama's poll numbers show that he is fooling fewer and fewer of us each and every day

The rate at which the President of the United States has spent his political capital rivals the rate at which he's spent us into trillions of dollars of debt; it can only be described as dizzying.

But more importantly, he continues to burnish his credentials as a man who has only a passing and fanciful acquaintance with the truth. That he dissembles so easily and breezily is a testament to the man's oratorical skills, though that particular facility is not one we usually look for in a leader of any kind, let alone the leader of the free world. But he sure can tell a whopper. Sort of Clinton-esque, but without the likability.

Last night's effort was a mother-lode of such gems - if you found yourself sputtering with indignation early and often, you were in plenty of good company. One after the other they came, these pearls before swine: waste and fraud will be eliminated from Medicare; the plan will not add "one dime" to the deficit; only 5% of Americans will be on the government plan, and so on and so on.

Finally, after President Obama put on his best poker face and said that illegal aliens would absolutely NOT be covered under his plan, and when he could stand it no longer, Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) channeled the disbelief and frustration of millions of viewers, blurting out the words, "YOU LIE!" in a moment so priceless I must offer it to you here and now:



Go ahead. Play it again. And this time, pay particular attention to the expression on Nancy Pelosi's face: she's shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you! Here, indeed, is a moment to rival Rick Santelli's plaintive and angry cry, "Are you listening, President Obama? Do you hear us?"

Of course, Wilson has since dutifully apologized and issued his mea culpa. But the damage has so deliciously been done; I relish the moment.

Penn and Teller Explain the Obama Administration in One Minute

Vets Do Have A Way With Words, God Bless 'Em

"That's God Giving Us an Amen"

The speaker is Kevin McCullough: columnist, author and radio-show host.

The occasion is the August 2nd Staten Island (NY) Tea Party held at historic Conference House Park. Despite dangerous weather, almost 700 patriots came out to make their voices heard.

Kevin makes a reference to Jesus Christ, and then...

Our Incredible Vanishing Congressman

Congressman McMahon admitted the other day that he has no intention of holding a Town Hall meeting during this summer’s recess. He did so after a particularly hard-hitting set-to with a group of bingo-playing seasoned citizens at the Assumption Senior Center in New Brighton.

Despite a withering verbal assault in between the calling of N37 and B15 (BINGO!) our fearless leader stuck to his principles – no matter how much they threatened, cajoled, browbeat and bribed, he would not take a stand.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to vote.

Now the skeptical among us might think that indecision would be a good reason to speak to a wide swath of your constituency, especially when you have all this down-time back in the district. Perhaps a strong, healthy dose of what ordinary, hard-working, tax-paying Staten Islanders are thinking might help to clarify the mind a bit, right?

Wrong. In a post-Bingo interview with NY1, our Congressman made the following statement, verbatim and in toto:

“When you have some Town Hall meetings of this sort of ‘new version’ where this certain group comes in, hijacks the meeting and tries to drown out any thoughtful discussion, then I don’t think those meetings are helpful. So I will continue having dialogue in meetings like this….”

Apparently he’s met with civic leaders, community leaders, business leaders, and, as we know, a certain demographic of Bingo players, but I guess “meetings like this,” do not include you and me. And when we’re excluded, deliberately excluded, this story stops being funny.

Mr. McMahon, I suggest you take a step back and recognize that “this certain group” you refer to so disdainfully is YOUR constituents, and voicing their opinion to their Congressman is their right in a representative democracy. That you lack the fortitude to hear what they have to say because they speak in strong and passionate voices is very telling black mark on your re-election resume. Or do you, like President Obama, feel that we should just “stop talking and get out of the way?”

Personally, I don’t hear people “drowning out” thoughtful discussion – I simply hear people drowning; drowning in a sinking ship of ill-conceived, budget-busting, socialistic legislation. I hear people who perceive these meetings as a last chance to stop our country from plummeting into the murky depths of socialized medicine.

Please understand that the reason we are not interested in debating the minutiae of the various bills is because they all share the same titanic gash below the waterline; no matter how the deck chairs are arranged, any one of these bills will sink our healthcare system.

It's time to come out of hiding and face your constituents, Congressman. Leave the "Where's Waldo" games to the kids.

The Rage and the Pride.

It seems as if this administration has taken dead aim on our freedoms - starting on Inauguration Day - and has hit the mark just about every time. Is it any wonder that the steady drumbeat of frustration has been growing ever-louder and more insistent over the months?

We watched Congress pass, and the President sign, a "stimulus" package that stimulated virtually nothing, but included big payoffs for his cronies and enablers, like ACORN. We watched them take over GM and Chrysler, trampling both the rules of law and contracts in the doing. We watched them barge into corporate boardrooms, fire CEOs, threaten ruinous taxation on legally contracted bonuses, and cap corporate pay.

We watched them take the first steps towards gaining control of our energy industry, using manufactured crises and tissue-thin excuses, all of which are based on junk-science and pie-in-the-sky "green" technological breakthroughs that are not even on the horizon.

And now, healthcare. They are trying to portray it as a system that is hopelessly broken and in need of complete overhaul. It is nothing of the kind - they know it and we know it. It needs fixes, yes, but fixes of the American kind, not the European kind. It needs free-market reforms, it needs to let competition work and it needs the government to stay out of it.

The truth is that health care reform is not about health care any more than cap and trade is about energy - the beating heart of all of this legislation is government control.

Those of us that disdain and resist this quicktime march to socialism are the ones who watched the Left demonize the former administration for 8 years - and we just kept our mouths shut and took it. Nobody said a word. Nobody pushed back. Nobody fought back. That's when the drumbeat really started.

And then along came Rick Santelli, and when he shouted those fateful words - "President Obama, are you listening?" - the fuse was lit. Because we knew the President wasn't listening, and if he was, we knew he didn't care. His agenda became perfectly clear, and the drumbeat quickened yet again, the frustration began to harden into anger, and finally, the anger into action.

We are tired of being called compassionless cretins because we don't support bailing out the irresponsible. We're tired of being called kool-aid drinking racists because we support the vigorous defense of our borders. We're tired of snide remarks that allude to us as relics of the past because we love and revere the Constitution.

We're sick and tired of the sneering condescension that drips from the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and Henry Waxman, who exult in their super-majority even as they dance on the graves of our Founding Fathers. We're tired of it all.

And so here comes August and we're stewing with this pent up rage. At the same time, the health care issue - the latest assault on our liberty - advances to the fore. This is the big one.

After the stimulus, the budget, the Detroit shakedowns, the Wall Street takedowns, the energy-industry hijacking, the finger-pointing, the demonizing, the disdain, the scolding and the ridicule, we get a chance to say our piece at a Town Hall meeting. Is it any wonder that voices are raised?

We are witnessing the rage and pride of the free citizens of the United States of America.

I am filled with the heart-breaking image of ordinary Americans struggling to decipher the legalese in a thousand-page bill so that they can debate their elected representatives, in the hope that they can slow, stop or divert this march to socialism.

I am filled with the heart-breaking image of ordinary Americans trying, with sputtering indignation, to formulate a question that will convey their feelings to a smooth-tongued politician who has been thoroughly schooled in all the answers.

I am filled with the heart-breaking image of ordinary Americans shouting and gesticulating because they are nervous and not practiced in public speaking, because they know they are not getting through to politician in front of them, because they are afraid to give up and sit down, to give up on their country, to give up on their belief that they will somehow, if they keep talking, right the ship they feel is listing so badly and in danger of sinking.

I am filled with that rage and pride - aren't you? Aren't you enraged at those that would put good, hard-working American men and women through this hell? Aren't you proud that those same Americans will not go down without a fight?

Those who demonize Tea Party protesters and Town Hall activists are blaming some nefarious plot by Republican obstructionists, or talk radio, or insurance company misinformation - because they cannot fathom the truth.

The truth is that people such as we - groping for an answer, searching for a tactic - are desperately trying to figure out a way to stop the enemy from disgorging its minions from the Trojan Horse we have allowed inside our gates.

The truth is that without the media to voice our concerns, Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings are the only way we can be heard.

This is the rage and pride of Americans, pure and uncut, pouring out in actions we never thought we were capable of taking, in words we never thought we were capable of uttering. This is the rage and pride of Americans who will sit still for these indignities no longer.


*The title of this piece has been borrowed from an essay written by the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci after the events of 9/11/01. "La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio" is an inspiring piece which can be found here.

The Obama Administration: Thugs and Slugs

Not long ago, Barack Obama exhorted his troops to use an "in your face" style when debating those who dared to disagree with his agenda of false hope and radical change. Sharpening the point, the White House set up a "snitch line," encouraging citizens to forward emails opposing Obamacare, or even report "casual conversations" that "smelled fishy."

If anything smells in this country, it is this inexperienced, radical, hateful and divisive administration - easily the most dangerous in the history of the nation. And this particular fish is most certainly rotting from the head down.

After senior White House adviser David Axelrod and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina met with Democrat senators, and promised them that "If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard" using the party and its allies, things started to get dicey. Apparently, these "allies" include union thugs and goons.

Here is the future of free speech and dialogue in the United States of Barack Hussein Obama:


According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

“It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.

Downplaying the meeting with Axelrod and Messina, Senator Harry Reid told reporters “They are just helping us understand the fringe that is trying to mess up our meetings.”

Sorry, Senator, but it is we who are trying to understand. We're trying to understand how and why this fringe administration is trying to mess up the greatest healthcare system in the world. Of course, we're doing it the American way, through informed discourse and making our feelings known. Your Thug-in-Chief seems to prefer a different way, one he learned on the streets of Chi-town, I suppose. There's an old union phrase: "If we can't win with the power of persuasion, we'll win with the persuasion of power."

BHO seems to have learned that lesson well.

Running for Cover. And Not Finding Any.

As predicted, Congressman McMahon has taken refuge in a tough guy approach to the radical health care proposal being bullied through Congress. It is to be expected, since he doesn't want to be seen as a cheerleader for what will prove to be an extraordinarily painful and destructive initiative.

It won't work, though. Not as long as we vow to stay informed and engaged.

This from the Staten Island Advance (SILive) today:

Said McMahon: "... I am concerned that the proposed health care bill will be paid for at the expense of our small business owners ... essentially penalizing (them)." [snip]

But Staten Island Rep. Michael McMahon predicted there will be a new way of providing health care in this country, and paying for it, by year's end, if not by Congress' August recess..."

Sound familiar? It should. Last week we wrote:

Do not be surprised if you see the Congressman expressing "deep concerns" about the health care bill, insinuating that he may not vote for it until he knows how it will be paid for. Ultimately, though, after some minor tweaks and fixes, he will toe the Obama/Pelosi line.

Now under normal circumstances this tactic would work quite well; it makes it seem as if he is putting the well-being and interests of his constituency before party loyalty - but that's all smoke and mirrors. The truth is that we are fools if we let him shape the message this way.

The underlying theme here is that despite the "tweaks and fixes," our Congressman is in favor of socialized medicine. McMahon - along with all the other politicians who will vote for this bill but are not personally bound by it - is ultimately going to vote to dump the greatest health care system in the history of the world.

Detractors (and there are many) will say that I'm being picky, that even when the Congressman does work for the benefit of his constituents I am looking for and finding fault. This is not true. The reality is that no matter what portions of socialized medicine McMahon objects to, he will still, in the end, support socialized medicine.

As I have said before, will say here, and will say again on August 2nd in Conference House Park: "Time and time again our Congressman votes us into the twilight world of soft tyranny..."

Think Nobody's Listening?

If any of your friends, neighbors or relatives roll their eyes when you tell them you're involved in the Tea Party movement, mention this piece from today's Wall Street Journal:

...on Friday a busload of freshmen Democrats went to the White House to plead their case against sharp tax increases with the president and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. The organizer was Rep. Gerald Connolly, the president of the freshman class whose Northern Virginia district is the richest in the U.S. as measured by median household income.

"There could come a time," said Rep. Michael McMahon, a freshman Democrat from New York City's borough of Staten Island, when Democrats are in open rebellion. "We will certainly see in the next few weeks where we are going." [snip]

For now, most freshmen aren't saying how they will vote on the House health-care bill. Mr. McMahon, whose New York district also includes parts of Brooklyn, said there is no open revolt, but there have been two meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and there was the White House meeting Friday with Messrs. Obama and Emanuel. Taxes dominated what Mr. Connolly described as a cordial but inconclusive discussion.

"I spend all my time here making the case that the profile of the rich doesn't stand in my district," Mr. McMahon said. "People feel that they're getting hit from all sides."

Skeptics will say that you and I had nothing to do with it. Don't buy it. This was predicted in an email you received a few days ago if you are on the Tea Party mailing list:

This is Congressman McMahon's worst nightmare - an informed electorate who cares and is energized.

Do not be surprised if you see the Congressman expressing "deep concerns" about the health care bill, insinuating that he may not vote for it until he knows how it will be paid for. Ultimately, though, after some minor tweaks and fixes, he will toe the Obama/Pelosi line.

Think nobody's listening?

On the Death of a Hero.

Never having experienced the hell that is war, it exists only in my mind; I often wonder if I am capable of conjuring, in my imagination, the real sights, smells and sounds of it, the true depths of the fear and horror that must accompany battle. I think that I cannot, and that only makes those who have been in harm's way all the more worthy of my gratitude and honor. I'm sure many, many of you share my feelings.

Recently, we lost a man that is a true America hero, and he is worthy of our recognition. That his story would be taken to his grave untold and uncelebrated, ignored by a culture that worships an entertainment-industry freak but gives nary a passing thought to a true American, is a sad but not shocking commentary on our priorities, which puts a premium on pop-stardom, but publicly cares nary a whit for true courage.

At least that's true of some of us. Not all. I believe it's not true of you and I know it's not true of me.

Ed Freeman was a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam, second-in-command of Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). On November 14th, 1965, he was supporting Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, where elements of the 5th and 7th Cavalry of the U.S. Army engaged elements of the regular army of North Viet Nam in one of the first major battles of the war, an apocalyptic event that would last 4 days, and be memorialized in the book and movie "We Were Soldiers." [The photo above was taken in the morning at LZ X-Ray, before the battle started, as Alpha Company was being helicoptered into the zone. Little did they know of the hell they would endure before the sun set that day.]

Within hours of being helicoptered in, the landing zone became so "hot," under withering enemy fire, that Medivac flights were called off. Wounded American soldiers lay where they were shot, their life forces ebbing unchecked, and the living were quickly running out of ammunition and supplies. Into this inferno of chaos and death flew a single, unarmed HUEY - piloted by Ed Freeman. Freeman brought in water and ammunition, and brought out wounded American boys.

Not once. Not twice. Fourteen separate times, Major Freeman set down his chopper in that deadly cauldron, and fourteen times he flew out. The men he rescued numbered about 30; the men whose lives he saved by re-supplying them, probably in the hundreds.

These are the words of President George W. Bush as he awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Major Freeman:

In a moment, we will hear the full citation in all its heroic detail. General Eisenhower once observed that when you hear a Medal of Honor citation, you practically assume that the man in question didn't make it out alive. In fact, about 1 in 6 never did, and the other five, men just like you all here, probably didn't expect to.

Citations are also written in the most simple of language, needing no embellishment or techniques of rhetoric. They record places and names and events that describe themselves. The medal itself bears only one word and needs only one, valor.

As a boy of 13, Ed Freeman saw thousands of men on maneuvers pass by his home in Mississippi. He decided then and there that he would be a soldier. A lifetime later the Congress has now decided that he's even more than a soldier because he did more than his duty. He served his country and his comrades to the fullest, rising above and beyond anything the Army or the nation could have ever asked.

It's been some years now since he left the service and was last saluted.

But from this day forward, wherever he goes, by military tradition, Ed Freeman will merit a salute from any enlisted personnel or officer of rank. Commander Seevers, I'll now ask you to read this citation of the newest member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and it will be my honor to give him his first salute.

An email has been circulating recently which incorrectly dates Major Ed Freeman's death to coincide with the probable drug overdose of a major entertainment figure - I assume to make a valid point about the priorities of the mainstream media and their pop culture minions. But such fudging of the truth is not necessary.

At the time this hero actually did pass on, in August of 2008, there was little or no public mention or notice, and though in the grand scheme of things not many people read this blog, it was important to me that now you know his story.

Thanks for listening.

ANOTHER Question for Congressman Mike.

Sorry to bother you Congressman, I know you're busy, but I have to ask: Do you think we're stupid, asleep, or both?

In your one-size-fits-all, canned response defending your vote on Cap and Trade, you said:

This bill uses the same, market-based, American solution which was successfully put in place to fight Acid Rain in 1990 for carbon emissions. As a result of the Acid rain program, electricity rates fell 10 percent and 16 million new jobs were added to the American economy.

Well, sir, that seemed like quite an achievement, so I took it upon myself to do a little research. I found a decidedly left-wing website called the Center for Progressive Reform and came up with this:

This reality is demonstrated by looking at U.S. economic performance in recent years. From 1990 to 2000...the U.S. economy added a whopping 16 million new jobs.

Umm, Congressman? We have a disconnect.

You claimed that the Acid Rain program added all those jobs, but the CPR (correctly) attributes that job growth to the entire U.S. economy. Was every job created in the United States during that period the result of the Acid Rain program? No, sir, that would be a ...mischaracterization.

Oh, those inconvenient truths. Real "butt-biters" sometimes, aren't they?

I'm telling you, Congressman, if you can't be straight with your constituents they have a right not only to be angry, but to flat-out kick you out of office. You're already too comfortable by miles in Washington.

Don't get used to it - it may be a short stay.

A Question for Congressman Mike.

Umm, Congressman, according to Section 431 of the ACES Act, “The Secretary (of Health and Human Services) shall formulate and administer the program provided for in this section, which shall be known as the ‘Energy Refund Program’, and under which eligible low-income households are provided cash payments to reimburse the households for the estimated loss in their purchasing power resulting from the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.”

How is it then that, in your canned response to those who took you to task on your vote, you can say, "New York households will save on average $5.58 per month in electricity costs and $8.00 a month in fuel costs within the next 10 years under the Energy Bill."

Oh, my.

Congressman, your canard was directly contradicted by the language of the bill. If you don't believe in private enterprise and the free-market system, why don't you just say so? If you believe that the ideal way to run the United States economy is through a central planning commission populated by a collection of inept federal bureaucrats, why don't you just say so?

Don't you know that it insults us when, and I hate to be crude, you pee on our legs and tell us it's raining?

You're not being straight with us, Congressman, and the word is getting out. These votes are defining you, and WILL NOT be forgotten, even when you occasionally vote against your leadership as a sop to your center-right constituents.

Happy Fourth of July!

Today's a good day to put Washington, D.C. out of our minds, and think a bit about Washington - the original.

And John Adams, and Tom Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, and James Madison, and all the great men who pledged their lives and fortunes to create the single most unique and productive society in the history of history.

So many generations removed from the planting of the seed of independence, we who were born post-WWII grew up taking our rights for granted, didn't we? We believed freedom and individual liberty were the rule, not the exception. Until now.

Now we have to channel the passionate beliefs and determination of our founders in order to save the republic once again. If we lose it - or allow it to be taken from us - we cheapen the memory of hundreds of thousands of men and women who paid for our freedom with their lives.

And will it have been taken from us by a nefarious foe who defeats us through strength, determination and force of arms? No. In that there would be a certain honor.

Rather, we will have lost it to a gang of slugs and thugs, without a shot being fired.

Today would be a good day to think about the sacrifices made by those originals; that unique collection of men who were not asked to spend a few hours at a rally in the summer sun in a beautifully manicured park, but were asked to put their very lives on the line in the cause of freedom. When Ben Franklin said "We must all hang together, or we most assuredly will all hang separately," he wasn't just quipping - he was dead serious. For those men, failure meant certain death.

They put their lives on the line for themselves and their posterity - and we are their posterity. We speak of our fathers and grandfathers as the Greatest Generation. If we allow it all to slip away - what will they label this generation?

What's That Stench?

I don’t know the technical definition of Marxism, but I know it stinks. In fact, I bet it smells a lot like the putrid odor that is wafting out of Congress these days.

Something in those hallowed halls has gone terribly...rotten.

The House of Representatives, once populated by great men, great thinkers, great lovers of individual freedom and protectors of private property, is now, through its Democrat majority, a fully-baked product of the Obama Administration – a cesspool of radical thought, and even more radical legislation.

That we sent to Congress an individual who so comfortably swims in those foul waters is a measure of our gullibility. Gullibility and simple trust that this man would go to Washington and fight the good fight – fight to keep us free, as he is supposed to do. Fight to protect and defend the Constitution, as he is sworn to do.

Instead, time and time again he votes to enslave our economy, and by extension enslave us, to a gaggle of federal bureaucrats.

Worse yet, he votes with liars and America-haters. He votes with thugs and sneaks. He’s part of a majority that promised transparency, yet rams bills through with 300-page amendments issued in the blackest part of night, bills that are so impactful that they transform the basic relationship between government and private industry; bills that are passed before they are even presented in their final form, and hence, cannot even have been read.

I cannot call this representation, and I cannot sit idly by and pretend that a few bucks and a few jobs is a fair tradeoff for the destruction of the country that I love. American men and women have died to defend our rights and liberties for over 200 years, but now the ghosts of those brave soldiers must look on in horror, as our current so-called “representatives” filch those liberties, piece by piece, in the middle of the night like a gang of sneak-thieves.

Reprehensible. I don’t know whom you represent, Michael McMahon, but it sure ain’t me.

I cannot promise that you will be defeated in 2010, Congressman, but I do promise you this: by the time Staten Islanders march into that voting booth, they will be educated. They will know how you are voting, and what the real impacts of those votes will be – not the fluffy spin you will put on them in a four-color brochure.

No, I cannot reach everyone in the 13th, I don’t have the money or the platform - but I won’t stop trying. Your votes, and your often-insulting defense of them, have succeeded in creating a small, tough core of activists on Staten Island. Probably nothing for you to worry about – yet. But every day, the word seeps out to more and more people, and more and more people become aware and alert…and engaged.

To whatever extent I have anything to say about it, Congressman McMahon, Staten Islanders will not be sleep-walking into the voting booths in 2010. They will be voting with their eyes wide open.

We are paying attention, now. House by house, block by block, Staten Islanders are being roused from their slumber.

Gotta love it. Gotta.

"Three things taught me conservative love,
Jesus, Ronald Reagan and Atlas Shrugged"

Yup. That pretty much covers it.

Some Words on Father's Day

Happy Father’s Day, everybody. Even if you, personally, are not a Dad, the fact is we all have one, so we should all celebrate the day.

My Dad is 84, and I consider myself blessed, and more than a little lucky, that he is still with us and enjoying life; I'm 57, so very few of my friends and relatives can say the same. But I remember them all, all the Dads of my youth; so many different personalities and styles, all of them patriotic Americans, most only a generation removed from the old country.

They all, to a man, believed in the greatness of America, taught us to work hard, taught us that there is no free lunch, taught us to have compassion for those less fortunate and to be generous with them, taught us to struggle for a better life, and told us that having achieved it, no man could take it from us.

Would that the men who now run this country been taught the same way.

My father enlisted in the Marine Corp the day he turned 18, in 1943, and after a year of stateside training was shipped overseas. There, on Guam and Iwo, he trained for amphibious landings. By that time, the United States Navy and Marine Corp had island-hopped almost all the way across the Pacific – almost. There was still one to go before the invasion of Japan, and that was Okinawa.

PFC Frank Santarpia, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division, 20 years old, went ashore with the first wave on the morning of April 1, 1945: Easter Sunday.

There’s no time or space here for the details, but suffice it to say that Okinawa, which was in such close proximity to the home islands of Japan that it was within the prefecture of the city of Tokyo, was the most heavily defended island of the entire war.

By the time the island was secure, 12,513 brave American men were dead. Mull that number over in your mind for a moment. Twelve thousand, five hundred and thirteen. In an action that took less than six weeks.

The wounded numbered 38,916, and my father was one of them; he was shot on May 16th, during the Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill. He received a Purple Heart, spent three weeks in a makeshift island hospital, and was sent back to his platoon before the operation was completed.

And as brave as he was, as unbelievable as his story is, he was far from unique. He did his job alongside tens of thousands of other Marines and soldiers. In the same mold as any other American fighting for freedom, his actions represented the norm, not the exception – and every single detail about that battle had to be coaxed from him; he never talked about it voluntarily, and never thought it was anything special.

So here’s a salute to our fathers. May we celebrate the ones that are with us, and never forget those who are not. I remember you all: Al, Gerard, Sebastian and Ralph Santarpia, my father’s brothers; Ed Coyle, my father-in-law; Joe Graziano, Dan Rago, Frank Guigno, Russ Sabatino, Tony Muccio – the fathers of my friends, and all important, in their own way, in shaping my life.

I hope, dear readers, that you were as lucky as I - to have known such men.

We are what they made us.

It is time.

Something must be done.

We are already, in a few short months, past the point of hoping that our Congressman will awaken from his Obama-induced slumber and start voting to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Instead, we, his constituents, are less and less free every day, while our government grows larger and larger, loots our life savings, bankrupts the treasury, and spews ever-more fantastic lies about "hope" and "change."

There is no hope for the individual, only for the collective. And the change? The change is that now the looters are accepted in the halls of Congress, and usurpers are installed as "czars."

Congressman Michael McMahon votes us into the twilight world of soft tyranny, time and time again, and I am done asking why. Each week brings a new crisis, a dire threat – and always the only solution is to give up a little more of our freedom. With every new crisis and new "solution," the economy shrinks, our liberties evaporate, our options dwindle - but the government never shrinks, it expands and grows ever larger and more powerful.

With the transparency of a heavy fog, bills are rammed through committee, rammed through Congress, and every one, every one, makes us less free, gives us less choice, makes us less independent, makes us less American. That is always their solution – it is the solution of the tyrant.

I'm sick and afraid, but my sickness and fear is hardening into anger and resolve. We will rally again this summer, my dear fellow patriots, we cannot wait for 9/12.

Will you join me?