Loose Llamas on the Lam Lassoed

Loose Llamas Lassoed in Sun City Enough of interrupting the news, prime time, and afternoon programming with high speed and low speed churches. Forget OJ in a slow speed chase in a white Bronco. The nation was transfixed earlier today by fleeing llamas on the loose in Sun City, Arizona. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, Washington Post covered the romp through the asphalts. Twitter lit up. Llamas are free roaming in nature. These sought free roaming rights on the asphalt of Maricopa County. Three llamas were being transported to an assisted living facility in Sun City for pet therapy for a retired llama rancher. Two llamas feigned a bathroom need, and then bolted for freedom. They were not ready for retirement in Sun City. The cry went out: “Escaped Llamas; Llamas on the lam.” The confusion of war: A Bolo went out for Fernando Lamas. The live llama drama ensued. Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies couldn’t corral the desperados. Wannabe football stars futilely tried arm tackling the gallivanting llamas. Cars stopped. Drivers gawked. The Sun City seniors suffered cardiac arrests as they slammed the brakes on their golf carts. Sun City hasn't seen that much action since the feedlots closed. Phoenix is still in the West. In a scene out of Hollywood, real cowboys rode to the action with lariats to lasso the escapees from the beds of their pickups. What a sight to see! The smaller of the two went down easy, but the larger loping llama continued its flight to freedom. Finally, sadly, three urban cowboys roped the white llama.

CSIs Investigate the Death of Oscar

The Academy has called in TV’s CSI teams to conduct a forensic analysis of the slow, painful death of OSCAR while NCIS looks for the missing American Sniper. The corpse was shrouded in 50 shades of gray for the post-mortem. The coroner’s cause of death is listed as terminal ennui. Captain Brass is searching for the man who streaked the OSCARs in his briefs. A court order is sought to enjoin Jack Black from ever again interrupting the opening number, or even speaking at any future awards. He set the theme by basically saying movies were irrelevant. The FBI issued bolos for Harvey Weinstein, Bruce Vilanch, Joan Rivers, LEGOS, the audience, and Jack Kevokian. Oscar’s been terminal for some time. Viewership dropped 16% this year, or slightly less than 1/6 from last year. The theory of everything in Hollywood is viewership. The Oscars are losing. They are but an imitation of their former selves. James Franco phoned it in a few years ago. This year the viewers tuned it out. Billy Crystal said no. Ellen Degeneres said no. Neal Patrick Harris had proven himself in the Emmys and Tonys. He should have said no as his talent was wasted. We watch the Oscars to view the best of Hollywood. Once again, we got J Lo’s cleavage. Don’t the Oscars have anything else to show? We saw Benedict Cumberbatch sipping from a flask. We saw little of the best movies, and less of the Hollywood greats. Glory was the only glory in these Oscars. Lady Gaga rocked on 50 year old songs – a statement on the current status of the Oscars. Neal Patrick Harris suffered whiplash darting between the seat fillers. The winners deserved their Oscars, but America did not deserve this Oscars. Bette Davis said she named the Oscars after her ex-husband’s butt. We were the butt of the Oscar’s deflated jokes this year. The time has come to bring back David Letterman and his Stupid Pet tricks.

Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republican Legislature Are Enacting Right to Work Legislation in Wisconsin. The Media is Focusing on the Governor As a College Dropout

Scott Walker is Not a College Grad! So What! Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin announced that he will sign a fast track Right to Work bill if the Republican Legislature sends it to his desk. The Wisconsin Senate is expected to approve it this week and the Assembly next week. A Right to Work State means employees can neither be forced to join a union as a condition of employment nor otherwise pay dues to a union. Such an act will be revolutionary in the Progressive State of Wisconsin. The traditional industrial heartland of the United States, the upper Midwest, has been highly unionized led by the autoworkers, steelworkers, and teamsters. One of President Obama’s legacies is that he Republicanized the industrial heartland in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections. Indiana and Michigan went Right to Work in 2012. Governor Walker crippled the public employee unions, except for police and fire, but left the private sector unions alone. That is about to change. Recent elections and declining union membership show the unions lack the power they once had. Union membership dropped to 11.7% of the Wisconsin workforce in 2014, down from 12.3% in 2013, and 14.2% in 2010. Union membership ranks have been sustained only by the large public sector unions One by one, state by state, Right to Work cripples the political fundraising powers of unions and decimates their ranks. The unions tried to defeat Governor Walker, even unsuccessfully mounting a recall campaign. They lost. Elections have consequences. Yet, the media is ignoring the Right to Work battle, focusing on the Governor dropping out of Marquette 34 credits short of graduating. If it spreads to other states, such as Ohio, then the once powerful industrial unions, the CIO unions, one of the building blocks of the middle class, may well shrink to political insignificance. Red State power will rise and Blue states continue their decline.Florida and Texas will continue to rapidly grow. One rule of politics is to narrow the field by knocking out opponents early. Governor Scott Walker has become a front runner for the 2016 Republican nomination. He has won election twice as a conservative Republican in the traditionally Progressive State of Wisconsin. He survived a recall election and a politically motivated criminal investigation. He defeated the public employee unions in Wisconsin. He survived the worse they could throw at him. The unions made Governor Walker a national hero to conservatives. Governor Walker comes across as a straight shooter who gets things done, a seemingly rare act in today’s political atmosphere. He doesn’t abandon his campaign pledges after winning elections. He presents compelling speeches. He now faces a new attack, designed to destroy his Presidential prospects. He is accused of not graduating from college. Reporters are flyspecking his college career. Did he leave because of drugs? An honor code violation? Trashing the student newspaper during an election campaign? Or was college just not the right route for him? The record shows that even in his college years he was a consummate politician. He has achieved great success in his given profession. The Constitution specifies the President must be at least 35 years old and a citizen born in the United States. This attack line will backfire. The nation deserves a substantive debate on Right to Work, ISIS, foreign policy, immigration, the economy, and ObamaCare. Instead we are getting major elements of the media and Howard Dean claiming you need a college degree to be President, a claim verging on elitism. He will win that debate

President Obama's Policy of Strategic Patience in Action

The Obama Administration declared its foreign policy is premised on “Strategic Patience.” The Obama Administration is currently hosting a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, not to be confused with Anti-extreme Islamic Terrorism. We are patiently waiting to hear the words “Islamic Extremism,” “Islamic Terrorism,” “radical Islam,” or even “Violent Islamic Extremism,” uttered at the Summit. The President started the week by declaiming Christian extremism in the Crusades. The State Department’s Marie Harf said yesterday that “we cannot win this war by killing them,” so we need to get them jobs. Let’s pull out more of those “shovel ready jobs,” which we are still patiently waiting for. Senator Robert Menendez (D. N.J.) thinks the Administration’s statements and quotes are “talking points coming out of Tehran.” Isis is using social media and bullets to win. The State Department is flooding social media with tweets. Bullets versus tweets. Patience. Fortunately for America, golf is a game of patience. The President is a master of the links. ISIS beheads James Foley. The President declaims the act, and then golfs on Martha’s Vineyard. ISIS beheads 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. President Obama golfs in Rancho Mirage after decrying the death of the Egyptians, never acknowledging they’re Christians. He has time to think about the world’s problems as he golfs. He neglected to mention the Jews in his request for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS as he referred to the French Kosher Market victims as victims of random violence. Kayla Mueller died because the President exercised patience over a week before the military launched its unsuccessful rescue mission. The hostages had been moved in the interim. The President is exceedingly patient in answering questions about the IRS, Benghazi, and Fast and Furious. Republicans are out of patience. He has patiently watched “Core Al-Qaeda” and “The JV Team” morph into the deadly ISIS. He has patiently supplied the Ukrainians with MRE's as Vladimir Putin supplies the Ukrainian "rebels' with special forces and tanks. MRE's versus tanks. Patience. He is patiently watching the Iranians progress to building the Bomb. His grand strategy apparently is to patiently await the fall of the Ayatollahs and Russia with the collapse of oil prices. He is also patiently awaiting, but doing his best, to speed up the fall of the Netanyahu government in Israel. He is patiently waiting for the Arab Spring to blossom into a secular, tolerant democracy. He is patiently watching ISIS gran more land in Syria, Iraq, and now Libya to establish the first Caliphate since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. He is patiently studying the fall of the Yemeni government to pro-Iranian rebels after he lauded the success of the Yemeni government and his strategy for fighting Al-Qaeda in Yemen. It is the model as we apply the strategy elsewhere in the Mideast. Patience hath its virtue, but what it is in the Mideast is known only to President Obama. Quick question: Association When you hear “Strategic Patience,” does General McClellan and ‘Strategic Withdrawal” pop into mind? Patience.

The Republicam Congress Should Send Back to President Obama A New Authorization For the Use of Military Force

The Republicans Should Give President Obama a Real Military Force Authorization – Not the One the President Wants. President Obama sought authorization from Congress for the use of military force (AUMF) against ISIS, ISI, IS at the same time he claims he doesn’t need a new AUMF. He believes he has the Republicans stuck on the horns of a dilemma. He sees a Win-Win for the Democrats and a Lose-Lose for the Republicans. He knows the public will not support a political party, which fails to back a President when military force is necessary to protect the American people. The AUMF he seeks is so limiting that it could fail, making Republicans partners in the disaster. He believes the Republicans will lose either way. The Republicans should throw the dilemma back on him. He has outsmarted himself on the AUMF. The President argues the 2001 and 2002 AUMF’s presently give him the authority he needs to wage his limited war against ISIL The 2001 AUMF was broadly worded while the 2002 Resolution authorized the War against Iraq. He seeks to rescind the 2002 AUMF and replace it with a weak one, which would be limited to three years. It would allow air and special forces operations, but prohibit an “enduring offensive ground combat operation,” whatever that undefined, ambiguous term means. His proposed AUMF lists a number of aggrieved ethnicities and religions suffering under ISIL, but he leaves out the Jews in the list of victims. This omission is either intentional or Freudian. Either way it reflects the latent anti-Semitism of the Obama Presidency. The Peacenik Wing of the Democratic Party opposes the President’s proposed language as granting too much power to the President to wage war, but many influential Democratic Senators think it’s too weak. The President wishes to impose an artificial deadline, as he did with the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. Wars are over when both sides agree or one side unilaterally withdraws. The Iraqi War never ended. The premature withdrawal is drawing America back in. If the Congressional Republicans are wise, they will turn the table on the President on a bi-partisan basis by approving an AUMF broader and stronger than the President wants. The revised AFUM should provide for the use of all necessary force as long as necessary. Put the President on the horns of the dilemma. If he vetoes it, then he and the Peacenik Democrats will pay at the 2016 polls. If he signs it, then the country wins. The Republicans should include an open-ended period, allow for the use of any necessary force with no time limit. The new AUMF should include riders, such as maintaining the fleet of A-10 Warthogs and restrictions on the release of additional prisoners from GITMO. Of course, the President will not use the broad authority to wage war against the radical Islamic terrorists if he signs the Bill, but his successor will. The AUMF is about the future – just not his future.

Caution: Shoveling Snow Without A Permit in Bound Brook, New Jersey May Be Illegal

Oh what a winter! Bitter cold, followed by yet another blizzard racing into the Northeast. Boston’s already 7 feet deep, and another 15-18 inches may dump on it over the weekend. Central Park averages 25” of snow per winter. It already has 56.6 inches. Only residents of the Big Apple who cross country sky thrive in the snow. There’s nothing so classic as seeing a garbage truck with a snowplow barreling down Fifth Avenue. Priority goes to the Mayor’s Park Slope, Brooklyn residence. The past three storms have not only closed the airports, but also shut down the subways an Amtrak, paralyzing the East. New Jersey, home of Tony Soprano, permanently stuck between New York City and Philadelphia, is permanently conflicted. Yet, the snow is a bonanza for small entrepreneurs on the East Coast. The snow brings out the greatness in Americans, the good old Yankee Ingenuity, which built this great nation. Men stick snowplows on front of their pickups and SUV’s and charge neighbors and communities to plow their streets and driveways. Men lacking these vehicles pull out their rusty snow blowers to clear sidewalks. Then we have the young, healthy teenagers who walk house to house carrying snow shovels offering to dig out residents for unreported, untaxed pocket money, and performing the public service of sparing senior citizens from the risks of heart attacks. A few simple rules apply to the snow shovelers. First, that cannot toss the snow into the street because that would defeat the herculean efforts of the snow plows. Second, cities, such as Boston, require residents to shovel their sidewalks. Thus, Secretary of State John Kerry was fined for having an unshoveled sidewalk after the first storm. He was not saved by claiming to be in Europe at the time. Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf, two 18 year olds, were carrying out the hallowed tradition in Bound Brook, New Jersey with an updated marketing approach. They went door to door, handing out flyers in advance of the impending snow. They were signing up clients in advance. Bound Brook’s finest were unimpressed. They informed the two young enterprising entrepreneurs that they could not solicit business without a $450 permit from the local government. Police Chief Michael Jannone said “We don’t make the laws, but we have to uphold them.” Police exercise discretion all the time in enforcing laws. The Bound Brook police follow the precedence of Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, and the Neanderthal communities which require the corner lemonade stand to be licensed in a misguided and economically perverse attempt to nickel and dime the public. Matt and Eric learnt a modern lesson in America: The Nanny State.

Will Democrats Also Boycott the Pope's Presentation to Congress?

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have a frosty relationship. The President has no respect for the Prime Minister. He was caught on a live mike saying to then France leader Sarkozy: “You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day.” The President is pursuing a foreign policy of appeasement: strategic patience; none dare call it “Islamic terrorism,” a weak agreement with Iran, MRE’s to the Ukrainians, pulling the missile defense out of Czechoslovakia and Poland. The President believes peace can be achieved in the Mid East by Israel recognizing the Palestinians, reverting to the 1967 borders, halting new settlements, and abandoning existing settlements. He believes in appeasement. Prime Minister Netanyahu believes in the security of Israel and the Jewish people. He knows Hamas and Hezbollah would exterminate the Jewish people if they could. He fears a nuclear Iran. President Barack Hussein Obama views Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the problem. The President is petulant when he can’t get what he wants. It’s contagious with his assistants. A high level Obama assistant last October referred to Prime Minister Netanyahu as “Chicken Shit.” Republicans and many Democrats are seething at the President’s approach to Israel and Iran. The President has made it clear that he won and is free to do as he pleases. He is unfazed by the Republican landslide last November. House Speaker John Boehner on behalf of the House and Senate Republicans invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on March 3, two weeks ahead of Israel’s elections.. The Speaker did not provide advance notice to the President. It’s called “Separation of Powers.” The Speaker runs the House. The petulant President Obama is throwing a “hissy fit.” He will not meet with the Prime Minister. His minions are telling the media that the Prime Minister’s speech could rupture the U.S. – Israel relationship. A team of five Obama campaign experts is in Israel to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu. The President, whose Administration frequently violates the Constitution, claims a “Breach of Diplomatic Protocol.” This particular diplomatic protocol is newly created by the President. Vice President Biden presides over the Senate, but will be absent during Prime Minister Netanyahu’s presence. The Vice President will be traveling overseas, but doesn’t yet know where. Anti-Semitism is on the rise globally. President Obama is fanning the flames. Three Democratic House members have announced they will boycott the presentation. Others may follow. Speaker Boehner’s invitation is a brilliant political move. It shows widespread Congressional support for Israel, but more significantly it puts the Democrats on the horns of a dilemma. They can stand by their Israeli-hating President, out of party loyalty, or they can show their loyalty to Israel and AIPAC. Obama or Israel? They know they are caught on the horns of a dilemma. The choice is easy for most of us.. The Democrats are attempting to grab the bull by the horns through rhetorically forcing the Speaker or Prime Minister to cancel the invitation. The cacophony of voices in Israel emanate from his political opponents. Prime Minister Netanyahu will speak out against the Administration’s appeasement of Iran. His voice will not be silenced. So far no outcry has arisen over the Speaker’s invitation to Pope Francis to address a Joint Session of Congress on September 24 even though President Obama trashed Christianity at the National Prayer Breakfast last Friday.