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The Curse of Hillary

The New York Yankees apparently are finishing off the Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series.  Normally this would interest me very little, as I am one of those recalcitrant fans who never forgave baseball for cancelling the Series in 1994.  When that happened, the little boy in me died.  The steroid scandals and the resulting destruction of the credibility of so many baseball records have made it east to stay away from the game I once loved.  I do miss listening to Tim McCarver on the post-season broadcasts, who is so insightful on virtually all aspects of playing the game. 
 
In most circumstances I root against the Yankees, though, since I believe that anything that makes George Steinbrenner unhappy is good.  This year is different, though, partly because I don't like and have never liked the Phillies, and because a Yankee win cements the Curse of Hillary. 
 
In the year 2000, the Yankees won their third consecutive World Series, and fourth in five years.  In fact, they had only lost one game in the three series.  That fall, however, the once-proud state of New York elected a carpetbagging, corrupt presidential spouse as their Senator.  HIllary Clinton was the state's junior senator for 8 years, from 2001 to 2008.  The Yankees lost the World Series (albeit in thrilling fashion) to the Arizona Diamondbacks that year, would lose to the Florida Marlins two years later, and then would not even make the Series in the years 2004-8.  The Bronxian Dark Ages had returned (hat tip to Roger Angell for that wonderful phrase).
 
This year Hillary returned to Washington, and the Yankees returned to the World Series, and apparently to the winner's circle, as well.  This set me to thinking a bit more about the curse.  First she lived in a suburb of Chicago, Il, where she grew up.  Despite the fact that Chicago has two major league teams, the Cubs and the White Sox, neither team won a Series as long as HC lived there.  It is worth noting that the White Sox, freed of the curse, won a World Series after she left.
 
The Arkansas years don't count, of course, since Arkansas doesn't have a major league team.  I did notice that no-one tried to move one there.  Baseball team owners didn't get rich by being stupid.
 
Then came the eight years as New York's junior embarrassment (of course, Chuck Schumer was and remains the senior), and again the Curse was adequate to keep two big-spending and highly-touted teams, the Yankees and the Mets, out of the winner's circle for all eight seasons.
 
Now the Curse has relocated, and moved to Washington, and Washington, of course, has the Senators.  I suggest they move the franchise -- perhaps to Arkansas?
 
 
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Impolite Thoughts Again

Welcome to the second edition of Impolite Thoughts.  I'm at work again, and reading between calls (we can do that on weekends), so I just thought I'd share some short thoughts I've had recently.
 
 
 
I think I know why President Obama is so determined to return Jose Zelaya to the presidency of Honduras.  Zelaya, as you may remember, was ousted by the Honduran Supreme Court, legislature, and military for attempting to violate the constitution of that country (the constitution calls for the immediate ouster of any president who attempts to violate it).  All quite legal, except perhaps for the exile part.  In this lies the solution to the riddle.
 
The people of Honduras chose to oust a president for violating a constitution.  You can see why President BO can't let a precedent like that stand.
 
 
 
 Speaking of Honduras, does anyone know how or where we can stand up for our democracy-defending brothers there (and in Israel, as well) who are being bullied by BO and Secretary of State Evita Clinton?  We need to let them know that many (I pray most) Americans still believe in democracy here and abroad, even if the leaders of our anti-Democratic Party don't .
 
 
 
All these weeks and months of the debate over the Democrats' various health-care hostile take-over proposals, and I have yet to hear one obvious (obvious to me, anyway) argument.  We keep hearing about how we must carefully use "our" health care assets.  Every time I see someone making that argument on the news, I want to scream at them "That's right, they're OUR assets!  They do NOT belong to the government!  "We the people" own the health care of this country.  SO BACK OFF!!"
 
President Reagan used to say that we are a people who have a government -- not the other way around.  I still believe in that.  Does anyone else?
 
Libertarian Tony, call your office.
 
 
 
I am somewhat puzzled by the Democrats' new-found affection for "czars".  When their intellectual forebears in Russia had a czar in their sites early last century, they shot him full of holes.
 
 
 
Another truth I thought was transparent, but which I haven't seen elsewhere, is what I believe was the real reason that the Cash for Clunkers program mandated that the old cars traded in had to be destroyed.  It seemed to make little economic sense, and several smart people pointed out that destroying capital assets is never the way to increased wealth, and that this action would have a crippling effect on the supply of spare parts as well as the supply of cheap used cars for poor people who can afford no better.  All true, if you assume that the Democrats really care about poor people, or even the American people in general.
 
What happens when you assume?
 
The reason that the used cars ("clunkers", many of them being in perfectly good condition) had to be destroyed was for the benefit of BO and the Democrats' masters, the unions.  Just think -- no used cars, people would have to buy new ones -- made by the UAW workers, many of whom work for Government Motors now, thanks to BO's meddling in the bankruptcy process.  (Please remember that by handing the UAW preferred stock in GM and Chrysler, the administration guaranteed the UAW a nine-figure annual income from that section of the bankruptcy agreement alone.)  No used parts, people will have to buy new parts -- made by the UAW and other union workers.  Make sense now?
 
It helps if you recognize the Democrats and the unions as partners in crime...
 
 
 
I previously wrote in this space that the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Soft-Headed Peacenick Blather, er, I mean Peace to Barack Obama was a bribe.  Today I wondered if the bribe will come in yearly installments.  As long as BO is willing to keep selling America's interests and its allies out to one-worlders and America-haters, is there any rule that says BO can't keep right on receiving this award again and again?  It would feed his grandiosity, and confirm him in his ruinous fantasy that all of the world adores him.  He would never dream (or perhaps care) that he would be enriching his own ego at the expense of his country's future.  Let's wait and see.
 
 
 
One of the reasons I deplore the failure of schools to teach American History (the real thing, not the Howard Zinn perversion) is that it deprives otherwise intelligent people of any sense of perspective.  I even read in a column by Ben Shapiro (whose work appears on this site) that casualties in the "mini-Tet" in Afghanistan were heavy -- 8 Americans killed.
 
My wife and I traveled to Antietam National Battlefield recently.  In one dreadful day's battle, 3,650 Americans (North and South) were killed, while thousands more died of their wounds in the following days.  I mourn for all of the Americans killed in the service of their country, but 8 lives lost is not "heavy casualties".  Everyone who has more than a rudimentary knowledge of history knows this, but their are too few of us,and the problem grows worse with every passing generation.
 
Learn history, or at least what Santayana said about it.  It'll pay you.
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Some Impolite Weekend Comments

I was doing some bottom-of-the-workbag reading Thursday, and I read this in the July/August edition of the National Right to Life News:
 
"A spokeman for the Rules Committee chair, Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY), said, "The starting point for Rep. Slaughter on the healthcare debate was protecting abortion rights."
 
Concerning this, a few observations (and I've had plenty of opportunity to observe Rep. Slaughter, since for many years I lived in her congressional district):
 
While the frank avowal of the primacy of abortion "rights" may shock some (and it ought to), it does not shock anyone who is familiar with Slaughter's years in the House.  About the only distinguishing feature of her time in Congress has been her dedicated, absolutely fanatical advocacy for the totally unfettered right to kill one's baby.  No limits on abortion at all.  Ever!  She's not known as Louise Slaughter-the-Unborn for nothing.  I've often suspected that every child born into the world strikes Ms. Slaughterhouse as a lost opportunity.
 
One can't help but wonder what the abortion-funding-by-stealth forces in the Democratic Party thought when they read the quote I just cited.  "Quiet, you fools!  You're giving the game away!"
 
Normally, I object to any man or woman being referred to as "the chair".  Most people, of course, are far smarter than a piece of furniture.  In old Louise's case, however, I'm forced to consider the necessity of admitting that my theory may have at least one exception to its universal application...
 
 
 
Also from the National Right to Life News of July-August 2009:
 

Adult Stem Cells Treat Heart Disease in Clinical Trial

Mike Jones, 66, has shown marked improvement after participating in a clinical trial that used his own adult stem cells to treat congestive heart failure. Doctors from the University of Louisville (UofL) and Jewish Hospital harvested stem cells and then transplanted them back into Jones’s heart in an attempt to repair damaged tissue, according to a UofL press release.

“We’ve studied this in rats, mice and pigs but this is the first time we’ve tried it in a human,” said Roberto Bolli, director of UofL’s Institute for Molecular Cardiology. “If it works, it will be a revolutionary treatment for heart failure.”

The cells were transplanted July 17 into Jones’s bloodstream through his leg, and then traveled into his damaged heart. In only one week, his heart function rose from 20% to 30%, according to the press release.

Jones appeared with his doctors at a press conference July 24. He said that he is now exercising three times a day, and “I may even start jogging again.”

The clinical trial is expected to involve 20 patients over the next two years, testing for the safety and effectiveness of the procedure, according to the press release.

“We continue to enroll patients in this first-of-its-kind clinical trial,” Bolli said in a press release issued by Jewish Hospital. “We hope to help the heart regenerate its own tissue and improve heart function.”
 
You may be thinking that this is the kind of promising research that we should be funding if indeed the federal government should be funding any at all (that's for you, Tony).  We were -- when the President was George Bush.  However, Barack Obama, when he decided to loudly proclaim that the government would now fund embryonic stem cell research (which many object to on moral grounds, and many others point out has never produced any cures or treatments for any diseases, and very likely never will), he also quitely defunded research being conducted with adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood stem cells (both in plentiful supply and scientifically very promising), for no apparent reason other than the fact that President Bush funded it.  I see a lot of juvenility in BO.  At a time when we face dangers on all fronts, we appear to have a President who never outgrew the petulance of youth.  He seems to be always determined to wipe out everything that his predecessor did -- especially the good things.
 
I'd rather we had elected Hillary (Boy, that wasn't easy to type.).  At least she's a grown-up!  Of course, so was Eva Peron.
 
 
 
 
 
I'm somewhat puzzled by the people asking why President BO and his lovely wife Imelda would travel to Copenhagen to lobby the IOC (unsuccessfully, as it happened) to give Chicago the chance to host the Olympic Games in 2016.  Earth to the naive -- it was just another taxpayer-paid vacation for the King and Queen.  I have read reports that Imelda even took a second jetliner for Her Royal Highness and her court.  It was just another chance to blow another few hundred thousands of dollars of our taxes on themselves and their lavish lifestyles.  It would be somewhat easier for me to take BO's "concern" for the working class seriously if he and his garishly-extravagant wife would stop blowing oceans of money they never earned on themselves.
 
 
 
When I came to the TownHall.com website the other day, I saw an ad at the side of the page that read "Help Pat Toomey beat Arlen Specter".  Sounds good to me, was my first thought.  What is he planning to beat him with?
 
Naughty Crab!  You mustn't think things like that.  Not out loud, anyway.
 
 
 
Very few modern politicians have taken more unjust abuse in recent years than President George W. Bush (oddly, the things he really did do wrong are almost never the things he's attacked for), but one of the few is GWB's own Vice President, Richard Cheney.  For me, one of the great moments of the latest Bush presidency was when the Democrat viciously partisan attack dog, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), after years of venomous and mendacious attacks on virtually every Bush policy (real or imagined), had the gall to ask the Veep to pose with him for a photo that quite likely would have been used in Leahy's mailings back home.  The website I'm blogging on won't allow me to quote the great Mr. Cheney's response exactly, so let's just say that he told Leahy to " go (rhymes with duck) yourself".
 
Now, how many of you Republicans reading this have never themselves wanted to say that to Leahy themselves?  Boy, it got quiet in here all of a sudden...
 
 
 
One final thought for you all before I'm off to bed -- where is the public outcry against Roman Polanski on the part of the feminist groups?   Do famous movie directors get even more leeway than Democratic presidents?  Will this silence on the part of the NOW and other radical women's groups work to kill off whatever credibility they have left after their failure to condemn ol' Billy Jeff Clinton for his serial abuse of women in the '80s and '90s?  Shouldn't it?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Hillary and the Fable of Florida 2000

One of the Democrats' favorite tactics is the Big Lie technique of constantly repeating their lies about past events until they get accepted as the truths they are not.  They count on us wearying of defending the truth before they weary of lying.  (Do they ever weary of lying?  I haven't seen it yet.)  An example is Hillary's recent comparison of Nigeria's rigged elections to Florida 2000 (remembered by honest Americans as the Sore-Loserman election).  I quote from the ABC News site:
 
 
 
Answering a question about Nigeria's recent election, Clinton said, "In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for President was the governor of the state. So we have our problems too."
 
I'm not weary yet, so I will point out a few things.  First, even though no law said he had to, Florida Governor Jeb Bush recused himself from any involvement in the recounts and legal wrangling that followed the election.  Second, I remind all that Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth refused to recuse himself, even though he had been the Florida chairman for the Gore-Lieberman campaign.  In fact, Butterworth intruded himself into the controversy more than once at points in which he had no legal, Florida-constitutional right to intervene. 
 
(Third, and as an aside, I remind all that Democrats like Hillary Clinton abused and slandered Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris for reading a Florida law requiring a district's election returns (and recounts) to be reported to the state's Secretary of State within 7 days, and concluding that it meant 7 days, even if the Democratic candidate was losing!   Is it any wonder that BO and the Dems are blowing up the deficit to a point where the entire economy is threatened ?  This bunch can't even count to 7 accurately.)
 
The definitive account of Florida 2000, by the way, is Bill Sammon's thoroughly researched At Any Cost, which, contrary to the Amazon.com reviewer's assertion, is the definitive work.  Be wary of Amazon's reviews and reviewers.  They are another illustration of O'Sullivan's First Law.
 
Let's not let any liberal lies enter common knowledge as truths.  Their name is legion, as many of us know.
 
 
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Vote "No" on Hillary for Secretary of State

One of the great advantages of being a nobody blogger who is not dependent on writing for his living is that I can afford to be completely honest.  I say all honest Americans should ask their Senators to vote "no" on the nomination of Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State because she has demonstrated in the past a willingness to accept and even to solicite bribes.  Readers who want proof of this statement need only consult "Hell to Pay" and "The Final Days" by the late, great Barbara Olson.  If your library doesn't have them, burn it down.  (Just kidding.)
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In my Neck of the Woods...

The Hilton NY government is using a dirty trick that you should watch out for where you live.  They have raised the assessments of the houses in the town by 6.7% (judging by my assessment, anyway).  Then they keep the percentage they multiply the assessment by the same, and declare that they have held the line on taxes.  They used this same dodge for the school taxes and for the property taxes.  I guess they figure that since most of the residents of the town are products of the public school system, they can be easily duped.  In many cases they're probably right.
 
Keep an eye out for this one.
 
 
 
Egomaniacal businessman Jack Davis is once again threatening to become my Congressional Representative.  Having failed to defeat the respectable and workmanlike Thomas Reynolds (R-NY), he hopes to succeed him.  Two years ago, when he last attempted to unseat Mr. Reynolds, he called for the immediate withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.  Since then, the surge has been a great success, the combined American/Iraqi forces are everywhere successful, the Iraqi government has made great progress in conciliating the country -- and Jack Van Winkle Davis still is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all of our troops.  Even Hillary Clinton (D-Hillary Clinton) realizes that this would be a disastrous blunder.  But not our would-be Rep.
 
I know better than to expect much from New York Democrats, but couldn't they find a candidate who's actually been awake sometime in the last two years?
 
 
 
 
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New York State of Embarrassment

This can be an embarrassing state to live in, as well as an expensive one.  Both of these are taxing in different ways.  I won't cover the tax issue of the moment this moment (I'm not angry enough), but I just want to comment on a couple of recent NY embarrassments.
 
Our newly ex-governor Eliot Spitzer has been all over the news for many reasons, starting with the exposure of his involvement with a prostitution ring that he laundered mega-bucks to for...er...something you would have thought would have been available at home, although if his private persona is as abrasive as his public, maybe it wasn't available, and who could blame Mrs. Spitzer?  Finally, some papers are doing what the Wall Street Journal (God bless 'em) has done for years and exposing his abuses of power, both as Governor and before that as Attorney General of New York.  This is welcome, although if it had been done before maybe we wouldn't have elected this pervert thug as Governor in 2006.  What I haven't seen is anyone mention that in his coercive tactics as Attorney General (usually targeting prominent, innocent men), he was emulating one of the most power-abusing prosecutors in American history, Lawrence Walsh.
 
Walsh, of course, was the Special Prosecutor who was appointed to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan and Bush I administrations.  His job was not to produce truth or justice; it was to produce a Democrat President in 1993.  His favorite tactic was to threaten innocent administration figures with a dozen or more indictments, which he knew would not stand up in court.  He would tell the victim that he knew that they would be acquitted, but that the cost of defending themselves from the false charges would bankrupt their families, so they had better plead guilty to a few of the false charges to avoid having to pay to defend against the many.  (Elliot Abrams wrote a moving account of having been a Walsh target in Undue Process.  Ignore the leftist review Amazon chose to publish.)
 
This of course, is prosecutorial malpractice on stilts, but as Walsh and Spitzer learned, the press will let you use anything short of the rack to obtain guilty pleas, as long as you target someone the media wishes harm to. 
 
 
 
The other brief point of emabrrassment I want to mention is the latest contretemps of our carpetbagger Senator, Hillary "Bill's moral compass" Clinton.  Much has been made about her lying about her visit to Bosnia as First Lady (snipers, etc.)  Most of us have known for 16 years or so that Hillary is no less a congenital liar than Bill is; what amuses me is that people are actually saying that we need to elect Hillary Clinton as President to replace President George W. Bush, who has been lying to us for eight years (which isn't true, by the way, but that's another topic for another day).  Maybe they mean that President Bush hasn't been lying enough...
 
 
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