Ain't No Lions, Ain't No Mamba Snakes

It's a good thing Abraham Lincoln is Barack Obama's favorite president. He's governing in a similar time.

Our Governor had to walk back his statements on Confederate History Month and admitted his omission of slavery might have offended some people. John Stewart captured my take by his declaring National Union Victory Month whereby we celebrate the crushing of the South by the North. But conservatives had to weigh in, especially after Obama delicately suggested all students should learn about the civil war and that you can't deal with the subject without considering slavery and its effects on people.

Not so, Mr. President.

Sean Hannity told Liberty College here in Virginia:
"Liberal Democrats are attempting to re-write history by pushing the slavery issue into the reality of our nation's proud history. They seek to hide the true causes, which are found in the Bill of Rights, States' Rights, religious freedom, and the capitalist economic system, that were at stake then exactly as they are being threatened today."

"All of the slaves in the North were poor. (Catch the moral equivalence) But many on the South, as Pat Buchanan has documented (?), enjoyed a much higher standard of living than they had in the nation of Africa (?)." Cue in "Sail Away".

Pat Buchanan, who must have remembered the response his statements on slavery generated, simply said that both sides were right.

As for the Liberal Democrats trying to push slavery into the issue, I have some confirming evidence for them. Half the men on my maternal side of the family were killed in the Civil War, fighting for the Union. When I was very young, there were three women left, who were in the 90s and one over 100, who recalled what they had been told. All these women said that their families fought in the Civil War to eliminate slavery. Maybe revisionist history but it clearly resonated in their memories. These women worshipped Lincoln and would treat me to recitations of Whitman's Captain, My Captain.

Living here in the capitol of the confederacy, you get fed up with this regional celebration of the "poor South". Our office is one block from the Jefferson Davis Highway, and six blocks from the statue of the Confederate soldier with his back turned against Washington. I don't want to hear anymore "Well, we in the South do it this way." Well, we in the North do it this way--Bam!Zoom!

The Southern Baptists, who once rationalized slavery by quoting the letters of Paul, have been trying to hide in the wake of the Catholic pedophile scandal. Three major Baptist preachers have circulated pastoral letters condemning child abuse and sexual abuse of women by other Baptist preachers. So far, this has only found one news outlet for a nanosecond. But wait, you will hear more in upcoming months.

Remember the days when there was a nuclear treaty and the national security geeks would come out of their caves and explain "throw-weights","MIRVs", "asymmetrical strategy" and "launchers". So far, the only person with any nuclear weapons knowledge to appear has been Richard Burt, who negotiated the last nuclear arms reduction treaty. Instead, we have been treated to inanity after inanity by Newt Gingrich, the former half-Governor of Alaska, Liz Cheney, and Rudy Guiliani, none of whom know anything about strategy; none of whom know anything about nuclear weapons.

So on the Centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth, you would think that there might be some embrace of the Gipper's non-nuke philosophy. When Howard Fineman interviewed Republicans gathered in New Orleans, a city they ethnically purged, and asked them about the new nuclear arms treaty and how similar it was to Reagan's last desires. He got unanimous condemnations of the new treaty and finally one person told him,"When Reagan did it, it was from strength; when Obama does it, it's from weakness."

Back in New Orleans, Newt Gingrich called Obama "the most radical President of the United States ever." A fan of Abraham Lincoln, Obama must love that. Gingrich warned his audience of the "secular, socialist machine". The political genius he is, Gingrich said the Republican strategy will be to win back the House, defund all of Obama's initiatives and wait until 2013 to repeal all of them. It worked so well for him and the Republicans in 1995.

I am battening down the hatches for next week's Nuke-a-Thon. Washington will be mobbed with security because of all the heads of state. This will be the second largest assembly of world leaders outside of New york. The first must have been the San Francisco meeting to create the United Nations after World War II.

Our New Orleans crowd gave a standing ovation to the news that Benjamin Netanyahu will be boycotting "Obama's meeting." CSIS published almost at the moment of Israel's withdrawal a study that showed that Israel might use nukes to take out Iran's nuclear sites. The Left thought it was the United States just threatening Iran in an indirect way. I don't believe that. Our timetable for Iran is different than Israel's. Israel has made a national security decision that if Iran obtained nuclear weapons this would constitute an "existential" threat to Israel , which would require drastic actions. If the CSIS scenario were ever carried out, it would be pure insanity.

Israel now claims they aren't coming because they heard that Turkey would raise questions about Israel's nuke program and why it wasn't a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Having lived through ten years of anti-semitic ravings at the UN Human Rights Commission and watched the Israeli ambassador deftly and cooly handle the tirades, I doubt that these questions would deter their presence. Personally, I believe there was no private meeting scheduled with President Obama and Netanyahu is still miffed by the last meeting.

The Chinese will de-value their currency and I expect we will hear about that after Monday's meeting between Obama nd the Premier.

I am sorry to see Dawn Johnsen pull out of the senate process to confirm her as head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the department of Justice. Ben Nelson opposed her because she had been a legal adviser to NARAL, the pro-abortion group. Republicans vehemently opposed her because she was against torture--in writing.

Justice John Paul Stevens at the age of 89 has announced his retirement from the Supreme Court by the end of June or early July when this session wraps up business. He is the last protestant on the court. It's now two Jews having to fend off 5 Catholics. I'll post some analysis on the various condidates as the process moves forward. The Republicans have already announced they will oppose Obama's nomination on the principled grounds that they oppose anything he proposes.

Bart Stupak, the anti-abortion Democrat from Michigan has announced he is not running again. Tea Party people and Drudge claim the conservatives drove him out. Others have claimed he didn't think he had the full support of the Democrats. I believe it was because of the ethics charges filed by CREW concerning his receiving subsidized rent from 'the Family", the secretive church group, for residing at the C Street House. Otherwise, he would have won re-election easily.

Fox News did a poll on whether people were offended by Joe Biden calling the health bill a "Big f***ing Deal". 57% said they weren't offended.

Another Fox News poll showed that the IRS was more popular than the Tea Party people. That should be removed by the end of the day.

The Military Times polled armed service personnel about their party preferences. Formerly, 60% of our military claimed to be Republicans; now only 41% with the number of independents growing. Almost all the older officers are Republicans.

Glenn Beck has urged all his viewers not to cash their IRS refund checks. This is different from the militia broadcasts which urge you not to file taxes but if you get a refund cash it.

Fox's Stuart Varney said that Barack Obama is trying to force Americans to resemble Europeans, "who are basically a pack of pagan losers."

Liz Cheney claims that "Obama is putting the U.S. on the path to decline." She later today came out in support of Hamid Karzai, the world's most famous heroin addict, and said the Administration was being childish in its handling of him. I guess that should have ignored him like the Bush-Cheney team did.

Responding to the prospects of socialism in America, the DOW passed 11,000 today for a brief moment and probably will further increase next week after the Chinese de-valuation.

Fed Chairman Bernanke finally broke silence about the state of the economic crisis we really faced. He told an audience last night that without the fed action, the bank bailouts, the bailout of the auto industry and the stimulus package, the world would have faced a sitution worse than the Great Depression. He said we would have had the absolute total collapse of our financial system and unemployment hitting 30-35% for a sustained period of time.

A strange fact of the day: Of all the people who lived to 65 in history, over half of them are living today.

In my missing post, I had responded to a reader's interest in what did people like Sarah Palin and others mean by freedom and liberty since they are always screaming about Obama taking it away. If I am up to it, I will re-write my response tonight or tomorrow.