the state of the union

That was not a “Joe Wilson” moment.

It is a convention that the Congress invites the president to deliver the State of the Union before a joint session of both houses. No Constitutional obligation requires the Congress to invite the president, and nothing requires the president to deliver a speech. Indeed, the Constitution requires that the president,

“shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Presidents Georg Washington and John Adams senior both delivered yearly addresses. Presidents Thomas Jefferson [1801-1809] through William Howard Taft [1913 - 1917] delivered their addresses in writing. Woodrow Wilson reestablished the formal speech. President Truman brought it to television and President Johnson brought it to primetime.

But we Americans have come to appreciate the great symbolisms this moment has acquired.

For instance, another convention is the invitation of the Supreme Court. Justice Bryer was the only Justice in attendance at several addresses given by President Clinton, and in 1986 no justice attended—the only time. This year, six justices were gracious to attend.

By convention, these justices sit politely, quietly dressed in their robes representing the judicial branch of government. It should not take a history nerd to be impressed by this moment—and in America, how lucky we are to get a moment like these each year.

The president—our president—submits his agenda to the legislature, calling on it for aid and advice. The president enforces the law, but he still needs the Congress to give him the go ahead. And in this scene—a little bit partisan, a little bit intense, but always, ideally, amicable—the Court gives no input. It is a marvelous representation of the American government. The Court has no agenda and no bias as to what the law shall be or how it shall be enforced: they simply referee when called to do so.

At the State of the Union, they represent what must remain steadfast, unwavering and immune from politics in the American government: justice and the Rule of Law.

Pollyannaish? Not at all. To be certain, those nine Justices are men and women, they are lawyers, and they are Americans. They vote, they take sides, they go to Church and Synagogue for guidance and they pay taxes. But in their roles as Justices, they are blind and take the greatest care to hold sacred the Rule of Law.

They don’t always succeed in their execution; I’ll be the first to admit this.

But the State of the Union is an American moment. It is not the time to obliterate conventions and institutions for political shock value. At this moment, it does not matter that we didn’t like the potential political impact of a Supreme Court decision.

In fact, in a ninety minute speech before 50 million Americans, jam-packed with a year’s worth of legislative proposals, there is simply no room to parse the details of each decision. Not seriously, anyway. President Obama dedicated a moment—two maybe three minutes—to a 180 page decision, stuffed with case law, reasoning and analysis.

It is entirely within the president’s role to criticize and politicize Court decisions. He would not be alone: four Justices dissented in Citizens United.

This is simply not done at the State of the Union. This is a setting where the Justices are present, but, by convention, not even able to respond. Surely, the president could have alluded to the decision and advocated a campaign finance reform for the new Congressional session. That would have been fair and entirely appropriate. But to essentially suggest that the Court had violated the Constitution by going recklessly against precedent, as if for some ulterior political motive, is uncalled for.

Moreover, Obama utterly misrepresented the decision by declaring that it would open the floodgates to foreign corporations’ contributing to U.S. elections. “Not true,” Justice Alito muttered. And it is not. Quite simply, this is not true. Federal law forbids foreign donations—corporate or individual—from being contributed to U.S. elections (state, local or federal). They cannot even give money to U.S. subsidiaries for the purpose of donating to campaigns. Furthermore, the majority in Citizens United expressly states that foreign donations are unaltered by the ruling.

This leads one to believe that either the president does not know the law or that he was intentionally misrepresenting the law for political gain: he got a standing ovation from House and Senate Democrats. What a populous chord he was striking, attacking big-business by slapping around the Court!

Indeed, given that the law was passed in 1996, it is somewhat baffling that so many Congressmen stood and applauded. Many of them had to have been in Congress in 1996. Surely both Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Biden were. (In fairness, President Obama was finishing his third year of elementary school at about this time).

So in the last week, many in the media and Congress have had the audacity to deride Justice Alito for breaking convention by muttering those words. Of course he did—the president had just annihilated the convention.

It has been said this was Alito’s “Joe Wilson” moment. But Justice Alito is undeniably right that the president’s remark was untrue. Actually, with regard to accuracy, Joe Wilson was not even a Joe Wilson moment: he was right too. The difference is, Joe Wilson was disrespecting the president; whereas, Samuel Alito had just been disrespected by the president. Justices Kennedy and Roberts might have been class acts for not responding to the false attack against their majority decision, but who can blame Justice Alito for muttering?

In adlibbing the line “with all due deference to the separation of power,” as if it mitigated the fact that he was proceeding to join with half of one branch of government in lambasting 5/9th of another branch a government, President Obama indicated that his direct public attack of the Court was unprecedented. Otherwise, why add this line? Would he have presumed, otherwise, that people would consider that publically attacking the judicial branch at the State of the Union might infringe on the doctrine? He would have been right.

In a word, we cannot become cynical about these institutions and conventions. The man who occupies the house that Washington built should wise up to that. He is still my president, but sometimes the man holding the office is a real . . . .

george bush is now, permanently, the source of all our problems

We are not entitled to our own facts.  Fortunately for left wingers, we are entitled to our own spin.

To listen to Obama, one would think that Scott Brown won in the liberal fiefdom of Marxachusetts because they were fatigued by the “last eight years” of Bush.

“The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office is what swept me into office,” he said. “People are angry and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened over the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

So, liberal Massachusetts voted for a Republican because they were tired of Bush?  What else has happened in the last eight years?  What could he possibly be referring to besides our erstwhile president whose been out of office for a year?

To listen to Howard Dean, one would think that because the 80% of Obama’s Massachusetts votes who stayed home were upset that there was no public option in the Senate bill, Brown’s victory was really a declaration that many voters wanted a public option.

So, they voted for the one choice out of two who was clearly and openly opposed to, not only a public option, but a universal health care bill in general.  Say, didn’t Coakley support a public option?

To listen to Frau Pelosi, if you can stomach it, one would think that the voters of Massachusetts were not voting against Obamacare because they already have state health care coverage—it being the inference that they clearly enjoy it very much—and moreover, we cannot expect the fate of health care reform to rest solely on the desires of one state.

That’s an interesting take on representative government.  Ought the senators of states who have state health care remain home and not vote?  Does this mean that John Kerry will not be voting, henceforth?  Well I’m all for that Madame Speaker, indeed.

Senator Feinstein was more tempered.  To wit, she advocated that Democrats go slower.  “People do not understand,” she said.  Health care reform is “so big, it’s beyond their comprehension.”

In Feinstein, we find the archetype of all left-wing spin:  hubristic self delusion.

In a word, Democrats just didn’t do a good enough job of telling us how awesome they are.  In the future, they must strive for even more awesomeness.

Still, numbers have a funny way of compelling the logical inferences which the Left tries desperately to avoid.  Brown won by nearly 6%, closing a 30 point+ deficit in less than one month—on the back of a campaign declaring him the “41st vote.”  He won 67% of the vote in one Massachusetts district which Obama carried 53-46 in 2008—the same margin which Obama won by nationally.  That district handed an extra 21% to the Republican candidate just a year after Obama’s inauguration.

Brown won 20% of Democrats, 18% of Obama’s 2008 votes and 70% of Independents.  Obama carried Massachusetts by 62% overall.  Couple these results with the statewide elections in both New Jersey and Virginia, both carried by Obama, and the message becomes clear.

But there’s more.  This seat was held by John F. Kennedy and later Ted Kennedy for more than fifty years.  Ted Kennedy was arguably the safest and most easily re-electable politician from either party in the entire nation for decades.  He was, moreover, the Senate’s champion of universal health care since the 1970’s.  Alas, it’s not Teddy’s seat anymore.

Massachusetts turned out with 50% of registered voters—higher than most presidential election turn-outs.  For what?  Because they really-really wanted a public option as Howard Dean would have us believe?

Pelsoi would have us believe that since Massachusetts already has universal health care they must like it and therefore could not have been voting against Obamacare.

Yet, we know health care mattered to them.  In fact, 52% of Massachusetts voters opposed health care reform and 42% said they voted for Brown for the specific purpose of thwarting Obamacare.  And was it not obvious to all why Brown was referring to himself as the 41st vote?

Or maybe, as Senator Feinstein would have us believe, people just didn’t understand how great health care reform was going to be.

I don’t understand this though—was there some kind of media black out on the topic?

Let’s see:  President Obama gave more than fifty speeches, made hundreds of comments, held a primetime nationally televised speech before a joint session of Congress, and held another primetime press conference which derailed into a colloquium on the president’s racial musings (Whitey and those stupid cops).  Congressmen and senators held numerous town hall meetings throughout the summer—to be sure, derailed by protestors.

Aha!  A K-street misinformation campaign—that’s what confused Americans.

Americans are so simple that the complex and nuanced health care reform flew over their little heads, allowing those vile naysayers and K-Street lobbyists to stymie debate and influence the dimwitted proletariat.

That’s an interesting position in that it is brilliantly ass-brained:  exactly what an arrogant left-winger needs to excuse the glorious rejection of their unwieldy social agenda.

First, how is that when 52% of the country votes for Obama it is an earth shattering, glass-ceiling breaking orgasm of inspiration; yet, when America rejects his health care agenda by a similar margin it could only be because Americans are dim and easily misled about comprehensive health care reform?  After all, health care reform was supposedly part of his election mandate.

Second, who was hindering debate over health care?  It seems to me that a filibuster prolongs debate while it is cloture which ends debate.  It would also seem that holding partisan, closed-door debates on the bill and rebuking opponents as Nazis and K-Street Lobbyists would stifle debate as well.   Left-wing media hounds called whole groups of citizen-protesters “tea-baggers.”  Albeit, I would not doubt their intimate knowledge of the practice.

Third, who was spreading misinformation, and whose misinformation was the most widely disseminated?  Aside from Sarah Palin’s comment about ‘death panels,’ I can think of no specific fact held up by Conservatives which average voters—such as those who went to the polls on Tuesday—accepted as true, but was arguably not true.  That rationing shall result from this bill is debatable—easily proven, but debatable and, thus , not what I would even call “misinformation.”

Hyperbole Palin’s statement was; misinformation it was not.

Will Obamacare be a government take-over of the health care system?  Yes, of course it will.  Will a public option put private business out of business and cause government to be the only health care option.  Yes.  Will taxes increase and Medicare be cut?  Yes.  Will it be more expensive than Obama is telling us?  Ask the CBO.  Has Obama and company repeatedly advocated single payer health care, thus creating the perception that his bill is no more than a Trojan horse—call it an “incremental” step—toward single payer care?  Yes, youtube it.

Now, for my favorite pieces of misinformation (lies):  (1) that there are 45 million uninsured; (2) that America ranks 37th in overall health care world wide; and (3) that the reason health care is so expensive is because evil insurance companies and drug companies are making obscene profits (2-3%, the same as most industries) in an “unregulated” market.

Obama has spent nearly a year spreading these and other “facts” which are easily disproved:  not arguably disprovable, easily disprovable.

America saw through it—again.  For at least the fourth time in American history, the American people have rejected a federal overhaul of health care and a national health care regime.  Each time it began with high polling numbers, invariably due to the question presented to them being:  “Do you want health care reform which will make it cheaper and more accessible?”  (Personally, I always say “N-O!” to that one).   And invariably, once the details of the reform are released, broad opposition ensues.

But left-wingers tell us it’s because we were too stupid to understand how awesome they and their agenda are.  Well, I am certainly seeing a pattern of stupidity, but not among the American people.

220-215

They couldn’t create or save anymore votes than that?

Can’t the White House just calculate the House vote the way they are calculating job statistics? It would create or save a much bigger mandate for universal health care than actually exists.

Maybe the House Dems could multiply the number of yay votes cast by the number of uninsured Americans dying in the streets of boubonic plague - which Obama tells us is now 73 billion - and damn that’s a lot of votes, either created or saved, supporting universal health care.

Fifty four percent of the country is against, and 39% is strongly against (compared with 23% strongly in favor of) universal health care. Thirty-nine House Democrats are also opposed to what House Dems just forced upon us.

Still, this is what Pelosi’s far left wing of the Democratic party thinks is best for us. Never mind broad opposition. Was there ever a bigger “screw you” delivered from the Congress to the nation they serve?

the homegrown wisdom of michelle obama

The “sacrifice” she endured for all our sakes shall never be forgotten. Standing before the International Olympic Committee Michelle Antoi-bama courageously repressed tears, reminiscing of her late father, and declaring: “Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad’s lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis and others . . . .”

Yes, Carl Lewis was and remains a track and field super-athlete as well as an eminent Black-American icon. Why, he practically set Los Angeles on fire at his first Olympics, swooping up four gold medals at the 1984 games. Forever tied to his great legacy, must now, forever, be the powerful image of young First Lady Michelle Obama, a starry-eyed babe at aged-twenty reclining in her “dad’s lap” for the 1984 Olympic games.

Before this speech, Michelle, fresh off a European shopping spree, humbly reassured a crowd working on Chicago’s bid that she, Oprah and Barack were up to the “sacrifice” of coming all the way to Copenhagen to tireless jet around on Airforce One, shop for some new Prada-wear, and savor ‘Roasted Maine Scallops with cauliflower and almonds & brown butter, oven roasted bone with paprika crust and country bread, sliced veal with white tuna sauce or roasted organic chicken with buttermilk and herbs.’

Wait, that’s what the London Daily Mail reports the First Couple ate the following week for their Anniversary. Prague is where they were lavished with the finest food in Eastern Europe during a quick prance through Czech Republic after the Olympic defeat. What was on the menu in Copenhagen, again? Oprah did leave a few morsels for Michelle, right? Never mind. Oh yes, the “sacrifice” . . . .

There, Michelle stressed the importance of a Chicago Olympics and warned that “athletics is becoming more of a fleeting opportunity . . . .  [f]unds dry up so it becomes harder for kids to engage in sports, to learn how to swim, to even ride a bike.”

It’s true, American athletics is practically a long forgotten memory in 2009, given the high cost of bicycles and, um, the scarcity of, uh, bodies of water for swimming.

Sadly, this trend will continue now that Brazil is sure to get the Olympics. And while American athletic traditions are sure to fall into antiquity as skyrocketing costs prevent kids from riding bicycles, running on tracks and kicking soccer balls, we should take solace that somewhere out there the next generation of full grown adult Brazilian men and women in their twenties and thirties shall perch themselves on their daddys’ laps in 2016, to become inspired throughout midlife.

Nevertheless, Michelle had a little more of that signature-homegrown advice for the great nation she has been proud of for at least a year and half and counting now. This week, Obama wrote in US News that “Teachers are a key to a successful economy.”

A celebrated economist, First Lady Obama is well equipped to speak on this momentous issue. But her economic bona fides aside, Obama tackles this issue from the standpoint of a simple stay-at-home (aside from occasional European tour) Mom. First, she says, “I can’t help but think that some of the most influential people in my daughters’ lives won’t be the ones they . . . . read about in the pages of a book—they will be the people who stand up every day in front of their classrooms.”

Recalling my own upbringing inside the nuclear powerhouses of knowledge known as California public schools, I must differ from the First Lady’s assessment that the countless models of mediocrity I encountered in school rooms somehow rivaled the influence Washington, Ghandi and Martin Luther King had on my life. One reason for this difference could be that the Obama’s have declined the public option, opting instead to spend the rich fruits capitalism and high-paying elected office has showered upon them, on private schools for their daughters.

“[I]t’s not surprising,” Obama continues, “that studies show that the single most important factor affecting students’ achievement is the caliber of their teachers.”

Assuming these supposed “studies” are reliable I simply revert to my prior criticism of government schools. For, if this is true, it should be no surprise that government schools staffed by government teachers, choked by government control and powerful teacher’s unions have led, over the past fifty years, to high drop outs, abysmal performances in most of the subject areas once foundational to Western education, and increasing teen pregnancies; that they have stymied American competition abroad in science and engineering while concurrently fashioning a nation with the highest proportion of unthinking, pacified fools America has yet seen.

I’m glad Michelle seems to understand all this, for she goes on to say that, “in a 21st-century global economy where jobs can be shipped to any place with an Internet connection and children here in America will be competing with children around the world for the same jobs, a good education is no longer just one road to opportunity—it is the only road. And good teachers aren’t just critical for the success of our students. They are the key to the success of our economy.”

I completely agree. Here are some ways to reform American education which would allow us to regain the economic dominance we once enjoyed: close the Department of Education and let state and local governments take back their schools at the community level, give parents generous tax credits so they can pick which schools they want to send their kids to, eliminate government administrators at the local level to free up tax money being wasted on “education budgets,” and refocus on the foundational subjects that sparked a revolution in Western education: math, science, history, language, arts and American civics.

The last goal will be accomplished by divorcing education from a federal government which has spent the last several decades confusing and distracting American school children with liberalspeak and multicultural perspectives that lead one to believe that all approaches and all cultures are equal in every way, when they are, quite actually, not equal.

I wonder how the Safe School’s Czar feels about all of these ideas. Yes, instead of an hour a week devoted to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender tolerance in Kindergarten, maybe we can – this is a crazy idea – just teach them about math or history during that hour. Heck, let’s just send them home an hour early and let their parents have that conversation instead. It’s pretty radical, I know.

“More than half of our nation’s teachers and principals are baby boomers. And in the next four years, as many as one third of America’s 3.2 million teachers could retire.” Good riddance to bad rubbish. Maybe we can hire a new generation under our reforms (see above), eliminate tenure and start rewarding teachers who prove themselves worth their salaries.

“[B]y 2014 . . . . our nation’s schools will hire as many as 1 million new teachers.” What do you know! Problem solved. We’ll begin our reforms (see above) with these fresh faces.

Obama says, “we need to treat teachers like the professionals they are by providing good salaries and high-quality professional development opportunities.”

In California, more than 2/3 of our state budget goes to education. Our schools have remained in the bottom five out of fifty states based on performance. We have the highest unemployment rate we’ve seen in decades and one of the highest nationwide. We have a deficit problem that refuses to go away with every new band aid the democratic-controlled legislator (as it has been for most of the past forty years) place on the problem. In the midst of this, the California teacher’s union has staged hunger strikes in the face of budget cuts. California K-12 teachers are paid, pro-rata, higher than state attorneys who are required to spend an extra three years in law school in order to become attorneys. The tenure system is so overbearing that, as the LA Times reported a few months ago, there are literally thousands of teachers being paid to stay at home while they are being sued, many under investigation for molestation. In sum: it practically requires an act of Congress to fire them.

Teacher certification requires a bachelor’s degree with no particular academic distinction and a certification process which can often be financially supplemented. They can usually return to school later for a Master’s with state supplements provided. They enjoy every reasonable form of employee benefit as well as three months of vacation with the option of teaching summer school for additional compensation. Their union is easily the most powerful lobby in the state. At the same time, our education budget is spread over countless, superfluous administrators, bureaucrats, paper-pushers, projects and personnel. I wonder how did Plato’s Academy or the universities of Enlightenment Europe fair without Human Resource departments and guidance counselors?

Should teachers be treated like “professionals” and “provided good salaries and high-quality professional development opportunities?” Yes, of course – absolutely.

Should they be paid as much as professional lawyers and neurosurgeons? No, surely that would be rather strange given the disparity in educational levels and professional duties. Unless we’re going to start raising the hiring criterion so that one must have a PhD to teach Kindergarten, let us disabuse ourselves of this notion that teachers merit the same pay as doctors.

Should they be afforded their salaries and opportunities by the federal government rather than local communities by means of local taxes and federal tax credits? No, and the history of Western and American education proves that the form of schooling we currently misidentify as “education” is not effective; whereas locally controlled education focusing on basic and rudimentary subject areas is quite effective.

“We need parents to do their part as well to match that leadership in the classroom with leadership at home.” Agreed. Now can parents teach their own kids about sex, tolerance, God and social norms?

“And we need government to support significant efforts to recruit and retain teachers and to reward high-performing teachers. Along those lines, President Obama is already investing more than $3 billion to turn around struggling schools.” I hope no child will be left behind in the process.

As per usual, Michelle Obama has been carted out as the affable Jackie Kennedy/stay at home Mom disseminating family values and the personal wisdom she’s collected as a simple Momma Bear lookin’ over her little cubs.

What’s masked is the philosophy premised on the centralization of all individual wills into the hands of the federal will. What else is masked behind warm-colored images of children learning under the wings of wise, caring teachers is the greedy will of powerful unions seeing it as their cause to lobby without hesitation for more our tax money despite already defeated state economies, and to achieve as little serious accountability for failing schools and failed teachers as possible: tenure, tenure, tenure.

It’s insinuated that it is heartless to rip funding from education budgets and teacher’s salaries, despite the existence of countless reforms to the failed government system which continues to gobble up tax money after having provided disastrous results for forty years or more.

Unfortunately, the American left has set up teachers as a priestly class in their cosmological world view. Unquestionable in their integrity and virtuous beyond any of our mortal standards in their perseverance and willingness to take small incomes (frosted with lavish benefits, tenure and mandatory raises every few years) – teachers and their unions ought not to be challenged.

To add insult to injury, the administration props up the First Lady, appearing to levitate above partisan debate, in order to spearhead a shrewd political campaign by means of simple homegrown wisdom.

Its high time teacher’s unions, teachers’ performances, federalized education and education budgets are thrown in to the ring of serious political discourse where they belong. And if the affable Michelle is going to keep thrusting herself into political debates, then it’s high time we get past the charm, fashion, gardening techniques, recipes, motherliness and Women’s Home Journal nonsense and truly examine her philosophy. We should see her as the political animal she is.

Roman Polanski Didn’t Committ “Rape-Rape.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/roman-polanski/6245219/Roman-Polanski-backlash-as-Whoopi-Goldberg-says-director-didnt-commit-rape-rape.html

As it turns out, legal scholar Whoopi Goldberg, accompanied by her panel of snaggle-toothed hags, has informed us that Roman Polanski did not commit “rape-rape.” California statute 2107, which is on point, clearly states that “mere rape” carries only a minor fine, while “rape-rape” carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 72 viewing hours of the View and 17 viewings of Sister Act, thus, serving a prevantaive penal scheme by destroying the rape-rapists libido entirely.

senate warming: hot air overload

“Gore’s Log, Stardate 9021. Daily, the Enterprise is under threat of complete annihilation. Perhaps we are no match for such an enemy. Last week’s warming trend witnessed the demise of our best and brightest, weather veins. She sits dormant now, lingering, preparing to strike again. When she comes, it’s as if she were pulling us ever closer to her vile bosom; like some kind of…. natural…. pulling… force – Nay! But we know. We know her tricks. Like some celestial deceiver, she lies in wait as we foolishly let our guard down. Snow and sleet this week? Ha-ha! We know that’s just a sign of warming trends too. Yes, we’ve seen her tricks before….”

On Wednesday, the self-proclaimed High-Grand, Spinning Sideways, Pope Wizard of Global Warming, and artist formerly known as Al the Gore (ok, that’s just what I call him) proselytized before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I’m not proselytizing,” he said at one point. Oh, eh, sorry. Ok, continue, sir:

“Our home,” he paused, “Earth, is in danger.” Whew! That was a cliffhanger. For a minute I thought he was actually going to reveal his true planet.

“We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization,” he said. “This is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced.” It, “could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force.” Climate change, “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth – and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”

Oh my goodness! And, again, the definition of proselytizing was what now?

“What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” asked Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho). “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator,” laughed the Jedi master. ‘Silly Senator, skepticism’s for heretics.’

Let me get this straight: he knows (a) global warming is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced; (b) that it could end human civilization; (c) that it will all happen within this century unless we spend lots and lots of money on green jobs and re-shaping the entire landscape of the world’s transportation, commercial and industrial infrastructures. However, his expertise stops at specific issues, such as, ‘so? how long until we’re all annihilated?’

“The little snow in Washington,” Senator Kerry warned, “does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis.” The little snow he was referring to was actually a blizzard, and, yes, it’s pretty well settled by scientists the world over that snow is always a sign that the planet shall soon be engulfed in flames.

Truly, even I can only have so many laughs at the kind of stuttering nonsense only to be found at a hearing in the United States Senate on Al Gore Day. To be sure, it is outright nonsense; but, alas, Al Gore finds himself at home, again. For years, a do-nothing Congress was coupled with a whipping-boy president who, hoping desperately to be invited to the cool kids table, embraced the ministry of Global Warming with a full-heart. I find it not at all astonishing that most of the Global Warming zombies I meet are of the opinion that Evil Bush the Younger personally outsourced the job of setting the polar bears on fire to Halliburton. This is despite the fact that, under George W. Bush, we spent more money to fight Global Warming than any other previous government; and despite the fact that Bush repeatedly called for climate awareness. (Actually, I just made up the term “climate awareness,” to express the kind of nonsense President Bush used to spew about Global Warming. You see, what you do, is you shove your head square up your ass – only then shall you begin to think like a radical lunatic, capable of conjuring up nonsensical Orwellian phrases like “Climate Awareness.”….. Moving on….).

Finally, with that pesky Bush out of the way, spending only insignificant tens of billions on Global Warming, Al the Gore has made his triumphant return to a capitol open for business. We may not be able to calculate the exact date the human species shall become extinct as a result of climate change, but one thing we can calculate is: 1 democratic president + 257 democratic congressmen + 56 democratic senators X 1 vice president turned cult leader = any multi-billion dollar Global Warming initiative you want Al.