A Cigarette and a Psalm

sorry... I can't offer you a smoke.

"The War Prayer" Mark Twain (kind of long)

My beloved son always enjoys reading me stories. Tonight he read me "the War Prayer" by Mark Twain. It is about 2 pages and really hit me. I hope ya'll enjoy.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Grand Prairie, Texas

Hot.  Humid.  And the air is brown.  I can deal with the hot and humid.  Not the brown air.  Can't breathe during a run.  That flat out sucks.  By the way, the base I'm on isn't a base.  I don't quite know what it is, but it ain't a base.  I'm sitting in a Starbucks logged on, since there is no internet access on "base".

Had to make a trip to Wal Mart to buy sunscreen and bug spray.  Had flashbacks to Puerto Rico, as I didn't hear a word of English once I passed the greeter.

You want to see fat people?  Wal Mart, baby.  I'm talking the earth-shaking fat.  So fat they have their own gravitational field.  So fat they take up an entire row all on their own.  Rolls upon rolls of fat.  Either that, or they're greasy, dirty, haven't showered, stink to high heaven, and are wearing wife-beater T-Shirts.  If I were from Texas, I'd try to disown Grand Prairie.  I really would.  Walking around here is the greatest motivator for weight loss that I can think of.  "OH GOD, I NEVER WANT TO LOOK LIKE THAT!!!!!  HELP ME JENNIE CRAIG!!!!"

And most of them are Mexican.  I keep hearing about fat Americans.  But the fat people here don't speak English.  Does anyone else have a problem with that?

I've seen more pimped out SUV's than I care to count.  You want to know what I call an SUV with low-profile tires, chromed out rims and shiney paint?  A compensation mobile.  They have a very tiny penis, and they try to make up for it with a big, flashy vehicle.  Men, if you have a truck or an SUV, and it doesn't have dirt or signs of actual use, I am going to make fun of you.  Don't like it?  Then get that vehicle dirty.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm out of here.  See you in two weeks or so.

Headed out

Again.

Just.....  well anyways, I'm off again.  See you in two weeks.

And guys, I'm at the point where I wonder if I shouldn't just shut this thing down, seeing as how I'm not going to be posting a whole lot this summer.  I've said before this is the crazy time.  I wasn't kidding.

And this is why

I don't use Google.

Meh.  I have Dogpile set up as my search engine.

Detail

The very first funeral detail I was ever on, I wasn't ready for.  The NCOIC came up to me and asked "Dave......  are your Class A's ready?"  I answered yes, and he said "Good.  You're leaving tomorrow".

And I left, my uniform prepped.  I wasn't ready for it at all.  I'd never done a funeral detail.  I didn't know what was required.  I didn't  know much.  But I learned.

I spend the next two days prepping for the funeral.  Due to circumstances, the pall bearers doubled as the rifle team.  So we carried the casket to it's place, then marched over to the rifles, fired the twenty-one gun salute, and then marched back to fold the flag.  In retrospect, it helped me prepare for all the funerals I would do in the future.  We practiced for longer than I care to remember until we carried the casket and marched to the rifles without a single verbal command.  Once we had the rifles, it was READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  Then we set the rifles back down and marched back to the casket.  After that, all orders were given in a low voice.

Ready.  Down.  Up.  Fold the flag.

The Deputy Commander of US Army South, a Brigadier General whose name I'm withholding presented the flag to the parents.  The father, a retired Soldier himself, was struggling to hold himself together.  The mother and the brother had started weeping long ago.  You want to know the hardest part of being in the funeral detail?  Holding yourself together when the entire family is being ripped apart with grief.  We managed to do it, god only knows how.  When we first arrived, the casket was being moved from the airplane to the hearse.  I almost lost it right then, but it wasn't the parents that got to me.  I expected their grief, and was prepared for it.  No, what got to me the most was this - as the mother was collapsed, crying on the coffin, as the father was doing his best to comfort his wife and contain his grief, the brother was behind them both, with tears streaming down his face.

And that's the most he showed.  He had his hands on his mothers shoulder, and he was leaning against his father, and he was crying hard but without making a single sound.  He had tears streaming down his face, and you could see that he was struggling not to break.  Struggling, and losing that struggle, as he tried to deal with the fact that his brother was dead, only not just dead but dead so horribly that it would be a closed casket funeral, and we only had to carry half the weight of a normal body.  And he was trying to comfort his mother and his father as they wept, and still grieve himself.

I was locked up at the position of present arms, heels together, fingers to my eyebrow, and he was directly in front of me.  And as I watched him grieve and simultaneously try to comfort his parents, I almost lost it.  I had a single tear roll down my face as I watched this family deal with the death of their son and brother, and the only thing that kept me from losing it was the simple fact that this Soldier deserved better than to have some pansy-assed dipshit lose it while escorting him to his final resting place.  I kept that in mind while the hearse was loaded.  It was easier once the actual funeral started, because it's a lot more formal.  You don't have the raw, primal displays of grief that you do when you first off-load the casket.  But it's still hard.  The mother cried the entire time, and the father......  the father, how can I explain this - the father was a retired Warrant Officer in the US Army.  Once he had retired, he joined a volunteer organization who's entire focus and function was to help the families of Soldiers who had been killed in combat.  I can't remember the name of his organization, all I remember is the fact that he was able to give us the instructions he wanted followed, and then he was pretty much broken from his pain.  And the entire time I was doing this, my first funeral detail, the only thought I had in my head was "Don't you dare break.  Don't you dare break down.  You fucking wimp, you haven't gone through one tenth the pain these people have, don't you DARE FUCKING BREAK DOWN!"

But it's hard, when you're faced with the sheer open pain of a family who has just lost their son and their brother or their sister.

We managed to do it, that first time.  I was lucky in that I had excellent leadership who helped guide me through the process.  Shortly after that, I became the leader of the rifle team for funeral details.  I've stood at Parade Rest for over an hour and a half for certain funerals.  You never know what it's going to be like.  I've had the mother grab hold of us and tell us tales of her son, to the point that we were doing footraces in the street with the Soldier's brother, because that's what they used to do as kids.  And when you have a teenager who's just lost his brother in Afghanistan, and he asks you to race, what are you going to do?  Say no?  Hell no.  You kick your shoes off and race him in the streets.  The mother was drunk to high heaven, trying to kill her pain, and we spent hours and hours talking to her.  By the time the night was up we all got maybe three to four hours of sleep, but it was worth it to make sure this mother knew that her son didn't die in vain.

For the record, her son was a medic in Afghanistan, and had saved the lives of too many people to count.  A Sergeant from his unit escorted his body home, and we pretty much press-ganged him into the funeral detail.  The thing I remember most about that funeral detail is that as we folded the flag and prepared to move away from the burial site, this Sergeant knelt down by the Soldier's little brother, and took off his jump wings, his Airborne insignia, and gave it to the Soldier's little brother, and said "These are the wings your brother wears.  You keep them safe."

I don't think a single member of that funeral detail had dry eyes.  And I'm crying as I type this now, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, remembering what happened.

I think I didn't know just how bad the funeral details were effecting me until I found out that my NCOIC was telling the command "Leave Dave alone.  He's done enough."  I can't remember how many funerals I've done.  I just know that I never once, not fucking ONCE did I ever say no to one.  The least I could do for my fellow Soldiers was make sure that they were remembered with respect and reverence.  I stopped counting after about twenty.  At one point I was doing one a week, sometimes two.  And I made damn sure that those families knew that their loved ones were going to the great hereafter in proper style.  Part of the reason I was picked to be the rife team leader was because I memorized the commands and didn't just say them, I barked them out so that the funeral would hear them from a football field away.

TEAM!  ATTENTION!  PORT, ARMS!  HALF-RIGHT, FACE!
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*

HALF LEFT, FACE!  PRESENT, ARMS!

That was my job, and I'll be damned if anyone did it better than I did.  Those Soldiers deserved no less.  The families who wept and grieved deserved no less.  If nothing else, they deserved to know that their loved ones died for something more than just politics, or something more that just the BS that gets presented day after day in the media.  I had a mother grabbing my arms and crying and asking what her son died for, and I told her then, and I still believe it now - her son died a hero, saving the lives of his fellow Soldiers, laying down his life for them, all in an attempt to make this world a safer, better place.

I wish I could put the names of all the Soldiers I've served on this blog.  I hate to say it, but I've done so many that I've forgotten half of them, and that fact makes me ashamed.  I wish I could remember all of them, but my brain just doesn't hold that information and OPSEC stops me from naming the ones I do remember.

I said in the post below that I couldn't find a thing to write.  That's not entirely true.  I couldn't find a thing to write that would be appropriate for the people who I've saluted and respected on their final journey, and to be blunt this post doesn't do them justice.  But it's the best I can do.  And I hope that when I meet them on the other side, they shake my hand and say "Thank you.  You gave me the respect I deserved."

I will try to do so until the day that I die.  They deserve no less.  And I ask you, anyone who reads this blog, to just take a moment to think about all the people who have died in the service of this country, and think "Thank you."  One of the best, and most simple prayers I've ever heard, was from a guy named Pete who used to work at my building.  He was a former alcoholic, an AA member, who did his best to pray on a daily basis.  And he told me once in passing that sometimes the best he could do was "Good morning, God.  It's Pete.  Thank you."  I think that's what our fallen heros need.  "Good Morning.  This is an American.  Thank you."

I know I say that.  How about you?

Memorial Day

I've been trying to come up with a fitting Memorial Day post, and to be honest with you guys, I got bupkis right now.  So many other people have come up with fitting tributes, and pictorial essays, that I look around and think to myself "How can I say anything to match that?"

So let me just be plain and simple, the way I like to be -

I have had excellent leadership in the Army, and I've had horrible leadership.  I've seen selfless service and greedy bastards.  I've spent less time in theater than some, and more time than others.  But we have the best damn military in the world, who does more with less support than anyone could ever dream.  Which might sound trite and cheap when you think about the billions of dollars in the military budget, but we have Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines in over 100 countries around the world right now, building schools, vaccinating kids, teaching people how to farm and how to grow food, setting up water purification sites, acting as deterrents against hostile dictators, rebuilding and strengthening cities, on and on and on and on.  We have Soldiers on six continents full time.  We are spread over the world, and only in a few places are shots actually being fired.

We're not just the world's police force, we're the world's engineering force.  We're the world's construction force too.  We're the world's rescue service.  And we do it better, faster, and cheaper than anyone else.  I'm humbled to be a part of it all.  Grateful as well, because the Army has given me a hell of a lot, starting with the self-discipline I needed when I was a stupid young punk way back when.  But in everything I've accomplished in the military, I did it while standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before me.

There's a Wall of Heros as you enter my building.  It's roped off and lit up, and has the faces of the Soldiers from my unit who have died in combat.  I look at that wall every day, and thank them for what they did and what they gave, so that my wife and I could sit in the comfort of our home here and enjoy life together.  It's a humbling experience to do day after day.  And it's a necessary one, so that the Soldiers and civilians who I work with never forget the sacrifice others made for us.

I won't say "Happy" Memorial Day, because I don't know if cheeriness and happiness is what is required.  So I will simply say to enjoy this day, and remember why it exists.  See you tomorrow.

It ain't the Foxholes that are the problem

One of the biggest strawmen argument I've ever heard when it comes to gays in the military is "I'd be happy to share a foxhole with (name that homosexual)!"  But the foxhole isn't where the problems come in to play.  When you're in a foxhole, you're in combat.  You most likely won't be having sex while the shells are coming down.  No, the problems crop up once you're out of that foxhole and back in the rear.

Once again, does anyone think that the military would force me to room with a female?  "OK Dave, here's your barracks room and here's your room mate, Private Nancy Smith.  Enjoy!"  No, not only would the military not force me to do that, they PROHIBIT that by regulation.

Does anyone think that the military would force me to shower with the females?  "OK Dave, we have one latrine, so just drop trou and get clean.  By the way, that's PFC Shirley Jones in there right now, but she won't mind!"  Hell no I couldn't do that.  In fact, if I got naked and jumped in the female shower, I'd be arrested and charged with violating several different UCMJ articles.

And yet, the very same people who would slap me with sexual harassment charges if I tried to shower with PFC Shirley Jones are demanding that I accept that very same sexual dynamic being forced on me just because it's now someone of the same gender.

It's not about an individual Soldier's fighting skills.  It's not about a desire to serve.  It's about bringing a sexual dynamic into a situation that cannot have sex involved without negative and desultory effects.  If you want proof of sex being a negative influence in theater, all you have to do is look at what Gen Cucolo faced when he tried to enforce UCMJ punishment on Soldiers who either got pregnant, or got another Soldier pregnant while in Iraq.  This wasn't just a joke.  When a Soldier gets knocked up, they have to go back home, which means that the unit is either one Soldier down, or they have to pull someone from home station and cross level them into the unit.  That's not as easy as it sounds, and it puts unnecessary strain on the unit and the new Soldier, disrupting operations and causing resentment among other Soldiers who don't have the option of getting pregnant and going home to their family.

And let me tell you, if you want to see a unit go from decent headspace to negative headspace in less than a week, you just tell them that PFC Martha Johnson is preggers and getting to go home, but the rest of them have to stay in country.  It just does WONDERS for the moral of the unit!

Soldiers getting pregnant in theater is a problem across many levels, and this General was trying to deal with a few of the more harmful side effects.  But because of the political correct ideology that has infested the military, this Commanding General can't even punish Soldiers who violate General Order #1 and get knocked up.  You think that allowing homosexual Soldiers won't be a problem?  Sure, let's just add ANOTHER sexual dynamic into a mix that is already strained.  And the first time some guy cops a feel in the shower and gets his ass beaten like a drum, the lawsuits start flying.  The accusations of "EEEEK!  EEEEEK!  HATE CRIME!  HATE CRIME!" start flying around.  Even MORE politically correct bullshit infects the Army, like a tapeworm that keeps on growing.  No, scratch that, it's not a tapeworm, because you can shit out a tapeworm.  Heartworm.  Infecting the organ that keeps you moving and alive, eventually killing you as you stagger around coughing and wondering why you can't seem to breathe anymore.

Not one single person pushing for allowing open homosexuality in the military has bothered to answer any of the concerns people have brought up.  In fact, the people bringing up the concerns have been ignored, shouted down, silenced, insulted, called names, and pushed aside.  That tells me that the people pushing for repealing DADT know about the problems it will cause, but they don't care.  They'd rather push their ideology on the military come hell or high water, and when shit starts to fall apart they'll most likely blame the military for it because it's easy to blame people who can't respond or act.  It's easy to blame people who have to keep their mouth shut.

If you think that repealing DADT is a good thing, you are wrong.  Plain and simple.  The Army is not a social program.  We're not a civilian workplace.  We cannot operate under the same rules and principals of the civilian world, because we do not operate in a civilian environment.  And I really, really wish to hell that people would remember that before they try to push the next social experiment on us.

A timeline

Of Obama's incompetence in responding to the oil spill.  A whole lotta golf.  A whole lotta grip-n-grin going on.  A whole lotta nothing.

Obama is unfit to be president, and this latest episode only proves it.  He is, however, excellent about lying about his response.

Click it or Ticket

Have you seen these commercials?  It's pink citations flying down the road and attacking people who don't wear their seatbelts, with an ominous voice-over saying "OFFICERS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY ARE WRITING TICKETS!  IF YOU DON'T WEAR YOUR SEATBELT, YOU COULD PAY A FINE!"

Now, aside from the fact that I have huge problems with the government legislating all this, here's what struck me about it as I was driving home tomorrow.  The Obama administration obviously cannot handle a state enforcing immigration laws.  Yet they have no problem with enforcing a nationwide law that interferes in a private citizen's life.

Maybe it's because interfering in a private citizen's life brings in cash, whereas enforcing immigration laws costs money.

Whew

Sorry 'bout that lack of free ice cream there, folks.  I'm back now, for a few days anyways.  Like I said, crazy time.

Busy times are here again

Light posting from here on out, folks.  Gonna be a little while.

Links

So Obama gave a speech at West Point.  As the Commander in Chief, it's rather expected that you address the next batch of officers who will be fighting your wars.

But damn.

Just.....  damn.

Let me just get this out front, mmkay?  Barack Hussein Obama is a gutless, spineless, nutless little fucking bitch, and the fact that America made him the Commander in Chief literally makes me want to renounce my citizenship in this country.  The only thing that keeps me from doing such is the knowledge that at some point, Barack Hussein Obama will no longer be president, although the country he leaves behind will be damaged beyond our ability to repair it, and the most we have to look forward to is a downward spiral into irrelevance, poverty, weakness, socialist slavery, and finally death.  But I'm going to fight it every step of the way, because it's the only right thing to do.  But for all the people who voted for that worthless fucking sack of communist shit, fuck you.  Fuck the horse you rode it on, fuck the goat who spawned it, and fuck the mountain it fed on.  You are not my countrymen.  You're nothing more than brainless, mindless fucking zombiefied slaves who have clapped the chains on your own necks willingly, because you're too infantile and too weak to take responsibility for yourself, and thus have abdicated that responsibility and the freedoms that accompany it to the power of the ever-increasing government.

Is that clear enough?

Obama's limp-dick response to North Korea

Is going to hurt us in South Korea.  You think the Arabs are the only ones who give a shit about the strong horse vs. the weak horse?  No.  The Korean culture is very huge on respect and saving face, and being forced to do nothing even though they have solid proof that the Norks sank their ship is going to eat them alive from the inside out.  But the Obama administration, once again, is protecting a communist dictator at the expense of our allies.

And it's going to hurt us.  You think some of those South Korean rioters who want the US out are going to like us more now?  Hell no.  And many of the Koreans who regard the USA with something akin to friendship are going to be re-evaluating their assessment of America when America is preventing them from responding to a deliberate act of war by the Norks.

I don't know if I've said this before, but it needs to be said now - I don't know if we will be able to recover from the diplomatic damage that Obama is doing.  This is just another example of that damage.

Holy ...... just damn

Frankie Cee sent this YouTube of the dumbest caller in the world on the Michael Savage show.

She votes.

I really, really hope this caller was a joke.  But I've lived in liberal meccas before.  I've debated liberals.  This is what they sound like.  Thanks for the spike in BP there, Frankie.

Free Day

I actually have a free day today.  All mine.  I have to pack some for an upcoming trip, but other than that, I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I LOLed.

I truly did.  The Smoke Grenades fit perfectly in the cupholders!

I doubt we'll see that model over here though.  US auto companies like to build totally kick ass cars, trucks and SUV's, and then only sell them overseas.

Speechless

I guess the Democrat American Communist Party isn't content with showing it's anti-Americanism through legislation - they have to bring in the leader of our corrupt, crime-ridden, drug cartel controlled southern neighbor and then applaud him while he lambasts Arizona for writing a law to deal with criminals coming from said neighbor.

What.

The.

FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?!

Hey GOP!  Hey RNC?  You have the video!  You have the actions of the Donks on tape!  ARE YOU GOING TO USE IT?!?!?!

Ten bucks says no.  The nutless, gutless, spineless pukes.  Gah.  I'm so pissed at the traitorous pieces of shit that I can barely type.

Chilling

I guess the worthless corrupt shitweasels in Congress don't like the common rabble talking about them.

The same sloppy legislative writing that created so many unintended consequences in ObamaCare also plagues the DISCLOSE Act, the effort in Congress to tighten spending rules in the wake of the Citizens United decision — and that’s the generous take on the situation.  Reason’s Bradley Smith and Jeff Patch warn that the perhaps-unintended consequences of legislative language will allow the FEC to regulate political speech online.  The fact that media entities like the New York Times have specific exemptions built into the bill makes the intent, or lack thereof, rather murky:

I don't give a damn what their intentions are - the fact that Congress would even think to write a bill like this means that every bastard who is attached to it, either through sponsoring for voting "aye", needs to be impeached.

And then have the constitution tattooed backwards on their forehead, with the 1st Amendment in bold letters, so that they can read it every day.

Hammer your Congresscritter

This is why a Conservative win in 2010 is so important - we have got to repeal Obamacare before it wrecks this country's health care system, as it's promising to do.

The end result of the consolidation that will follow ObamaCare will be increased bureaucracies and fewer choices.  The mandate burden will mean fewer independent clinics and providers, thanks to the increased start-up costs.  Doctors will look for the economies-of-scale approach and join a decreasing number of larger networks.  Insurers will affiliate themselves with fewer providers and networks as they pare down their offerings, which will already be constrained by the mandates for minimum coverage.  The so-called “Cadillac tax” will eliminate the high-end policies now offered as insurers attempt to avoid the ruinous taxes and fees imposed on those plans.

I hope you enjoyed your health care while you had it.  Follow the link to read about how doctors in Texas are refusing to deal with Medicare because of the costs.  If Obamacare continues, I think you'll begin to see a whole host of doctors that refuse to deal with the government at all, and do cash-only businesses so as to avoid all the regulation and paperwork that goes with insurance and government mandates.

Hell, that might be the only way to get health care in the future.