"If this nation is ever destroyed, it will not be from without but from within."

--Abraham Lincoln

Boehner and Obama 24/7 and No More Talk of Jobs

January 10, 2013 | Comments (0)

Amazing, isn’t it?  For the last two years or so, after a decisive republican victory in 2010 that placed the House or Representatives back in the hands of the republicans, speaker of the house John Boehner vanished, emerging only, it seemed, to laugh and delight on the golf course with Barack Obama, the man christened, since his re-election, as the left’s ”lord and savior.”  But now, since the presidential election on November 6, 2012, we seen Boehner’s face every day, all the time, 24/7, essentially promising the left ”compromise” in giving those across the aisle all they demand.  He and far too many of the House republicans he “leads” (yes, you, Paul Ryan) apparently missed the fact that the republicans once again claimed the house on November 6th.

That leaves us, the bruised and battered “we the people,” witnessing a shredding of our Constitutional rights as never before (particularly of the Second Amendment, now so gleefully targeted by the left in the wake of the terrible Sandy Hook massacre), an arrogance and hostility in a president we always knew would emerge as soon as re-election was no longer a concern, and an unbridled destruction of our nation’s economy and our childrens’ futures.

But what amazes me most of all is that while we now see and hear Boehner and Obama almost daily, we have not heard the “J-word” since November 6th.  You remember: ”Jobs.”  Pre-November-6th, we heard about jobs every minute of every day, 24/7.  And for good reason.  But since that fateful day, I haven’t heard a single politician mention the need for jobs — the key to increasing what the left now fondly refers to as “revenue” (also known as taxes).  Yet millions of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed.  Indeed nothing has changed since November 6th, but, just as John Boehner vanished after election day 2010, the need for American jobs — that formerly important “J-word” — has vanished, as well.  I am confident, however, that it remains front and center to those American households suffering the consequences of both this adminstration’s attack on capitalism, and the current post-election abandonment of the legendary American work ethic.  How easily we are used.  And how soon we forget.

 

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Another Day of Loss for America

December 14, 2012 | Comments (2)

Tonight Americans will hug their children and loved ones as they pray and weep for those other Americans, who tonight, in the wake of the violent fury of a sick and deranged soul in a small idyllic Connecticut town, no longer have their children, their loved ones, to hug.

I imagine tonight those families in Connecticut who this morning kissed and hugged their children, their loved ones, and wished them a good Friday at school.  And I imagine those families tonight, praying that somehow they will be able to heal, to find peace, to survive, as people they love will never come home again.

I will never forget the stories of heroism or the images that have emerged from this day.  And I will be haunted for the rest of my life by the story of a first-grade teacher at the school, who, upon hearing the first sounds of carnage from a neighboring class, herded her students into a bathroom, her young students crying that they didn’t want to die.  They just wanted it to be Christmas.  God bless them, as well as those who tonight are no longer with us.  God bless all who this tragedy has touched, and may they know that they are are tonight, and many nights to come, in the thoughts and prayers of America.

 

 

Betsy Siino | Comments (2)

Guest Post: Abandoned by My Academic Wolf Pack

December 3, 2012 | Comments (2)

in the wake of election day 2012, a GrizzlyMom reader asked if she could post an entry to this site regarding her own thoughts on the election and its consequences.  It is now with great pleasure that I present this heartfelt piece from this young woman (whose name has been changed to protect her from those leftists who make it their life’s work to silence the free expression of their opposition).

Abandoned by My Acadamic Wolf Pack

By Sobree Kay

The wolf is an amazing animal, but it is this supreme predator’s pack structure that has drawn people’s fascination and admiration for so many years.  What’s rather remarkable about the wolf pack is that it reflects the, dare I say it, traditional nuclear family quite accurately.  The pack is led by the mating pair, while their offspring, and perhaps an adopted younger wolf, plus an aunt or uncle or two, make up the rest of the members of the pack.  Usually, when the pups reach young adulthood, they go out on their own to find their own life’s mates and to stake out territories of their own.  If one runs into problems along the way, the lone wolf can return to its original pack, its family, until it is able to go out on its own and try again.

As a recent graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno, I can’t help but feel abandoned by my beloved academic Wolf Pack.  Voters aged 18 to 29 made up 19% of the electorate, and a total of 60% of those voters helped to reelect President Obama on November 6th.  In doing so, they stunted our futures in an already suffering society, where joblessness and “moving back home” is now the norm for our generation.

As a part of the now dubbed “Boomerang Generation” (also known, now quite appropriately, as the “Lost Generation”), I am experiencing what the majority of people my age are facing: bleak futures, mountains of debt, and very little of the opportunity that originally made this country what it is.  It took me almost three years after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree to find a job, where I am underpaid and working in a field unrelated to my education.  The fact is that my current position has traditionally been held by high school graduates with little to no higher education.  Was this what I spent years studying for and working toward in college?  I would have been better off looking for a job right out of high school, rather than wasting my time and accruing an enormous amount of student loan debt.

While I am grateful to my own family pack for embracing me once again with open arms, living back in the home of my childhood was not where I had imaged myself by the time I reached my mid-twenties.  This is the reality that other young adult Wolf Pack members will have to come to terms with upon their graduation this winter .  Congratulations to the students with the Hope-Hole bumper stickers plastered on the backs of their cars.  You voted for the guy, now let’s see you find a decent career-type job by this spring.  And don’t come crying to me, or anyone else, when you can’t.

 

Betsy Siino | Comments (2)

Good-Bye to Twinkies and 18,000 Jobs: A Win-Win-Win for the Left

November 21, 2012 | Comments (5)

We have all heard by now of the death of the Twinkie — and the HoHo and the Ding Dong and all those beloved Hostess treats — thanks to a union’s demands that would make yet another American company incapable of surviving.  Today it was made official.  A judge had ordered the various parties back to the bargaining table, but to no avail.  So say good-bye to the Twinkie and 18,000 American jobs that have for generations made it a part of American fabric and culture.

In the wake of this event, unions nationwide can declare victory by showing us all who is really the boss here.  Unions have emerged victorious, refusing to budge, refusing to bow to management demands, well worth the thousands of jobs lost.  Their victory has in turn emboldened countless other unions nationwide that have promised to disrupt Thanksgiving holiday travel and various and sudry Black Friday shopping sprees coast to coast.  In other words, the unions will do all in their power to increase consumer prices and decrease company profits.

TodayBarack Obama may claim victory, as well, as 18,000 more people are added to the government dole.  There is nothing more precious to this president than ensuring that more and more Americans find themselves dependent on the government, and, best yet, on him.

And, finally, the first lady can today declare victory as fewer sweet treats are available to the American people, obese and otherwise, who refuse to do her bidding and eliminate sweet treats from their American diets.  Can’t convince them to obey you voluntarily, Michelle?  Then, by God, take the treats off the market and force them into submission!  Of course, her victory may be short lived if another company purchases the brand and the recipes, but we may remain confident that if this happens, she will find some other way to protect us from ourselves.

So see, a win, win, win all around for the leftist agenda.  And just in time for the launch of the 2012 holiday season.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Betsy Siino | Comments (5)

Will General Petraeus Honor the Parents of Those Who Serve, and Tell the Truth?

November 15, 2012 | Comments (1)

Imagine you have a son or a daughter in the military.  Some reading this don’t have to imagine, but I want us all to place ourselves in the shoes of the parent whose child makes the ultimate sacrifice to defend the United States with his or her life if necessary.  This can be a difficult, though noble, prospect for mom and dad.  But you, as a parent, find comfort in our traditions and our heritage, trusting that the life of your child will be honored by those in command.

Then you learn that those in command are not quite as engaged as you had expected.  You learn of their distractions.  Four Americans are dead and stories begin to seep through the crevices of what is fed to us by the White House and its conspiratorial media cohorts.  Stories of cries for help that are denied.  Stories of courage and a defiance of orders to rescue those crying for help.  Stories of painted targets and backup that never comes.  And, worse yet, stories of political agendas.

And then come the stories of commanders – commanders of armed forces and intelligence agents – assigned the duty of protecting the lives of Americans in harm’s way and the treacherous missions they are assigned.  Commanders mandated to remain focused on the strategy, the chaos, the Plans B, and, yes, on those traditions that have provided the backbone of our armed forces since bands of colonial farmers wrested control of this land from skilled soldiers in red more than two centuries ago.  The stories continue to flow, now including in their casts of characters besotted FBI agents (with or without shirts); buxom, self-indulgent socialites; and so-called journalists with affinities for men in uniform (and, of course, so-called journalists equally smitten with a spindly commander-in-chief draped in Armani).

And you, the parent, you are left to wonder if this same sloppy lack of attention has extended, as well, to the battlefields that comprise our current-day theaters of war.  Those commanders entrusted with your child’s safety and proper cover, were they instead tweeting those buxom socialites, leaking the nation’s security secrets to journalists in exchange for affection, and engaging themselves in the personal lives of relatives of their extramarital crushes?  In this new and twisted America, I would say such suspicions would be justified as we see the institutions we once revered as so stable, so solid, so American, crumble before our very eyes.

I think of one such parent, Charles Woods, father of slain Navy Seal Tyrone Woods, who was lost this last September, the truth about his son’s death now clouded in a fog of lies swirling around the highest levels of the government.  While most of us can only imagine Mr. Woods’ pain, we must also wonder what must he be thinking now after very publicly shaming the president and his secretary-of-state for their treatment of his son and the coverup that followed his death.  Mr. Woods must now endure tales of disgraceful behavior on the part of leaders of a military to which his son dedicated his life.  He hears a president refusing to answer questions or even address the need for truth.  He witnesses that president continue to cling to the story that an internet video is to blame for the death of four Americans.  And he listens as that president berates with artificial outrage those who would question the logic of sending a UN ambassador to speak for an event that, according to the president himself, she ”had nothing to do with.”

Yet tomorrow investigators are set to hear testimony from someone who, though distracted, was ostensibly on duty that night in Benghazi.  Tomorrow, behind closed doors, newly resigned CIA Director, General David Petraeus, will be testifying about the deaths of the four Americans we lost that night.

Seems encouraging, but we’ll see.  Given all that has occurred in this country over the last four years, I will not be surprised by whatever we learn from David Petraeus, a man who boasts 40 years of experience in the U.S. military, much of that as a commander of men and women, trusted by those men and women to do what’s right by them.  Will this man, a war hero, now potentially infected like so many others by a newly re-elected administration with transformation and destruction in its sites, will this man throw away his respected career, his reputation, his accomplishments, the very core of his being, for a lie?  Though I pray he offers up the truth we already know, living as we are in this new and twisted America, I will not be surprised if the lie and those who support it emerge victorious.

Betsy Siino | Comments (1)

General Petraeus Becomes a “Bump in the Road” Just in Time for Veteran’s Day

November 12, 2012 | Comments (7)

Late last Friday afternoon we learned that General David Petraeus, former commander of our armed forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan and currently the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has resigned from his post because of an extramarital affair.  In the wake of his announcement, the White House was quick to float the news, as well, that thanks to this resignation, the general will not be testifying in the investigation into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi two months ago.

As anyone with eyes and ears is aware, the murky story about the events of that terrible night back in September has swirled violently from one ridiculous, infuriating story arc to the next, morphing into one of the most disgraceful coverups in America’s history.  The plot now thickens with the timely destruction of a respected warrior who was linked to the announcement a few days before election day 2012 that no one in his agency is responsible for the orders that resulted in the death of a Navy Seal who had defied orders to save Americans left attacked and unprotected in a remote and dangerous outpost.  In other words, the current powers that be tell us, the people of America will not be hearing from a man who poses a threat to this newly re-elected administration, a man who has now been undermined by a ”coincidentally” timed scandal designed to silence him and render him, and anything he might say, inconsequential.

The General, then, becomes yet another “bump in the road.”  And just in time for Veteran’s Day, that day every November when we honor the men and women who have risked their lives to protect the people of America and the founding principles that, until last Tuesday, have made this country the greatest testament to liberty and human dignity the world has ever known.

If the adminstration thought this would end both the General’s “not optimal” testimony in the ongoing coverup, as well as the population’s desire for the truth, it was wrong.   While half of America may be willing to swallow the nonsense the powers that be have fed them, we members of the other half, the half that believes in truth and the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform, are only more inflamed and angered by the latest wrinkle in the Benghazi scandal/coverup.

The theories behind the transparent timing of this “coincidence” are spreading like wildfire.  My favorite, the one my weary heart is depending on, holds that “someone” attempted to urge the General to fall in line and be a good little boy.  Tell the investigators what we want you to tell them, says the someone, and we won’t release this pesky information about your unbecoming conduct with a woman not your wife.  I like to think the General, a 37-year veteran of battlefield strategy, launched in turn a surprise attack.  He resigned.  In so doing, he becomes a private citizen, one faced with serious private issues at home to be sure, but one faced, as well, with the liberty to say whatever he cares to say to a panel of investigators looking in to the death of four Americans.  Despite the scandal that currently stains his character, our half of America now depends on him to embrace the military traditions of honor and courage, especially on this very symbollic day.

And once again, our half of America waits for a message that our ideals and principles and the courage that molded them are not dead.  Defy the orders, General, we plead, just like Navy Seal Tyrone Woods did on that terrible September night.  Speak for us, and speak for him.  Indeed half of our America is praying that the General will honor his own service, the men and women who served with him, and those who came before him and defend the sacrifices and traditions of his calling that are today being trashed and betrayed.  Will he be a hero and speak what he knows?  Or will he remain silent and thus nullify all the good he has done in the past.  My half of America, today of all days as we honor those who have risked and sacrificed their lives for us, wait for him to bring the truth to light.

Betsy Siino | Comments (7)

Many Thanks to My Half of America

November 9, 2012 | Comments (6)

On Tuesday night, the members of my family vowed that we would  pay no attention to anything that happened politically for the next, oh, three-and-a-half years or so.  We would follow current events only superficially, but we would not discuss them, argue them, nothing.  As my son has observed repeatedly since, that vow lasted all of about six hours, and most of that was when we were asleep.

I also toyed in those first hours with the idea of abandoning this website, an idea immediately opposed by my near and dear, and it is in that spirit I want to thank those readers who, perhaps reading my mind, have shared with me their own words of encouragement in the wake of election day 2012.  As representatives of the half of America that remembers the last great hope, we need to stick together, and I offer the same words of encouragement back to you.

By the same token, to those who have taken this opportunity to hurl their oh-so-clever insults and slurs at us….we’re used to being battered by those who must resort to namecalling and talking points in the absence of cogent arguments to fortify their support of certain candidates and policies and free goodies.  And to the reader who scolded me, who accused me of wanting to take the country back to the 1950s, who urged me to get with the program….well, while I do confess to an affinity for mid-century retro styles in fashion, design and pop culture, my choice would actually be a trip back, not to the 50s, but to the late 18th century.  What a gift it would be to meet the men and women, armed with their deep sense of liberty and tyranny, who created this once-great nation and drafted the shattering documents that would provide its blueprint.  So, no, sorry, I won’t be getting with any program mandated by the other half of America.  No bandwagons for me, including those being heralded right now by the republican party.  As many of us have said over the last few days about the Tuesday bloodbath, it is what it is — a loss to our family.  We are who we are, and we will mourn that loss, but we won’t change who we are.

So again, many thanks to those who share my sense of loss and my allegiance to half of America.  We’ll see where it all goes from here.

Betsy Siino | Comments (6)

I Believe in Half of America

November 9, 2012 | Comments (0)

I was so hoping two nights ago to be able to take a deep breath after four difficult years of waiting, hug my family, and say, “I believe in America.”

But then, the Obamaphone won.  And with it, tyranny won, as well.

So I had to take a break.  I spent the day after working hard around my house and focusing on those I love.  Like most conservatives did that day, I imagine.  I then spent a good chunk of yesterday online and with fellow conservatives, all of us, I believe, relieved and comforted to find that we are not alone.  We knew that already, but there is great comfort seeing your own heart relected almost identically in the words and hearts of so many others.  Half of America actually.  Also encouraging was the personal nature of it.  It seemed we regular people out here are more concerned with how this terrible Tuesday affects our families and our lives, ignoring the panic of so-called party leaders and pundits yammering on about amnesty, reaching out, campaign strategies, the woman problem, blah, blah, blah.  You know what?  We don’t care.

Tuesday was our wake-up call about who we are as a country and who we are as a people.  For far too many of us, the conservatives who just a few short days ago believed in the last great hope, Tuesday shattered our foundation.  Maybe the country will recover.  Maybe it won’t.  We can’t care anymore.

We can’t care about the “flexibility” this re-elected president has promised to countries that salivate openly at the sight of our exposed jugular.  We can’t care about the small businesses that will evaporate before our very eyes, and the skyrocketing numbers of unemployed Americans – some who still want to work and, apparently, so many others who don’t.  We can’t care about the college kids who can’t find jobs after powering through their chosen curricula with dreams, not of Obama’s father, but of their own families they hoped to nuture one day and the opportunities they presumed would be waiting.  We are wise to stop caring, as well, about the Americans who were murdered in the line of duty almost two months ago, because we know that now, all the scandals that have tainted this newly re-anointed administration will be forgotten.  We can’t care about the financial cliff that looms, the crippling tax burdens, the record-setting gas prices or the tenacles of socialized medicine that will at last break the spine of this country — all of which are this week being celebrated and endorsed by half of an America we thought we knew.

Of course those of us mourning the loss of our country — not of power, mind you, but country – we can’t help it.  We will still care.  But now, unlike before, we will be selective about it.

Today we believe in half of America.  As the United Nations and Iran and those who see America as nothing but an ATM machine with endless cash, we who have opposed tyranny will save our concerns for the military families who this week now fear for their loved ones as never before; for Israel which finds itself alone; and for the half of the nation who mourns a country set for destruction by the other half earlier this week.  To that other half, who today continue to gloat and giggle and call us names, I say be careful what you wish for.  You have actually set the rest of us free.  Atlas is shrugging, and soon you will see what happens when we who once cared are no longer invested.

 

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Now I Understand My Misunderstanding of the New America

November 6, 2012 | Comments (8)

This has been a difficult night for me, and I knew it would be.  It was not only the tipping point for our nation where we would decide as never before the direction we would go as a country, but so would it also be a tipping point in my understanding of my country and what it has become.  How very painful to understand that the country I have known all my life, the country I have loved and understood as part of my being all my life, is gone.  And I will never be the same.

Forgive me if I have wasted your time, celebrating my love for this country as it was founded, a country like no other where the safety net was not a monthly check, but our God-given liberties and unbridled opportunity for anyone with a dream.  But now I understand the new America, a country that looks to the socialist countries of Europe and yearns to be just like them.  A country that hungers for socialized medicine that will restrict accessibility to proper and timely tests, topflight physicians and the latest in medical research advancements (all of which will still be available of course to our aristocracy, as they are exempt from such socialized restrictions).  We are a nation where the majority of women are more concerned with free birth control and abortion than they are with strong families, a healthy economy and dignity as human beings.  We have forteited the need to inspire our children to strive toward whatever dreams they dare to dream.  Where once we told them they could do anything, now, in our new America, we know it would be cruel to mislead them so.

We are a nation where we choose leaders who strive to weaken us on the world stage and fail to worry about threats from those who would destroy us — and have proven repeatedly their ability to do so.  We are a nation where journalists act at their chosen leaders’ bidding, hiding truth from the people, even when Americans are killed.  Where once we were a nation that valued truth and justice, we no longer find such antiquated concepts valuable, and we will willingly cast votes for candidates who lie about who and what they are.  We are no longer a nation that reveres hard work, dedicated to innovation, risk and opportunity, apparently content in this new America of ours to allow government bureaucrats to take care of us, unconcerned when millions of us are out of work.  That, as we learned tonight, is the new American way.  We are a nation that allow our superiors to determine what cars we will drive, what lightbulbs we will use, and what and how much food we will eat, and we will willingly pay whatever is demanded of us for those everyday necessities.  And, despite the battles born by our founders, despite their opposition to taxation without representation, we are a nation that is willing to pay as much as our leadership demands of us in taxes, as that has also apparently become the new American way.

So forgive me, please, for so severely misunderstanding my country and believing that the majority of us shared my conviction.  I have lived in a fantasy of a country that is no more, a country I have known and trusted since the day I was born, and now I must adjust to this new America, content to tell my children, and someday my grandchildren, stories about the nation I once knew.  I must try and let go of that great nation forged by founders who risked their lives to create what would be the last great hope for men and women on earth, a nation defended fiercely by men and women who gave their lives and their blood to ensure that we would live in liberty.

Indeed Ronald Reagan was so very correct when he told us that, ”freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”  And Abraham Lincoln was so very prescient when he said that “if this nation is ever destroyed, it will not be from without but from within.”  This is probably the very saddest day of my life, and I say to the people who brought us to this new America: What have you done?

Betsy Siino | Comments (8)

Working to Take Our Country Back in these First Hours of Election Day 2012

November 6, 2012 | Comments (0)

Well, so far what little anecdotal evidence is beginning to trickle out is indicating that despite chilly temperatures and long lines, Romney/Ryan seem to be enjoying an early lead, fueled, apparently, by the enthusiasm of republican, independent and perhaps even previously ignored Romney democrats.

To those who happen to know Americans who claim to be too tired or too undecided to vote, remind them of our four dead Americans in Benghazi, whose deaths have been covered up by the current administration and their comrades in the mainstream media propoganda brigade.  Remind them of the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans, many of them recent college grads, who cannot find proper employment.  Remind them of the millions of Americans who have joined the food-stamp rolls, and the glee the current president takes in dividing the people of our great nation.  Remind them of the crushing tax burdens that await us come 2013, compounded by the nightmare that awaits us both financially in the cost, accessibility and quality of care we will receive once our health care system is replaced by Obama’s prized socialized medicine program (and remind them that Congress and certain selected Obama minions are exempt from that nightmare).  Remind them of the skyrocketing prices we are paying for gas and the valiant efforts this president has made to keep those prices high.  Remind them, too, of the terrible toll this administration’s policies have taken on our nation’s small businesses, which provide the financial backbone, and the majority of jobs in our country.

And finally, while there is still time, sit them down and ask that they watch Dinesh D’Souza’s brilliant 2016: Obama’s America.   That will tell them all they need to know — and convince them that we are never too tired or too undecided to take our country back from the brink of destruction.  God bless those doing that work today, and may we be rewarded with good news tonight!

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)