In the beginning of a change the patriot is brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

--Mark Twain

Inconvenient Timing for Barack Obama’s “Surprise” Visit to Afghanistan

May 1, 2012 | Comments (0)

As we know, Barack Obama is all about the show (think white-coated doctors in the Rose Garden and a memorial/pep-rally in Tucson), so there was no way he would pass up the chance on this first anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death to make a “surprise” trip to Afghanistan to take credit for both Bin Laden’s demise and what he has called the end of the war on terror.  (How better, too, for Obama to deflect attention away from this May Day and the Occupy movement he has so publicly and unpopularly embraced?)

Indeed the president probably thought the timing perfect for such a dramatic commemoration of his only true success as president: giving the Navy Seals the go-ahead to take out Bin Laden.  But upon closer examination, it would appear the timing is proving rather inconvenient.  How inconvenient for Obama, for example, that Jose Rodgriguez, head of the post-9/11 enhanced interrogation of the vicious souls responsible for that terrible day, has chosen this same moment in time to broadcast how critical those enhanced techniques were for locating Bin Laden and for the ongoing safety of our nation.  With a fearlessness Obama can only imagine, Mr. Rodgriquez has made it clear that these techniques have been repeatedly denounced by this president and his followers, yet they have saved thousands of American lives in our post-9/11 world.  Mr. Rodgriguez has made clear who the true heroes of this story are, and a gloating, showboating president is not one of them.

How inconvenient for Obama, as well, to have his most recent desperate campaign tactic against Mitt Romney fly back in his face.  You know the one: his campaign ad starring himself and Bill Clinton, claiming that probable republican candidate Romney would not have given the order to take out Bin Laden.  And how inconvenient for the president that Governor Romney would so easily dismiss the charge as ridiculous, claiming that “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.”

And finally, how inconvenient for Obama’s theatrics to be overshadowed by Navy Seals, retired and current, who have chosen this same moment in time to denounce the president’s opportunistic boasting of his own success in this mission, a mission, they remind us, that was carried out, not by Obama, but by their Seal brethren.  The Seals have gone on to suggest that perhaps the president is fudging a bit when detailing his role in the mission, knowing he can because those active in the armed forces are not allowed to speak out against their commander-in-chief.  But as retired Seal Sniper Chris Kyle has said, someday the truth will come out, as the truth always does, and it’s not likely to match what the president has told us for the past year from various podiums, various stages, both foreign and domestic.  When that truth does make its appearance, I have a feeling most of us will find it just as “surprising” as we found the president’s carefully orchestrated “surprise” visit to Afghanistan today.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Update: A Shameless Obama Jokes About the Taste of Pitbull

April 29, 2012 | Comments (1)

Two days ago, I commented here, in regard to Barack Obama’s experience eating dog meat as a child, that this illustrates perfectly this president’s lack of understanding of America and her people.

Well, last night at the White House Correspondents Dinner in D.C., a slobbering display where mainstream media lapdogs and Hollywood hacks assemble to bow en masse to their dear leader, Obama decided to fortify my take on the true significance of his culinary adventures in canine by peppering his stand-up comedy act with a joke about his familiarity with the taste of pitbull.

The fact that Obama chose to boast about this event in the first place was bad enough, but now to joke about it….he just does not get it.  Never has, never will.  And his audience of simpering minions, many of them Hollywood types who beg the masses for donations to animal-welfare organizations they supposedly support, they did the man’s bidding, laughing on cue, clapping on cue, anything to rescue their dear leader from the jaws of embarrassment.  Those minions have worked mightily for years to cover for him –  no matter the troubling nugget leaked from his mysterious past, no matter the gaffe uttered into a hot microphone  —  and they obeyed once more last night in lockstep obedience.  As for me?  I’m not laughing.  Never have.  Never will.

Betsy Siino | Comments (1)

We Americans Are What We Eat — And What We Don’t

April 27, 2012 | Comments (0)

I tried very hard to avoid this subject.  But after a recent conversation with a fellow dog-person friend of mine, and after hearing mention of Barack Obama’s book royalties, I can’t let it go.

You remember: A week ago, certain media outlets decided to inform those of us who have not devoured Barack Obama’s many autobiographies, that he, the current president of the United States, apparently dined on dog meat during his more formative years, an act he boasted about as part of his ongoing compulsion to write and speak about himself.  The story was met with the predictable outrage from both the opponents of Obama and the proponents of dogs, followed by the equally predictable insistance from Obama’s personal mainstream media team that this is “no big deal.”  It happened when Obama was a child, the media team squealed, when he resided in countries where dog is an acceptable menu item and at the behest of his stepfather or someone…you know, an adult authority figure.  So see, no big deal.

Comedians and comedy writers have embraced the story with joyful gratitude, but this isn’t really about the president’s taking a bite of man’s best friend.  Beyond the humor, beyond the outrage, beyond what is acceptable in other countries, other cultures, this is simply another example of Obama’s fatal disconnect with America and her people, just more evidence that this man does not understand this country –  never has, never could.  All I have to do is look to my kids and, frankly, to every other American kid I have ever known.  If any of these kids had ever been offered a bite of dog, even at the tender age of 4 (and certainly any age beyond that), even if offered by an authority figure, a role model, I can say without hesitation that you would have heard their resounding and horrified “No!” from sea to shining sea.

So go ahead and make all the excuses you want for your president, mainstream media team.  They fall on the deaf ears of those of us who do know America, those who are America.  Just ask the kids of America.  They’ll tell you.  Too bad the man currently occupying the White House will never know what they know.

 

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Be a Pitbull, Mitt, and Please Get Marco Rubio to Join You

April 25, 2012 | Comments (2)

From the get-go presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has not been my favorite choice as candidate.  Romneycare is a problem, as is moderate Mitt’s refusal to denounce it as a mistake.  Also bothersome is the fear that he might model his campaign after the campaign of John McCain in 2008: Mr. Nice-Guy-Middle-of-the-Road, Mr. Cross-the-Aisle, Mr. Fire-Any-Campaign-Aide-Who-Speaks-Negatively-About-Obama-Or-Brings-Up-His-Past.  And we all know how that turned out.

But all bothers and fears aside, it looks like Mitt will be the republican candidate this fall, and though I have not celebrated personally his rise, I have to admit that over the past few weeks, he has sent some messages indicating that perhaps he does not plan to be the second coming of McCain.  First, he has actually made statements that would have gotten him instantly fired from John McCain’s 2008 campaign team – warnings about gun rights, for instance, along with comments about Obama’s secret agenda and statements that channel Ronald Reagan.  As one near and dear to me pointed out, Mitt Romney wants this desperately, so here’s hoping he’ll do what needs to be done to engage in what the brilliant Charles Krauthammer has warned is sure to be one of the dirtiest races in history.

What will really seal the deal for conservatives struggling to unite behind someone we have viewed in the past as a flip-floppy moderate will be Mr. Romney’s choice of running mate.  I thus join other conservatives in sending out our heartfelt pleas to Florida senator Marco Rubio to consider joining Mitt on the republican ticket.  Senator Rubio has told us he wants to wait to seek his place on the national stage, but our nation cannot wait.  If this current president is granted four more years to dismantle and transform the nation (and apparently to sell us out to other countries), if he is granted four more years to gut our founding principles about which Senator Rubio speaks so eloquently, there may be no national stage left for Senator Rubio to take.  So let us all hope that he will change his timeline, and make the left’s worst nightmare come true with a Romney/Rubio republican ticket.

Betsy Siino | Comments (2)

Wishing We Could Fight the War on Women the Old-Fashioned Way

April 24, 2012 | Comments (0)

The war against women rages on.  The media propogandists continue to carry the water for the president, his democrats, and all his leftwing minions, but it hasn’t gone precisely as they had all hoped.  When the whole ridiculous contraception business failed, they found themselves having to defend their own vicious name-calling against the likes of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann — and, by extension, any and all women with conservative leanings.  The president even threw together a last-minute “conference” of so-called experts on women, designed to convince the American people that we of the right, indeed anyone who opposes Obama, socialized medicine, socialism, gun control, global warming, electric cars, voter fraud, or our families’ responsibilty to pay for a college student’s contraception  –  we all hate women.  At the same time, the president of the United States complimented the activist law student who started the manufactured contraception brouhaha, telling us he hopes that one day his own daughters will model themselves after her (thus convicing this mom that his idea of good parenting and behavior worthy of parental pride differs vastly from my own).

The tactic has failed.  We know cow manure when we see it.  But the left has had no choice but to stay the course, next setting their sites on Ann Romney, the wife of probable republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  As a a stay-at-home mom, she – and, by extension, all stay-at-home moms – they have claimed, can’t possibly understand the pressures of economic instability and life beyond the front door (never mind that their guy is responsible for that economic instability and the obstacles designed to maintain it).  Indeed the name-calling continues, ever the sign that the namecallers have no cogent arguments in their arsenal.

This has all left me wishing we could settle this score the old-fashioned way and be done with it.  The trips down memory lane over the past weeks to those moments when unspeakable names were repeatedly hurled at conservative women (and their children), have me wondering if perhaps it’s time to let loose the men in the lives of the women and children being used as fodder for the liberal agenda/comedy act.  I would presume that many of those men — husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, uncles — strain at their leashes every time their women and children are described in unrepeatable terms, all to the delight of the gleeful, giggling audiences of leftwing talk-show hosts, politicians and so-called comedians.

So imagine, if you will, Maher, Letterman, one of them, again spouting some trashy, anatomy-laced anecdote about, say, Sarah Palin and her youngest daughter, the rant met with wild applause from a carefully chosen audience.  Not this time, pal! shouts Sarah’s hubby, Todd.  With Sarah’s dad and oldest son in tow, Todd treks to New York, coldcocks the perpetrating funnyman a good one in the jaw, and informs him that he will heretofore cease and desist in describing Todd’s family, the people he loves, in such a base and degrading manner.  Would love to see that.  Wouldn’t you?

Of course, the men in the lives of left-leaning women are welcome to defend their own loved ones in like fashion, if, of course, those men have the muscle and wherewithal to back up such efforts (the men mentioned here — Letterman, Maher, the president…eh, probably not).  Back in the day such manly behavior would not only be expected, it would be applauded.  And today?  Well, litigated, of course.  But we can dream, can’t we?

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

The One Question No One is Asking as Obamacare Goes on Trial

March 28, 2012 | Comments (0)

The monstrous healthcare atrocity known as Obamacare has at last reached the United States Supreme Court.  By all accounts, left and right alike, the news coming out of the Chamber is not boding well for the monster’s prospects.  And thank God for that, say those of us who cherish the U.S. Constitution, those of us who cherish liberty, and, by extension, those of us who still wish to see our America remain the greatest country this world has ever known.

But with every news account, every interview, every commentary I see regarding the current Supreme Court hearings on the Constitutionality of Obamacare, I find myself begging the talking heads, begging the lefting interviewees, begging the Supreme Court Justices to ask one singular question:  Why are members of Congress and various and sundry union leaders and leftwing Obama/DNC supporters exempt from Obamacare?

I have yet to hear anyone covering the story this week on either side of it address this question.  I would suggest that the very existence of this question, coupled with the silence that surrounds it, is all the answer we, and the Supreme Court of the United States, needs.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

I Thought It’s Planned Parenthood’s Job to Supply the Free Contraception

March 4, 2012 | Comments (1)

First, I cannot believe that in 2012 America the hottest topic of conversation among politicians, media types, and, apparently, very active law students, is contraception.  Didn’t our nation already travel this road during those halcyon bra-burning “women’s lib” days of the 60s or whenever that was?

Second, this so-called outrage comes on the heels of the most recent national brouhaha regarding the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s financial support of Planned Parenthood.  Excuse me, but did we not glean from that illuminating passion play that Planned Parenthood rakes in gobs of dough, not only from the United States government, but also from the likes of organizations dedicated, not to planning parenthood, but to the prevention of breast cancer?  Rich and powerful Planned Parenthood earmarks those funds for, yes, the provision of contraception and related services to all manner of women, including, of course, destitute law students, who, it seems, are spending an inordinant amount of time on extracurricular activities.

So why the retro, embarrassingly manufactured controversy?  I’ll tell you why.  How else can the right (as well as those pesky religious-freedom fanatics – Catholics and Baptists among them) be painted as modern-day, woman-hating slave traders?  Shame on the republicans for taking the bait so artificially dangled by the left.  And shame on anyone who believes the sob stories.  Next time you hear one, just send the crybaby over to Planned Parenthood for a ration of free supplies and call it a day.

Betsy Siino | Comments (1)

Andrew Breitbart Has Left Us

March 1, 2012 | Comments (1)

For literally years now, whenever I would see images of Andrew Breitbart wandering gleefully through crowds of those who hate him; when I would hear his unabashed, angry, signature eloquence taking on those whose goal is to take down the country Andrew loved; when I would hear that he had exposed yet more corruption and lies among those of great power, I would think to myself, “Be safe, Andrew.  We need you.”

Then we awaken this morning to find that he is gone.

We have lost, as so many are saying this morning, a patriot, a warrior, and an American with a purity and a fearlessness we are not likely to see matched anytime soon.  He embodied the same seemingly foolish courage that guided the founders of this country and the people who proceeded, despite unspeakable odds, to build our America.  On this sad and shocking day, here’s hoping that we who share Andrew’s vision for this nation will carry on his work at this very dangerous time in our history.  We owe it to him, we owe it to our founders, and we owe it to our children.

God bless the family Andrew leaves behind.  And God bless the nation he leaves, as well.

Betsy Siino | Comments (1)

Obama Voters Get the Gas Prices They Voted For

February 28, 2012 | Comments (0)

Congratulations to those voters who cast their ballots for Barack Obama four or so years ago.  They watched the campaign, they reveled euphorically in the rhetoric and the undefined catchphrases, they ignored the glaring facts, and when that fateful November day dawned, they weighed in for a man who, without hesitation or shame, stated that, as president, he would like to see gas prices rise above $4 a gallon and beyond.  Now as we watch those prices shoot into the stratosphere, I trust those voters are dancing in the streets as they see this particular campaign promise become a reality.

In this spirit, I would like to remind those who voted for Barack Obama that the man is doing exactly what he said he would do – long before you cast your votes.  Meanwhile, we who did not vote as you did, we who listened to what he said before November 2008 and from the get-go viewed his anti-American agenda and his non-existent resume with suspicion, we, unlike you, resent his $4-plus-per-gallon price tag.  Plenty of us also happen to believe that all of this is happening by design, right according to plan – you know, the plan to “transform” America by destroying all that has made America the greatest nation the world has ever known.

So, those of us who count ourselves as pro-American, pro-liberty, we ask that you who forced this man upon us resist the urge to complain about the toll your president’s policies are taking on your bank accounts – and the future bank accounts of your children and grandchildren.  We ask, too, that you resist the urge to complain as you find yourself pumping this week’s grocery money, as well as the kids’ college fund, into your gas tank.  And please don’t bother telling us that you now regret your vote that November.  You knew exactly what you were voting for, but you have left the rest of us to join in paying for what you did.  Whether it can be fixed remains to be seen.

 

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

A Curious Collection of Super Bowl Commercials

February 5, 2012 | Comments (0)

Amazing Super Bowl tonight.  A nailbiter until the very last moment when the Giants claimed the ring and the Lombardi trophy.  But, sad to say,  I found the journey to that last moment rather disconcerting.

It’s no secret that many watch the big game for the commercials.  From coast to coast, viewers gather to see what amazing, not to mention pricey, creations the ad agencies have concocted to wow America while the players take a breather.  Today we did indeed witness some clever moments that will no doubt be discussed around America’s water coolers tomorrow, but what I found disconcerting, and I hope others did, too, was what wasn’t represented.

Most notably, our nation’s ailing economy seemed to be on display in the limited number of companies that shelled out the big bucks for those coveted Super Bowl minutes.  It would appear that only one beer company could afford those slots, but even more jarring were the lack of car companies who could.  The game seemed like one giant commecial — wall to wall — for the company the cynics among us now refer to as “Government Motors.”  It’s amazing what an entity can purchase when it has a bottomless bailout (taxpayer) slush fund at its disposal for commercial time, and the game tonight proved the ultimate showcase for such excess.

The capper was a dark and endless tearjerker presented by thought-he-was-a-conservative Clint Eastwood, a treatise that lamented (and I paraphrase here) the fact that we are hurting, but because we’re America we all got together to do the right thing and bail out a car company and turn it over to the government and the unions, because, you see, “it’s half-time in America.”  Really?  Aside from a shameful rip-off of President Reagan’s iconic “morning in America,” I don’t remember being asked to “do the right thing” and turn over my tax money for a government/union take over of a private corporation.  Let me say, as well, that I would be royally furious right now if I were the powers-that-be at Ford Motor Company — a car company that refused the bailout — which was bashed by name in one of the Government Motors spots.  As a taxpayer, and an American, I’m royally furious for them — and for myself.

Other than that, many thanks to the Giants and the Patriots for a great game, and may we all be thankful that though commercial time was dominated by the left’s propoganda, at least this year the president did not interrupt the festivities with one of his customary Super Bowl campaign lectures.  Count our blessings for that, and have a nice night.

 

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)