Author: COB6

I haven’t really stayed tied too closely to this because I seriously doubt anything is there but maybe there is something after all.

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of fake Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same Daily Kos blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears.

Again, I doubt there is much of a scandal here but the fact that after all this time Obama has allowed something so easily disproved to fester is starting to make me pay a little more attention.

If someone was accusing me of being a woman after I have held myself out as a man for all these years and such an accusation, if true, would block any hope of landing a job that I have geared my entire life you; I would probably kill that rumor asap. So, just show us the kiwis, I mean birth certificate.

It does pose an interesting question though. What would happen if for some reason it was discovered that Obama is in fact ineligible to be elected president?

First thing would be obvious; the far left would want to throw the Constitution under the bus.

UPDATE: Discussing this issue today with a brilliant scholar, a even greater mystery might be tied to this. Did Obama flip-flop on Federal campaign funds (which was an obvious lie and politically dangerous with the far left) to avoid having to pay it back if it was discovered that he committed fraud by claiming to be eligible for the presidency.

Again, I doubt it, but I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy.

This whole “Under the bus with you” strategy that the Obama camp is running is at least puzzling if not hysterical. After pandering to every far left group he could find for months, he is now tossing them one by one at a blinding pace.

The most liberal member of the senate has now flipped on his position on abortion.

In an interview this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”
Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

This is an amazing piece of political gymnastics after he worked so hard to secure the NARAL endorsement from Hillary Clinton. Amazing because he is 180 degress from NARAL’s core position on late term abortion.

The official position of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group that endorsed Obama in May, states: “A health exception must also account for the mental health problems that may occur in pregnancy. Severe fetal anomalies, for example, can exact a tremendous emotional toll on a pregnant woman and her family.”

His current position (as of today at least) is far different from the guy who voted against an Act that would prevent the killing of a fetus that somehow survived the abortion process while a member of the Illinois Senate.

This may have been a deliberate plan to position himself left of every politician in the world. At the federal level the very same issue was discussed.

Separately, a Senate amendment to protect infants born alive during abortion was offered by then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) in 2001. It passed the Senate 98-0 with all current Democratic presidential hopefuls who were in the Senate at the time voting in favor, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Chris Dodd (Conn.), Joseph Biden (Del.) and then-Sen. John Edwards (N.C.).

How does one manage to get left of a 98-0 vote?

Of course now we know that this decision was political gamesmanship and not based on any core belief at all. Must be a “change” thing that I don’t understand.

Can you imagine what Hillary Clinton is thinking watching this clown flounder about?

I’m not sure how the “War never solved anything” crowd celebrates this day but it is certainly a day that commemorates the beginning of a war that led to the creation of the United States.

War against a king is certainly nothing unusual in history. Of course neither is war in the name of the king. In fact since feudal times, the norm has been a war of king versus king.

In a few instances however, under the rule of a tyrant king, the common man would rise up against the throne. These uprisings were few and rarely accomplished more than the wholesale death of the working aged men of the peasantry followed by even more brutal rule from the throne.

This is probably why such uprisings were unusual. The peasantry was certainly aware of the slim likelihood of success and the harsh and inevitable aftermath of failure. Historically it can be said that no sane king fears an uprising from his people; for no sane king would create conditions so brutal that the masses would even consider such an enormously risky enterprise.

The simple rule for a king was to avoid the development a massive impoverished population controlled by a brutal and corrupt ruling class. The idea was that the only people who will risk everything are the people who have nothing.

Given the conditions in the American colonies in the 1770’s, King George by this logic had little to fear. The average American citizen lived in more comfort and far more prospect than their European counterparts. American farms were productive and growing rapidly, trade was swelling and its cities were growing and prosperous.

The Colonies had become a cash cow for King George and there was no real reason for him to anticipate that changing any time soon.

The founders of the American Revolution were not poor and hopeless masses lashing out in frustration staging pointless public demonstrations or the kidnapping and killing of local officials.

In fact the founding fathers were the most powerful and affluent men in America. They were the most educated and their prospect for even more future wealth was almost unlimited.

They had plenty and yet bonded together to risk it all in a bold military endeavor against the most powerful army in the world. Against all historic norms, a successful and relatively wealthy band of subjects had joined to rise against the crown.

The result was the creation of the United States which of course has grew into the most powerful nation on earth.

Freedom is bought with courage and oppression awaits those who live in counsel of their fears.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Braindead Caucus; including the Messiah have drummed out another slogan that the intellectually bankrupt left is gobbling up and regurgitating everywhere.

You’ve heard them breathlessly screaming “The oil companies have 63 million acres now; why aren’t they drilling on it?”

There’s a few billion acres on the moon too but we aren’t drilling there; I wonder why? Maybe because there’s no frigging oil there and even if there was, it would certainly not be economically sound to go after it.

Here’s the truth. There are three KNOWN potentially huge oil reserves, ANWR and the OCS west of Florida and California. I know there’s a lot of talk about shale oil and stuff but these are KNOWN pockets of sweet crude. Not one of Reid’s 63 million acres are anywhere near these deposits.

In spite of this, the oil companies are drilling. In fact they have been drilling more and more but realizing little success because of the restrictions placed on them by the enviro-wackos.

Exploratory and development drilling has increased across the board since 2000.

Drilling of (oil and natural gas) exploratory wells (2000-2007) up 98%;
Drilling of (oil and natural gas) development wells (2000-2007) up 92%;
Drilling of exploratory oil wells (2000-2007) up 138%;
Drilling of developmental oil wells (2000-2007) up 89%.
73% of all exploratory and development wells in 2007 were for natural gas.
• Over the same period (2000-2007), however:

Domestic crude oil production has decreased 12.4%;
Domestic crude oil production has fallen to levels not seen since 1947; and
Imports of crude oil have increased 10.4%.
The 946,000 barrels per day increase in imports is almost as much as ANWR would be producing today if it had not been blocked in 1995.

Oh yeah and opening ANWR would create over 500,000 good paying jobs! Some estimates has it as high as 750,000 jobs.

Seven of the top 20 U.S. oil fields are now located in analogous deepwater areas (greater than 1,000 feet) in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2006, Chevron discovered what is likely to be the largest American oil find since Prudhoe, drilled in 7,000 feet of water and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor. The Wilcox formation may have an upper end of 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil and should begin producing by 2014 – perhaps ushering in a new ultradeepwater frontier.

Just today there was a fire reported at a California refinery. Within 10 minutes oil had jumped over a dollar a barrel. This is because oil is a commodity that is in growing demand against a restricted supply.

The announcement of opening ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf would drop gas prices by $.50 overnight and Congress has the power to do it.

That Didn’t Take Long.

WASHINGTON–A few minutes after the McCain conference call concluded–where Barack Obama was called on to reject comments made by retired Gen. Wesley Clark (see blog item below) questioning John McCain’s war record and his qualifications to serve as president, this statement from the Obama campaign: “As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

I guess Wes will want to switch back to Republican now?

Confederate Yankee nailed it!

The Saddest Thing About Barack Obama’s Available Military Expertise… …is that though he has Wes Clark in his corner, the only person he knows with the experience of getting a bomb on target is Bill Ayers.

Hey Wes, watch out for that bus!

Wes Clark’s amazingly idiotic comments yesterday on Face the Nation about John McCain’s lack of “executive” experience has caused a deserved shit storm all over the internet.

This morning on “Morning Joe” Andrea Mitchell seemed to think that Clark’s comments were “really dumb”.

MITCHELL: Because every time you hear Barack Obama talk about John McCain and most recently Hillary Clinton on Friday in Unity, New Hampshire, echoing it, they say “we honor his service.” That is the predicate for of course taking a shot at him in some other very, you know, substantive way at least. But this is going after the very thing that Barack Obama and all of his people have been very careful not to touch. They have not criticized his military service because they think it will backfire, clearly, to do that, and maybe they even feel that way. So for Wes Clark as a surrogate to go after John McCain is really dumb, I think. It goes against everything the Obama campaign has been trying to do, and I think it’s going to have some ramifications. One thing I can tell ya is: it certainly means he’s not going to be on that short list for Vice-President.

Clark is certainly no stranger to gaffes and if you look closely, you can find a contradiction is almost every statement this opportunist ever makes.

“I live by a simple rule. If you wore the uniform, if you served your nation with honor, and especially if you fought and were wounded in battle, then you have earned the right to be treated with respect.”

“That’s why I am so outraged that the Republican Party has systematically attacked the wartime service and patriotism of veterans who are running for office as Democrats. It is despicable—the sign of a party more concerned about hanging onto power by any means possible than with giving veterans the respect they have earned.”

General Wesley Clark, October 2006

There is no doubt that what Clark said was pretty stupid; the question is why did he say it?

This was nothing more than another episode of Clark’s constant shameless self-promotion. Clark made it to 4-star and McCain didn’t was the point Clark wanted to make. When Schieffer mentioned that Obama doesn’t have any experience either, Clark offered the smile of superiority, practically screaming that he is more qualified than both candidates.

I predict Clark will find himself under the bus before 3:00 pm today.

This is interesting. Gateway Pundit had it this morning.

The Orlando Police Department found dozens of city owned vehicles vandalized Saturday.

The vandal or vandals appear to have political intentions; most of the vehicles were spray painted with anti Obama sayings, with ‘Obama’ misspelled several times. Some of their vehicles had their gas caps removed.

Officials said that gas caps were removed from several of the vehicles and they aren’t sure if gas was stolen or if something could have been added to the tanks that will damage the engines.

The person or persons left a business card with political ramblings and other phrases such as ‘How ‘Bout them Gators’ and ‘Legalize Marijuana/ Stop Building Prisons’.

Apparently the messages targeted Obama and John McCain but mostly the Messiah.

My intuitive reasoning led me to develop a likely source scenario.

Given:
Atrocious spelling indicating a very low level of intelligence
“How ‘Bout them Gators’ indicating mindless college kids
‘Legalize Marijuana’ indicating stoned, mindless college kids
‘Stop Building Prisons’ indicating stoned, mindless, LIBERTARIAN college kids

Conclusion: Ron Paul fans

BREAKING UPDATE:

Just in from Fox News:

The business cards disparage both Obama and Sen. John McCain but have messages of support for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Major General (Ret) Alfred Valenzuela to discuss his new book No Greater Love, the Lives and Times of Hispanic Soldiers.

The book has already received a couple of favorable reviews:

United States Senator John S. McCain – Arizona
In this poignant work, Freddie Valenzuela uses his thirty-three years of military service as a canvas on which he paints…the moving story of a Hispanic American in service to his nation…I commend it to you as a wonderful way to explore the nature of service and the meaning of patriotism.

United States Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison – Texas
From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror, Hispanic Americans have made enormous sacrifices to protect our freedoms, and I am grateful for their service. In No Greater Love, General Valenzuela highlights the service and dedication of these brave Americans in our military.

You were very involved in Scouting and Boys Clubs in your youth.
What do these organizations do to prepare a young person for success?

Danny, the Boy Scouts & Boy’s & Girl’s clubs provide young at risk & lesser income children with mentoring, education, an array of subject tutelage, leadership & discipline. For knuckleheads like me & most of us in the Army, its ideal & compliments family.

You devote an entire chapter of the book to the funeral of SPC Rodrigo Gonzalez-Garza. This soldier was not a US citizen when he was killed in a helicopter accident. His family wanted to bury him in his hometown of Sabinas Hidalgo, Mexico. Some controversy erupted between the Mexican and US governments. You managed to overcome that and the funeral happened with full military honors. As a result of this, has a standard protocol between the two governments been established or will this be a challenge each time it occurs?

The funeral in Mexico which was the first opened the door to what is now foreign policy toward the better relations between the two countries. It also opened everyone’s eyes to the fact that are many residents’ non citizens serving/dying for this country. Thus, the idea now is to make sure we get them citizenship while on active duty before they deploy, but at least make them citizens posthumously if necessary.

You say that education is the bedrock of success. The officer corps puts a lot of weight and opportunity for advanced education. Would you advocate similar programs for NCOs? If so, what specific fields of education do you think Army NCOs would benefit most from?

The US Army is the most educationally oriented Institution in the government; however it’s focused on the Officers for the most part. That is changing because of the requirement to have education when you reach 1st Sgt/SGM/CSM; however it’s also geared to the non combat Soldier & lesser to the warrior. We never get time off to take advantage of it. It must be focused on the NCO who truly deserves it. All my success is attributed to my NCOs period. They take officers & nurture them to success. When an officer gets selected for command/promotion it is the NCO that is the proudest because of what he did to make that happen.

You used your personal career as a vehicle to illustrate the Hispanic soldier experience, so let’s discuss some of that.

In your book, you talk a lot about the importance that mentors had in your career and you offer an impressive list of senior leaders. But I was curious about going a little further back. The first major career jump was when you were selected for promotion to Major below the zone. What events or to whom would you credit that early promotion?

In the book MG Valenzuela writes:

“My success as a battery commander is directly attributable to Stan Shipley, a fellow San Antonio native and graduate of West Point and the Wharton School of Business; Lt. Steve Steed; and First Sergeant Jackie Stanfield. Together we led the best battery of five in the battalion and one of the top two of the 25 or so in the Division Artillery.”

When I asked the question directly:

Although LTs Steed & Shipley played a significant role no doubt Top Jackie Stanfield was the key. Super teacher, coach & mentor he provided the right tutelage of soldiering I could have gotten. He was directly responsible for my success.

Every job in the Army is important but you place a great deal of weight on Command assignments; why is that?

The reason for the COMMAND issue is because hidden in the bowels of the ARMY if you do not command at all levels you will not get promoted. It’s the same in the NCO ranks because if you are not a 1sg, you will not probably become a SGM/CSM.

Near the end of the book you discuss the “theory of visibility”. How would you advise a young officer to take advantage of this without appearing to be grand standing?

Most of the Theory of Visibility is not apparent until you reach the senior levels. Its luck & chance & if your guy gets to the top then if you served with him/then then your chances are better of getting to the top. Thus, the mentorship of the army is the most important. Who you serve with & their success is passed down to those who served with him.