July 4th

July 4th, Independence day.

Alaskans, remember the sacrifice in blood.

Freedom is not free.

Ask any soldier.

Remember those crosses in our national cemeteries.

Blood and sacrifice.

Duty, honor, country.

Then, why, is it that we have allowed our beginnings to be denigrated, perverted, and almost forgotten?

Why have we allowed perversion and distortion to become truth?

Why is it that we allowed all that we know to be good and true to become less?

Why have we become so complacent about the death of the unborn when we once rejoiced and held life above all . . . ?

Where is morality and God in our lives?  Without a moral compass, there is no freedom, just slavery.

We thought we had won the Cold War against Soviet Communism when the Berlin Wall came crashing down and the Soviet Empire crumbled. We were wrong.  The enemy was us. The war against those who would destroy this country has become American against American, the radical left against the right, liberals against conservatives. The liberal is now the old communist who works for the creation of the State controlled everything and the destruction of all that we held to be American:  family, life, our culture, our history, our work ethic, our sovereignty, our language, our morality, and our integrity as a nation.

Would those who sacrificed to take the plunge into uncharted waters in 1776 have done so if they knew how we squandered what they created?

The second Great American Revolution has begun.  Let us hope that this war will be resolved at the ballot box.

SOLDIERS!  REMEMBER YOUR OATH TO THE CONSTITUTION!

Memorial Day 2012, a day of remembrance, not self indulgence

Today is a day that we are supposed to memorialize our war dead. Our heroes and heroines who died in the line of duty while serving their country in defense of freedom. Instead, too many ignore the why of the day, to indulge in self-serving activities that have nothing to do with attempting to demonstrate their appreciation for the sacrifice of our war dead.


The veterans of foreign wars are all around us. We may never know who they are, we might note the hat that they wear to show that they served during a time of duress and war, or a jacket. There may be no outward appearance or sign of their prior service. We largely ignore them, giving lip service to their sacrifice by showing “appreciation” to our troops by enduring politicians self-serving speeches.

My father became a Marine at the close of WWII. He served on Okinawa in a Scout Recon Platoon, always referred to as “kid” by his platoon sergeant, never as Marine, because he was underage. In 1947, he was sent to China as part of the Allied Army of Occupation. While there, he spent 9 months as a prisoner of the Red Chinese. He and those captured with him, were beaten daily, suffered depravations, and told upon repatriation to forget it by the USMC, never happened. He was discharged and returned to Arizona, serving in the Army National Guard, until the Korean War, when he once again became a Marine for the duration. He moved his family to Alaska in 1954 upon his release from the USMC. He then again joined the Army National Guard, becoming Alaska’s first fiscal officer. My father did not go to Vietnam, but in 1968 was offered a commission as a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy, if he would take a two year tour to Camh Ranh Bay with the Seabees. He declined the offer.

My father’s experience was not really unique. He was of a generation of Americans who faced a terrible war that threatened the very existence of the United States. He continued to serve in one capacity or another with the military until his early 40s. Such service was a matter of course for his generation, and expected. Through my father, his association with aviation, his USMC and National Guard service, and his tenure as an Alaska Territorial and Alaska State Police Officer in the 1950s and early 60s, I was privy to a world of men and women who were of that generation who served in WWII and Korea, and through Civil Air Patrol, those serving in the Republic of Viet Nam.

When Iraq came around, my youngest son, after serving a five year tour in the USMC, had joined the U.S. Army Reserve and was called up to duty as a combat engineer NCO.

While working on a USMC firing range renovation in 2008 on Oahu, I had the sincere privilege to meet young Marines who had been wounded in action, most by IEDs. They had been sent to the unit responsible for the firing range awaiting discharge for their injuries. We were humbled and sobered to be in the presence of those who had done the job and had been severely injured.

Soldiers fight for their buddies. It is all about the guy next to them. Not about country, not about the color of skin, not about where one came from, not about religion, not about anything but doing one’s part, and not letting your buddies down.

The guys in WWII did not serve to see the U.S. become less. They served to end a threat. They did terrible things. They firebombed cities. They shelled cities. They killed soldiers and civilians. They fought a total war. They won. Since, we have put our troops in harm’s way, but our leaders have prevented them from winning.

Today, our troops are under the influence of those whose world view is now very much like the enemy of the 50s-80s. The former Soviet Union and communism.

We have a President who is a product of communists and hard core socialists. People who do not believe that the U.S. is a good place or that its society is unique in the world with our Constitution and our rule of law. People who do not value life, our culture, the preservation of language, our institutions, the supremacy of our Constitution, or the traditional family as being necessary to the preservation of our country and way of life. People who live in the past believing that the U.S. is a place rife with discrimination based upon color and ethnicity and unfairness. People who believe that they have the right to take from those that work and give to those who do not. That the Constitution is nothing but an outdated piece of paper in need of revision to reflect their progressive (anytime progressive is used, read communist) world view. What’s yours is theirs. Abortion, though a tool of eugenics and intended to be used as such against the African-American population, has become a “right” for women who put killing the unborn below protecting a whale. This is not the United States that my father and millions of Americans before and since fought to defend or who sacrificed their lives to protect.

Some of our young American who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places have given five years away from home and family. Some, much more.

There are Gold Star families in Palmer, Wasilla, and Eagle River.

When you see a uniform of our armed services, think of how much time you have given in service to your fellow citizens away from your family. And, remember, what they do is dangerous in of itself with respect to training and daily operations without being shot at.

Be thankful that there are such heroes and heroines willing to do the job of our military. Tell your kids that these men and women are there to protect them and mommy and daddy. Tell your children that those grave stones in our national cemeteries mark the final resting place of someone’s daddy, son, brother, sister, mother, or wife.

May God bless these men and women who serve and those who have served this Great Nation. They stood the line and deserve our respect.

Memorial Day should be a day of respect and quiet reflection.

Pregnant Solidiers, a violation of disipline?

Yes.
It is.
Women who want out of duty and a war zone have an out no man has. Pregnancy.

In order to stem this dereliction of duty, Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III threatened courts martial for such breaches of discipline. And, yes, having sex with one's subordinates or fellow soldiers is a breach of discipline and a threat to unit moral, cohesiveness, and effectiveness. Lose enough troops to such, and one has a serious problem with completing one's mission.

The howl of the nags, as Limbaugh calls them, is incredible hypocrisy. Why, women getting pregnant is natural and should not be questioned. No joke. However, a combat zone and a military unit is not the corporate secretarial pool. Why according to these hypocrites, the female soldier is supposed to be able to use sex to cop out of their obligation to their fellow soldiers.

This ploy has been used effectively in the Navy to get out of protracted duty aboard ship. Hence, the rising number of single women who are parents in the military. Yet, they retain their rank and benefits. Same for their Army, Marine and USAF counterparts.

It has always been interesting to me that women can use sex and have no repercussions over responsibility for their actions, yet the male is held responsible for a pregnancy. I am 57 and I know who controls the sex between myself and my wife. I doubt that this situation is any different in the field with the female soldiers who are endangering the mission of their units by their promiscuity and selfishness in using pregnancy as a means to terminate their duty overseas, thereby leaving their male counterparts in the lurch.

Yes. a courts martial is appropriate for this conduct. It is cowardice and selfishness coupled with a lack of commitment to duty. These women swore an oath. Either do the job, or get the hell out of the military.

That the situation has deteriorated to the point that a unit commander has threatened courts martial to stem the tide of such behavior is incredible. It is also a demonstration that those who did not want females in combat units were correct after all. They do not belong on ships and they do not belong in a combat zone, except as nurses.

It is time that women bore the responsibility that their male counterparts bear. Or, that they admit that they want out and accept a discharge. That would certainly reduce the cost to the military for taking care of them and the product of their cowardice and lack of responsibility.

I believe that women should also bear 50% responsibility for any pregnancy with respect to the cost of bearing and rearing the child. The moron who acts in concert with a woman to achieve pregnancy, whether intended or not, should bear the other 50% of the cost of the child. The rest of us, should not bear any cost. The malarkey that the State should cover promiscuity in the face of free contraceptives is specious. Given this situation, the issue with women using pregnancy to get out of duty is not unexpected. The impact of the libs demanding no consequence for one's actions is now impacting the military negatively.

It is time we all took responsibility for our conduct. MG Cucolo III was correct in his holding the female accountable. Too bad he backed down.

Sarah is a quitter . . .

Sarah Palin came upon Alaska’s state political stage with her run for Lt. Gov. in 2002. She proved an able opponent, much to the chagrin of Sen. Loren Leman, a well respected member of the Alaska Senate. Sarah came within a hairs breadth of defeating him for the Lt. Gov.’s seat.
Newly elected Governor Frank Murkowski gave justice to Sarah’s showing by giving Sarah a responsibility reserved for the political elite: a seat on the Oil and Gas Commission. A pricey salary of $105,000 per year went with it.
Randy Ruedrich was also appointed to that commission. Ruedrich, out of the people appointed at least had experience in the industry he was overseeing. However, as the Alaska Republican Party Chair, Ruedrich’s appointment raised some concern. This was an appointment fraught with potential conflict of interest.
What happened next, made Alaska political history, and created the Palin legend of standing for integrity and principle.
Palin and Ruedrich did not get along. Palin called Randy down for using State computers to conduct party business. Gov. Frank Murkowski initially chose to ignore the issue, and Palin resigned from the AOGC, setting the stage for the greatest political upset in Alaska history and an early end to the Murkowski Administration.
Ruedrich was fined $12,000 by the Alaska Public Offices Commission for his breach of ethics.
With her resignation, Sarah Palin established herself to Alaskans as a moral person of integrity and principle. Joan of Arc of Alaska is what I called her.
It was too bad that Frank Murkowski was demonized so heavily over the Ruedrich mess. Murkowski’s Administration was addressing some vital issues to Alaska, including the novel idea of actually building roads to gain access to Alaska’s potential mineral and potential oil wealth beyond the North Slope development.
From the beginning of the race against Murkowski for the governor’s mansion, the Palin campaign was belittled by the competition. “Little princess”, “cheerleader” and “little girl” were terms used liberally during the Primary. Demeaning, and denigrating rhetoric on the part of the pundits and the Murkowski faithful was the order of the day. This harsh and demeaning rhetoric was constant.
No one took Sarah seriously amongst the old guard in the Republican Party of Alaska . . . until her poll numbers starting going up.
The harsher the criticism, the higher the poll numbers went.
Ruedrich’s breach of ethics became a battle cry and a rallying point for the Palin faithful. Her resignation from the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission became the stuff of legend.
Murkowski was the ideal “straight man” to Sarah’s presence and “Alaska First!” theme. Big and usually polite, Murkowski rarely went where Palin’s critics went with their remarks.
I can remember only one demeaning comment on Murkowski’s part; otherwise he played the gentleman opponent to Palin’s Joan of Arc.
Then came the Primary election. This was an incredible rout for Murkowski and the Republican old corps Murkowski supporters.
These rubber stamp it as long as it is Republican, except Sarah Palin, party faithful were those whose blind faith enabled a breach of ethics on the part of elected representatives to Alaska’s Legislature unprecedented in Alaska history that comprised the reputation of the Republican Party in Alaska. This disaffection of integrity from the ranks of ‘conservative’ legislators led to gains in the Legislature, thereby eliminating a Republican majority that owned the House and Senate.
The General Election where Sarah ran against former Gov. Tony Knowles was more low key, in terms of attacks from the Democrats. The Democrat election machine had the Murkowski Republicans and alleged conservative pundits to do their dirty work. Even after the Primary election, these alleged conservatives continued the attacks against Palin, unabated by the fact that the benefactor was the Democrat opposition!
Former Gov. Tony Knowles, like Murkowski, kept to the high ground where criticism of Sarah was concerned. Unfortunately for Tony, Tony was just out of date and no match for Sarah’s increasing popularity. The Palin Revolution was well under way and Tony and the dems were blown away at the polls.
Sarah’s most critical naysayers were those who supported Murkowski. They just could not get over Sarah’s one ups-man-ship over their hero. Since, it has been more of the same.
Was that criticism justified?
Sarah campaigned on a fiscal conservatism, smaller government is better, pro-development, get rid of activist judges, pro-family, traditional value, pro-life largely conservative platform.
Once in office, she made up to Randy Ruedrich, and forgot what she sold us during the campaign for governor.
Her administration started off by reappointing most of Murkowski’s cabinet, along with a few retreads from past Democrat administrations. The end result was confusion, a lack of direction, and dissent within the governor’s office about who was in charge. Sarah fired her legislative liaison, John Bitney, one of the ardent insiders during the campaign. She eventually fired two of her Chief of Staffs, keeping the last.
Sarah’s record is one of contradictions.
Sarah campaigned on a platform of fiscal conservatism. She then promoted the largest budget in State history in the face of declining oil production. She added $200 to the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend check as a freebie for fuel costs. Sarah grew government, failing to address the bloated, horribly expensive State bureaucracy for which she criticized Murkowski and Knowles.
Once in office, Sarah forgot the all Alaska pipeline route that even she admitted she had voted for and supported during the campaign, through AGIA and a Trans-Canada pipeline.
Sarah raised taxes on the oil companies, resulting in a regulatory morass that has all but eliminated oil and gas exploration Alaska. In Alberta, 10,000 wells drilled last year is considered a bad year. In Alaska, one can count the number of new wells drilled last year on two hands.
Sarah’s cabinet included the addition of a climate change sub-cabinet comprised of those whose job was to promote a fallacy upon Alaskans. There is nothing this cabinet has done that has resulted in any plan or direction that benefits Alaskans. Worse, is the fact that Miss 10th Amendment State’s Rights to the death Sarah put a FED in charge of the cabinet. An EPA employee runs a State of Alaska cabinet department.
Sarah appointed a liberal minded judge to the Alaska Supreme Court that was on the board of directors for Planned Parenthood! So much for her rhetoric about activist judges.
Yet, during the campaign for Governor, pro-life, anti-abortion Sarah Palin decried activist judges and the attack upon parental rights.
Sarah Palin supported the creation by a previous referendum, the same referendum that she supported with her vote, of the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority. Earlier this year, she cut funding for ANGDA and appointed a natural gas pipeline czar with no experience in natural gas anything. That’s our Sarah.
Sarah Palin entered office with a greater than 80% majority vote in the general election. She massacred the competition. Instead of going to the Legislature with the power of that mandate, she waffled, commiserated, and failed to get her agenda put into effect. Unfortunately, that agenda was not what we who worked, contributed, and supported her during the campaigns thought it was.
We believed her conservative, pro-life, pro-family, fiscal conservative, and ‘Alaska First!’ rhetoric.
Sarah Palin failed as a leader to carry the day. Her few months in office were marked by an ongoing soap opera that was embarrassing to watch while she seemingly ignored the mandate that she had going into office.
Then came the Presidential campaign.
McCain picking Sarah Palin was brilliant, and immediately put his lackluster campaign back into the running. That pick was so “off the wall”, and so out of the political mainstream of rehashed hacks, that McCain’s campaign took on a new life. Unfortunately, his choice for VP became the VP from hell.
Ascendency to national notoriety showed us a Sarah that we all knew.
In September, 2008, I attended a rally in Cedar Rapids, IA, while working a job near there. Sarah’s acceptance was incredible. A very conservative message was given by Sarah Palin and those folks loved it. Sarah received louder cheers and louder calls for her than did McCain. McCain stood there next to the podium and smiled, but he had to wonder whether or not in the form of Sarah Palin he had created a monster that would eclipse him.
I will say this for John McCain. For a man who had the living daylights beat out of him every day for five years in the Hanoi Hilton, he had a very good military bearing. He stood with a straight back.
The campaign soon degenerated into a bash Sarah assault on the part of the media that almost worked to the detriment of those bashing her. Her poll numbers rose instead of falling. Had it not been for the revelations regarding the economy, McCain would have won and Sarah Palin would be in the V.P.’s office.
The assault on Sarah’s family was the most disgusting and insulting attempt to discredit, defame, and destroy a candidate for high office since the attack on Barry Goldwater when he ran against Lyndon Johnson. There, the press lied, but did not attack his family. What happened with Palin was a travesty and has sullied the press for ever more.
Since returning to office from the VP run, Sarah has not been able to gain any traction. She has been continually hounded by irrelevant and specious ethics complaints. Had she used her mandate, she could have made the Legislature change the law to eliminate many of types of specious and outrageous allegations made against her that were found to be baseless. Sarah took the office of the Governor to new lows in her continued focus on those complaints instead of Alaska’s business.
Sarah Palin plainly spoke at her handover of power that she was resigning to avoid the “lame duck” disadvantage and stigma upon her administration. With 15 months to go in her first term, she was a “lame duck”?
Granted she was rendered ineffectual, but ineffectual by her own conduct and failure to act as would a leader. Murkowski endured many criticisms during his tenure, many from Palin herself. Yet, he did not put his family on public display or put them in the line of fire time and again.
Meg Stapelton told the Anchorage Daily News that Sarah had no plans, nor any designs in place for further political activity after leaving office. Yet the same paper also reported that Sarah was to speak at an event in California on 8 August. Prior to that, Sarah admitted that she is also going to speak in support of other like minded candidates—both Republican and Democrat.
How’s that for not having a position?
Sarah Palin will do whatever she intends to do. She is ambitious and will spin a track on anyone or anything that gets in her way.
Unfortunately for her ambitions, what Sarah says on the public stage is not supported by her record. Sooner or later, people will begin to question the rhetoric and why she quit her job as Governor.
The disgusting soap opera that Sarah Palin’s detractors put her family through, of which no small part belongs to her ego and penchant for mucking it out with her detractors, was disappointing and sad to see.
Sarah Palin is a conservative sound bite, but an all too typical politician. ‘Sarah First’ is her war cry. Those who supported Sarah Palin found out that the self-described ‘pit bull with lipstick’, otherwise known as ‘Sarah Barracuda’, was all hype.
Fame and fortune are Sarah’s bent. Once cannot blame her for going for the gold ring. One can blame her for forsaking her sacred duty to Alaska and Alaskans. She ran for governor, made promises, and, now she quits?
By her resignation as the Governor of the Great State of Alaska, Sarah Palin no longer has the standing to speak for Alaska or Alaskans. To step down as governor, after what she sold us, was an insult of the highest order. She rejected Alaska and Alaskans for ego and money.
Evidently, just being Alaska’s Governor was not “good” enough for Sarah Palin.
Sarah is a quitter and undeserving of any further attention.