Thursday, May 29, 2014

Did You Notice ...

Your quizzical Peasant just wants to ask you,
my razor-sharp readers, if you noticed this
happenstance regarding the passing of actress-
turned-diplomat Shirley Temple Black, of whom
I wrote a tribute to here on this blog: President
Obama issued no order to fly our flags at half-mast
when Black, a Republican, who had served our
country in important and sensitive diplomatic posts
in a distinguished second career, died recently.

Now, did her passing just happen to escape the
president's attention, as he has been busy dealing
with many other issues and such, so that he didn't
think to act and give Black the due traditionally
given to Americans who have thus served our nation?
Or did he simply blow her off because she was
a Republican rather than a Democrat? And that
she had close personal and professional ties to
four Republican presidents, including (GASP!)
President Ronald Reagan, the political polar
opposite to President Obama?

Once again, we see whom and what our current
president values, and whom and what he does
not. Just sayin'.


MEM

Thursday, May 22, 2014

On This Memorial Day

My friends, let us remember our brave countrymen
and countrywomen who gave their all to defend our
country in war, and to show our thanks to those who
are still with us who defended us as well. And let us
remember those four Americans who died needless,
senseless deaths in Benghazi when our embassy
compound there was attacked by Islamic radicals
on September 11, 2012. The Obama regime is still
trying to cover up the details of why this tragedy
took place, and have been lying to the families of the
slain Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith,
who was a U.S. Foreign Service Information Officer,
Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty, two former
U.S. Navy SEALS as to how and why their loved ones
perished that terrible night. Smith himself was a
U.S. Air Force vet.

Contact your representatives in the House and your
Senators to state your support for the newly cereated
House investigative committee on Benghazi and urge the
Senate to take similar measures. Demand that the truth
be brought into the light of day for all the people to see,
especially the families of the fallen four who have been
lied to and fobbed off by then-Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton! Remember that Ambassador Stevens made
repeated requests for enhanced security when it became
apparent that he and his staff were in danger but
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton blew
them off leaving them, all better folk than Obama and
Clinton, to be slaughtered. And demand that the guilty
are held accountable and that justice is meted out!

Although we presently have a Commander-in-Chief who
has a callously cavalier attitude toward our veterans and
others who serve in far away, hostile lands, we ourselves
can and must counter this miscreant and his minions with
our gratitude, our admiration, and our love for our veterans
past and present by demanding that they do right by them,
including the four dead Americans. The regime can start
by telling the truth about that fateful night in Benghazi.


MEM


Robert Strauss, R.I.P.

A very accomplished American, an outstanding public
servant who was at various times in his long career an
FBI agent, an attorney, diplomat, trade representative,
and Democratic National Committee Chairman has
concluded his earthly duties. Robert Schwarz Strauss
passed away several weeks ago at the grand age of 95.

A native Texan, Strauss was born to Charles Strauss
and Edith Violet (Nee' Schwarz), Jewish immigrants
from Germany. Charles owned a general store in
Stamford, Texas for many years. Strauss attended
the University of Texas in Austin where he studied law,
was a candidate for a seat in the Texas State Assembly,
and was offered a position as Committeee Clerk in the
Texas Legislature. While in law school he met and
became friends with John B. Connally, who would
go on to become Governor of Texas and would have
a large impact on Strauss' career. Upon completion of
his law degree, Strauss joined the Federal Bureau of
Investigation where he met a fellow agent with whom
he would establish a law firm, Gump & Strauss, which
would grow into an international law firm with several
new senior partners.

Strauss would, in subsequent years, become involved in
charitable causes as well as political campaigns along
with his wife, Helen. He would also become a fundraiser
of great repute for the Democrat Party, later opening a
branch office of his law firm in Washington D.C.
From there, he was named Democrats' Party Treasurer
in 1971. Although his friend and political ally John Connally
leave the Democrats for the Republican Party and be
named Secretary of the Treasury by President Richard Nixon
in that same year, they still kept up their friendship and
many of their shared political activities.

In the meantime, Strauss found himself at odds with the
increasingly dominant liberal wing of the Democrat Party,
especially over the Vietman War and other foreign policy
matters. Strauss' ties via his friend Connally to President
Lyndon B. Johnson and his coolness toward Senator
George McGovern, who would become the party's
presidential candidate in 1972 were major factors in this
development. Although McGovern was unsuccessful in
winning the high office, his influence on the Democrat Party
was broad and deep, making him the face of the party.
Strauss' membership in both the Council for Foreign Relations
and the Trilateral Commission would not be enough to
establish, let alone maintain trust with the newer, more
left-leaning party leadership and activists.

After the 1972 elections, in which the Democrats suffered
a mortifying defeat in their presidential quest, and their
finances flagging with their morale, Strauss was promoted
to Chairman of the DNC. One of his duties was setting up the
party's 1976 national convention. While remaining neutral
as far as the presidential candidates were concerned, Strauss
planned a disciplined, tightly run convention while rebuilding
the party's finances. Jimmy Carter was nominated and elected
President that year, erasing the bitter memories of the 1968
and 1972 conventions and the accompanying electoral defeats.

Strauss was rewarded by President Carter with an appointment
to the post of U.S. Trade Representative, a position with
cabinet-level status. In this position, Strauss successfully
completed the round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations in
Tokyo, following that up with securing the agreement's
ratification by Congress as part of the Trade Act of 1979.
His reward for this accomlishment was to be named Carters'
Personal Representative to the Middle East. Staruss would
once again chair Carter's campaign when Carter ran for
re-election in 1980 but that year Ronald Reagan routed Carter
at the polls to become the next President of the United States.
Strauss would not only be professionally unaffected by this
political setback, his political stock rose dramatically as
his services were sought by Presidnet Reagan and by his
successor, George H.W. Bush; Strauss would be named
Co-Chairman of the National Economic Commission by
the former and named Ambassador to the Soviet Union by
the latter. In the ambassadorial post, Strauss assured close
relations with the transitioning country as it abandoned
communism and adopted democracy, working with outgoing
leader Mikhail Gorbachev and incoming President Boris
Yeltsin.

A liberal on some matters, a conservative on some others,
a partisan without being overly partisan (a rarity nowadays),
not afraid to reach across the political divide in order to get
important tasks completed and completed well, Ambassador
Robert Strauss was always a patriot. He was one of the few
figuires in the Democrat Party that your faithful Peasant has
had any respect and regard for, and I shall miss him greatly.
And so, I feel, will the country and the world.

Rest in Peace, Ambassador Strauss. Thank you for your
faithful service.


MEM

Thursday, May 15, 2014

The Home Run King Strikes Out, Big Time

Your baseball loving Peasant recently learned of some
unfortunate remarks uttered by a long-time favorite ball-
player of mine. I saw this man play on TV many a time
and saw him hit his historic 715th home run which gave
him the career home run crown when he was with the
Atlanta Braves; a couple of years later I saw him in a
Milwaukee Brewers uniform at the now long-gone
Milwaukee County Stadium when he hit one of his last
home runs in his storied career, in which he ultimately
bashed 755 home runs, a record which would stand until
the era of steroids made it possible for erstwhile rail-thin
ballplayers almost be able to bunt home runs. I met this
legendary athlete in the 1980s when he was on the
lecture circuit and had him autograph my baseball glove,
which I of course still have and will pass it along to
a family member when I depart this earth. I refer, of
course, to Henry "Hank" Aaron, the baseball star who
dethroned Babe Ruth as baseball's all-time home run king.

I heard on local conservative radio talker Jay Weber on
WISN-AM 920 here in Milwaukee about Hank's words
regarding Republicans' opposition to President Barack
Obama's policies, on the event of the 40th anniversary
of Hank's 715th round-tripper; Hank slammed the GOP
as being like the Ku Klux Klan. No, my fabulous readers,
your favorite Peasant is not joking here. I have a much
better sense of humor than that! Hank said the following:
"We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure,
this country has a black president, but when you look at
a black president, President Obama is left with his foot
stuck in the mud from all the Republicans with the way
he's treated... The bigger difference is back then they had
hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts."
Jay stated that it was "sad" to see a beloved sports figure,
one whom Jay averred he also looked up to, taking such
a big fall. Say it ain't so, Hank!

My terrific and intelligent readers, let us do what we
always do when we encounter such wild and baseless
statements: we shall shine the light of scrutiny on the
assertions of the foe, and on the foe himself. So, Hank
Aaron thinks that Republicans are opposed to Obama's
policies because he is black and therefore are opposed to
Obama being our president; this is just the echo of the
baseless, senseless, nonsensical accusation made by the
Left whenever we on the Right challenge them to defend
Obama's policies which have resulted in the shrinking of
our economy, the erosion of our liberty, and the weakening
of our country abroad in the eyes of our friends and enemies
alike. They have no positive achievements of, nor any
constitutional justification for Obama's policies to point
to, so they resort to name-calling and wild accusations of
racism. It's much like a child on the losing end of an argu-
ment with one of his parents saying something like
"You love my brother/sister best!" or "I hate you
'cause you're so mean!" Incapable of constructing a
mature and logical argument or counterargument, the
thwarted child resorts to such verbal roundhouse swings.
That is to be expected of a child of, say, six years of
age; it's beyond pitiful for an 80-year-old sports icon,
revered by many.

Now, Aaron has long been a Democrat. He has publicly
supported the presidential candidacies of Jimmy Carter,
Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Alright. Being a sports
hero does not preclude one's being an active and engaged
citizen. But to make such outrageous statements about
people who disagree with a president that one supports
with no compunction to augment such statements with
logic and facts is inexcusable. And it is most unbecoming
of a person who has been and is a hero to many, an iconic
figure who already has a place in the history books of our
country.

Yes, Aaron has been a target of racist bigotry when he
appraoched Babe Ruth's career home run mark; he
received literally mail bags full of death threats as
he inched up on the Babe. He had been excoriated by
white supremacists for having the audacity to come
anywhere near a white sports hero's record, which
had stood unassailed for generations. But there's some-
thing here that Aaron has somehow overlooked:
For one thing, has Aaron forgotten, or perhaps never
learned, that the Ku Klux Klan was long made up of
Democrats? In the deep South, where Aaron was born and
raised, and at the time he grew up there, not only were there
no Republicans in the KKK, there were no Republicans to
speak of. The GOP was regarded in that part of the country
as "that Yankee party!". To this day, you will be hard-
pressed to find any Republicans or conservatives of any
or no party affiliation in the ranks of this scummy outfit.
Let us not forget, friends, that the late U.S. Senator
Robert Byrd from West Virginia, a lifelong Democrat 
and Majority Leader in the Senate, wore the conical
headpiece and matching sheet of the Klan. In fact, he
was a recruiter for them! It was the Republicans who
worked and fought to end slavery in our country; it was
Republicans whose support was crucial to the passage of
the1964 Civil Rights Act and related legislation, giving
Hank Aaron and all black citizens in the U.S. the same
civil rights and protection of these rights as enjoyed by
white citizens. Conservative Senator Barry Goldwater
supported and voted for almost all of the aforementioned
legislation with the exception of the 1964 bill, and that
was only because he had a concern about the constitution-
ality of some parts of it. Conservative Senator Everett
Dirksen was the GOP leader in the Senate in the success-
ful effort to pass the landmark legislation. It was southern
Democrats, many of whom had otherwise moderate-to-
liberal voting records on domestic issues, who voted
against this legislation.

Fast-forward to today and you will find U.S. Representative
F. James Sensenbrenner (R) from Wisconsin, one of the most
conservative members of the House, joining forces with
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D), also from my home state, and
a black woman, in an political alliance to spearhead
legislation to extend the 1965 Voting Rights Act, newly
updated to reflect the progress made in those states which
at that time were poor in safeguarding the right to vote for
black citizens, giving those states leeway in how they
conduct voting registration and related matters. I guess ol'
Hammered Hank never got the memo.

And to besmirch anyone for opposing the highly statist,
largely unconstitutional, disempowering, freedom-squelch-
ing policies of the country's first black president simply
for doing exactly that, no more, is bullying, pure and
simple. It is all to make anyone rethink speaking up and
speaking out, as concerned and active citizens if they
disagree with the direction in which our elected leaders
are taking our country. This is a assault on one of the
freedoms, and yes, responsibilities, which we Americans
hold and treasure as a free people, one of the features
of citizenship in our free nation; this right and duty which
people in countries with totalitarian governments are
ruthlessly, violently denied and can only dream of having.

Hank, I respected you, I revered you, I cherished you
when I was a ballplayer in my school days, and in the
years that followed after my school days and my playing
days ended. But now I pity you. I pity you because you
have rendered yourself pitiful through drinking the
left wing's political kool-aid. You are now just another
liberal tool, a hack, a lackey, a sycophant. To sum
it all up, Hank, you struck out ---  big time!

Time to hit the showers.


MEM

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Climate Change: Man-Made Problem or Man-Made Myth?

Now, as you all know, my great and wonderful
readers, there has for quite some time been a raging
debate, a roaring argument really, concerning whether
or not there is climate change and if so to a dangerous
extent, and whether it is due to human activity or to
the capriciousness of nature. The international Left
is on the side of affirmative on all counts; they want
very much for the governments of the world, especially
the United States, to enact regulations restricting the
output of carbon emissions, which they claim causes
a warming of the climates of the planet, which in turn
could melt, or is currently, melting the polar ice caps,
thus raising the sea levels to dangerous highs where
coastal locales are concerned. Heavy industry is to blame
in their estimation, and they see the U.S. as the most
egregious offender. Those who are against such sweeping
regulations and their suffocating mandates, which would
adversely affect businesses and their creation of jobs as
well as hamstring the economies of many countries state
that there is no such scientific evidence that this is so,
and that it is but a ruse to significantly increase
governmental control over individual countries by their
national governments, and to establish an international
regulatory body which would add and enforce their own
regulatory burdens upon said countries. The latter would
very likely be under United Nations auspices. One of
these opponents of this notion and its accompanying
remedies is Patrick Moore, Ph.D. and Greenpeace
co-founder who left the environmental activist organi-
zation in 1986 when he became uncomfortable with what
he saw as its steady leftward march. This is what Moore
said when testifying before the U.S. Senate Environ-
mental and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee
on Oversight on February 25:

"There is no scientific proof that human emissions
of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of
the minor warming of the Earth's atmosphere over
the past 100 years. If there were such a proof, it
would be written down for all to see. No actual proof,
as it is understood in science, exists."

Moore went on to state that "The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: 'It is extremely
likely that human influence has been the dominant
cause of the observed warming' since the mid-20th
century ... "extremely likely' is not a scientific term
but rather a judgment, as in a court of law."

The Greenpeace co-founder was not through yet, not
by a long mark: "Perhaps the simplest way to expose
the fallacy of 'extreme certainty' is to look at the his-
torical record. When modern life evolved over 500
million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher
than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an
ice age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2
was 10 times higher than today.

"The fact that we had both higher temperatures and
an ice age at a time when CO2 was 10 times higher
than they are today fundamentally contradicts the
certainty that human-caused emissions are the main
cause of global warming.

Moore still had another weapon to fire: "The increase
in temperature between 1910 and 1940 was virtually
identical to the increase between 1970 and 2000. Yet
the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910
to 1940 to 'human influence'. They are clear in their
belief that human emissions impact only the increase
since the mid-20th century. Why does the IPCC believe
that a virtually identical increase in temperature after
1950 is caused mainly by 'human influence', when it
has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from
1910 to 1940?"

Moore concluded by saying "Today, we live in an
unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and
there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would
be anything but beneficial to humans and the majority
of other species. There is ample reason to believe that
a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous
results for human civilization.

"It is 'extremely likely' that a warmer temperature than
today's would be far better than a cooler one."

Moore, who is chairman emeritus of Greenspirit
Strategies in Vancouver, Canada, makes a strong case
for climate change, including major shifts in climate
temperatures, capable of occurrence without help from
humans. The organization he helped create now dismisses
Moore as an apostate for his taking this tack rather than
that of his old Greenpeace colleagues. But consider the
following: Throughout history, whenever a new idea
(or a rediscovered and reintroduced one) runs counter
to conventional wisdom or prevailing opinion, three things
happen --- one, ridicule of the idea and whoever has
introduced it into the realm of opinion and debate;
two, vehement opposition to both the idea and its champion(s);
three, acceptance of the idea and at least an easing of hostility
and opprobrium toward those in advocacy of said idea. The
final happenstance comes about after a long and sustained
promulgation of assembled facts and supportive data. This
is how scientists and scholars in related disciplines came
to finally accept, for example, that the world is round
rather than flat, and that the earth revolves around the sun
and not the other way around. Funny how the crowd which
believes that climate change is man-made calls those who
believe it to be a natural phenomenon modern day flat-
earthers.

Your faithful Peasant contributes this to the conversation
of climate change: in medieval times the land mass known
as Greenland really was green, hence its name given it by
the Vikings. These hearty sea-goers built homes and farms
there, taking advantage of year-long mild temperatures and
long growing seasons --- until at some point the climate grew
severely cold, to the point of snow and ice covering most of
the land for nearly all of the year. So much for the vikings'
comfortable haven. England had a warm enough climate to
grow grapes; English kings had English wines in their royal
wine cellars, wines of a high quality comparable to French
and Italian wines. Then climate change hit the British Isles,
and although they were not locked into lasting frigid conditions
their vineyards withered away and the wineries closed for
all time. Climate change occurred in both cases, but as this
occurred long before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th
and 19th centuries there were no factories, no foundries,
and not a single smokestack to blame for affecting the
atmosphere to the point of influencing the temperature in
either Greenland or England.

Can humans befoul an area to the extent that living conditions
decline in quality and safety? Certainly; an acquaintance of
mine visited Beijing during a Chinese jaunt a couple of years
ago, and he had constant irritation of his throat and nasal
passages the whole while he was in China's capital city.
I have read that this has been so for many travellers visiting
that city, and it is due to the unbridled pollution caused by the
local industries there. But can humans do enough said damage
to befoul or warm the entire planet to the point of peril to us all?
Quite doubtful, according to Patrick Moore and those in
agreement with him on the matter of climate change. They
think that it is hubris to believe that humans are capable of
environmental mayhem on such a grand scale. It seems as if
the enviro crowd is both aggrandizing and castigating
humanity in their adherence to this belief!

By the by, the Chinese communist government to date
has done little, if anything, to regulate the amount of noxious
elements spewed into the air by the factories and other
industrial entities, unlike the United States with its EPA and
other regulatory bodies that issue regulations which are de
facto laws which manufacturing businesses must obey,
including automakers, whose cars exhaust is also similarly
regulated. Yet many environmental activists make the U.S.
out to be a villain regarding industrial pollutants while
hardly making a peep about China and the handful of other
communist-run countries and the formerly communist run
countries of eastern Europe. And in accordance they blame
the U.S. for climate change rather than China and the other
communist- and former communist-governed countries.

And these countries, along with many European and Third
world countries, raise a ruckus at the U.N. to draft and enact
international regulations --- laws --- to rein in the polluters
in the U.S. and the western world. With the worldwide Left
heavily involved in the modern day environmental movement,
they, too, want to frighten people into thinking that smokestack
emissions will cause dramatically warmer weather which will,
among other things, melt the polar ice caps and the snow on
mountaintops from North America to Switzerland to Africa to
Asia, causing floods of biblical proportions and threaten wildlife.
a favorite image of the environmental crowd is that of a polar
bear standing on a small island of ice, seeming to be stranded,
cut off from the land and from food and comfort. I guess these
people don't realize that polar bears are incredibly strong
swimmers, capable of swimming for several miles to get around
when they need to. Or perhaps they do realize this but hope that
others don't and never will.

Anyway, Patrick Moore realizes something much more important,
and much more urgent: the proponents of the idea of climate
change being largely, if not solely, mankind's fault want to scare
the people of the world into supporting the adoption of stringent
regulations of their industries, regulations which would not affect
anything to do with any climate but would certainly affect econ-
omic growth and employment in their countries. And the results
would be horrifying, more so than what the environmental activist
crowd claim would happen if the aforementioned regulations were
not immediately adopted.


MEM

Thursday, May 1, 2014

One Rule for the Elite, Another for the Peasants

Upon my return from my Easter vacation trip to visit
some family members, your alert Peasant saw this
story in Freedom Weekly:

There are many urban politicians who love to lecture
large retailers on the need to pay their employees a
"living wage", usually calling for a minimum wage
hike to around $12.50 an hour. But Chuck Thies,
a reporter for NBC, discovered that Washington D.C.
Council members engages in such activity while
paying many of their city workers $10.40, some
others $11.75 an hour. Thies likened the D.C. pols
to living in "glass houses".

Just another case of government officials at some
level preaching one thing while practicing something
else. One rule for elite, another for the peasants, they
figure. And they wonder why the Tea Party
Movement is a growing force in national
politics!

The Peasant thanks Freedom Weekly for reporting
this story.

MEM