Friday, February 26, 2010

Former President Obama turned away at Texas Border


November 16th 2013
Burkburnett, New Republic of Texas
Late this afternoon former Federal Government President, Barack Hussein Obama, was turned away from the border of the New Republic of Texas as he tried to enter with a fake ID claiming immigrant status and riding in a burnt orange pickup, apparently of crimean war vintage.
Prior to this event there were numerous rumors as to where Mr. Obama might be. It seems he had all but vanished after his failed bid for a second term. He hadn't even stayed around for the lame duck session of congress for reasons only he knows. At least he just left and didn't try to steal a bunch of furniture like Hillary and Bill. 
Anyway, after the financial collapse of the Federal Government this past summer (2011) rumors of his whereabouts flew thick as a swarm of bats out of a Mexican cave at sunset. The events earlier today at Burkburnett have replaced rumor with fact!
Texas Secession
Readers will recall that, in reacting to early warnings about the potentially disastrous consequences of Obama's unbridled four-year government spending spree, Texas had had enough and seceded in early 2011, despite brutal criticism from several New England states. 
Upon hearing of the Texas secession large crowds gathered in Concord, Boston, Hartford and Burlington shouting, "You can't leave. Give us your money, give us your money and the blood of your young men for the profiteering banker's wars like you always have!"
(Angry little people up there.)
And, of course, no citizen of the New Republic of Texas will ever forget those broadcast images of Barney Frank defiantly standing on the steps of Congress with his fist in the air, where he, frowning even more than usual, kept repeating, “You're going to be weeeeely sorrrwy about this. If we could pay for fuel for our jets we'd nuke you, or if we could pay our soldiers we'd twack you down and shoot you wike the scrwulous dogs you are....You come back here this vewy instant or, or,...or I'll scwatch your eyes out! Ooooo, those cwazy Texans make me so mad! We will wule you yet!”
(Pathetic little man up there.)
Eye witness account at the Border
I arrived at Burkburnett in the late-afternoon, too late to actually see what happened. But N.T.R. chief border guard, Lonzo Drinkwater, gave me and several other reporters his personal eyewitness account of the former president being turned away.
He said, “Well, to begin with we'd received reports he was seen a couple of days ago in Kansas. I understand that upset quite a few folks up there. I heard they wuz 'specially rude in Topeka because he refused to apologize for 'Brown vs Board of Education.' Guess they're still mad about that 'n I don't blame'em. Reports we got here said Topekians kept sayin' since he'd apologized to every one else around the world, they wanted one too for all the millions of wasted hours and wasted fuel and lost family and community time resultin' from that damned Federally mandated forced busin'."
Drinkwater paused to take a sip of Big Red and continued, "At sorta gits my goat too, if you don't mind my sayin'. Ennyway, after he escaped outta Topeka he headed south and we purty much lost track o' him til we heard someone matchin' his description had stopped for several hours at a Sheplers in Oklahoma City. Let me tell you, they'd duded him up pretty convincin'. What threw us off even more was when he drove up in an ol' burnt orange Ford pick up that looked like it had been parked overnight in Norman the day after a Longhorn victory in the Red River shootout. Bobby Joe, we call him Snapshot, our border photographer here, took a picture of the truck while Mr. Obama's papers were being examined. T'wernt profilin' or nothing––not that that's a problem here. Snapshot does that fer all the cars n' trucks that come through here. So, like I sed, 'at wuz a pretty convincin' gitup he had on if you ask me. I guess he thought he'd be able to sneak through by going to some out of the way place like Burkburnett...,but we was waiting fer him.”
Drinkwater seemed to laugh to himself, then said, “His ID even looked pretty good too until ol' Eagle-eye here on our staff held it up to the Texas sunlight and saw that 'Federal bureau of Engraving' watermark on the paper.”
At this point Drinkwater and his crew stomped around laughing uncontrollably till they cried and the interview was delayed for a few minutes while they regained their composure.
Wiping tears from his eyes he went on, "You know, one of the best thangs in the wurld is havin' yor opponent underestimate you. The dummer he thanks you are, the better chance you have of winnin'. And considerin' what he thought he could get away with Mr. Obama musta thought we was really dumb."
Upon Drinkwater saying that even more laughter ensued from the border guards.  
Drinkwater's Account Continues
"But, what was I sayin'? Oh, yea. Now  I remember. Well, Chuck Wagon here does all the vehicle inspecshuns. N' he suspected something' right away when he noticed that rifle mounted in his rear window was just a Daisy bb gun. But what really gave it all away happened during the walk around. As Chuck Wagon walked towards the bed of the truck, he glanced over his shoulder toward the front of the vehicle and noticed the  rear view mirrors wuz actually tiny teleyprompters in disguise. Seems Mr. Obama had been answerin' border guard questions by glancin' at em, gettin' the answers by wireless from his former Southern dialect Czar, Martin Frost. That explains why Obama's answers were so bad. Ennnnnyway, when we saw them there  teleyprompters, let me tell you, the cow was in the barn, the chikins had come home 'n the fat lady was singing' all at the same time.”
At that point Snapshot began swaying back and forth with his hands clasped in front of him and eyelids fluttering, and started singing something unrecognizable in a high voice and even more laughter broke out, causing another, albeit briefer delay. 
Once things got quiet again Drinkwater continued.
“Well, when we turned him away it was pitiful,... pittiful I'm tellin' ya. He broke rite down. I almost felt sorry for him, but I guess not really. I mean, it's a lot his own durned fault, you know. I'll never fergit how his lower lip quivered 'n him sayin' how it was inhuman to turn a man back to a land where regler gas is $250.00 a gallon.”
Mr. Obama's parting shot, according to Drinkwater was, “You can't do this. I'll be back. Remember I'm from Afri...I mean, Hawaii...I can swim!”
At that point Drinkwater said Chuck Wagon shouted after him, as if in mocking response, “Hit won't go no better on the Rio Grande than heer, no matter how good you can swim--thangs ain't the same down on the border as when you wus runnin' it." He paused, then yelled, "Two fifty a frakin' gallon! Just whose damned fault is that, Mr. CapNTax?”
"Obama shouted sum other stuff," Drinkwater went on, "but his voice quickly became inaudible, swallowed up in the roar and grinding of the burnt-orange pickup scuttling like a wounded scorpion across the dusty floor of an invisible sea, and finally fading away entirely in the hazy light of the waning Texas sun."
Reflection after Obama's Departure
Drinkwater told us he had no idea where Mr. Obama was going, but added while laughing and wiping the tears from his eyes, “Where ever it is it can't be too damned fer. Not with gas prices like that."
He paused and added, "Then agin, maybe he brought the Fed's printing presses with him 'n he's hidin' em sommers in the rocks.”
Chuck Wagon said, “Hey, Lonzo, I'll bet he heads east to the Arbuckles t' see if he can't do summ kemunity orgainizin' among them prairie dogs."
Snapshot quipped,"Yessir, I bet 'em doggie's gonna luuuuuuuv him.”
Gales of laughter followed on the heels of Snapshot's remark and I was sure they would carry on and on like before, but the laughter died down as quickly as it had started, and the men grew completely silent, as if responding to a familiar cue given by some invisible conductor.
My unexpected Vision
I suddenly became self-conscious, and strangely aware of where I was standing. For some reason I looked down at the ground and began watching the play of trembling grass blades on the sand and rocks while their shadows performed a hypnotic dance as a ghostly wind whistled mournfully over the land. Funny, only moments before I had not heard it at all.
I can't say how long I stared at the play of the grass, but when I looked up from the ground I realized the rangers had walked about about fifteen yards from me and the other reporters. They were standing on the crest of the rise behind the ranger station and staring into the blazing burnt orange that now filled the Texas evening sky. Their black silhouettes were as still and silent as Romanesque statues. It seemed like they were staring into eternity...it seemed like we all were.
I glanced to my left and right and could see the outlines of the other reporter's faces, blood-red, as if they were illuminated by the glowing embers of a great celestial furnace.
My gaze turned back to the dark outlines of the rangers. Suddenly a shiver raced up my spine, and for a fleeting moment I envisioned the world was on fire and the rangers were standing like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abdenego, unafraid and unharmed in the midst of the conflagration.
The Vision Departs
Just how long we stood there I can't say. But when the rangers turned back toward us I noticed that Drinkwater was no longer smiling and the twinkle in his blue eyes had faded with the last light of evening. They now appeared as a steely blue-gray, serious and determined. He had the same solemn expression with which he had greeted us only an hour or so before, and which had vanished in the hilarity of his accounting.
In the distance the faint antiphonal sounds of coyotes could be heard mournfully acknowledging the dying day. Drinkwater glanced over his shoulder to his men and their heads nodded in agreement to some unspoken yet unmistakably heard command. 
Turning toward us briefly he gave a faint smile and tipped his hat, and, with his men, walked silently to his post.
These brave New Republic Texas rangers then wordlessly reassumed their lonely vigil, standing on guard to protect the borders of our Beloved Lone Star State, lying sovereign and proud once again under the gleaming stars that were beginning to appear one after another in the cloudless emptiness of the blue-black ocean above us.
I stood there in the evening chill, staring straight up, past the stars into that infinite ocean few of us ever notice in the city. All of a sudden I felt like a child again, helpless, unknowing–– infinitesimally small.
Rückzug
I and my photographer drove back in silence to the bright lights and busy roads of Dallas, which now appeared to us as almost surreal.
I understand that back in Austin New Republic of Texas President, Debra Medina could not be found for immediate comments on the curious events that occurred late this afternoon at Burkburnett on the northern border of the New Republic of Texas.
************************************************


Thursday, February 25, 2010

Important Public Service Message


DON'T LET THIS
HAPPEN TO YOU!
Despite the late hour I'm making the sacrifice and spending the time to prepare and send out this important public service message. I know what I'm sending is shocking to those readers of, perhaps, a sensitive nature, and for that I apologize, especially to those gentle southern belles who might, perchance, faint of the vapors. But I believe the full force and shock of actually seeing this horror is necessary to wake people up. Please, please people, don't let this happen to you. And please let others know so they too won't fall victim to this terrible, terrible fate.
the caring armadillo
PS
Did I ever tell y'all Glenn Beck is a lying weasel who better not show his pasty face ever again in Texas? If not, well I'm tellin' ya now. If he breeches the Red River we'll kick his prevaricatin' posterior back up to Neocon Central before he can say, "Question with boldness!" The Armadillo has been listening to Beck off and on for years. I liked him better when he was a drunk: he was more honest and had more of a sense of discretion.
Down with the Clown!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Determinism and the Abdication of Personal Responsibility

Two thoughts stand out as not only commonly tragic but tragically common in the modern era: the abdication and denial of personal guilt and its corporatization in the collective.
Everything man has done since 1515, religiously and philosophically, is try to rationalize personal culpability and ascribe it to some faceless, impersonal or transcendent factor. In 1515 and later it was a false understanding of God's Sovereignty, in the 19th and 20th centuries it has been scientific and behavioral determinism.
Chesterton said the first thing men did as free thinkers was to deny man had free will. Bingo. Why would one want to do this? It's obvious: to declare the self innocent, or at least not personally responsible.
If others like cereal but you have a taste for serial killing you just unfortunately lost the genetic lottery. But the good news is you're not really guilty of doing anything but what everyone else is doing: following obediently and inexorably, with courage even, your genetic destiny. They're just a bit luckier than you in having received a more socially acceptable mix of genes. Why, just think. If you hadn't killed all those people you would not have been faithful to your true self, but lived a false and unfulfilled life.

How much perverse behavior is now seen and accepted as normalcy based upon this false premise? How can anyone claim their freedom and rise to spiritual health when they are being told to rationalize their perverse compulsions and attractions as "natural" and healthy? Luther did not support the peasant rebellion as they expected. Rather, he called for them to be slaughtered. When it happened he said it appears as if their deaths were at his orders, but God had really caused him to do it. The rest of history is, as they say, a mere exegesis of this, and that is why courage has forsaken modern man and cowardice has consumed him. Tiger's confession is symptomatic of what I heard Lew Rockwell recently call "the banality of evil." He said,in effect, though it begins banally and even innocently, it ends in brutality and death.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Ron Paul's victory at CPAC and what it means

Dr. Paul is getting on in years. Those of us who have followed him, know him and admire him do so for both his values and his character. He talks straight---not like a politician, because he isn't; he's an American interested in the good of the citizens first and foremost, not the health of the empire.
The vote at CPAC was about both character and policy, but more about character; BE HONEST.
I don't believe I'm an atypical Ron Paul disciple. Like many of them I never gave a damn about politics and felt helpless in the web of political obfuscation and lies until I heard Dr. Paul. What was the Paul difference? He was and is real. I was attracted to him as a political leader even when I did not understand or know if I agreed with the various positions he took or the things he said. One thing was clear: I could trust him. He was saying what he believed (and explaining it well), not what he thought I wanted to hear in order to get my vote.
Not only do I believe I'm not an atypical Ron Paul supporter, I also believe I'm not an atypical citizen. I believe they want the same thing in their leaders I wanted and found in Paul. The reason we don't have more Pauls elected is because those who control and run the political machines of both parties make sure each potential leader is just as corrupt, just as double-talking, just as much of a game player and back room deal cutter as they are.
So, Paul is an anomaly and until recently he's been so obscure and unknown few knew his likes exist. The response to Obama's dramatic socialist push has cured that to some degree, and, if the demographics of the CPAC vote indicate anything, more of the young have been cured than the old. And that's very good news for the future.
But what does the vote result mean in more immediate and practical terms?
What does it reveal about the mood and psyche of today's voter?
As I said, I don't think I'm atypical, so I beg your pardon and forbearance for doing a little, what I think is, valid projection.
Of course Americans want good policy that will benefit us and our progeny. But the medium will be unable to accomplish the message without clarity and trust. (Having lost that see how feckless Obama has become?)
Clarity and trust are to be treasured over agreement, even in personal friendships. What is true for our personal lives holds true for our political and business relationships.
I have all three of these treasured things with Dr.Paul, but I don't think the American people have to agree with a candidate on every issue to support him. But they do need to trust him all the time.
Let me give you a ferinstance of most recent memory. I've been a Glenn beck fan and learned some things from his programs on FOX. Other things, of course, I understand to be wrong that he has presented. But I did not give up on him, because I could not prove he was being purposely deceitful. The goodness of his will had not been discredited by my being able to disprove some of his ideas and "facts." That has now all changed. Here's how:
To put it bluntly, Glenn Beck came here to Texas, attacked a fine, honest candidate who holds the very values he has been promoting all last year and supported our Neocon, establishment governor.
To add insult to injury, he then lied by falsifying material on a broadcast that was nothing but a lame attempt to justify himself. When I heard the broadcast I couldn't believe my ears! It's undeniable: He's a proven liar, and why he's really done what he did has not been made clear. How can he be trusted any more?
I'm done with him, not because of disagreement but distrust!
He lied and purposely tried to deceive tens of thousands of Texans with malice aforethought. He's shown himself to be like the rest. This is the kind of "leader" We the People don't want and don't need. He can't be honest with hardly more than a year of national notoriety, but sells out a Tea Party supported candidate for a powerful Neocon two-time incumbent looking for a third term! This is utterly contrary to all he has said this past year!
I laughed scornfully and out loud when I saw NewsMax headlines: Beck bashes GOP at CPAC. What? He bashed the GOP in DC but in Texas is their lapdog?
What's that about? We don't know, because Beck has not been....transparent. I guess he's playing by Obama rules when it comes to himself.
In contrast, Dr. Paul has been doing his work faithfully for years and years, and most of those faithful years he's been doing them with no one watching at all, except those trying to destroy him––of course, that hasn't stopped. They will be hoisted on their own petards. Eat crow neocons! (It's all we'll be able to afford after your crazed spending spree.) In the meantime, Dr. Paul has shown more and more Americans we've been asleep at the wheel, and when we have become half awake enough to vote, we've had woefully low standards. What we deserve is a moot point. The fact is, we need good policy, clarity and character, if We the People are to survive the DC Party Machine policy train wreck going on now. But as far as a leader goes, we must start with character, with someone who shows his or herself to be trustworthy. Without that policy and agreement are meaningless anyway.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Come to Jesus

After looking at all the evidence in this Beck/Medina debacle me thinks Glenn Beck needs a "come to Jesus, Jimmy Swaggart/Jim Baaker moment"––and since he has no sense of the embarrassingly obscene or personal discretion he will give us a good show when it happens.

After all, he's already a world-class competitor with Swaggart in the quivering lower lip competition and a serious challenger to Baaker in the tearful collapse downhill race.
(Remember when Baaker got out of prison? He wrote a book titled, "I Was Wrong." Well, duhhhhhhhhhhhhh!)

Wonder what title Glenn plans to give the book he will write when he gets out?
Oops, I forgot, he ain't gettin' out; HE MESSED WITH TEXAS!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Will the Real LIar please stand up?


Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury. Many now believe and say Debra Medina blew the interview she had with Glenn Beck. They say she that she gave the wrong answer and should have just said, "No."
I disagree and am ready to present my argument to you through examination of part of the text. But first, let's think reasonably about context. When was the last time you heard someone running for political office give a simple "yes" or "no" in an interview?
No one does this because they are not there just to answer questions yes or no. They want listeners to get to know who they are, first and foremost, and you don't do that by answering jut yes or no. They also have a message to get out to more people at one time than they could meet campaigning for days, maybe weeks. And they only have few moments to do what they intend to do. Consequently, rarely do interviewees respond with simple a simple yes or no.
Has any one of you heretofore considered this common reality in speaking or thinking about the interview? Perhaps, but heretofore I have not heard it.
Next, before we analyze Debra's response, let's take a look at the actual content of Glenn's question and see what she is really responding to. Ask yourself, ladies and gentlemen, is this really a question that can be answered by a simple yes or no?
(I've put all interview text in blue to make it easy to follow with confusing it with my comments.)
Glenn opens by saying:
GLENN: I have when I said that I was going to have you on, you can't imagine the mail pro and con that I received. There was a theme that ran against you and that is you are a 9/11 Truther.
So what task is before Debra? Just to say yes or no? Hardly. Beck, in a short space, has implied a lot of incriminating stuff––cleaver. He has said he's gotten an unbelievable number of emails and communiques from people and a large number of them commonly accuse Debra of being a 9/11 truther.
This is not a yes or no situation. This demands a fuller response. Let's see what Debra says.
MEDINA: Well, there's lots of mud that people would like to throw at Debra Medina and make stick. The truth is I'm an everyday ordinary person. I am fighting for the things that our founders fought for, those very basic principles of a constitutional republic, and I'm going to champion people that hold their government accountable, hold me accountable but that's the first time I've heard that accusation. So that's an interesting one.
The sum of Debra's response is a not only a clear denial that she is a Truther, but that the accusation appears to her as both surprising and absurd on its face. In addition, she says she's never heard it before from anyone, and she kind of laughs at the close, further indicating her sense of absurdity and surprise.
There's also more here than meets the eye. There are things only a few others could have known that were necessary to know to fully appreciate this little exchange. They are as follows:
1. After the interview, as Beck continued his attacks on Debra for days on both radio and television, Dallas KILF talk show hosts finally had enough and J.D. Wells and Jeff Bolton, in the interest of fairness, stated categorically that
a) They both had received countless emails and letters about Debra for weeks and weeks, both pro and con.
b) They and their staffs had carefully read them (cause that's a big part of what they do.)
c) They had also talked to others in the same business outside of KLIF.
d) With all that neither Wells nor Bolton, nor anyone they knew had found or said they had found one single instance that friend or foe had mentioned that Debra had anything at all to do with 9/11 Truthers in any way... not one!
Yet, according to Beck accusations to that effect are not only in some emails he received about Debra, but a common theme. Now, there's some cognitive dissonance for you. Can both be right? It's hard to imagine.
So what do we have backing Beck's words up that a large number included such an accusation?
Nothing but his say so to date.
But just how good is Mr. Beck's word nowadays, since his avowed "reformation?" Is there any way we can find out or is there any evidence that will give us a clue he should be trusted?
Since Wells, Bolton and their staffs and others in the business here in Texas all agree, it is hard to suspect them. It's even harder since their records as broadcasters have both been characterized by even handedness and even charity. Reasonable judgment would have to cast questions about Mr. Beck's own truth telling.
But perhaps that is presumptuous. So, is there more we have to go on? I don't mean looking at years ago, but recently, since Beck's touted reformation and rebirth. After all, he's changed. Who could miss knowing it. He says so all the time. Millions hear about it almost daily, since Mr. Beck is clearly not one burdened with the normal undue sense of personal discretion and modesty––but I digress.
Yes, even with such evidentiary constraints, I do think I've found the requisite smoking gun. But when? Is just this past week recent enough? If so, I'll proceed with the remainder of my case, but first a little clarification is needed to avoid confusion in its exposition.
The following makes reference to three segments from three different broadcasts, all done within the span of one week.
1. Two separate segments of Debra's from the original interview, (seg a and seg b) 2. Debra's explanation of her initial response in the first interview later than same day. 3. Beck and partner Pat Gray giving an interview later the next week on a Houston station where they play Debra's explanation (2), call her a liar and as "proof" play an entirely different part of the original interview (seg. b) trying to make it appear as if it is the segment Debra is really talking about (seg. a)––when they clearly know it is not: it is clearly all a calculated ruse, well prepared and perhaps acted out before hand to discredit Debra. It could not have been done other than with malice aforethought, as you will see.
2. How good Beck's words are can be learned by simply watching and listening to him each day after the interview, but there is one special, momentous moment:
In a broadcast (3) Beck and sidekick Pat Gray did for a Houston radio station almost a week after the original Beck/Medina interview (1), they play a recorded statement of Debra's (2) commenting on what happened in the original interview. Debra says in her response to Beck's first question about 9/11 truth (seg a) she was surprised by the question and actually laughed in her response.
At that point Beck and Gray interrupt Debra's recorded statement, saying in sum "Stop, stop. There! Right there! See. Gray says in a self-righteous, indignant, angry tone that Debra did not laugh and Beck says they have the actual recording to prove it.
Beck and Gray then proceed to play an entirely different section of the interview (seg b) and not the opening answer Debra is clearly discussing (seg a).
In the section they play (seg b), which happened several exchanges after the initial 9/11 truther question, Debra is serious and there is no laughter at the end of her response, as in the question her statement was truly and clearly referencing (seg a).
At the end of the seg b statement Beck and Gray chortle triumphantly trumpeting like boorish school yard bullies rejoicing they are vindicated and have exposed Debra is a liar. They then segue into some clownish schtick mocking her, while intermittently cackling and reveling in their own presumed cleverness. It is as clearly contrived as it is embarrassingly unconvincing.
When I personally heard all this I was shocked. I had I heard the original interview the day it first aired and knew they were not playing the right section. Anyone who heard the interview knew it, but many who were listening in Houston had not heard it and that is what Beck and Gray were depending on.
It was perfectly clear Beck and Gray were knowingly falsifying the tape. It was all clearly contrived and premeditated. They could not have not known it was the wrong section. Clearly, the whole thing had all been planned out, prepared and calculated to purposely justify Beck by falsely accusing Debra of being a liar. Insult had been added to the injury Beck had already tried to inflict.
It must be said, however, that playing the actual selection referenced by Debra in her official statement (seg a) does reveal a liar––two in fact, but neither one is Debra Medina. One is Glenn Beck and the other is his smarmy sidekick, the irritating (and easily irritable) Pat Gray.
I shook my head unbelievingly and thought, "They must think we're stupid down here in Texas."
I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that events that follow for days after the original interview, reaching a crescendo in the Beck/Gray deliberate falsification carried out before thousands in Houston, are a sad revelation of what a little, insecure, egotistical, prideful man Beck is and how he'll apparently stoop to any level to try to defend himself rather than admit he lied and confess the real reasons for his absurd, disappointing, inexcusable behavior the entire past week.
The man has displayed beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that he cannot be trusted.
Each attempt he has made to cover up, justify or rationalize has done nothing more than lower him in the eyes of those, like myself, who trusted him. His machinations have served only to increase our sadness, heighten our anger and deepen our disappointment.
He has now dug a hole for himself that few Texans think he can dig himself out of. He'd best stay clear of Texas.
Rarely has some one discredited himself so thoroughly so quickly and so heedlessly in the eyes of so many. It seems he cannot stop. Watching him try to justify himself is like watching a train wreck in n0t-so-slow motion.
Beck and Tiger Woods are neck and neck in the race for most disappointing of 2010. Tiger is now making some efforts at formal confession, apology and repair, and that is truly heartening. But Beck has hit bottom and just keeps on digging––it seems he won't even look up. If he keeps it up he will catch Tiger and pass him by a country mile.
Some things appear as undeniable from this whole debacle: Debra Medina is a straight talker and she is clearly not a 9/11 Truther. But Beck has removed all doubt and shown himself to be a 2010 Liar. And that saddens and angers more and more of us each day who are learning about Beck's true colours.
So here you have my Argument as well as some of my own testimony to these events. But don't take my word only. The recordings themselves can be readily heard. Listen for yourself on youtube by entering "jeff bolton" in the search. Jeff's audios will pop up and you can easily find the referenced segments. Listen just to parts 1 and 2; that will suffice to confirm what I have discussed above. Once you've done that please pass your verdict to the foreman to your right when you have deliberated, and tell us; just who is the real liar?

Conservatism

I saw a CNN segment on the internet this morning about Dr. Ron Paul getting chosen as the presidential candidate in a straw poll at the CPAC convention held in Washington.

The CNN reporter tried to explain it did not mean Dr. Paul would have a real chance to run or be chosen at all, but it was a symbolic indication of the direction conservatism was taking. Then, smirking, he gave a thumbnail sketch of what, in his opinion, those specifics were.

I think the reporter is right, we conservatives want smaller government, MUCH smaller and MUCH less spending. He's wrong in saying most Americans want bipartisan solutions. They don't–– not now! I think most Americans of all sensibilities are too distrustful and fearful of our central government (is there any other at the moment?) as it presently stands. And if you fear something and don't trust it the first thing you want to do if you can is stop it. If you can't your only choices is to have it overcome you or get out of its way. If that must be chosen in the near future emigration not immigration will become a national dilemma.

First and foremost, polls show clearly most Americans want government to stop ruining our lives by spending us into oblivion. The debt the political classes create, both state and national, to buy votes for themselves is OUR debt that must be paid back by US, not them. They spend like crazy contrary to our protestations. They do not spend for us, but for themselves. They seek to stay in power by buying our votes through largess: it's bread and circuses for the masses.

People like Dr. Paul have not only gotten that message, but have and do embody it and apply it; Pelosi, Reid and company have not and never will, sad to say.

The reporter neglected to say most Americans feel government has gone too far––– way too far, and is doing things for us and to us that is destroying our liberty and putting us in danger.

He smirks about conservatism and its goals as he speaks, as if its goals are temporary and arbitrary, like those of his own progressive darlings, but he forgets the object of republican conservatism: the Constitution.

It may be news to many, especially in Washington, but last I checked the Constitution is still the law of the land.

Rather than a seemingly arbitrary appearing laundry list of conservative goals, the reporter could have simply said, had he known, we conservatives want our Constitutional proportions restored, along with the delicate balance between state and national sovereignty. We want these things above all else, because our specific ills are not the cause but the effect of having abandoned them. Trying to cure these ills piecemeal, one at a time by means of the so-called art of political bipartisan compromise is simply Quixotic madness. There are more ways than one to skin a cat, but some ways are simply impossible, and today's bipartisanship is one of them.

Effects can only be stopped by neutralizing causes. Bad causes can only be neutralized by instituting good ones.

This knowledge is why conservatives eschew the politics of bipartisan compromise. The liberal press says we are inflexible and don't want solutions. Sure we do. But we don't believe those who created the problems are the proper agents to devise the solutions. They've already proven that post-crisis. With them, it's just business as usual, keeping on keeping on, deflecting blame and denying responsibility for every thing other than those things that appear to have turned out really peachy---at least for the moment.

If our smirking, dauntless young reporter sincerely wanted to understand the real dilemma I'd first try to explain to him that those whom he refers condescendingly to as "conservatives" are not really conservatives. That's just a label of modern convenience. Personally, I don't know what it means. Like every invention for modern positions the real meaning is elusive and slippery. Like most modern labels it's not meant to point to real meaning but obscure it.

When we look at the actual substance of what we so-called conservatives want we would see that if everyone in America alive in 1790, except Hamiltonian monarchists, were alive today we would call them conservatives––there were no liberals as we know them today. If we who are called conservatives today were alive in 1790 we would not be called conservatives; we'd be called Americans. And it would be understood we, through our representatives and then by direct vote have accepted, believe in and follow our new Constitution.

Compromise then:
Our leaders at that time sought to find a path of growth and development under the powers and limitations set by that nomocratic document. Then, honorable compromise was possible, because the possible abusive consequences of any arrived at solution would be ameliorated by common adherence constitutional limitations. In other words, the Constitution would limit debate, limit solutions, limit application and help prevent abuses of liberty by doing the most important thing it was meant to do: chain down and limit centralized power.

It's limitations were not negative only. Implicit in every "no" there is a "yes." And the limitational "nos" of the Constitution were all meant to say one thing to the citizens who lived under its protection, "Yes to your liberty!"

If a proposed good robbed us of our liberty the cost was too high. The modern statists still haven't gotten today this message today: guess what? The cost is still too high. And without the embrace of this understanding honorable bipartisanship and the art of political compromise can only bring about more confusion, waste and abuse.

Particulars be damned! What is needed is a fundamental philosophical change, a return to Constitutional norms to rein back the statist tyranny that began in 1861 found full flowering in 20 century Progressivism.

Let me put it simply for our dear young teleprompter reader posing as a journalist. Today, we're not looking at two political classes that believe we should interpret the Constitution from somewhat different perspectives. We have one class (called conservatism) that believes we should follow the Constitution and govern by its mandates and obey its limitations. A second class of our leaders hate the Constitution, pays no heed to the Constitution (unless they are absolutely forced to), and seeks to govern by their own arbitrary sense of things at the moment. In their view the Constitution and the Founders can be damned; their goal must be achieve regardless of the collateral cost or consequences.

In other words, the other political class is made up of Jacobin-style revolutionaries, iconoclasts, who want to replace the Constitution and the measured Rule of Law it imposes with the whimsical rule of men. This kind of rule has always had a name in the past and it inexorably leads to a singular form of rule. It's called Tyranny, and those who practice it are called Tyrants. It, obviously, leads to autocratic rule, with all other government entities and departments simply being rubber stamps for the will of the strong man. This kind of rule, to which present bipartisanship is leading, is not only unamerican; it's inhuman! What compromise can be found with it that doesn't corrupt, debase and enslave?!? Dr. Paul has been called "Dr. No" because of his voting record against these abuses. Every "no" to a particular proposed law Dr. Paul has cast has also been a de facto "yes" to Constitutional norms and to our liberty and freedom. But I have grave doubts our dear young reporter has been trained to think in the sufficient number of steps to even be aware of such a possibility, much less consider it plausible.

Indeed, from the smirks of the reporter I could see he was as ignorant of these things as all the other miseducated idiots that are churned out of the journalism schools of the government propaganda media machines we call "institutions of higher learning."

He misses one other important fact as he flashes his smirks of superior vision over the air waves: Rejecting the Constitution and embracing the arbitrary rule of man is to do nothing less than hoist your own liberty on your own petard; to actively engage in assisting your statist masters in sawing the very limb upon which your freedom rests off the Tree of Liberty.

Of course, this reporter is clearly just another unthinking empty-suite teleprompter reader and ripe and ready to gleefully dance into a Chinese communist-style work/re-education camp for a refresher course in groveling and advanced classes in toadieism, just like the good subject of an all-powerful Imperial Force should.

As for we Constitutionalists moderns labeled as "conservatives,"we have a singular message to the progressive and neocon statist: work with us toward restoration of liberty or get the Hell out of America and go some where else to live under tyrants–––you'll find a wide array of choices.
The Armadillo

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Medina Singled out

One thing I was careful to note about Debra Medina being posted on Glenn Beck's famous blackboard with that host of oligarchs and criminals was that she had the honor of being singled out.

I mean, she was the only person there who is strictly a local/state candidate and nothing more. Everyone else was in some way related to the Federal Government, had held positions in the Federal government, or been some how related to recent Federal issues of one type or another.

Now, why did Beck single out Debra, of all the thousands of state candidates, put her face up there on the board and slander her unfairly and maliciously by pointing at her picture while he talked about "people hiding in the hills, Nazis, fascists, anarchists, truthers" etc., and extremist nuts?

I think the answer lies with Scott Brown. He won in large part because he received outside help from people who wanted to stop the Democrat machine from ramming healthcare down our collective throat. I have contributed to Rand Paul's run for senate in Kentucky (my birth state---but I'm all Texas now!) and plan to contribute again soon.

Knowing this, I believe Beck wants to use what influence and admiration he still has with his own 9/12ers, tea party and his own general viewing audience to discourage any outside support for Debra.

In trying to destroy Debra he has exposed himself as tyrannical, mean-spirited, unscrupulous, disingenuous, a malevolent liar many times over, an ego-manic, and a puppet of some up-till-now undisclosed puppet master(s). He may have quit drinking, but obviously he's just as self-destructive as ever!

Those who are connected to individuals in out of state liberty groups, PLEASE let them know what kind of man Beck really is and what a good woman Debra is, and connect them with her great CBS interview on youtube and her interview with Judge Napolitano on youtube so they can hear for themselves what a clear thinker and straight shooter Debra is.

Power is seductive. Beck has lost his head (and maybe his soul). He's certainly lost me as a viewer and listener, and I have been a big supporter. Maybe Debra would also lose her head if she actually did become governor--I hope and pray not.

But I think she deserves a shot, and with our prayers and support, I believe she can come out clean on the other side and help lead us to a better, more moral, more prosperous, freer, more sovereign Texas.

Please do all you can to help undo the evil and lies that Beck is trying to propagate in the hope of killing any support or help Debra might hope to get, whether from within or without Texas' sovereign borders.

Debra has been singled out by Beck for the most nefarious, underhanded of reasons: let's use that notoriety to do the very opposite of what Mr. Beck and his Overmaster puppets intend, and hoist them on their own petard in the process!

Friday, February 19, 2010

FOX, once again, rears its' ugly head

Foxes hiring of libertarian leaning Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin seemed to bring a breath of fresh air into the stultifying Republic Machine Shill atmosphere of their news content. Many of us viewed it as a hopeful sign and an act of repentance for their outrageous, unfair and abusive treatment of Dr. Paul in 2008. Now, at long last, Judge Napolitano would have a few allies at Neocon News Central.

Appearances can be deceiving; confidence men depend on it as their primary MO, and apparently so does FOX, as they have now shown themselves to be as clearly and wholeheartedly devoted to the Neocon Machine as ever.

Nothing of substance has changed.

This whole year seems to have been little more than an elaborate confidence scheme to try to lure back conservative/constitutional independents and disenfranchised Republican conservatives to return to the slaughtering barns of the Republic sheep fold. Where is my evidence?

A lot of it is right in front of our noses here in Texas. Palin (and Beck) shilling for Neocon Perry and Beck's gratuitous, abusive maltreatment of and attacks upon Debra Medina are more than ample evidence. Medina's positions are more consistent with the values both Palin and Beck have promoted all this past year than either of her competitors. That Palin has ignored Medina and Beck has maliciously attacked her shows they are in the Neocon Machine's pocket and courage of principle has, with Elvis, left the house. Why even judge Andrew Napolitano recently appeared with Perry in a 10th amendment media discussion.

Are they now all now silenced in respect to principle and made to shill for the Big Media's chosen darlings?

Near by, in Arizona, we can also see Palin actively shilling for Arch-Progressive and Neocon, John McCain against conservative J. D. Hayworth. These, I suspect, are just the beginnings of sorrows.

This is a good lesson, coming not a second too late: TEA PARTY PEOPLE; don't unite with or trust any one of these Confidence men and women. They do not have your or the nation's best interest in mind, but are in it for themselves, PERIOD! They also have no character. They will espouse the right things, the things they think you want to hear, to get ratings and make $$$, but they are employees, and as employees, they do what employees almost always do: they do as they are told. They are not, as they hope to appear, independent, unbiased, truth-seeking, courageous voices. They are in the hands of handlers; very cleaver ones. The cognitive dissonance evinced the moment their words and acts are compared expose who and what they really are. They are, in fact, not worth a single second more of your time, money, energy or support.

Turn your backs on them just as they have on us and their espoused values: grow where you're planted, work together with others of like mind, whether they be local, regional, state or national... and let these prideful, megalomaniacal narcissists, filled with the false pride of their own self-importance self-destruct, as they surely will.

Whom should you trust? Trust your neighbor, trust your local like-minded leaders, and if that works out, proceed accordingly.

The Week Long Beck-a-Thon

This week Glenn Beck has been trying to repair his self-tained image with a week-long Beck-a-thon. The Beck-a-Thon is being offered because his arrogance and pride prevent him from doing what should be done, and which would only take a few moments of one show . Once done he could move on, instead of torturing his audience with information we all know in a poorly veiled attempt to obliquely and implicitly justify the unjustifiably outrageous things he's done and said in his senseless attack on Texas citizen/candidate for Governor, Debra Medina.

Beck must think we're stupid and are unable to see past his poorly conceived, prideful ruse.

Here's what Beck needs to do and should have already done!:
1. Tell everyone he's coming clean in an attempt to be honest with this listeners and true to the ideals he's praised and promoted all year long, but which he has betrayed in this instant.
2 Admit that he deliberately tried and has continued to try to slander and trash Debra Medina.
3. Say he's sorry and will do all he can to prevent something like that from happening again.
...and here's the all important final requirement:
4. Explain why he did it.

Beck has not only failed to do this. He has continued with oblique attacks on Debra, implying she's an anarchist, a nut case, Nazi, fascist, one of those "people hiding in the hills,' an extremist, a dangerous person who should be marginalized and avoided at all costs. He has grouped her on his infamous blackboard with the likes of the self-admitted communist, Van Jones and bomber, revolutionary Bill Ayers. But, in all fairness, to Mr. Beck's credit he has rightly said Medina is "not a communist."

Great. May I speak for all fair-minded Texans, Mr. Beck, and say, with all due respect, "GO TO HELL, you sick, twisted freak!" Again, with all due respect.

These outrages and absurdities have had three immediate effects:
1. They have poured even more rags and gasoline on an already raging fire he himself set.
2. They have continue the erosion of his own personal credibility.
3. They have diminished his viewing and listening audience significantly.

They have done, I believe, another thing: they have actually helped Debra Medina. Texans like nothing better than a good fair fight, and hate nothing more than an unfair one, and this is just what Debra has been caught up in. Beck is almost gone, but I think his pride and arrogance blind him to the fact. Back to the gutter, Mr. Beck!

The longer the Beck-a-thon continues on the sicker the patient it was meant to benefit becomes: himself.

This is where unconfessed sin, pride, underhandedness and evil get you: it's a lose, lose for everyone involved. Until Beck comes clean his message will have less and less credibility and be met with more and more cynicism. He loses, and those whom he has pretended to serve also lose. Of course, if he's been this kind of person all along I can only say I'm glad we at least found it out now; better late than never.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Winning Framework

The Tea Parties should and must remain both independent and separate from the present national parties if they hope to survive and bear good fruit. If they fall for confidence-shills like Sarah Palin and join in the ol' boy network, willy nilly, they will disappear faster than March snows in April. Palin is nothing more than a Lorelei mole leading them to their destruction on the Scylla or the Charybdis.

Some say they should join the RNC in the hope of changing it. I submit that if they do so they will become like the blushing bride who married a bad man to "change him." They simply will fail and ruin their own life in the process, as well as the lives of their children.

However, remaining independent does not mean they should remain utterly disorganized and isolated from one another. Independence, by its very nature, does not imply isolation but relationship. In fact, the equality of independent entities is really the only valid condition for effective cooperative alliance. In contrast, joining a larger, more powerful entity means ultimate annihilation, almost always ending in disillusionment and utter loss of identity.

The image of the foolish blushing bride should remain ever in the minds of the Tea Party people when others make friendly overtures. This does not mean every invitation should be rejected, de facto. Doing so would be as much a mistake as just jumping on the bandwagon of any Joe Blow who passes by. Careful reasoned examination of past history, not knee-jerk foxhole paranoia, should be arbiter of what steps should be taken in each instance. Such a measured approach will help avoid irrevocable mistakes and prevent the irretrievable loss of genuine opportunity.

The real question of the moment (with momentous implications) is not whether the Tea Party should or should not organize within their own ranks, but how they can do so to be nationally effective when necessary, without loss of local autonomy and indepedence. Consider this: a centrally controlled party whose avowed purpose is to deconstruct a centrally controlled Empire and return it to republican, Constitutional proportions is a glaring contradiction. The cognitive dissonance can only be sustained for a brief time before disaster; something would have to give.

In order to avoid both the disaster of being co-opted and the politics of compromise and contradiction, I suggest the Tea Party should nationally organize around the original framework of these United States: the Articles of Confederation.

This framework did an excellent job of preserving state and sectional independence while still making efficacious cooperation in national concerns possible. Consequently, it was the framework that Patrick Henry praised very highly in his anti federalist/ pro liberty speeches to Virginia's ratification committee in June of 1788.

Since then, the protestations, fears and objections the great Henry in outlined those speeches were not unwarranted, as many of his opponents insisted. Only a short unbiased examination of the events that followed shows Mr. Henry has been vindicated hundreds of fold. Virginia, of course, went ahead and ratified the new Constitution. But Henry's speeches where were not altogether fruitless, even at the time. They helped garner "We the People" the Bill of Rights. Since the day these first amendments were placed in the new Constitution and ratified with it they have been the bulwark of "We the People's" Liberty...and the thorn in the Statist's side. (That's just where the framers wanted it.)

If the Tea Party organized, taking the Articles as a model, then the local, regional and state chapters could retain needed flexibility and independence, both in terms of $$ and the addressing of issues. Many who advocate the melding of the Tea Party with the RNC say loose organization is a weakness. But there are tremendous advantages in remaining locally independent and small: you can make changes quickly and move fast on the ground to accomplish your tactics. You also are more in touch with what is really happening. No doubt national organizations have some strengths due to their size, $$$ and central command structure, but they lack both the above enumerated virtues and many others as well, including the all important Spirit of true liberty.

A final instructive bit of history
The Framework of the Articles of Confederation provides the best of both worlds, and it worked great until the money men decided to run a scam to create a more powerful centralized government in order to line their own pockets. Here's how they did it: They hoped to do so by redeeming their own war bonds from the newly Centralized Government as well as the war bonds they had purchased from average citizens for pennies on the $$$. The plan was to then redeem them at full value. This, in fact, was eventually done, and large fortunes were made as a consequence.

Patrick Henry warned against the scheme from the begining, Jefferson referred to these mostly Yankee confidence men as "the moneyed Aristocracy," and George Mason, who actually stood to profit more than anyone from redeeming his own bonds, refused to sign on to the Constitutional Scam, which had been initially proposed by Mr. Hamilton at the Annapolis Convention in 1786. As Yankees skipper, Casey Stengel, was fond of saying to dumb-struck sports reporters, "If you don't believe it, you can look it up."

I believe using the framework of the Articles as a basis for successful co-operation is a formula for both short and long-term success. Remember, the Patriots of the Revolution did not ultimately defeat the British army by direct confrontation, but by asymmetrical warfare. The framework I suggest here does just that. It also kept the baby of national cooperation safe while throwing out the bathwater of consolidation and tyranny. It did so then, and it can now as well.

The Tea Party people need to learn a little history in order to avoid making history's mistakes.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Other Red Meat

coming next week

Medal of Honor

It's rare when you find courage on any level in our narcissistic society. This is doubly true when your search is confined only to the media. It is nothing short of amazing when you find not just one but two instances of it in the same place at the same time.

I've been listening to Dallas KLIF 570 radio talk-show hosts, Jeff Bolton and John David Wells, for some time now, and they both have shown themselves to consistently apply in practice what they espouse philosophically. Plus, their respect for their listeners, their patience, fairness and kindness bespeaks a refreshing absence of the malice common in today's politically charged atmosphere.

So far, so good.

But I can't recall when their integrity and commitment to truth has ever been tested as it has in the Medina/Beck debacle of last week and all that has ensued in its wake.

Their commitment to truth in this instance takes courage because that commitment involves both aggressively opposing not only a powerful incumbent in Governor Perry, but Mr. Beck, who is not just nationally popular, but someone who occupies the prime time morning slot on KLIF. Any success by Wells and Bolton will most likely result in diminished ratings for Mr. Beck and possible loss of advertising $$ for KLIF.

In spite of these potential consequences, Dallas' local dynamic duo has persisted in getting at the truth, and once finding it, clinging to and propagating it. They have been true to Beck's avowed principles where he himself has utterly failed and shown himself to be hypocritical. They have questioned and questioned with boldness, and what they have found to be true they have broadcast with energy and passion.

Mr. Beck should take a lesson from them as follows:
1. Be honest and act as consistently with your values as they have, lest you lose all credibility.
2. When you screw up admit it, ask for pardon and move on.

So far, Mr. Beck, you've crashed and burned on both these items and put yourself in the Hall of Broadcasting shame. These local guys, who daily compete against big nationally syndicated names on other local stations, have shown a courage, honor and commitment where you have failed. You've disappointed an enormous amount of people in Texas, Mr. Beck, not just because of how you've treated Debra Medina, but how you've so self-servingly responded to reasonable and understandable outrage. You are doing damage to your integrity and credibility that you will not be able to repair.

It is my hope that Messrs. Bolton and Wells receive the highest of encomiums from listeners, not only in Texas, but nationally as well. They most certainly get my Broadcasting Medal of Honor.
the Armadillo

Monday, February 15, 2010

President's Day

my wife: "Today's President's day."
me: "Which one?"
wife: "All of them."
me: "Why, some totally sucked and most have been complicit in stealing our property, money and freedom? Give me one good reason we should celebrate this BS generic 'President's r Us' day."
wife: "Mary's out of school."
me: "You mean we don't have to drive her into Dallas to school today and can sleep later?"
wife; "Yup."
me: "Bingo."

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Medina vs the Machines

This past week thousands of Texans listened in amazement to the exchange with Glenn Beck and Debra Medina. The amazement of many was not so much over Medina's responses, which were mostly straightforward, comprehensive and reasonable (more on that later), but over Beck's tactics and his outrageous remarks afterward. But I'm getting ahead of myself. A lot of questions must be asked and answered before we can hope to make some sense of this debacle in American historical context. A few of these, but by no means all, are:

1. Why would Glenn Beck seek to waylay a candidate whose primary policies are amazingly in line with those which he himself has espoused all year long on this FOX news opinion show?

2. Why would Beck, who has often wildly speculated on information he and his team have cobbled together, deny to another the same privilege of looking critically at their government and leaders?

Is it so crazy to question the government? After all, the government is not monolithic. The government is more like the Hindu goddess Mahakali, with her several right hands often having no idea what her left hands (and multiple faces) are doing––or why they are doing it.

*Have not many raised questions about Kennedy's assassination and the possible role of some in government?

*What about the false pretext the government used to begin the Spanish American war?

*What about Wilson running as the candidate of peace, only to involve America in Europe's first great war, justifying our entry into a European dispute as "the war to end all wars?" Yea, right. How about calling it what it really was, "The war to increase the American Empire and make it a world power?"

*What about the false pretexts upon which we entered Vietnam?

*What about the speculation that US leaders knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor but did nothing?

*What about Eisenhower himself warning the people about the military/industrial complex? (Guess he didn't know about the bankers).

*What about the speculation that those in Lincoln's own cabinet may have helped facilitate his assassination?

*What about Ruby Ridge, Waco, agent orange, government drug experimentation, the global warming scam, WMDs, terrorizing citizens about flu epidemics, the scores of food, drug and health issues abounding, and dozens if not hundreds of other questionable events?

When Daniel Webster questioned the notion that Madison had Constitutional powers to conscript our young men, willy nilly, to fight a war for the advantage and folly of a few, was he called a nut, unpatriotic and consigned to the booby hatch of history?

Now that evidence abounds about many powerful among us wanting a unified world government why is it all of a sudden considered crazy to question the motives of some in the government, especially in regard to events of international concern and the world economy?

But the $64.00 question at hand is why, most especially, would media Arch Speculator Beck consider it wacky for Debra and others to do a little of what he's been doing a lot of (and making beaucoup $$$ for doing so)?

3. Why would Sarah Palin, Tea Party Queen par excellence, arrive in Texas only to turn a cold shoulder to the candidate supported by most of the Texas tea party and the Campaign for Liberty, the candidate that supports virtually every policy to which Palin has paid lip service, and by which she has ingratiated herself with the Tea Party people? Why has she snubbed the Texas Tea Party people become a shill for a man who, to put it kindly, has a spotty record, a man who is clearly a politician cut from the same cloth as those she opposed to become governor of Alaska?

4. Why, during the interview, did Beck refuse to explore the critique of Perry that Medina made and completely ignore the libertarian red meat issues Debra mentioned? Why would he then, out of the blue, relentlessly press her on a question that has no relevance in the Texas governor's race whatsoever, and, the moment he gets the sound byte he's looking for, cut Debra off abruptly, immediately don the clown mask and the ooga horn and begin to putting words in her mouth ("I guess that's a 'yes'.")? Why would he then procede to categorically damn her and clearly endorse Perry using the most uncouth and revolting imagery?––Revolting unless, of course, you find the image of Beck French kissing Rick Perry appealing.

5. Why would FOX news, employer of both Beck and Palin, ramp up an attack on Medina right after the interview? You'd almost think it had all been planned. That is, unless you're afraid others might think you're a conspiracy nut, know what I mean?

But if you're not afraid you'd also think FOX may be trying to do to Debra what they tried to do Ron Paul. Remember how FOX ignored Dr. Paul in 2008, despite a popular uprising of support unparalleled in America's political history? Of course, FOX can't handle Medina the same exact way because Debra has gotten so much support she can't be as easily ignored as Paul. And this brings us to our last question:

6. Why would this all out attack come at the very moment when Debra begins climbing in the polls? Timing in politics, as in comedy, is everything and you can bet this is no accident.

7. Why would the large number of letters Beck received prior to the Medina interview include a “common theme”–– complaints that Medina was a 9/11 truther. Really? Why, then, have local hosts in Dallas and Houston, who have received thousands upon thousands of letters for weeks about Medina, pro and con, not received a single one mentioning this subject in any way? Not a single one! Was this really an issue in Beck's mail? We have only Beck's word for it. And if his word is good, why then, did he openly lie a week later on a Houston interview and knowingly play a segment of his Medina interview out of order in an effort to justify his outrageous behavior and further discredit Ms. Medina?

Considering the evidence it is almost impossible to resist concluding that the Machine is hard at work here––not the state Republican machine only, but the National Machine of so-called conservative media––which in reality is simply the Neocon Media. Anyone for Bill Kristol selecting the next Texas governor???

A small but important digression

Old-style Southern Conservatives were fond of saying "Northern conservatism never conserved anything." They say as much because they understood most northern conservatives to be Nationalists, not Patriots. Is this not mere word play? Aren't they the same thing? Hardly. The difference is the difference between Liberty and Tyranny; the difference between a free peoples protected by sovereign states from the unconstitutional usurpations of a renegade Central Government and a hapless people stripped of the dignity and made subjects of an intrusive, coercive, tyrannical Central Authority.

After the failed War for Southern Independence the radical Republicans in Congress followed an agenda supported by their philosophy of consolidated government. It was their openly stated intention to change the American mind, making citizens "love their nation more than their state." Up until the War most citizens thought of themselves as citizens of sovereign states, referring to America as "the Union" or "these United States", not "the United States."

The state represented the concerns of citizens on the Federal level. Far from disenfranchising individual citizens, federalism empowered them, protecting them from harmful, unconstitutional national policy. This allowed them to act freely within their own spheres, to exercise their own right of self-government without fear of outside intrusion. All that ended with the War and the 14th amendment, the ratification of which was and is highly questionable.

As Lincoln Supreme Court appointee Salmon Chase in a moment of candor said, "States rights died at Appomattox."...And with the death of states rights the great hedge of protection between the helpless citizenry and a rapacious, intrusive, tyrannical centralized government was ruthlessly trampled down. Corruption in government exploded in the ten years following the War, taxes skyrocketed, and with it government waste, and countless laws, standards and controls were put on every facet of the lives of citizens. Mr Lincoln's war laid the foundation of centralized government very well for the Progressives who soon followed.

Of course, Lincoln lovers (like Beck, Hannity and Mark Levin) rant on about the evils of modern progressivism but turn a blind eye to the One Seminal Event that is real cause of the erosion of our liberties and our subsequent involvement in needless wars and international intrigues? And for what? (Or should I ask, "for whom?")

Funny, you never hear Beck, Levin or Hannity say, "War is the health of the state." Why? Well, it's not popular with the bulk of their listeners. But mostly they avoid the issue like typhoid fever because they are jingoistic Nationalists, drunk with the delusional wine of American Exceptionalism. They believe some mystical mumbo jumbo about God's will and Manifest Destiny that gives the Federal Government the right to run every other nation's business and establish perpetual military presence in their lands. Believing these or similar such nonsensical things, how can this little media trio ever take a truly principled stand for limited government?

What's this got to do with the Price of Oil in Odessa or Stetsons at Sheplers?

A fair question. After all, The Confederacy is gone, and with it slavery. Isn't that a good thing? Of course. Ending slavery was a good for the every American. But the Federal Government could not have used more brutal, corrupt, unconstitutional or worse means for its accomplishment. I say that because the very means used to end sectional slavery, the unconstitutional invasion of the Sovereign Southern states, de facto, threw the baby out with the bath water. (That poor baby was, perhaps, the first abortion the Federal Government declared to be legal. That baby was, in fact, the very Constitution the Founders gave us.)

From then to now the National government has claimed the unfettered and unrestrained right to crush self-rule among the Union's local peoples, thus making a mockery of the foundational principles in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration became a dead, feckless document, a museum piece, routinely mutilated by politicians for a few quotes they could use when ever they wanted to sound populist and patriotic.

Such means resulted in the end of official sectional chattel slavery, only to be replaced by unofficial national political servitude, where citizen's rights and liberties were increasingly placed second to the will and interests of the oligarchy steering the Consolidated Ship of State. (One wonders if this were not the real intent of Lincoln and the Racial Republicans all along––former statist Whigs that they were. The real cause of the war could not really have been ending slavery, at least on the behalf of the Federal Government. After all, when the war began there were more slave states still in the Union than had seceded.)

To make a long story sufficiently short, when the dust settled the Federal government that had entered the War emerged from it transformed into one National in Character; Consolidated, Imperialistic, corrupt, confiscatory and tyrannical in nature; the very thing that great Firebrand for Liberty, Patrick Henry, so fervently warned the Virginia Framers about. Indeed, the General Government, primarily through the process of judicial incrementalism, has reduced once Sovereign States to little more than administrative units, good for little more than the collection of Federal taxes and, at times, the elevation of a state leader to the National scene, that is, if he or she's plays ball with the Party faithful. (Hint, hint.)

Today, the little that is left of our freedoms rests upon the whimsical, capricious foundation of the fickleness of those presently in power. What freedoms and rights remain do so, not by Constitutional fiat, the protective hedge of state sovereignty, natural rights or mandate of Law, but because the Chimera on the Potomac graciously permits it...for now.

Virtually every hapless citizen knows that any one of our remaining liberties could be arbitrarily wiped away any moment, in the dark of night with the flourish of a pen from an unelected, nameless black robed entity and we could do nothing whatsoever about it. (Patrick Henry also warned about that.) Today, the vast number of citizens wisely fear the government and seek to live a life in spite of it encroachments and mandates rather than under its protection.

I believe knowing these historical and political realities is essential to rightly understand the exchange between Beck and Medina.

Many people love Beck. No doubt, he's done many good things in helping people wake up to a part, but only a part, of our history, while carefully ignoring other equally important parts. But what he revealed in his interview with Debra Medina was there are those who seek to interfere in Texas politics for hidden, unstated nationalist reasons, plain and simple, and he is their front man and shill. Why else would he have treated Medina worse than he did the ACORN lawyers he interviewed on his television show?

Our patriotism as Texans is clearly being challenged! Will we pass the test?

The question is not so much who will win the election as it is how much Texans will be fooled by this sudden intrusion, this invasion of nationalism, the same real nationalism that despises states rights and the ability of the state to manage its own internal affairs without foreign, yes foreign––I said it, encroachments, threats and distortions.

When we consider all these issues and try to make sense of them we have to conclude that something else is going on here other than the usual Texas-style politics. Something national is at stake, and it involves Rick Perry and Sarah Palin in some way, and it involves him in such a way that he must successfully win a third term.

These events also cast suspicions on just how sincere Sarah Palin's commitment to populism really is. It makes her look not unlike a Republican Party mole placed in the Tea Party movement to co-opt it for Republican use. It makes her look like just another politician who trashes principle for power. It makes her look like a game player, who, like Beck, says she's honest, but then disappears in smokey back rooms only to emerge behaving in ways that are clearly contradictory to her populist rhetoric. Are Beck and Palin who they want us to believe they are?

I think these events also indicate that FOX news is hard at work using apparatchiks Beck and Palin as the proximate means to do to Ms. Medina what they tried to do to Paul.

Frankly, the only one who comes out of this smelling like a rose, a Yellow Rose and True Texan, is citizen candidate Medina.

It's a real soap opera scenario: Will the National Machine coupled with the Texas Republican good ol' boy Machine succeed in keeping Austin weird and Texas politics just business as usual? Or will Texas Patriots, whatever their political sympathies, show their patriotism and rise up in vociferous protest? Soap opera scenario or not, the consequences are much more serious than who gets bumped from the series this year. Citizens of the Free State, the eyes of Texas and those who shed blood to preserve her Independence and protect her Sovereignty are, indeed, upon us.

We take pride in Texas independence; we rejoice in breathing freer air than the other states, and we do. But for how long?

Until the Beck interview I was mostly uncommitted about whom I might vote for. My tactic was that of watch and see. It still is. It ain't over till it's over. I encourage all other Texans to keep an open mind as well. How the candidates handle the next few weeks will determine much. I will keep my BS detector well charged and on 24/7. I will consider them and their policies on their merits, and not coloured by how some nefarious Clown with possible clandestine motives might try to characterize them. The Clown may French Kiss whom he wants, but I will make my decision independent of his folly. As for Palin, as I see it she has not boosted Perry's image by supporting him, she has only damaged her own and given new justification to those who question both her forthrightness and intellectual adequacy for national office. She is not capable of leading, only being the tool of the snakes in leadership.

One thing I am categorically opposed to is Nationalist Neocons intruding into Texas internal politics for clandestine and, perhaps, nefarious reasons. I hope and pray I share that dislike in common with more Texans than not.

Every person likes being of use to others. Feeling that you are is personally fulfilling. But no person cares to be used and manipulated by others for hidden reasons. That is only natural and reasonable. It is also natural and reasonable to deeply resent and protest meddling outsiders who know nothing of Texas and care only to use Her for their own undisclosed ends. Dishonesty is never compelling. When exposed, whether by another or one's own labors of reason, it is downright repugnant. Which brings me to my last point:

The final thing I sensed from the Beck/Medina exchange was this: Medina was trying to be forthright and open, while Beck was not. Honesty and forthrightness go a long way with me, even if I disagree with the person; that, too, is only natural and reasonable.

As for Beck; I thought I may still listen to his arguments from time to time, even after the interview with Medina. But after he flagrantly lied a week later, with malice aforethought, I personally, am done with him. The crude underhandedness I witnessed this past week on national syndicated radio warrants nothing less. Beck: You Messed with Texas and took us for fools! Now you're gone!

Texans for Texas!

the A. Armadillo