Conservative Refocus

By Barry Secrest

As America prepares for its Holiday season, we, at this point, feel compelled to both stop and look at how the landscape in both the US and the world seems to be continually shifting and moving in such a vast diversity of tectonic directions. The  extreme degree of negative change that we can hardly believe has become so stark over the last three years that it has become difficult to even begin to prognosticate exactly where we, or anyone else, for that matter, is these days. And this from a Conservative venue  that has prided itself on being correct in an ample number of predictions made over the last several years.

So, where, exactly, are we?

Well, indeed, as Dorothy would say, we aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto.

It's almost as if some humongous twister has hefted our Nation up and whirled us all off into another dimension, depositing the continent onto some bizarre new plain that is devoid of both color and substance, where our anti-wizard of odd holds copious sway over virtually every action, and even inaction, that we might seek to undertake.

For instance, America's economy has just now crossed over the River Styx, moving the US debt load past that of every other single nation on the planet with regard to its magnitude at an unimaginable $ 15 Trillion dollars. Our mythical River Styx crossing oarsman, Charon, probably even popped a skeletal hernia due to the astounding mass of corporeal debt. Luckily, Senator Quirog of Greazidom was there and ready to handle the oar duties for the remainder of the trip, should he be needed. He was all too glad, in fact, as the oafish author and second in command of America's debt decline, death-grin ever-present. Also known as Harry Reid here on planet Earth, Quirog must have leeringly placed the eyelid coins as recompense, no doubt, during the prior congressional season.

But this ever present litany of fiscal denial, as birthed by the political left and even the establishment to some degree, seems to incipiently point to an overall point of view rapidly becoming almost comical in its tragedy, if boiled completely down, that being:

"What deficit?"

As if by the mere fact that one cannot see the funds that are quite obviously missing, the horrendously leaky thing that is our National debt, therefore, simply doesn't exist, or at least can be easily plugged by extreme fiscal confiscation in a progressive child's play exercise of gaudy gratuity. Unfortunately predictable as it is, the Left also succeeds in serially applying this same rationale of utter denial to our various denominational Faiths as well, with but a few notably cultish exceptions.

However, this particular phenomena often reminds me of a favorite Monty Python movie sequence from the Holy Grail, where the comically courageous knight guarding a bridge has each of of his limbs unceremoniously hacked off by King Arthur. Finally, at one point during the conflict after losing both an arm and a leg, the knight, wishing to fight on, indignantly replies to his opponent:

"Just a flesh wound....what?" It's not that serious, t'is but a scratch !"

This comic escapade, to many of us on the Right, pretty much represents both Obama and the Democratic Party, if not the entire Left-Wing, as to their overall deficit of situational, if not fiscal, consciousness, or should that be their obscene surplus of rabid lunacy?

But, the question in all of this simply has to become:  "So what do we have to show for this $ 15 trillion in debt?" Er...anti-Universal Healthcare, maybe? With people dropping off of group plans like insecticized flies, at a rate never seen before in America, not to mention all of the other mayhem?

Ok, granted, and as predicted with regard to the Liberals, why not just admit that this ain't exactly working out the way many expected, nor is anything else under the sun as hatched by the Loony Left in "leadership," for that matter.  But, the trickle of denial only becomes a flood of disingenuity, in response, as the party of schizo' poster-children carries on as if nothing, at all, is amiss.

Schiz-o-phre-ni-a : 1. A complex mental disorder which makes it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences  2. A long-term mental disorder involving the breakdown in the relation between thought,emotion and behaviour 3. A mentality or approach characterized by inconsistent or contradictory elements

Oh, but wait!  We do have the $ 867 billion dollar stimulus, as laid out by George Soros, matriculated by the Democrats, and lovingly approved by our Messianic Moocher, Obama himself, which unostensibly kept the nation's people on their jobs and unemployment below 8%, right?...Um, hello? Sad to say, wrong again.

In fact the CBO just released a report that clearly indicates that the stimulus will actually negatively effect long-term growth by pulling equity out of the private markets, and will negatively affect the nation's progress for years to come, which is exactly what we anticipated many moons ago.

Ya' just can't make this stuff up...

In effect, the things that Obama and the Democrats have done to alter our economic state for the better have actually warped things further out of alignment and made things elementally worse.

So, can you say, "Cloward-Piven?" You know, that's the ridiculous theory that's been proven truer and truer year end and year out, which implies a Leftist-engineered attempt to overwhelm the system into a crash, thereby necessitating a complete transformation of America's economic system itself.

But hey, let's look at the bright side. At least, when we think of the debt and spending, we can thank our lucky stars for the extra-Constitutional Super Committee, heroically installed by our fearless leaders, who, as formulated, and like a clumsy,overweight, super hero struggling out of a telephone booth, has produced a spending agreement as promised that miraculously succeeds at curbing our.....wait...wait....what?

Nothing was agreed to, and in fact, the Super Committee's $1.4 trillion in cuts  failed miserably?

Oh, ok, well...nevermind on that one also; apparently, no plan was reached under Obama's brilliant leadership, yet again, it would seem.... so, one supposes that the Military and our Senior citizens take it on the chin, or up diverse spaces, once more, right? Well....ahem...not necessarily, you see, the cuts that everyone has been hyperventilating about aren't really cuts at all. Unfortunately, the US Government uses a nefarious accounting tool called base-line budgeting, which, as a budgetary system, seems contrived right out of some goofy, crime syndicate's extra set of books.

To explain further, most reality-based budgets are predicated upon what the estimated income is and what the estimated expenses will be as indicated by the prior year's experience, but not so with the US Government's budgetary system. Uncle Sam, it would seem, has figured out a better way to do it, by annually increasing the prior year's expenses by an additional percentage that can be as high as 10% for the upcoming year.

At or near the end of each fiscal year, various venues of government will then seek ways to increase their departmental outlays, in the event that something is left over, so that they will be able to almost criminally budget for an even greater amount the following year. In fact, rarely will a governmental department spend less than the apportionment, because then they will automatically contract and receive a lesser amount of funding for the following year.

Now, would this method work for your typical household budgeting purposes, or even any corporation's plan of business? Don't think so.

The Dirty Little Secret...

For example, if we were to use a US military budgeted amount of about $ 600 billion dollars, and then add the approximate 10% for the following year (as an illustration for simplicity), the outlay would be $660 billion dollars, and increasingly, so on and so forth, for the next ten years. After 10 years at the maximum annual 10% outlay, the budgeted amount for defense would be effectively doubled, so that instead of having an amount of $600 billion as originally budgeted ten years ago, and with no "stated" increases, we would now be looking at an amount approaching $1.5 trillion dollars! Think I am wrong? The 2005 US military budget was for about $ 484 billion. That number in 2011  will soar to slightly over $ 700 billion, which is getting close to double in only six years, and these numbers would ring similar in virtually every single US department.

In fact, the mandated $1.4 trillion in cuts, over the next ten years, stands along the lines of a veritable mosquito bite when viewed under the rationale of baseline budgeting and what it will do to our deficits over the next ten years.

So, now can you see why America is in such a fiscal nightmare of a mess when we apply this accounting formula to each Governmental department?

Ergo, we, within the Tea Party and the Conservative movement, would heartily declare that it's probably about time we stopped using this baseline-budgeting method, while there is still time, as any sane person would probably agree? So, tracking back to all of the weeping and the gnashing of teeth over these "automatic cuts" to various programs, one can see that, over a 10 year period, there will actually not be any true cuts at all.   In fact, the spending will increase by a considerable amount, still.

So, since it is now set in concrete and certain that, after all of this deranged spending and after seeing what's been taking place all over Europe, the Congressional balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, as layed forth by the House, will be voted up and set into Constitutional law, since most everyone agrees that our our completely out of control expenditures are what have steered America's economy into the fiscal doldrums, right?

Um...Rut-Roh...wrong again, in fact. The moderates and left-wing Democrats in the House nixed the amendment as being too extreme for their Cloward-Piven purposes, one must logically deduce, as in "what spending problem?"

The Post-Foreign Policy Presidency

Ok, well, for some truly positive news, and switching to the foreign policy front, how 'bout the fact that we  have long-range stability in both Iraq and Afghanistan, eh? So much so that our esteemed President has chosen to disembark the troops and end our overall decade-long effort at Middle East Democracy, and just in time for Arab Spring; another glorious Nobel Peace Prize awaits for Obama, right?

Um...not quite, it would seem, in fact, our ally Afghanistan just declared its allegiance to Pakistan, were conflict to break out, and Iraq seems to be accelerating the factional unraveling even as the final troops make their way home. Civil war in both countries could break out at any moment, in fact, while Libya is also bracing for a possible civil war.

So, yet another impending  failure, it would seem, in the overall scheme of things, although some few chances remain.

Yet, all has not been wasted on the foreign policy front, the Obama and State Department contrived and backed reorganizing of  the Egyptian Government has produced a flowering democracy, just as the media and the Libs promised that will....wait...what?

The Egyptian Military has installed a Military dictatorship?

Well, who could have seen that one coming?

So, How Does That Go? Keep your Friend's Coats and Your Enemies Clustered?

OK, at least they will keep the peace in Israel, and they, or at least the Muslim Brotherhood, will insist upon a Liberal democracy as promised...um...wait...come again? The Muslim Brotherhood will not allow anything but a Shariah Law based Regime? They promised war on Israel? But our national security adviser stated that the Muslim Brotherhood was not a concern, right?

Ok, that one isn't going quite the way Obama had publicly planned either...so...what, exactly, was Obama trying to achieve again? Was it war on Israel or just an exercise in extreme Mideast destabilization leading up to a Caliphate coalition of Islamic confederates?

Luckily, Obama's extension of the hand of peace in order to effect harmony with the Iranians has worked just smashingly. Why, just the other day, the Iranians were able to sniff out and arrest 12 of our CIA agents and are now holding them for unstated nefarious purposes. Let's see, the Iranians just captured a twelfth CIA agent, and they are still waiting for the 12th Imam to appear. Coincidence? You know, the 12th Imam is the prophesized anti-Christ that the Islamic world has been waiting for, more on that as the situation develops.

But at least we still have Canada on our side! The Obama administration has been working to shore-up and strengthen our relationship with our ally to the north and has, wait. What? Oh. no! Not again? The Canadians just threatened the Obama administration in favor of China over the President's cancellation of an oil pipeline? But he was supposed to be dedicated to an energy independent America, right?

Sheez! Well, at least there's Mexico, our great, if not "slightly embattled" neighbor to the south. The Mexican leader and Obama get along with each other amazingly, in fact...OMG, what? Mexico's leadership is enraged at Obama and America for transporting enough high-powered military weapons to the Mexican drug cartels to support a terrorist battalion?

Freedom Rheems...

But, we still can look to our strongest ally in Israel and their undying love and support for American virtues. For example, Israel and America's relationship has never been more astoundingly schmoozy. Just the other day, Obama and French leader Sarkozy were hamming it up on a, then unbeknownst, hot mike when Sarkozy intimated to Obama, in front of the world, that Israeli leader Ben Netanyahu was a liar and that Sarkozy couldn't stand him. Obama, indignantly responded, in a penetrating defense of Israel, "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you!"

Sigh...such a sweet man, indeed. True loyalty is such a seldom seen thing these days...

Indeed, things aren't looking so good in the foreign policy departments either, so let's just move back over to America where  we finally have a domestic policy at peace with both itself and its internal opponents as Obama promised at his inauguration. The nation appears poised in a hair-trigger readiness to, at any moment, launch into a rousing 300 million citizen rendition of "I'd like to teach the world to sing,"....um, no way, you say?  Uh-oh, here too, alas, and in fact, US Politics have never been so polarized, with class warfare being preached by the Left and a President who thinks Bi-partisan is a type of gay pizza cheese, for Heaven's sake.

We do at least have the Obama backed, Democratically endorsed, Union funded Occupy Wall Street movement that, much like the Tea Party, has peacefully and non-violently impelled the US into....wait...say what? How many people have been killed and arrested? 7 Killed? 4,000 arrested?

When A Movement Becomes A Demonic Colon Blow

 Hmm...well, one never knows when a movement will become a demonic colon-blow, it would seem. But even with a few bits of fringe violence devolving into riots....oh! What this time? You're asking how can fringe violence be ascribed to a fringe movement that avows violence as a tool for change? Hmm...Good point...

Ok, so maybe pretty much everything everywhere is totally screwed up at this point in virtually every direction that we gaze.... but then there is one very bright spot that no one can either deny or gainsay.  Drumroll please.....Ta-DA! We can unequivocally declare that the Mainstream Media has finally gotten back into the business of vetting future presidential candidates! And we thought they had just given up on that "most important of functions" for our slowly-becoming less-than-free Republic, due to, oh I don't know,  alarming budgetary concerns, maybe.

In fact, the Media has been instrumental in pounding into dust virtually every single GOP candidate, except for Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson (whoever that is).  Perhaps the central-planning Moderate Candidate's time for the hyper-media anal exam is next, but only after those wacky Conservatives get theirs, and in triplicate with extreme, radicalized, moderation, of course. Meanwhile, the American people are still waiting for the Axis Press to finally begin vetting current President and Democratic candidate, and the hero of  our altered state, Barack H. Obama. Probably just forgot to budget for that, too. But hey, we can wait.  I mean, it's really no big deal since the media has seemingly resigned itself to the fact that Obama will be automatically re-elected anyway, right?

So, let's review the President's success in leadership and where America stands, after all of this:

The President demanded a stimulus and appointed congress to handle all of the dirty little details which amounted to nothing more than civil payola, as it turns out, with little but a few newly enriched Citizens to show for it;

Obama then instituted health care reform, and told Congress to handle all of those details, which has resulted in the Nation's healthcare and employment being turned upside down;

Obama also singularly engineered his 2010 and 2011 budgets and then placed it into Congressional hands to hammer out the details,once again, which have lain in Congress collecting dust,tabled by the Democrats; 

Obama then pressed for the Super Committee after a failure by both he and Congress to come to spending terms, which promptly folded in on itself like a poorly constructed lawn chair.  He never got involved in that either, by the way;

And now Obama is actually campaigning against a "Do-nothing Congress?" But he is a shoe-in for re-election.... I mean look at all that he has accomplished....