So we see that the Swedish martial spirit did not die out with the Vikings of the 11th century (Swedish Vikings mostly sailed up rivers into what we now know as Russia. It was left to the Norwegians and Danes to harass Britain and Western Europe).

And, strange as it seems in the light of their constant peacnikery of the 20th century, that spirit is still alive today. For good reasons the proximity of Russia gives everybody at the Eastern end of the Baltic the heebie-jeebies. Going by their invariant and very successful form since the 11th century, we would expect the English to deal with such a peril by forming alliances with other countries. Not so the Swedes. They cherish their independence. And they can realistically do that because of confidence in their military. They have been prepared to fight Russia alone if need be. The Finns did it under Mannerheim in the early stages of WWII so they have a successful example to go by. But the Swedish military has to be independent too — so we come to the Swedish defence industries.

With a population about the same size as Israel, it is amazing what the Swedish defence industries have produced. The famous Bofors gun was used for antiaircraft defence by BOTH sides in WWII and is still in use today. And Bofors are not sitting on their laurels. I could go on to talk about Swedish military aircraft and submarines but I think that for the moment I will just say a few words about Bofors.

Aside from nuclear weapons, the most fearsome thing about the old Soviet Union was their vast fleet of tanks. And Bofors produced an answer to that in the form of the BILL1, a fearsome antitank missile. Bofors turned out tens of thousands of them, quite enough to wipe out the entire Soviet tank fleet with a bit of luck. It is a guided missile that flies just a bit ABOVE the tank and fires a shaped charge down onto the turret of the tank at just the right time — the turret being a tank’s weakest point. That must be a considerable challenge to the missile’s controller but the Swedes must be confident that trained operators can pull it off. Below is a video of it in action:

(Note: Some mischievous person has been circulating the above video together with a claim that it shows an Israeli missile using white phosphorous to destroy a Syrian tank. Israel has been much criticized for its limited use of white phosporous in Gaza but insists that it only used phosphorous in accordance with the laws of war. Using it in an anti-tank weapon would heap criticism on Israel so the false claim attached to the above video is malicious)

And to keep up with advances in tank technology Bofors have produced a BILL2 missile that is even more capable than BILL1. (The “B” stands for Bofors)

It seems sad that such an apparently effective weapon is not held in the arsenals of Western countries but Swedish neutrality forbids it. Only a few other “neutral” countries such as Austria and Brazil have it. So Sweden has had to bear all the costs of developing and deploying the weapon by itself — a considerable challenge. Most armament manufacturers are keen to sell their stuff to all and sundry — to help defray the development costs.

And even if Sweden did decide to sell BILL2 more widely, it might not get much uptake. I remember when I was in the Australian Army during the Vietnam war, we deployed the prime Swedish antitank weapon of the day, the Carl Gustav. But as soon as we entered the Vietnam war, the Swedes stopped supplying ammo for it! Tanks featured little in the Vietnam war so it was not a great setback but it was a salutary lesson in being careful about the source of supply of your weaponry. The Swedes have no worries on that score.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

The campaign for the GOP nomination is really getting hot in Florida. The hard campaigning has caused a lot of bemoaning over the attacks going on between Mitt Romney, his ads and the ads sponsored by his super PAC, and Newt Gingrich’s own attacks. Everyone is concerned that this mudslinging and in fighting may be hurting the GOP. But is it?

Well, relax, everyone. There is nothing unusual going on here. What we are witnessing is really nothing different than we’ve ever seen in this country. In fact, some may recall the viciousness between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2007. But memories fade all too quickly and too many jump to this momentary feeling that things are worse now, that today’s political climate pales in comparison to vague, past golden ages that never existed.

All this fighting is a good thing. From it we get to see issues debated in immediate and passionate ways that mere, dispassionate debate will not show us. Sure it’s raucous, loud, maybe a bit unseemly, even. But compared to what our nation’s enemies want to do to us, this is weak brew and if we have candidates that can’t stand up to a few TV ads, then how badly will they wilt in the face of real challenge when in office?

As to the issues, up until this month Romney has been allowed to skate on answering to his hardheaded and unfathomable support of Romneycare. His Massachusetts healthcare policy — one he continues to support adamantly — is little different from Obamacare. After all, his healthcare plan was the model for Obamacare. Yet, the media has given him a complete pass on answering to it. But Rick Santorum and Gingrich have finally started hitting Romney on his hypocrisy of claiming that Romneycare is great but Obamacare isn’t when they are indistinguishable in the particulars.

With the attacks on Gingrich we are seeing all his warts uncovered. All his past mistakes, flip flops, and at times odd behavior are being dredged up for a whole new generation of voters that may not remember his years in the House of Representatives.

How Romney and Gingrich handle these challenges gives us a measure of them as candidates. A staid debate does not reveal temperament nearly as easily.

Further, do we want a candidate that gets nominated without ever having to answer a single question about his record and his past? We got that with Obama and he has been a disaster.

But, let’s gain a bit of perspective shall we? These sorts of attacks on politicians have been going on since day one in these United States. People like to recall how in the 1800 election surrogates for John Adams (backed by Alexander Hamilton) floated the tale that Jefferson was a Godless atheist and was prone to bedding his slave women. Jefferson’s smear machine accused Adams of being un-American and pro-royal Britain. But the mudslinging started long before the 1800 presidential contest. A whisper campaign calling Washington stupid, senile, and out of touch had started before his first term was up with whisperers hoping that Washington would go home to Mount Vernon and clear the field for other candidates.

Andrew Jackson was called an uncultured fool who supported whores, Lincoln was called a baboon, candidate Al Smith was called a Papist that would hand the country over to the Catholic Pope, Barry Goldwater was said to desire a nuclear war with the Soviets, and on and on it goes. About the only presidential contest that was free of such viciousness was the campaign of James Monroe. His era wasn’t called the “era of good feelings” for nothing.

So, quit the carping, people. It’s always been this way. Let the mud fly and let’s see how it all shakes out.

I have to say, I am getting a bit sick and tired of this nonsensical lament about how rotten it is that those running for president are “rich” people. Stop it right now, America. The fact is that we’ve never really had a poor man as president so talking about it as if it is news that rich people often seek the presidency is stupid. Not only that, but today it is impossible for a poor or even middle class man to run for president anyway, so get this populist silliness out of your minds right this instant.

The latest in this onslaught of populist foolishness is the New York Times (unsurprisingly) with an article full of serious tones on how hard it is going to be for two Harvard educated, Richie-Riches like Obama and Romney to win over those “blue collar Americans.”

“Both are Harvard-educated millionaires,” The Times begins sonorously. “Both have been criticized as elitist and technocratic. Both have struggled to handle the populist anger coursing through politics.”

Of course, much of that anger is fostered by the Old Media constantly harping on that “anger” by writing daily stories indulging themes of class warfare as if it is some sort of legitimate political discussion in this, a capitalist-based society.

The worst part about this line of discussion is that it seems to suppose that it is all somehow “news” that rich people run for president. Not only have rich people always been the most common candidates for the White House, but the simple fact of the matter is we’ve never had a dirt poor president. Further, it is virtually impossible that we could — especially today.

So, let’s just get over this silly discussion, shall we?

Now, we have had several presidents that weren’t in the upper quintile of America’s rich, to be sure. But we’ve never had a president that could be classified as without financial support when he took office. We also haven’t even had a president who could have been considered lower class or even middle class when he started his campaign.

Certainly not every president was a millionaire (even adjusted for the economics of his day), but the largest portion were very rich. And those that weren’t extremely rich in their day (like Lincoln, for instance) were still far richer than the average American (like Lincoln, for instance). Additionally, those that weren’t themselves rich had the sort of lives that running for office did not negatively impinge on their own personal livelihood.

Let’s take Woodrow Wilson, for instance. He was not wealthy, mind you, but he also had few living expenses to worry about. As president of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey he was given a place to live. When he became president he then had the White House to live in. He had a series of books from which he made not inconsiderable sums and he was paid in a higher income bracket for his work than the average American of his day. The lowest one could consider Wilson is upper middle class, but his support system of colleges and government positions often removed from him the need to pay mortgages and other living expenses.

Calvin Coolidge was also not a rich man. But his father was and this helped Calvin early in life go to college and become an attorney. He made a nice living from his writing and owned some nice real estate free and clear of debt. He was also at the least upper middle class if not well off.

You see, even our poorest presidents still owned land and businesses and were far from penury while in office The worst of the lot seems to have been McKinley and Grant. McKinley once went bankrupt during the depression of 1893 and Grant’s finances were in bad shape until, at the end of his life, he wrote the well-received autobiography that made he and his family a tidy sum.

But let’s ask how a poor or even middle class person could run for president?

How many of you can afford to drop whatever it is you do for a living to go traipsing about the country for two or three years or more in order to run a nation-wide campaign for the White House? How many middle class (or poor) people can afford to stop making a living to campaign and can afford to stop worrying about their mortgage, their school loans, their water bill, their car insurance — in short how many middle class folks can afford to run for office and forget about their own personal and family expenses back home so that they can spend enough time on the campaign trail to build a voter base big enough to allow them to win both the primaries and a general election?

Let’s also not forget that if someone else come in to help the candidate’s family and pay their expenses while he runs for office, everyone would be crying about how that candidate was bought by whom ever it was that paid his bills while he ran. Plus, it’s illegal anyway!

We need to remember that our presidents have usually been leading national figures, anyway. Rarely do people become leading national figures from the depths of the poor house! Usually they are people that have attained some high station in life and America’s presidents have nearly all been someone of national renown. Our presidents were not notorious, but notable and success breeds riches in most cases. Let’s face it, people that rise to the heights of national prominence usually have more than a few shekels to rub together! They can afford to run for president and nearly all of our presidents were in that fortunate situation.

And today? Today it takes even more money to run for president because campaign finance laws are so Byzantine that self-funders are the first ones that have the capability to step up to the plate. And thanks to whiners like John McCain, we’ve set up a system where rich people are nearly the only ones that can afford to run for president!

Also consider this: do we want a person that couldn’t even make enough money for his family to be secure while he runs for office to become our president? Do we want a guy that can’t even succeed at that minimum rate of success living in the White House and guiding our nation?

Here is another thing to consider. Our founders meant the world of politics to be one of public service. To do that one must have already made his nut in life and had found himself with enough time on his hands and money in the bank to serve the country instead of serving himself.

Do we want people that need to grub for money to be president? Wouldn’t we be just as afraid that such a person would scramble to enrich himself while in office so that once out of office he had enough to live on? Wouldn’t this invite corruption?

Lastly, why is it so bad to want the best, brightest and most successful people to be our leaders? There was a day when being successful was something people admired. But that was before the media decided that capitalism was evil and rich people had to be both pilloried and plundered at the same time (and the logical end game of that meme is personified in the anti-capitalist, anti-success, anti-American Barack Obama).

The whole point here is to ask only this question: if you don’t want evil rich people to run for president, who can run for president and how do you expect them to do it?

So, come on, people. Stop this incessant whining about rich people running for office. It really is a stupid thing to focus on.

This is a complete absurdity. New York Jews sure should keep away from India. Symbols like the one above are plastered up everywhere in India.

On the Nazi symbol the arms face forward. Above you see that they face backward, which is the way they usually (though not always) face in Asia. They are a common Asian good luck symbol.

And this might be an occasion to note that the Nazis did NOT call their symbol a swastika. They called it a “Hakenkreuz” (hooked cross). It was only purblind Anglo-Saxons who confused it with the Asian symbol known in India as a “swastik”.

And why did the Nazis choose that symbol? Because one of their American predecessors (a “Progressive”) said it was two entwined letters “S”. And why “S”? For socialism, of course! The Hakenkreuz is a symbol of socialism!

I might as well straighten out all the confusions about this so I will also mention that the swastik associated with the Indian elephant god (Ganesha) goes the same way as the Nazi symbol. Don’t ask me why but Ganesha devotees were doing it that way long before Hitler came along.

I in fact have on my wall a copper swastik with a Ganesha figure in the middle of it but I guess I had better not take it with me if ever I go to New York again. People who can’t see which way the arms are facing above probably would not be able to see the Ganesha figure in the middle of my swastik either!

The owner of a Brooklyn jewelry store criticized for selling swastika earrings will reportedly stop selling the controversial item.

New York City Councilman Steve Levin, D-Brooklyn, visited Bejeweled in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on Wednesday and met with owner Young Sook Kim, who agreed to remove them from the shelves, the Daily News reports.

A day earlier, politicians and advocates told FoxNews.com that the earrings were the latest example of anti-Semitism in New York and New Jersey. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer demanded that the store immediately stop selling them.

“Let me be clear — a swastika is not a fashion statement,” Stringer said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “It is the most hateful symbol in our culture, and an insult to any civilized person.”

But the store’s manager defended the $5.99 earrings, saying the swastika is a symbol of eternity in Tibetan Buddhism, not just a symbol popularized by Nazi Germany. “It’s not a Nazi symbol,” Kim told FoxNews.com on Wednesday. “I don’t know what’s the problem. My earrings are coming from India as a Buddhist symbol.”

Source

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Since he ascended from nothing to the office of President of the United States, Obama has shown a disdain for most of our western allies that borders on hatred. But he’s reserved his most backhanded treatment to Israel. It isn’t just what he’s done to show Israel that he has no use for them, but it goes all the way down to his every last appointment and this week we see another reminder of that in the comments belched forth by Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, who basically said that anti-Semitism perpetrated by Muslims is really all Israel’s fault.

As Jake Tapper (one of the few real reporters in Washington) reported on Sunday, Gutman made his remarks at a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union on Dec. 2.

At the conference Gutman said, “a distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Gutman imagined that tensions between Muslims and Israel is one, “largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem.”

Gutman said that “throughout the Muslim communities that I visit, and indeed throughout Europe, there is significant anger and resentment and, yes, perhaps sometimes hatred and indeed sometimes and all too growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbors in the Middle East…every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.”

What is all this if not a way to blame the Jews for Muslim anti-Semitism?

Naturally, many in Israel are not happy. In fact, one of the speakers that followed Gutman’s disastrous comments denounced him right there on stage, as well he should, according to Tapper’s report.

But Gutman’s blaming of the Jews for everything that befalls them — akin to blaming the woman for being raped, in my opinion — fits in nicely with Obama’s attitude against Israel. It also fits in with most of his appointees to the Middle East. Some of his past appointees were Susan Power — a woman that said we should be giving military aid to the Palestinians — and Robert Malley — a man that has close working ties to Hamas.

So, it just shouldn’t surprise that yet another Obama team member is blaming the Jews for radical Muslim terror and hatred.

I meant to get to this last week, but “historian” Douglas Brinkley is so forgettable as a writer that it all slipped my mind. But, it’s a slow news day, so let’s take a look at the temper tantrum this hack threw when he visited the House Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 22, shall we?

Brinkley was there to provide his, uh, “insight” into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, testimony that Alaska Rep. Don Young called “an exercise in futility” because the hearing wasn’t going to be changing anyone’s mind about the subject. I’d have to agree that anything including hack Brinkley truly is an exercise in futility. He’s one of the worst writers of popular history out there.

The fireworks began when Rep. Young accidentally called Brinkley by the wrong last name. This sent the scribbler off into paroxysms of pique and spurred him to interrupt not only Rep. Young, but also Committee Chair Doc Hastings when he tried to restore order.

Rep. Young later told the Washington Post’s Amy Argetsinger that he thought that Brinkley was just trying to get publicity with his outburst.

But I disagree with the Congressman. Brinkley is a hack of the first order and has a left-wing agenda. He likely went into that committee hearing with a chip on his shoulder already and was looking for anything to show that he was the newest Captain Planet that wanted to keep drilling for oil out of his wildlife refuge.

Writer Douglas Hackley has also urged President Obama to use his fiat powers to turn the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into a national monument. This would take any possibility of drilling for oil right off the table.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama does this, too. President Obama has shown a fondness for simply “declaring” things into law and is not fond of actually following the law making process. He’s said on numerous occasions that he is looking for ways to get his agenda put into action “without Congress,” and that means without YOU, the people. Let’s face it, you, Mr. and Mrs. America, you have sent your congressmen to Washington and if Obama is pushing his agenda without those duly elected representatives he’s doing so without your input as voters. He cares neither for your opinion nor that of your elected representatives. This is the single most arrogant man we’ve ever had in the Oval Office.

Anyway, back to Brinkley, it should not surprise anyone that he was hot to display his own arrogance and lack of decorum. He is well known as one of the worst writers of popular history in the field. It should also not surprise that he is appealing directly to Obama over your representatives — including those that actually live in the state that Brinkley wants millions of acres declared off limits to use.

It should be remembered that this writer of hackneyed hagiography was one of the cadre of historians that Obama invited to a secret dinner at the White House only months after he assumed the throne. Obama was obviously trying to influence these historians to write the proper history of his regime when all is said and done.

But of those agenda driven writers, Brinkley is the worst of the crew. And it’s not just my biased opinion, either. Even left-wingers have said that Brinkley’s work leaves a lot to be desired.

Brinkley Is well known for having belched out a wholly uncritical take on John F. Kerry’s life during the Senator’s doomed run for the White House against George W. Bush in 2004. The book was little else but sunny campaign puffer that was worthless as a work of history. Before that, Brinkley prostituted himself all over TV as the chief mourner for John Kennedy, Jr. when he flew himself to his death in 1999. Brinkley’s over-the-top celebration of Kennedy and the writer’s ubiquity on TV during those days were so bad that Kennedy’s George Magazine even removed him from their masthead as a contributor. Brinkley was so ridiculous that even the lefty Slate.com once wrote, “Even amid this week’s staggering hyperbole, Brinkley’s emotional profligacy has distinguished him.”” Not a compliment, to be sure.

Brinkley is also one of those slavishly devoted Obamaites that constantly compares Obama to the most famous men of history — even though Obama has done little to rate the praise. In 2011, for instance, Brinkley said that Obama was somehow just like Martin Luther King.

In all, given his history of political activism and his penchant for loosely sourced hagiographic fiction, none of Brinkley’s lack of civility at a mere Committee hearing should surprise us. The only surprise here is that anyone takes him seriously at all.

It’s hard to believe but Frank Rich’s latest exercise in the fantasist’s art comparing JFK to Obama is a wonder to behold. It really is. One might think it satire if Rich had never been presented as a serious essayist by the New York intelligentsia. If this were to be his first public writing, one might think him the new Jonathan Swift for its central premise is simply amazing for its utter deviation from reality. Rich, it seems, thinks that Obama is just like John Kennedy because Kennedy was somehow killed by the “hate that ended his presidency,” or something.

The part that is so fantastic is that Rich devolves to a long ago discredited theory that Kennedy was killed that dark November day in 1963 somehow because of right-wing hate for him. What is so absurd about Rich’s fantastic claim is that he wholly discounts the fact that Kennedy’s killer was a communist. In fact, Rich never even mentions that Lee Harvey Oswald was an avowed communist. He hints at it obliquely but does so in a way that dismisses the ideology as in any way important.

It has been a long time since I’ve read a piece on a public figure that is one part hero worship, one part discounting of that same figure, one part pure fantasy, and one part baseless comparison to the life of a whole other public figure that is also worshiped as a hero without a legitimate reason. But Frank Rich has done it here in a way that brings to mind J.R.R. Tolkein’s intricate and complicated plotting.

There’s so much wrong in this one piece that it’s hard to figure out where to start first, but Rich’s central premise is that JFK was killed because of a climate of “hate” engendered by the blindness of Kennedy’s detractors on the right. This, Rich seems to think, is somehow just like Obama. Well, except that Obama is still alive and no one has even made a single attempt to kill him (God forbid), of course.

Interestingly, Rich does seem to notice that John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s presidency did not live up to its hype. Rich notes that historians have basically rated JFK’s short tenure in the White House as a wash, neither good nor horribly bad. But even with that admission, Rich writes glowingly of Kennedy. It is still all “Camelots” and “brief shinning moments” with little justification for any other reason than mere hero worship. With that, though, Rich succumbs to the worship like so many starry-eyed members of his deluded generation.

But for all his glorious filler — one wonders if Rich has ever had an editor — here is his raison d’être for bothering us with his hagiographic blather:

What defines the Kennedy legacy today is less the fallen president’s short, often admirable life than the particular strain of virulent hatred that helped bring him down. After JFK was killed, that hate went into only temporary hiding. It has been a growth industry ever since and has been flourishing in the Obama years. There are plenty of comparisons to be made between the two men, but the most telling is the vitriol that engulfed both their presidencies.

I guess it wasn’t the communist that killed him, eh? It was the “the vitriol” what dunnit. I’ll tell you what, I’ve been writing these op eds and been plying my particular brand of journalism since early in 2001 and if “the vitriol” could kill, I’d have been killed by liberals years ago! I’d submit that even Rich would have been pushing up daisies long ago if mere “vitriol” was so deadly.

Rich makes all sorts of illogical assumptions in this piece of… well, fiction I guess one must call it. The piece is ostensibly a book review of sorts of three new Kennedy books that are on the shelves just in time for Christmas along with some allusions and snippets of past Kennedy tomes.

One of the nonsensical assumptions he makes in this thing comes after he introduces his absurd “vitriol” premise and begins to talk of one of the books. Rich pens this line: “America’s contemporaneous love of JFK is vivid in its pages, but no less so is the equally American storm of gathering political anger that prefigured his murder.”

“Prefigured”? Look, there is vitriol for every president. Lincoln was called a baboon by his detractors. Jefferson was called a godless atheist. John Adams was called “his rotundity.” Andrew Jackson was portrayed as an uncultured boob, and not without good reason. Conversely, there wasn’t much of an atmosphere of vitriol against James Garfield, but he sure didn’t last long before nutcase Charles J. Guiteau hunted him down and ended his life. And what mounting “vitriol” against the hapless Jerry Ford caused Squeaky Fromme to make an attempt on his life? Heck, even Ronald Reagan was only just getting going in his first term before he was gunned down by John Hinkley. Sure the left hated Reagan, but he’d hardly been around enough to engender any great atmosphere of “vitriol.” Still, to suggest that political vitriol automatically “prefigures” assassination is simply ridiculous and simple-minded.

The fact is, Rich started with a premise and then went looking for “evidence” to prove his point.

Certainly Rich is right to note that Kennedy’s presidency was all fluff floated by a “Technicolor movie star.” Upon examination Kennedy’s actual work as president doesn’t live up to his reputation as a star. Rich has that right. “Kennedy was more “comfortable giving speeches on behalf of civil rights,” he writes, than throwing himself into battle.” Sadly, Rich doesn’t catch that this, and this alone is what makes Kennedy and Obama similar. Neither president is much of a doer. Both are campaigners in chief. Empty suits with “amazingly white” teeth.

Rich continues to see “ominous” portends of Kennedy’s assassination around every corner when he reviews history. “The hatred he aroused, while from a minority of voters, was heated and ominous,” he sonorously intones. Sorry, but to engender assassination, this “hatred” would have to have been angering more than just “a minority of voters.”

Then Rich makes another one of those laughable rhetorical backflips with which to attack the right. Speaking of a “slash-and-burn” anti-Kennedy book that was on the shelves the very month Kennedy was assassinated, Rich gives us this amusing bit of doggeral: “Lasky’s thick slash-and-burn Kennedy book, which even questioned his World War II heroism as the skipper of PT-109, was a precursor of the Swift Boat hatchet job on John Kerry.”

Seriously, Mr. Rich? Lasky’s book being a “precursor” to the swift boating of John Kerry suggests some material connection between the two. Do you have such evidence, Mr. Rich? Just because both JFK and Kerry were once on a small naval boat in a war does not mean that the attacks on them concerning that service were linked. I’d bet that none of the Swift-boaters ever even heard of Lasky’s book attacking Kennedy’s service on PT109! If you have no evidence there is no direct line of succession. Lasky’s book merely become a predecessor, merely “came before” the Swift-boater’s work against Kerry. No connection.

But Rich’s fact free attempt to connect Lasky’s book with the swift-boaters book is precisely the sort of mental gymnastics that Rich makes to “prove” his points.

Speaking of fact free connections and mental gymnastics, after describing the “inferno of seething citizens,” the “anti-Semitic” atmosphere, and the air of “equating racial integration with communism” that novelist Stephen King steeps his Kennedy fantasy piece in, Rich notes that the “Tea Party Society” in King’s book is an anachronistic and partisan jab at modern conservatives which is a “mischievous invention” of author Stephen King.

Got that, Tea Partiers? Despite that all the hate for Jews being seen in America today is coming from the left (see the Occupy Wall Streeters) Frank Rich and Stephen King say that you are the haters! How convenient for Rich’s thesis eh? But what is amusing for both novelist King and Rich’s focus on the conceit of a faux 1963 era “Tea Party Society” is that it fits in with their skewed notions of Kennedy’s era and ours. Anyone trying to seriously compare the atmosphere of Dallas in 1963 and that surrounding Barack Obama today would likely leave out the “mischievous inventions” of fantasy novelists. But not Rich. He’s got a point to prove, ya know?

And now for some pop psychology to rear its ugly but inevitable head.

Quoting the sensationalistic and slightly mystical writings of one William Manchester from his 1967 book The Death of a President, Rich treats us to the sort of divining of the impenetrable that only comes with the regrettable penchant of revisionist “historians” to resort to that aforementioned pop psychology.

… He writes that “individual commissioners had strong reservations” about exonerating Dallas but decided to hedge rather than stir up any controversy that might detract from the report’s “widest possible acceptance.” While Manchester adds that “obviously, it is impossible to define the exact relationship between an individual and his environment,” he strongly rejected the universal description of Oswald as “a loner.” No man, he writes, is quarantined from his time and place. Dallas was toxic. The atmosphere was “something unrelated to conventional politics—a stridency, a disease of the spirit, a shrill, hysterical note suggestive of a deeply troubled society.” Duly observing that even the greatest presidents have been vilified in their time—Lincoln as a baboon and Jefferson as “Mad Tom”—Manchester saw something “more than partisan zeal” at work in this case. He detected “a chiaroscuro that existed outside the two parties, a virulence which had infected members of both.” Dallas had become the gaudy big top for a growing national movement—“the mecca for medicine-show evangelists of the National Indignation Convention, the Christian Crusaders, the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry societies.”

Yes, yes, yes. “No man is an island,” so obviously the raving commie that killed the president was busy soaking up the attitudes from the other side of the political aisle from which he sat and this, you see, made him kill a president.

I don’t know about you but when I am driven to do something, it isn’t because I was inspired toward action by what my political enemies want me to do! Are you? Is anyone? I mean, aren’t you driven to do the opposite of what your political enemies are calling for?

Ah, but let’s not let logic get in the way of Frank Rich’s agenda, shall we? He sees a right that “has tried to deflect any connection between its fevered Kennedy hatred and Oswald’s addled psyche with the fact that the assassin had briefly defected to the Soviet Union.”

The logical fallacies of this line of nonsense is staggering.

Now, there is another thing that one is struck by with Frank Rich’s latest anti-conservative, anti-Tea Party screed. One cannot help but notice that, to prove his central thesis, Rich is relying on the assumed veracity of a fantasy writer’s plot points for his sci-fi oriented story where a guy goes back in time to stop an assassination of a president.

Rich takes the fantasy land that leftist writer King created out of thin air to “prove” that the “hate in the air” in 1963 is somehow just like today not to mention that said “hate” was really responsible for killing Kennedy — as opposed to the mental disease of the communist, lone-gunman who did the deed.

Close to the end of his article Rich indulges another absurdity trying to compare Kennedy and Obama. They are both “centrists in the Democratic parties of their respective eras,” he claims. This is guffaw worthy. Kennedy was not a doctrinaire, far left-winger, to be sure. He was certainly liberal, but not an extremist. Kennedy was in keeping with the Democrat Party of his day. On the other hand, Obama most clearly is an extremist. That Obama is also a proponent of crony capitalism does in no way make of him a “centrist.”

One has a sneaking suspicion that with this piece, Frank Rich is praying for an Obama assassination so that the utter failure that is Obama can be ignored while his acolytes can make a martyr of him. Just like they did with the increasingly failing JFK presidency whose assassination enshrined him forever in “Camelot” quite regardless that his actual work in the White House was only middling at best.

Rich finishes this amazing retreat from reality with this:

On the other hand, read Manchester or 11/22/63 or any other account of that time, and the vitriol that was aimed at Kennedy in life seems as immediate as today. It’s as startling as that “You lie!” piercing the solemnity of a presidential address like a gunshot—or the actual gunshots fired at the White House last week by another wretched waif. In the end, that political backdrop is what our 44th and 35th presidents may have most in common. The tragedy of the Kennedy cult is that even as it fades, the hothouse brand of American malice that stalked its hero stalks our country still.

It’s a nice summation of his premise, if entirely built on a foundation of lies. I’d say that it really is too bad that Frank Rich isn’t shooting for a Swiftian production with this thing. He has all the reality-on-its-head elements, after all.

Finally, isn’t it interesting that all hate always comes from “the right” to these people? Writing in the midst of the Occupy “movement” where such hate has daily been on egregious display — with rapes, property destruction, even deaths as a result — Frank Rich only sees warning signs coming from the right. He truly is living in a fantasyland, isn’t he?

Talk about making a mistake everyone can see! Atheists in California have done a disservice to their own crusade to spread atheism by launching a new billboard campaign that ascribes a false quote to Thomas Jefferson. That’s right, they’ve essentially become liars for atheism.

In Costa Mesa, California a group of atheists calling themselves Backyard Skeptics have unveiled a billboard to sell atheism to the general public that features a quote they claim came from Thomas Jefferson, the Third President of the United States.

“I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature,” the billboard “quotes” the president as having said. “It is founded on fables and mythology,” this quote concludes.

That would be a stinging rebuke of Christianity, indeed… were it true. Unfortunately for this little atheist group it seems that their quote is a fake quote the group found on the Internet and assumed was real.

The atheist group thought the quote came from a letter that Jefferson wrote to a “Dr. Woods.” But there is one little problem. Jefferson scholars cannot find such a letter. The Jefferson Library confirms that no such letter exists. The library also notes that no such phrase or any combination thereof exists in any of Jefferson’s extensive collection of papers.

The atheist group, seems to shrug off their embarrassing mistake, though, telling reporters that they will look into it later. Worse, they told the Orange Register that even if the quote was fake it really represented Jefferson’s views anyway. Where have we heard “fake but accurate” before?

As the Jefferson library notes, it’s a bit hard to believe that Jefferson saw no “redeeming features” in Christianity since he spent months cutting and pasting and rearranging the Christian Bible to his own liking! If there was nothing worth the effort in there he had a funny way of showing it.

But talk about true believers, these atheists. They’ll let neither logic nor the word of all the scholars in the world that Jefferson never uttered their favorite quote deter them that he somehow despised Christianity anyway!

Sadly, Jon Cassidy, writer for the Orange Register, was also bamboozled by another atheist lie about Jefferson in his piece. He furthered the lie that Jefferson “was a Deist.”

Jefferson was a Deist, who believed in a hands-off creator, not a Christian, but he adored the humanistic aspects of Jesus’ teachings, according to the library. A library report cites his letter to William Short of Oct. 31, 1819, in which he called the teachings of Jesus the “outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man.”

This Jefferson-the-Deist business is has been a lie told by atheists for at least a generation. In fact, it is a calumny visited on most of our founders. It is also not true.

Never in his life did Jefferson call himself a Deist. He called himself a Unitarian (what we might call a Unitarian Universalist today). He did not call himself a Deist. Why should we call him something he never called himself?

Additionally, while many modern atheists and half-informed hobbyists in things historical imagine that all or even many of the founders were “Deists,” the truth is that almost none of them were — at least not by their own admission. Washington wasn’t. Hamilton wasn’t. John Adams sure wasn’t. Neither was Madison or Monroe.

It is absolutely true that a large portion of our most famous founders had a great amount of disdain for organized religion and/or the priesthood. After all, students of history that they were, the founders knew that religious orders and churches were involved in some of the worst massacres in human history. Not only that but such monstrous actions were within recent memory of the founder’s era. It’s only natural that they were suspicious of organized religion.

But we simply cannot pretend that this country was not founded by thousands of extremely devoted Christians. Even if a few of our most well known founders were somehow secret Deists, not many of their peers and co-founders nor their supporters back in their home states were anything but sincere believers.

After all, religion was one of the first things that our founders strived to protect! Remember that whole “freedom of religion” thing?

Perhaps two leading founders at one time claimed themselves Deism for themselves, but that is all I’ve ever run across.

When he was a young man Ben Franklin once wrote that he was a Deist. But he was hardly a “regular” Deist — if there is such a thing. When he was young, Franklin thought perhaps every universe had its own god but that perhaps they did not involve themselves too much in their own little realms. Not very orthodox Deism, that.

The other was Governor K. Morris, the man responsible for helping write the Constitution of the United States. According to a book on Morris written by Richard Brookheiser, Morris claimed Deism for himself.

The problem is that many historians ascribe Deism to our founders (even Morris was publicly an Episcopalian) based on those historian’s interpretations of the founder’s views. These claims based on historian’s feelings then get passed down from one generation to the next as “fact” even though it is not based in fact. Certainly it may be true that our founders harbored Deist ideas and it may be true that they feared a political backlash in a nation filled with Christians for saying so out loud, but if they didn’t call themselves Deists, how can we? The fact is, even in their private papers almost none of them accepted Deism as their own.

In all the years of reading on the founders I’ve done I’ve never seen any other founders calling themselves Deists. If someone out there has proof otherwise I’d love to hear it. But please don’t send me to a website. Remember what Abe Lincoln said: “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” In fact, don’t even take my word for all this. Look it up yourself. If you can find words written by a founder claiming Deism for themselves, please let me see it.

But let’s not take the revisionism by decades of historians with an agenda as “fact.”

Before Barack Obama swore to uphold the Constitution and to protect Americans from enemies foreign and domestic, early warnings were pinging about like signals off a cell tower. Predictions: 1.) The economy would nosedive and 2.) America would have a renewed military presence in Africa before the end of Obama’s first term. What was not foreseen was the Obama administration’s fixation on “snitching.” They are for it. Obama brazenly initiated his report-on-your-neighbor, big brother initiative via a White House run “snitch website” called “flag.”

Detecting the distinctively foul objective of creating an Obama enemies list, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) took to the Senate floor to accuse Obama of attempting to shut down political opposition. Cornyn also sent Obama a letter demanding to know the intent of the White House’s snitch site where Obamatrons could routinely rat-out their neighbors who disagreed with Obama’s policies. Main targets were those in opposition to Obamacare, the socialist medical overhaul that will wreck the American economy for decades if implemented. In the face of fascist-laden, unspoken threats of reprisal, red-blooded patriots from across the nation emailed the snitch site and turned themselves in as overt acts of defiance.

Yet, Obama tried it again. With sliding ratings and talk from neighborhoods to water coolers about his failed policies and socialist agendas eroding his base, “snitching” was resurrected. Snitches are now directed to “Attack Watch.” The Obama campaign essentially put Americans on notice: Written criticism or verbally attacking Obama under your 1st Amendment right of freedom of speech is an affront to the regime and could get you reported. Again, patriots across the land mocked the site by reporting “themselves” in further defiance of the site’s intended intimidation and implied retribution.

Attempts to snuff out political dissent have a long history. Obama’s propensity for it puts him in an unsavory club of notorious politicians turned tyrants who cast fear into their opposition and ran their nation by edict or currently, in Obama’s case, by executive order. Politician-turned-tyrant occurs when the people allow the usurpation of power to go unchecked. Obama’s radical abuse of the U.S. Constitution and overriding of the legislative authority of Congress would have our founding fathers boldly decrying a tyranny in the making. Snitching coupled with President Obama wanting his own militia, as well-funded and as powerful as the U.S. military, must give all Americans pause. Weakening America’s military is a standing Socialist goal. The coup d’état is that the Obama militia and U.S. military would report to the same Commander-in-Chief. Prediction #3: Action to establish a presidential/civilian militia will be fast-tracked — should Obama and a majority of his Progressive Democrat Party be reelected in 2012.

In tandem with #3, is Prediction #4 for 2012. Informed minds know that John Kennedy entered the Vietnam War with advisors, a pattern Obama now repeats in Africa. The U.S. military can be weakened or bled-out of funding and personnel in areas of the world such as Africa, where no security threat to the U.S. currently exists. If reelected, Obama’s expansion into Africa is imminent. Having American troops in the region makes Africa a magnet for America’s enemies.

Political leaders turned tyrants, that are armed with civilian militias and legions of snitches used to subdue dissent from the people, fill the history books with names like Stalin, Mao, Hitler and others who began as benign Socialist or Marxist politicians. It is history that exposes or demands comparisons with Obama’s policies. Those tyrants started with civilian militias loyal to them and not the citizenry. Snitching or informing was first encouraged and then government mandated. For some, snitching on their neighbor meant survival for themselves and their families — for a while. In the book, Darwin’s Racists – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, pages 54-56, there is a telling account by Russian Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn of the brutal results of “snitching” that denied the Soviet citizenry’s’ right to criticize its government.

Prediction #5: The mainstream media will continue to ignore such threats until they realize that their rights to freedom of the press have also been overrun by government edict. Historically, it is the fate of all journalists in Socialist countries worldwide. Snitching is an equal opportunity offender. Though the Black community faces ostracizing by other Blacks if they speak negatively about the destructive policies of the first Black President, many have rejected what they call un-American activities and an assault on freedom and have also turned themselves in to “Attack Watch” in defiance and defense of their Constitutional freedoms.

A government that asks its citizens to snitch on one another cannot itself be trusted. Snitching is about controlling the opposition and eventually the entire populace. The end result is that a penalty is levied whether through suppression of speech or oppression of a people. It is divisive and ultimately dangerous, especially in the hands of leaders with delusions of grandeur or narcissistic personality disorders. Snitching is the worm that decays and weakens a society in preparation for the rot of Socialism and tyranny. Why is it again, that Obama wants Americans to snitch?