Over at Comments on the Contemporary, James posted the lyrics and commentary to America the Beautiful. I appreciate his sentiments but realize that in the modern day, such a pipe dream from days long past doesn't reflect the modern, progressive standards of today's discerning American. With this in mind, I offer a new version of

America the Beautiful - Liberal Style!

O beautiful are liberal eyes
That see better than you
A government far overspent
And Congress' deep doo-doo!
America! America!
What has become of thee?
Thy grand allure
Is cow manure
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for cap and trade
For spending without fear
For greenhouse gases thought manmade
And taxes we hold dear!
America! America!
What has become of thee?
We'll pay the debt
Of government
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful our president
Obama is our man
Though maybe not a resident
He tells us Yes we can!
America! America!
What has become of thee?
Replace the Good
With Obamahood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for wordly praise
We give apologies
To ev'ry foreign government
And to our enemies!
America! America!
What has become of thee?
Praise on our lips
For dictatorships
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for gay desires
For same sex marriages
For overthrowing civil rights
And family heritage!
America! America!
What has become of thee?
Sex ed in schools
Will bend the rules
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for women's choice
Abortion's now our meme
For feminism's identity
We can't hear fetus screams!
America! America!
What has become of thee?
Our children's cries
Are now despised
From sea to shining sea!

May common sense prevail in our great country and restore America to its rightful place - and beauty - in the world. Remember what our founders fought for during the Revolutionary War.

John Adams: "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

George Washington: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

Thomas Jefferson: "The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object."

Patrick Henry: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Mike S. Adams on Townhall.com brought this one to light. Reported by the Associated Press.

Here's another Duke University rape and controversy in the making. Frank M. Lombard, associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke University was arrested and charged with offering his adopted five year old son for sex acts.

The arrest warrant states that a person, later identified as Lombard, used video chat on the internet to perfom sex acts on a child under the age of ten. The child was later identified as one of two adopted children of Lombard. The complaint says Lombard's chat room ID lists him as "pervv dad for fun."

The warrant states that an astute police detective contacted Lombard through Yahoo! Instant Messenger. Lombard admitted performing sexual acts on his adopted five year old son. He wrote that he would drug the boy with Benadryl before molesting him. He admitted that he waited to molest the boy until his partner was out of town.

The warrant continues describing the next day, when Lombard offered his five year old to the detective to perform sex acts on him. The detective said he lived out of state, making the solicitation a federal offense.

OK, those are the particulars of the warrant against Frank Lombard.

Interestingly, the AP story neglected to mention that the molested child is black. In fact, both of Lombard's adopted children are black. As the warrant implies, both children were molested. The AP story also neglected to mention that Lombard and his partner are homosexuals raising adopted children.

As Mike Adams points out, mentioning those two facts might hurt the cause of homosexual civil rights and homosexual adoption. So, of course, those little details are left out of this sordid case.

After Mike Adams wrote his article, I decided, as he did, that these details need to come to light. As he states:

I believe that certain coalitions must be broken. And certain movements must be harmed. Let the political fallout begin. (Townhall.com)

Lombard, if convicted, faces 20 years in prison. I'm certain many of you will agree that time served is too good for the likes of Frank Lombard.

Another massive bill sits at the crest of passing the US House of Representatives. Dubbed climate change legislation by the news media, the 1200 page bill comes up for a final vote today and will likely pass through the House. Politico reports:

The House neared a decisive vote on sweeping climate-change legislation Friday afternoon — with Democratic leaders racing to corral votes on a bill that Republicans said they hadn’t even seen yet...

Republican accused the Democrats of ramming the bill through the House. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) asked repeatedly if there was even a copy of the current version of the bill anywhere in the House chamber. Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher, in the speaker’s chair, repeatedly dodged the question.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the bill’s sponsors, finally rose to say that a single copy of the current version of the bill was available at the speaker’s desk – and on the Internet, which members would have to leave the floor to access. (Politico)

Here's my beef. Why does Nancy Pelosi keep insisting on ramming through bills this year which obviously have deep and lasting impact on the US, especially when no one, absolutely no one, incredibly no one, let me repeat no one, has any idea what these bills will do.

No one yet has any idea of the far-reaching problems and effects of this year's stimulus bill. Nearly all current analyses are not favorable.

No one knows has any idea what the effects will be of such sweeping changes to US energy policy implanted in this current bill. No one can even follow the pork, since no one's seen the final version of the bill in time to vote for it.

No one knows what's really in the bill. I doubt a single member of the House has a clue what's included. I know they don't have a clue of the bill's ramifications should it pass into law.

What can we conclude from this style of government - this pass first and ask questions later approach?

We can conclude that House Democrats are more concerned with political correctness than with correct politics. We can conclude that Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats are less concerned with the environment than with hiding the contents of their legislation. We can conclude that lobbies are a far, far worse problem than anyone suspects. We can conclude that the President and Congress have more concern for their pet project than for the American people. We can conclude that rising energy costs (and be certain they will significantly rise) are not important to government. (Energy costs will effect everyone, the poor as well as the rich, despite the "protections" in the current bill.) We can conclude that those who hold power for the moment have absolutely no concern for the wishes and will of the American people.

Can we afford to gamble our future on such a pass first, ask questions later government? Can you afford it?

Steven Crowder shows the news media what stories really matter the most.

This one's a must watch. I'm only sorry this woman was governor of Arizona all those years.

I am glad George W. Bush is no longer president of the United States. Now that we have Barack Obama in office, I can rest peacefully, knowing full well that all of the great abuses of the old regime have been replaced.

I'm glad the news media's on Obama's side.
Frankly, listening to the media whine and grumble under every move Bush made was a bit tiresome. Every day it was gloom this and doom that. With the news media firmly in Obama's camp, we are no longer subjected to such horrific stories about the end of the world. We are much better off not having the news media tell us how bad off we are.

I'm glad we're done with Bush's billion dollar deficit.
The Democrat Congress under Bush cried and screamed and beat their collective breast in aguish over the mounting Bush deficit. It was good to hear that fiscal responsibility was the order of the day. We heard their cries and we now have a more fiscally responsible Congress which understood that the only way out of Bush's billion dollar debt was to pass a trillion dollar stimulus. Despite what the numbers say, we've practically halved the debt burden by means of our vastly stimulated and growing economy.

I'm glad unemployment is down.
Under Bush, we mistakenly gaged unemployment by how many people were out of work. Bush could never seem to do any better than about five and a half percent unemployment. As we've come to find out, it's not the unemployment index but government-created, potentially employed that matter most. Without government job creation, we're dead in the water, as Obama has pointed out. Thankfully he's created several thousand government jobs on the path to our recovery. Otherwise, I might be worried at the rapidly rising unemployment statistic. It's all good as long as Obama's creating new jobs and figures unemployment by projecting job creation.

I'm glad we have no more huge corporations telling government what to do.
Big corporations just pushed Bush around and told him what to do. Obama's fixed that problem once and for all. Who says that government can't run GM or AIG every bit as good as the old, outdated management and greedy CEOs? I rest easier knowing that corporations now have to bow to government's authority instead of the other way around. Corporations will run so much more efficiently without having to deal with capitalistic urges.

I'm glad we no loger have an energy crisis.
Bush single-handidly created an energy crisis through his long addiction to oil. (In fact, I understand he used to shoot up at least twice a day using a borrowed needle.) Now with Obama, the oil crisis is over. We no longer need to worry about drilling for new sources of oil here in the US, especially since we are best buddies with Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. We also have all the oil refineries we need and alternative energy is just around the corner waiting for us to use it.

I'm glad the war on terror is over.
Bush certainly got us into a big mess with the war on terror. Now that Obama's in office and the war's over, we no longer have any worries about al-Qaida or the Taliban. The Taliban have been completely contained by Pakistani forces and no longer pose any threat in Pakistan or, especially, Afghanistan. Bush could never seem to find Osama bin Laden, so ignoring him is the best policy. Obama's also made it clear that our distrust of Hamas was misplaced. Iraq is now completely stable and all of our troops are on their way home even as I write.

And Guantanamo? Bush certainly mishandled it. He made the US a lot of enemies by detaining a few, peace-loving Muslims in that festering, rat hole. Now that Obama's declared that he will release the detainees, life is good and the Muslim world is now on our side. In fact, just saying that we're closing down the old place makes me feel a lot better, whether we actually close it down or not. That's certainly better policy than Bush ever came up with.

I'm glad we're a kinder, gentler government.
Bush took power and abused it by duping the American people to allow anti-terrorism laws and to create a Department of Homeland Security. Now that Obama's in office, the abuses have all disappeared and Obama has given up all that executive power that made Bush so dangerous. We no longer suffer any abuses of domestic spying, military tribunals, wiretaps, phone intercepts, or preditor assassinations. Janet Napolitano is right on top of terrorism. Since we are now a secure nation under a competent leader, we can even give up our interests in Afghanistan and Iraq. We had no busines being there in the first place.

I'm glad we have no corruption in government.
The Bush administration was repleat with corruption. Hardly a day passed when we didn't hear some new intrigue. With Obama, however, we no longer have to worry about corruption. In fact, if it weren't for the occasional Republican, like Mark Sanford, the news agencies would have no stories of corruption to report. We've clearly misunderstood the intent and actions of such good people as Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, John Murtha, Tom Daschle, or Timothy Geithner. President Obama really had nothing to do with the group formerly known as Acorn and we've successfully gotten rid of lobbyists.

I'm glad the climate change crisis is over.
One of the main reasons we sweated under George W. Bush was because of his anti-earth global warming policies.Obama's brought more than hope and change to politics, he's also brought a change in the global warming crisis. Al Gore has stopped jetting all across the planet to tell us we're doomed. The crisis is over. If that wasn't sufficient enough, Obama's new cap and trade tax will certainly push us back into the green. I, for one, am looking forward to paying around $3,700 more a year in taxes because I know Barack Obama will put them to good use in protecting our environment.

I'm glad the world now loves the US.
When Bush was in office, you could almost hear the cries of "Death to the US Empire" drifting across the ocean from all points across the globe. Those voices, thankfully, have been stilled through the sheer willpower and amiable graces of Obama. Since Obama flew around the world to apologize for the US, world opinion has markedly increased to favor us. If Bush had not been such a hard-liner, we could have enjoyed countless years of peace among all nations, especially with those which seemed to hate us the most: Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, or Cuba. We can observe a new carefree existence by watching how unconcerned Obama is during times of supposedly peak crises. Threats from North Korea? Obama's taking his wife out on another great date to New York. Iran's falling to pieces? Obama still has time for an ice cream cone with the kids.

I'm glad there's no more axis of evil.
Bush really screwed things up by alienating three terrific governments like Iraq, Iran and North Korea. It's such a shame that he couldn't see the harm he was doing through name calling and finger pointing. As it turns out, we needn't worry about these three at all. North Korea's being just a juvenile blowhard by threatening to use nuclear weapons. We all know they don't really mean it. Iraq is practically a utopia now that Obama's in office to fix Bush's Big Mistake. Ahmadinejad's posturing over nuclear weapons is all talk. He's really just a nice, misunderstood guy underneath that rough exterior. The people of Iran all agree.

I'm glad there's no more racism.
Justice Sotomayor has certainly convinced me that no matter how much I studied law and practiced it, I could never come up to her standard of justice by virtue of her race and gender. We certainly could use a lot more people who judge content of character based on such solid reasoning. When the US Senate passed a bill to apologize for US slavery and segregation, I knew that we had finally achieved racial equality here in the US.

Yes, the old Bush years are behind us and we now live in a Brave New World led by Obama. Gone are the billions in deficits under Bush. Gone is jobless recovery, greedy corporations, nasty oil shortages, government excesses and corruption, and world distrust of America. I feel a lot better off with Obama at the helm. Don't you?

The Snarky Files. Snarky means several things. I prefer the definition of "sharply critical." Here's my take on some news stories this past week. No real news here, just snark.

Post-partum
PBS board members announced that PBS will phase out religious broadcasting. Under the insane assumption that the 1st Amendment means that publicly funded means to become anti-religious, PBS will no longer have the guts to show such excellent shows as Christmas concerts or Christmas mass. It's such a shame, since Christmas mass is the only time I actually watch PBS.

Obama's Tall Tales
Victor Davis Hanson is a classics professor at Stanford and Emeritus at California State University, Fresno. His outspoken and conservative approach to politics has earned him national acclaim and recognition. (Liberals hate his guts which is a major reason I admire him.) In a recent article, he points out several historical inaccuracies that President Obama spread as fact. Check out the article at the National Review Online.

Polyamory
A long time ago, this was called "cheating on your spouse." After the 60s sexual revolution, it was called "swinging." In the 70s, it was called "open marriage." Nowadays, it's called polyamory. These are folks who feel that one spouse isn't enough. They are sexually attracted to more than one person at a time. (Not to be confused with those evil polygamists who are all right-wing extremist. Polyamorist are left wing extremists and are, therefore, perfectly acceptable in modern society.) These are folks who also feel the new same sex marriage laws are discriminatory since they exclude more than two people from marriage.

"We have rights to love any way we want unless we are harming other people," said [Ashara] Love. "Like the air we breathe, we have a right to be and do and say whatever is our full expression, and this to me is a civil right." (ABC "Now Sold Out to the White House" News)

You know what? If same sex marriage advocates can argue this way to neuter marriage, polyamorist advocates have a point. (Too bad it's on the top of their heads.)

Apologies
In wake of President Obama apologizing to the world for the evil empire that is the United States, the US Senate passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and segregation. In this case, the adage "better late than never" doesn't begin to cover how vacuous and empty a gesture that is. Yep, I feel better about the US, now that racism's completely erased since we have such a caring and feeling government to issue such apologies.

Rules to Live By
The Brooksville, Florida city council voted to adopt this rule for city workers:

The revision...lists "the observable lack of undergarments and exposed undergarments" as "unacceptable attire." (Click Orlando)

In other words, city workers must now wear underwear. The world asks the obvious question: Why, oh why, did the city have to actually enumerate this rule? The mind reels at the possibilites.

It's just nice to know that in Brooksville, at least, the meter reader and the garbage truck driver will be appropriately attired with underwear.

Lack of Parenting Skills
If my blogging pleas for good parenting have fallen on deaf ears, consider this:

Determined to drive evil spirits out of her daughter, a Queens mom performed a bizarre voodoo fire ritual that left the 6-year-old girl scarred for life, prosecutors say. (NY Daily News)

What's happened to the good moms and dads in the world? Of course, it is the children who are the ones to suffer.

Thomas Jefferson
Fundamental truths from one of the best of the Founders of the US:



Doesn't Make Census
A Minnesota lawmaker has vowed not to complete the census:

Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household. (The Washington Times)

Conservative bloggers have made a great deal out of this story but an overriding question stares us all in the face. Do we really trust the organization formerly known as ACORN which will be hired to conduct the census? And for that matter, do we really trust the US government?

Pink Light District
British Village Idiot Sacha Baron Cohen promoted his new movie, Bruno, this week. (Bruno will be my most anticipated movie never to see in my lifetime. Michael Moore's new movie comes in a close third, right behind Year One.) In celebration, Cohen opened a new gay brothel in Amsterdam. Why? Because the world doesn't have enough man hookers.

Western Withdrawal

The housing bust sent the unemployment rate in the West bolting past 10 percent in May -- the first time in more than 25 years that a region of the United States has suffered double-digit joblessness. (Yahoo! Finance)

As we say here in Arizona: "How's that hope and change working out for you?" I wonder how we'll fare after the new Health Care bill plunges the country into maelstrom debt and the new Cap and Trade tax takes another chunk of money out of our wallets?

Disfunctional
The New York state Senate seems to have fallen apart, at least as far as Governor David A. Paterson is concerned. This week he scolded the Senate for not getting any work done. The governor ordered special sessions to force the Senate to act. Is the governor concerned with the budget? Is he concerned with unemployment? Is he concerned with the schools?

Apparently not, since first on the agenda for Wednesday is to vote on same sex marriage. Yep, social engineering, neutering marriage, and wrecking havoc on marriage laws is certainly the number one issue facing New Yorkers.

Here's the question no one's asking: Who's paying off Governor Paterson to push this gay activist bill?

It's About Time
President Obama finally made a statement about Iran:

"I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost." (Reuters)

Obama's first mistake was becoming buddy-buddies with Iran's president Ahmadinejad. When Ahmadinejad turned out to be every bit as ruthless and authoritarian as expected, Obama found himself between a rock and a hard place. The rock was his silly cosying up to authoritarian leaders. The hard place was the all too obvious abuse of violence and power from Iran's government.

Obama's second mistake was going for ice cream instead of responding to the mounting riots in Iran.

The US had a real opportunity to stand on the side of democracy, freedom, liberty and to gain the good will of the people of Iran.

Obama's blown another chance at real leadership and real change.

Sometimes truth makes for strange bedfellows. Toronto's pride parade will take place soon. As their main website announces:

As part of Toronto’s 29th Annual Pride Week celebration, the LGBTTIQQ2S communities, families and friends will unveil this year’s Pride Parade....It will shine with all colours of the rainbow and showcase the wonders of our heritage as one community.

LGBTTIQQ2S???

In their attempt to be inclusive, gay activists (at least in Toronto) have actually encumbered their acronym as LGBTTIQQ2S.

Here's why I mention this. Last March I wrote a story entitled Gay Rights Ad Absurdum where I pointed out that gay activists had created an artificial social construct and were now attempting to subvert the civil rights movement in order to gain protected class status based on their artificial construct. Trying to create protected class status based on sexual preferences presents more than a legal mess. By including so many sexual preferences, where and when do gays achieve a "class" to protect?

Here's my original post. Notice how accurately the "gay community" has arrived at the absurd.

---

I met up with Ron Clouster at Jillian's, a local club in the upscale center of the city. He sat at a high table, near the entrance and well away from the bar and the noise. He swirled his drink, remaining aloof to the milling crowd around him and the constant dull beat of dance music. He was surprisingly short, about five foot six or seven. He wore a plain white t-shirt which stretched tight across his shoulders and upper arms, showing off well defined muscles. He motioned for me to sit.

"So, what's this about?" I asked, stepping up into the over-tall chair.

Ron looked at me for a moment, perhaps unsure of my motives in agreeing to meet with him for an interview. Ron Clouster is a key spokesperson for the gay activist group Blind Justice United.

After an uncomfortable minute, he spoke. "We're going to broaden the number of groups included as part of the community," he said. Ron referred to the gay community.

"Broaden? How?" I asked. I find short and open questions best for interviews. It allows me to gain information, even from people as openly hostile as Ron.

"Well, you're familiar with the term LGBT?"

"Yes, of course."

"We don't want anyone to feel left out. There are many other groups which need to be part of this," he gestured around with his arm, pointing to the surrounding club. "They need to belong and join in the fight to gain their civil rights."

"Who's this 'they' you refer to?" I inquired.

He started to warm up to the topic. "Well, we need to be sure to add queeers into the group - LGBTQ, you know?"

"Yes," I said, "queers and questioning."

"That's right. It means both. So we want to add two Qs to the end - LGBTQQ."

"LGBTQQ?"

"Yes," he said. "We don't want either group to get lost in the shuffle and get ignored by the courts."

"I see."

"Well, and also we would like to include Two-Spirit people."

"Two-Spirit?" I asked.

"Yes," he nodded. His voice grew stronger and he became more self-assured with each new group. "Native American gays decided back in the 90s that the traditional idea of Two-Spirit referred to them. That is, that there are some people who are born with two spirits, a male and a female." He stopped to get my reaction for a moment. I merely nodded at him to continue.

"Anyway, Two-Spirit people have been recognized by Native Americans for years, so we want to include them as well."

"And that would mean...."

"LGBTQQTS," Ron replied.

"Go on."

"At our last meeting of the BJU, we realized that we were ignoring whole groups of people who should become part of the community. For example, there are a whole range of folks who are into kink."

"No kidding."

"Yeah, it's amazing." He nodded to emphasize the point. "We thought about how to add that group into the community and decided that kink was a generic enough term, but to be on the safe side, we also included people who are dominant as well as those who are submissive."

"So now your group is called..."

"LGBTQQTSKDS!" Ron was getting pretty excited about his topic and rushed on. "The next group was a difficult decision for BJU. We had to determine if polygamy would be accepted in the community."

"Polygamy?" I raised my eyebrows. "I thought you didn't like polygamists?"

"Not at all" he said. "It's not the polygamy part, it's those evil Mormons who are trying to take away our rights. Once we realized, though, that Mormons, I mean those folks in Utah, have not really been associated with polygamy for over a hundred years, it was time to include that lifestyle with our own."

"Polygamy. Really." I shook my head.

"Yeah! Well, we don't want to be sexists, so we're including both polygyny and polyandry. Women who want more than one husband ought to have that right."

"So now your group is called...?"

"LGBTQQTSKDSPP."

"Is that everyone?" I asked.

"Well, no. We had one guy in our group that insisted we include gays who are celibate, so we added GBC to the end of the acronym." He looked at me expectantly.

I thought for a minute before venturing with, "LGBTQQTSKDSPPGBC?"

"That's it!" he exclaimed. "You've got the idea."

"Are there any other groups you missed?"

"We thought of several others in our last BJU meeting," he said, "but we didn't want to go too far with our first revision."

"Yes, that sounds reasonable," I ventured. A pause. "What about Monogamous Married People?"

He became visibly upset that I would mention the MMP and started to shout. "After what those people did to us with Proposition 8? Those haters kept us from our civil rights!" Ron stood up, wildly gesturing. "Why would we want to include them? There's no room in the world for such hateful people!"

"OK. OK," I held up my hands to fend off his outburst. "I was just wondering." Ron slowly sat down. We remained in silence for a second or two while Ron regained his composure. I broke the silence first. "Where do you go from here?"

He hesitated a moment longer, testing me, then replied, "all people are equal under the law and should enjoy the protection of the law. We need to let people know that we are what we are. We're starting law suits in both California and Massachusetts as test cases to remove any legal barriers against LGBTQQTSKDSPPGBC."

We only talked for a moment longer about the BJU strategy, until Ron indicated that he had to rush off to his next interview. I thanked him for his time and we stood and shook hands. I wished him luck and he thanked me for my time.

As he started for the door, I called after him. "What about hermaphrodites?"

He stood for a moment, snapped his fingers, grinned and waved as he walked out the door.

I await the update to the BJU website to announce to the world the new LGBTQQTSKDSPPGBCH community. After all, protected class status really shouldn't exclude anyone. At least not according to Ron and the Blind Justice United.