Obama Shuck’s & Jives on TV for Young Voters

If things could not get any stranger in this nation, the President of the United States sets up a campaign visit to a network television show to attempt to court the “youth vote”. Mr. Hollywood needs to put on a good show for the rubs since he has nothing else to actually give them for his 3 and ½ years in office.

Mr. Obama is doing what he does best, taking his one-man good guy traveling socialist tent show on the road. He’ll sing like Al Green, he’ll dance like Bo Jangles and he’ll tell ‘em all what they want to hear. He’ll be the glad handing, upbeat and cheerful guy everybody would like to have a beer with. Well, almost everybody.

The real irony in the president’s attempt to revitalize the youth vote is that these are the very people he and his policies are trampling the most and relegating them all to a future of wage slavery. Really, because of this man and his anti-private enterprise, big government supporting, never stop spending and never stop taxing approach to government is exactly why the younger generation, the recent college graduates and those 20-somethings out there in the workforce today, will have no future.

The reason Barack Obama is speaking at so many colleges these days is that the adults have had it with his “Just like you” act and the only people who still give him the time of day are the student activist groups and campus radicals that flourish under the government subsidized university system. This is the very system that has put these students under the Cuban heel of debilitating student loan debt. There is no need to cut costs at the University level since the government run student loan program will lend you any amount of money you need to cover the charge. That’s taxpayer money I might add, taken out of the economy for the funding of student loans.

But without a good job, you won’t be able to pay it back. This is why student loan debt is approaching $1 Trillion, another bubble just waiting to burst.

Have you heard the spots on the radio? Pick one, they’re all the same: Obama speaking in front of a student assembly and he’ll say something and everybody starts screaming and his voice will rise above the din to reach his trademark crescendo to finish his point every single time.

All just Wind and Sails.

Obama targets the youth vote specifically because these kids have no life experience beyond the 18 to 25 years or so they've been on the planet. They don't remember what it was like under Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush I or Bill Clinton. They are all just pictures in a book to them and the economic successes and failures of these men have no meaning to them because they never lived through them. It is this lack of historical perspective Obama thrives upon. His style over substance rhetoric, pie in the sky platitudes and "with it" speaking style provide the dazzle of spectacle and appeals to their good hearts and good intentions.

But if they could think about it for even a minute they would put two and two together. They can’t get a job in their major, they can’t pay their student loans, they won’t be able to buy anything on credit as long as their loans are outstanding like a car or a condo. Nobody is coming to save them from the situation they are on the hook for. There are only so many resources and in time everyone realizes that at some point we all have to take responsibility for our actions and results will vary in the outcome of our lives and despite the promises, this is the ultimate reality we face as adults.

This is a man who has spent and spent again money this nation has yet to earn to the tune of $5 Trillion. Oh yes, there was debt before but nothing like this, ever.

There is no return on this money that has mainly gone to prop up public unions across the States, Wall Street banks and at General Motors Corp at the expense of taxpayers and shareholders alike, it’s just plain GONE.

We have lost 5 million jobs since 2007. We have had to devote more resources to people who aren't working in the form of Unemployment Compensation, Food Stamps and Housing Subsidies. Despite the “everything’s fine” approach to the economy, things aren’t turning around at all. Mass layoffs by every sector of the economy continues and companies are very concerned about the future costs of Obama’s National Healthcare Reform Act. Every initiative of the healthcare plan puts financial pressures on employers. Who will hire with this much uncertainty?

A study for The Associated Press has found that 50% of 2012 graduates are unemployed or under employed. Even if that’s partially true, the students screaming for Obama in the nations universities are going to have a very hard time of it come graduation.

So if it’s the nation’s student population who are still going for Obama’s Elmer Gantry revival act, what kind of education have they really gotten in college?

Certainly not the education that they’ve got waiting for them.

The Secret Service's Secret Services.

Is this what the long suffering American taxpayer, the ones of us who still pay taxes that is, deserves? Is this what our government's vaunted minions do with our money, under aged hookers? Well, not in Columbia anyway since hooking is legal but really, UNDER AGED HOOKERS?

Twenty call girls at last count, too. This is surely setting a shining example of American professionalism at the government level that I’m sure will stand as a model for other country’s intelligence services to emulate. This is how we do it in the States, right boys? Across the Atlantic the Israelis are scratching their heads. 

At least the breakdown of government services, the pouring of ever increasing amounts of money into every institution and getting less and less from them, is also showing in the higher levels. These people have bitchen, high paying government jobs that they apparently don’t take seriously. Don't they understand the struggles people are going through in this country while they're out having their "foreign relations?"

They have one job. Not multiple tasks like people who actually work for a living have, like take orders, process orders, follow through on the orders, catalog the orders, file the orders, call to check on the orders, run the credit checks for the orders and confirm delivery of the orders etc.

These people just have the job of protecting US diplomats. And the top US diplomat is the President of the United States when he’s on the road and I don’t want to see a sitting US president get popped in some foreign land because America’s "best and brightest" are too hung over from a night of debauchery to protect the president. Did they join to give service to the country or for the drugs, booze and broads? And can you imagine if this happened under Ronald Reagan?  It’s just shoddy, out of control behavior. 

These people are all the same whether they're the CIA, TSA, DHS, BATF or the Secret Service: They live a life well above the level of a majority of the people who pay their salaries as well as living a life above the law. In other words, they can get away with murder and we all know it.

While they may be good at investigating militia groups in Montana, crushing men, women and children in Texas and setting up church members in Idaho, it turns out that all the government's men are just plain lucky when it comes to protecting the president of the United States.

The Russians, Chinese and the Arab extremists are all collectively slapping their heads today when they read the news and realized that they could have been “pumping” information out of these yoyos for years! And who says they haven’t been? The president’s itinerary was found in some of the rooms that these guys had the hookers in. And we all know how well we can trust hookers, right? Hearts of gold they have, didn’t you ever see Pretty Woman?

Fry ‘em all. Every single one should lose not only their jobs but their pensions, which I’m sure, are pretty impressive given that it’s government that’s paying the big money for talent these days. They’re the biggest employer in DC. Throw ‘em all out.

That will give them time to think with the brains instead of their weenies. 

Boston Rock Clubs of the 1980s: The Channel – 1980 to 1991

The Channel used to sit at 25 Necco Street, at the edge of the Fort Point Channel that separates South Boston from the Financial District not far from where the Boston Tea Party happened back in 1773. It was surrounded by old brick factory buildings that seemed to be somewhat inhabited but also seemed to be very dark. The large parking lot was built for the other buildings as well and at night it would stretch out into the darkness beyond The Channel's parking lot lights. I always found it spooky. It was apparently also a great place to burn a car since I can recall burning cars in the parking lot on at least 3 occasions over the years.

The Channel was the 2^nd largest viable music venue in Boston at the time with a “suggested” legal capacity of 1700 people. The Boston Garden was the biggest venue in town but if you couldn't move 13,000 tickets, forgetaboutit! The Orpheum Theater, which is still in business, with its 2,700 seat capacity has no dancing and these little wooden seats built back during their last renovation in 1916 (no fooling). No matter who was playing, you just sat there and watched them and none too comfortably either. If you were even remotely tall, your legs were jammed up like a plane passenger in 4th class seating. The next closest place in size, The Paradise nightclub up on Commonwealth Ave, only officially held 185 patrons in the main room.

No, The Channel was IT as the city's #1 concert club with its large open floor in front of the stage, multiple bars, massive sound system with giant speaker stacks on both sides of the stage, laid back rules and low cover charge. It was all about selling the drinks and you can’t buy a drink if you can’t get in. Especially since the drinking age was going up in Massachusetts. It went from 18 to 20 in 1979 and from 20 to 21 in 1984 spelling the death knell for many of Boston’s original music clubs of which only two from that era survives today: TT the Bear’s Place and Johnny D's in Cambridge.

Some of the more memorable touring acts I saw were Tommy James, who blew me away with a great set of new, old and Christian music. Jimmy Cliff was unbelievable, singing “Many Rivers to Cross” two and ½ hours into his show clear as a bell amid the plooms of marijuana smoke wafting up from the audience. Must’ve seen Greg Allman play The Channel at least 4 times. Not because I was much of a fan but because my roommate, Jeanie, was. Still he put on a good show each time.  One time Jeanie managed to walk right up to him and punched Greg in the shoulder saying “Great Show, Greg!” She actually didn't think she could get that close to him so when she did, she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Smooth. What is it that they say when you actually meet your hero? You can never think of a thing to say. But one thing you can say about Greg, he’s a good sport. He did tell her “Thanks”.

I was playing in my own band, Cool McCool, in Boston during most of the 80s and  so it seemed I was always working when my favorite bands played there. Missed The Cramps every single time and also Social Distortion but I caught a lot of local acts. Probably saw Til Tuesday 15 or 16 times between Jonathan Swifts, Scotch & Sounds and the Channel. I thought Gang Green was the greatest band on earth when I caught their last 3 songs at The Paradise and so I made sure I caught the whole set the next week at the Channel and then thought that they were close to, if not the worst. They were so full of shit!

Also remember a standout set by Casey Lindstrom's post New Models band "Shake the Faith" They dropped out of site afterwards but they really worked that big stage for a trio. It is a struggle when the band you achieve success with breaks up, and "Say What" was a big hit in 1983, and then you have to pick up the pieces and claw your way back up the ladder again.

The Fools and Ball & Pivot were other favorite local acts but my favorite Boston band was Berlin Airlift bar none and their lone eponymous album remains in my personal Top 10.

Playing The Channel was a unique experience since they were the biggest club in town and booked a lot of local acts. Every band in and out of Boston clambered to play there and it seems they gave almost everybody a shot. Mostly this came off as 3 to 4 bands in an evening but later on these “New Music” nights became, as our guitarist James put it, “Cattle Calls” pitting anywhere from 5 to 6 bands a night. James recalls nights where there were more but I can’t remember a night with more than 6 bands. These were nerve wracking affairs since once you were done with your set, and lord help you if you went over your time, you had to get your stuff off the stage and out of the building. Nothing set aside, get it out! You had plenty of help though since the next band would start massing at the side of the stage to help you get your stuff off as your set clock wound down.

New bands started on Tuesday. If you could draw enough people on a Tuesday you got a Wednesday. If not, you got another Tuesday. It took us about 3 years to get to a Saturday night opening slot. We could draw but being from the suburbs, it was hard to be consistent on a weeknight.

We played The Channel almost monthly between 1986 and 1990. Tony, our drummer, got us the shows and it was his idea to concentrate on the biggest venue in town, an idea that worked out well for us in the long run. Sound check was at six o’clock sharp and that first February I made a terrible discovery: They didn’t heat the place when nobody was there. They came in at 5:55 pm and just turned the lights and the heat on. Or maybe just the lights. Well, in February it was something like 10 degrees F in there if that. I don't remember anything about playing the show that evening but I'll never forget playing that sound check. Just brutal.

But what, and give up "SHOW BUSINESS?!!”

There was a memorable show where I thought James had my amp and he thought I had it so subsequently when we showed up, no bass amp. But the bass player from The Beach Masters, Boston’s premier Surf band, was gracious enough to let me use his. And yes, his amp was infinitely better than my low-end 130 watt Peavey Combo. It was a Trace Eliot with the little blue florescent light on it. Cool! It sounded great. No, I didn't upgrade after that.

The reason you played a Peavey Comp amp was that it can fall out of the van on the Express Way, get ping-ponged by a dozen taxi cabs and it will still work. At the end of the world there will be only cockroaches and Peavey amplifiers left to see the lights go out. But if you can somehow manage to blow it up, you could get another one for $80.00 tops. If one has to put up with a bit too much mid-range and questionable low end quality, well, it's a trade off. Plus, James was sporting a solid-state Crate Combo with a pawn-shop 1970s era Electra solid body guitar. Who's going to point fingers?

And speaking of cockroaches. I never actually ate any popcorn from that theater-style popcorn machine they had at the bar but from what I am told by some eye witnesses about what they saw crawling around the inside of that popcorn machine some evenings...well, I guess there were no known casualties. Just glad I never partook.

Our band would get $50.00 a show, a case of canned beer (Busch beer!) and a room to drink it in. Once we got to the weekend shows we got $100.00, a case of beer but no more “get in free” tickets. Those free tickets worked very well when we opened for Bachman Turner Overdrive on our first big Saturday show. The cover was $9.00 so with our ticket it was free.

Friend: “You mean I can see BTO for free?”

James:  “Well, we’ll be playing too.”

Friend: “Yeah, but BTO for free!”

James: “And our band…”

Friend: “BTO, for free?”

James:  “Great, enjoy.”

There were many good things about playing The Channel and we really enjoyed playing there. The sound was great and it could get super loud. We used to cover Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” at the end of which there are some “Oh, oh, ooooohs” and if you were off on the pitch, and we were, the monitor system would MAKE YOU PAY for your lack of precision! I thought my head was going to explode.

The staff was actually pretty nice for an original music club. Many venues around town like Jack’s (Cambridge), TT the Bears (Cambridge) and Bunratty’s (Allston) could be pretty surly to bands wanting to play “their exalted dive bar” but we didn’t get that at The Channel. It didn't seem to matter who you were or wasn't, they were a professional outfit.

The sound guys always made us a tape through the board when we asked and the tapes always sounded good. The stage crew, for having to shuffle a multitude of bands on and off the stage in a hurry and mic 'em up were as good as it got in Boston. We did what they told us to do and we got along well.

That BTO show was big for us. It was the most people we had ever played for which was about 2000 people since people were standing up against the wall in back, the signature sign of overcapacity for this place. We never met the band and I felt a bit sad for them because they were touring to support a new album and NOBODY WANTED TO HEAR IT.  The crowd would cheer at “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” but when they did a new song you could hear crickets chirping out there. They went on the “Oldies” circuit a year later.

One neat thing about playing to a big crowd for the first time and being really, really nervous and feeling the pressure to do a good job, put on a good show and essentially "not fuck up" was that when we played our regular house gig at Green Street Station in Jamaica Plain the very next afternoon, it was so relaxing. Like you could just lay back and play. Many of the people who followed the band marked THAT night as our best show ever.

I left the band in 1990 to pursue other musical interests but Cool McCool continued to play The Channel and open for other great acts like Treat Her Right and The Stompers right up until The Channel passed into Boston Rock History in 1991.

It is greatly missed.

Slavery as a Crutch

In 1863 Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves but they’ve never let us forget it since. Sure, President Lincoln freed them bodily but it’s become apparent that he couldn’t free them mentally and the self-proclaimed “representatives” of modern black culture have used that as a hammer to beat the current population of European descendants and their own people over the head forever after.

I can never get away from hearing that somebody else, everybody else really, is keeping them down. I’d list them all but that would be tiresome. It’s always about a want. Some want reparations, some want preferential treatment in the workplace and others just demand money up front. You know the cast of characters involved. We all do. To name them is also tiresome.

In fact I’m really just plain tired of the “woe is me” story I’ve been hearing since I was a child. I’m tired of hearing it’s my fault and I’m certainly tired of paying for something of which I never participated in the first place. I've never oppressed anybody and I’ve never owned a slave.

But my ancestors were slaves. Slaves to the Romans and since African slavery in this country started hundreds of years ago and the slavery of my people happened a thousand years ago, that is no less the same. A slave is a slave. I think I should petition Italy for reparations! I don’t think they’ve got the cash right now but perhaps I deserve some compensation for, you know, being a descendant of people who were treated poorly…way back when, sometime, you know?

In fact, my people had their butts kicked by just about everybody who was anybody at the time: The Vikings, oh those guys were bastards but not as big a group of bastards than the English! Those guys were the worst, shipping food grown in our country back to their country while we all starved and resorted to eating grass and dying by the side of the road with our mouths stained green. Well, not ME particularly but somebody I must have been related to no doubt somewhere along the line. That’s got to be worth something, right?

Damn-it! I think England should pay! We should have our representatives give “lectures” at English Universities and hold media rallies and carp loudly about how mistreated we all were back then. There are 25 million of my people on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean too.

Where’s my check?

Yes, it’s absurd and it’s not doing anybody any favors. It has become an excuse for why you're not doing well in American life. What these Race Pimps are really saying is: “You’re not good enough to compete on a level playing field.” and “You can’t make it without help”, that's all. Then you come to the point somewhere along the line that you deserve it and the next thing you know you're out in the street demanding it because you think someone is going to take it away from you but you won’t stop until someone gives it to you and for it you will stop at nothing. You will riot for it, you will burn for it and say any absurd thing under the pretense that if you still are failing then it has to be somebody else's fault. Why? Because you deserve to get it, because you were slaves...well, not you in particular but someone in your family may have been way back when, maybe. And so you have to have a "Boogie Man", a group that you must target for your continued failure. You need "Oppressors". And here we are, "Whitey is always keeping you down.".

It's like no other group of people had to ever overcome a minority situation before. Every new group of people who have come to this continent has had to deal with adversity at the hands of the majority. The Irish had to deal with the "Irish Need Not Apply" issues, the 6 days a week, 10 hours a day grindingly physical work at the mills as fodder for the nation's Industrial Revolution, the degrading aspect of being a licensed veterinarian in Ireland but only being able to get work as  a stable hand here. This is what it was like then, the history our schools no longer teach. And after all that we got to turn around and stick it to the Italians when they came!

But ultimately the, favoring, the concessions and the sense of inferiority it leads to opens the door to that other form of slavery: Dependency. But this time it’s dependence on the government who loves you and wants to keep you safe and well fed with a government roof over your head. And you can have it...just as long as you behave the way they want you to and do the things they need for you to do.

And what you have then isn’t freedom. It's quite the opposite.

Ann Romney for President!

Is there anyone more politically astute than lukewarm presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney?

When that nitwit Hilary Rosen was put up by the Obama administration to fire the first shot at her in a staged CNN “interview” about her "not working a day in her life" despite having raised 5 children, Ann Romney brilliantly countered by putting out more political talking points and character development in one response than husband Mitt has managed in four years of non-stop campaigning.

She talked about real women’s issues like jobs and that they worry most about how the looming national debt will impact their children’s futures. She reminded the public that Mitt has placed women in major roles in his administrations and organizations and that he relies upon women for their opinions.

She also brought up her battles with cancer and multiple sclerosis which I had never heard of before. Move over Sarah Palin, Ann Romney’s in town.

But most importantly, she has been able to humanize her husband in a way he hasn't managed to do for himself. Jeez, Mitt's a good guy. How do I know? Ann says so!

It was great and it was a powerful counter-punch to the president’s people who have no idea what the American people really care about and after which the entire Obama administration was trying to distance themselves from Rosen’s comments.

Yes the Romney’s are wealthy people but as far as I know, it wasn’t handed to them like the Kennedys or acquired through government work. But wealthy people still get sick, they can still raise delinquent kids, they have school committee, boosters, boy scouts, soccer and art exhibits to attend to. They can still get hooked on booze or prescription drugs and they also have bills to pay. They pretty much have the same problems with the exception, of course, that money isn’t one of them.

Prior to this incident I had read that the Obama administration and their Leftist minions were worried about Ann Romney because she had a reputation as a strong woman who was a hard worker and a rock behind the man and this incident seems to have been a test of her mettle, a shot across the bow so to speak to see how she would react. And by all indications they have every reason to be afraid because she is without a doubt a better person than anyone in the present administration and I hope they rue the day they, by their own tactics, brought Ann Romney out front and center for the American people to get to know. This blonde Jackie O could just be the mark of grace and resilience this nation could use in the coming times of trouble.  

So if it’s not over before the Republican Convention, I’d say somebody should throw Ann Romney’s hat into the ring. She’d be better than Obama in the Whitehouse.

Ann Romney 2012! 

Obama Threatens Supreme Court over Socialized Medicine Plan

President Obama has taken a second shot at the nation’s highest court over his orchestrated government takeover of U.S. health care providers.

Back in 2010 during his State of the Union speech, president Obama openly chastised the attending Supreme Court justices over their decision to strike down impingements on the right to free speech by overturning the horrendously unconstitutional McCain/Feingold bill. In what was politely criticized as a “breach of presidential decorum” was an overt attempt at intimidation. Obama openly castigated Justice Alito to thundering applause from the Socialist elite of the Democratic Party standing all around them.

This time Mr. Obama is trying to press a case of “Judicial Activism” for his health care plan named, in true Orwellian fashion, the “Affordable Care Act” which is currently on the Supreme Court chopping block.

This latest accusation is perhaps president Obama’s most absurd statement yet although at this stage of his presidency it's hard to tell. To brand the Supreme Court an “unelected group” when he himself, along with G.W. Bush, has perpetuated and expanded the so called government “Csar” overseers who now rule without legal precedent over all aspects of American Government. 

People like Health Czar Nancy Ann DeParle. Who elected HER? Or who elected Obama’s Medicaid Czar Dr. Donald Berwick or the director of national AIDS policy, AIDS Czar Jeffrey Crowley? And how do you suppose national border Czar Alan Bersin or Climate Czar Todd Stern managed to gain office? Add to this group: Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, Science Czar John Holdren, Technology Czar Aneesh Chopra and Economic Czar Paul Volcker.  

Who are these people? All together there are 33 government Czars who draw handsome salaries of $158,000 a year and up. 

They aren’t part of the President’s Cabinet; they’re an extra set of invented lawmakers who can pass "mandates" and make policy decisions whenever they choose and Congress doesn’t get to vote on them either. What’s up with that?

They have no legal authority to do what they do and have no constitutional right to exist but there they are just the same. 

So when Mr. Obama sniffs that the Supreme Judicial Court, an actual branch of government outlined specifically in that pesky old U.S. Constitution, is an unelected group, he’s talking out his ass. I'm surprised his head didn't explode when he said it. Some nerve that guy has. 

It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will strike down ObamaCare but if it does it is neither unprecedented or a case of judicial overreach. It’s their job to do so as they have done before. It is a job that has been clearly defined in the highest law of the land from the very beginning of this nation.

And lest I forget, the president of the United States took an oath to defend the laws the Constitution have established “So help me God”.

I think the president must’ve forgotten that part.