Month: November 2015

In a Thanksgiving Day message, President Obama reminded us that 400 years after the Mayflower landed, we still have Pilgrims wanting to come to America. He implied we should welcome the pilgrims from Syria the same way the natives (“Indians”) welcomed the ones from England.

Well, our president could use an American history lesson, from the viewpoint of the Indians. Here is part of a Will Rogers radio broadcast in 1935, “As a race there has never been any comparison between the Pilgrim and an Indian.  Now I hope my Cherokee blood is not making me prejudiced.  I want to be broad minded, but I am sure that it was only the extreme generosity of the Indians that allowed the Pilgrims to land.  Suppose we reversed the case.  Do you reckon the Pilgrims would have ever let the Indians land?  Yeah, what a chance!  What a chance!  The Pilgrims wouldn’t even allow the Indians to live after the Indians went to the trouble of letting ’em land… One thing about a Pilgrim, he would pray.  I bet you’ve never in your life seen a picture of one of the old Pilgrims praying when he didn’t have a gun right by the side of him. That was to see that he got what he was praying for.”

Protests are breaking out all over. And it’s not always clear what folks are protesting. College students in Missouri, at Yale, and other institutions of higher learning are marching for free tuition and a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Must be because the liberal arts majors figure the only jobs available to them will be minimum wage. They also want a guarantee that no one on campus will call them names or say anything that might upset the feelings of a ten year old.

In Paris, where the police are working day and night to round up radical Islamic killers, protesters arrived in force to divert their attention. They seem to be protesting the global climate change conference, but are they for it or against it? There’s plenty of Republicans who would like to protest it, and we know which side they are on. I heard that 160 countries have a plan to fight global warming and at least 150 expect us to pay the bill.

President Obama says the global warming conference is a powerful rebuke to the ISIS terrorists because the world stands as one to build a better future for our children. Since ISIS was not invited, I doubt they are giving it much thought, other than to figure that if the world spends a trillion dollars on climate change, that leaves a trillion fewer dollars to be spent trying to destroy ISIS.

We heard this week that our military destroyed about 500 tanker trucks hauling ISIS oil, after Russia and France showed us how to do it. We could have done it months ago, but President Obama was concerned that setting fire to the ISIS oil trucks, ships, and oil wells would make global warming worse. That’s not a joke, he really believed it. Here we thought the theme of this administration was “leading from behind.” But it’s really “trailing from behind.”

The world is weeping with France, at least the civilized part of the world is. The uncivilized part is celebrating.

There seems to be some disagreement over who the perpetrators are in the attacks that killed over 130 and injured hundreds more in Paris. Most of us know who they are: Radical Islamic Terrorists.

President Obama and the three Democrat candidates for president admit they are terrorists but refuse to utter the word Islamic. They don’t want to risk upsetting the 99% of Muslims who are peaceful by pointing out that 100% of the radical terrorists are in fact Muslim. Now, I happen to be Methodist. If the terrorist attacks for the last twenty years had been carried out by radical Methodist terrorists I would not object to them being referred to as Methodist. In fact if they were Methodist, we would find out some way to identify them, round ‘em up, and kill ‘em. We might recruit some Baptist sharpshooters and Episcopalian trackers to help, and we sure wouldn’t sit around and watch ‘em wreak havoc on the world.

France has started bombing the headquarters of the radical Islamic terrorists in Syria and they hope NATO and Sunni countries will join them. Meanwhile, President Obama announced that the folks responsible for the “crime” in Paris should be prosecuted. Crime? No, it is war, according to the president of France. And President Obama ordered the release of five of the most dangerous prisoners from Gitmo by sending them to the United Arab Emirates. I suppose that is intended to appease ISIS.

By the time you read this, the situation may change. These murdering terrorists (and their friends) need to be wiped off the face of the Earth no matter where they are or what name they go by.

Last week, after a six year delay, President Obama signed the “Railroad Prosperity Act.”  It is also known as the “Warren Buffett Enrichment Plan” since Mr. Buffett owns the railroad that prospers most, the BNSF. The RPA-WBEP has been forced on us by radical environmentalists who don’t want us to get any oil from Canada, unless perhaps it comes across the border by rail, tanker truck or in 55-gallon barrels. These folks probably don’t know that while they have blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline there are 19 other pipelines, secretly buried years earlier, that bring contraband Canadian crude across our border daily.

On Saturday night CBS held another debate with the three Democrat candidates. Former Secretary of State Clinton announced confidently that the FBI will find nothing on her email server that will concern Democrat voters. She and the other two candidates agreed that high income folks should be taxed between 70 and 90 percent with the exact number depending on which one gets elected. They differ on how many refugees we should accept from Syria, but somewhere between 25,000 and 65,000. If you asked the average American, the answer would be zero.

Senator Bernie Sanders said the biggest threat is Climate Change. Yes, that’s what he said. France is more likely to be decimated by rising seawater than by radical (blank) terrorists.

The Republicans held another debate. The ten candidates in the prime time debate spent as much time debating the three moderators as they did debating each other. The candidates agreed on one thing: every one of them would be a better president than Hillary Clinton. Actually they agreed on another thing: Hillary would get the vote of all 3 CNBC moderators. That debate was on the same time as a World Series baseball game. As Will Rogers said in October 1928, “My idea of the height of conceit would be a political speaker that would go on the air when the World Series is on.” (DT #683)

The Republicans have another debate next week, on Fox Business Network. They are expecting better questions. The viewers are hoping for better answers, at least answers that can help separate the herd of candidates.

The three remaining Democrat candidates have another debate four days later on CBS. The most intriguing question is this: Will Sanders and O’Malley really take on Clinton, or will they take it easy on her?

None of these candidates has to be concerned about the World Series. The Kansas City Royals won tonight, beating the New York Mets 4 games to 1. They came from behind to win, which gives a glimmer of hope to most of the lagging candidates. It also shows that a New Yorker can be beat.

In Congress, the Republicans finally agreed on Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House. John Boehner shed a few tears as he handed over the gavel and headed home to Ohio. Ryan assured his family he will spend weekends at home playing with the kids… and hunting deer.

The economy continues to limp along, but it’s better here than about any other country you can name. Our big retailers are hoping folks finally decide to spend the money they have been saving with cheap gasoline. Up to now, these drivers have been paying old bills instead of taking on new credit.

You probably know about the tragedy a week ago in Stillwater, Oklahoma. At the homecoming parade at Oklahoma State University, a woman drove her car into the crowd, killing four and injuring dozens. This was Will Rogers’ favorite college, then known as Oklahoma A & M. On Feb. 5, 1931, Will spoke at the school. Here are comments he wrote about it in his newspaper columns. “(I spoke) at the best agricultural school in America, Oklahoma A and M. Their cattle win all the shows, and their (students) win all the judging contests. It’s not a raccoon coat college… I had a nephew graduate from there and he has turned out mighty good, and it’s a great school.”