Food Fights At The Issa Cummings Corral

      If you have the facts, argue the facts. If you have the law, argue the law, If you have no facts and no law, yell and scream and pound on the table--Trial Law 101. Trial Law 101A: Make sure TV cameras are present and with outrage and deep sense of wounds, accuse everyone who opposed you and everyone who did not oppose but also did not support a racist.  In a nutshell the Blue strategy for dodging the IRS's attempt to muzzle conservative political action groups, especially when Issa's perhaps procedural error enabled the Blues to pull out Trial 101A.
       Have to hand it to the Blues, their control of political theater is without equal. Instead of media focus about why Lerner refuses to testify on the IRS scandal and how chilling to our democracy the scandal represents, the media could and did focus on the Cummings outrage over the hearing being adjourned before he could rant about how the Reds were unfairly targeting the IRS. Sad day for the democratic process.
Food Fights at the Issa Cummings Corral  

Lerner certainly has a right to take the 5^th and refuse to testify

Whether she knows she’s guilty or White House involvement not wishing to imply

Maybe there were false impressions and expectations she would comply

But the Cummings and Issa “food fight” is something we should all decry

Issa’s move whether procedurally correct or not was a mistake
All he had to do was take a vote and we’d be blowing out the candles of the TV camera cake
So instead of focus on IRS acts which should cause the hairs of every citizen to rise on the back of their necks

The chilling result of using the IRS to stifle criticism of a White House and Blue and on democracy reflect

The media gets the sound bites of an outraged, wronged Cummings working on a histrionic stroke

The head of the DNC in comparing it to Venezuela and Ukraine in ways that make us gag and choke

While all the while the email trails of IRS suppression and repression are crying out to be read
The DOJ’s bogus "investigation" on the IRS not moving a witness ahead
Instead of consideration of immunity to get Lerner to come clean
And a flurry of subpoenas on the IRS officials to immediately be seen
No outrage over Issa’s perhaps poor graces rules supreme
And the web of deception woven over the truth for another day impossible to wean.
It is perhaps too much to ask and Lerner’s involvement has been exposed
But if her conscience has any rumblings, is in any throes
Time for her to become a Patriot, even to be shunned by Blues as a pigeon
Admit to the American public there is much more than a smidgen
Some of us still believe that in the hearts of most Americans the desire to do right resides
Let the Obama chips fall where they may, he’s toast on his lame duck ride
But the rest of us could put this behind, a chance to heal our divide
Red versus Blue in the Congress to start to subside.
Anything to not be exposed to the DNC chair’s inane and inflammatory remarks
Debbie, hate to say it, but cutting off a mike is not like Ukrainian police shooting people in a park.

© March 6, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

Seward's Gem Jewell's Folly

     If you grew up in Alaska when it was a territory and your father was a pioneer there of 50 years and buried in Petersburg, roots and attachment to the state run deep. Very upset to the article about the Department of Interior's refusal to allow a meager gravel trail from King Cove, year round fishing village of less than a 1,000 hardy souls, almost a majority of which are Aleuts, to Cold Bay so when King Cove is fogged in (some 100 or so days a year) in a medical emergency that person can be taken to an all weather airport at Cold Bay and flown out for life-saving treatment. Weighing the needs of humans against wildlife including caribou (who if the Department of Interior had any sense to know were not damaged by the construction of the TAPS Access Road which hauled tons of construction material and supplies needed to build an almost 1000 mile pipeline).
      Sally Jewell may have run REI and spent time in the outdoors but when it comes to who is a better steward of the environment, my money is on the Alaskans, especially the Aleuts.  Here is a link to the article that spawned my poem below. Small gravel trail, only an isolated 1000 Alaskans, but so typical of the Department of the Interior in particular and federal bureaucracy in general.  Just another terminal cancer affecting our economic way of life which will be in full EPA killing mode as the Keystone XL debate gears up. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/26/fed-government-to-alaskans-road-animals/
Seward's Gem Jewell's Folly

The reason Alaska was so eager to its orphan territory status leave

Was due in large part to the plantation mentality of DC its hardy souls wished to relieve
An absent, uncaring bunch of bureaucrats that had not the sense to come in out of the cold
But so quick to 4,000 miles away with edicts and regs to Alaskan way of life remold
No wonder the small number of pioneers fighting Mother Nature tooth and nail
Pursued the goal of end to territory status like Sir Gwain after the Holy Grail
After years of struggle but in a time where unlike now the color of a Senate seat
Might have doomed a Red leaning Alaska to a statehood defeat
The 49^th star but burdened by the ownership of too much land by the Feds
At least as a state not a territory a chance to move forward, to move ahead
One would have thought with Alaska-like storms hitting D.C. again and again
Flights delayed, schools closed, roads in shambles, even Congress coming to an end
That a sense of understanding of the storm isolation even Alaskans will dread
Might free the Department of Interior from being chained to the environmentalists’ bed
King Cove is a village of almost a 1,000, in the Aleutian isles,
Trying for years to get Fed approval for a  one gravel trail of but 11 miles

To get to an all weather airport at Cold Bay when fog and snow blot out the sky

If you’re sick or injured and need medical help and must fly

If you cannot get to Cold Bay’s airport you will die
No trail, no road, fog bound, weather bound like going to the moon without a Saturn try
Not a subway at millions a mile or a car clogged four lane freeway of concrete
Why would the Interior Department all King Cove’s efforts defeat?
Sally Jewel, a naturalized Brit and Obama contributor, is the Department of Interior head
In a balance between wildlife and human life in her callous mind, guess who comes out ahead?
If you guessed grizzly, caribou or Pacific black brant, you win the prize
Sally Jewell listened to the animals only; she should be despised
She could not care less if some sick or injured Aleut fogged in, up and dies
Here is an idea that should come to this “Jewell” as a great surprise
Right now the only Jewells needed to be saved in the Blues’ Senate crown
Are seats, for Reid cannot suffer any Blue Senator being taken down
Jewell’s callousness and ego of the Feds for Alaska they always know best
Here is a way for Reid’s oppressive tenure as Majority Leader to arrest
Obama’s Jewell is what’s wrong with Interior and should back to REI be sent back
Begich is a Blue; regardless of his occasional Obama attacks
Post the faces or the names of the 20 Alaskans who fogged in with no road to Cold Bay
Could not fly out to care and did not live to see another day
Maybe a scale of named tombstones of the 20 on one side high in the air
On the ground, a black brant in nest far away, caribou next to TAPs, a Grizzly in his lair
What is happening to King Cove could happen to Craig, Niknet, Skagway, Port Lay
Or any other town or village against their wishes pushed into Interior’s harm way
Make the gravel trail an issue against Begich and the need to prevent another Aleut fogged in death
Reid, sensing a loss, will pounce on Jewell and Obama before you could take a second breath
If Begich somehow claims the credit and manages to avoid being thoroughly defeated
Lives saved in the future are true jewels so precious even if a Blue is not unseated.
If not, then Begich will become the Blues’ poster child

A Blue victim of federal bureaucracy unchecked, running wild.

© March 4, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

 

Keystone XL Children's Crusade

    I am an unabashed history buff and the news of several hundred students tying themselves to the White House gates, fortunately for them and the poor members of the press who covered this event before Titan hit the Capitol with all its winter fury today, to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline. Nice handmade signs, no violence which is a testament to the rights we enjoy, and the warnings to disburse, arrest, booking and then release to the waiting arms of the organizers.
    Images came to mind of two earlier protests in Washington, D.C. one by students, not against an abstract idea of climate change or save the planet, but the here and now of young men being drafted, being sent off to Vietnam in a war whose popularity was sinking daily and then coming back in body bags or scarred with visible or invisible wounds. Images of soldiers of the 82nd Airborne in full combat gear protecting the White House, sirens and tear gas filling the air, or students falling to the ground shot dead at Kent State are today as vivid as they were when they occurred. No matter how you slice it this demonstration was more like a Sunday picnic.
   The other also in Washington, D.C. not in the streets or chained to the fences but in the courtroom and the court of public opinion fought primarily by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups with Alaska Native tribes as their allies and their legions of environmental lawyers, not over global warming but over environmental damage that the building of TAPS would cause. Lawyers in court are much more effective than students chained or tied to a fence in terms of delay, even without the presence of the EPA which was still in its formative stage and under Nixon not mobilized yet to fit the war on fossil fuel seen under this Administration. TAPS may never have been built and this country would have been importing 2 million more barrels of oil a day for the last 30 plus years but for one event.
   In retaliation for support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, OPEC announced an embargo of shipments of oil to the U.S. on October 17, 1973, gasoline prices shot through the roof and we faced rationing and demands that Congress act flooded Congress.  Opposition to TAPS, especially among Blues, evaporated as quickly as a puddle of water on a hot day in July in Death Valley. On November 8, 1973 the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act came out of joint conference, approved by overwhelming majorities in the Senate and House and signed into law by President Nixon on the 16th of November, 1973. Keystone XL has been languishing just like TAPS and until two days ago, we were not facing an OPEC like moment.
   We are now with the occupation by the Russians of the Crimea. Russia is the largest oil producer in the world; it provides a huge proportion of the oil and natural gas used by the EU and Ukraine, and a great majority of that flows through Ukraine. Any disruption of that flow would be disastrous to the world economy and would adversely affect us also. Having 800,000 more barrels a day coming from a reliable source Canada, coupled with an EPS cessation of its war on fossil fuels and Obama's freeing up drilling on federal lands would do wonders for our independence and job growth.
   Unfortunately, if the students arrested are like most, they are most likely clueless on lessons to be learned from history, even history very, very recent. Now is not the time to protest Keystone XL!
Keystone XL Children's Crusade

I applaud the youth, especially those with cars, for the power of their convictions

But not for the use of sane judgment which seems subject to complete interdiction

It takes not a rocket scientist to realize that we need fossil fuels to subsist

Massive shifts to alternatives that in quantities to support us do not today exist

Will bring this recovery to a complete sputter and complete stall

Energy shortages mean higher prices forcing our poor up against a wall

It also should come as no surprise that shale oil will not stay in the soil

China awaits with baited, hungry breath to consume this Canadian oil

So our youthful protesters with their arrest badge of courage to now display

Might want to consider where such oil should be put in play

Would they prefer such oil to be transported on rail?

Russian roulette on how many trains will near or in towns derail

While all the while ignoring the carbon cost much higher than XL

If you want to send carbon emissions up off the chart where better than to the Chinese?

Where dirty factories, dirty power plants, dirty cars make it impossible to even breathe

Or would they want the oil find its way into American plants and American cars?

Where due to the Feds, increasing emission controls and mileage stars

Plus an added feature in a world with instability and danger to abound

Much safer for U.S. to be taking its oil from Canadian grounds.

Even more so with the Putin Bear sending into the  Crimea armed force

Sending the EU and US with Russia on a very dangerous course

A simple few keystrokes on the pipeline controls at the borders of Ukraine

Oil and gas stop and European prosperity and a good chunk of the world's down the drain.

Riots in the streets in Venezuela, an oil export to us should also make clear

Energy dependence is something more than abstract of climate change we should really fear!

© March 3, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

 

Wearing Of Flag Banned In Live Park, Court Caves

       Our world is becoming turned upside down; wearing an American flag on Cinco de Mayo can be banned because it might provoke a riot in a high school in California? The seven red stripes and six white stripes have no meaning as to their color, only that they represent the original 13 Colonies. The poet in me thinks otherwise and the color red to him represents the blood shed in defending this nation; blood which is the same color regardless of whether one is American Native or of English, German, Chinese, Mexican, Afro, Indian or any other diverse back ethnic background we are blessed to have in this country.
      The news that students presumably Anglo are banned from wearing the American Flag on Cinco de Mayo because it might incite Mexican-American students is most troubling. If there is incitement it has to be due the acts of the students involved, not per se the wearing of the flag. Our military has seen the service of thousands upon thousands of Mexican-Americans, citizen and non-citizen alike, in the wars of the 20th and 21st Century this country has fought in. When at a funeral of a veteran regardless of ethnicity or whether of natural causes or from combat, the flag covering the casket, is neatly folded, stars up and then given to the next of kin. That flag regardless of the ethnic background of the vet is an American Flag.
         The dispute over the wearing of the flag is probably fueled by the dismal record of our schools in teaching American History or American Government and the contributions of Mexican-Americans to that history.  A majority of our high school students are completely in the dark about the history of this country much less the contributions made by Mexican-Americans or their sacrifices made in the defense of the country. A little knowledge and a little patriotism would go a long way to end some of the strife over a Cinco de Mayo celebration.   
Say Can You See In Live Oak
Oh say can you see? Yes and si, but not on the 5^th of May

Live Oak High School forces its students to put their American flag t-shirts away

Fears of administrators that wearing  an American Flag will violence provoke

While flag-draped caskets still come home with sacrifice images to invoke

If there is a fear of violence between Latinos and Anglo Whites

That somehow wearing an American Flag will incite Latinos to fight

Then Live Oak has completely failed its job on what values to teach

Cultural pride is a great goal but not at loss of freedom of speech

If to a Latino an American Flag somehow offends and violence incites

Administration took cowards’ approach instead of banning violence backed by police force and might

The three judge panel from the 9^th Circuit did want to the administrators second guess

So they took the easy way to the free speech rights of the Anglos suppress

One nation, one flag, one common language, not a nation divided into ethnic clans

Different flags, different primary-only tongues, intolerance for others totally out of hand

A concept of patriotism our educators at Oak Park to all students has failed to impart

A time for teachers and students to know of Silvis, Illinois and the location of patriots’ hearts

Second Street now Hero Street USA in Silvis is but a muddy block and one half long

22 families all Mexican immigrants called it home, where their hopes came to  belong

When the U.S. needed them in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, 84 men from this short street

Donned the uniform, saluted the American flag and went off to our enemies defeat

Oak Park teachers and students should read these eight names aloud as there is no Wall

Gomez, Macias, Muños, Pompa, Solis, Frank, Joe, and Willie Sandoval

In World War II protecting our freedoms, protecting our flag, they met the ultimate fate

17 Latino Medal of Honor Winners would not believe wearing a flag they fought for would a riot instigate.

You could bring enough police onto the school grounds and you would maintain calm and peace

But teach patriotism and show the sacrifice of Anglos and Latinos to protect our flag and this talk of riots would cease.

This poet is proud of his Irish and Scot ancestors but prouder still of our Stars and Stripes

Even today in the winter of his life, the National Anthem still causes soft tears to wipe

One nation, one flag, a common language with racial, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds in healthy diverse

Time to stand up for this flag and our Bill of Rights and the ebbing of free speech to reverse.

© March 1, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet  

Happy Hour For Obama And DNC Not In the Crimea

      The events in Ukraine are moving at a fast clip and we in the Crimea do not have a lot of reporter boots on the ground. It would appear that Russian troops, however disguised, have been airlifted into the Crimea; airports in the Crimea have been seized facilitating speedy increase of the forces already there; Ukrainian air space has been violated and 150,000 Russian troops are conducting war game exercises on the border.
      What does our Commander in Chief do in response to the crisis? After nine days of silence as the tensions between Ukraine and Russia increase, he appears, gives a short speech warning Russia that there will be costs if Ukrainian territory is compromised and then pivots without questions and leaves. Obviously, in hurry to confer with his military, foreign policy and economic advisers to craft the appropriate sanctions and foundations for military moves? Right? Right? Please Mr. Carny say that's where in a moment of crisis our Commander in Chief went.
       Wrong. It is Happy Hour and our Commander in Chief went to a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. It is like the movie Ground Hog Day, not the Benghazi leaving town for a fund raiser in San Francisco as 4 Americans died, but for want of a better term, the Crimea Sequel. Seems like there is a skewing of priorities of the President. Silver lining is we did not have to foot the bill for Air Force One.  When is it time for our President to act like a true Commander in Chief while we still have a military left?   
Happy Hour Not In Crimea 
K.T. is right; Obama is not leading from the fore or from the aft
Worse, our allies watch and tremble, our foes can only laugh
When it comes to potential armed conflict, rhetoric is his weapon of choice
Viewed as deadly force when coupled with pauses and gestures boosted by teleprompter voice
No matter how well delivered, rhetoric in an Obama eyes to the camera speech
Will not slow down for even seconds companies of T-90's pouring through a breach
What our "Commander In Chief" does not seem to realize
That words are not bullets and wasted against invasions that materialize
Our military has been worn down by years of constant duty tours
In a courageous effort and sacrifice to our safety from terror insure
At a time when victories won with blood, limbs and filled body bags
Are thrown away in Iraq and defense spending growth now lags
With Afghanistan gains soon to be lost quicker than puddles on a hot summer day
I doubt in any of our military is prepared to once again go to a new theater of harm's way
Leaders lead not by words, gestures, pauses or periods but rather by their deeds
Lied to again and again on the ACA, who among us will listen to his costs his urgings even heed?
Putin knows the answer and Obama if his ego would not the mirror completely fog
Getting deceived citizens to follow will be a very tough slog
But K.T. is an optimist and sees a country by 2020 from energy imports weaned
Driving down oil prices and sucking from Putin his growing ruble stream
Slight problem to get to the promised land, we have to prevail in 2016
Ere four more years of Hillary and continuation of War on Fossils scene
Unless the media over Hillary lessen their pandering sycophantic fawn
She will win and we will never see the energy-driven American Renaissance dawn

© March 1, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

The Game In The Ukraine Putin Puts Obama To Shame

     As a great believer in the lessons that history is replete with, the news out of the Ukraine is pretty eye-opening. Putin is certainly no shoe pounding peasant at the U.N.; on the contrary he in addition to being ruthless would appear to be a very observant man--maybe his years at the KGB honed that skill. Just looking at the missteps of the U.S. under Obama in Benghazi, Syria, and Iran would bring any leader with any degree of intelligence to believe that this former community organizer is mostly rhetoric. We are now watching a potential occupation of Ukraine, a country, at least in the western portion welcomed the Wehrmacht with flowers, bread and salt, and actually carried on armed struggle against the Red Army despite overwhelming odds until 1953.
      Trying to find a silver lining in this mess other than the fact that Obama cannot run again, is that given the gutting of the U.S. military and the duration of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that he inherited, a Cuban Missile like crisis is simply not in the cards. One can only hope that in the waning time as Commander in Chief he develops a backbone and spends more time on maintaining and improving a credible military and less time trying to fundamentally remake this country. Last words in prose. Mr. President if you lie to your own people, what credibility do you have when you make solemn oaths to your foes, at least this time omitting your idiotic "period"? Zero, squat, nada, zip or in a word for zero Putin knows "nul". Muse comments follow
Costs, What Costs In Ukraine

When nonfiction moves into the realm of fiction one might feel a chill

No longer characters of words and grammar but flesh and blood humans to kill

Fiction has a plot and the endgame usually well disguised

Well done and it’s a only a late night reading with sleepy eyes

If it’s a Clancy novel, you know at a cost, the good guys should prevail
The forces of evil and darkness against courage are doomed to fail
The readers will not go down in flames they will survive
Only way to keep the author’s best selling streak alive
From the Ukraine it looks like Putin in the ending in Command Authority did not believe
But the beginning in the Ukraine, like ripe, low hanging fruit he knew he could achieve
Obama is not a Ryan, never has and never will
Only rhetoric from an overused till
Thousands upon thousands of Russian troops on the border of Ukraine
The Syrian Red Line crossed and U.S. resolve down the drain
2,000 Russian troops have already landed and two airports seized
Another bridgehead in the Crimea from which Russians will not want to leave
The signs were all there that even the Sochi Olympics could not conceal
With the Games at an end only a question of time before into Kiev Russians to wheel
One would have thought that Hagel would have had a shred of foresight to defense cuts delay
Cutting back force levels to pre World War II, a signal Russia could have its way
Russian boots on the ground and our President after silence of 9 days
Solemnly announces there will be costs as if another Red Line will Putin somehow sway
More ethnic Russians in the Crimea will soon protest in the streets
Seeking salvation from injustice, just wanting more Russian liberators to greet
Sounds like the crisis in the Sudeten Land 1938 sadly repeated
Lacking only Kerry with Putin’s signature waving “a chance of war defeated”
Like Britain on the eve of World War II with an army looking like the Light Brigade
Hoping against all hope that the Russian Bear will not into the rest of Ukraine invade
Or to save bullets, Putin does not turn off the pipeline spigot and for land then trades
Or a real nightmare for the West to seal Putin’s  fait accompli
Demands a plebiscite on independence for the Crimea so its residents are free
Russia is far too experienced in the Great Game
To think Obama’s weak warning will shame
The Crimea with a majority of Russians residing there would vote to with Russia reunite
With billions looted by its former President, the Ukraine will be hard to upright
The EU and yes the US will need to up the aid ante to that economy to restore
To increase while Russian troops stay in the Crimea to buy not less gas but more
This is a series of wake up calls that Obama has failed heed
The sprouting of US decline as our military goes into decay, goes into seed
Lambasting the Russians over gay rights is noble but does nothing to bring peace to the map
The cuts announced by Hagel should be shelved, should be immediately scrapped
The carrot of keeping Russia in G8 as a member not a guest
Dangled with a stick of increased military might Russian forays slow or arrest
Although the Ukrainians welcomed the Wehrmacht and fought the Reds until 53
Massive arm shipments to them or advisers on the ground is not where today we can be
© March 1, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

Cheer And Face The Red Card

       Just getting ready to comment on the "invasion" by the Russians into the Crimea and the folly of the Administration's announcement of "there will be costs."  However, on the Five (great show as always!) when I heard them talk about Rathdrum, Idaho banning cheering at basketball games by parents and red carding those who violated the rules. A supposed experiment on how better to encourage children. This experiment hit home as Coeur d'Alene, home of the Vikings is very close and as an alum of the high school, my memories were that the fans were anything but silent. Same for the church league games played by those who did not have enough talent to play varsity or in my case although 6'6" according to my muscle weight chart from summers in Alaska fishing commercially, could not break the actual fathom barrier.  Thought you would enjoy these muse comments.

Sounds Of Silence On The Rathdrum Prairie Reigns?

Here is a news flash for whomever came up with the parents-may-not-cheer rule

To remain civil in language and apologies to the Blues, it must have been a herd of mules

Basketball is not the same as the sport of golf were on the tee silence reigns

Where the slightest noise breaks concentration and slices, duffs, hooks become a golfer's bane

It is also not the sport of tennis where the spectators sit mute in the stands

Lips sealed to all movement, polite folded hands

Even when one side is on the free throw line there is not truce

Streamers wave, feet stomp and all volume breaks lose.

Noise and cheers are part of the game

That human urge to cheer these mules seek to tame

The way to silence a home crowd is not with for parents  a penalty box

But rather the steal and layup or the coffin nail three downtown not blocked

Too many kids have parents who are away at work

Or a parent who has split and his role now shirked

More valuable than gold is the parent who juggles and somehow finds time to appear

Only to then be embarrassed, dumped on, into the box for a rousing, supporting cheer?

Kids need encouragement, kids need loving praise

Not silence or only signs instead of voices raised

This is a rule, by mules, sadly less than two percent baked

Insane to this Viking alum from two schools, one in the City by the Lake

The other from a village of the Great Land Norse

Time for this rec department to reverse its course

Ere cheering at football games becomes also subject to this ban

What's next? Duct taping the mouths of parents and nonparent fans?

If this school district would take the time to peruse the Bill of Rights

Might come to its senses and repeal this nonsense to the cheering parents' delight

© February 28, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet