By Lance Thompson

Recently I overheard a neighbor proudly showing his new truck to the guy next door. In response to appropriate appreciation, the new truck owner made this statement: I refuse to participate in the recession.

Slowly, the wisdom of this profound statement sank in. A recession, like any other manifestation of mass hysteria, requires participation to continue. People must have faith in a recession, must contribute to it, must convert others to believe in it. Otherwise, the recession would collapse for lack of support.

How do we know there is a recession in the first place? The media, bearer of all dire tidings, tell us so. It is clear to most Americans, based on a recent poll that rates the media among the least trustworthy of institutions, that those who bring us the news have an agenda. Part of that agenda is to elect Barack Obama. To achieve that end, the media must convince Americans that the economy is in a nosedive, so that we will seek relief from the junior varsity Senator from Illinois.

The media keep the news about rising gas prices, falling home prices, massive layoffs and the weakening dollar in the headlines and on the tops of the newscasts. There is no pessimistic economic indicator that doesn’t rate its own computer graphic, economic victim interview, and concerned look from the news reader.

Falling home prices certainly affect all homeowners. Journalists and commentators point to the phenomenon as proof of a worsening economy. However, when home values were rising just a few years ago, the exact opposite situation, the media were characterizing that as bad news as well. Even though rising home values added billions to the net worth of American homeowners, the media concentrated instead on the diminishing percentage of Americans who could afford the average home–the negative side of rising home values. Likewise, as home values fall, you will not hear reports in the media about the increasing affordability of homes. As prices come down, a larger percentage of the population can afford to buy homes, but this aspect is ignored by recession cheerleaders.

Economists gain access to the media and notoriety by volunteering their views on the coming recession. If you’re an economist with a doom and gloom forecast, you can be booked on a network show faster than an Olympic gold medalist. But The Wall Street Journal recently featured a story about foreign investors from Abu Dhubai buying the Chrysler building. This is a structure whose value is inextricably tied to the value of American commercial real estate. It is not an asset that can be purchased and shipped to the Middle East like some other token of wealth. Buying the Chrysler building is an $800 million bet on the future health of the United States economy. The views of economists are interesting, but none of them are playing with their own money.

High fuel prices impact everyone, but there are benefits to four dollar gas as well. Chrysler is spending almost $2 billion to retool a Detroit plant to build fuel-efficient, car-based SUV’s. It is a major investment in Michigan, which has been losing manufacturing jobs to other states for a generation. Boeing’s fuel-efficient 787 is the best-selling new airliner in history, with airlines around the world clamoring for the gas-sipping jet. High fuel costs have made Americans trade in gas guzzlers for fuel-efficient hybrids, and made American corporations increase their energy efficiency. Those habits will continue.

It’s not all good news, of course. Some people are doing well and some are having a tough time, which is pretty much the way things have always been. Most people’s relationship to the economy is intimate rather than general. The recession is a generalization, and certainly a subjective assessment. Not everybody is out of work, not every home is in foreclosure, not every business is going under–although that’s the way it looks on the news.

From personal observation, I see signs of a very healthy economy. My mother’s real estate office in Sacramento, a city with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, has seen business increase dramatically in the last two months. We have friends in Colorado who have added a premium zip-line attraction to their resort, and their business has doubled since last year. My wife, who recruits animators and visual effects artists for movies, has never been busier helping studios hire talented individuals.

There’s no such thing as a recession that affects everyone equally. There are challenges and opportunities in every economic situation. No matter what the media are talking about, people everywhere are starting or running businesses, looking for employment or employees, making investments in their homes, families or businesses. The principles that govern these activities don’t change just because the media says the economic sky is falling.

So I will gladly join my neighbor and refuse to participate in what the media wants us to believe is a recession. I’ll continue to do my job, pay the mortgage, buy groceries and gas, and put something away for a rainy day, as most people do most of the time. And I look forward to the day when the purveyors of gloomy economic forecasts will learn firsthand about economic reality by looking for work themselves.

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

Winston Churchill wrote: “The farther backward you can look the farther forward you will see.”

The character Madame De Farge in Dickens’ “Tale” was a rag woman who sat next to the guillotine and knitted as she mocked the poor men who were having their heads chopped off.

Victorian London was the setting. Its backdrop was a blur of smoke, soot, abject poverty, and death. Rampant crime infested the city. Pickpockets, hoodlums, drunkards, opium dens, prostitutes, gamblers and stranglers all had their way because of ineffective law enforcement. The greater blame lies with the upper-crust social elites. It was their reluctance to care enough and use whatever influence was within their power to force government and politicians to mend the fractured and treacherous mores running roughshod within their communities.

If we could place an x-ray image of that era’s London over any one of our liberal-dominated, high-crime American metropolises of 2008 ( e.g ., New York, Los Angeles, Detroit or Chicago), the images would match almost perfectly. In effect, we are doing a slow march backwards into the dense lawlessness and chaos that preceded what we have unfortunately come to regard as “a civilized way of life.”

An ever-growing divisiveness between the political right and left – affords us an opportunity to paint with words the model for what a Conservative City (the “CC”) and a Liberal City (the “LC”) might one day look like (and perhaps sooner rather than later). We present this black and white rendering (in a parallel universe without shades of gray) as a window into a future that likely lies ahead.

The good citizens of the CC, United States of America, rise and shine like everyone else, except they navigate their days with little to fear from their neighbors, or even strangers. The Constitution grants them the right to protect themselves and their property from harm. Likewise, there are no worrisome eminent domain laws because in the CC their home is truly their well-fortified castle. Neither outlanders crossing their borders, nor Sanctuary City policies — or even the remote possibility of tyranny, shall darken their door.

2019 - Into the 10^th Year of an Obama Presidency

Miles away in the LC, residents still yearn for One World Order so they can at last be liked and respected. Within the LC, registered gun owners, ( i.e ., the state police) watch impotently as criminals roam unbridled by a justice system (bolstered by the ACLU) which places their unlikely innocence above that of their victims. Gangbangers mark their territory with impunity painting graffiti by moonlight, and by day flaunt their undeterred lawlessness with unregistered guns. The LC Police, still hampered by Special Order 40, watch helplessly as the number of alien criminals grows and become more emboldened. Threat of imprisonment doesn’t deter them as criminality segues to and continues to operate from within their prison walls. Murderers will never be eradicated through execution, nor spared the opportunity to rot in jail.

In the CC, children of all creeds and colors read, write and calculate their bright futures. Education and patriotism are their priority. Every morning, with hand over heart, they recite the Pledge of Allegiance because they are proud to be Americans. They are allowed to pray, which has always served well as a moral foundation. And they thrive because parents and teachers guide them with a gentle yet firm hand, without fear of frivolous lawsuits or government interference. Students learn self-esteem through competition in school sports -- earning their place on the team.

In the LC, classrooms are packed to over-crowdedness with “undocumented immigrants.” It is not only politically incorrect, but against the law to refer to them as “illegal aliens.” In this situation, frustrated teachers from grade school to high school lag behind in their efforts to learn the languages and customs of all the cultures that still refuse to assimilate, or who have forced themselves on the LC society because they can. They give nothing and expect everything in return for free.

Teachers work in fear of students that call the shots in classrooms, playgrounds and the surrounding neighborhoods. These young people, the majority of whom will drop out before graduation, are the future employees of LC fast food restaurants and giant home-building stores. During the course of their tenuous employment, they will be unable to cope if computer systems crash, because they won’t be able to make change – in plain English, add or subtract, let alone factor in the exorbitant sales tax.

Their parents (if they’re lucky to have two at home) will be busy working overtime to pay those oppressive taxes while their children round out their educations playing violent videogames or hanging out at the mall.

In the CC, successful business owners, both large and small, are rewarded for their hard work with low-to-no taxes which they happily reinvest for growth. In turn, they keep the unemployment rate low… well, there is no unemployment rate. In the long run, the CC might need to begin advertising for the best and the brightest in the LC just to fill entry-level jobs.

LC businesses and factories are closing down and moving out of state because unions and taxes have eroded profits, incentive, and competition. Welfare lines are growing longer, as well as the queues at the Unemployment and Social Security offices. There aren’t enough young, legal Americans left to keep Social Security afloat. A contributing factor is that the number of state-funded abortions has grown exponentially.

The LC boils over with illegal immigrants sucking up its remaining resources. The last Emergency Clinic overflows into the streets with the uninsured. To meet the demand for police and fire department personnel, the city has lowered its recruitment standards and is accepting the high school dropouts. At the same time, all the best-trained doctors and dentists have fled to greener pastures in the CC.

CC retirees plan vacations and other leisure activities made possible by early privatization of Social Security. The CC ended taxation of personal retirement accounts years ago. In fact, the CC ended capital gains and death taxes too. Rest in Peace has taken on new meaning.

The CC’s borders are well protected by a highly trained and educated volunteer militia. Potential terror threats are dealt with in a clean and efficient manner. There’s no messing around in the CC. Its borders are sealed tight and that’s the way its citizens sleep – tight.

Over in the LC, citizens are always looking over their shoulders -- for a stray gang bullet, perhaps? Identity checks at airports have been eliminated for fear of insulting anyone’s ethnicity. The few foreign terrorists that have been arrested are wreaking havoc on an already shaky economy where taxpayers bear the cost of legal representation and the endless appeals of jihadists entitled to the same rights as legally-born and naturalized citizens. They have no idea when – not if, but when – the next terrorist attack will occur, because there are so many restrictions on the intelligence agencies.

The LC will, should terrorists attack again, proceed to hunt them down like other criminals. When caught, they will be read Miranda rights via an Islamic interpreter. The already poor citizens of LC will be forced to house foreign terrorists locally the rest of their natural lives. This will be accomplished by -- you guessed it, more taxes.

In the CC, the atmosphere is generally festive throughout the year as they celebrate their freedom and the significance of each and every tradition and holiday without fear of recrimination.

In the LC, Christmas, like Independence Day or Memorial Day, is treated as just another day off from work to watch a ball game, get drunk, or hang at the mall. Yes, there are twinkling lights and the smell of plastic holiday trees, but angel tree toppers and Christmas carols are symbols of a bygone era thanks to vocal atheists and weak civic leaders. Public religious displays have also been outlawed or condemned. “In God We Trust” was removed from their currency, and churches and synagogues have been converted into homeless shelters and shoe outlets.

At home, a turkey and all the trimmings are served around the dinner table, but no one raises their voice to heaven to give thanks for the provender. The only thanks are for the cook or the caterer. Amen.

Is this an unfair generalization or characterization of Liberal America? Maybe it is. But which city would you rather live in? You get your chance to vote on it in November.

by Lance Thompson

In every presidential election I can recall, the Democrats have always been at pains to proclaim that their candidate is "the smart one" and the Republican is the "dumb one."

Gerald Ford was portrayed as a bumbler compared to Jimmy Carter, who served in the nuclear navy. Ronald Reagan was consistently branded simplistic, uninformed, senile and always just "an actor reading lines." Walter Mondale ran on a platform of superior competence against Reagan.

Michael Dukakis proclaimed himself architect of the Massachusetts miracle, while George H. W. Bush was chided for lacking "vision." Bill Clinton, the Rhodes scholar, and Gore were the smartest guys in the room, ready to save the country from recession. Their battle cry, "It’s the economy, stupid," left no doubt who the stupid one was supposed to be. Clinton made Bob Dole look tired and out of touch.

Al Gore and George W. Bush were both Ivy Leaguers, but Bush was portrayed as a dumb, lucky son of privilege compared to the Ivy League-educated Gore (Both were average students, Bush at Yale and Gore at Harvard. Interestingly, Gore’s lowest grade in college was a D in a natural sciences course. This is the man who won the Nobel Prize for his warnings on global warming.)  Finally, John Kerry tried to blame the war, the economy and the weather, on Bush’s stupidity, but the country didn’t buy it.

Consistently, Democrats elevate education and intellect as a vital attribute to a presidential candidate, always pointing out that their choice is smarter than the Republican. But that particular argument isn’t being employed this time around.

Yes, the Obama campaign has sullied John McCain with the "too old, too out of touch" pitch, but none of that seems to stick. People already know John McCain is old, and he seems mostly out of touch to conservatives, and at least partially sympathetic to liberals.

Surprisingly, few Democrats have been making the argument that Obama is the intellectual superior in this race. Perhaps this is because when Republicans, early in the contest, complimented Obama as erudite or intelligent, Democrats quickly claimed that such compliments were thinly veiled racism, damning the black candidate with faint praise. They ridiculed Republicans for being surprised that a black candidate could speak coherently. Actually, we were surprised that any Democrat could speak coherently.

Or maybe the Democrats are saving the "Obama is smarter" argument for later in the race, when they need to bring out the big guns. But usually the intelligence argument has already been made at this stage.

The most likely reason that Democrats haven’t portrayed Obama as smart is because he is so very adept at proving he’s not.

Obama claims his uncle or great uncle (the story changed almost as soon as it hit the internet) was one of the American troops who liberated Auschwitz, when in fact the Nazi concentration camp was liberated by Russians. Obama said he was inspired by seeing civil rights marches in Selma four years before he was born. He credits a Kennedy-Kruschev meeting in 1961 as "helping to end the Cold War," when in fact it emboldened Kruschev to establish missile bases in Cuba. He’s confused about the conflicting political claims on Jerusalem. He believes the physical size of terrorist sponsor states like Iraq, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba make their nuclear ambitions insignificant. His explanations about his associations with Reverend Wright and the terrorist Bill Ayres were inconsistent and dishonest. Obama would be a great motivational speaker, but you wouldn’t want to bet on him in the Jeopardy finals.

If Democrats had a candidate who had demonstrated intelligence or profound insight in any concrete fashion, they would be extolling those virtues constantly, as they have in previous campaigns with other candidates. But this is not the case with Obama. Democrats know their candidate can’t compete in one of their favorite arenas.

In short, Obama can’t claim to be the intellectual candidate because he’s not convincing in the role. He has energized his supporters with promises of change, but he has not backed those promises up with policy. He is young, inexperienced, and easily confounded by unanticipated questions and challenges.

It’s possible that this aspect of Obama doesn’t bother his supporters, who are excited by his youth, freshness and electrifying personality. But you can bet the Democrat campaign managers are thinking about it. They, at least, are demonstrating intelligence by staying silent on the subject.

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

George Armstrong Custer lost his luster and got whacked at the Little Big Horn.

Senator John McCain spent five years of his life inside a Viet Nam death camp, was beaten and tortured, and survived to tell about it. He too has lost his luster (with conservatives) and is getting whacked by a previously fawning media.

Custer was vain, arrogant, ambitious, reckless and a risk-taker.

McCain is also vain, arrogant, ambitious, reckless and a risk-taker. But is McCain riding the trail rejecting conservative core principles along the way to become our latter-day General Custer? We’ll call our pork barrel fighter “Lt. Custard.”

General Custer designed his own extravagant uniforms: polished jackboots, tight-fitting corduroy trousers, his trademark wide-brim hat, a black velveteen hussar jacket with silver piping, and a red cravat on his sailor shirt with silver stars on the collar. He was a natural blond, and wore his hair in long ringlets which he dusted with cinnamon-scented hair oil.

Lt. Custard could use a makeover and some hair but we won’t go there. We’ll leave that up to the media as they break all the rules of propriety and point out every freckle, age spot, bump or suspicious wound on his vast forehead.

General Custer lost his Division’s train as well as his personal luggage to a band of Confederates at the Battle of Trevilian Station.

Lt. Custard carried his own suitcases between planes in airports before, during and after the Primaries. Is this a sign of confidence — or of being lost in the political wilderness?

General Custer loved publicity and often invited journalists to go along with him on his campaigns so that they could report his battlefield panache.

Lt. Custard is a media darling so long as he speaks liberally about Liberals’ pet issues, which he does with disconcerting ease aboard the Straight Talk Express.

General Custer jeopardized his military career when he testified against the abuses and severe ill treatment of Native Americans barricaded inside government reservations.

Lt. Custard jeopardizes our national security and economic stability when he promotes unlocking America’s borders to millions of illegal immigrants and promises to close GITMO if elected.

In 1867, Custer went AWOL to see his wife and was court-martialed. The army suspended his duty for one year.

In 2007, Lt. Custard went AWOL on conservatives. This boosted his chummy relationship with Democrats in Congress and (dramatic organ music) the PRESS.

It could have been the 1860s, but more likely the 1960s when once proud journalists, honor bound to tell the truth, launched an expedition towards the conquest of young American braves.

It continues to this day as they propel their so-called crowning achievement, Barack Obama, into the fractured leadership of the Free World. We will call these so-called journalists the “Sue.” Why? Because it’s damn near impossible to instigate legal action against them when they cower behind the stone walls of Fort First Amendment.

Former Sue (and Viet Nam war correspondent), “Sitting Bull-Gore,” has made a stand against the alleged warming of the earth. He has turned this fantasy into a rallying point for the disaffected of every blue state (and raked in millions of dollars with this scam, affording him and Tipper Canoe to live lavishly – and hypocritically – on their energy-hogging Tennessee estate).

In comparison, Lt. Custard’s half-hearted attempt at environmentalism consists of trying to save 1% of the pristine Alaskan tundra. This has been met with mockery by the Sue and their ignoble carbon credit-eating -- Sitting Bull-Gore.

With Democrats on both sides of the continent, and Republicans stuffed like turkey dressing in the middle, the Sue wage a relentless and merciless war with their poison pens on conservative candidates. Every endeavor to keep the Sue in check during the Iraq War has only served to consume precious military resources. Instead, the Sue immediately made a slap-dash prediction that the war would be a rout (naturally not in our favor) even before the first 50-caliber shot was fired.

They then followed up with a relentless volley of “Recession! Recession!!” until they have nearly made it so. They have since become even more aggressive, arming themselves with one-sided fiction delivered at warp-speed via the Internet (which was invented of course by Sitting Bull-Gore). The Sue has become a fierce foe more dreaded and deadly than any past or present European press corps.

Republican candidates, when confronted by members of the Sue tribe should just ask for a blindfold, a cigarette and a quick scalping to spare their family, religious beliefs and personal integrity from being publicly torn to shreds and tossed into the Little Big Horn River.

This is the formidable and unrelenting fighting force that Lt. Custard and the GOP are forced to contend with. The Sue’s bellicose behavior offers no white flags, no treaties or time-outs. In spite of attempts to bribe or mollify them, they remain uncompromising.

The Sue was once warmed by Lt. Custard’s glow. Now they rally round the impressive – but downright baffling – forked-tongue oratory (not worth a wooden nickel) of their charismatic presumptive leader, Barack Obama, known euphemistically as “Crazy Horse.” Recently, a tribe of over 65,000 Left Wings joined Crazy Horse at an Oregon political war party. Impressive indeed!

The Sue and the Left Wings fear that Lt. Custard might be impetuous with Persia’s…uh...Iran’s leader and plunge us head-on into yet another Great War. Crazy Horse, on the other hand, plans to Pow and Wow known-terrorist leaders. This “Brave’s” naïve effort to smoke the peace pipe has the same fishy tang as the abject ramblings (and catastrophic failures) of demented Ex-Chief “Head-in-the-Clouds” Carter.

Although Lt. Custard courted the Sue over the years, they remain stubbornly single-minded in their support of Crazy Horse. Lt. Custard has been warned by his base to keep watch well out toward his Left as he navigates the campaign trail. He has let us conservative warriors down in so many unexpected ways, such as clamoring for oil drilling while simultaneously shutting down prospecting in the tundra – this in spite of hard assurances the caribou will not be harmed. At the same time, Lt. Custard has yet to notice the abundance of free-range buffalo in Yellowstone.

by Lance Thompson

The BBC reported on 23 June that Tran Trong Duyet, the former commander of the North Vietnamese Hoa Lo military prison where John McCain spent five and a half years, now considers John McCain a friend and "would vote for him." Mr. Duyet disputes McCain’s account of his captivity, denying that prisoners were beaten, tortured or mistreated. Evidently, Mr. Duyet does not regard the prison’s nickname, "the Hanoi Hilton," as the least bit ironic.

Still, the endorsement of an old enemy is nothing new in politics. After one of the most bruising primary battles in recent presidential history, Hillary Clinton calls Barack Obama a friend, and tells of how proud she was to have competed against him for the nomination. She will work hard, she promises, to reunite the party and see Obama elected. Surely this is no greater turnaround than that of a former North Vietnamese officer endorsing a former American prisoner.

One could ascribe Mr. Duyet’s last-minute endorsement to selective memory or the propensity to idealize the events of one’s past. But we must also consider a more sinister motive, one that eventually tempts all who come in contact with a presidential contender–personal advancement.

It is no secret that McCain and Obama are compiling lists of potential cabinet officers and political appointees. Mr. Duyet, currently retired and keeping fit as an amateur ballroom dancer, must be thinking about a third act in his life–surely he still harbors goals and aspirations. With his military background, he could be angling for Secretary of Defense. As a former officer in a former Soviet client state, he would have knowledge of Communist tactics and technology–both of which are bound to be hot topics with a resurgent Russia and a restive Communist China on the new President’s agenda.

Likewise, the hot seat of the attorney general might be a target. Mr. Duyet’s familiarity with incarceration and--at least according to John McCain--interrogation would put him at the forefront of the controversial Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay detainees. If the liberals on the Big Bench insist on giving terrorist prisoners every possible break, then we should have an attorney general equally insistent on the same. The breaks he gave to his prisoners were more physical in nature than legal, but Mr. Duyet would certainly be a worthwhile advocate against a judiciary that seems at least sympathetic to this country’s enemies.

But Mr. Duyet seems eminently suited for one particular position that would give him a forum to demonstrate his new-found friendship for John McCain and catapult him back into the public eye. The unimaginably challenging job of White House spokesman cries out for a man of Mr. Duyet’s credibility and conviction. This position requires a person who does not mind that his every statement is disbelieved, his every utterance is questioned, his every smile or facial tic assumed to be rehearsed. Mr. Duyet obviously has no trouble at all expressing the most preposterous and laughable ideas with an absolute faith that they will find acceptance from a gullible public.

One further qualification that Mr. Duyet offers. With the recent treasonous tome by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan fresh in the public mind, Mr. Duyet at least acknowledges that once, long ago, he and John McCain were on opposite sides. Compared to Scott McClellan’s professions of friendship toward the President that lasted right up until the first review copies of his book came out, Mr. Duyet’s service would be a model of frank and forthright square dealing.