Reporting Live from Hurricane Earl Warning Zone - Southern Maryland

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For those of you safely tucked away from the Atlantic Ocean Hurricane Earl is just another storm somewhere else but here in Coltons Point on the waterfront, just a few miles from the point where the Potomac River reaches the Chespeake Bay and about 100 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, we sit in the area covered by Emergency Hurricane warnings from the National and State of Maryland emergency offices.

Just 7 years ago Hurricane Isabel made a direct hit here with the eye of the hurricane passing right over Coltons Point.  If Earl shifts just a few miles it could hit here again.  If it takes the current projected path we could have hurricane force or tropical storm force winds as right now hurricane force winds reach out 90 miles from the eye of the storm and tropical force winds reach 200 miles.

That means winds of up to 145 miles per hour are already within reach.  We sit just a few feet above sea level leaving us also subject to tidal surges which reached up to 8 feet during Isabel.  In fact many old trees were uprooted and the streets along the river were literally ripped out of the ground.

Access to Coltons Point was limited to boats and amphibious vehicles during Isabel and that storm was much less severe than Earl.  So we will be reporting live and in person from my front porch as the storm makes it's approach over the next 24-36 hours.

Stay tuned as we find out how accurate the Weather Service projected path might be.  We will keep reporting live as long as Internet access allows but if the winds are as severe as projected there is a good chance the lines and electricity will be wiped out.

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Obama Closes Door to Iraq Combat - Even Mentions the Economy for a Change

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In a rather strange 19 minute prime time address from the Oval Office President Obama talked about the end of combat in Iraq, the Afghanistan war, President Bush and the economy and never cracked a smile nor showed much of any emotion, not a good performance for one considered the great communicator.

It was a hodgepodge of subjects, all of which were important, but none of which got much discussion in his address. Clearly the talk of the economy at the end of the talk was a last minute addition to address the fact the entire nation is wondering if the President will ever get around to addressing the economy, unemployment and the national debt.

His mention of Bush was awkward at best and said nothing that everyone didn't already know. The only thing unusual about it was Obama did not blame Bush for everything but he also didn't mention that Bush signed the agreement to withdraw combat troops while president or that Bush implemented the troop surge strategy used by Obama in Iraq and Afghanistan but then when he uses the former president as a punching bag he really can't say too much good about him.

Obama did make reference to the terrible cost in lives and money of the war which we also know. However, as for the $700 billion cost over 7 years, Obama didn't mention he spent that much in one day with the stimulus program and over $4 trillion on his own legislative agenda the past 18 months. Some think that $4 trillion was wasted as well.

Again he gave our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan a heads up by reinforcing his deadline for leaving the war zones which is something no president has ever done before through the news media. Many believe this is an indication of his inexperience.

As for the economy, it was the standard line of blaming the Republicans and the prior 8 years, though he didn't mention Bush by name, while offering nothing but a trivial bill pending in congress as a step toward healing the wounds. It will take a lot more than a small business incentive to fix the mess we are in.

Obama appeared tired, lacked the energy he has on a basketball court, and seemed almost distracted when giving the talk. Of course his foreign policy agenda was not what the people want to hear and his meetings on Mideast peace the rest of the week will keep him from addressing the economy for another week.

Since he just finished a ten day vacation at Cape Cod perhaps he needs a few days to rest up from his busy vacation schedule.

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Rating the News Media - MSNBC Gears Up for Last Hurrah of Progressive Liberals

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One thing is clear in the latest Nielsen Ratings, the public is not being fooled by the news media and I use that term rather loosely when distinguishing between news and opinion shows since it is hard to tell the difference most days.

As we head into the fall television cycle and the upcoming Midterm elections it is hard to tell if the Democrats, incumbents, or media are suffering the most by misreading the mood of the public. Clearly the polls and primary election results demonstrate the Democrats and incumbents are lost in their ivory towers as they are in serious trouble and have no clue why.

This year will be one of lost opportunities for the Democrats and even more so for the progressive liberals. They have thrown away, wasted or blown one of the greatest majorities for an unknown and untested president and his party ever handed to politicians in our history.

Right now Obama and the Democratic majority are on the verge of showing one of the greatest falls from grace ever witnessed in politics. Look for the president's party to lose control and around 55 seats in the House, and maybe 9-10 seats and possibly control of the Senate, just two years after Obama's triumphant coronation as president.

Yet the impact on the progressive liberal media who helped power Obama into office could be even more devastating. For the media have ignored or failed to read the tea leaves to an even greater degree than the Obama, Pelosi and Reid people.

Just look at some of the numbers. In August only one network news anchor gained audience, Diane Sawyer at ABC according to the Nielsen numbers. Sawyer continued to close the gap against NBC while Katie Couric is buried in last place.

When it comes to cable news and/or opinion the stats are staggering. MSNBC is the clear bastion of progressive liberalism. Throughout the year they have continued to add progressive mouthpieces to their program mix while attempting to bolster the sagging numbers of their progressive philosophy. The result has been suicidal.

HNL's non-political Morning Express hosted by Robin Meade has buried the MSNBC far left leaning Morning Joe Show for 17 consecutive months as Robin has driven her ratings up 25%-28% in key demos and leads the Morning Joe show by a stunning 66% for the year to date.

As Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC token Republican on the Morning Joe Show, has drifted farther and farther from the GOP viewpoint the ratings of MSNBC have dropped. Just today Joe justified his MSNBC credentials by being about the only Republican on earth to say the GOP will not win control of the House in the elections. If he keeps it up he will beat out Howard Dean for the next leader of the Democratic National Committee.

Fox News is clobbering MSNBC in every single time slot, generally pulling three to four times higher ratings than MSNBC in daytime and prime time programming. For example, Glenn Beck beats Chris Matthews with over 2.1 million viewers to 464,000 for Matthews, O'Rielly beats Olbermann 2.5 million to 782,000, and Hannity beats Rachel Maddow 1.95 million to 610,000 in late August numbers. Note that Hannity often has Sarah Palin on his program.

Then there is CNN, who claims to be the last truly fair and balanced network. Yet they have Rick Sanchez and his progressive agenda on the Rick's List program and even added the liberal to their prime timeline up where his new show has lost 40% of the audience over the previous year. This past week his prime time show pulled just 92,000 viewers while a CNBC show (financial network) about McDonald's Big Mac pulled 143,000 viewers compared to a couple of million viewers on Fox.

CNN primetime average viewership hit a ten year low of just 486,000 in August while the Total Day viewership average of 381,000 was the fifth time this year it had one of the ten worst viewership months since August of 2000. Even Larry King lost 50% of his audience in just the last year.

So what is the lesson? If the media owners of MSNBC and CNN continue to push the progressive liberal agenda they will continue to alienate the Main Street viewers and may soon find themselves becoming an endangered species like many of the radical causes they advocate. Perhaps they should consider adding a little news content to their programming.

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Glenn Beck Rally, with a little help from Sarah Palin & friends, silences Liberals

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On Saturday, August 28 in our nation's capitol Fox host Glenn Beck silenced his liberal critics who warned of unrest and violence from a gathering of Americans on the mall. In his rally to restore honor to America and to urge a return to Judeo Christian values, Beck and friends like the ever popular Sarah Palin drew many hundreds of thousands to a peaceful demonstration of love for America and hope for the future.

At the same time the Reverend Al Sharpton, members of the Obama Administration and the NAACP were holding another rally with a few thousand supporters where Sharpton denounced Beck for trying to steal the day of Martin Luther King's "I had a dream" speech 47 years earlier. It was a stupid charge from an old and tired civil rights advocate and one he spent the next two days trying to deny in television interviews.

What was important is Beck and Palin brought a huge crowd together with no discussion of politics or Obama or conspiracy theories but to honor God, country and the members of the Armed Forces who defend our freedom.

Beck is neither a Republican nor a conservative purist and has been demonized by Obama, the White House and the liberal media but the success of his event stunned them all and caused them to reconsider just how bad the Pelosi Democrats my lose this fall.

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Cheer up Folks - Class is Not Dead Yet in the Arts!

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For some odd reason in spite of growing up in Iowa I was hopelessly drawn to the footlights of Broadway and the challenge of real people doing real performances in front of a crowd.  It was always my idea of one of the greatest challenges ever and I never lost my love for the theater and live performance on film.

In spite of the entertainment changes over the years nothing is quite like live performance on stage or in film.  Just to show you true creative talent is still with us, check out these two videos.  The first is a stunning dance performance from the Festival du cirque de domain that was posted on YouTube by Jongzki Fetalver.



The second is the kind of artistic commerical for Pantene that you will never see on US television about a deaf girl who wants to play the violin.  Do not miss this.

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Did New Jersey Lose $400 million Education Grant for Opposing Obama & Teacher's Union?

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In a state long accustomed to knowing the price you pay for corruption and whose new Republican Governor, Chris Christie, made his mark prosecuting corruption in the state, it seems as if there were some strange actions by the Obama administration, the teacher's union and some of New Jersey's old politicians to inflict cruel and extreme punishment for an innocent clerical error that cost the people and students of the state $400 million in Obama education funds.

The New Jersey application lost the $400 million dollars for two reasons, a clerical error where TWO LINES had the wrong fiscal year data, and because the state teacher's union refused to sign off on the application. Had the reviewers asked the state to correct the two lines out of over 1,000 pages of application they would have received the money. Or, had the teacher's union backed the state plan for students they would have the money.

New Jersey is the only state that was facing a severe financial crisis because of bizarre tax increases and corruption after nearly a decade of Democratic leadership in the governor's office and used the ballot to clean house. The people threw out the old guard, brought in a former straight talking prosecutor, and backed him as he took on the teacher's union to bring sense to the budget and eliminate ridiculous health and pension benefits that would bankrupt the state over time.

That is democracy at work. Unfortunately, the old governor, Jon Corzine, was one of Obama's top economic advisors who had been CEO of Goldman Sachs, the top Obama contributor and fund raiser, and was one of Obama's top political supporters, while he was raiding the Jersey treasury. Obama went out of his way to campaign for his buddy, and the news media said Christie did not have a chance to win. Fortunately, the Democratic party and media no longer tell the voters of Jersey who to elect.

So we know the victory of Christie over Corzine was a huge embarrassment to the Obama gang, in particular the Rahm Emanuel political operatives who grew up playing Chicago hardball. Did I mention the teacher's union is one of the strongest financial supporters of Obama, and of the Democratic Senator from New Jersey Robert Menendez? The teacher's union spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to stop the governor from reforming the entire state budget before being overwhelmed by the people in local school board elections.

Did I mention that Menendez is the head of the most powerful political machine of the Democrats in the Senate, he is Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and a strong Obama ally? Did I mention that two citizen watchdog groups, SourceWatch and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, both say the same Senator Menendez is, well here are their words about Menendez.

Under Investigation by: The Department of Justice.

Under Investigation for: Sen. Menendez is under investigation by the Newark, NJ U.S. Attorney’s Office for collecting rent from an anti-poverty group for which he helped win federal funds, the North Hudson Community Action Corporation. The group was run by a donor to Sen. Menendez’s campaign. More recently, in 2007, federal investigators began looking into Sen. Menendez’s relationship with his former chief of staff, lobbyist Kay LiCausi, to determine whether the senator improperly helped her or her clients win contracts and federal funding.

So why do I mention all these different factors in a story about Jersey losing $400 million? Because I worked for governors (including New Jersey) and congress along with federal administrations and I can guarantee you no applicant for a program of this nature would be denied funds for an obvious clerical error that could have been corrected with a phone call.

This incident has all the earmarks of political retaliation by the Obama White House gang to punish the governor and people of New Jersey for daring to take on the all powerful teacher's union. A full investigation of the application process and the refusal of the federal reviewers to ask for the clerical corrections is surely warranted.

More important, as every insider in Washington knows, a US Senator has more influence than anyone else in Congress. Menendez is supposed to have direct links to Emanuel and Obama because of his Democratic party leadership position. He also has no love for Governor Christie who disrupted the plans of the Democrats to keep control of the state.

If Menendez had done anything to ask the Education Department or Obama to allow the state to fix the innocent clerical error it would have been done because that is the Washington way. Never underestimate the power of a sitting senator. Obviously Menendez did nothing to help his own state and students. Or he does not have the ear of the White House. Also did Menendez call the teacher's union and asked them to sign off for the $400 million benefit to students and teachers? I mean is their hatred of the new governor so consuming that the children of New Jersey are mere pawns in a political -power play?

What happened defies logic, is contrary to the Washington way, seems to indicate the Obama people and Menendez used the action to punish the new Republican governor, and would be worthy of criminal action if anyone in the White House or Menendez's office failed to help the state do something that was always done by agencies, help the applicants have a complete application and receive the money they deserved for the students and people of New Jersey. FOR SHAME!

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Shirley Sherrod Turns Down Obama Offer - Now Free to Sue Obama

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Yesterday Shirley Sherrod, the Ag Department official who was fired by the Obama administration, met with the Secretary of Agriculture and turned down the offer from the Obama people to rejoin the team. As usual the media has continued to sidestep the most important questions to ask Shirley as if not asking will make the truth go away.

Since her story broke in the media we have consistently wondered why the mainstream, cable and progressive media have all chosen to ignore facts and pass sweeping judgments with no justification yet they still seem to have learned no lessons.

Silent is the media on whether Shirley and her husband stand to gain $350,000 from suing the Ag dept for discrimination on a long pending settlement. Should she get a large award and the answer lies in a pending bill for over a billion dollars buried in Congress, then one wonders how a former Ag official could sue and win money from the very department she works for. Sounds awful close to a conflict of interest.

Better yet, why did no media ask if she intends to sue the Obama administration for one of the most blatant acts of discrimination every admitted to by the government. Any half baked lawyer could win a huge settlement based on the dumb mistakes the Obama people made, then admitted to making.

If she has already sued the government before, did Obama or Ag Secretary Vilsack attempt to talk her out of suing again when they met with her? Did they ask her to wait until after the fall elections before going after her retirement fund?

Shirley deserves to win big because she was a victim, not of the media though the media and NAACP were stupid in how they handled it, but of the Obama administration because they should have known better than to find her guilty with no review of the facts. When the White House can ignore due process we are all in trouble.

As for the media, they remain silent on the issues I raised weeks ago and that are just as important today. If the media were truly interested in the facts this information would have been disclosed long ago. Did she sue before? Will she get $350,000 when Congress approves the bill? Will she sue again? Did the president, Ag Secretary or anyone else try and talk her out of suing or ask her to delay the inevitable? Why did the media not check out the obvious?

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Sarah Palin continues string of stunning upsets as America's #1 Political Outsider

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In spite of the extensive and ongoing national and cable media efforts to sink Sarah's ship her candidates continue to shake the foundation of politics in America, control of politics by the national political parties, and the progressive liberal media's dying grasps to have a voice in the fall elections.

As the Palin touch brought down yet another incumbent previously declared the clear winner by the left, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Palin had endorsed long shot Joe Miller last June, he holds a clear lead with the majority of votes counted. While several thousand absentee votes remain to be counted, no major race has been decided this year by absentee votes in spite of the hesitation of the media to call the race.

The Palin juggernaut has stunned the political pundits and professional politicians of both parties and when combined with the huge Republican lead in total primary votes cast in state after state should foreshadow a massive Republican victory and setback for the progressive agenda in the fall elections.

Add to that the fact the Obama economic program has failed in spite of efforts by Administration talking heads to plea for patience, the public shows no mood for patience when jobs are stagnate, the future looks bleak, the cause for the economic crisis, housing, has continued to undermine the American dream and the Obama deficit continues to dwarf the Bush years.

If the progressives and liberal media continue their two year coordinated campaign to destroy Palin they are in danger of creating a voter backlash that could well leave liberals an endangered species. Each time the left elite try to end the career of the new American candidates they fail. From the New Jersey and Massachusetts races long ago to Rand Paul in Kentucky, Nikki Haley in South Carolina to Joe Miller yesterday, just when the liberals pronounce them dead on arrival they win.

Even the races lost by the populist candidates, particularly those backed by Palin, have been far closer than the polls indicated and might have been won on recounts in some cases. People are really upset and the media still doesn't get it. One day the pundits who are consistently dead wrong may finally get it, like when they no longer know any politicians in Washington.
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The Second End to Combat in Iraq Celebration Featuring VP Joe Biden

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As the carefully staged White House theatrical play of The End to Combat in Iraq continues it's road show this time the second team took center stage as Joe Biden filled in for the vacationing President Obama to declare, according to the Los Angeles Times Joe Biden update:

No 'Mission Accomplished' claim on Iraq, but no 'victory' either.
 

Andrew Malcolm went on to report:

Fortunately, Sen. Barack Obama was about as wrong as he could possibly be opposing President Bush's 2007 troop surge in this news video from the former state senator's favorite TV channel.

As one result, the vacationing president and, this week, the peripatetic vice president are busy celebrating the U.S. military's success in Iraq with the withdrawal this month of the last American combat brigade.

Of course, the Democrats are not dumb enough to repeat the notorious "Mission Accomplished" banner of the previous administration. Nor is the White House No. 2 going to repeat his notorious claim from a February "Larry King Live" show that Iraq represents one of Obama's "great achievements."

Today, in an Indianapolis speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Joe "Let's Divide Iraq Into Three Parts" Biden did not mention his opposition to the Bush troop surge either. But he was naturally effusive in his praise of American service personnel, present and past.

Two other things to note in this administration's public relations war wind-down:

A) The administration's third commander in Afghanistan in 19 months, Gen. David Petraeus, as JB so carefully put it today in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Indianapolis, "now has all the resources that the strategy calls for." (Full text below.)

B) What's missing from Biden's remarks about all the sacrifices being made as it was missing from Obama's 4,582-word West Point speech announcing his second Afghan troop surge and outlining a strategy there (including a pre-announced withdrawal starting next July), is the key word: "Victory."

Additionally, 50,000 heavily-armed American troops still remain in Iraq for....

... not always courteous counter-insurgency operations in coming months. So, "non-combat troops in Iraq" all depends on what your definition of "combat" is.

But with homefront approval of the nation's wars waning and an angry, frustrated electorate scheduled to vote in a midterm looming for Democrats on Nov. 2, we will be hearing much more on this from Obama post-Martha's Vineyard.

Now some might think after the NBC End of Iraq Combat staging last week this might be the end of the Administration efforts to capitalize on the public relations surrounding this ongoing historic event which is scheduled to really be completed August 31 but the President has now scheduled a major address for August 31 about, what else, the end of combat in Iraq in case you missed the first two events proclaiming the end of combat.

Apparently the hoopala is designed to make us overlook the fact about 50,000 combat ready troops will remain in Iraq after we have finished combat, that thousands of private contactors will be hired to fight in Iraq and that no one thinks the remaining 50,000 troops will be withdrawn by the end of next year as also promised.

I find the Administration reference to private contractors not being a combat force rather odd as long ago governments and kings hired such private contractors to fight their wars only they called them paid mercenaries and they were the fighting force.

One final note as I mentioned in my last article is that the real last remaining combat brigade in Iraq is the Stryker 2-25 brigade as reported by a soldier still in Iraq fighting after the NBC end of combat show. Perhaps Obama will acknowledge this truth as the 2-25 is from his home state of Hawaii and would make for more great theater.

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NBC Iraq Staging Drama - The Latest in News Media Reality Shows?

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Call it manufactured news, news manipulation or whatever the NBC extravaganza showing the last combat troops leaving Iraq was high in theater and low on truth. For a few hours yesterday even the Huffington Post, the liberal sanctuary, posted the Coltons Point Times article exposing the sham as nothing more than a public relations stunt by NBC and MSNBC to prop up sagging ratings.

However, the Huffington Post caters to the will of the White House and someone must have called for dropping the negative article about NBC because it disappeared soon after it appeared. However, since truth is so hard to find on the internet, here is a copy of the Google search that showed the Coltons Point Times article on the Huffington Post yesterday.

Now for more truth, the same day NBC was heralding an end to combat in Iraq Obama was speaking in Ohio and said the following:

“We are keeping the promise I made when I began my campaign for the presidency,” Obama said at a fundraiser at the Columbus Anthenaeum. “By the end of this month we will have removed 100,000 troops from Iraq and our combat mission will [end].”

No mention that all troops would be out that day and a reinforcement of his goal to be out by August 31. A military web site, Open Security contemporary conflict, reported the following in reaction to the NBC snow job:

"The last United States’ army combat brigade left Iraq early this morning, crossing the border into Kuwait in a carefully-planned, top-secret journey. The departure of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, will leave 6000 support troops in Iraq until end of August, when US combat operations will formally end.

US State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley said American involvement in Iraq is far from over, but would be less intrusive and more civilian-focused from now on. Crowley emphasised that the US remains committed to its trillion dollar investment in Iraq, and needed to honour the memory of almost 4,500 troops who lost their lives in the war. Crowley made no mention of the estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians who also lost their lives in the conflict.

Despite White House reassurances that continued unrest and a six-month old political deadlock following indecisive elections in March will not “derail democracy” in Iraq, many commentators are sceptical that the end of combat operations can be as clear cut as the Obama administration would like it to be. Although 50,000 troops will remain in support of the Iraqi army until the end of 2011, current plans would see all US forces withdrawing from Iraq by the end of 2011, leaving only a small contingent of diplomats and civilians, protected by less than a few thousand troops."

Finally a serviceman blogging from Iraq wrote that "there is still a Stryker brigade" remaining in Iraq after the departure of the Stryker 4-2 brigade on NBC. He said the Stryker 2-25 brigade, the only combat brigade left in Iraq, will be the last to leave before the end of the month.

His response to NBC was "along the way you missed out on pointing out true facts that there is still a brigade here that is just as large and has the same if not more vehicles than 4-2 does. So look deeper and remember soldiers watch the news as well and the piece as a whole was nice but I hope you come see us since we are the last Strykers here and will be turning out the lights on this show."

You will get the truth if you are open to it. As for me, I really don't like network news using our brave American troops as props for their reality shows. It is a disgrace to journalism, it trivializes war, and makes the blood of over 4,400 Americans who died in Iraq seem more like a TV script than the reality it was to the families and loved ones of those we lost.

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