Jim N Texas!

Last summer I was driving down MoPac when I noticed a hand made sign that said something like ‘Radio Liberty 90.1 FM’.

I tuned it in and found a station that was interesting in a train wreck sort of way.  Besides the insane ravings of a local demagogue they  had a lot of shows offering legal advice that seemed to consist of providing magic words that would deflect civil and criminal convictions.

There was never a station identification.

Via a ham radio mailing list I learned that the FCC has fined Raymond Frank, the alleged operator of this station, $10,000.  Specifically

In this Forfeiture Order (“Order”), we issue a monetary forfeiture in the amount of ten
thousand dollars ($10,000) to Raymond Frank for willful and repeated violation of Section 301 of the
Communications Act of 1934, as amended (“Act”).1 The noted violations involve Mr. Frank’s operation
of an unlicensed radio transmitter on the frequency 90.1 MHz in Austin, Texas.

I have no idea if this Mr Frank is related to the former Travis County Sheriff.

According to the FCC

Mr. Frank asserts that, as a citizen of the Republic of Texas, he is not subject to the laws of the United States or the Commission’s Rules. Specifically, Mr. Frank asserts that the Commission lacks jurisdiction over his actions, because he operated a radio station solely within the boundaries of the state of Texas. Finally, Mr. Frank justifies violating Section 301 of the Act, because he claims the Commission’s licensing policies violate the First Amendment.

I’m mainly a software developer, but I’m also what’s called an ‘Enrolled Agent’ and own part of an income tax service.  We sometimes see people who tried to evade taxes with magic words and silly arguments propagated by snake oil salesman. These poor folks sometimes lose everything and face jail time thanks to their misplaced faith in a slick talking guy selling books and dvds.

Good people with highly legitimate concerns about the size and power of the government buy into these ridiculous ideas sold by snake oil salesmen.  In the process they harm themselves and their families, and they discredit real conservatives in the process. 

This kind of thing makes me sad.

This is making the rounds among us right-wing wackos.  It makes some good points.

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent of thousands of tax payer dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan’s holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent “Austrian language,” would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word “advice” would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?

Can’t think of anything? Don’t worry.

He’s done all this in 10 months — so you’ll have three more years to come up with an answer

I was born in 1952, making me old enough to vividly remember Viet Nam. 

When I joined the Air Force in 1974 all of the instructors and supervisors I had were combat veterans of South East Asia.

Words cannot convey their bitter frustration with the civilian leadership during that conflict.  President Johnson and the incompetent SecDef McNamara feared adverse headlines worse than they feared losing American lives.  They lacked the will to win, and also lacked the courage to withdraw.  The LBJ administration could not have chosen a more disastrous path for war they inherited than the one they followed. 

It’s my perception that President Obama is now going down LBJ’s path to disaster.   His recent change in the rules of engagement in Afghanistan hugely restricts indirect artillery and close air support to American forces engaged by the Taliban.  This very LBJ-like decision trades American military lives for fewer unfavorable headlines. 

President Obama campaigned on the theme that Afghanistan was the ‘good war’.  On the rare occasions when he mentions Afghanistan it is usually in the context of telling us what President Bush did wrong, with little or nothing about what he plans to do in the future.  Like LBJ, he has ruled out victory as an option, babbling something about the Emperor of Japan surrendering on the deck of the Missouri.  Which of course serves to show how little he knows of American history beyond what he learned from Preacher Wright and his colleague Bill Ayers. 

I’ve been thinking about Afghanistan a lot because my son, a Texas Guardsman, came back from his tour in Iraq in April.  He’s been told to expect to deploy to Afghanistan in a year or two.  If he’s need to help win he should go. If he is being sent because the Administration doesn’t think victory is possible but is afraid to cut and run then I don’t think he should be sent at all. 

This post, my first since April, was directly precipitated by a highly insightful blog post by The Skipper.  

Captain Lex posses a tough challenge to the Commander-in-Chief:

He’s got to believe it’s possible to forge something like a victory, and that the cost of doing so is less than the consequences of outright retreat and failure. He’s got to commit not just forces, but his presidency.

If he can’t – if in the depths of his soul he can’t – then he would be right to ditch the whole project before any more damage is done, before even one more soldier or Marine dies in a cause their commander in chief does not believe in. He can even blame it on Bush, if that gets him through the night.

It’s a tough place to be for a 47-year old half term Senator with a background in community organizing. But this is the job he fought for, and these are the choices he faces.

But he needs to remember that he’s not facing them alone. That his actions – and even his inaction – has consequences

It’s time to man up and pull the trigger, Mr. President. One way or the other.

This afternoon I visited our beautiful state capital building to observe a ‘New Way Forward‘ demonstration.

I’d heard a rumor that these demonstrations were being organized as a left wing response to the various ‘Tea Parties’ being held around the country.

There we a couple of dozen folks there. It’s not crazy to think that a bank to big to fail is too big. But these folks seemed to think that a smaller private sector and larger government was the answer to our problems. I found this delusion to be very sad.

I did enjoy my visit to the capital grounds, it was really a very pleasant place, lots of kids and families, even two weddings.

I was surprised that its still possible to go into the capital without passing through a metal detector. When I was in High School back when the earth’s crust was cooling the capital was open 24/7, and kids could pretty wander almost anywhere in it.

These nice folks got maybe 40 people at their demonstration. It will be interesting to see how many come to the April 15th Austin Tea Party at City Hall.

These are the darkest times for this country that I can remember since 1972. 

Economically we seemed destined for Carter-style stagflation at best, East German style socialist poverty at worst.

Our foreign policy, based on apologies and appeasement, has given new heart to enemies that were on the ropes just a couple of months ago.

President Obama hides his weakness and incompetence behind a veneer of self righteous anger, so transparent a child could see through it.

It would be easy to count America out.  Easy, but wrong.  We’ve had incompetent government before, and we’ve recovered.  We’ll recover from the coming dark times again, I’m certain.

I’m a motorcycle rider, but I don’t really consider myself a ‘biker’ as the term is commonly used.  Harley-Davidson motorcycles have little appeal to me.

But I’m with them 100% on this point:

I recently found an old VHS tape I made way back in ‘87 when I was an EF-111A EWO in the 42d Electronic Combat Squadron, RAF Upper Heyford, UK.

I want to be on the public record as a strong friend of Israel. The current conflict in Gaza is another battle in the war between modern humanity and middle age despotism.

Israel is completely justified in taking whatever action they might require to stop the unprovoked and cowardly rocket attacks being launched by dead-end loser terrorists.

Israel did not want this war, they showed extreme patience in trying to stop the rockets peacefully.

It is up to the terrorists and the larger Islamic community that supports them to decide when this war will end. The war will end the day the terrorist quit attacking Israel. The terrorists will quit their attacks when the world’s Islamic communities withdraw their overt and covert support for terror.