LEE RODGERS
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December 21 –
 
BOEHNER'S FUTURE: DOES HE HAVE ONE? …
TAN MAN'S PLAN KAPUT …
MARTIN LUTHER KING'S WORDS FORGOTTEN


As this is written, the Mayan calendar forecast that the world ends today has not yet materialized. Nevertheless, I write this while cringing beneath my desk and wondering if I should have blown every last cent I have on a final party.


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After the collapse of his “Plan B” for dealing with taxes and government spending, it grows ever more evident that John Boehner's days are numbered as Speaker of the House. Don't be surprised if/when he makes an announcement that he's giving up those duties in order to spend more time with his family. Or his tanning lamp.

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As Obama continues to grow that giant, slavering beast we call “government,” a couple of timely quotes from the man regarded as a founder of the Democratic Party:
     "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.  A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
     "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." - Thomas Jefferson.

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Today's Washington Post carries an article about the red-hot Washington, D.C., area housing market.  People bidding far above asking prices for houses.
    One could hardly ask for clearer evidence that those on the bloated government payroll are rolling in money, while the taxpayers across the nation are still mired in a recession prolonged by a profoundly stupid -- or anti-American -- administration.

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Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed. Official crime figures (compiled by the European Commission and the UN) and show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries. – London Daily Mail
    Will somebody please tell Piers Morgan, the British blowhard on CNN who carries on a crusade against American citizens' right to own a gun?

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Anticipating Obama joining the anti-gun-ownership crusade, customers have bought out Walmart's entire stock of weapons. Similar sales surge reported by other outlets.

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"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Cesare Beccaria, quoted by Thomas Jefferson, Democrat (Credit: Patriot Post)

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Former ABC reporter (and failed radio talk-show host) Sam Donaldson has been arrested for drunk driving. Some thought he was also drunk during Reagan press conferences, judging by his behavior.

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The backwardness of "forward": a reality check from Thomas Sowell ...
     "The political slogan "Forward" served Barack Obama well during this year's election campaign. It said that he was for going forward, while Republicans were for 'going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place.'
     "It was great political rhetoric and great political theater. Moreover, the Republicans did virtually nothing to challenge its shaky assumptions with a few hard facts that could have made those assumptions collapse like a house of cards.
     "The word 'forward' has been a political battle cry on the left for more than a century. It has been almost as widely used as the left's other favorite word,'equality.'
     "The seductive notion of economic equality has appealed to many people. The pilgrims started out with the idea of equal sharing. The colony of Georgia began with very similar ideas. In the midwest, Britain's Robert Owen-- who coined the term 'socialism'-- set up colonies based on communal living and economic equality.
     "What these idealistic experiments all had in common was that they failed.
They learned the hard way that people would not do as much for the common good as they would do for their own good. The pilgrims nearly starved learning that lesson. But they learned it. Land that had been common property was turned into private property, which produced a lot more food.
     "Similar experiments were tried on a larger scale in other countries around the world. In the biggest of these experiments-- the Soviet Union under Stalin and Communist China under Mao-- people literally starved to death by the millions."
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It isn't just former Senator Chuck Hagel's anti-Israel (i.e., pro-Arab) position that has his prospects for becoming Secretary of Defense being questioned. A constant turnover of his staff while in the Senate and his reputation as being aan abusive total rectal orifice in behavior toward them raise questions about his ability to work with people.

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Jay Leno --   
   
"It looks like President Obama is going to pick John Kerry to be our next secretary of state. This is a very strategic move when it comes to foreign policy. Obama plans to use Kerry to bore our enemies to death."

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As Judge Robert Bork passes into eternity, it should be remembered that he was the target of vicious and unfounded slander by one of the most despicable politicians ever to disgrace the U.S. Senate, the Chappaquidick killer, Ted Kennedy.

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What happened to Martin Luther King's hope that people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin? Obviously, a lot of blacks don't share that goal. Victor Davis Hanson elaborates …
    “There is a different sort of racialist derangement spreading in the country -- and it is getting ugly.
    Here is actor Jamie Foxx joking recently about his new movie role: 'I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?'             Reverse white and black in the relevant ways and even a comedian would hear national outrage. Instead, his hip 'Saturday Night Live' audience even gave Foxx applause.
    "Actor Samuel L. Jackson, in a recent interview, sounded about as unapologetically reactionary as you can get: 'I voted for Barack because he was black. ... I hope Obama gets scary in the next four years.'

    “The Rev. Joseph Lowery -- who gave the benediction at President Obama's first inauguration -- sounded as venomous as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a speech that Lowery delivered to a black congregation shortly before this year's election: 'I don't know what kind of a n----- wouldn't vote with a black man running.'
    “The president himself urged Latinos to 'punish our enemies.'
    “If the new racialism grows unchecked, it will eventually lead to cycles of backlash and counter-backlash -- and some day to something like the Balkans or Rwanda.”

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I read. A lot. One thing that is glaringly apparent in the writing of liberal “journalists” – and equally evident in the words of their counterparts in the electronic media – is that their focus is heavily weighted toward who wins a political battle rather than whether the outcome is positive for the nation.
    A current example is their obsession with Obama ”winning” the political battle over the budget, even if it burdens the taxpayer more heavily with what is already an unsustainable debt load.


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Getting personal …
    Like most, I have some wonderful memories of Christmas with family and friends.  One year's holiday, however, stands out from the others.  Not better, but certainly different.
    I got fired for Christmas.
    Some broadcasting executives, like some in other fields, like to fire people at Christmas.  I, being a noble sort, often did holiday double-duty during my bachelor on-air years by also filling in for co-workers so they could spend the day with family.  Later, in management, I often did on-air work on such occasions because I thought it good for staff morale.
    My firing in Chicago was not unexpected under the circumstances.  WIND had been #1 in the city for years.  I'd been there eight years and my contract was up in January.  A new General Manager had arrived.  He told me about his grand ideas for improving upon success.  When he concluded, he asked for my reaction.  I told him I thought he was a (bleeping) idiot.  Thus, it was hardly surprising that he responded, "You're thru here."  Some people just can't take constructive criticism.
    Side note:  When I was re-hired by WIND seven years later, I was moving into my new office there as the idiot (who'd run the station down from #1 to below the top ten) was cleaning out his desk after being fired.  Reminding him that "What goes around, comes around," was a delicious moment.  Yes I can be a vengeful person.  It is a character failing for which I'm profoundly sorry - but not sorry enough to change.
    But I digress.
   
Within 24 hours after being fired I had a (higher-paying) management job in St. Louis. However, as moving-van schedules developed, I had to meet the movers there on Christmas Eve. So, while wife and baby were having a holiday visit with her family, I had to be in St. Louis, preparing our new home. Of course, the moving-van guys were also far from home.
     A friend volunteered to help me and our Christmas Eve was spent getting household goods in order in the new place. At around 4PM, after a long, tiring ten-hour day of furniture-moving with no break for lunch, we were in need of nourishment.
     By then, we couldn't find a restaurant not already closed -- even fast-food places had closed early for the holiday. Being unpresentable, we dared not enter one of the upscale hotel restaurants serving a few unfortunate guests also away from home for the holiday.
     Then we found our Christmas blessing in the form of a 7-11 in a disreputable part of town (North Kingshighway, if you know St. Louis), probably open to serve the wino clientele. The shelves there were already nearly bare.
     So Christmas Eve lunch/dinner consisted of slices of pimento-loaf processed sandwich "meat" with Kraft cheese slices on white bread, accompanied by a bottle of screw-top "champagne" consumed in my car in a St. Louis 7-11 parking lot.
     Obviously memorable. And no banquet ever tasted better.

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A contribution from reader Andy...
    A wife asks her husband, Would you please go shopping for me?  Buy one carton of milk and, if they have avocados, get 6."
    A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.
    The wife asks him, "Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?"
    He replied, "They had avocados."
    If you're a woman, I'm sure you're going back to read it again.  Men will get it the first time.

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Jimmy Kimmel --
    "Christmas is on Tuesday, provided that the world doesn't end on Friday, which is the end of the Mayan calendar.  Some believe there will be massive earthquakes and floods.  Others think a planet will collide ith the earth.  I believe the end of the world will come about in a much stupider way, like Joe Biden spilling a Mountain Dew on the nuclear launch panel."

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A sign of the season from the Sky-guy...
     A couple Christmas shopping at the mall on Christmas Eve.  The mall was packed.  As the wife walked through the mall she was surprised to look up and see her husband was nowhere around.
    She was quite upset because they had a lot to do.  Because she was so worried, she called him on his mobile phone to ask him where he was.
    In a calm voice the husband said, "Honey, you remember the jewelry store we went into about 5 years ago where you fell in love with that diamond necklace that we couldn't afford and I told you that I would get it for you one day?"
    The wife choked up and started to cry and said, "Yes, I remember that jewelry store."
    He said, "Well, I'm in the bar right next to it."

Lee Rodgers"...and now, if you'll excuse me..."
radiorodgers1@yahoo.com