Then there is this to add to the pile: Syria may miss first deadline in U.S.-Russia chemical arms deal. According to the story - Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said Wednesday that "our goal is to see forward momentum" by Saturday, not the full list. "We've never said it was a hard and fast deadline.".

Wasn't it touted by Mr. Gutsy that this was a hard deadline that had to be met - oops, excuse me, another 'red line' that dissipates into rainbows and unicorns. I would trust a used car salesman on S. Shepherd (Houston - where all the wrecking yards are) before I would trust anything this president or State Department says or does. 

It makes me embarrassed to have had a relative who was a Foreign Service Officer, and has a State Dept. award in languages named after her - now-a-days, Matilde would probably say "Don't tell people I work In the State Dept, they think I'm a piano player in a whorehouse". She is probably rolling in her grave. 

Remember, when attention is on the moving lips, watch the left hand, it's all smoke and mirrors. Add also the newest version of Rope A Dope the Iranians are playing, of course, with Bambi, it's more like Drop The Soap. To answer Thomas's question, it's a switch off between Mooch, Valerie, and Reggie.

Flibbertigibbets!

Alas, I believe that we should begin to name our years in the manner of the Chinese, which in 2013’s case I nominate it to be the year of the flibbertigibbets, for nowhere does the definition become more exemplified than in our educational system.  Now, Congress is making a hearty try at claiming the title, and I have no doubt will in time seize the title in fine fetter, and in fact provide a whole new definition, but at this point, it’s our public schools and their fearless administrators that claim the title. 

Case in point: 5-year-old Pennsylvania girl who told another girl she was going to shoot her with a pink Hello Kitty toy gun that blows soapy bubbles has been suspended from kindergarten.

Her family has hired an attorney to fight the punishment, which initially was 10 days for issuing a 'terroristic threat.' But her punishment was reduced to two days after her mother met with school officials and had the incident dropped to 'threatening to harm another student,' which apparently carries a lesser punishment.

"It's laughable," Robin Ficker, the girl's attorney told FoxNews.com. "This is a girl who had no idea about killing or what happened in Connecticut."  He was referring to the recent shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that claimed 26 lives.

Ficker says Mount Carmel Area School District officials said the girl made the threat on Jan. 10 as she waited for a school bus with friends. A school official overheard the remark and searched the girl's backpack and did not find the Hello Kitty gun, he said.

The next day, the girls involved were 'interrogated' by school officials, Ficker said. By the time the girl was done speaking to administrators about the incident, she was crying, he said. A teacher called out the girl in front of her class and told her police may get involved, he said.

Ficker called the girl "the least terroristic person in Pennsylvania. What parent that you know would want their 5-year-old questioned about making terroristic threats without them in the room?" Ficker asked.  School district solicitor Edward Greco tells pennlive.com officials are looking into the case. He said Friday school officials aren't at liberty to discuss disciplinary actions.  Ficker said he has scheduled a meeting with a lawyer from the school board later this month to have the girl’s record expunged.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/19/pennsylvania-girl-5-suspended-for-threatening-to-shoot-girl-with-pink-toy-gun/#ixzz2IVfjDlik

This follows on the heels of the also much publicized suspensions of students for using the lethal bolt action hand with five finger magazine while playing “Cops and Robbers”.

Last Night....

Last night I cried. I cried as I did when I buried my best friend at Arlington – dead from the ravages of Agent Orange, I cried as I did when I learned that most of my boot camp platoon was KIA/WIA at Hue City, I cried because that which I love has been severely wounded. But I realized that wounded was not killed, that here, as well as in other pockets, there are patriots and leaders still willing to go forward in the face of overwhelming odds to carry the flag forward. In the parlance of my orders there was always the last specification in the mission statement “Failure is not a mission parameter”. I do not intend to go quietly in the dark, if this be the era of America In Exile, then I shall be the Force Resistance.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic, that they can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty. The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”

Then there are the appropriate words of Thomas Paine in Common Sense: “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”

We did not arrive at this point overnight. The Republican Party in its present form has reaped the seeds that it has sown, and unless it changes philosophy/direction, it will follow other political parties into the dust of obscurity. The solution will neither be easy nor in the short term. All incumbent political parties (with the exception of the Carter presidency) enjoy a two term presidency, we have the 2014 elections, then the 2016 ahead. I do not advocate anarchy, but rather change from within the framework of the Constitution. The web service Mega Vote provides a means of tracking, via email, how your Senators and Congressmen vote on anything before the House or Senate. Write or contact your Senators and Congressmen, all of them have a web page with a ‘Contact Me’ for or a hyper-linked email address. You won’t get a personal reply; you’ll get a boilerplate response. I was on staff for a General Manager, and was tasked with handling customer complaints – the man in the corner office didn’t read or resolve the complaints, that’s what he paid me to do…but, we categorized them and provided complaint analysis so that trends could be identified, investigated and resolved. Trust me – every Senator or Congressman has a staff person who is tasked with cataloging the subject and concern and providing Senator Foghorn Leghorn with a summary of things he needs to be interested in.

The powers that be have concluded that they have lost the non-white and ‘millennial’ vote, and they are scrambling around in a panic of how to overcome that deficiency. Frank Luntz had a focus group after the election on how the party could improve their message, and I think the answers were almost pretty obvious. As one who spent a great number of years in the customer contact side and trained many CSR’s, I always had one point that I hammered into their heads – it wasn’t in the corporate training manual until many years later, but it was ‘Listen to what the customer is saying – do not preconceive, prejudge, or dismiss their concern, but listen, repeat the problem/question back so that they feel that you are concerned, then become the single point of contact (even if you must pass it off to another group – don't shuffle the customer around, become that person's solution). Where the campaign guru's failed in the second debate was on the first question when the man asked him about a job – Romney didn’t come back with what kind of a job were the looking for, what qualifications they had, didn't 'personalize' the man, he launched into his talking points. Later after the debate that man was asked about how he felt and while his answer on camera was non-committal, it was obvious Romney didn’t sway him.

In closing, to quote Benjamin Franklin again, when asked what kind of government the convention had decided on, his reply was “A Republic, if you can keep it” – I intend to keep it.  

In The Beginning....

The second guessing, brow-beating, hair pulling and self-immolation by professionals and pundits over the election’s (to use the administrations favorite phrase) ‘unexpected’ results will continue far into the future, and by people way above the pay grade of most of us.  It is, and will be, the focus point and delight of all the liberal media and their pundits; declaring The Republican Party dead and beyond resurrection.  But wait, when have I heard that before?

Dr, Stilton Jarlsberg (Hope n Change) issued a challenge/question to the “passionate, the patriotic, and the productive” regarding the future of the Republican Party.  The questions on the table are organization, goals, and implementation.

Let me say up front that having a ‘blog’ will not change a d*** thing.   I do not pretend to have answers, and on the national level, decisions will be made at a high level, but perhaps together we can brainstorm, share ideas and processes that can be applied at the local level to leverage the changes necessary to overcome the Democratic ‘machine’.  Make no mistake that they are very good at GOTV, media manipulation, applying the Rules For Radicals, etc., but we can learn from their tactics, improve upon and apply them to our gain.  

Where we can begin: 1) Get involved with the local GOP Committees.  There are actions needed at this level, I have a (to me disturbing) note from a friend that I will pass along as soon as I have made it generic so as not to embarrass her, and 2) The 2014 elections have 33 Senate seats up for re-election.  Senate and House elections, while at the state/district level have national implications.  While you can not vote for in an out of state election (unless you're Democratic), your can contribute to a candidate’s campaign, and many have call directors that allow people from across the nation to access and do campaign calling.

Other ideas will follow and perhaps some commentary will provide additional thoughts.