Have you ever watched the Rev. Al Sharpton’s television show on MSNBC and wondered what you’d get if you combined his ignorance of American history with James Carville’s inability to quit speaking? If so, you’ve probably concluded, as I have, that you’d get someone who sounds a lot like Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. (Yes, the same Congresswoman Lee who, while visiting NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories in 2005, infamously asked whether the Mars Pathfinder had taken a photograph of the flag Neil Armstrong planted on Mars in 1969.)

And as I listened to Lee speak recently, February 8th, on Ed Schultz’s radio show, it dawned on me anew that responsibility for many of our nation’s current woes can be directly traced to the fact the we’ve placed congressional members and senators in power who know little to nothing about recent American history, much less events surrounding our nation’s founding.

For example, when Schultz asked Lee why anyone would think Congressional Republicans wanted to better the economy when their chief focus appears to be defeating the president, Lee concurred, in a round-about way, then said:

As I have scanned the annals of history, during the tenure of many presidents, obviously the recent presidents of JFK and Lyndon Baines Johnson, of Richard Nixon who was impeached, and subsequently Ford and Carter. I cannot find in the statement of a message of a minority leader, majority leader, or speaker, whose message has been defeat the commander-in-chief.

Wow. The “recent presidents” Lee referenced were JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. JFK died in 1963 and Carter left office in January of 1981. In other words, “recent” to Lee is somewhere between 31-to-49 years ago? Moreover, Lee said Nixon was impeached. Seriously folks, Nixon made history by becoming the first president in U.S. history to resign the office, and of course he resigned before charges of impeachment were brought against him.

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Uh-O. Obama’s administration has run afoul of words by John F. Kennedy on Big Labor and protecting employees.

You have no doubt been following the fight over the unconstitutional recess appointments by the Obama administration to the National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Financial Protection Board. But fewer are aware the fight over Obama’s efforts to help Big Labor bosses by rigging the rules of union elections so that employees don’t even have enough time to get information about why the union may not be in their best interest.

Right now, employees have an average of 40 days to get both sides of the story—the union sales pitch and the employer’s side. But union bosses need more dues-paying members so they are shortening the election period so employees only hear the sales pitch. It’s clearly wrong—and as some business groups, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and US Chamber of Commerce, progressed with their lawsuit against the government to overturn Obama’s regulatory gift last week, they dug out this historical nugget:

Based on the legislative history of the 1959 amendments to the Act, it is clear Congress believed that an election period of at least 30 days was necessary to adequately assure employees the “fullest freedom” in exercising their right to choose whether they wish to be represented by a union. As explained by then Senator John F. Kennedy Jr., who chaired the Conference Committee, even in the context of eliminating pre-election hearings, a 30-day period before any election was a necessary “safeguard against rushing employees into an election where they are unfamiliar with the issues.” Senator Kennedy stated “there should be at least a 30-day interval between the request for an election and the holding of the election” and he opposed an amendment that failed to provide “at least 30 days in which both parties can present their viewpoints.” [italics mine]

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If the Juan Williams race baiting debate attack on Newt Gingrich somehow leaves you with any doubt that there’s something about the South Carolina primaries that seems to bring out the worst in this sort of political behavior, you need look no further than the 2008 Democratic primary to see just how down and dirty things can get in the Palmetto State.

Four years ago, the Democratic primary was split with Sen. Barack Obama winning the Iowa caucuses and Hillary Clinton pulling out a comeback victory in New Hampshire. The political tag team of Bill and Hillary Clinton felt secure about the South Carolina black vote because of President Clinton’s persistent high approval ratings among African-Americans, but they were about to get their first real taste of Sen. Obama’s Chicago-style political game. Sen. Obama and his team were able to take a couple of innocuous statements by the Clintons and twist them into a race related controversy.

It started when Hillary Clinton said to an interviewer on Fox News;

I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.

That’s the complete quote but the New York Times ran no less than three separate stories that shortened it to;

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Mrs. Clinton said in trying to make the case that her experience should mean more to voters than the uplifting words of Mr. Obama. “It took a president to get it done.”

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Today marks the 48^th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and with it, 48 years of conspiracy theories.

The Left has promulgated nearly all of these theories since the day of the assassination in 1963. Kennedy was killed by a communist — someone to the left of him — but yet we’re still told this was some grand conspiracy, involving what would necessarily be dozens or even hundreds of people who orchestrated and executed it (and then kept the secret!) with right wing forces at the center.

Various suspects have included military industrialists, the CIA, anti-Castro Cuban exiles, pro-Israeli groups, oil magnates aligned with Lyndon Johnson, right-wing racists, E. Howard Hunt, and J. Edgar Hoover.

Even at the time, the Kennedys and the mediacouldn’t accept that a lone deranged leftist was responsible. Kennedy, after all, was in Dallas, a hotbed of rightwing extremism as they saw it. Even as the shooting was taking place, Connally yelled out “They’re going to kill us all!” Jacqueline Kennedy didn’t change her clothes until she got back to Washington, stating to Lady Bird Johnson she wanted “them to see what they did to Jack.” (Emphasis mine.) This was the liberal mindset, from the people in the car on out.

Gerald Posner’s 1993 book “Case Closed” makes a strong and convincing argument that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and for it he’s been demonized as a right wing stooge, a Kennedy-hater, or enforcer of the establishment line, obviously on the payroll of some nefarious right wing phantom.

But Posner did what most of the conspiracy theorists don’t do: look at the actual evidence that exists, and at the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. Why do all these conspiracy theorists typically ignore all that’s known about Oswald? Because there’s a clear trajectory in his activities that led to the assassination.

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People have vivid memories of certain tragic events in our history. It used to be common to hear folks ask, “Where were you when JFK was shot?” Or, “What were you doing when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated?” Tragedies etch themselves into our collective psyche and the things we were doing at the time we first heard the news, or witnessed events first-hand, help us to remember.

Such is the case with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Not since Japan’s World War II attack on Pearl Harbor has the United States had its territorial sovereignty violated by such aggression. Everyone who was alive on 9/11/01 recalls today what they were doing, and how they reacted, felt, grieved, mourned, and prayed. For most Americans, that grief, sadness and prayer will never end.

Faith becomes more important to people when they are faced with the loss of loved ones. Religious ceremonies typically accompany the burial process, and the same holds true for memorial events like the upcoming September 11, 2011 ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Except that in the case of the ceremony to be held at the site of the World Trade Center– Ground Zero – Mayor Michael Bloomberg has put the kibosh on having religion be a part of it.

It is a decision that seems to defy all logic and commonsense, and it comes off as cruel, heartless, and suggests Hizzoner is out of touch with the people who elected him to be Mayor (not King) of New York City. It falls on the heels of another take-your-breath-away decision about the same event. In mid-August, Mayor Bloomberg nixed inviting first responders to the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the WTC.

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We have no other details, but a tipster from fly-over country forwarded us this text they received this afternoon:

DNC Chair Tim Kaine is making a major announcement on the future of the Democratic Party tomorrow. Attend the announcement at 12:30 p.m. at GWU [George Washington University], 805 21st St NW.

Again, we have no other details and have no idea what Chairman Kaine is announcing. We doubt he is going to say, “Okay, we get it. Big Government policies don’t work and are unpopular with the American people. We are going back to being JFK Democrats.” But, the words “major” and “future” pique our interest.

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