Politics of Springs Fire

FOX has reported that the FBI has been called upon to investigate the fire that is raging on the West Side.  This is a highly unusual thing.  Usually state and local investigations are all that go on, but evidently there is suspicion of criminal activity.  What else would you conclude when 19 fires are set almost all at once.

The President is scheduled to arrive on Friday and this may be just another photo-op, another speech about the bravery of the firefighters and a pledge to do something.  But it may not go so well for him.  We'll have to listen.  There are three problems which locals are steamed over.  First is the BLM.  Bureau of Land Management holds all the land in ravines and steep slopes surrounding housing developments.  And they don't manage very well.  They allow all manner of fallen timber to collect which then fuels, indeed makes it impossible to put out the fires and propagates the damage.  So Coloradans are asking if the federal government really needs all this land.  After all, those upscale neighborhoods are the ones where everyone xeroscapes and follows landscaping guidelines about not having bushes within 20 feet of your house.  And tile roofs and stucco walls.  Those guys should have escaped if anyone would, but when the canyon is spewing burning embers all over your house, you tend to ask who provided all those matches.  Maybe if Oblamer needs some revenue he could sell some property off and let private people take care of it.  They would.

Second controversy is the planes.  Air Force has something like 350 C-130s which can be equipped with fire fighting equipment.  Used to be that the feds had about 100 planes which did this.  Now there are a grand total of 8.  Oblamer has let practically the entire firefighting effort get mothballed.  Equipment is old and hasn't been fixed.  And embarrassingly enough, the Air Force Academy is threatened.  Now the defense budget will get rid of another 65 C-130s and all those guys at Schreiber Air Force Base and the Academy had a few sharp questions to ask.

And then there is the firefighting snafu.  Evidently the BLM told the Springs Fire Department in the first week that they didn't need their help.  CSFD was told to go eat a donut because BLM had it all under control.  A stitch in time might have saved 9.  The mayor better watch his mouth, however.  Else Oblamer will not cooperate like he is doing to AZ.

And will say this was all Bush's fault.

Asked Aaron if his staff had been affected, he told me sadly that his original BOA, who still works occaisionally when he gets swamped, had a house directly in the line of the burn front and he would be surprised if it survived.  But they were smart.  Filled the pickup and car with all their valuable personal things guessing that something bad might happen.  It did.  They were told they had 5 minutes to evacuate, so they drove over to their daughter's house.  They're safe and the rest can be replaced.

So suppose, I ventured, you were to find some of that Christmas tree fire retardent and could buy about 5 gallons and spray your house.  You know how a treated Christmas tree refuses to burn--even if you throw it onto a big fire.  He laughed.  That is a closely related chemical to the fire retardent they dump out of the C-130s. 

More on Colorado Springs Fire

The wind changed yesterday and spread the fire all across the western part of Colorado Springs.  Authorities aren't saying how many houses have been lost because it might have a demoralizing effect.  virtually all areas west of I-25 and north of US 24 are affected, all the way to the Air Force Academy.  The Academy was evacuated, all tourist functions on Pikes Peak are evacuated.  And finally Aaron's office at I-25 and Garden of the Gods have been under evacuation orders.  If you want to see pictures go to KKTV.com or the website of Colorado Springs Gazette.  KKTV has live surveillance cams you can look at.  The air is so thick with smoke it's like a dense foggy day.  Over 30,000 people now evacuated.  Police aren't saying much about the investigation but some private conversations have said that 19 fires were started in the space of one hour--go figure.  So we continue to pray for all those folks whose homes are in jeopardy--Aaron has some clients who are Ponca Citians who retired to the mountains, so we've been in touch with some of them as well. 

Dumb flatlander's question answered.  How come the city can't take care of the fires easily since they have fire hydrants?  A: There are lots of canyons and areas where there is nothing built but is like wilderness and extremely dry.  When large pine trees burn they send flames 200-300 feet in the air and with breeze and updraft, spew burning embers for a couple miles.  So anything dry gets ignited by the rain of fire.  Deep within town, where there are blocks of people , yes there are hydrants and such and the fire will probably not touch them but thousands of folks live in the foothills. 

Dumb question #2.  What do they mean when they say a fire is so much % contained.  A: Since a burning forest is virtually impossible to extinguish, firefighters define a perimeter and try to soak-down, defend that.  So the amount of perimeter successfully holding is the "%-contained".  So far 5% of this fire is contained. 

Light the fire

My son is a financial planner and advisor but he spent yesterday morning talking to clients who are homeless due to the Waldo Canyon fire near Colorado Springs.  “We didn’t talk much about their savings but rather about how they could cope and to offer my house and office as a place to regroup.”  The fire is in Waldo Canyon, just up US 24 highway from Manitou Springs to Woodland Park.  The hills are full of gorgeous mountain homes as well as many tourist attractions.  But as of today, 10,000 people have been evacuated, Garden of the Gods, Cave of the Winds, North Pole are closed and the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb may have to be cancelled.

Moreover, the fire was manmade.  Aerial photos reveal that the first burn was around a tent area at Palmer Lake, but it was not one but about a dozen fires that broke out almost all at once.  When fires break out in close succession this often indicates an arsonist or group, a pyromaniac, who just wants to see a lot of action.  But the multiple starts, so close to the outskirts of Colorado Springs as well as some buzz authorities have been picking up on the net have spawned another theory--Islamoterrorism.  Apparently that is what is being noted on several suspect Islamic websites.  A pyromaniac doesn’t try to kill people around a city.  But the close quarters to prime homes, multiple starts, and choice of Springs--headquarters of six military bases and NORAD--would seem like a good target for a radical group.  We’ll just have to watch how this plays out.  Meanwhile we have thousands of displaced folks, and unlike a hurricane or tornado, you can’t go back the next day.  Fires like this often last weeks or months.  The Hayman fire of 10 years ago, which was primarily in wilderness in Teller County, lasted 4 months.  Even if your house escapes destruction, the smoke is unbearable and you must leave.

And of course this coincides with the Supreme Court agreeing with part of Arizona’s 1070 law and part being struck down.  The important part, the ability of the state to ask for identification and determine if a person who was held for probable cause was here legally was upheld 8-0.  But the other parts of the law that ask for employment verification were not.  This is not surprising.  After all, a legal alien is required to carry their ID (so-called green card) at all times. And participation in a crime is grounds for deportation.  Hence if someone is held for probable cause, it is no stretch to see why all the Supremes agreed that the state can ask questions.  But, of course, Obama hates this.  He continually lies about how you could take your kid out for ice cream and find yourself deported.  Not true since this stop-and-demand for ID has never been part of AZ law. So, in a snit, the administration said that if AZ calls-in a case for ID verification, they won’t answer.  AZ has been singled out.

That gets really ugly then.  Suppose the Waldo Canyon fire wasn’t at Springs, but near Flagstaff.  Or suppose some terrorist incident occurred at Tempe Stadium.  And suppose ICE still wasn’t answering the phone from AZ.  What then?  Should AZ call a sheriff in St. George, Utah for help in asking identity of a captured and suspected foreign terrorist?  Could the lack of cooperation between AZ and federal authorities lead to no arrest and an eventual larger terror incident in say, Chicago? Not that we couldn’t survive say, the thermonuclear erasure of a metropolitan area, but we surely cannot survive a government that snidely smirks at our Constitution.

What would our ancestors say to a ruler who refuses to execute the laws of the land?  Maybe something like, “He has refused his assent to laws…He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people…the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without…obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners[these latest immigration policies]…He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual [midnight Christmas Obamacare passage]…obstructed the administration of justice [Holder/Fast and Furious]…He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their Substance [EPA, Labor,16000 new IRS agents]…He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws [UN Agency 21]…imposing taxes on us without our Consent [healthcare mandates ‘made up’ by HHS]…taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws [Auto bailout and bank bailouts violated time-honored contract law]…declaring themselves Invested with power to legislate for us in all cases [judges who legislate from bench as per New London]…A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be ruler of a Free People.”—Declaration of Independence, 1776.

I dunno.  What do you think they’d say? I think it is time for a fire, a voter’s fire, Nov. 6.  And I’d let it burn all the way to Washington, DC.

Racist

Is it just my imagination or am I being called a racist more this year?  We’ve been told by almost innumerable progressive pundits that the only reason anyone could dislike Obama is because we Republicans are all racist. Maher was having a diatribe about how the R’s were the party of apes who had Allen West as an insanity case and then in the next sentence launched into the argument that R’s were racist.  Whoa, Bill! Do you realize what you just said.  And the day before it was Sam Donaldson (he’s alive!!) who piously pronounced the same thing.  Good grief, I have so many people who are experts on what I have in my mind. 

Now of course, you can point out the obvious, that real racism is rare and studies show that it is about 0.3% of US population which qualifies as bonafied racists.  Or you can quote Dinesh D’Sousa who puzzles over why he hardly ever experienced racism while hearing about it so often from other minority friends. Or you can quote statistics like the fact that approximately half of Oklahomans are mixed race.  It won’t do any good and here’s why.  Democrats make political hay out of US-THEM politics.  They are a coalition party of various groups and the main tool to make these diverse groups vote together is to scare them with the r-word.  Doesn’t matter how logical the Republicans sound, don’t vote for them because they are racists who are out to get you. 

But as America becomes more mixed brown by marriage and birth, this is going to start ringing hollow.  I think we are already seeing it.  For example, Obama gives an edict to establish the Dream Act without the Act and gets no poll bump.  Why? What’s wrong with those Latinos?  Well, maybe they noticed that his Attorney General  was at the same time getting a contempt of Congress for a gun sting gone bad.  The FAF sting killed an American border guard but, unnoticed by the rest of the media, it has killed 200 Mexicans on the other side of the border.  So much for compassion for the Hispanics, eh? 

Along with increasingly shrill cries of racism, is that other US-THEM tool, hatred for the rich.  And it isn’t working very well this year either.  The public is as lost on the connection as Holder would be if you asked him to watch your AK-47 for a minute. 

Here’s what the racism and class envy shrillness tells us.  Obama is in deep trouble.  They’ve gotten down to the bottom of the toolbag and there are those the only two shopworn techniques they have left.  And when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.

But in the interests of making this a real race and giving the D’s a handicap, I will hereby volunteer to be an honorary racist.  I believe in and prefer the human race. I like brown people, since all human beings are some shade of brown.  And my wife calls me a racist when I sit and watch NASCAR on TV.  Plus, I know all about the KKK.  Wasn’t that the name of the Klingon planet where the apes came from? You know, Planet of the Republicans?  I dunno, ask Bill Maher.

Clean the House

Everywhere I go people are disgusted with the Congress.  The want to throw out the majority of ‘em.  Trouble is, you can’t vote against Nancy Pelosi in Oklahoma.  But I have a plan:  Give ‘em the Clemens treatment.  You see, I took the family to St. Louis this week to watch baseball, and the news during the trip was about Roger Clemens’ trial and about Holder before Congress. 

I was shopping the Cardinals Club Shop.  For $75 they’ll put your name on the back of a jersey.  But if you want the back to say MUSIAL that costs $100.  And Ozzie Smith, O SMITH, goes for $300.   Whoa!  That presents arbitrage possibilities. “Excuse me.  I’d like one of those $75 custom jerseys with my name.” “Yes, sir.  What’s your name?”  “Oliver Smith.  Just put O SMITH on the shirt.”  (Sorry, it’s my business brain working overtime.)

Baseball is a terribly traditional game and sometimes the tradition gets overwrought.  There is always some statistics buff who thinks he can compare Pujols and Kemp with Nap Lajoie’s triple crown of 1901.  And he demands all statistics compare as well.  Give me a break!  I know why Ty Cobb or Lajoie could hit .400 every year.  They faced bad pitiching.  Pitching science, management, and skill development were in infancy.  Pitchers were sometimes used 12 innings.  Secondly, the fielders wore gloves that remind me of something you would use to get a pie out of the oven.  Third, the ball was softer and thus all hitters concentrated on average.  Still the Statistical Oversight Buffs (SOBs) tend to overlook such things, but get raving mad with foamed mouths over steroid use. 

Matt Holiday was benched with a back spasm episode last week.  My heart goes out to him since about once every two years I have the same back problems.  You can either spend about 6 weeks recovering in agony and taking Aleve and relaxants, or you get a steroid shot and relief in 3 days.  Alas, Matt would be kicked out of baseball if he did the latter.  Olympic athletes who accidentally took a cold pill, also a steroid, have been disqualified a year later for doping. 

Back to Clemens.  He and half a dozen others testified about steroid use in front of Congress 9 years ago.  The grandstanding congressmen entrapped the players, demanding to know if any of them had used steroids, a perfectly legal supplement in the 90’s.  Mark MacGwire was the bad boy for avoiding the question as if someone might charge him with Lying Before Congress.  He just said he wanted to move on and talk about the future of the game.  Others denied, denied, denied.  Now Rog is being charged with perjury.  Looks like MacGwire wasn’t so dumb after all.  Yet while Clemens had the book thrown at him, Holder is getting chance after chance to explain and stonewall and refuse to give documents to Congress over Fast-and-Furious which actually has created a wake of dead bodies, instead of slightly bigger muscles or my healed back.  (Oh, the evils of letting this Okie hang more sheetrock!!)

Err, suppose we were to treat Holder and for that matter, members of Congress to their own Inquisition.  As each member testified, he/she could be replaced by a temp ordinary citizen appointed by their Governor.  Wouldn’t you love to be Joe the Plumber asking Ted Kennedy about Chappaquidick?  Clinton about his BFFs? Obama about his birth certificate?  Do you really think most of the members could pass a test of Telling the Truth before Congress? The way I figure it, all the Democrats and half the Republicans would fail, and could be tried for Perjury and put away for about 20 years. Schumer would be the first to go. Last man standing would be Orrin Hatch.  But he’s so boring he might lose in a primary.  There you go—clean the House.   

Oh, by the way, I didn't hit one extra homer

On Wisconsin!

I watched the news in 2010 when the labor unions were occupying the Wisconsin State Capitol, then turning in vast numbers of bogus recall petitions and I thought, “this governor is toast.”  Sad, because it didn’t seem right that a bunch of union thugs should be able to throw a tantrum when an election didn’t go their way.  Sad, because they destroyed the ability of the state to do business.  Sad, but as sociologists note, a few really ballistic people can eventually turn public opinion (Just think of the anti-war protests over Vietnam). And that, it seemed would be Walker’s fate.  But somehow Wisconsin seems to be the Unlikely State.  Fightin’ Bob LaFollete, a dominant pro football team in a small town, McCarthy and MacArthur. 

As a kid I studied maps.  There seemed to be a MacArthur street in every town--Gen. Douglas MacArthur, they told me.  But those streets were in old parts of towns that were around long before WW II.  I asked a guy from Wisconsin where that song “On Wisconsin!” came from.  He thought it was just an old football cheer.  Weird, since that is the name of a John Phillip Sousa march that surely predates football.

 November 25, 1863.  Arthur MacArthur was colonel for the 24^th regiment of Wisconsin and fought in the battle of Chattanooga.  Wisconsin was way out northwest and the 24^th was hastily trained.  MacArthur was just 18 years old and had been installed as colonel of a unit that would probably not be trusted for heavy combat. Chattanooga was crucial since it is a rail center. Capture that city and the Union could track their way across the Appalachians to the center of rails and commerce in the South, Atlanta.  But Chattanooga was surrounded by mountain ridges.  Lookout Mountain to the west is a cliff 2400 feet above the city and to the east is 1300’ Missionary Ridge where the Confederates had dug in fortifications.  Take the city and you are still a sitting duck until you take the ridge above it.  Gen. Grant ordered the Wisconsin 24^th to act as a decoy by taking the area beneath Missionary Ridge while he would try to flank the hill with cavalry.  Arthur MacArthur and his men did just that, then realized they were sitting ducks with the Rebs shooting down on their heads.  The Confederates read Grant’s strategy perfectly and realized that the soldiers in front of the ridge were inexperienced.  What they hadn’t counted on was MacArthur.  Realizing their situation was hopeless, Wisconsin soldiers began to run up the ridge partway to hide behind brush and trees.  MacArthur made a snap judgment and led a group up the hill.  Grant watching from afar, asked who the hell told these guys to try to charge up that impossible hill? Nobody had; it was entirely spontaneous.  Infantry in those days always had a flag-bearer who was front and center.  Otherwise there was a chance that in the chaos of battle soldiers would disperse.  The standard-bearer of the 24^th was killed and MacArthur grabbed the flag.  Out of breath from charging up a hill, he could only manage a loud “On Wisconsin!”  And on came Wisconsin.  Strangely the strategy of the entire battle became inverted.  The main cavalry had become the decoys and the Wisconsin 24^th was now the main charge.  Up the hill they scrambled and took the Confederates by storm.  And once the ridge was taken, the Southerners could only retreat to Georgia.  Grant was promoted to the main generalship in the East for his huge victory in taking Chattanooga. Johnson’s Confederates left a rail line unguarded and the Yankees swept into Atlanta cutting the South in half.  The war was essentially over at that point. Lincoln went from surely defeated in the election of 1864 to surprisingly a winner. 

Those old streets are named MacArthur for Arthur MacArthur. The “boy colonel” went on to a 45 year career in the army, 3-star general, and won the battle for the Phillipines in the Spanish-American War.  Oh, yeah, and he was Doug’s dad.

The market has been up almost every day since last Tuesday.  The election proved to be the death of the idea that the citizenry would pay for anything public unions demanded.  Now when those bankrupt states come to the rest of us and demand we bail them out, people will say, “Do like Wisconsin.  Get your spending in order.” I wonder if we could rename a street, Walker Street?

The difference between R's & D's

Perhaps one of the most astute observations of who Republicans are and who Democrats are is found in Steve Deace’s “What happens to Democrats if Obama loses?” which is at http://townhall.com/columnists/stevedeace/2012/06/02/what_happens_to_democrats_if_obama_loses  In a nutshell, R’s often have weak local parties because R’s have rich lives that are beyond politics.  Thus they only join political frays when politics really grabs their attention.  Otherwise the local party organization is a few stalwarts. When R’s get involved they are issue oriented conservatives because some issue is what scares them into politics.  Meanwhile the establishment R’s tend to be more moderate having to win elections through partisan times and apathetic times.  D’s are opposite.  They have strong local party organizations which see government as a benevolent giver of all things good, hence the need to get a place at the trough means you join.  But, other than their faith in good government, they are somewhat issueless.  Rank and file D’s tend to be somewhat conservative in lifestyle, joiners not thinkers, and so they tend to have group politics—I’m D because I’m black, or Hispanic, or Native American, etc.  Each group has a tribal turf issue or two, but little else.  That’s why they revert to racism or bigotry as an Meanwhile the D establishment consists of true believer-activists who are much more to the left of the rank-and-file. And so, while R’s have tension between moderate establishment folks and conservative locals, the D’s have tension between moderate locals and establishment liberals.  And whichever party loses the next election is going to have a donnybrook over philosophy.  Deace thinks it will be the D’s.

Being fresh to politics these last two years, I found the truth he expounds to be eye-opening because you never hear it in the media.  Only talk radio touches this theme.  I guess I would add this observation.  I think R leadership is so moderate because they have found by trial and error that you can win a lot of crossover Dems by being moderate instead of doctrinaire conservatives. That drives us conservatives nuts, but we need to figure out how to continue to win elections when the liberals don’t scare the populance like they did in 2010 and are doing today.  Else we will once again see the Reagan Revolution lapse in a few years.

Likewise it should be noted that both D and R leaderships are more liberal than their base.  Now if you go more liberal from a staunch conservative base, you encounter lots of moderates, but if you go left of a moderately liberal base, you are indeed out in left field without support.  That’s why we haven’t had a Republican get creamed in a landslide since Goldwater, and why the best D win since LBJ was 53-47% by Obama in 2008.  And that is why I believe, absent a Romney meltdown, Obama is due for a long vacation in Kenya come 2013.  As Deace points out, all heck is going to break loose in D-ville when they lose. 

But how do we keep the R-leadership focused on conservatism and the enthusiasm for conservatism going?  I believe it will happen when local Republican units take it upon themselves to re-learn what it is to be American and ask that of our leaders. In other words, we need to keep the tea party spirit alive.  If the R’s had a consistent base doing the things they are doing this year to Lugar, Bennett and Hatch and in the Nebraska senate race, the leadership would sit bolt upright and pay attention.  But absent a strong local organization like D’s have in unions, blacks, Hispanics, gays, college faculty, etc. who do they use for consistent support? 

I suggest seniors.  Look around at any tea party meeting and you won’t see many heads of hair that are anything but gray (If you see hair at all on some).  If email has taught me anything, it is that a lot of people forward stuff, often patriotic, spiritual or conservative.  A friend who is a true blue liberal tells me he is frustrated by these messages which he disagrees with but receives by the bundles.  Poor guy can’t seem to get Bush-hate mail.  Seniors can educate what it means to be truly American with conservative values.  They have the stature to educate about lifestyle choices and heritage.  They have the patience.  They can write and it DSNT LOK LIK THIS.  They have the time to attend local political events like school board meetings and keep in touch with their state legislator. I see seniors as sort of rock solid personalities in the community and family who could persuade and educate. 

There’s a big silver lining here. Dems claim minorities but we can steal their hearts.  Immigrants often turn conservative once they encounter America.  Obama, who wrote of his hatred of USA in his books, is a Rare Dog indeed.  Hispanics are already proven to be turning conservative. Where immigrants came from, often riot and revolt is about the only way to get changes.  But in a nation run by good laws, responsive but limited government, free markets, and people who have faith, they are rapidly discovering you don’t have to be a member of La Raza or a communist union. But, you object, how can some senior who is white become part of persuasion of blacks?  Ha! Watch who your grandson or –daughter marries.  In 1950 10% of Asians and 1% of blacks married outside of race.  Today it is over 50% and 15%.  We are becoming a country of mixed families.

With an army of seniors armed with truth, we will start to convert people.  It will be slow but it’s based on common sense and people’s real world experiences.  There’s a reason why the rank-and-files of each party are more conservative than the leadership!