The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: A Few Miuntes to Remember Those Who Serve

Take a few miuntes today to think about those who serve. Brave men and women who stand a post in Iraq, Afganistan and hundreds of other places around the globe. 

Minimum wage laws do not appy to them. They don’t get overtime or scheduled coffeee breaks. They buy our freedom with their toil and blood.

If you see a service man or woman today say, “Thank you.” 

Enjoy this poem by  Charles M. Province, veteran and biographer of General George S. Patton

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Thoughts on Fallen Heroes and Terrorists

As I was driving to Wisconsin on Thursday a disturbing report came on the news. A mass shooting had taken place at Fort Hood in Texas. The details were unclear, at first report there were several shooters and seven dead. Several thoughts crossed my mind, solders suffering from PTSD, disgruntled civilian employees and of course a terrorist attack.

As details became clearer the death toll rose and the attack seemed to be the work of a single shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a devout Muslim. As the day wore on it became clear that Major Hasan held radical beliefs concerning United States foreign policy and had shared those beliefs not with just a few close friend but with just about anyone who would listen.

Then it was announced that the President was going to speak about the shootings. I expected to hear a calming voice that would honor those slain and get to the heart of the matter: We have a serious problem in this country with domestic terrorists both in and out of the military and we need to do something about it.   

Since I had been in the car all day and listening to news/talk radio I knew the President was at a meeting of American Indian tribal leaders. When he came on the radio his first remarks were not about Fort Hood but about the conference. His tone wasn’t serious but he jokingly made comments about the conference. I don’t want to try to read too much into this but usually when we speak we talk about the most important things first and then move to the trivial. He complimented the Secretary of the Interior for a great day and gave a “shout out” to a conference attendee. He then continued for another 150 words until he got to the shootings. The most important thing he said in reference to the shootings was,

“We will make sure that we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident…”

That is what I wanted to hear! The consequences be damned we were going to get to the bottom of this. Great! However, before the weekend was over we were being assured, by the President, the Attorney General and the Director of Homeland Security and by any other administration official who could get their mug in front of a camera that this was not an act of terrorism. How could they know? Did they have all the facts? It reminded me of President Obama’s reaction to another much less important incident when his friend was arrested after lipping off to a cop. He said something about not wanting to jump to conclusions but the police acted stupidly.

Why isn’t Major Hasan being considered a terrorist by the White House? Is it because he acted alone? Is it because he used a gun instead of a belt of explosives? Is it because he wasn’t part of a larger group? Is it because he may have been mentally unbalanced?

There have been a number of attacks in this country in recent years that have been dismissed rather than being looked at as acts of terror. Meanwhile some folks are quick to be labeled terrorists. The shooter of an abortion doctor, a lone gunman at the National Holocaust Museum and a bomber at the Olympic Games were all quickly branded terrorists. These were similar to the Fort Hood shooting in that all were done by a single person acting outside any organized group and two of the used firearms rather than explosives. The difference? Major Hasan and other who have committed acts of terror that were not labeled as such were Muslims. Why are we hesitant to label acts of violence by Muslim-Americans “terror?”

Before you go ballistic and claim that I am branding an entire religion as terrorists I want to say I believe that 99.9% of Muslim-Americans are loyal citizens who see their religion as a peaceful one. That being said there are approximately 5000 Muslims serving in the military today. If just .1% of them believe, like Major Hasan, that acts of terror are justified then there are four more guys just like him waiting for their chance.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: “V”: Everybody Take a Deep Breath.

Note: Iwrote and posted this on Big Hollywood to try to get some common sense into the debate about the show “V”.

I missed the series premiere of “V’ on ABC but not the ongoing flap afterwards. The remake of the 1984 sci-fi classic seems to have hit a lot of nerves on the left and found an audience on the right. The left wing media type are outraged that the series is “degrading” the Obama Administration. Some on the right are wondering if a secretly conservative Hollywood talent I being dismissed from his job in retaliation. As I am writing this I am watching O’Reilly, to use one of his words, bloviating about “the writers taking shots at President Obama.” If you want to be angry or find some deeper meaning here, go right ahead but in this case neither the left nor right is correct.

As it happens, I am acquainted with Scott Peters who developed and wrote the remake of “V” for ABC.  Mr. Peters was also the creator and executive producer of “The 4400” and a writer for “The Outer Limits.” As far as I know Mr. Peters has only made one mistake in his career and that was directing me in the low budget film “Don: Plain and Tall” back in 2003. It was the story of my friend comedian Don McMillan’s life as a comic. I played myself in the film and the part was horribly miscast. 

When I started reading some of the rumors and theories about the Mr. Peters’ latest show and the behind the scenes politics I laughed out loud.  Let me try to shed some light on the “V” controversy while everyone, left and right, takes a deep breath and grabs a cup of tea.

The script was not written as a roman a clef or allegory for the Obama Administration. The script was written by Mr. Peters during the Bush administration and started before Mr. Obama had the nomination. The author, Mr. Peters, is not some sleeper evil right winger and Obama hater. Mr. Peters, besides being a talented writer and director is a gay, legally married in California, liberal supporter of the President who worked for and donated money to the Obama campaign If he is a mole for some right wing conspiracy he may be the most committed spy ever. Mr. Peters, who was born in Canada, recently became an American citizen, a process he was trying to expedite so that he could vote for Mr. Obama, a deadline he missed by two days.

Unfortunately for Mr. Peters this isn’t the first time in his career that fans or critics started seeing things in his work he didn’t intend. Some fans of his show “The 4400” saw hidden meaning in those episodes too. At first Mr. Peters would try to respond but had to just quit paying attention as the theories about “The 4400” got more and more bizarre.

Mr. Peters’ replacement as showrunner by Scott Rosenbaum isn’t due to some leftist plot at ABC. From reports I have gotten from informed sources he is well liked by the network. The show is being produced at Warner Brothers and there seems to be some friction between the network’s vision for the show and WB’s. Mr. Peters’ replacement was being worked on well before the show went to air and became a hit.

It seems that a lot of us may have spent too much time in an image poetry class in college and try to find the hidden meaning in everything. So next week just try to enjoy the show because, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, sometimes a TV show is just a TV show.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Facebook Comment to Folks in the News

Like millions of other Americans the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has been caught up in the Facebook/social networking craze. I believe that Facebook is like a near death experience except your life passes before your eyes one friend request at a time. The Conspiracy has been trying to “friend” a lot of people in the news without much success. No acceptance of our friend request from President Obama, Dede Scazzafava, Jeremiah Wright and a host of others. I can’t imagine why? So in order to reach them with some timely advice we are posting some comments here. If you are on their friend list maybe you could pass them along.  

@ Dede Scozzafava- When you try to stand in the middle of the road you get run over. Pick a team and get on it.

@ Barack Obama- Mr. President, if the trip to Dover wasn’t a photo op or political why take a photographer along?

@ John Boehner – Nice play backing the person in the NY 23^rd who ended up supporting the Democrat.  It’s about values not party, Mr. Speaker. BTW let you office staff know I am still waiting for a reply to my two e mails and phone calls.

@ Newt- See message to Boehner and then go write another Civil War “what if” book and stay off my TV. I don’t know what your number is but it is not 2012.

@ Jon Corzine- Monster.com or Career Builders. Too bad one of the jobs BHO “saved” wasn’t yours.

@ Kevin Jennings- If you really what to help the Prez- one word- Quit!

@Larry David- Picking on Christians is easy because they are forgiving. It’s not edgy because it has been done to death. If you want to go out on a limb pick on Muslims, you may like the Salman Rushdie lifestyle.

@ Trevor Keezer- You want to serve your country, enlist. You want to serve Christ, enter a seminary, volunteer at a soup kitchen or attend on the church or your choice on Sunday. You want to work at Home Depot, do as you’re told.

@ Sarah Palin- Well done being ahead of the curve in the NY 23^rd. Let’s hope folks remember who started this thing in 2012.

@ David Axelrod- Pick a date for- Action in Afganistan, don’t ask, Gitmo, when you are responsible for the economy and when you stop blaming Bush

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Healthcare Revisited

,I went online to try to read the Pelosi healthcare “reform” bill. While I admit to being a hillbilly, right wing extremist and all round bozo I do have a pretty good command of Standard English. In the several hundred pages I read there are section where I would defy and ordinary person to read aloud the much less comprehend. My theory is that if you can’t write it so a person of average intelligence can understand it then you’re trying to hide something.

There are some great things happening in Washington, if you are either living on the dole or looking for a handout. If, however, you are a senior citizen, working person or union member with healthcare benefits on the job there is not so much there for you. Members of the last three groups will be hurt by the coming tsunami of a healthcare bill, the promises and platitudes of useful idiots like Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown notwithstanding.  

In the past week I got two great insights into healthcare reform. The first was when I was doing a night club date with a comic who was 30 years my junior. He makes an average of 600 dollars a week plus a few dollars a month of unreported income from the sales of tee shirts. Not a fortune but not a poverty level existence either. He has a Macbook Pro, ipod touch, and a Blackberry Strom. He goes out with the staff several nights a week after shows. He also smokes marijuana on occasion. What he doesn’t have: health insurance! This is one of the millions for whom President Obama and his lapdogs like Brown want us to pay the tab.

 Recently I did a show for the staff of a well respected university medical school. I had dinner with at a table of ten top Midwestern doctors and realized I was by far the least educated person at the table. Of course that would be the case if I sat down in a middle school lunchroom at a decent private school. One of them asked me if I did any material about the healthcare reform. That put me in a tough spot because I was there as a comic not as a political commentator. So I did what any good politician would do, I dodged the question. I asked them how much input top doctors like them have had on the upcoming legislation. There was a lot of rolling of eyes and then one of the doctors told me that during his campaign Obama had come to their school. He had told them that he would reform healthcare and look to them for direction. He asked several of the doctors to serve on a panel of 100 top doctors and medical administrators to advise on crafting healthcare legislation. Several of the doctors told me they were lifelong Democrats and had vigorously supported the President.

How many times did the advisory committee meet? Zero! The top doctors and hospital administrators were never asked to contribute to the plan. That should be a huge red flag to anyone even those as unintelligent as me or Sherrod Brown.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Newt, Please Find a Rock to Crawl Under.

I am going to do something that isn’t often done in Conservative circles, break the 11^th commandment of Ronald Reagan and criticize another Conservative.

I was watching Fox News last night and subjected to yet another salvo from washed up, old school, morally loose, quasi-conservative, “thinking man” Newt Gingrich. If this dinosaur is the future of the GOP let me sign up for a third party – yesterday! I trust him as far as I can throw an anvil. If Civil War expert Gingrich told me that Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox I would look it up just to be sure.

I won’t get into specifics but this guy is carrying more baggage than a packed jumbo jet. I put Newt and Bill Clinton in the same political category. Everyone around them says how smart they are  yet their behavior and political accomplishments tell me that isn’t so. It is obvious that Newt is lining up to run for The Big Chair in 2012.  That is the best news the folks in the Obama camp can hear. Seriously, is there any conservative out there who thinks that if he were our guy in 2008 instead of the RINO we ran that Obama would be trying to introduce anti-war resolutions from the Senate floor today? Axelrod would love if all he had to do in 2012 is run over another Dino-RINO.

 Gingrich recently reaffirmed that he is out of touch with the conservative base when he threw his support behind non-conservative Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava in the New York 23^rd congressional district.

Why did Newt give his seal of approval to the pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Scozzafava? He gave the same tired rhetoric about how if we don’t get behind the approved “R” person then we are giving the seat to the Democrats. If that is Mr. Gingrich’s biggest worry perhaps “for the good of the party” he should encourage his friend Ms. Scozzafava to drop out and make Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman a shoe in for the seat.

The election in the New York 23^rd is a wake-up call to the GOP. I’m not saying that I will never vote for another Republican but when I have an alternative that better fits my values I will vote for them regardless of party. I live in Republican House leader John Boehner’s district and when I recently both called and e mailed his office to complain about his support for Scozzafava I was given the same treatment I got from left wing radical Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. I was blown off and the e mail never answered.

 The tea party movement isn’t about party, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Boehner, it’s about values and principles.  Get with the program or look for a new line of work!

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: A Cartoon for Halloween

 Just a little cartoon from Cagle to lighten your day. The VRWC returns tomorrow with a new blog!

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: The Best Halloween Ever!

I grew up in a small town in eastern Kentucky. The world was different then, more innocent. It was still three weeks until JFK was shot. We were in Viet Nam but only as advisors. Nobody had ever hijacked an airplane; suicide bombed a pizza parlor, or asked what the meaning of “is” was. Parents weren’t as worried about perverts and molesters stealing or killing their children. Halloween  wasn’t the big deal it is today either. We made up costumes from stuff we had around the house and off we went into the night. We used to go trick-or-treating alone for hours covering many neighborhoods. 

There was one house, however, that never got a visit from a ghost or pirate. That was the old white house on the corner of our street. It sat way back off the street in a grove of huge dark pines. The house and the yard were not kept up very well. All of the neighborhood kids told stories about the old guy who lived there. We wondered about the strange laughter and other sounds that came out of the house from time to time. It commonly agreed upon by evert kid under sixteen that he was an ax murderer. We all believed that he had ax murdered his wife and was just waiting for his next victim to come knocking.

On this particular Halloween I was ten years old. Me, my older brother and two of our friends had gone out earlier and had made quite a hull. The four of us were returning to Iroquois Avenue with our pillowcases full of candy. We stopped under the street light out in front of the old white house at the corner to check out our loot. We looked into the bags where a wealth of candy corn, sweet tarts tootsie rolls and candided apples were piled up. Then we all turned and looked at the white house. The pale blue light of a television illuminated one window far off in the trees.Someone wodered aloud what an ax murder would give out or Halloween.

 Suddenly my brother started walking towards the three cement steps which led to the long sidewalk and into the pines. 

“Don’t do it” we cried!  “He’ll chop you up.”

All we could hear was the sound of my brother’s shoes on the sidewalk and then a knock on the door from the darkness. The door creaked open and the old man’s voice floated through the night air.

“ Wha do you wan?” The ax murdererasked.

“Trick or treat!” my brother demended

“Trick’er treat?” the old guy cackled.  “Jes a sec.”

There was silence and then the screen door opened and shut, followed by footsteps from dark which got quicker as they got closer. My brother broke out of the trees and into the protective halo of the street light. He opened his pillowcase and on top of his candy was a five dollar bill!

I couldn’t get to the door fast enough. I ran through the pines and bounded on to the rickety old porch. I pounded the door and the old man answered.

“ Wha do you wan?” he rasped as the then strange smell of alcohol on his breath wafted over me.

“Trick or treat!”

“Trick’er treat?” the old guy cackled.  “Hold the phone.”

He walked away from the door and into a back room. He returned in a few seconds and I opened my bag. He placed something on top of my candy and I ran down the path and into the light. I opened my bag and there on top of my candy was a tomato!

When we got a little older we learned that the old man wasn’t an ax murderer but an alcoholic. His wife had died some years before and he had found what comfort he could in the bottle. The yard, the garden and the house didn’t matter to him any longer.

 I never did figure out what happened that night. Was he just drunk and giving out whatever came to mind at the moment or was it part of his twisted plan. To the first kid brave enough to come to the door, he’d give something great, five dollars! To the next greedy punk he’d give a lesson with an old tomato! Halloween has never been the same for me since.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Random Thoughts on a Rainy Friday

A few years back I was in Copenhagen, Denmark doing some shows on a tour of Europe. I was staying at the Sheraton Hotel at the same time David Bowie and his band Tin Machine were in town.  The place was mobbed with fans, Bowie’s not mine, and I made my way through the lobby to the elevators and saw a guy with a t-shirt that started with an obscenity and was followed by, “I’m in Tin Machine!” We chatted and he said his name as Hunt Sales. I made a joke about being related to Soupy and he said, “That’s my dad!”

Last night I heard about Soupy’s passing. He was an icon to comics and kids of the sixties. He was edgy without being obscene and as clever as he was funny. Soupy Sales died in New York at the age of 83, still just a big kid looking for a laugh.

I was driving home and listening to Mark Levin and heard a clip of Nancy with the plastic face that made me laugh so hard I had to pull over. She was being interviewed by CNBC money babe Maria Bartiromo and said this when asked about tax increases due to allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, “That wasn’t a tax increase. It is– it is– eliminating a tax decrease that was there.”

Folks you can’t write stuff that stupid and expect it won’t be cut from your script. This is the same kind of thinking that politicians use when they tell us that a “fee” is different than a “tax”. 

Why is it every time I read a hit piece on Rush Limbaugh, like the one recently written by Leonard Pitts, one of the first things they bring up is the fact that Rush had a problem with prescription drugs? In Liberal World as long as you are from the right side of the political tracks there is always forgiveness. If you are a Kennedy you can be a drunk all of your life and even kill people and they make you a hero. If you are a conservative it is one strike and you are out.

Why is it that writers, like Pitts, like to take things out of context. Being a comic and comedy writer I know that presentation is everything. How something sounds spoken often gives it a totally different meaning than reading it off of a page. I would think someone as dedicated to fairness as Mr. Pitts claims to be would know that too.  

Lindsey Graham and his RINO ilk will be the death of the GOP and I say, “Good Riddance!” We need a new conservative party in America. It’s beginnings may be happening in New York’s 23th district in the next two weeks.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:Never Bring a Spork to a Knife Fight.

I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies.

When you try to make a rule that can never be broken you take common sense out of the equation.  There are always exceptions and things can happen that The proof is all around us. A girl gets tossed from school because she has a butter knife in her car. An elementary school girl is seen the same way as a student selling marijuana because she gives a Tylenol to a friend who has a headache. The list goes on.

Most recently a six year old boy, who by all accounts was is a great kid and whose parents were very involved at school was suspended because he brought his boy scout camping tool to school to eat his lunch. Without a campaign launched by his mother to flood the school board with e mails and calls  pointing out their stupidity the boy would have been sent to a school for juvenile offenders.I don’t know what goes on at this school but apparently they need a no tolerance rule for first graders with sporks because there had been a number of sporkings among kids who were hardly out of diapers.

I hate to sound like an aging curmudgeon but when I went to grade school in Kentucky most boys carried pocket knives. We played mumblety peg  at lunch while teachers watched. I don’t ever recall a stabbing although there were several apples cut up at lunch. The only thing we had zero tolerance for was being made to erase the board after class.