Perfect Valor, a documentary narrated by former Republican senator and 2008 presidential candidate Fred Thompson and produced by David Bossie and his colleagues at Citizens United Productions recounts the stories of a select group of marines and their families during the United States’ successful campaign to wrest control of the Iraqi city of Fallujah from insurgents in 2004.

The film provides an intimate look at the trials and tribulations that these men and women endured during this difficult time, all the way from training on a production lot in San Diego to their re-adjustment to life at home, and illustrates their tremendous courage throughout.

In Perfect Valor, we are introduced to selfless heroes, such as Dr. Richard Jadick, a naval commander and field surgeon who actually had the option not to be deployed to Iraq, but chose to serve his country despite the fact that his wife was about to give birth. Four days after his child was born, Jadick left for Iraq, and after having to endure the difficulties of having to race from the outskirts of Fallujah to troops in need of attention in the field, Jadick decided to set up a med station in the middle of the city. The location was soon more than just a medical facility to our mean and women in uniform as many of them saw it as a place of comfort where they could find respite from the stress of war.

The film also tells the story of Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Workman, a Navy Cross recipient who lost many friends in a battle with insurgent fighters. After his return home, Workman and his wife very candidly discuss his battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and his attempted suicide, which was triggered by his own misplaced guilt over the death of his friends.

Jadick and Workman are just two of the amazing people we meet in Perfect Valor, and their stories and those of the others in the film are presented with an honest insight and a depth of humanity that is rarely appreciated in today’s world. Perfect Valor is deeply moving endeavor. This film provides a perspective that most of aren’t aware of, and of us who have only seen the war on television yet complain of “war fatigue” should set aside 90 minutes and watch it, because it might just give pause to such thoughts.

Last week I was sent out to do a gig for the Jewish Tribune. I was to attend the “graduation ceremony” for an 85 year old Holocaust survivor. See him get his diploma, snap some pics, take some notes.

Sometimes though, the unexpected happens. I get caught up in a story. I find myself clapping or crying - or in this case, both.

Torontonians can pick up a new copy of the Jewish Tribune tomorrow in selected areas around town. The rest of you can check this link on Wednesday or Thursday to read about this heroic war vet finally achieving that which we take so for granted.

Hello Brass Balls fans and haters. Big news - we’re off the air.

I decided it was time to move on to something new. Many of you are savvy to the fact that my life has gone through a major upheaval that took BBR off the air temporarily, and has only seen a few episodes recorded since the month of October.

Then this happened, and I knew it was time to move on. Life is too short to feel like crap all the time. What happened with Art Lindsey was nothing new.

Brass Balls Radio was a wildly popular show, and one I enjoyed recording. But I often felt like I needed the ghost of Jimmy Jackie (oops) Coogan to come hold me while I wept about the back-office antics. It was a difficult choice to hang up the mic, but one I needed to make. I’d put it off for far too long.

Don’t get me wrong: It wasn’t all bad. Most of it was smooth sailing. But when it was bad it was brutal.

So I’m leaving Take That Radio. I’ll probably come back with another podcast or vlog-cast of some description in the not-too-distant future. I need to focus on some more pressing issues first before fleshing out a new show.

I want to thank those who made Brass Balls Radio what it was - Mike Williams, Mark Steyn, Kathy Shaidle, all our guests, all our listeners… Too many people to list. We had 77 great episodes, and never expected the kind of response we received. Thank you all.

Look to the end of March or beginning of April for something new from me. It will be small, self-produced, raw, and earnest. It might not have all the bells and whistles of BBR, but it also won’t make my ulcer bleed.

Okay geeks, what are your thoughts on this? Discuss!

Heh. Guest blogger Art Lindsey has a meltdown [podcast link - right-click to download]. It’s like Glenn Beck, but without all the weird crying.

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!

I recorded a Brass Balls Radio for today with… Dr. Dawg. Yeah baby, a real live socialist on BBR!

Get the audio here.

This is likely to piss off those on both the right and the left - an amicable conversation between the far-left socialist and the right-wing extremist.

The moral of the story is that politics are politics - but genuine friendliness can go a long way.

At long last, real gender equality in the USA!

Sorry about being offline the other day. Billing problem. As in, I didn’t pay the bill. Oops. Anyway, we’re back up and running.

Oh, and there will be a Brass Balls Radio recorded this weekend.
Right now I have a cold and I’m going back to sleep. Later.

Join us for a Solidarity Rally for Geert Wilders

The film Fitna will be shown and a diverse coalition of community leaders will speak, including Rabbi Jon Hausman from Boston, a close associate of Geert Wilders. On Wednesday, January 20, 7:30 - 9:30 pm, Toronto Zionist Centre, 788 Marlee Ave.

LIVE VIDEO STREAM www.jdl-canada.com AND www.canhindu.com

Speakers
Kathy Shaidle – Five Feet of Fury
Rabbi Jon Hausman - Ahavath Torah, Boston
Ron Banerjee - Canadian Hindu Advocacy
Bjorn Larsen – Geert Wilder Supporter
Meir Weinstein – Jewish Defence League of Canada

Wednesday, January 20
7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Toronto Zionist Centre,
788 Marlee Avenue

Jewish Defence League of Canada
www.jdl-canada.com
416 736 7000

Hands up anyone who has donated to save the Haitians from disaster.

Now…

Hands up anyone who gave a flying shit about Haiti on Monday, before the earthquake, when they were still the center ring of Dante’s hell.

Yeah, I thought so.

Last night I read a great article by David Warren:

“Islamism” is thus to be taken not as religion, but as cult, or an assemblage of cults. There are other cults in Islam, as in Christianity, as in Hinduism and all major religions — each bearing some relation to the religion itself. “By their fruits ye will know them,” as the Founder of my own Church explained.

All such cults have living force, so long as they reside within living people. But I would maintain, further, that they survive, as legacy, long after the last true believer has died. Habits of mind, forged in religious experience — whether orthodox or heretical is not the issue here — pass down to subsequent generations.

It got me to thinking about Islam as a death cult, which it is. Many cults deemed dangerous to greater society are banned, freedom of religion notwithstanding. Any cult that puts vast numbers of their own women and children in danger get busted up, Janet Reno riding the gun of a tank Dr. Strangelove style, for the greater good. Children are taken in by government agencies. Possession of weapons is prohibited. Visas and other government-issued documents are withheld. But Islam seems to get a special pass.

And finally it occurred to me: There’s no money to be made from Islam on a large scale, so why should we care? The example that came to mind was Vioxx, the arthritis drug that was pulled from the market about a decade ago over an increased risk of death. People began suing Merck over heart attacks and wrongful deaths. Merck stood to lose huge amounts of money for the liability, so they pulled the drug, despite the fact that it did a world of good in a majority of patients.

We can’t sue “Islam”. It isn’t a company, it doesn’t have a financial structure or a central figurehead (unless we want to go after the House of Saud, which we apparently don’t). Islam can’t be taken off the market to keep the P&L balanced. The FDA can’t hold hearings about it. No one stands to gain or lose financially whether Islam stays or goes.

Hundreds of thousands of people (a very conservative estimate) around the world have been murdered in the name of Islamic ideology, but we still haven’t busted it up for the death cult that it is. There are no assets to be seized, so governments merely shrug and let Islam keep the moniker of “religion” instead of stating what it really is: A death cult.

More people have been killed by Islam today than were killed by Vioxx in the entire time it wasa on the market. Won’t someone please pull Islam from the shelves?

Y’all wouldn’t quit bitching about me being away. So I sucked down a bottle of de Rothschild to steel myself, and got down to bid’ness. Enjoy.

Mike and Wendy welcome guest Andrew Lawton from Strictly Right to discuss a few issues that may have flown under the main stream media’s radar. We know. Shocker.

Download MP3

Subscribe to Brass Balls Radio on ITunes by clicking here.

“When the Senate takes up a jobs bill later this month or early in February, the debate will center on whether it really will create jobs and be worth plunging the government tens of billions of dollars further into debt.

Republicans scoff at the “Jobs for Main Street Act” title that House Democrats put on their $174 billion package last month. They refer to it as “son of the stimulus,” the $787 billion economic recovery plan of nearly a year ago that they say was ineffective at producing jobs.”

How does the old saying go? “Repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity”, or something like that?

Well, that’s exactly what this is. Are there any sane people left in the world? Does anybody remember when they told us that the stimulus package would stop unemployment at eight percent? That didn’t happen, did it? Our government has turned into a remake of the scene from the Steve Martin classic “The Jerk”. You know, the part where he says, “I have this remote control and that’s all I need!”
However, instead of a remote control, our government says that all it needs is just another $174 billion in borrowed/printed money.

Somebody stop the world and let those of us with math skills off, please.

It is beyond obvious at this point that capitalism has been completely scrapped in favor of cracking open Monopoly boxes and handing out money. Anybody with even a rudimentary education in economics and history will tell you that this is completely counterproductive to our free market system, and that it is in fact our free market system that has made America the most powerful and prosperous nation in the history of mankind.

Jobs cannot be created by handing out money arbitrarily. For an economy to remain strong, money most circulate, and that circulation must be spurred by demand. The best way to create demand is by cutting taxes, which would by definition necessitate a cut in government spending. (Agreed, this is a pipe dream, but it is what should happen.)

When you strip away all of the econo-speak, our system is fairly simple. It basically works like this:

Essentially, when money is given back to consumers, “consumption” increases. When consumption increases, demand increases. When demand increases, businesses must expand to meet the demand, and when businesses expand, that means jobs. Real jobs. The kind of jobs that the market sustains on its own, and not the kind of overpriced, phony “shovel ready” job that only lasts a few weeks because there is no demand for what they supposedly produce, and consequently disappear because the artificially created money runs out.

It’s a proven system, and it has worked every single time it’s tried. Yet there are some in positions of power who seem convinced that a government-controlled economy is better, despite all of the historical evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps we should coin a new phrase:

You can send politicians to Washington, but you can’t make them think.

Miss me? Yeah, me too.

Here we are on New Year’s eve, with me having barely touched Girl on the Right for three months (many thanks to Art Lindsey for picking up the slack). Thing is, I haven’t been able to focus much on news and politics for the past little while. I’ve been busy just trying to survive.

This past quarter has been about life lessons for me. I left my right wing existence and was flung face-first into lefty-land. I went down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. And I learned some things along the way.

I learned, first and foremost, what my tax dollars have been paying for all these years. I’ve learned about what is essential (safe beds for abused women), and what is a revolting waste of money for political purposes (for example, paying women $10 each to go hold a candle for the victims of Polytechnique on December 6th is a huge WASTE of tax money, and a total mercenary practice).

I learned who my friends are - and who they aren’t. People I trusted to stand next to me left me to flail in my own shit, whereas people I would never have asked for help in the first place came through and gave me a second chance. I learned that someone I thought was weak and unwilling to stand by me in tough times was actually tracking me down from 10,000 miles away. He was my rock, day and night, until I stopped crying and started breathing again - that took about a month.

I learned that no matter what happens to me, I still have the capacity for laughter. Everything is funny if looked at from the right angle.

I learned that just because someone is a crackhead doesn’t mean they can’t be a friend or offer a shoulder. Or a bed.

I learned that the woman sharing her dinner with me had killed a child. The woman sitting on the other side of me was an axe murderer. Both were very pleasant people.

I learned humility while shitting in a room full of other women.

I learned that I’m not as bad off as many.

I learned that spite can give you the will to live.

I learned a woman’s place. Do not fight against deprivation of food. Do not fight against unlawful confinement. Do not fight against months of harrowing emotional abuse. The moment you fight back you will learn what real deprivation is. Just take the punch and say thank you.

I’ve learned that Sunnybrook hospital is useless in dealing with an overdose. Just sayin’.

I’ve learned that no matter where you are, no matter what you’ve done, God’s forgiveness can help you sleep at night. He’ll sit by you even when no one else will.

I’ve learned that social workers and outreach workers have, for the large part, been where I am. Not all of them - some are the weeping lefty bleeding hearts I’ve made fun of for the past six years. But some of them know exactly what it means to be afraid.

There are lessons I still have to learn in the coming year. How to stand on my own again is one of them. Another is how to reconcile being RightGirl with being this beaten down wretch. How to reconcile wearing pearls and $300 Italian shoes and carrying a $500 Coach bag while walking into and out of my safehouse every day. How to be middle class and homeless at the same time.

The main lesson, of course, is how to score a book deal out of the whole ordeal.

Happy New Year, everyone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

by Art Lindsey III

President Obama declared Wednesday night on ABC News that without healthcare reform the federal government would go bankrupt.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee: the people who are watching tonight, your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you. Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “And the federal government will go bankrupt.”

Well, I’ve got news for the president and everybody else out there who hasn’t been paying attention:

The federal government is bankrupt. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have to keep mortgaging our future to China and amassing a debt which has ballooned to an amount in the double-digit trillions. When you couple that with the printing rampage we’ve been on, how is it that anybody can say we will run out of money when we obviously already have? The motto of our government seems to be “Spend all you want, we’ll make more”.

Frankly, this has become a rather tiresome ruse. The idea that government knows anything about making or keeping businesses competitive is laughable. There isn’t a business on the planet that can compete with the federal government when it comes to resources.

Notice that “resources” is the key. No one is talking about quality, here. Everyone knows that the government is an inefficient, bumbling mess, no matter who is in charge, and it clearly doesn’t have to turn a profit. That alone makes it an unstoppable juggernaut. Businesses must turn a profit to survive. If they don’t, they go away. (Well, they used to before all the bailout junk started, but you get the idea.) The government seemly operates above all concepts of economics and logic, so in reality, President Obama’s argument is nothing short of a joke.

This whole discussion is rife with myths. Yes, there is a lot of money tied up in the medical insurance industry. But the truth is that people always look at the wrong number. While the large, zero-laden numbers look good at the end of the day, they don’t really mean anything. The number that everybody seems to ignore when they decide to demonize a particular business is that of the profit margin.

Now, in case you don’t know, the profit margin or the medical insurance industry is about two percent. Knowing that, there is no way an unbiased observer of the situation could accuse the medical insurance industry of being anti-competitive. A two percent profit margin would just be barely keeping one’s head above water.

If the federal government was so into competition in business why doesn’t it do more to relieve the financial burdens on businesses, like slashing our inflated corporate tax, and/or eliminating the capital gains tax? Furthermore, in the case of health care, why can’t our health policies be made portable, and why Americans buy a policy in any state that they choose? This would drastically expand every company’s potential client pool, and because of that, logic dictates that prices will come down. This is a basic component of our market economy. However, it has become quite clear that our government has no interest in that.

Isn’t it interesting how the Obama administration constantly touts job creation, yet it is hell-bent on interfering with an industry which makes up about one-sixth of our economy? Health care insurance providers will be unable to compete with a bureaucratic monolith that can continually give itself a blank check with which to operate. The private companies will fail, which will put many people out of work. Wait a minute. What about all that ‘job creation’ that Obama is so good at? Perhaps the only ones that really count in his mind are handful of prison guard jobs that will be created when he moves the Gitmo detainees to Illinois. Who knows at this point?

Continuing on, when you put a lot of people out of work, a domino-effect begins. They have to file for unemployment, which is funded by taxpayers. However, that’s just a tiny part of it. The real damage begins when the reality of this program begins to take hold. Providing quality, universal healthcare for a nation of over 300 million people is a financial impossibility, especially when you factor in our government’s penchant for waste. The tax burden required to feed the beast will balloon out of control, and the end result will be that corporations and workers will be so badly shackled by the government that the drive to produce will be lost. If such a thing ever happens, its game over, people. Welcome to the collapse of the United States of America.

All of that aside, the true answer to this manufactured “crisis” is personal responsibility. The fact is that most of the uninsured could obtain a health insurance policy at a reasonable price if they wanted to. Quality policies are available at prices less than $100 a month, and can be shopped for and purchased online as we speak. While it is true that the American health industry could be streamlined, the government certainly has no clue how to do it. Furthermore, the true hindrance in the situation isn’t the providers. It’s the Americans who are too irresponsible to take care of themselves.

Until that changes, nothing good will happen.

by Art Lindsey III

On her Christmas in Washington special on ABC last night, Oprah Winfrey asked President Obama to grade himself.

“Good, solid B-plus,” the president said.

Explaining, he said, “we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt
.
“We stabilized the economy, and prevented possibilities of a Great Depression or a significant financial meltdown. The economy is growing again.”

“We are on our way out of Iraq. I think we’ve got the best possible plan for Afghanistan.

“We have reset our image around the world.”
-

Well, who here feels better now? I know I certainly do
.
President Obama’s fondness for referring to himself is well documented, but this is one of his most stunning displays of arrogance yet. The proper answer to this question is, “That is not for me to decide. That is up to the American people.

This is why we don’t grade ourselves in school. (At Least not yet, but who knows. It may not be far down the road. First, teachers aren’t allowed to use red pens, so it seems logical that “self-assessment” may soon follow.) According to a New Rasmussen poll, Obama’s approval rating has dipped to 44 percent, and it should be noted that this is one of the fastest drops in US presidential history.

Now, I don’t know about any of you, but when I went to school, if I saw a “44” on my paper, that meant I got a big, fat “F”. In fact, I had to get a “90” to even get a “B”.

How can a man who approved a $787 billion spending bill (which for all intents and purposes has failed) sit idly by as congress is about to approve nearly another $2 trillion in spending? Seeing that the only “successes” that his administration can seem to tout is that “we didn’t lose as many jobs this month as last month”, shows that he lacks basic math skills. Such a claim is not an indication off success in a sane world. Logic would dictate that at some point, the job loss numbers would have to decrease simply because we are running out of jobs to lose. Somebody has to work. If nobody worked, society would collapse.

So, if by “stabilizing the economy” he means holding the unemployment numbers at a nice bouncy, round number like 10 percent, then yes, he is doing an outstanding job. If by “resetting our image” he means bowing and scraping to every would leader he can get a photo-op with, he’s earned a spot on the Dean’s List.

President Obama is so disengaged from reality that he either doesn’t hear what comes out of his own mouth or worse yet, the multiple failures he has presided over or instigated are perceived as achievements in eyes, regardless of what the data may suggest.
He has turned America into a poorly controlled science fair project, and the media that he has a “teacher’s pet” relationship with is giving him a passing grade.

One could argue that this is akin to cheating, and in the end, cheaters always get caught, don’t they?

by Art Lindsey III

According to the Politico’s Ben Smith, who is relaying information from Public Policy Polling, it would appear, as per their study, that 44 percent of Americans would prefer having George W. Bush as president for a third term than to have Barack Obama in office.

This is definitely an interesting conversation piece, assuming that the poll is indeed accurate. Ben Smith does not cite any source data for the poll, That will certainly raise the eyebrows of skeptics, but at the same time, President Obama’s approval rating is in fact hovering around 46 percent, so for the sake of argument, let’s examine this based on face value.

In the short time President Obama has been in office, in a matter of speaking, he himself has labeled his term in office as the “Not My Fault” presidency. He has continually discusses situations he has “inherited”, and seems to have no problems pointing fingers, particularly when it comes to matters of spending.

Obama often cites President Bush’s extravagant spending, in turn blaming it for the county’s financial straits; however, he seems to lack the basic math skills to realize that he himself has taken the Bush deficit and more than doubled down on it within his first year in office. Engaged Americans are smarter than this, and they see right through it.

Whether you like him or not, George W. Bush took ownership of his presidency. While he was often quieter than a lot of his supporters had wished, he had no problem stepping up when the chips were down. Remember when Bush took flak for his grammatically incorrect “I’m the decider” comment when he offered his support to then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld? The media had a heyday with that, as it always did, continuing to its never-ending quest to prove that W. was an idiot.

However, poor grammar notwithstanding, people seemed to miss the point. George W. Bush, while he is a man with many faults, had the spine to stand up and say “This is mine. This is all on me.” The only times Obama seems to use the word “ I” is when he is he is so quick to remind us that “I won” or “I inherited this”, in an effort to quickly assert that whatever has befallen the country on a given day certainly wasn’t his fault. President Obama operates in a never-ending “CYA” mode, which makes him more akin to TV’s “Steve Urkel”, who often said, “Did I do that?”

So when you look at it, this poll may have something to it. In all honesty, George W. Bush was far from a conservative president. But at the same time, he took responsibility for his office and the path of his nation, even when his decisions were unpopular. While some of his policies were indeed deeply flawed, Bush carried himself as a leader, and with dignity.

Could it be that President Obama’s ego is finally beginning to wear on the American public? One wonders how long America will tolerate a man who demands to be adored, yet can’t deliver, and then refuses to take responsibility for his ineffectiveness.

The new catchphrase on Capitol Hill is BoTax; a type of lethal injection of taxation made from something rotten, and it keeps one from being able to smile.

Blinky Pelosi, as we all know, is an avid user of the rotten vegetable concoction widely marketed as Botox. By the looks of her, she also has a sardine can-like screw at the back of her head to make facelifts easier (and more frequent). Don’t worry, the back-combing covers it.

So it is with much hilarity that a 5% “sin” a tax - like those levied on tobacco and alcohol - is being discussed for cosmetic surgery procedures.

That’s right, kids. You can get a baker’s dozen worth of abortions on the state, but you’ll soon have to duck into a Tijuana back alley to get liposuction. Just in the same way you can get bootleg booze and cigarettes tax-free from the Indian reservations, you’ll soon be going to Tonto to get your boobs enlarged. Got that, Kemosabe?

Not that Pelosi will be affected. The woman is loaded. But the middle class moms who wish to cling to the fleeting youth they see slipping from their grasp will be given a new disincentive with this tax. They will either have to bear the burden of their crow’s feet, or they will seek “discount” providers of the services.

It’s elitist, like the price of arugula at Whole Foods.

by Art Lindsey III

RICHMOND, Va. — A 90-year-old Medal of Honor recipient can keep his 21-foot flagpole in his front yard after a homeowner’s association dropped its request to remove it, a spokesman for Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said Tuesday.

Thank goodness. It’s nice to know that some order of sanity can still be maintained out there. What have we come to when homeowners associations are even entertaining the notion of American flags being code violations, let alone actually petitioning to have one removed from a decorated veteran’s home?

It boggles the mind to think that some people actually find one of the greatest symbols of freedom in the history of the human race to be an eyesore. How can this be when the flag is an icon of the one place on Earth where you actually have the right to complain about anything you want without fear of retribution? Wanting to see it removed is rather self-defeating, and well, stupid, isn’t it?

Why is it considered “patriotic” by some to show dissent or to burn a flag, yet to display a flag is interpreted as “offensive” ? Those two things just don’t add up, and one would most likely be hard-hard pressed to find an instance where the display of an American flag actually lowered property values, would they not?

We could spend countless hours debating the usefulness and the true nature of homeowners associations, but that’s not really the point, here. The greater point is that we’ve lost our collective minds. Men like Colonel Van T. Barfoot should be eternally celebrated, not hassled with such trifling things. This man served his country with honor and distinction. He should not be treated as a vandal. It is shameful, and disrespectful to the United States Armed Forces as a whole, and freedom-loving Americans everywhere.

The fact that something like this escalates to the point where White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is forced to comment on it, saying the whole thing was “silly”, once again aids credibility to the argument that common sense in America is in fact dead. Yet, at the same time, Robert Gibbs should be praised for actually getting something right for a change.

Maybe there is “hope” after all.