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May 1
1927: First major competition, second annual rodeo, at new Baker Ranch arena (later Saugus Speedway). Overflow crowd more than fills 18,000-seat arena. Entire SCV population was ~3,000 [story]
1927 Baker Ranch Rodeo


The Real Side | Commentary by Joe Messina
| Monday, Mar 23, 2015

joemessinamugAnother week of news cycle finger-pointing goes both ways. The left calls the right hypocrites. The right calls the left hypocrites. Then comes the “I know you are but what am I?” line. Do you feel like you’re back in high school with all of the drama?

I took a parenting class years ago where the person teaching the class said kids are masters at deflecting the conversation to get out of trouble and take the heat off of themselves. They twist and tweak and throw temper tantrums until they get what they want. Enter the loons on the left.

It started with Democratic Sen. Dick Durban’s statement that Republican senators were going to hold up Loretta Lynch’s nomination until a vote was cast for a specific bill. Why did Republicans do that? Because Democratic senators were playing politics with a serious sex slave and human trafficking bill.

Durban said Republicans were relegating her to the “back of the bus” until the bill was passed. Hmm … what possible meaning would “back of the bus” have? Why didn’t he say “back burner” or “the end of line” or something less – what am I looking for here – racial? Instead, he tried to make it look like Republicans were not interested in affirming her or voting on her confirmation simply because she was black.

Mr. Durbin, your medication isn’t working. Wasn’t it you who held up the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State? But I’ll bet the farm it had nothing to do with her color or her being a black woman, nor did a Republican accuse you of that.

Then there is that little matter of Democrats not getting involved with Netanyahu because it was too close to the elections in his country. As if shaking hands with our president would have assured him a win. If Obama’s campaign operatives were smart, they might have made it happen considering a recent CNN poll showing that the majority of Israelis don’t trust Obama.

Not being involved has a funny meaning coming from the Chicago Thug team, aka Obama administration. Apparently, it’s OK to send the same campaign team that ran and is still involved in the daily social media messaging for the Obama team over to Israel to try to influence an election using the same tactics they use here. You know – busing in voters, robocalls twisting the facts (lying) about Netanyahu. They were involved.

This administration can’t seem to get the game right. Cheating catches up with you and eventually won’t work. We are the laughing stock of the Middle East. Not ONE leader trusts Obama; therefore they can’t trust the U.S. That means we start to lose power because we are seen as weak.

The handling of ISIS is one huge debacle. Go ahead. Get it out of your system. Let’s all yell the big lie at the same time: “It’s George Bush’s fault.”

Now, the truth: ISIS doesn’t fear us. Iran doesn’t fear us. Russia doesn’t fear us. None of our former allies trust us to come through for them. Egypt, the Kurds and the Jordanians begging for arms so they can fight on the ground as the president has asked them to. What’s he doing? Nothing. In fact, he’s holding up shipments to them. What’s the upside to being an ally? Ask Netanyahu.

The president talks about all nations being allowed to rule themselves; the world needing to be a safer place; and us being firm with our enemies while working with our allies. What does that mean?

This is the same president who chastised Congress for inviting Netanyahu to speak, and for breaking protocol. The same president who got on the 47 legislators for sending a letter to Iranian leadership, calling it unprecedented, seems to be using the same hypocrite-inducing meds that Sen. Dick Durbin is taking.

While accusations of “treason” and “un-American” are flying around, nothing is being said about a senator who, back in 2008, urged Iraqi officials to reject President Bush’s deal that he was trying to negotiate toward a drawdown of our troops in Iraq. Who sent the delegation to Baghdad and met privately with Iraqi officials and said the Bush administration was in a “state of weakness and political confusion?” Then-Sen. Obama.

There’s nothing “unprecedented” about Congress sending a letter to Netanyahu. Obama had already set the precedent. It’s just that the left plays by a totally different set of rules or, in their case, non-rules. That’s called being a hypocrite.

Yes. Both sides have issues. Yes, both sides play political games. But they are usually around playing with highway bills, Medicare, welfare and education. Things that we can tweak and come back around and fix as time goes on.

Polls still show people feel more secure in wartime with a Republican president and during peacetime with a Democratic president. Scary. That keeps us in the cycles we are in.

We have a president who won’t bend over backward to help our only ally in the region. Why? Probably because he won’t kiss the ring. Since the Jordanians, Egyptians and Kurds are now willing to go nose to nose with ISIS, the president wants to think through a strategy. Shouldn’t he already have one? His military has one. His Secretary of Defense has one. But it just might work, and the president doesn’t want to hurt his violent Muslim friends.

His idea for stabilizing the Middle East is to give weapons to the Iranians. Well, you know, not actually handing them to them, but allow them to make them. What’s that, you say? It will never happen? The president promises we’ll send in inspectors. He says the Iranians will have to report to us on their progress with uranium enrichment. Sure they will.

The president, while angered at the 47 legislators for sending the letter to Iran, recorded a video and posted to the Internet for all Iranians to see. In it, he calls them his friends and stresses the need to work together for a more peaceful world. This, while the ruler of Iran was engaging in hate speech (that’s what we would call it here). “Death to America,” “Death to the Jew.” When the president calls for a more peaceful and secure world, does he mean without America or Israel?

Why would he try to appease a country and its leadership who hate us? Why would he not support our allies who will do the very work he asked them to do a while back?

Why? Because he is a hypocrite and sees no value in the way this country was. It seems he will not be happy until we are the third-world nation he wants us to be.

 

 

Joe Messina is host of The Real Side (TheRealSide.com), a nationally syndicated talk show that runs on AM-1220 KHTS radio and SCVTV [here]. He is also an elected member of the Hart School Board. His commentary publishes Mondays.

 

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