2011 Fearless Forecasts

Florida, but not Jacksonville, will take a direct hit from a category 3 or higher hurricane.


A major earthquake (6.0 or higher) will rattle a major city on the West Coast.

The Tea Party will strongly influence the Jacksonville city council and mayoral elections. Rick Mullaney will not be our next mayor.

Sarah Palin will decide not to run for President.

Inflation will be above 5% by year-end, primarily due to higher food and gas prices. Gas will be $5/gallon or more.

A second round of foreclosures will cause further declines in the real estate market. Commercial real estate defaults will bring another banking crisis, although not as severe as the last one.

The stock market will decline during the first three quarters but rise slowly in the fourth quarter back to 11,500.

War will break out on the Korean peninsula. China will intervene to stop it.

Israel will take matters into her own hands and strike at Iran’s nuclear production facilities. Obama will be furious at Israel.

Terrorists will hit a train or subway in the U.S.

Osama bin Laden will be captured, thanks to a Special Ops. Unit.

A tornado will hit Godfrey, Brighton or Jerseyville in Illinois.

Hilary Clinton will resign as Secretary of State.

A dormant volcano will roar to life in Europe or Russia.

An earthquake in Afghanistan will kill and injure some U.S. troops, but the subsequent rush to bring aid to locals will help solidify U.S.-Afghan relations with local leaders.

Flooding from Spring runoff in western Colorado or Utah will take out a portion of the old D&RGW rail-line between Denver and Salt Lake City.

Unemployment will stay stubbornly above 9%.

President Obama will announce he will not run in 2012 due to revelations of the Chicago-style corruption throughout his inner circle. Indictments will be expected, if not delivered, by year-end.

Rahm Immanuel, Obama’s former chief-of-staff, will not be elected Mayor of Chicago.

A major art museum will suffer a truly stunning and audacious art heist.

Although Obamacare will not be repealed, Congressional Republicans will be successful in defunding major provisions. Federal courts will continue to hand down mixed decisions on its constitutionality. Eventually, the Supreme Court will declare the mandatory purchase of health insurance unconstitutional but not in 2011.

The news media will be abuzz with the “state nullification” movement as a way of reining in federal power.

Obama The Patriot Removes American Flag From His Plane

Barack Obama recently finished a $500,000 total overhaul of his 757. And as part of the new design, he decided to remove the American flag from the tail and another on the fuselage. To view photos, go to http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/airplane.asp . He replaced the stylized flag on the plane's tail with his campaign's symbol, a giant "O" with a rising sun over red and white fields. The flag that was above the passenger windows on the fuselage has been replaced by the word "Change."

What change in flags does Obama want? The U.N. flag? The Black National flag?

The Chicago Sun-Times reports: “A newly refurbished chartered jet flew aides and reporters from Chicago to meet the candidate in the Middle East. The gleaming white 757 is emblazoned with the campaign motto ‘‘Change We Can Believe In,’’ and equipped with an aft cabin that will permit Obama and a few top aides to recline in comfort. The candidate may sit where he pleases, of course, but one chair seems designed with him in mind. It’s the one with ‘‘Obama ’08/ President’’ on the headrest.”

Sources:

• Email received 8/1/08 and verified at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/airplane.asp
• The Chicago Sun-Times http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1068218,obplane072208.article
  
  

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Defeat: Sad Day for Women

I just sent a message on Hillary's website asking her to take her fight to the convention, if at all possible. I watched every minute of Saturday's coverage of the Rules Committee meeting. I was appalled at the outcome. As a Floridian, it did not sit well that we are only worth half a vote. A lot of people here are talking about that. Gosh, under the original Constitution (Article 1, Section 3) our founding fathers counted women and slaves as three/fifths of a person for apportioning Congress. It's hard to believe that the Democratic Party of 2008 would be so regressive as to give certain citizens less representation than they had in 1788, 240 years earlier.

It upsets and saddens me, as a woman, that we are not yet ready for a woman as President. I find it unbelievable that any party would choose such an inexperienced man as Barack Obama over an accomplished woman to lead the U.S. Although it is highly unlikely I would have voted for Hillary in the Fall election, I would have considered it. I am no fan of John McCain. But there is no way -- not a snowball's chance in hell -- that I would ever vote for Barack Obama, even if Hillary is on the ticket for Vice President. He is far too radically left in his voting record and, with no real accomplishments, too inexperienced. It offends me that he and the media were successful in their race-baiting and latent sexism. I fear that if Obama is elected, we can kiss America good-by. Thus, I closed my message to Hillary with "God bless you and God Save the U.S.A."

Give a Man Enough Rope & He'll Hang Himself

It is not often that a politician produces his own noose to hang himself. Obama is the exception. The real Barack Hussein Obama is coming out slowly but surely.

It is no surprise to me to find out he is an arrogant liberal elitist. It is very much a surprise that a liberal elitist blog, The Huffington Post, is the one that outed him. They quoted him speaking about the economic malaise of the middle class,

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Clearly, Obama is clueless about people like myself, a disabled American middle class worker. My values do not change with the times. I am a Life Member of the National Rifle Association (NRA). I am pro-gun rights in good times and bad. The Second Amendment makes gun ownership a fundamental right under the Constitution. Likewise, I cling to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ regardless of my economic circumstances. I have opposed open borders, illegal immigration, and free trade for years, during times of prosperity and times of recession. I believe in the sovereignty of the United States at all times. Our Founding Fathers understood that a strong country protected its borders and its manufacturing base. Thus, they wisely forbade the income tax, preferring to raise the Federal government's operating funds through tariffs and duties on imports.

Obama's campaign is trying to repair the damage caused by his remarks at the San Francisco campaign fundraiser for the wealthy. At a Pennsylvania rally, he tried to fix it by saying:

"Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter. They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through.

"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country.

"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to.

"And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream."

Hillary Rodham Clinton was correct to call his original remarks "demeaning." She said:

"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies. Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith. I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich. Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe. People don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them."

Of course, Republicans cheered the gift of Obama's remarks. It is fantastic fodder for the Fall campaign ads if Obama is the Democratic nominee. John McCain wasted no time in exploiting Obama's self-imposed error. McCain adviser Steve Schmidt shot the first volley:

"It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."