His name was Frank Danko, and he never should have been a police officer. How he was able to pass the psychological testing portion of the New York City screening process, I’ll never know. It wouldn’t take a normal person more than 5 minutes to conclude that Danko was several fries short of a Happy Meal. Yet, this wacky, antisocial misfit was wearing a uniform, carrying a gun and dealing with the public as a representative of the law. 

     My first encounter with Danko occurred after I was transferred from Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy area to a precinct in Queens. It was my first night at the new location and I was perusing the roll call sheet on the bulletin board at the station house as I prepared for a midnight to 8 a.m. shift. When I saw that I was partnered in a radio car with a cop named Danko, I asked one of the officers to point him out. The cop looked at me with a smirk and said, “You got Danko tonight? Good luck!” Well, during my years in the high crime area of Brooklyn, I had dealt with cops who had reputations for being difficult to work with. 

     Sometimes it was because they were too free with their nightsticks, and other times because they were always looking to supplement their salaries with freebies. The Danko experience would be very different. I didn’t get to meet him until I went outside the building to find the car we were assigned to. He was already sitting in the passenger seat as I opened the driver’s side door. “Hi, I’m Bob Weir,” I said, extending my hand to shake. “Yeah, I can read the roster,” he replied gruffly, paying no attention to my overture. Eyeing him curiously, I began driving toward our assigned sector. He was staring straight ahead, motionless. I figured the guy must ... [Read More]

      “One of the biggest mistakes made by Bill and Hillary Clinton was when they threw Dick Morris under the bus,” said one of the attendees at the 26th Annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner on Saturday at the DFW Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dallas. “Their loss was our gain,” said another. The reference was to the alienation that occurred between Morris and the Clintons in 1996 after the canny political strategist helped elect President Clinton to a second term. Since then, Morris has become one of the most respected conservative commentators in the country and a regular guest on the Fox News Network. As the keynote speaker at the elegantly orchestrated Republican Party extravaganza, Morris spoke about the Obama, Reid, Pelosi “experiment” with healthcare. “The cost of Obama-Care would be a trillion dollars over ten years and it would have to be paid for with cuts in Medicare and several tax increases,” Morris said to a capacity crowd in the huge ballroom. Most of his remarks centered on President Obama’s intransigence concerning the legislation that would make sweeping changes in the way Americans receive medical treatment. 

     “It’s not about making our healthcare better; it’s about Obama having government control over how healthcare is administered and who gets it,” said the author of the recent bestseller, “Catastrophe,” which, as Mark Davis, national talk show host, columnist and perpetual emcee for the event, described as having “The longest subtitle you’ve ever read: How Obama, congress, and the special interests are transforming a slump into a crash, freedom into socialism, and a disaster into a catastrophe… and how to fight back!” While several hundred guests enjoyed a sumptuous filet mignon, most of the red meat was served up by Morris and high-ranking GOP elected officials who took to the po... [Read More]

     I suppose it was bound to happen, since so many others were jumping on the get Sarah bandwagon, why not one of our most esteemed conservatives? George Will, who runs about even with Pat Buchanan in my favorite columnist category, wrote a piece a few days ago, entitled, Mutual loathing society. With his usual flair for making historical analogies, Will’s treatise, although artfully stated, misses the mark when he tries to compare the 1964 GOP ticket with the one in 2008. Yes, Senator Barry Goldwater was from Arizona, as is John McCain. Yes, Goldwater was a maverick like McCain, and yes, he chose a running mate (upstate New York Congressman Bill Miller) most Americans had never heard of. After that, the differences are manifold. Will correctly wrote that Goldwater-Miller lost 44 states, but doesn’t mention that McCain-Palin won 21 states, including Arizona and Alaska. Yet, Miller lost his own state of New York and ignominiously retired afterward, seldom being heard from again. 

     Palin, on the other hand, is not going away. Moreover, Miller was never even close to being the campaigner that Palin was. Actually, his entrance into the race was viewed by many as a favor to the GOP, which fully expected to be trounced by President Johnson, who was riding a tidal wave of national sympathy for his predecessor, John Kennedy, who had been assassinated the year before. While Miller was viewed as a sacrificial lamb for the party, Palin was viewed as the best way to energize the McCain ticket, which had captured the nomination from a begrudging GOP. And energize she did! From her acceptance speech at the GOP convention, to her numerous speaking events across the country, Palin drew larger crowds than the man who anointed her his running mate. Perhaps Bill Miller can’t be blamed for slouching away into... [Read More]

     Who are you going to vote for in the Primary Election on March 2? Democrats and Republicans will be chosen to head the tickets in their respective parties. Given the high percentage of Republican voters in Denton County, chances are, whoever wins the GOP primary will ultimately be elected in November. So, the question is; what do you know about the people you see on those brochures, which are beginning to stuff our mailboxes on a daily basis? They all look good with their picture perfect smiles and laundry list of credentials and achievements. Hence, what criteria will be used by the voter to select their choices to lead us for the next few years? 

     Research tells us that name recognition is a primary factor for the person who’s scanning the candidate list in the voting booth. You may not know one candidate from another, but if you've seen and heard the same name repeatedly over a period of time, it may resonate with you when you see it again on the list. That’s why it’s so difficult to beat an incumbent; he or she has had years to build name recognition into the public psyche.  Then there’s the personal touch; have you met any of the candidates? All things being equal, people tend to vote for those people whom they've seen or talked to in person because it makes them feel as though they've made a connection to the candidate. Door to door campaigning is difficult, but it pays off if the people you meet are impressed enough with your “one on one” to spread the word to friends and neighbors.

     As for incumbents, if you only see them at election time, it’s a good bet that they’re merely taking you for granted. For example, if you are even slightly aware that there’s a government operating around you, but can’t recall who represents you in your town, city, county, or state, two things are at play. Either they are doing a ... [Read More]

     It was around the late 1970’s, and NYC was experiencing a wave of robbery-homicides of taxi drivers. A team of 3 male blacks were killing cab drivers after forcing them to drive to Harlem neighborhoods and taking their cash. Since I was a member of a plainclothes undercover unit, I was assigned to drive a cab during the evening hours in Manhattan. Anyone who has driven in that hustling, bustling borough knows it takes the skill and daring of an Evel Knievel wannabe to maneuver through the frenzied traffic without having your car turned into scrap metal. The driving dexterity I had accumulated in countless car chases would surely be put to the test as a cab driver in the Big Apple. The plan was to publicize the fact that off duty cops were acting as decoys, therefore, potential thugs would be dissuaded from preying on cabbies. In order for the plan to work, we had to actually be taxi drivers each night, which meant picking up fares, driving them to their destinations and keeping a record of the money, and the tips. Each night, when I picked up my cab, I would head for the busiest streets of Midtown Manhattan, with the “unoccupied” light on the roof.

     My .38 cal. Smith and Wesson, snub-nosed pistol was placed between my legs with the handle just barely visible and easily accessible. When I had a passenger in back of me (before they installed the bulletproof glass separators in cabs), I would drive with my left hand while resting my right hand on the stock of the revolver. I had worked for several nights without incident, moving people from uptown to downtown and all areas in between. Then, one night, I was flagged down by 3 black guys waving their hands and whistling on the opposite side of a wide avenue. I did the usual taxi driver stunt of cutting across traffic and nearly causing several collisions with fist-waving, horn-honking drivers. The three guys in their mid-twenties jumped in behind me and one ... [Read More]

    “For an hour, I forgot that Obama was black,” said Chris Mathews, the host of MSNBC’s Hardball, after he finished watching President Obama’s State of the Union address. Did Mathews mean that he’s not used to hearing from articulate blacks who sound just like educated whites? Recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quoted in the book “Game Change” as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Did he mean that Obama wouldn’t have reached the White House if he was darker-skinned or spoke with the African American Vernacular English, known as Ebonics? In the same book, it was reported that Bill Clinton, when he was trying to persuade Ted Kennedy not to support Obama, remarked to the senator, “A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee.” Did he mean that Obama’s race only qualified him for menial jobs? During the 2008 campaign for president, Senator Joe Biden, referring to Senator Barack Obama, said, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Evidently, these folks haven’t spent much time around black people. Hence, they’re shocked when they come across blacks who are physically attractive, well-spoken, well-dressed, and bathe regularly.

    Keep in mind; the aforementioned comments came from liberal Democrats, the recipients of an overwhelming majority of African-American votes every 4 years. When I hear or read such remarks, it reminds me of what President George W. Bush said about “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” In other words, if you’re white and you’ve lived exclusively among whites all your life, you’re likely to be stunned when you see blacks achieving high levels of success in any endeavors. I’m reminded of a great breakthrough movie on race relations ... [Read More]

     University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow hasn’t even made it to the NFL yet and here he is in the Super Bowl. The Heisman Trophy-winning passer for the Florida Gators is the first college football player to both rush and pass for 20 touchdowns in a season and he was the first sophomore to win the highly coveted trophy. Nevertheless, his recent fame comes from an ad that will be placed among dozens of others during one of the most popular televised events of the year. Even though the ad won’t be run until Super Bowl Sunday on February 7, Mr. Tebow is already becoming a household name. His premature celebrity comes not from his athletic ability on the gridiron, but from the mere fact that he’s alive. You see, during the 30 second spot, his mother Pam will probably be talking about the fact that she became ill while pregnant with her fifth son during a mission in the Philippines. Ms. Tebow repudiated her doctor’s advice to abort the child and she gave birth to Tim. Ordinarily, this would rank up there with many other heart-warming success stories that celebrate life.     

     However, abortion proponents don’t view life as something to celebrate. Hence, they are protesting the decision by CBS Television to broadcast the $2.5 million ad which is sponsored by and paid for by Focus on the Family. “An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the yea; an event designed to bring Americans together,” said Jehmu Greene, president of the New York-based Women’s Media Center. Also joining in the protest are the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority. You’ve got to admit that these pro-abortion groups become more contemptible every year. Apparently, it’s not enough for them to advocate the killing of fetuses in the womb, even during that most despicable of procedures, the late-term abortion. It’s not enough that millions o... [Read More]

    Imagine that you were Martha Coakley and you were a shoo-in for the United States Senate only a month ago, making you a solid vote for President Obama’s healthcare plan. Being a Democrat in Massachusetts with a 20 point lead over your Republican opponent, a month before Election Day, means you could spend the rest of the campaign on a beach in Tahiti with a Mai Tai in your lotion-covered hand. You could sip the rum cocktail through a straw and listen to the latest favorable polls from the land of the leftists. However, Ms. Coakley, being a veteran politician, knew there was something in the air that made her feel uneasy. In one of the most liberal states in the union, where the Kennedy dynasty has ruled like a family of potentates, people were beginning to awaken from the slavish devotion to Democrats that had threatened the future of their children and grandchildren. Notwithstanding her large lead in the polls, Coakley must have been feeling the ground move as she heard almost daily news out of the White House that Obama was making deals with a variety of special interests in order to get support for his unprecedented power grab.

     When he used 300 million dollars of taxpayer money to bribe Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu for her vote on his government healthcare takeover, and pundits began referring to it as a modern day version of the Louisiana Purchase, Ms. Coakley was probably getting a bit nervous. When Obama bribed Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson by promising that the federal government will pay to expand Medicaid services in his state, Coakley must have begun biting her nails. When the polls began to reflect the Massachusetts voters’ outrage, she probably figured she had enough of a lead to weather the storm. Then, when it was announced that Obama had made a deal with major unions to exempt them from the tax on medical benefits, while all others would be forced to pony up, she must have experienced the beginning sta... [Read More]