"Rachel Maddow Says Chris Matthews Isn't Liberal, 'He'd Get Torn Apart' by Air America Fans "
Do y'all reckon she meant that it would be unanimous and all five listeners would join in the fray?
Saturday, January 31, 2009
This is a little off my usual beat --- but I hope you'll read it!
A couple of my 'happy-go-lucky' grand kids got caught up in this modern day version of shopper mugging, so I am sharing a recent Wall Street Daily column in hopes that you will share it with your young'uns....... like the man said ----THERE OUGHTTA BE A LAW!When Interest Free Is Really, Really Expensive
Eyeing a new TV ahead of Super Bowl Sunday? Retailers' attractive interest-free deals could cost you double.
By BRETT ARENDS
Even in this economy, some will want to watch the Super Bowl on the biggest, flattest, highest-definition TV they can afford.
But there's a you-make-the-call moment before you buy.
When can a $1,500 television actually end up costing you a whole lot more? When you buy it on one of the "no interest for 36 months" promotions currently on offer – and then post one late payment at any time between now and January 2012.
These deals, on offer at many retailers around the country, may look attractive at first glance, especially in this pinched environment. Sales staff will often pitch these offers to you right at the end of the sales process, when you are at the counter getting out your wallet. You may be busy or distracted. You may be in a hurry after spending too much time in the store.
Don't do it.
These deals are the shopping-center equivalent of negative amortization loans, the mortgages that often send homeowners further into debt each month.
Consider, for example, the "interest free" deal offered by the country's biggest electronics retailer, Best Buy. The contract, unfortunately, is typical of those in the industry.
First, you don't actually get the full value of the loan interest free for 36 months. You have to pay a small amount of it back each month.
OK, that's 36 separate monthly payments.
A lot of things are going to happen between now and January 2012. You may change jobs. You may even lose your job. You may move homes. Children will get sick. Family members may be rushed to the hospital. Pets will chew the mail. Paperwork will mysteriously vanish or get thrown out by accident with old newspapers. Life is like that.
But woe betide anyone who signs up for this "no interest" deal and is then late with a single one of those monthly payments. Even by a day.
If you do, the deal suddenly gets altered. Big time.
Did we say "interest free"? Ha ha. No longer. You are now paying interest on your loan. And not just 5% or 10%.
Try rates between 21% and 30%.
No kidding. Thirty percent.
Paging Chili Palmer!
If you think the bad news stops there, think again. If you miss a payment, you don't just have to pay interest on the remainder of the loan.
The interest is backdated. To the date of purchase.
This isn't a contract with the customer. This is a contract on the customer.
(Granted, you can set up automatic monthly payments online with the retailer, which minimizes the late payment risk. But if you're ever short of cash in your bank account and the payment doesn't go through, you face the same problem.)
No one in their right mind would sign up to pay 30% annual interest for three years – least of all for a TV set that is already falling in value faster than a Las Vegas condo.
Depending on how the interest is compounded, that could more than double the total cost.
Players Prove Dance Isn't Just for the End Zone
1:40
They can play football...but can they dance? NFL players Matt Light and Justin Tuck tell us what it takes to star in a Super Bowl commercial. One provision: tutu required.
I contacted Best Buy for a comment. It responded that the company, and the credit-card issuer that finances the deal, HSBC, are "committed" to making sure the terms "are clear and useful for the consumer to make an informed decision." It added that HSBC is "always available to help customers address their specific concerns."
These deals are being offered by retailers all around the country, mostly on big-ticket items. Maybe they are supposed to take advantage of people's ignorance, or worse, their financial desperation.
Obviously some are signing up, or retailers wouldn't continue to offer these loans. Best Buy declined to say how many customers have signed up, let alone how many people have missed a payment deadline.
If you have already signed up for a deal, pay it off immediately if you can.
If you are someone caught after missing a single payment, you might try calling up and putting pressure on the lender to give you a pass. There is no guarantee whatsoever that they will do so. But it's worth a try. Sometimes they will. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Please pass this on to a needy young shopper ---
Friday, January 30, 2009
Hey, if you are too drunk to walk, what are you gonna do...?
Citation alleges public intoxication by Cody man on a white horse
By RUFFIN PREVOST
Gazette Wyoming Bureau
CODY - A Cody man has been cited for public intoxication while riding his horse on a busy street during a weekend snowstorm.
Police received a call at 4 p.m. Sunday from a motorist who was concerned that Benjamin Daniels, 28, was creating a road hazard by riding his horse in conditions of poor visibility.
An officer stopped Daniels to explain that drivers were having difficulty spotting his slow-moving white horse as he was riding along Yellowstone Avenue near Wal-Mart, said Assistant Police Chief George Menig.
"Because of the wind, the blowing snow and the color of the horse, we were worried he was a danger to himself and motorists," Menig said.
Steady snow, gusting winds and subzero temperatures continued throughout the day.
As police continued to observe Daniels, it was clear that he was "highly intoxicated," Menig said.
Police saw Daniels drinking beer as he moved behind Cassie's Bar and Supper Club, apparently in an attempt to avoid them, Menig said.
Although some who are cited for public intoxication are issued a ticket but not detained, police believed Daniels could not safely be released until he was sober, Menig said.
Daniels had been spotted earlier riding along Highway 120 between Road 2AB and the Shoshone River. Menig said police did not know the reason for his excursion.
Police contacted a friend of Daniels, who picked up the horse.
Menig said he could not recall any other recent citations for public intoxication while on horseback.
"This is another first for me in Park County law enforcement," he said.
By RUFFIN PREVOST
Gazette Wyoming Bureau
CODY - A Cody man has been cited for public intoxication while riding his horse on a busy street during a weekend snowstorm.
Police received a call at 4 p.m. Sunday from a motorist who was concerned that Benjamin Daniels, 28, was creating a road hazard by riding his horse in conditions of poor visibility.
An officer stopped Daniels to explain that drivers were having difficulty spotting his slow-moving white horse as he was riding along Yellowstone Avenue near Wal-Mart, said Assistant Police Chief George Menig.
"Because of the wind, the blowing snow and the color of the horse, we were worried he was a danger to himself and motorists," Menig said.
Steady snow, gusting winds and subzero temperatures continued throughout the day.
As police continued to observe Daniels, it was clear that he was "highly intoxicated," Menig said.
Police saw Daniels drinking beer as he moved behind Cassie's Bar and Supper Club, apparently in an attempt to avoid them, Menig said.
Although some who are cited for public intoxication are issued a ticket but not detained, police believed Daniels could not safely be released until he was sober, Menig said.
Daniels had been spotted earlier riding along Highway 120 between Road 2AB and the Shoshone River. Menig said police did not know the reason for his excursion.
Police contacted a friend of Daniels, who picked up the horse.
Menig said he could not recall any other recent citations for public intoxication while on horseback.
"This is another first for me in Park County law enforcement," he said.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Annie spins 'victimness' into gold today.......
LIBERAL VICTIMHOOD: A GAME YOU CAN PLAY AT HOME
by Ann Coulter
January 28, 2009
I notice that liberals have not challenged the overall thesis of my rocketing bestseller, Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America, which is that liberals always play the victim in order to advance, win advantages and oppress others.
I guess that would be hard to do when the corrupt Democratic governor of Illinois is running around comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
Indeed, you can't turn on the TV without seeing some liberal playing victim to score the game-winning point.
Caroline Kennedy tried to Bigfoot her way into New York's Senate seat while being bathed in the Kennedy light of eternal victimhood. The New York Times began a profile of Caroline by quoting an average citizen who "turns almost maternally protective" upon hearing Caroline's name, mentioning the assassination of her father -- nearly half a century ago.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews summarily announced: "We all want to be protective of Caroline Kennedy." When one of his guests, Michael Smerconish, merely asked what her qualifications were, an appalled Matthews said: "Wow."
Political reporter Ron Brownstein elaborated on "wow," saying: "Well, that's pretty rough. That's pretty rough. I mean, but she has got, at least publicly, a very private persona, one of quiet grace and elegance and intelligence."
The Times' City Room exercised its own protective function toward Caroline by censoring any indelicate inquiries about her on its blog.
The Kennedys are the textbook case of victims who go around victimizing others. As I describe in Guilty, in 1969, Times reporter James Reston began his story about Teddy Kennedy driving a girl off the Chappaquiddick bridge with the sentence: "Tragedy has again struck the Kennedy family."
Reston waited a discreet four paragraphs before mentioning the name of the dead girl, whose "tragedy" was arguably greater. (Even the Times rewrote Reston's opening line.)
Caroline's expectation that she would sail past all other contenders and be handed a seat in the U.S. Senate is perfectly in keeping with her family tradition.
When Robert Kennedy won his Senate seat from New York, he unseated a well-liked Republican, Kenneth Barnard Keating, who had represented New York in Congress for more than a decade.
Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy hadn't lived in New York since he was 12 years old. But the allegedly sophisticated voters of New York were awed by the Kennedy name, and dumped a popular native son.
A deputy manager of Kennedy's campaign explained that the carpetbagger accusation could not withstand the image of JFK's assassination a year earlier: "You couldn't vote against Robert Kennedy without seeing the presence of John Kennedy."
With New York's record of swooning for celebrity victims, it was a snap for another carpetbagger, Hillary Clinton, to push aside veteran New York Democrats to win her Senate seat in 2000.
When Gov. David Paterson ended the Kennedy soap opera by appointing Democratic congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, her Democratic colleague, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, blanketed the airwaves, threatening to challenge Gillibrand in the next election because of her NRA-approved stand on guns.
McCarthy explained, "My voice is for the victims."
The only reason McCarthy was elected to Congress in the first place is that her husband and son were shot by a crazed gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993. Colin Ferguson's shooting spree wasn't stopped sooner because none of the passengers had guns. As has been demonstrated beyond dispute at this point, armed citizens save lives.
In a comprehensive study of all public multiple shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that the only public policy that reduced both the incidence and casualties of such shootings were concealed-carry laws. Not only are there 60 percent fewer gun massacres after states adopt concealed-carry laws, but the death and injury rate of such rampages are reduced by 80 percent.
Rep. McCarthy claims to "speak for the victims" by promoting policies that will provably create a lot more victims.
And all of this occurs in a year when the mainstream media is agog with their discovery that a black man can be elected president in America! By being elected president, Obama overcame the massive racial hatred that existed only in liberal imaginations.
I don't know a single conservative who thought America wouldn't elect a black man.
If Republicans had run Colin Powell in 1996 -- back when he was a Republican -- he would have been the first black president. As Powell himself said, he received the strongest support from Southern white men, who admired his military background.
The first serious black candidate to run for president in America won, so blacks are one-for-one in a country liberals would have us believe is teeming with Ku Klux Klanners.
Throughout Obama's entire life, doors were opened for him, his college applications smiled upon and favors bestowed simply because he is black -- the original victim category in America. Being black is the highest victim caste because of blacks' authentic victimhood: The nation once tolerated slavery and Jim Crow.
But ironically, Obama's father is from Africa: He never suffered from the ancient policies that, today, give his son Victim Gold. To the contrary, if Obama's African relatives had anything to do with slavery, it was on the business end.
by Ann Coulter
January 28, 2009
I notice that liberals have not challenged the overall thesis of my rocketing bestseller, Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America, which is that liberals always play the victim in order to advance, win advantages and oppress others.
I guess that would be hard to do when the corrupt Democratic governor of Illinois is running around comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
Indeed, you can't turn on the TV without seeing some liberal playing victim to score the game-winning point.
Caroline Kennedy tried to Bigfoot her way into New York's Senate seat while being bathed in the Kennedy light of eternal victimhood. The New York Times began a profile of Caroline by quoting an average citizen who "turns almost maternally protective" upon hearing Caroline's name, mentioning the assassination of her father -- nearly half a century ago.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews summarily announced: "We all want to be protective of Caroline Kennedy." When one of his guests, Michael Smerconish, merely asked what her qualifications were, an appalled Matthews said: "Wow."
Political reporter Ron Brownstein elaborated on "wow," saying: "Well, that's pretty rough. That's pretty rough. I mean, but she has got, at least publicly, a very private persona, one of quiet grace and elegance and intelligence."
The Times' City Room exercised its own protective function toward Caroline by censoring any indelicate inquiries about her on its blog.
The Kennedys are the textbook case of victims who go around victimizing others. As I describe in Guilty, in 1969, Times reporter James Reston began his story about Teddy Kennedy driving a girl off the Chappaquiddick bridge with the sentence: "Tragedy has again struck the Kennedy family."
Reston waited a discreet four paragraphs before mentioning the name of the dead girl, whose "tragedy" was arguably greater. (Even the Times rewrote Reston's opening line.)
Caroline's expectation that she would sail past all other contenders and be handed a seat in the U.S. Senate is perfectly in keeping with her family tradition.
When Robert Kennedy won his Senate seat from New York, he unseated a well-liked Republican, Kenneth Barnard Keating, who had represented New York in Congress for more than a decade.
Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy hadn't lived in New York since he was 12 years old. But the allegedly sophisticated voters of New York were awed by the Kennedy name, and dumped a popular native son.
A deputy manager of Kennedy's campaign explained that the carpetbagger accusation could not withstand the image of JFK's assassination a year earlier: "You couldn't vote against Robert Kennedy without seeing the presence of John Kennedy."
With New York's record of swooning for celebrity victims, it was a snap for another carpetbagger, Hillary Clinton, to push aside veteran New York Democrats to win her Senate seat in 2000.
When Gov. David Paterson ended the Kennedy soap opera by appointing Democratic congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, her Democratic colleague, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, blanketed the airwaves, threatening to challenge Gillibrand in the next election because of her NRA-approved stand on guns.
McCarthy explained, "My voice is for the victims."
The only reason McCarthy was elected to Congress in the first place is that her husband and son were shot by a crazed gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993. Colin Ferguson's shooting spree wasn't stopped sooner because none of the passengers had guns. As has been demonstrated beyond dispute at this point, armed citizens save lives.
In a comprehensive study of all public multiple shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that the only public policy that reduced both the incidence and casualties of such shootings were concealed-carry laws. Not only are there 60 percent fewer gun massacres after states adopt concealed-carry laws, but the death and injury rate of such rampages are reduced by 80 percent.
Rep. McCarthy claims to "speak for the victims" by promoting policies that will provably create a lot more victims.
And all of this occurs in a year when the mainstream media is agog with their discovery that a black man can be elected president in America! By being elected president, Obama overcame the massive racial hatred that existed only in liberal imaginations.
I don't know a single conservative who thought America wouldn't elect a black man.
If Republicans had run Colin Powell in 1996 -- back when he was a Republican -- he would have been the first black president. As Powell himself said, he received the strongest support from Southern white men, who admired his military background.
The first serious black candidate to run for president in America won, so blacks are one-for-one in a country liberals would have us believe is teeming with Ku Klux Klanners.
Throughout Obama's entire life, doors were opened for him, his college applications smiled upon and favors bestowed simply because he is black -- the original victim category in America. Being black is the highest victim caste because of blacks' authentic victimhood: The nation once tolerated slavery and Jim Crow.
But ironically, Obama's father is from Africa: He never suffered from the ancient policies that, today, give his son Victim Gold. To the contrary, if Obama's African relatives had anything to do with slavery, it was on the business end.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Are we still getting 'two for the price of one'???
That was Bubba and Hellary's claim when he was President. Now she is our Secretary of State - hired to be our 'Diplomat in Chief'! But whoa Pilgrims, what's this I see coming across the lines this morning?WASHINGTON (AP) - Financial documents filed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton show that her husband earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, nearly all of it from foreign companies.
The documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press indicate that $5 million of the former president's reported $5.7 million in 2008 honoraria came from foreign sources. They included Kuwait's National Bank, a Hong Kong-based company, and other firms and groups in Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Portugal.
So now I scratch my ole' head and wonder out loud -- if one of these countries or companies buy Bubba, does Hellary come along with the package - a 'Twofer'????
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Obama makes the front page of another magazine.....
by Frank JamesWe all know that President Barack Obama has assumed the presidency at a time when that pressure cooker of a job is even more so right now because of the worst recession since the Great Depression and two foreign wars.
So Mad Magazine's new Obama cover spoofs the notion of the president's first 100 days but accelerates it to his first "100 minutes."
The caricature shows a completely stressed-out Obama puffing on several cancer sticks simultaneously as he holds his head in his hands. (That's what happens when the world knows your're a reformed smoker who admits to occasional lapses.) An open bottle of Pepto Bismol is on the desk, as is a bottle of Excedrin.
Meanwhile, splayed out on the desk before Obama are newspapers (including the Chicago Tribune!) with blaring headlines like "Automakers Broke!" "Taliban Threat!" and "Dow Crashes!"
The only thing the artist missed was the chance to take a swipe at the president for those those Alfred E. Newman ears of his. Talk about your low-hanging fruit.
Separately, Mad will have a lot fewer cracks at Obama. DC Comics, Mad's publisher, has announced that the magazine will be published on a quarterly basis instead of monthly, thanks to the economy and the advertising revenue woes afflicting the entire media industry.
ACORN (remember them?) getting $4 Billion payback from Obama....!
House GOP leader John Boehner’s office reports that the left-wing voter fraud/illegal alien/housing entitlement racketeers at ACORN “could get billions” more in federal taxpayer funding from the Democrats’ stimulus bill.Incredibly, the Democrats’ bill makes groups like ACORN eligible for a $4.19 billion pot of money for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”
Not so “incredible.” More like “inevitable.” As in inevitable lard-up.
Funds for this purpose were authorized in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, signed into law in 2008. However, these funds were limited to state and local governments. Now House Democrats are taking the unprecedented step of making ACORN and other groups eligible for these funds:
“For a further additional amount for ‘Community Development Fund,’ $4,190,000,000, to be used for neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (Public Law 110–289), of which—
“(1) not less than $3,440,000,000 shall be allocated by a competition for which eligible entities shall be States, units of general local government, and nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities[.]”
“(2) up to $750,000,000 shall be awarded by competition to nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities to provide community stabilization assistance […]”
The House Democrats’ trillion dollar spending bill also includes $1 billion for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program. CDBG funds are given by the federal government to state and local governments which often contract with nonprofits for services related to the purpose of the grant.
ACORN knows how to secure CDBG funds. Audit reports filed by ACORN’s headquarters with the Office of Management and Budget show that ACORN spent $1,588,599 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program funds from FY 2003 through FY 2007. It is not clear from these records when or from what source the funds were awarded to ACORN. It is also not clear whether ACORN chapters or affiliates have received CDBG grants on their own.
House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) repeatedly urged President George W. Bush and other federal officials to withhold taxpayer funds from ACORN, including $17.2 million in federal grants awarded in December 2008 after numerous allegations of wrongdoing in connection with ACORN’s election activities were reported by the news media.
As I’ve reported previously, the Generational Theft Act and other Democrat spending boondoggles will serve as giant slush funds for far Left non-profits. Republicans failed to do anything to stop it when they held the White House.
To the victors go the spoils. Stolen from the pockets of your children and grandchildren.
Pilgrims... if you haven't had reason to call, e-mail, or write your congressmen and senators lately --- this would be a hell a good time to start!! If these yahoos could steal enough votes to effect this last election - imagine what illegal mischief they could get up to with Four Billion Bucks in their jeans...................... Thanks to Michelle Malkin for lighting this up!!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Who said the 'O' Man is hard to get to inverview?????
President Obama Does First Formal TV Interview as President with Al-ArabiyaJanuary 26, 2009
As special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell heads off to the region to begin work on negotiating a cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians, President Obama has sat for his first formal TV interview with the Arabic cable TV network Al-Arabiya, ABC News has learned.
The interview was taped this evening and is set to air at 11 pm ET, as Mitchell is in the air and on his way to the region.
Based in Dubai, Al-Arabiya estimates that it has a potential audience exceeding 23 million in the Gulf region.
-- jpt
While you were watching Washington last Tuesday -- this scarey scene happened elsewhere!
Obama's triumphal entry: Gentle, riding on donkey
Artist creates messianic parade as 'adorers' wave palm fronds
By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
DES MOINES, Iowa – Amid the pomp, circumstance and celebration of welcoming a new president, an artist in Iowa created an inaugural parade sure to draw attention, even hundreds of miles from Washington, D.C.: Barack Obama, riding on a donkey, complete with waving palm fronds and "Secret Service" escort.
As WND reported, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan declared in October that when Obama talks, "the Messiah is absolutely speaking." But artist Matthew J. Clark's parade – marching Obama through the streets of Des Moines in similar fashion to Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem – takes the messianic imagery even farther.
The Bible describes Jesus' procession into Jerusalem in the 21st chapter of Matthew as the fulfillment of the prophet Zechariah's words, "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass," or as the New International Version paraphrases, "gentle, and riding on a donkey." As the celebrated Messiah entered the city, the Bible also tells of adorers spreading their cloaks at Jesus' feet and waving palm fronds.
Fred Love, a reporter for Lee Enterprises whose account was published by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, witnessed a strange sight earlier this week, as a sculpture of Obama marched down Des Moines' Locust Street in similar fashion.
"Progressing slowly down Locust and holding up traffic was a rubbery Barack Obama sculpture saddled on the back of a donkey," Love writes. "A pair of black SUVs led the procession and two more trailed behind, Secret Service-style. A couple of the SUVs were decked out with tiny American flags."
Love continues, "A few men led the Donkey down the street and a woman made her way along the sidewalk, keeping up with the procession and handing out palm branches to the few perplexed onlookers who had gathered on the sidewalks to see what the fuss was about."
Clark called the marching artwork "A Simulacrum of Hope: Simulation of the Triumphal Entry of the Christ."
The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word "simulacrum" as "an image or representation; or an unreal or vague semblance," leaving the viewer to interpret whether Clark considers the parade a celebration of Obama or a mockery of Obama's more adoring supporters.
Artist creates messianic parade as 'adorers' wave palm fronds
By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
DES MOINES, Iowa – Amid the pomp, circumstance and celebration of welcoming a new president, an artist in Iowa created an inaugural parade sure to draw attention, even hundreds of miles from Washington, D.C.: Barack Obama, riding on a donkey, complete with waving palm fronds and "Secret Service" escort.
As WND reported, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan declared in October that when Obama talks, "the Messiah is absolutely speaking." But artist Matthew J. Clark's parade – marching Obama through the streets of Des Moines in similar fashion to Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem – takes the messianic imagery even farther.
The Bible describes Jesus' procession into Jerusalem in the 21st chapter of Matthew as the fulfillment of the prophet Zechariah's words, "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass," or as the New International Version paraphrases, "gentle, and riding on a donkey." As the celebrated Messiah entered the city, the Bible also tells of adorers spreading their cloaks at Jesus' feet and waving palm fronds.
Fred Love, a reporter for Lee Enterprises whose account was published by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, witnessed a strange sight earlier this week, as a sculpture of Obama marched down Des Moines' Locust Street in similar fashion.
"Progressing slowly down Locust and holding up traffic was a rubbery Barack Obama sculpture saddled on the back of a donkey," Love writes. "A pair of black SUVs led the procession and two more trailed behind, Secret Service-style. A couple of the SUVs were decked out with tiny American flags."
Love continues, "A few men led the Donkey down the street and a woman made her way along the sidewalk, keeping up with the procession and handing out palm branches to the few perplexed onlookers who had gathered on the sidewalks to see what the fuss was about."
Clark called the marching artwork "A Simulacrum of Hope: Simulation of the Triumphal Entry of the Christ."
The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word "simulacrum" as "an image or representation; or an unreal or vague semblance," leaving the viewer to interpret whether Clark considers the parade a celebration of Obama or a mockery of Obama's more adoring supporters.
This should be an editorial cartoon --- but it's not!!!!!
JUST PLANE DESPICABLE
By JENNIFER KEIL and CHUCK BENNETT
January 26, 2009 --
Beleaguered Citigroup is upgrading its mile-high club with a brand-new $50 million corporate jet - only this time, it's the taxpayers who are getting screwed.
Even though the bank's stock is as cheap as a gallon of gas and it's burning through a $45 billion taxpayer-funded rescue, the airhead execs pushed through the purchase of a new Dassault Falcon 7X, according to a source familiar with the deal.
The French-made luxury jet seats up to 12 in a plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center, according to Dassault's sales literature. It can cruise 5,950 miles before refueling and has a top speed of 559 mph.
There are just nine of these top-of-the-line models in the United States, with Dassault's European factory churning out three to four 7Xs a month.
Citigroup decided to get its new wings two years ago, when the financial-services giant was flush with cash, but it still intends to take possession of the jet this year despite its current woes, the source said.
By JENNIFER KEIL and CHUCK BENNETT
January 26, 2009 --
Beleaguered Citigroup is upgrading its mile-high club with a brand-new $50 million corporate jet - only this time, it's the taxpayers who are getting screwed.
Even though the bank's stock is as cheap as a gallon of gas and it's burning through a $45 billion taxpayer-funded rescue, the airhead execs pushed through the purchase of a new Dassault Falcon 7X, according to a source familiar with the deal.
The French-made luxury jet seats up to 12 in a plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center, according to Dassault's sales literature. It can cruise 5,950 miles before refueling and has a top speed of 559 mph.
There are just nine of these top-of-the-line models in the United States, with Dassault's European factory churning out three to four 7Xs a month.
Citigroup decided to get its new wings two years ago, when the financial-services giant was flush with cash, but it still intends to take possession of the jet this year despite its current woes, the source said.
Thanks and a tip o' the stetson to the NY Post for this.(Click on pic to read small print, then hit return arrow)
A Primer for us Pilgrims that ain't smarter'n a 5th grader..
My New Spread the Wealth Grading Policy
Mike S. Adams
Good afternoon students! I’m writing you this email to announce that I’m making some changes in the grading policies I announced two weeks ago when I sent an email with an attached course syllabus. As you know, we now have a new president and I thought it would be nice to align our class policies with some of the policies he will be implementing over the next four years. These will be changes you can believe in and, I hope, changes that will inspire hope, which is our most important American value.
Previously, I announced that I would use a ten-point grading scale, which means that 90% of 100 is an “A,” 80% is a “B,” 70% is a “C,” and 60% is enough for a passing grade of “D.” I also announced that I will refrain from using a “plus/minus” system – even though the faculty handbook gives me that option.
The new policy I am announcing today is that those who score above 90 on the first exam will have points deducted and given to students at the bottom of the grade distribution. For example, if a student gets a 99, I will then deduct nine points and give them to the person with the lowest grade. If a person scores 95 I will then deduct five points and give them to the person with the second lowest grade. If someone scores 93 I will then deduct three points and give them to the next lowest person. And so on.
My point, rather obviously, is that any points above 90 are really not needed since you have an “A” regardless of whether you score 90 or 99. Nor am I convinced that you need to “save” those points for a rainy day. Those who are failing, however, need the points – not unlike the failing banks and automakers that need money to avoid the danger of bankruptcy.
After our second examination, I intend to take a more complex approach to the practice of grade redistribution. I will not be looking at your second test scores but, instead, at the average of your first two test scores. In the process, I may well decide to start taking some points from students in the “B” range. For example, if someone has an average of 85 after two tests I may take a few points and give them away to someone who is failing or who is in danger of failing. I think this is fair because the person with an 85 average is probably unlikely to climb up to an “A” or fall down to a “C.” I may be wrong in some individual cases but, of course, my principal concern is not the individual.
By the end of the semester I will abandon any formal guidelines and just redistribute points in a way that seems just, or fair, to me. I will not rely upon any standards other than my very strong and passionate feelings concerning social justice. In the process, I will not merely seek to eliminate inequality. I will also seek to eliminate the possibility of failure.
I know some are concerned that my system may impact their lives in a very profound way. Grade redistribution will undoubtedly cause some grade point average redistribution. And this, in turn, will mean that some people will not get into the law school or medical school of their choice. Or maybe some day you will be represented by a lawyer – or operated on by a doctor – who is not of the highest quality.
These are all, of course, legitimate long-term concerns. But I believe we need to remain focused on the short term. I think my new system will immediately help the self-esteem of those failing or in danger of failing. It should also help the self-esteem of those who are not in danger of failing. After all, it just feels good to give – even if the giving is compelled and not really “giving” in the literal sense.
Finally, I want to note that this idea was also inspired by a former presidential candidate named George McGovern. In a debate with the late William F. Buckley, McGovern said that people who earn more money should pay more taxes. Buckley replied that the rich do pay more in taxes – and more as a percentage of their income. McGovern looked confused.
But I don’t think there’s anything confusing about our pending social responsibilities. Whether we are talking about income or grades it does not matter how much or what percentage we are giving. The question is and should always be “Can we give more?”
Mike S. Adams
January 26, 2009
Good afternoon students! I’m writing you this email to announce that I’m making some changes in the grading policies I announced two weeks ago when I sent an email with an attached course syllabus. As you know, we now have a new president and I thought it would be nice to align our class policies with some of the policies he will be implementing over the next four years. These will be changes you can believe in and, I hope, changes that will inspire hope, which is our most important American value.Previously, I announced that I would use a ten-point grading scale, which means that 90% of 100 is an “A,” 80% is a “B,” 70% is a “C,” and 60% is enough for a passing grade of “D.” I also announced that I will refrain from using a “plus/minus” system – even though the faculty handbook gives me that option.
The new policy I am announcing today is that those who score above 90 on the first exam will have points deducted and given to students at the bottom of the grade distribution. For example, if a student gets a 99, I will then deduct nine points and give them to the person with the lowest grade. If a person scores 95 I will then deduct five points and give them to the person with the second lowest grade. If someone scores 93 I will then deduct three points and give them to the next lowest person. And so on.
My point, rather obviously, is that any points above 90 are really not needed since you have an “A” regardless of whether you score 90 or 99. Nor am I convinced that you need to “save” those points for a rainy day. Those who are failing, however, need the points – not unlike the failing banks and automakers that need money to avoid the danger of bankruptcy.
After our second examination, I intend to take a more complex approach to the practice of grade redistribution. I will not be looking at your second test scores but, instead, at the average of your first two test scores. In the process, I may well decide to start taking some points from students in the “B” range. For example, if someone has an average of 85 after two tests I may take a few points and give them away to someone who is failing or who is in danger of failing. I think this is fair because the person with an 85 average is probably unlikely to climb up to an “A” or fall down to a “C.” I may be wrong in some individual cases but, of course, my principal concern is not the individual.
By the end of the semester I will abandon any formal guidelines and just redistribute points in a way that seems just, or fair, to me. I will not rely upon any standards other than my very strong and passionate feelings concerning social justice. In the process, I will not merely seek to eliminate inequality. I will also seek to eliminate the possibility of failure.
I know some are concerned that my system may impact their lives in a very profound way. Grade redistribution will undoubtedly cause some grade point average redistribution. And this, in turn, will mean that some people will not get into the law school or medical school of their choice. Or maybe some day you will be represented by a lawyer – or operated on by a doctor – who is not of the highest quality.
These are all, of course, legitimate long-term concerns. But I believe we need to remain focused on the short term. I think my new system will immediately help the self-esteem of those failing or in danger of failing. It should also help the self-esteem of those who are not in danger of failing. After all, it just feels good to give – even if the giving is compelled and not really “giving” in the literal sense.
Finally, I want to note that this idea was also inspired by a former presidential candidate named George McGovern. In a debate with the late William F. Buckley, McGovern said that people who earn more money should pay more taxes. Buckley replied that the rich do pay more in taxes – and more as a percentage of their income. McGovern looked confused.
But I don’t think there’s anything confusing about our pending social responsibilities. Whether we are talking about income or grades it does not matter how much or what percentage we are giving. The question is and should always be “Can we give more?”
Pelosi boosts birth ban as burden bailout......
PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Jan 25 2009 (Drudge report)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.
The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
(end quote)
,,,,,,,,,, and this ignoramus Californian, wild eyed liberal is the Dictator of the House? God save us, 'cause no one else will!!
Jan 25 2009 (Drudge report)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.
The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
(end quote)
,,,,,,,,,, and this ignoramus Californian, wild eyed liberal is the Dictator of the House? God save us, 'cause no one else will!!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Gotta wonder about military retention rates these next few years... Will there be enough lawyers in uniform?
A boss who tells it like it is!!!!!!!!!!
All those Pilgrims out there in 'flyover' land ought to read this letter carefully - and then take a look to their left and their right tomorrow at work. And maybe rethink their idiot self-destructive voting patterns in local and national elections......
To All My Valued Employees,
There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.
However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.
First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.
However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company
28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.
My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business - hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.
Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.
So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden - the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations ... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.
Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.
Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.
Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:
I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.
The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.
The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.
Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.
When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.
So where am I going with all this?
It's quite simple.
If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.
Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.
So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about ...
Signed,
Your boss
To All My Valued Employees,
There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.
However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.
First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.
However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company
28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.
My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business - hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.
Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.
So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden - the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations ... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.
Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.
Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.
Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:
I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.
The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.
The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.
Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.
When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.
So where am I going with all this?
It's quite simple.
If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.
Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.
So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about ...
Signed,
Your boss
NY Times on hard times --- what a shame.....
The Collapse of the Left-Wing Media
Bill O'Reilly
January 24, 2009
There is much irony in the fact that while liberals have won power in Washington big time, left-wing media are collapsing all over the place. In the last couple of weeks, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the mother of all liberal publications, The New York Times, each has issued SOS announcements.
Bill O'Reilly
January 24, 2009
There is much irony in the fact that while liberals have won power in Washington big time, left-wing media are collapsing all over the place. In the last couple of weeks, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the mother of all liberal publications, The New York Times, each has issued SOS announcements.The Seattle paper will cease publication in March unless a buyer is found. Even though it can't pay its bills, the Post-Intelligencer should have been inducted into the left-wing hall of fame after its publisher told the FBI to buzz off when the agency asked for media help in locating two possible terror suspects.
The Minneapolis paper, dubbed the Red Star by some in Minnesota, filed for bankruptcy after its earnings dropped more than 50 percent in one year. That despite the presidential vote and a vicious election between Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken.
As for The New York Times: It is Twilight Zone time. The paper was already trying to use equity in its Manhattan office building to pay debts, and now has borrowed $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu. And get this: The Times is paying old Carlos an astounding 14 percent interest. What, was Tony Soprano not available? Does the description "loan shark" mean anything to the ideologues running the Times? The prime lending rate in America is 3.25 percent, and these guys are paying Carlos Slim 14 percent. Wow.
On the TV front, the uber-liberal, Bush-hating MSNBC network ranked 31 in total day ratings for the first two weeks of January. I think that's right behind the "Roller Derby Channel." General Electric, which owns NBC, has taken a sharp turn to the left in its corporate philosophy and, at the same time, is watching its stock price decline from about $50 a share to around $13. The fact that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt still has his job ranks up there with the miracle of the U.S. Airways water landing.
Why are the liberal media taking a pounding when the left now controls Congress and the Oval Office? It may be because of the economy. After the recession blindsided the folks last fall, anger filled the air. Why weren't we warned that the financial industry was awash in bad housing loans? President Bush and Sen. John McCain had no answer. So the folks voted for the Democrats.
But that doesn't mean the American people became liberals overnight. In fact, some folks became even more conservative with their spending and lifestyles. The images of left-wing media people gloating over the failure of the Bush administration did not cheer many people up. In fact, I believe it teed a lot of them off.
Despite the power shift in Washington, America remains a traditional country that largely rejects big government and radical social change. The former hippies running the crazy-left media will never get that. They believe most Americans want gay marriage, political correctness and unfettered abortion. They believe everyday folks think ponytails and pierced ears on old guys are cool.
Well, these Abbie Hoffman wannabes are sadly out of touch. And soon, maybe out of work.
The Minneapolis paper, dubbed the Red Star by some in Minnesota, filed for bankruptcy after its earnings dropped more than 50 percent in one year. That despite the presidential vote and a vicious election between Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken.
As for The New York Times: It is Twilight Zone time. The paper was already trying to use equity in its Manhattan office building to pay debts, and now has borrowed $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu. And get this: The Times is paying old Carlos an astounding 14 percent interest. What, was Tony Soprano not available? Does the description "loan shark" mean anything to the ideologues running the Times? The prime lending rate in America is 3.25 percent, and these guys are paying Carlos Slim 14 percent. Wow.
On the TV front, the uber-liberal, Bush-hating MSNBC network ranked 31 in total day ratings for the first two weeks of January. I think that's right behind the "Roller Derby Channel." General Electric, which owns NBC, has taken a sharp turn to the left in its corporate philosophy and, at the same time, is watching its stock price decline from about $50 a share to around $13. The fact that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt still has his job ranks up there with the miracle of the U.S. Airways water landing.
Why are the liberal media taking a pounding when the left now controls Congress and the Oval Office? It may be because of the economy. After the recession blindsided the folks last fall, anger filled the air. Why weren't we warned that the financial industry was awash in bad housing loans? President Bush and Sen. John McCain had no answer. So the folks voted for the Democrats.
But that doesn't mean the American people became liberals overnight. In fact, some folks became even more conservative with their spending and lifestyles. The images of left-wing media people gloating over the failure of the Bush administration did not cheer many people up. In fact, I believe it teed a lot of them off.
Despite the power shift in Washington, America remains a traditional country that largely rejects big government and radical social change. The former hippies running the crazy-left media will never get that. They believe most Americans want gay marriage, political correctness and unfettered abortion. They believe everyday folks think ponytails and pierced ears on old guys are cool.
Well, these Abbie Hoffman wannabes are sadly out of touch. And soon, maybe out of work.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Al Gorebot is gonna have to find a new gig...
According to the latest PEW survey results, 'global warming has dropped to absolute last priority of concern for American's. If this keeps up, Gorebot is gonna have to find a new scam -- folks ain't gonna be interested in being extorted (ooops, I meant to say 'investing in') with his carbon offset certificates.
Poor feller.... guess it's just an inconvenient fact!!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Annie once again, aims....... and fires....!
More Boos Than Balls
Ann Coulter
January 21, 2009
It will not be easy for President B. Hussein Obama. More than half the country voted for him, and yet our newspapers are brimming with snippy remarks at every little aspect of his inauguration.
Here's a small sampling of the churlishness in just The New York Times:
-- The American public is bemused by the tasteless show-biz extravaganza surrounding Barack Obama's inauguration today.
-- There is something to be said for some showiness in an inauguration. But one felt discomfited all the same.
-- This is an inauguration, not a coronation.
-- Is there a parallel between Mrs. Obama's jewel-toned outfit and somebody else's glass slippers? Why limousines and not shank's mare?
-- It is still unclear whether we are supposed to shout "Whoopee!" or "Shame!" about the new elegance the Obamas are bringing to Washington.
Boy, talk about raining on somebody's parade! These were not, of course, comments about the inauguration of the angel Obama; they are (slightly edited) comments about the inauguration of another historic president, Ronald Reagan, in January 1981.
Obama's inaugural address tracked much of Reagan's first inaugural address -- minus the substance -- the main difference being that Obama did not invoke God as stoutly or frequently, restricting his heavenly references to a few liberal focus-grouped phrases, such as "God-given" and "God's grace."
Obama was also not as fulsome in his praise of his predecessor as Reagan was. To appreciate how remarkable this is, recall that Reagan's predecessor was Jimmy Carter.
Under Carter, more than 50 Americans were held hostage by a two-bit terrorist Iranian regime for 444 days -- released the day of Reagan's inauguration. Under Bush, there has not been another terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.
But I gather that if Obama had uttered anything more than the briefest allusion to Bush, that would have provoked yet more booing from the Hope-and-Change crowd, which moments earlier had showered Bush with boos when he walked onto the stage. That must be the new tone we've been hearing so much about.
So maybe liberals can stop acting as if the entire nation could at last come together in a "unity of purpose" if only conservatives would stop fomenting "conflict and discord" -- as Obama suggested in his inaugural address. We're not the ones who booed a departing president.
It is a liberal trope to insult conservatives by asking them meaningless questions, such as the one repeatedly asked of Bush throughout his presidency about whether he had made any mistakes. All humans make mistakes -- what is the point of that question other than to give insult?
When will the first reporter ask President Obama to admit that he has made mistakes? Try: Never.
No, that question will disappear for the next four years. It will be replaced by the new question for conservatives on every liberal's lips these days: Do you want Obama to succeed as president?
Answer: Of course we do. We live here, too.
But merely to ask the question is to imply that the 60 million Americans who did not vote for Obama are being unpatriotic if they do not wholeheartedly endorse his liberal agenda.
I guess it depends on the meaning of "succeed." If Obama "succeeds" in pushing through big-government, terrorist-appeasing policies, he will not have "succeeded" at being a good president. If we didn't think conservative principles of small government and strong national defense weren't better for the country, we wouldn't be conservatives.
And why was that question never asked of liberals producing assassination books and movies about President Bush for the last eight years?
Say, did liberals want Pastor Rick Warren to succeed delivering a meaningful invocation at the inaugural?
The way I remember it, the Hope-and-Change crowd viciously denounced the Christian pastor, stamped their feet and demanded that Obama withdraw the invitation -- all because Rick Warren agrees with Obama's stated position on gay marriage, which also happens to be the position of a vast majority of Americans every time they have been allowed to vote on the matter.
Liberals always have to play the victim, acting as if they merely want to bring the nation together in hope and unity in the face of petulant, stick-in-the-mud conservatives. Meanwhile, they are the ones booing, heckling and publicly fantasizing about the assassination of those who disagree with them on policy matters.
Hope and unity, apparently, can only be achieved if conservatives would just go away -- and perhaps have the decency to kill themselves.
Republicans are not the ones who need to be told that "the time has come to set aside childish things" -- as Obama said of his own assumption of the presidency. Remember? We're the ones who managed to gaze upon Carter at the conclusion of his abomination of a presidency without booing.
Ann Coulter
January 21, 2009
It will not be easy for President B. Hussein Obama. More than half the country voted for him, and yet our newspapers are brimming with snippy remarks at every little aspect of his inauguration.
Here's a small sampling of the churlishness in just The New York Times:
-- The American public is bemused by the tasteless show-biz extravaganza surrounding Barack Obama's inauguration today.
-- There is something to be said for some showiness in an inauguration. But one felt discomfited all the same.
-- This is an inauguration, not a coronation.
-- Is there a parallel between Mrs. Obama's jewel-toned outfit and somebody else's glass slippers? Why limousines and not shank's mare?
-- It is still unclear whether we are supposed to shout "Whoopee!" or "Shame!" about the new elegance the Obamas are bringing to Washington.
Boy, talk about raining on somebody's parade! These were not, of course, comments about the inauguration of the angel Obama; they are (slightly edited) comments about the inauguration of another historic president, Ronald Reagan, in January 1981.
Obama's inaugural address tracked much of Reagan's first inaugural address -- minus the substance -- the main difference being that Obama did not invoke God as stoutly or frequently, restricting his heavenly references to a few liberal focus-grouped phrases, such as "God-given" and "God's grace."
Obama was also not as fulsome in his praise of his predecessor as Reagan was. To appreciate how remarkable this is, recall that Reagan's predecessor was Jimmy Carter.
Under Carter, more than 50 Americans were held hostage by a two-bit terrorist Iranian regime for 444 days -- released the day of Reagan's inauguration. Under Bush, there has not been another terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.
But I gather that if Obama had uttered anything more than the briefest allusion to Bush, that would have provoked yet more booing from the Hope-and-Change crowd, which moments earlier had showered Bush with boos when he walked onto the stage. That must be the new tone we've been hearing so much about.
So maybe liberals can stop acting as if the entire nation could at last come together in a "unity of purpose" if only conservatives would stop fomenting "conflict and discord" -- as Obama suggested in his inaugural address. We're not the ones who booed a departing president.
It is a liberal trope to insult conservatives by asking them meaningless questions, such as the one repeatedly asked of Bush throughout his presidency about whether he had made any mistakes. All humans make mistakes -- what is the point of that question other than to give insult?
When will the first reporter ask President Obama to admit that he has made mistakes? Try: Never.
No, that question will disappear for the next four years. It will be replaced by the new question for conservatives on every liberal's lips these days: Do you want Obama to succeed as president?
Answer: Of course we do. We live here, too.
But merely to ask the question is to imply that the 60 million Americans who did not vote for Obama are being unpatriotic if they do not wholeheartedly endorse his liberal agenda.
I guess it depends on the meaning of "succeed." If Obama "succeeds" in pushing through big-government, terrorist-appeasing policies, he will not have "succeeded" at being a good president. If we didn't think conservative principles of small government and strong national defense weren't better for the country, we wouldn't be conservatives.
And why was that question never asked of liberals producing assassination books and movies about President Bush for the last eight years?
Say, did liberals want Pastor Rick Warren to succeed delivering a meaningful invocation at the inaugural?
The way I remember it, the Hope-and-Change crowd viciously denounced the Christian pastor, stamped their feet and demanded that Obama withdraw the invitation -- all because Rick Warren agrees with Obama's stated position on gay marriage, which also happens to be the position of a vast majority of Americans every time they have been allowed to vote on the matter.
Liberals always have to play the victim, acting as if they merely want to bring the nation together in hope and unity in the face of petulant, stick-in-the-mud conservatives. Meanwhile, they are the ones booing, heckling and publicly fantasizing about the assassination of those who disagree with them on policy matters.
Hope and unity, apparently, can only be achieved if conservatives would just go away -- and perhaps have the decency to kill themselves.
Republicans are not the ones who need to be told that "the time has come to set aside childish things" -- as Obama said of his own assumption of the presidency. Remember? We're the ones who managed to gaze upon Carter at the conclusion of his abomination of a presidency without booing.
Not two full days in office - and already it starts.....
White House may put hold on offshore drilling plan
Thu Jan 22, 2009
(Reuters)
- U.S. President Barack Obama may order a hold on a proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas, an Interior Department official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Shortly after being sworn in on Tuesday, Obama ordered all federal agencies and departments to halt pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming staff.
An Interior official said the department is waiting for clarification from the White House on whether a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic and Pacific waters for oil and natural gas drilling can go forward.
The preliminary plan would authorize 31 energy exploration lease sales between 2010 and 2015 for tracts along the east coast and off the coasts of Alaska and California.
Both presidential and congressional bans on drilling in most U.S. waters ended last year.
Separately, the Interior official said the department's plan to develop oil shale fields in the western United States may also be stopped by Obama's order.
(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Tom Doggett)
So, this 'messiah' who promised us hope and change - and to lead us to the promised land, is starting off his first week by guaranteeing that our dependence on OPEC oil remains constant. The states involved and their citizens are all for both the oil exploration offshore and in the shale fields......... but the rich, elitist lefties -- want to keep the country down and dependent!
Thu Jan 22, 2009
(Reuters)
- U.S. President Barack Obama may order a hold on a proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas, an Interior Department official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Shortly after being sworn in on Tuesday, Obama ordered all federal agencies and departments to halt pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming staff.
An Interior official said the department is waiting for clarification from the White House on whether a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic and Pacific waters for oil and natural gas drilling can go forward.
The preliminary plan would authorize 31 energy exploration lease sales between 2010 and 2015 for tracts along the east coast and off the coasts of Alaska and California.
Both presidential and congressional bans on drilling in most U.S. waters ended last year.
Separately, the Interior official said the department's plan to develop oil shale fields in the western United States may also be stopped by Obama's order.
(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Tom Doggett)
So, this 'messiah' who promised us hope and change - and to lead us to the promised land, is starting off his first week by guaranteeing that our dependence on OPEC oil remains constant. The states involved and their citizens are all for both the oil exploration offshore and in the shale fields......... but the rich, elitist lefties -- want to keep the country down and dependent!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Meet your (Obamanation's) new Regulatory Czar...
Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein will head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. Just in case you wonder why you should care -- here is a bit of his writings and opinions.....
“[A]nimals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law … Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject
to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf.”
It doesn't end there. Sunstein delivered a keynote speech at Harvard University’s 2007 “Facing Animals” conference. Keep in mind that as OIRA Administrator, Sunstein will have the political authority to implement a massive federal government overhaul. Consider this tidbit:
“We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.”
Sunstein also argued in favor of “eliminating current practices such as greyhound racing, cosmetic testing, and meat eating, most controversially.”
How is that for putting a wild eyed liberal professor and PETA Panting fox in charge of the Hen House???
“[A]nimals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law … Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject
to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf.”It doesn't end there. Sunstein delivered a keynote speech at Harvard University’s 2007 “Facing Animals” conference. Keep in mind that as OIRA Administrator, Sunstein will have the political authority to implement a massive federal government overhaul. Consider this tidbit:
“We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.”
Sunstein also argued in favor of “eliminating current practices such as greyhound racing, cosmetic testing, and meat eating, most controversially.”
How is that for putting a wild eyed liberal professor and PETA Panting fox in charge of the Hen House???
Michelle Malkin shakes us back to reality!
And Now, Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Spending Orgy
Michelle Malkin
January 21, 2009
"The time has come," President Barack Obama told us in his inaugural address, "to set aside childish things." He borrowed the line from Corinthians. With the Beltway bread-and-circus show over, President Obama will now get to work on borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from you, your children and your grandchildren for a doomed fiscal stimulus.
As President Obama basked in the inaugural glow, a dark cloud of reality moved in over the Democrats' $825 billion plan to rescue the economy. The Congressional Budget Office crunched the numbers and concluded that a huge bulk of the federal spending orgy wouldn't actually kick in until the recession is waning -- if not already over.
The CBO analysis showed that "less than half of the $30 billion in highway construction funds detailed by House Democrats would be released into the economy over the next four years" and "less than $4 billion in highway construction money would reach the economy by September 2010," according to the Associated Press. And those are generous time estimates given the reality of molasses-slow bidding and contracting processes -- bogged down by the usual weight of political wrangling, racial bean-counting and assorted union grievance-mongering.
Just $26 billion out of the $274 billion set aside in the package would reach the economy by the end of the year, the CBO found. That's a mere 7 percent. Moreover, the AP summed up: "Just one in seven dollars of a huge $18.5 billion investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would be spent within a year and a half."
Like I said two weeks ago ("The Generational Theft Act of 2009, Jan. 7, 2009): It's the timing, stupid.
The other incontrovertible truth about this massive wealth transfer is that Washington cannot stop the inevitable lard-up. The original concept of spending on "roads and bridges" has morphed into spending on anything and everything that moves or can be moved. Every moocher in the marketplace wants his grubby paws on the money. And if his or her provision isn't already written into the Democrats' legislation, it will get slipped in under the cover of night.
To wit: Public radio and public television -- already funded with your money to the tune of some $400 million in direct federal handouts and tax deductions for contributions made by individual viewers, not to mention untold state grants and subsidies -- are demanding a hugetastic chunk of the stimulus pie. That's right: Government-supported NPR and PBS want even more of a bailout than they've lived off of for the last 40 years. According to Current.org, which covers public TV and radio, the two entities along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have petitioned Obama for $550 million in funding to help create more workers suckling on the public teat.
Watching TV is apparently critical to rescuing the American economy. Already stuffed into the Democrats' package is a $650 million bailout -- call it the Boob Tube boondoggle -- to pay for $650 million worth of digital TV upgrade coupons in the wake of the official, government-mandated transition to digital television next month. Not to be left out, the National Endowment for the Arts is on the Santa stimulus list for an additional $50 million cash injection. Oh, and there's another $50 million earmarked "to make up for a lack of philanthropic support for the arts." A breakdown of the spending by House Minority Leader John Boehner's office found an additional $6 billion in buried stimulus treasure for colleges and $166 billion in direct aid to states looking for taxpayers to save them from their profligate spending.
A few conservative Democrats have started murmuring about this looming fiscal nightmare. North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler expressed concern about the porkification of the bill: "This can't be a Christmas tree." Sen. Kent Conrad told Bloomberg News that "his committee projects the plan will reduce the unemployment rate by 'maybe' 1 percent, or about half of the 3 million jobs Obama has said the plan would generate."
Wake up, taxpayers: This nearly $1 trillion plan is nothing but future-mortgaging ornaments and tinsel boxed in self-delusion. It is time, as President Obama lectured us, to put away childish things -- starting with this epic fail.
January 21, 2009
"The time has come," President Barack Obama told us in his inaugural address, "to set aside childish things." He borrowed the line from Corinthians. With the Beltway bread-and-circus show over, President Obama will now get to work on borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from you, your children and your grandchildren for a doomed fiscal stimulus.
As President Obama basked in the inaugural glow, a dark cloud of reality moved in over the Democrats' $825 billion plan to rescue the economy. The Congressional Budget Office crunched the numbers and concluded that a huge bulk of the federal spending orgy wouldn't actually kick in until the recession is waning -- if not already over.
The CBO analysis showed that "less than half of the $30 billion in highway construction funds detailed by House Democrats would be released into the economy over the next four years" and "less than $4 billion in highway construction money would reach the economy by September 2010," according to the Associated Press. And those are generous time estimates given the reality of molasses-slow bidding and contracting processes -- bogged down by the usual weight of political wrangling, racial bean-counting and assorted union grievance-mongering.
Just $26 billion out of the $274 billion set aside in the package would reach the economy by the end of the year, the CBO found. That's a mere 7 percent. Moreover, the AP summed up: "Just one in seven dollars of a huge $18.5 billion investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would be spent within a year and a half."
Like I said two weeks ago ("The Generational Theft Act of 2009, Jan. 7, 2009): It's the timing, stupid.
The other incontrovertible truth about this massive wealth transfer is that Washington cannot stop the inevitable lard-up. The original concept of spending on "roads and bridges" has morphed into spending on anything and everything that moves or can be moved. Every moocher in the marketplace wants his grubby paws on the money. And if his or her provision isn't already written into the Democrats' legislation, it will get slipped in under the cover of night.
To wit: Public radio and public television -- already funded with your money to the tune of some $400 million in direct federal handouts and tax deductions for contributions made by individual viewers, not to mention untold state grants and subsidies -- are demanding a hugetastic chunk of the stimulus pie. That's right: Government-supported NPR and PBS want even more of a bailout than they've lived off of for the last 40 years. According to Current.org, which covers public TV and radio, the two entities along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have petitioned Obama for $550 million in funding to help create more workers suckling on the public teat.
Watching TV is apparently critical to rescuing the American economy. Already stuffed into the Democrats' package is a $650 million bailout -- call it the Boob Tube boondoggle -- to pay for $650 million worth of digital TV upgrade coupons in the wake of the official, government-mandated transition to digital television next month. Not to be left out, the National Endowment for the Arts is on the Santa stimulus list for an additional $50 million cash injection. Oh, and there's another $50 million earmarked "to make up for a lack of philanthropic support for the arts." A breakdown of the spending by House Minority Leader John Boehner's office found an additional $6 billion in buried stimulus treasure for colleges and $166 billion in direct aid to states looking for taxpayers to save them from their profligate spending.
A few conservative Democrats have started murmuring about this looming fiscal nightmare. North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler expressed concern about the porkification of the bill: "This can't be a Christmas tree." Sen. Kent Conrad told Bloomberg News that "his committee projects the plan will reduce the unemployment rate by 'maybe' 1 percent, or about half of the 3 million jobs Obama has said the plan would generate."
Wake up, taxpayers: This nearly $1 trillion plan is nothing but future-mortgaging ornaments and tinsel boxed in self-delusion. It is time, as President Obama lectured us, to put away childish things -- starting with this epic fail.
Stay tuned Pilgrims, it might get a whole lot darker before we can afford to turn the lights on again.........
A touch of Class with a capital C !!
Bush Family to Leave Many Treasured Items Inside White House
The Bushes will remove very few treasured items when they depart the White House on Tuesday.
FOXNews.com
Monday, January 19, 2009
Unlike Bill and Hillary Clinton, George and Laura Bush will take few treasured mementos with them from their years at the White House.
When the Clintons left the White House in January 2001, the former first couple took with them more than 50 gifts -- including a chandelier, flatware, and paintings -- valued at nearly $200,000.
The Bushes, however, borrowed from furnishings that already existed within the White House collection, said Sally McDonough, press secretary to Laura Bush.
"Mrs. Bush -- having the experience of being at the White House when her father-in-law was president -- knew how many beautiful things she had to choose from to furnish the residence. And she will go back to Texas with only those items that belong to her," McDonough told FOXNews.com.
Bush's official state china service -- a Lenox gilt-edged style with a green basket weave border valued at $492,798 -- is a valued item that will remain at the White House.
The 320 14-piece place settings were purchased with privately raised funds through the White House Historical Association Acquisition Trust.
Two custom rugs, including one in the Diplomatic Reception Room with emblems from all 50 state flags, will also stay behind in the Executive Mansion.
But the first family can opt to place a multitude of personal gifts they have received in the presidential museum.
"They can request any of those items to be part of the library," McDonough said. "But the library won't open for years, so a lot of those decisions haven't been made yet."
But a few cherished items will be taken back to the Bush home in Crawford, Texas.
One of the few furnishings Laura Bush brought to the White House eight years ago was a chest of drawers that had belonged to her husband's grandmother.
"She will bring that back to Texas with her," McDonough said. "It's very sentimental to them."
The Bushes will also take home stacks of books they have acquired over the last eight years.
Sure is easy to spot the difference between Arkansas white trash and Texas solid citizens, ain't it Pilgrims!
The Bushes will remove very few treasured items when they depart the White House on Tuesday.
FOXNews.com
Monday, January 19, 2009
Unlike Bill and Hillary Clinton, George and Laura Bush will take few treasured mementos with them from their years at the White House.
When the Clintons left the White House in January 2001, the former first couple took with them more than 50 gifts -- including a chandelier, flatware, and paintings -- valued at nearly $200,000.
The Bushes, however, borrowed from furnishings that already existed within the White House collection, said Sally McDonough, press secretary to Laura Bush.
"Mrs. Bush -- having the experience of being at the White House when her father-in-law was president -- knew how many beautiful things she had to choose from to furnish the residence. And she will go back to Texas with only those items that belong to her," McDonough told FOXNews.com.
Bush's official state china service -- a Lenox gilt-edged style with a green basket weave border valued at $492,798 -- is a valued item that will remain at the White House.
The 320 14-piece place settings were purchased with privately raised funds through the White House Historical Association Acquisition Trust.
Two custom rugs, including one in the Diplomatic Reception Room with emblems from all 50 state flags, will also stay behind in the Executive Mansion.
But the first family can opt to place a multitude of personal gifts they have received in the presidential museum.
"They can request any of those items to be part of the library," McDonough said. "But the library won't open for years, so a lot of those decisions haven't been made yet."
But a few cherished items will be taken back to the Bush home in Crawford, Texas.
One of the few furnishings Laura Bush brought to the White House eight years ago was a chest of drawers that had belonged to her husband's grandmother.
"She will bring that back to Texas with her," McDonough said. "It's very sentimental to them."
The Bushes will also take home stacks of books they have acquired over the last eight years.
Sure is easy to spot the difference between Arkansas white trash and Texas solid citizens, ain't it Pilgrims!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Riddle me this.....
Republicans Must Turn Down the Kool-Aid
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Today we watched our new president take the oath of office, promising only to defend the Constitution of the United States of America. He has already publicly stated that he believes it is a flawed document because it lays out what the federal government cannot do, and not what it should do. He will be our President for at least four years. Everybody is 'wishing him well', and 'success' and a 'great term'.
Although I will hope that he has a healthy four years and that nothing untoward shall come to him --- I cannot, in my heart of hearts, wish him well or great success. For to do so would be the same as saying I hope that in four years:
- The federal government is running a national health program
- The federal government has grown by 600,000 employees
- The federal government will have overridden the Second Amendment
- The federal government will have ignored the Tenth Amendment
- The federal government has used the IRS to redistribute wealth
- The federal government will decide what kind of car I may drive, and when I may drive it
- The federal government will have nationalized many former privately owned companies
- The federal government will be further along the road to full Socialism than at present
As a neo-federalist, I believe in the least federal government possible, with control of our day to day lives in the hands of local and state government who are directly answerable to us.
Thus, I am faced with a Hobson's Choice. I am either 'for him' or not. Fortunately I don't have to be against him. So to answer my own riddle - "I am just not for him".
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
It's going to take real courage the next four years for Republicans to swim against the tide and oppose Barack Obama -- in whom so many have placed their hopes, almost to the point of idolatry. But if Obama governs in a way that's consistent with his promises, the country's future security and prosperity will depend on spirited opposition.
It's bad enough for the liberal media to deify Obama, but it's almost unbearable for right-wing commentators and politicians to jump on this bandwagon, as well, as if Obama's personal attributes have blinded them to the policy dangers he represents.
During the Bush years, the left blamed Bush for the absence of bipartisanship, when, by any rational measure, they were the ones whose relentless vitriol made bipartisanship impossible.
Forgive the analogy, but their reversal of blame is reminiscent of a memorable scene in the movie "Animal House," when fraternity hotshot "Otter" pressured the hapless legacy pledge, "Flounder," into lending him his brother's car. When Otter returned the car after having demolished it, Otter chastised Flounder for entrusting the car to him. "You (screwed) up. You trusted me."
Now, after eight years of this poison, the same specious theme from the Bush bashers has found a new application: "Republicans must work with Barack Obama and restore a spirit of collegiality to Washington," as if they have any moral authority to be lecturing, but even more importantly, as if a spirit of collegiality will solve America's problems.
To be clear, I am not advocating that Republicans return the same mean-spirited partisanship with which the left pummeled Bush. But conservatives must not abandon their principles in pursuit of the seductive, illusory goal of bipartisanship.
You'd think this principle too sophomoric to articulate, and so do I -- almost. But have you been listening to Republican politicians and "conservative" commentators lately behaving as if their eternal salvation depends on jumping aboard a train headed in the opposite direction from everything in which they profess to believe?
These words expressed today by David Limbaugh cause my title for this posting:Today we watched our new president take the oath of office, promising only to defend the Constitution of the United States of America. He has already publicly stated that he believes it is a flawed document because it lays out what the federal government cannot do, and not what it should do. He will be our President for at least four years. Everybody is 'wishing him well', and 'success' and a 'great term'.
Although I will hope that he has a healthy four years and that nothing untoward shall come to him --- I cannot, in my heart of hearts, wish him well or great success. For to do so would be the same as saying I hope that in four years:
- The federal government is running a national health program
- The federal government has grown by 600,000 employees
- The federal government will have overridden the Second Amendment
- The federal government will have ignored the Tenth Amendment
- The federal government has used the IRS to redistribute wealth
- The federal government will decide what kind of car I may drive, and when I may drive it
- The federal government will have nationalized many former privately owned companies
- The federal government will be further along the road to full Socialism than at present
As a neo-federalist, I believe in the least federal government possible, with control of our day to day lives in the hands of local and state government who are directly answerable to us.
Thus, I am faced with a Hobson's Choice. I am either 'for him' or not. Fortunately I don't have to be against him. So to answer my own riddle - "I am just not for him".
Monday, January 19, 2009
One more reason the New York Times and their ilk are fading into the dustbin of history!
MURDER SPREE BY PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO ASK FOR DIRECTIONS
by Ann Coulter
January 14, 2009
In a front-page article on Jan. 2 of this year, The New York Times took a brief respite from its ongoing canonization of Barack Obama and returned to its series on violent crimes committed by returning GIs, or as I call it: "U.S. Military, Psycho Killers."
The Treason Times' banner series about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans
accused of murder began in January last year but was quickly discontinued as readers noticed that the Times doggedly refused to provide any statistics comparing veteran murders with murders in any other group.
So they waited a year, hoping readers wouldn't notice they were still including no relevant comparisons.
What, for example, is the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large -- or, more germane, in the general population of young males, inasmuch as violent crime is committed almost exclusively by young men?
Any group composed primarily of young men will contain a seemingly mammoth number of murderers.
Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons -- which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the '80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies.
Similarly, for its series about how America's bravest and finest young men are really a gang of psychopathic cutthroats, the Times triumphantly produced 121 homicides committed by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in order to pin the blame for the murders on the U.S. military.
Perhaps the Times' next major expose could be on how a huge percentage of murderers are people who won't ask for directions or share the TV remote.
Let's compare murders by veterans to murders by other 18- to 35-year-olds in the U.S. population at large. From 1976 to 2005, 18- to 24-year-olds -- both male and more gentle females -- committed homicide at a rate of 29.9 per 100,000. Twenty-five- to 35-year-olds committed homicides at a rate of 15.8 per 100,000.
Since 9/11, about 1.6 million troops have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. That makes the homicide rate among veterans of these wars 7.6 per 100,000 -- or about one-third the homicide rate for their age group (18 to 35) in the general population of both sexes.
But fewer than 200,000 of the 1.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been women, and the murder rate for the general population includes both males and females. Inasmuch as males commit nearly 90 percent of all murders, the rate for males in those age groups is probably nearly double the male/female combined rates, which translates to about 30 to 55 murderers per 100,000 males aged 18 to 35.
So comparing the veterans' rate of murder to only their male counterparts in the general population, we see that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are about 10 times less likely to commit a murder than non-veterans of those wars.
But as long as the Times has such a burning interest in the root causes of murder, how about considering the one factor more likely to create a murderer than any other? That is the topic we're not allowed to discuss: single motherhood.
As I describe in my new book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. (The second strongest factor is owning a Dennis Kucinich bumper sticker.)
By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced.
A 1990 study by the left-wing Progressive Policy Institute showed that, after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime disappeared.
Various studies come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. A study cited in the far left-wing Village Voice found that children brought up in single-mother homes "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home."
With new children being born, running away, dropping out of high school and committing murder every year, it's not a static problem to analyze. But however the numbers are run, single motherhood is a societal nuclear bomb.
Many of these studies, for example, are from the '90s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under 18 were being raised in one-parent homes -- mother or father, divorced or never-married. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the U.S. were illegitimate.
That's a lot of social problems in the pipeline.
Think I'm being cruel? Imagine an America with 60 to 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, teenage births, teenage suicides and runaways, and you will appreciate what the sainted "single mothers" have accomplished.
Even in liberals' fevered nightmares, predatory mortgage dealers, oil speculators and Ken Lay could never do as much harm to their fellow human beings as single mothers do to their own children, to say nothing of society at large.
But the Times won't run that series because liberals adore single motherhood and the dissolution of traditional marriage in America. They detest the military, so they cite a few anecdotal examples of veterans who have committed murder and hope that no one asks for details.
by Ann Coulter
January 14, 2009
In a front-page article on Jan. 2 of this year, The New York Times took a brief respite from its ongoing canonization of Barack Obama and returned to its series on violent crimes committed by returning GIs, or as I call it: "U.S. Military, Psycho Killers."
The Treason Times' banner series about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans
accused of murder began in January last year but was quickly discontinued as readers noticed that the Times doggedly refused to provide any statistics comparing veteran murders with murders in any other group.So they waited a year, hoping readers wouldn't notice they were still including no relevant comparisons.
What, for example, is the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large -- or, more germane, in the general population of young males, inasmuch as violent crime is committed almost exclusively by young men?
Any group composed primarily of young men will contain a seemingly mammoth number of murderers.
Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons -- which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the '80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies.
Similarly, for its series about how America's bravest and finest young men are really a gang of psychopathic cutthroats, the Times triumphantly produced 121 homicides committed by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in order to pin the blame for the murders on the U.S. military.
Perhaps the Times' next major expose could be on how a huge percentage of murderers are people who won't ask for directions or share the TV remote.
Let's compare murders by veterans to murders by other 18- to 35-year-olds in the U.S. population at large. From 1976 to 2005, 18- to 24-year-olds -- both male and more gentle females -- committed homicide at a rate of 29.9 per 100,000. Twenty-five- to 35-year-olds committed homicides at a rate of 15.8 per 100,000.
Since 9/11, about 1.6 million troops have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. That makes the homicide rate among veterans of these wars 7.6 per 100,000 -- or about one-third the homicide rate for their age group (18 to 35) in the general population of both sexes.
But fewer than 200,000 of the 1.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been women, and the murder rate for the general population includes both males and females. Inasmuch as males commit nearly 90 percent of all murders, the rate for males in those age groups is probably nearly double the male/female combined rates, which translates to about 30 to 55 murderers per 100,000 males aged 18 to 35.
So comparing the veterans' rate of murder to only their male counterparts in the general population, we see that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are about 10 times less likely to commit a murder than non-veterans of those wars.
But as long as the Times has such a burning interest in the root causes of murder, how about considering the one factor more likely to create a murderer than any other? That is the topic we're not allowed to discuss: single motherhood.
As I describe in my new book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. (The second strongest factor is owning a Dennis Kucinich bumper sticker.)
By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced.
A 1990 study by the left-wing Progressive Policy Institute showed that, after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime disappeared.
Various studies come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. A study cited in the far left-wing Village Voice found that children brought up in single-mother homes "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home."
With new children being born, running away, dropping out of high school and committing murder every year, it's not a static problem to analyze. But however the numbers are run, single motherhood is a societal nuclear bomb.
Many of these studies, for example, are from the '90s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under 18 were being raised in one-parent homes -- mother or father, divorced or never-married. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the U.S. were illegitimate.
That's a lot of social problems in the pipeline.
Think I'm being cruel? Imagine an America with 60 to 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, teenage births, teenage suicides and runaways, and you will appreciate what the sainted "single mothers" have accomplished.
Even in liberals' fevered nightmares, predatory mortgage dealers, oil speculators and Ken Lay could never do as much harm to their fellow human beings as single mothers do to their own children, to say nothing of society at large.
But the Times won't run that series because liberals adore single motherhood and the dissolution of traditional marriage in America. They detest the military, so they cite a few anecdotal examples of veterans who have committed murder and hope that no one asks for details.
Obamanation a little too 'Lincolny' ???
Obama has little in common with LincolnStar Parker
Monday, January 19, 2009
It's ironic that Barack Obama chooses to infuse these opening days of his presidency with the imagery of Abraham Lincoln.
I don't think there could be two more different men. Understanding why may help us think about what to expect in the days ahead.
Beyond his trademark "change we can believe in," Obama's defining theme has been unity and inclusiveness. "... There's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America ... We worship an awesome God in the Blue States ... and have gay friends in the Red States."
Obama, of course, does not suggest that we don't have differences. His point is that those differences are not critically important and they're getting in our way. Let's put differences aside, get practical, and solve our problems.
The inaugural ceremonies have pastors for everyone. A white evangelical that opposes same sex marriage, a white homosexual, a left wing black male and a left wing black female.
His economic stimulus plan has large government expenditures to please Democrats and tax benefits to please Republicans.
Lincoln, too, sought unity. But Lincoln's notion of where national unity would lie was far different from Obama's.
He prophetically stated the challenge after accepting the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1858.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolved. I do not expect the House to fall. But I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."
As historian Harry Jaffa points out, " For Lincoln, as for Jefferson and for all genuine supporters of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the distinction between right and wrong is antecedent to any form of government and is independent of any man's or any majority's will."
Lincoln knew that some principles are so fundamental they cannot be compromised. He knew that we couldn't ignore our key differences. Unity could only come from facing them and making the hard choices.
He knew that even though there were competing religious claims on the issue of slavery -- some found biblical sanction in it -- we would still have to choose and decide who we are.
As Americans killed each other, he observed: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God ... The prayers of both could not be answered ..."
We have many Americans today who read the same Bible but see the truths that define this country very differently. And, of course, we have Americans who do not see the Bible as relevant to those truths at all and those who would claim that there are no truths.
As Lincoln observed, the prayers of all cannot be answered. Unless we're resigned to meaninglessness, we must believe that our future will reflect today's choices.
On the hardest moral dilemma of his day, Abraham Lincoln stepped up to the plate and took a stand. He did not say that it was above his pay grade. And this is what makes Abraham Lincoln very different from Barack Obama.
Each time has its challenges. Americans feel betrayed by what they see as unethical behavior in American business and in Washington. Yet few seem to appreciate that moral problems lie at the root of our faltering economy.
Sanctity of life and sanctity of property are cut from the same cloth of eternal law.
In the view of many, including me, it's this law that defines our free country.
Our new president, who sanctions both abortion and massive government intrusion into our economic lives, sees things very differently.
So let's not pretend these fundamental differences don't matter. How we choose will define our future. As Lincoln said, the nation "will become all one thing, or all the other."
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Washington DC police declaring 'Prostitution Free Zone' during inauguration...
District police have placed signs along 5th and I Streets. They read, "Warning, Prostitution Free Zone." Those who disobey could be fined 300 dollars, and even jailed.
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- District police have placed signs along 5th and I Streets. They read, "Warning, Prostitution Free Zone." Those who disobey could be fined 300 dollars, and even jailed. But will the city's plan work?
DC City Councilman Jim Graham said officers cannot enforce loitering laws, which is the reason for these signs.
"Because this is focused, its limited in time, its aimed at a very specific issue, if you don't move along, well put you in the car," he said.
John Thompson lives in the neighborhood, and he said prostitution is a major problem. He hopes the signs make a difference, but what will visitors think?
"I'm not concerned with what visitors think. I'm concerned about the problem that exists," Thompson said.
A woman who calls herself Tamira and advertises her services on Craigslist, said otherwise. She said prostitutes who work the streets may ignore the signs. However, she said, some prostitutes may move elsewhere.
"If I saw a sign that said, 'Prostitution Free Zone' I would feel a little uncomfortable that there would be a house next store where police are at," she said.
Tamira also believes some visitors will come to the inauguration for legitimate business, but prostitute on the side to make extra money.
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- District police have placed signs along 5th and I Streets. They read, "Warning, Prostitution Free Zone." Those who disobey could be fined 300 dollars, and even jailed. But will the city's plan work?
DC City Councilman Jim Graham said officers cannot enforce loitering laws, which is the reason for these signs.
"Because this is focused, its limited in time, its aimed at a very specific issue, if you don't move along, well put you in the car," he said.
John Thompson lives in the neighborhood, and he said prostitution is a major problem. He hopes the signs make a difference, but what will visitors think?
"I'm not concerned with what visitors think. I'm concerned about the problem that exists," Thompson said.
A woman who calls herself Tamira and advertises her services on Craigslist, said otherwise. She said prostitutes who work the streets may ignore the signs. However, she said, some prostitutes may move elsewhere.
"If I saw a sign that said, 'Prostitution Free Zone' I would feel a little uncomfortable that there would be a house next store where police are at," she said.
Tamira also believes some visitors will come to the inauguration for legitimate business, but prostitute on the side to make extra money.
I wonder if this includes all those whores in pin-striped suits that work in and around the Capitol Building. The elected kind as well as the lobbying kind..... and their lackeys.....
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Obamanation apparently ain't the only man on the planet that can walk on water...
News Flash!!Dateline, Zaragoza, Spain
Yesterday in Zaragoza, Luis Hernandez-Gomez participated in what has been described as being a 'miracle' when he unexpectedly demonstrated his ability to walk on water.
Happily, there was a photographer present to record the event.
Nothin' Mickey Mouse about Disney's CEO!
Poor feller is just trying to struggle along and eke out a living.....
Disney CEO received $51.1M in compensation in 2008
Jan 16
By RYAN NAKASHIMA
AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Walt Disney Co.'s chief executive, Robert Iger, received a compensation package worth $51.1 million in fiscal 2008, up 85 percent from a year
earlier, but most of it came in stock options that are currently worthless, according to a regulatory filing made Friday.
Iger received the option to buy 3 million shares at $29.51 each on Jan. 31 last year when he agreed to a new five-year contract through 2013, the Burbank, Calif.-based company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Those and other options, which were estimated to be worth $34.4 million when they were granted, are currently worth nothing because the shares closed Friday at $21.46.
According to the filing, Iger also declined a $2.4 million bonus related to total shareholder return. Disney shares have dipped 34 percent since the fiscal year ended Sept. 27.
"He thought it was the appropriate thing to do," said Disney spokesman Jonathan Friedland.
Over the fiscal year, the share price slipped 2.3 percent, to $32.75 from $33.52. Disney's annual revenue grew 7 percent to $37.8 billion while net profit fell 5.5 percent to $4.43 billion.
Iger received a salary of $2 million, non-equity incentive plan compensation of $13.9 million, and other compensation of $773,090, the filing said. The executive's other compensation included $107,897 for air travel, $645,368 for security and another $14,400 in reimbursements for such expenses as health club membership and annual physical exams.
Disney CEO received $51.1M in compensation in 2008
Jan 16
By RYAN NAKASHIMA
AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Walt Disney Co.'s chief executive, Robert Iger, received a compensation package worth $51.1 million in fiscal 2008, up 85 percent from a year
earlier, but most of it came in stock options that are currently worthless, according to a regulatory filing made Friday.Iger received the option to buy 3 million shares at $29.51 each on Jan. 31 last year when he agreed to a new five-year contract through 2013, the Burbank, Calif.-based company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Those and other options, which were estimated to be worth $34.4 million when they were granted, are currently worth nothing because the shares closed Friday at $21.46.
According to the filing, Iger also declined a $2.4 million bonus related to total shareholder return. Disney shares have dipped 34 percent since the fiscal year ended Sept. 27.
"He thought it was the appropriate thing to do," said Disney spokesman Jonathan Friedland.
Over the fiscal year, the share price slipped 2.3 percent, to $32.75 from $33.52. Disney's annual revenue grew 7 percent to $37.8 billion while net profit fell 5.5 percent to $4.43 billion.
Iger received a salary of $2 million, non-equity incentive plan compensation of $13.9 million, and other compensation of $773,090, the filing said. The executive's other compensation included $107,897 for air travel, $645,368 for security and another $14,400 in reimbursements for such expenses as health club membership and annual physical exams.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Yo 'O' Man!!!
The uncaring national weather service is predicting 34 degrees and cloudy and a chance of snow at Tuesday's inauguration ceremony on Tuesday. Shows how little they know..
The Messiah would never let that happen Pilgrims -- he will blow back the clouds, let the sun shine in and create a temperature of 75 degrees in the District of Columbia!
You read it here first!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Diogenes? .............Not!!
Some of you Pilgrims might look at this picture and think that it is ol' Diogenes looking for an honest man. You'd be wrong.
It's a sneak picture of the ghost of Ronald Reagan wandering the halls of Congress, fruitlessly looking for a Conservative -- in either party.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
They ain't even unpacked --- and they are starting in already!!!
Big Brother's new target: Tracking of all firearms
'This is nothing less than a declaration of war on American gun owners'
Posted: January 13, 2009
By Drew Zahn © 2009 WorldNetDaily
U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., is hoping to pass a firearm-licensing bill that will significantly rewrite gun-ownership laws in America.
Among the more controversial provisions of the bill are requirements that all handgun owners submit to the federal government a photo, thumb print and mental heath records. Further, the bill would order the attorney general to establish a database of every handgun sale, transfer and owner's address in America.
The bill claims its purpose is "to protect the public against the unreasonable risk of injury and death associated with the unrecorded sale or transfer of firearms to criminals and youth."
Get "Shooting Back," the incredible DVD that shows once and for all why you should be packing heat for the protection of yourself and your loved ones, only from WND!
Columnist David Codrea of Guns Magazine, however, calls it a "ridiculous affront to liberty."
"This is nothing less than a declaration of war on American gun owners," Codrea writes on Gun Rights Examiner.
Rush's proposed bill, H.R. 45, is alternatively known as "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009," named after an Illinois teenager killed by a gunshot.
According the bill's text, "On the afternoon of May 10, 2007, Blair Holt, a junior at Julian High School in Chicago, was killed on a public bus riding home from school when he used his body to shield a girl who was in the line of fire after a young man boarded the bus and started shooting."
The bill then argues that interstate firearm trafficking and children dying from gun violence create legitimate cause for the federal government to monitor gun ownership and transfers in new ways.
If passed, the bill would make it illegal to own or possess a "qualifying firearm" – defined as any handgun or any semiautomatic firearm that takes an ammunition clip – without a "Blair Holt" license.
To obtain a "Blair Holt" license, an application must be made that includes a photo, address, all previous aliases, thumb print, completion of a written firearm safety test, release of mental health records to the attorney general and a fee not to exceed $25.
Further, the bill makes it illegal to transfer ownership of a qualifying firearm to anyone who is not a licensed gun dealer or collector. Exceptions to this rule include transfer to family members by gift or bequest and loans, not to exceed 30 days, of a firearm for lawful purposes "between persons who are personally known to each other."
The bill also requires qualifying firearm owners to report all transfers to the attorney general's database. It would also be illegal for a licensed gun owner to fail to record a gun loss or theft within 72 hours or fail to report a change of address within 60 days.
And if a minor obtains a weapon and injures someone with it, the owner of the gun – if deemed to have failed to meet certain safety requirements – faces a multiple-year jail sentence.
H.R. 45 is a resurfacing of 2007's H.R. 2666, which contained much of the same language and was co-sponsored by 15 other representatives and Barack Obama's current chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. H.R. 2666 was assigned to the House Judiciary committee, where no action was taken.
H.R. 45 currently has no co-sponsors and is likewise assigned to the House Judiciary committee.
'This is nothing less than a declaration of war on American gun owners'
Posted: January 13, 2009
By Drew Zahn © 2009 WorldNetDaily
U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., is hoping to pass a firearm-licensing bill that will significantly rewrite gun-ownership laws in America.
Among the more controversial provisions of the bill are requirements that all handgun owners submit to the federal government a photo, thumb print and mental heath records. Further, the bill would order the attorney general to establish a database of every handgun sale, transfer and owner's address in America.
The bill claims its purpose is "to protect the public against the unreasonable risk of injury and death associated with the unrecorded sale or transfer of firearms to criminals and youth."
Get "Shooting Back," the incredible DVD that shows once and for all why you should be packing heat for the protection of yourself and your loved ones, only from WND!
Columnist David Codrea of Guns Magazine, however, calls it a "ridiculous affront to liberty."
"This is nothing less than a declaration of war on American gun owners," Codrea writes on Gun Rights Examiner.
Rush's proposed bill, H.R. 45, is alternatively known as "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009," named after an Illinois teenager killed by a gunshot.
According the bill's text, "On the afternoon of May 10, 2007, Blair Holt, a junior at Julian High School in Chicago, was killed on a public bus riding home from school when he used his body to shield a girl who was in the line of fire after a young man boarded the bus and started shooting."
The bill then argues that interstate firearm trafficking and children dying from gun violence create legitimate cause for the federal government to monitor gun ownership and transfers in new ways.
If passed, the bill would make it illegal to own or possess a "qualifying firearm" – defined as any handgun or any semiautomatic firearm that takes an ammunition clip – without a "Blair Holt" license.
To obtain a "Blair Holt" license, an application must be made that includes a photo, address, all previous aliases, thumb print, completion of a written firearm safety test, release of mental health records to the attorney general and a fee not to exceed $25.
Further, the bill makes it illegal to transfer ownership of a qualifying firearm to anyone who is not a licensed gun dealer or collector. Exceptions to this rule include transfer to family members by gift or bequest and loans, not to exceed 30 days, of a firearm for lawful purposes "between persons who are personally known to each other."
The bill also requires qualifying firearm owners to report all transfers to the attorney general's database. It would also be illegal for a licensed gun owner to fail to record a gun loss or theft within 72 hours or fail to report a change of address within 60 days.
And if a minor obtains a weapon and injures someone with it, the owner of the gun – if deemed to have failed to meet certain safety requirements – faces a multiple-year jail sentence.
H.R. 45 is a resurfacing of 2007's H.R. 2666, which contained much of the same language and was co-sponsored by 15 other representatives and Barack Obama's current chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. H.R. 2666 was assigned to the House Judiciary committee, where no action was taken.
H.R. 45 currently has no co-sponsors and is likewise assigned to the House Judiciary committee.
Tsk Tsk, and you thought he was just another pretty face...
Mickey Rourke did an interview with the Brit's GQ magazine. As reported by the UK's Daily Express -- surprise!
ROURKE: 'BUSH WAS IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME'
Monday January 12,2009
Actor MICKEY ROURKE sympathises with U.S. President GEORGE W. BUSH - insisting he doesn't know how any politician could have successfully navigated America after the 9/11 attacks on New York.
The Hollywood tough-guy spoke out about his political views in a candid interview with Britain's GQ magazine, and admits he doesn't understand why so many people blame Bush for a string of world issues - including Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in the West.
And the actor, who claims he didn't follow last year's (08) historic U.S. election battle between Barack Obama and John McCain, urges the public to consider the tremendous pressure the controversial president was under following the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
He tells the publication, "President Bush was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I don't know how anyone could have handled this situation.
"I don't give a f**k who's in office, Bush or whoever, there is no simple solution to this problem... I'm not one of those who blames Bush for everything. This s**t between Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it.
"It's too easy to blame everything on one guy. These are unpredictable, dangerous times, and I don't think that anyone really knows quite what to do."
Rourke also confesses he was so angry after 9/11, he wanted to fight the war on terror himself.
He adds, "I'm not politically educated. But I do know that after 9/11 I wanted to go over there, you know what I'm saying?"
And the star is baffled by the U.K.'s approach to fundamentalists - insisting he was taken aback by the freedom of speech allowed in the U.K.
He explains, "I was in London recently and I couldn't believe all these hate-talking fanatics you have over here who are allowed to carry on doing their thing even when a bus full of women and children gets blown to pieces.
"I know you've deported one or two of them, but it seems crazy. I think there is worse to come, something terrible will happen to either America or the U.K., or France even. I don't think these fundamentalists should be allowed to talk all this crap, and brainwashing these young kids."
ROURKE: 'BUSH WAS IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME'
Monday January 12,2009
Actor MICKEY ROURKE sympathises with U.S. President GEORGE W. BUSH - insisting he doesn't know how any politician could have successfully navigated America after the 9/11 attacks on New York.
The Hollywood tough-guy spoke out about his political views in a candid interview with Britain's GQ magazine, and admits he doesn't understand why so many people blame Bush for a string of world issues - including Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in the West.
And the actor, who claims he didn't follow last year's (08) historic U.S. election battle between Barack Obama and John McCain, urges the public to consider the tremendous pressure the controversial president was under following the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
He tells the publication, "President Bush was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I don't know how anyone could have handled this situation.
"I don't give a f**k who's in office, Bush or whoever, there is no simple solution to this problem... I'm not one of those who blames Bush for everything. This s**t between Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it.
"It's too easy to blame everything on one guy. These are unpredictable, dangerous times, and I don't think that anyone really knows quite what to do."
Rourke also confesses he was so angry after 9/11, he wanted to fight the war on terror himself.
He adds, "I'm not politically educated. But I do know that after 9/11 I wanted to go over there, you know what I'm saying?"
And the star is baffled by the U.K.'s approach to fundamentalists - insisting he was taken aback by the freedom of speech allowed in the U.K.
He explains, "I was in London recently and I couldn't believe all these hate-talking fanatics you have over here who are allowed to carry on doing their thing even when a bus full of women and children gets blown to pieces.
"I know you've deported one or two of them, but it seems crazy. I think there is worse to come, something terrible will happen to either America or the U.K., or France even. I don't think these fundamentalists should be allowed to talk all this crap, and brainwashing these young kids."
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Get back on the 'right' side of the road......
Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road
Doug Napier
Monday, January 12, 2009
Shortly after Winston’s plane landed, Winston proceeded through the airport terminal to the rental car kiosk and picked up the keys to his American made sedan. Driving out of the airport, Winston steered his car into the left-hand lane and drove toward the freeway.
Understandably, airport access roads can be very quite confusing, but the solid yellow line down the middle of the roadway was clearly visible and Winston should have known he was driving on the “wrong” side of the road. If that wasn’t enough of a clue, there were vehicles coming right at him in this left lane. Not surprisingly, the drivers of these cars honked and waved and pointed to the right hand lane. They were trying to signal to poor Winston that he was in the wrong lane.
Some drivers assumed that Winston was drunk. Others wondered if perhaps he was a confused, elderly driver. But the policeman that ultimately pulled him over found that he was neither drunk nor confused. He was British. Ah, well, that explains everything.
Winston is not like the rest of us. As a Brit, he is naturally wired to drive on the left side of the road. It’s almost as if he has no choice but to veer toward the left. While it can’t be said with any certainty that Brits are born with this left-leaning tendency, I’m sure it has been the subject of heated debate by lofty scholars in the hallowed halls of marble institutions of higher thought: the whole “nature vs. nurture” thing. But does it really matter whether Winston’s urge to drive on the left-hand side is genetically programmed or simply that this is where he feels most comfortable? Perhaps it’s just an extension of who he is.
How dare this police officer pull this poor man over for doing only what comes naturally to him. Of course, all Winston had to do upon being stopped is to announce to the policeman that he is a Brit and that during his visit to the U.S. he will be driving on the left-hand side. Now, surely the police officer, upon learning the circumstances of Winston’s predisposition, slapped Winston on the back with a friendly and understanding glance and sent him on his way with his blessing – on the wrong side of the road. After all, should police officers really be interfering with such personal preferences? What right do Americans have to arbitrarily decide that we should drive on the right side of the road anyway? Surely Brits have their rights, too?
Oh, you might say, “They can drive here, so long as they follow our rules!” But that is so hidebound and narrow. Live a little! Having an occasional “left-hander” coming down your lane will be exciting and mix things up a little. It’s diversity, for crying out loud. He isn’t saying everyone has to drive in the left lane. You can drive wherever you want. But what’s a little left-lane driving to you? It doesn’t mean you have to drive in the left lane. Who are you to judge “left-handers” anyway?
Now, you might say, “What about safety concerns?” or “We’ve always driven on the right side of the road.” But these responses only reveal how insensitive you are to poor Winston and his predilection. Of course, there may be some risks, but you have to weigh them against the severe emotional damage you might do to Winston should you suggest that he has to conform to our rigid and unaccepting standards.
And besides, over time, as more and more people grow comfortable with the idea that some people will be driving on the left side, we will all adjust, and it will become the new normal. You’ll see.
And if we haven’t already taken this analogy to a ridiculous and transparent extreme, we could go on and on and maybe even include terms such as “bigotry,” “civil rights,” and “tolerance.”
Sound silly? Perhaps. But it is no more silly or illogical than the arguments that are proffered by the outspoken advocates who are ardently advancing the campaign to redefine marriage. The extreme demands of this radical group would insist that the rest of the world bow down to its own unnatural and dangerous behavior, and they accuse those who resist of being “narrow,” “mean-spirited,” and even “un-American.”
There are very good reasons we drive on the right side of the road. There is no good reason, not even for the sake of “tolerance” (whatever that means), to introduce destructive chaos into this time-honored system.
Sure took this Pilgrim a long time to get to the point..... 'cepting I think there are several subliminal points throughout this little piece.....
Doug Napier
Monday, January 12, 2009
Shortly after Winston’s plane landed, Winston proceeded through the airport terminal to the rental car kiosk and picked up the keys to his American made sedan. Driving out of the airport, Winston steered his car into the left-hand lane and drove toward the freeway.
Understandably, airport access roads can be very quite confusing, but the solid yellow line down the middle of the roadway was clearly visible and Winston should have known he was driving on the “wrong” side of the road. If that wasn’t enough of a clue, there were vehicles coming right at him in this left lane. Not surprisingly, the drivers of these cars honked and waved and pointed to the right hand lane. They were trying to signal to poor Winston that he was in the wrong lane.
Some drivers assumed that Winston was drunk. Others wondered if perhaps he was a confused, elderly driver. But the policeman that ultimately pulled him over found that he was neither drunk nor confused. He was British. Ah, well, that explains everything.
Winston is not like the rest of us. As a Brit, he is naturally wired to drive on the left side of the road. It’s almost as if he has no choice but to veer toward the left. While it can’t be said with any certainty that Brits are born with this left-leaning tendency, I’m sure it has been the subject of heated debate by lofty scholars in the hallowed halls of marble institutions of higher thought: the whole “nature vs. nurture” thing. But does it really matter whether Winston’s urge to drive on the left-hand side is genetically programmed or simply that this is where he feels most comfortable? Perhaps it’s just an extension of who he is.
How dare this police officer pull this poor man over for doing only what comes naturally to him. Of course, all Winston had to do upon being stopped is to announce to the policeman that he is a Brit and that during his visit to the U.S. he will be driving on the left-hand side. Now, surely the police officer, upon learning the circumstances of Winston’s predisposition, slapped Winston on the back with a friendly and understanding glance and sent him on his way with his blessing – on the wrong side of the road. After all, should police officers really be interfering with such personal preferences? What right do Americans have to arbitrarily decide that we should drive on the right side of the road anyway? Surely Brits have their rights, too?
Oh, you might say, “They can drive here, so long as they follow our rules!” But that is so hidebound and narrow. Live a little! Having an occasional “left-hander” coming down your lane will be exciting and mix things up a little. It’s diversity, for crying out loud. He isn’t saying everyone has to drive in the left lane. You can drive wherever you want. But what’s a little left-lane driving to you? It doesn’t mean you have to drive in the left lane. Who are you to judge “left-handers” anyway?
Now, you might say, “What about safety concerns?” or “We’ve always driven on the right side of the road.” But these responses only reveal how insensitive you are to poor Winston and his predilection. Of course, there may be some risks, but you have to weigh them against the severe emotional damage you might do to Winston should you suggest that he has to conform to our rigid and unaccepting standards.
And besides, over time, as more and more people grow comfortable with the idea that some people will be driving on the left side, we will all adjust, and it will become the new normal. You’ll see.
And if we haven’t already taken this analogy to a ridiculous and transparent extreme, we could go on and on and maybe even include terms such as “bigotry,” “civil rights,” and “tolerance.”
Sound silly? Perhaps. But it is no more silly or illogical than the arguments that are proffered by the outspoken advocates who are ardently advancing the campaign to redefine marriage. The extreme demands of this radical group would insist that the rest of the world bow down to its own unnatural and dangerous behavior, and they accuse those who resist of being “narrow,” “mean-spirited,” and even “un-American.”
There are very good reasons we drive on the right side of the road. There is no good reason, not even for the sake of “tolerance” (whatever that means), to introduce destructive chaos into this time-honored system.
Sure took this Pilgrim a long time to get to the point..... 'cepting I think there are several subliminal points throughout this little piece.....
Monday, January 12, 2009
Gee, I wonder why they took her name off their Web page?
Obama climate czar has socialist ties
Stephen Dinan
Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.
By Thursday, Mrs. Browner's name and biography had been removed from Socialist International's Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group's congress in Greece was still available.
Socialist International, an umbrella group for many of the world's social democratic political parties such as Britain's Labor Party, says it supports socialism and is harshly critical of U.S. policies.
The group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, the organization's action arm on climate change, says the developed world must reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr. Obama, who has said action on climate change would be a priority in his administration, tapped Mrs. Browner last month to fill a new position as White House coordinator of climate and energy policies. The appointment does not need Senate confirmation.
Mr. Obama's transition team said Mrs. Browner's membership in the organization is not a problem and that it brings experience in U.S. policymaking to her new role.
"The Commission for a Sustainable World Society includes world leaders from a variety of political parties, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair, in serving as vice president of the convening organization," Obama transition spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
"Carol Browner was chosen to help the president-elect coordinate energy and climate policy because she understands that our efforts to create jobs, achieve energy security and combat climate change demand integration among different agencies; cooperation between federal, state and local governments; and partnership with the private sector," Mr. Shapiro said in an e-mail.
Mrs. Browner ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton. Until she was tapped for the Obama administration, she was on the board of directors for the National Audubon Society, the League of Conservation Voters, the Center for American Progress and former Vice President Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.
Her name has been removed from the Gore organization's Web site list of directors, and the Audubon Society issued a press release about her departure from that organization.
Republicans said Mrs. Browner's work with Socialist International raises questions.
Stephen Dinan
Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.
By Thursday, Mrs. Browner's name and biography had been removed from Socialist International's Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group's congress in Greece was still available.
Socialist International, an umbrella group for many of the world's social democratic political parties such as Britain's Labor Party, says it supports socialism and is harshly critical of U.S. policies.
The group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, the organization's action arm on climate change, says the developed world must reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr. Obama, who has said action on climate change would be a priority in his administration, tapped Mrs. Browner last month to fill a new position as White House coordinator of climate and energy policies. The appointment does not need Senate confirmation.
Mr. Obama's transition team said Mrs. Browner's membership in the organization is not a problem and that it brings experience in U.S. policymaking to her new role.
"The Commission for a Sustainable World Society includes world leaders from a variety of political parties, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair, in serving as vice president of the convening organization," Obama transition spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
"Carol Browner was chosen to help the president-elect coordinate energy and climate policy because she understands that our efforts to create jobs, achieve energy security and combat climate change demand integration among different agencies; cooperation between federal, state and local governments; and partnership with the private sector," Mr. Shapiro said in an e-mail.
Mrs. Browner ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton. Until she was tapped for the Obama administration, she was on the board of directors for the National Audubon Society, the League of Conservation Voters, the Center for American Progress and former Vice President Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.
Her name has been removed from the Gore organization's Web site list of directors, and the Audubon Society issued a press release about her departure from that organization.
Republicans said Mrs. Browner's work with Socialist International raises questions.
I've sure sold my Republican Stock until they go back to their roots...
Republicans need shareholder revolt
Star Parker
Monday, January 12, 2009
The first Gallup poll out on President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus plan shows a divided country, with Republicans in a distinct minority and in opposition.
Democrats support the $750-billion plan (67 percent to 19 percent) as do Independents (54 percent to 37 percent). But Republicans stand in opposition (56 percent to 34 percent).
But taking a look at Republican Party reality inside the Washington beltway, we see a rudderless ship, out of touch with the grass roots of its own party.
Our Republican president -- yes, he is still president -- has taken himself out of the discussion. And on Capitol Hill, the Republican leadership appears quite comfortable with the initiative in principle, expressing reservations only in regard to its form and content.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called it an "obvious need" but expressed concern about the massive spending proposal translating into "long-term systematic changes ..." House Republican leader John Boehner appealed to the importance of finding "the right balance."
Pretty tepid stuff, given the severity of the times and the underlying ideological implications of where Obama and his Democratic cohorts in Congress plan to take us.
Where is the Republican leader who is going to challenge the basic premise upon which our president-elect is rationalizing this massive new government intrusion into our economy and our lives?
Mr. Obama said it quite clearly. "...at this particular moment only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that is crippling our economy..."
The fact that there does not appear to be a single Republican leader who is capable or ready to challenge the assertion that "only government" can put our sputtering economy back on track shows we need a rebirth of the Republican Party. And that this rebirth must come from the grass roots.
Those 56 percent of Republicans that said "no" in this latest Gallup poll are looking for a leader. And that leader certainly does not seem to be in Washington.
The Wall Street Journal tallies up that when all is said and done, with the latest round of bailouts and the spending that Obama is putting on the table, the federal government will be sucking out 28 cents of every dollar produced in the American economy. The word "unprecedented" should be on our minds here.
Since World War II, the federal government take has averaged about 20 cents on the dollar. Now, take the 28 cents and add in state and local government spending and we arrive at about 40 cents of every dollar we produce that will be going to government.
Is this really the formula for restoring American greatness and prosperity?
Despite Senator McConnell's stated reservations about this spending tsunami becoming "systematic" and Obama himself saying "I'm not out to increase the size of government long-term," it's impossible to take these disclaimers seriously.
History shows that every expansion of government stays permanent.
Until now, the greatest expansion was under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that our president-elect seems to be taking as his model. At the beginning of the 1930s total government take was about 12 cents from every dollar. By the beginning of the 1940s it more than doubled to 25 cents of every dollar.
As Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw points out, the massive expansion of government during those years was supposedly to deal with temporary problems -- the depression and then the onset of World War II.
But there was never a subsequent cut back. The expansion just continued to where we are today.
As the political class in Washington transforms our once great, prosperous, and free country into a lumbering socialist mediocrity, a voice of dissent is needed.
In this sense, I like what Ken Blackwell is proposing in his run for RNC Chairman. Blackwell is calling for a "shareholder revolt" within the Republican Party and to move power, money, and influence to State organizations.
We do need a shareholder revolt in the Republican Party followed by one in the country as a whole.
Star Parker
Monday, January 12, 2009
The first Gallup poll out on President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus plan shows a divided country, with Republicans in a distinct minority and in opposition.
Democrats support the $750-billion plan (67 percent to 19 percent) as do Independents (54 percent to 37 percent). But Republicans stand in opposition (56 percent to 34 percent).
But taking a look at Republican Party reality inside the Washington beltway, we see a rudderless ship, out of touch with the grass roots of its own party.
Our Republican president -- yes, he is still president -- has taken himself out of the discussion. And on Capitol Hill, the Republican leadership appears quite comfortable with the initiative in principle, expressing reservations only in regard to its form and content.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called it an "obvious need" but expressed concern about the massive spending proposal translating into "long-term systematic changes ..." House Republican leader John Boehner appealed to the importance of finding "the right balance."
Pretty tepid stuff, given the severity of the times and the underlying ideological implications of where Obama and his Democratic cohorts in Congress plan to take us.
Where is the Republican leader who is going to challenge the basic premise upon which our president-elect is rationalizing this massive new government intrusion into our economy and our lives?
Mr. Obama said it quite clearly. "...at this particular moment only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that is crippling our economy..."
The fact that there does not appear to be a single Republican leader who is capable or ready to challenge the assertion that "only government" can put our sputtering economy back on track shows we need a rebirth of the Republican Party. And that this rebirth must come from the grass roots.
Those 56 percent of Republicans that said "no" in this latest Gallup poll are looking for a leader. And that leader certainly does not seem to be in Washington.
The Wall Street Journal tallies up that when all is said and done, with the latest round of bailouts and the spending that Obama is putting on the table, the federal government will be sucking out 28 cents of every dollar produced in the American economy. The word "unprecedented" should be on our minds here.
Since World War II, the federal government take has averaged about 20 cents on the dollar. Now, take the 28 cents and add in state and local government spending and we arrive at about 40 cents of every dollar we produce that will be going to government.
Is this really the formula for restoring American greatness and prosperity?
Despite Senator McConnell's stated reservations about this spending tsunami becoming "systematic" and Obama himself saying "I'm not out to increase the size of government long-term," it's impossible to take these disclaimers seriously.
History shows that every expansion of government stays permanent.
Until now, the greatest expansion was under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that our president-elect seems to be taking as his model. At the beginning of the 1930s total government take was about 12 cents from every dollar. By the beginning of the 1940s it more than doubled to 25 cents of every dollar.
As Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw points out, the massive expansion of government during those years was supposedly to deal with temporary problems -- the depression and then the onset of World War II.
But there was never a subsequent cut back. The expansion just continued to where we are today.
As the political class in Washington transforms our once great, prosperous, and free country into a lumbering socialist mediocrity, a voice of dissent is needed.
In this sense, I like what Ken Blackwell is proposing in his run for RNC Chairman. Blackwell is calling for a "shareholder revolt" within the Republican Party and to move power, money, and influence to State organizations.
We do need a shareholder revolt in the Republican Party followed by one in the country as a whole.
I don't know what you Pilgrims are doing, but every solicitation I get in the mail asking me to renew my Republican Party affiliation - I return sans check and include a polite, succinct note explaining that when they return to their conservative roots, I'll return to the habit of sending in my little checks each year.......
Well now - in Texas this is the day every second year that we hide our billfolds...
...hide our daughters and other assets. Today begins the bi-annual 140 day legislative session of the Texas Gob'mint!
Thousands of Bills will be filed, hundreds will end up being passed and sent to the Governor for autographing, and some of them will actually be read. It is like a Legislature on speed!
They not only have to draft, present, argue and pass legislation, needed or not, but also approve a State Budget for the next two fiscal years - until they meet again. In these certainly uncertain times, that should be interesting! I 'spect that the budget will be nudged forward as they pass all their 'to do' stuff, and then the Governor will just have to call them back for a Special Session to address the budget question.
Every time I question the sanity of such a system, I think about those States with full time legislators and the unending legislation they spew. Not to mention the grandstanding and daily interference with the lives of their constituents.
Maybe this Texas system ain't so bad after all!
Thousands of Bills will be filed, hundreds will end up being passed and sent to the Governor for autographing, and some of them will actually be read. It is like a Legislature on speed!
They not only have to draft, present, argue and pass legislation, needed or not, but also approve a State Budget for the next two fiscal years - until they meet again. In these certainly uncertain times, that should be interesting! I 'spect that the budget will be nudged forward as they pass all their 'to do' stuff, and then the Governor will just have to call them back for a Special Session to address the budget question.
Every time I question the sanity of such a system, I think about those States with full time legislators and the unending legislation they spew. Not to mention the grandstanding and daily interference with the lives of their constituents.
Maybe this Texas system ain't so bad after all!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Listened to "O" badmouth the state of the American economy the other day...
and all I could think of was the press foaming at the mouth at President Bush in 2001 when he hinted that the country might be headed into a recession. I was gonna be a good reporter and do all the research to prove my point -- when I came across this column in NewsBusters.Org. He says it succinctly and yet thoroughly:
In 2001 Press Attacked Bush For 'Talking Down Economy,' Obama Given Pass For Same in '08
By Warner Todd Huston
Created 2008-12-08 02:24
Jonathan Alter was an early accuser of new President George W. Bush when he and VP Cheney began to try to warn the country that an economic downturn was well underway as he was taking office. As Bush tried to warn the nation, the media jumped all over him for "talking down the economy." Yet, as we watch the reporting of Obama's current down talking of the economy, the media has said nothing similar to the condemnation reigned upon Bush.
The myth that people like Alter was pushing in 2001 was that Clinton bequeathed a good economy to Bush, but the reality was that the spiral had already begun to fall into negative territory months before Bush took office. Despite that obvious downturn, the media formed a chorus of attacking Bush for being too negative in the face of the American people. On March 26, Alter unleashed his Newsweek piece headlined "Thanks Ever So Much, President Poor-Mouth" Alter called Bush's warnings "risky and unusual," and made the pronouncement that Bush was wrong to do so. "Even if Bush turns out to be right in his predictions of gloom," Alter wrote, "that doesn't mean he was right to make them."
On CNN, The New York Times scolded Bush that presidents were supposed to be "cheerleaders for the nation's economy."
Yet, has anyone seen any similar scolding of the new "cheerleader" in chief, Obama? Has anyone seen an Alter sternly scolding Obama for "poor-mouthing" the economy? Has there been any hectoring from CNN over Obama's grave warnings? Where is The New York Times beating up that downcast Obama?
In fact, every single report I have seen about Obama's talk on the economy has been matter of fact. Even sometimes giving him cover for changing his campaign rhetoric about the economy by asserting his acknowledgment that he has changed his tune.
The New York Times went so far as to assess Obama's mood as optimistic, despite his claims of an further economic downslide. "Despite the bleak economic picture awaiting him, Mr. Obama sought to project an air of determined optimism," the Times published on December 7.
For its coverage, the Washington Post, assures us all that Obama is putting things in "perspective" for us as he prepares to take office. "Six weeks before taking office, just three weeks before Christmas, there was little levity in his taped appearance on Meet the Press. Yet Obama, prodded by anchor Tom Brokaw, sought to put the challenges in perspective. He said the situation today is not as gave as it was for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decades earlier..." Not a shred of castigation in the Post's coverage.
In any case, what we have here is a typical Old Media double standard. Harsh words for Bush and either neutral reporting or even praise for "their" guy
And the beat went on for eight years --- with no let up --- and the MSM still doesn't realize how transparent they are! They oughtta read a paper!
In 2001 Press Attacked Bush For 'Talking Down Economy,' Obama Given Pass For Same in '08
By Warner Todd Huston
Created 2008-12-08 02:24
Jonathan Alter was an early accuser of new President George W. Bush when he and VP Cheney began to try to warn the country that an economic downturn was well underway as he was taking office. As Bush tried to warn the nation, the media jumped all over him for "talking down the economy." Yet, as we watch the reporting of Obama's current down talking of the economy, the media has said nothing similar to the condemnation reigned upon Bush.
The myth that people like Alter was pushing in 2001 was that Clinton bequeathed a good economy to Bush, but the reality was that the spiral had already begun to fall into negative territory months before Bush took office. Despite that obvious downturn, the media formed a chorus of attacking Bush for being too negative in the face of the American people. On March 26, Alter unleashed his Newsweek piece headlined "Thanks Ever So Much, President Poor-Mouth" Alter called Bush's warnings "risky and unusual," and made the pronouncement that Bush was wrong to do so. "Even if Bush turns out to be right in his predictions of gloom," Alter wrote, "that doesn't mean he was right to make them."
On CNN, The New York Times scolded Bush that presidents were supposed to be "cheerleaders for the nation's economy."
Yet, has anyone seen any similar scolding of the new "cheerleader" in chief, Obama? Has anyone seen an Alter sternly scolding Obama for "poor-mouthing" the economy? Has there been any hectoring from CNN over Obama's grave warnings? Where is The New York Times beating up that downcast Obama?
In fact, every single report I have seen about Obama's talk on the economy has been matter of fact. Even sometimes giving him cover for changing his campaign rhetoric about the economy by asserting his acknowledgment that he has changed his tune.
The New York Times went so far as to assess Obama's mood as optimistic, despite his claims of an further economic downslide. "Despite the bleak economic picture awaiting him, Mr. Obama sought to project an air of determined optimism," the Times published on December 7.
For its coverage, the Washington Post, assures us all that Obama is putting things in "perspective" for us as he prepares to take office. "Six weeks before taking office, just three weeks before Christmas, there was little levity in his taped appearance on Meet the Press. Yet Obama, prodded by anchor Tom Brokaw, sought to put the challenges in perspective. He said the situation today is not as gave as it was for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decades earlier..." Not a shred of castigation in the Post's coverage.
In any case, what we have here is a typical Old Media double standard. Harsh words for Bush and either neutral reporting or even praise for "their" guy
And the beat went on for eight years --- with no let up --- and the MSM still doesn't realize how transparent they are! They oughtta read a paper!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The Zen of Sarcasm........
01. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me alone.
02. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.
03. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.
04. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
05. Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.
06. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
07. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
08. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
09. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is probably not for you.
10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day .
11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably a wise investment.
12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
13. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.
14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.
17. Duct tape is like 'The Force'. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
18. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.
19. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving .
20. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
21. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
AND
22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
Thanks and a 'Tip 'O the Stetson to an old military Buddy!
02. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.
03. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.
04. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
05. Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.
06. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
07. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
08. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
09. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is probably not for you.
10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day .
11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably a wise investment.
12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
13. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.
14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.
17. Duct tape is like 'The Force'. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
18. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.
19. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving .
20. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
21. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
AND
22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
Thanks and a 'Tip 'O the Stetson to an old military Buddy!
So nice to see that the 'O' man is bringing a new level of class to the gob'mint!
...from ABC news:
Obama Site Linked to 'Bush Shoe Toss' Event
Obama Site Linked to 'Bush Shoe Toss' Event
January 09, 2009 5:26 PM
ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:
Colin Powell held a press conference in Washington, D.C., Friday, touting the launch of Barack Obama's new Web site, USAService.org, which allows Americans to find -- and to promote -- local service opportunities that are searchable by zip code.
President Bush's former secretary of state said he was on the site this morning and vouched for its usefulness.
But here's betting that Powell didn't have time to go through all of the events on it.
Wanting to see how the Web site works, I typed in my hometown zip code in Los Angeles to find events within a 10-mile radius.
It pointed me to several events, including a blood drive, a graffiti cleanup, and an "Obama Celebration and Bush Shoe Toss."
The event, which was listed as a "Day of Service -- January 19," is taking place at the soon-to-open Carnivale Café on the corner of Vermont and Normal.
"Come celebrate with us," wrote Gilbert Gazan, 46, in the event's description. "Say goodbye to old Georgie ... Throw a shoe at a poster of Bush and win a free drink."
Other than doing an occasional "very cursory" review of the site to make sure there are no "glaringly inappropriate" events on the site, the Presidential Inaugural Committee is "not vetting the groups that are offering service opportunities or the individuals that are offering service opportunities or the people who want to participate," according to Linda Douglass, the committee's chief spokesperson.
"This is a hub," said Douglass. "It is very much like CraigsList, matching up individuals and groups who want to participate with opportunities to serve."
Asked about the "Bush Shoe Toss" advertised on Obama's site, Douglass said, "That obviously does not sound like any description of public service that we have in mind. But again, we are not in the business of regulating this. We're just in the business of giving people opportunities."
A few minutes later, after talking with her colleagues, Douglass called back to say that the committee has removed the "Bush Shoe Toss" from the site because "it does not appear those activities are connected to community service."
Gazan, who was inspired by the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush, is undeterred.
Asked if he plans to go forward with the "Bush Shoe Toss" contest now that it has been deleted from USAService.org, Gazan said, "Oh, yeah, we have 22,000 students across the street at Los Angeles Community College."
"The whole world is breathing a sigh of relief," he added, referring to Bush's looming departure.
ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:
Colin Powell held a press conference in Washington, D.C., Friday, touting the launch of Barack Obama's new Web site, USAService.org, which allows Americans to find -- and to promote -- local service opportunities that are searchable by zip code.
President Bush's former secretary of state said he was on the site this morning and vouched for its usefulness.
But here's betting that Powell didn't have time to go through all of the events on it.
Wanting to see how the Web site works, I typed in my hometown zip code in Los Angeles to find events within a 10-mile radius.
It pointed me to several events, including a blood drive, a graffiti cleanup, and an "Obama Celebration and Bush Shoe Toss."
The event, which was listed as a "Day of Service -- January 19," is taking place at the soon-to-open Carnivale Café on the corner of Vermont and Normal.
"Come celebrate with us," wrote Gilbert Gazan, 46, in the event's description. "Say goodbye to old Georgie ... Throw a shoe at a poster of Bush and win a free drink."
Other than doing an occasional "very cursory" review of the site to make sure there are no "glaringly inappropriate" events on the site, the Presidential Inaugural Committee is "not vetting the groups that are offering service opportunities or the individuals that are offering service opportunities or the people who want to participate," according to Linda Douglass, the committee's chief spokesperson.
"This is a hub," said Douglass. "It is very much like CraigsList, matching up individuals and groups who want to participate with opportunities to serve."
Asked about the "Bush Shoe Toss" advertised on Obama's site, Douglass said, "That obviously does not sound like any description of public service that we have in mind. But again, we are not in the business of regulating this. We're just in the business of giving people opportunities."
A few minutes later, after talking with her colleagues, Douglass called back to say that the committee has removed the "Bush Shoe Toss" from the site because "it does not appear those activities are connected to community service."
Gazan, who was inspired by the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush, is undeterred.
Asked if he plans to go forward with the "Bush Shoe Toss" contest now that it has been deleted from USAService.org, Gazan said, "Oh, yeah, we have 22,000 students across the street at Los Angeles Community College."
"The whole world is breathing a sigh of relief," he added, referring to Bush's looming departure.
Great column in the NY Post this morning regarding Burris vs Reid fiasco!
THE BURRIS CIRCUS
By JONAH GOLDBERG
January 10, 2009 --
THE Democrats are folding like an ironing board over this Roland Burris business, and for some reason people are surprised.
Just to catch up: The governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is in scalding-hot water over allegations he wanted to sell Barack Obama's still-warm Senate seat.
In response, Senate Democrats took a Churchillian stand, vowing that no Blago appointee would ever be accepted by the Senate. No appointee so tainted with scandal, they insisted, could be allowed to sit in the same chamber that Ted Kennedy calls home.
Even after Blagojevich announced he was appointing Roland Burris, a respected but unremarkable black Illinois politician, to Obama's seat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada stood his ground, pronouncing the move "unacceptable."
But that resolve melted like a Hershey bar in a Nevada parking lot the moment Mr. Burris came to Washington. Apparently, the Constitution wasn't on the Democrats' side (Fancy that!) and liberals lacked the stomach to stand in the doorway of the Capitol and block admittance of a black man.
Indeed, that was Blago's thinking all along. When the Democratic governor announced his decision, he assembled various black Illinois pols to support the move, including Rep. Bobby Rush, a founder of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Rush immediately played the race card: "There are no African-Americans in the US Senate. And I don't think any US senator who's sitting in the Senate right now wants to go on record to deny one African-American from being seated in the US Senate," he said.
Rush assembled more than 60 black ministers Sunday to rally around Burris at a Chicago church. "We are just faced with a hard-headed room of people in the Senate who want to keep an African-American out of the Senate," Rush said. He condemned the Senate, where until recently Barack Obama served before becoming president of the United States, as "the last bastion of plantation politics."
And that was all she wrote for Reid, who by next week should be on all fours like Kevin Bacon in "Animal House," shouting, "Thank you, sir - may I have another?" as Burris paddles him.
Now, I certainly understand why Reid & Co. caved. But why all the fuss in the first place? Isn't this how it always works?
The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, an impressive African-American writer, is amazed that "Reid has been outmaneuvered by the sort of overt, hamfisted identity politics deployed in the '70s."
The '70s? So this sort of thing stopped more than three decades ago? I had no idea. What planet do my newscasts come from? I thought this was simply what liberals and Democrats do.
* When Newt Gingrich introduced the Contract with America, black Democrats denounced it as racist. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-Harlem) proclaimed, "Hitler wasn't even talking about doing these things."
* When impeachment threatened Bill Clinton, he draped himself in black ministers and staffers.
* The NAACP ran an ad narrated by the daughter of James Byrd, a black man brutally murdered in a hate crime, insinuating that then-presidential candidate George W. Bush's refusal to support hate-crime legislation in Texas was like murdering her father again.
* In the recent campaign, nearly the entire liberal punditocracy insisted that opposition to Barack Obama could only be explained by racism, a story line egged on by Obama himself when convenient.
And don't tell me Blago's corruption changes the equation. Ever read about the baleful history of minority set-aside programs in cities like Chicago? Cronies and grifters are routinely given sweetheart contracts under the guise of fighting discrimination when in reality it's all a riot of kickbacks, "pay-to-play" and cronyism. People don't call Jesse Jackson a shakedown artist for nothing.
There are two reasons why this spectacle shocks some liberals. First: Blago, Burris and Rush used this tactic on fellow Democrats. And since Democrats can't be motivated by racism, any ploy like this must be cynical. When the same gambit is used on Republicans, it's called "speaking truth to power." Second: Some honestly believed that Obama represented a real change of the racial landscape. So far, alas, these folks just look naive.
And so it goes........... and the curtain is just going up on this circus!
By JONAH GOLDBERG
January 10, 2009 --
THE Democrats are folding like an ironing board over this Roland Burris business, and for some reason people are surprised.
Just to catch up: The governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is in scalding-hot water over allegations he wanted to sell Barack Obama's still-warm Senate seat.
In response, Senate Democrats took a Churchillian stand, vowing that no Blago appointee would ever be accepted by the Senate. No appointee so tainted with scandal, they insisted, could be allowed to sit in the same chamber that Ted Kennedy calls home.
Even after Blagojevich announced he was appointing Roland Burris, a respected but unremarkable black Illinois politician, to Obama's seat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada stood his ground, pronouncing the move "unacceptable."
But that resolve melted like a Hershey bar in a Nevada parking lot the moment Mr. Burris came to Washington. Apparently, the Constitution wasn't on the Democrats' side (Fancy that!) and liberals lacked the stomach to stand in the doorway of the Capitol and block admittance of a black man.
Indeed, that was Blago's thinking all along. When the Democratic governor announced his decision, he assembled various black Illinois pols to support the move, including Rep. Bobby Rush, a founder of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Rush immediately played the race card: "There are no African-Americans in the US Senate. And I don't think any US senator who's sitting in the Senate right now wants to go on record to deny one African-American from being seated in the US Senate," he said.
Rush assembled more than 60 black ministers Sunday to rally around Burris at a Chicago church. "We are just faced with a hard-headed room of people in the Senate who want to keep an African-American out of the Senate," Rush said. He condemned the Senate, where until recently Barack Obama served before becoming president of the United States, as "the last bastion of plantation politics."
And that was all she wrote for Reid, who by next week should be on all fours like Kevin Bacon in "Animal House," shouting, "Thank you, sir - may I have another?" as Burris paddles him.
Now, I certainly understand why Reid & Co. caved. But why all the fuss in the first place? Isn't this how it always works?
The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, an impressive African-American writer, is amazed that "Reid has been outmaneuvered by the sort of overt, hamfisted identity politics deployed in the '70s."
The '70s? So this sort of thing stopped more than three decades ago? I had no idea. What planet do my newscasts come from? I thought this was simply what liberals and Democrats do.
* When Newt Gingrich introduced the Contract with America, black Democrats denounced it as racist. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-Harlem) proclaimed, "Hitler wasn't even talking about doing these things."
* When impeachment threatened Bill Clinton, he draped himself in black ministers and staffers.
* The NAACP ran an ad narrated by the daughter of James Byrd, a black man brutally murdered in a hate crime, insinuating that then-presidential candidate George W. Bush's refusal to support hate-crime legislation in Texas was like murdering her father again.
* In the recent campaign, nearly the entire liberal punditocracy insisted that opposition to Barack Obama could only be explained by racism, a story line egged on by Obama himself when convenient.
And don't tell me Blago's corruption changes the equation. Ever read about the baleful history of minority set-aside programs in cities like Chicago? Cronies and grifters are routinely given sweetheart contracts under the guise of fighting discrimination when in reality it's all a riot of kickbacks, "pay-to-play" and cronyism. People don't call Jesse Jackson a shakedown artist for nothing.
There are two reasons why this spectacle shocks some liberals. First: Blago, Burris and Rush used this tactic on fellow Democrats. And since Democrats can't be motivated by racism, any ploy like this must be cynical. When the same gambit is used on Republicans, it's called "speaking truth to power." Second: Some honestly believed that Obama represented a real change of the racial landscape. So far, alas, these folks just look naive.
And so it goes........... and the curtain is just going up on this circus!
Friday, January 9, 2009
How Green is Our Congress?
NY Rep. Eric Massa, From Fuel Cell to Fool Sell
Posted by Warner Todd Huston
January 9th at 4:18AM EST
The newly sworn-in Democratic Representative from New York’s 29th District, Eric Massa, has apparently made a fuel of himself… and of those that elected him. And the amusing thing is he did it on the way to his swearing in ceremony. No waiting to actually take office for
Massa. No, this man thinks BIG!
With great fanfare from local and regional media, Massa announced that he would drive a GM Hydrogen fuel cell car to Washington to “highlight new industries” and green fuel technologies. It was supposed to be a feels good move to garner the new Congressman some face time on TV and the golly-gee-wows of the country.
Then reality came a’knockin.’
The distance that Massa had to travel to get to the federal capitol was about 282 miles. Unfortunately for Massa, the GM Equinox can only travel between 150 and 200 miles before it is hors de combat and in need of a re-charge of its batteries.
No problem, thought the erstwhile greenie from Corning. If one hydrogen fuel cell car is good, why not get two for the trip? So, that’s just what he did. Once Massa got to Harrisburg, he hopped out of the spent green wonder and into the waiting second tech-wow-mobile to finish his trip to the Capitol steps.
After he got to D.C. he happily announced how great the trip was in his green machine.
So, what became of the two cars? Why a pair of Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid SUVs were used to cart them back to GM.
The prototype that Massa drove from Corning to Harrisburg was towed back to Honeoye Falls, south of Rochester, where General Motors builds the fuel-cell stacks that go into the cars. The other vehicle was returned to Washington, D.C.
But, it is even funnier. You see, one SUV was used to tow the other until the towed SUV was needed to tow the second Equinox back to green-central. The Tahoe gets about 20 miles to the gallon, but less when towing another SUV.
In the end, Massa’s trip was neither emissions-free, nor low on the use of standard gasoline. In fact, it was far more expensive than if he’d just taken any old regular car on the market today and driven himself to D.C.
Naturally, Carolyn Markey, the GM spokesman for the stunt, said it was all part of the plan… or so goes the Malarky that Markey ladled out to the press on January 8.
It was all a show best seen as a Saturday Night Live skit gone stupid. Good choice, New York. Another fine, fine Congressman sent to D.C.
Thanks and a 'Tip 'o the Stetson to Red State.com'
Posted by Warner Todd Huston
January 9th at 4:18AM EST
The newly sworn-in Democratic Representative from New York’s 29th District, Eric Massa, has apparently made a fuel of himself… and of those that elected him. And the amusing thing is he did it on the way to his swearing in ceremony. No waiting to actually take office for
Massa. No, this man thinks BIG!With great fanfare from local and regional media, Massa announced that he would drive a GM Hydrogen fuel cell car to Washington to “highlight new industries” and green fuel technologies. It was supposed to be a feels good move to garner the new Congressman some face time on TV and the golly-gee-wows of the country.
Then reality came a’knockin.’
The distance that Massa had to travel to get to the federal capitol was about 282 miles. Unfortunately for Massa, the GM Equinox can only travel between 150 and 200 miles before it is hors de combat and in need of a re-charge of its batteries.
No problem, thought the erstwhile greenie from Corning. If one hydrogen fuel cell car is good, why not get two for the trip? So, that’s just what he did. Once Massa got to Harrisburg, he hopped out of the spent green wonder and into the waiting second tech-wow-mobile to finish his trip to the Capitol steps.
After he got to D.C. he happily announced how great the trip was in his green machine.
So, what became of the two cars? Why a pair of Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid SUVs were used to cart them back to GM.
The prototype that Massa drove from Corning to Harrisburg was towed back to Honeoye Falls, south of Rochester, where General Motors builds the fuel-cell stacks that go into the cars. The other vehicle was returned to Washington, D.C.
But, it is even funnier. You see, one SUV was used to tow the other until the towed SUV was needed to tow the second Equinox back to green-central. The Tahoe gets about 20 miles to the gallon, but less when towing another SUV.
In the end, Massa’s trip was neither emissions-free, nor low on the use of standard gasoline. In fact, it was far more expensive than if he’d just taken any old regular car on the market today and driven himself to D.C.
Naturally, Carolyn Markey, the GM spokesman for the stunt, said it was all part of the plan… or so goes the Malarky that Markey ladled out to the press on January 8.
It was all a show best seen as a Saturday Night Live skit gone stupid. Good choice, New York. Another fine, fine Congressman sent to D.C.
Thanks and a 'Tip 'o the Stetson to Red State.com'
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Annie locks, loads and aims at the MSM!!!
THIS IS THE DOWNER WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!
by Ann Coulter
January 7, 2009
After NBC canceled me "for life" on Monday -- until seven or eight hours later when the ban was splashed across the top of The Drudge Report, forcing a red-faced NBC to withdraw the ban -- an NBC insider told The Drudge Report: "We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," explaining that "it's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."
In point of fact, I'm not particularly critical of Obama in my new book. I'm critical of the media for behaving like a protection racket for Obama rather than the constitutionally protected guardians of our liberty that they claim to be. So I think what the NBC insider meant to say is that NBC is not interested in anyone so highly critical of NBC right now. It's such a downer, it's just not the time, and it's not what their audience wants right now, either.
In fact, I think my book is the downer America has been waiting for! So herewith, I present an excerpt from the smash new book out this week, "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America":
When the Obama family materialized, the media was seized by a mass psychosis that hadn't been witnessed since Beatlemania. OK! magazine raved that the Obamas "are such an all-American family that they almost make the Brady Bunch look dysfunctional." Yes, who can forget the madcap episode when the Bradys' wacky preacher tells them the government created AIDS to kill blacks!
Still gushing, OK! magazine's crack journalists reported: "Mom goes to bake sales, dad balances the checkbook, and the girls love Harry Potter" -- and then the whole family goes to a racist huckster who shouts, "God damn America!"
Months before network anchors were interrogating vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the intricacies of foreign policy, here is how NBC's Brian Williams mercilessly grilled presidential candidate Barack Obama: "What was it like for you last night, the part we couldn't see, the flight to St. Paul with your wife, knowing what was awaiting?"
Twisting the knife he had just plunged into Obama, Williams followed up with what has come to be known as a "gotcha" question: "And you had to be thinking of your mother and your father." Sarah Palin was memorizing the last six kings of Swaziland for her media interviews, but Obama only needed to say something nice about his parents to be considered presidential material.
The media's fawning over Obama knew no bounds, and yet, in the midst of the most incredible media conspiracy to turn this jug-eared clodhopper into some combination of Winston Churchill and a young Elvis, you were being a bore if you mentioned the liberal media. Oh surely we've exploded that old chestnut. ... Look! Look, Obama just lit up another Marlboro! Geez, does smoking make you look cool, or what! Yeah, Obama!.
The claim that there's no such thing as a left wing press is a patent lie said to enrage conservatives. Newspapers read like the press under Kim Jung Il, which, outside of a police state, looks foolish. The prose is straight out of The Daily Worker, full of triumphal rhetoric with implicit exclamation points. Still, their chanted slogans fill your brain, like one of those bad songs you can't stop humming.
There is no other explanation for the embarrassing paeans to Obama's "eloquence." His speeches were a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark card bromides. It seemed only a matter of time before Obama would slip and tell a crowd what a special Dad it had always been to him.
The major theme of Obama's campaign was the audacity of his running for president. He titled his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, "The Audacity of Hope" –- named after a sermon given by his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, whom we were not allowed to mention without being accused of playing dirty tricks. (Rejected speech titles from sermons by Rev. Wright included "God Damn America!," "The U.S. of K.K.A." and "The Racist United States of America.")
What is so audacious about announcing that you're running for president? Every U.S. Senator has run for president or is currently thinking about running for president. Dennis Kucinich ran for president. Lyndon LaRouche used to run for president constantly.
But the media were giddy over their latest crush. Even when Obama broke a pledge and rejected public financing for his campaign -- an issue more dear to The New York Times than even gay marriage -- the Times led the article on Obama's broken pledge with his excuse. "Citing the specter of attacks from independent groups on the right," the Times article began, "Sen. Barack Obama announced Thursday that he would opt out of the public financing system for the general election."
So he had to break his pledge because he was a victim of the Republican Attack Machine.
When Obama broke his word and voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill (FISA), the Times' editorial began: We are shocked and dismayed by Sen. Obama's vote on ... oh, who are we kidding? We can't stay mad at this guy! Isn't he just adorable? Couldn't you just eat him up with a spoon? Is he looking at me? Ohmigod, I think he's looking at me!!!! Couldn't you just die?
It has ever been thus.
by Ann Coulter
January 7, 2009
After NBC canceled me "for life" on Monday -- until seven or eight hours later when the ban was splashed across the top of The Drudge Report, forcing a red-faced NBC to withdraw the ban -- an NBC insider told The Drudge Report: "We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," explaining that "it's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."
In point of fact, I'm not particularly critical of Obama in my new book. I'm critical of the media for behaving like a protection racket for Obama rather than the constitutionally protected guardians of our liberty that they claim to be. So I think what the NBC insider meant to say is that NBC is not interested in anyone so highly critical of NBC right now. It's such a downer, it's just not the time, and it's not what their audience wants right now, either.
In fact, I think my book is the downer America has been waiting for! So herewith, I present an excerpt from the smash new book out this week, "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America":
When the Obama family materialized, the media was seized by a mass psychosis that hadn't been witnessed since Beatlemania. OK! magazine raved that the Obamas "are such an all-American family that they almost make the Brady Bunch look dysfunctional." Yes, who can forget the madcap episode when the Bradys' wacky preacher tells them the government created AIDS to kill blacks!
Still gushing, OK! magazine's crack journalists reported: "Mom goes to bake sales, dad balances the checkbook, and the girls love Harry Potter" -- and then the whole family goes to a racist huckster who shouts, "God damn America!"
Months before network anchors were interrogating vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the intricacies of foreign policy, here is how NBC's Brian Williams mercilessly grilled presidential candidate Barack Obama: "What was it like for you last night, the part we couldn't see, the flight to St. Paul with your wife, knowing what was awaiting?"
Twisting the knife he had just plunged into Obama, Williams followed up with what has come to be known as a "gotcha" question: "And you had to be thinking of your mother and your father." Sarah Palin was memorizing the last six kings of Swaziland for her media interviews, but Obama only needed to say something nice about his parents to be considered presidential material.
The media's fawning over Obama knew no bounds, and yet, in the midst of the most incredible media conspiracy to turn this jug-eared clodhopper into some combination of Winston Churchill and a young Elvis, you were being a bore if you mentioned the liberal media. Oh surely we've exploded that old chestnut. ... Look! Look, Obama just lit up another Marlboro! Geez, does smoking make you look cool, or what! Yeah, Obama!.
The claim that there's no such thing as a left wing press is a patent lie said to enrage conservatives. Newspapers read like the press under Kim Jung Il, which, outside of a police state, looks foolish. The prose is straight out of The Daily Worker, full of triumphal rhetoric with implicit exclamation points. Still, their chanted slogans fill your brain, like one of those bad songs you can't stop humming.
There is no other explanation for the embarrassing paeans to Obama's "eloquence." His speeches were a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark card bromides. It seemed only a matter of time before Obama would slip and tell a crowd what a special Dad it had always been to him.
The major theme of Obama's campaign was the audacity of his running for president. He titled his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, "The Audacity of Hope" –- named after a sermon given by his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, whom we were not allowed to mention without being accused of playing dirty tricks. (Rejected speech titles from sermons by Rev. Wright included "God Damn America!," "The U.S. of K.K.A." and "The Racist United States of America.")
What is so audacious about announcing that you're running for president? Every U.S. Senator has run for president or is currently thinking about running for president. Dennis Kucinich ran for president. Lyndon LaRouche used to run for president constantly.
But the media were giddy over their latest crush. Even when Obama broke a pledge and rejected public financing for his campaign -- an issue more dear to The New York Times than even gay marriage -- the Times led the article on Obama's broken pledge with his excuse. "Citing the specter of attacks from independent groups on the right," the Times article began, "Sen. Barack Obama announced Thursday that he would opt out of the public financing system for the general election."
So he had to break his pledge because he was a victim of the Republican Attack Machine.
When Obama broke his word and voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill (FISA), the Times' editorial began: We are shocked and dismayed by Sen. Obama's vote on ... oh, who are we kidding? We can't stay mad at this guy! Isn't he just adorable? Couldn't you just eat him up with a spoon? Is he looking at me? Ohmigod, I think he's looking at me!!!! Couldn't you just die?
It has ever been thus.
A made a New Years Resolution to give 'O' a free pass for a while...
and I've lasted eight long days. But I didn't promise not to let others speak out!
GUTTING SECURITY
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
January 8, 2009 --
PRESIDENT-elect Barack Obama's appointments to Homeland Security, the Justice Department and now the CIA indicate a virtual abandonment of the War on Terror.
As Homeland Security chief, he's named a governor whose only experience has been with the US-Mexican border. His attorney general pick, meanwhile, took the lead in pardoning FALN terrorists. Now he has rounded out his national-security and Justice Department teams by naming ultraliberals.
Leon Panetta, his choice for CIA chief, is as liberal as they come. Though originally a pro-Nixon congressman, he long ago embraced the left with the fervor of a convert and brings these values to the CIA.
As President Bill Clinton's chief of staff (a tenure that coincided with my own work with Clinton), he was a dedicated liberal, opposing accommodation with the Republicans who ran Congress and battling hard against a balanced-budget deal. After winning re-election, Clinton jettisoned Panetta for the more moderate Erskine Bowles in order to reach a deal with the GOP.
Plus, Panetta was a prime mover in the 1995 appointment of John Deutch to head CIA, replacing hardliner Jim Woolsey. Deutch eventually needed a presidential pardon after being caught committing a massive security breach by taking home his laptop, laden with secret files.
Choosing Panetta to head the CIA culminates liberals' 35-year crusade to take over the agency, humble its operatives and rein in its operations. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter named liberal JFK adviser Ted Sorenson to head CIA, only to have the nomination killed. In 1997, Clinton tried to name his ultraleftist National Security Adviser Tony Lake (who had quit Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's staff over Vietnam), only to have that nomination rejected as well.
Each time, the intelligence community acted to protect its own and curbed the liberal president's inclinations. But now, under Obama, the Democrats will finally have their way and appoint a liberal zealot to head the agency.
Panetta will, presumably, curb such practices as waterboarding, rendition and warrantless wiretapping. So we won't gather much intelligence - but our spies will dot all the i's and cross all the t's.
Over at Justice, Obama is naming four liberals to staff the agency, each determined to rein in effective intelligence-gathering.
Professor Dawn Johnsen of Indiana University Law School is to head the Office of Legal Counsel. She distinguished herself by writing a law-review article taking issue with President Bush's efforts to keep us safe. It was titled, "What's a President To Do: Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of the Bush Administration Abuses." Presumably, she'll bring back the days of the wall between criminal and intelligence investigations, which led to our failure to examine the computer of "20th hijacker" Zacharias Moussaoui, which contained wire-fund-transfer information on the other hijackers.
No less an authority than Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who taught Elena Kagan, the new solicitor general, predicted that she and Johnsen would "freshly re-examine some of the positions the previous administration has taken."
Obama's other Justice appointments, David Ogden as deputy attorney general and Thomas Perrelli as associate AG, bring back Clinton/Reno Justice Department retreads. Both participated eagerly in the constraints on intelligence-gathering that left us so vulnerable on 9/11.
Bush's legacy shows one clear achievement: He kept us safe after 9/11. Now his successor's policies are about to eradicate that singular achievement. The liberals will, of course, all cheer these appointments and the policies they'll pursue once in office, but these appointments make it frighteningly more likely that we will, indeed, be hit again.
These are dangerous times Pilgrims!!
GUTTING SECURITY
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
January 8, 2009 --
PRESIDENT-elect Barack Obama's appointments to Homeland Security, the Justice Department and now the CIA indicate a virtual abandonment of the War on Terror.
As Homeland Security chief, he's named a governor whose only experience has been with the US-Mexican border. His attorney general pick, meanwhile, took the lead in pardoning FALN terrorists. Now he has rounded out his national-security and Justice Department teams by naming ultraliberals.
Leon Panetta, his choice for CIA chief, is as liberal as they come. Though originally a pro-Nixon congressman, he long ago embraced the left with the fervor of a convert and brings these values to the CIA.
As President Bill Clinton's chief of staff (a tenure that coincided with my own work with Clinton), he was a dedicated liberal, opposing accommodation with the Republicans who ran Congress and battling hard against a balanced-budget deal. After winning re-election, Clinton jettisoned Panetta for the more moderate Erskine Bowles in order to reach a deal with the GOP.
Plus, Panetta was a prime mover in the 1995 appointment of John Deutch to head CIA, replacing hardliner Jim Woolsey. Deutch eventually needed a presidential pardon after being caught committing a massive security breach by taking home his laptop, laden with secret files.
Choosing Panetta to head the CIA culminates liberals' 35-year crusade to take over the agency, humble its operatives and rein in its operations. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter named liberal JFK adviser Ted Sorenson to head CIA, only to have the nomination killed. In 1997, Clinton tried to name his ultraleftist National Security Adviser Tony Lake (who had quit Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's staff over Vietnam), only to have that nomination rejected as well.
Each time, the intelligence community acted to protect its own and curbed the liberal president's inclinations. But now, under Obama, the Democrats will finally have their way and appoint a liberal zealot to head the agency.
Panetta will, presumably, curb such practices as waterboarding, rendition and warrantless wiretapping. So we won't gather much intelligence - but our spies will dot all the i's and cross all the t's.
Over at Justice, Obama is naming four liberals to staff the agency, each determined to rein in effective intelligence-gathering.
Professor Dawn Johnsen of Indiana University Law School is to head the Office of Legal Counsel. She distinguished herself by writing a law-review article taking issue with President Bush's efforts to keep us safe. It was titled, "What's a President To Do: Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of the Bush Administration Abuses." Presumably, she'll bring back the days of the wall between criminal and intelligence investigations, which led to our failure to examine the computer of "20th hijacker" Zacharias Moussaoui, which contained wire-fund-transfer information on the other hijackers.
No less an authority than Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who taught Elena Kagan, the new solicitor general, predicted that she and Johnsen would "freshly re-examine some of the positions the previous administration has taken."
Obama's other Justice appointments, David Ogden as deputy attorney general and Thomas Perrelli as associate AG, bring back Clinton/Reno Justice Department retreads. Both participated eagerly in the constraints on intelligence-gathering that left us so vulnerable on 9/11.
Bush's legacy shows one clear achievement: He kept us safe after 9/11. Now his successor's policies are about to eradicate that singular achievement. The liberals will, of course, all cheer these appointments and the policies they'll pursue once in office, but these appointments make it frighteningly more likely that we will, indeed, be hit again.
These are dangerous times Pilgrims!!
Discrimination seems to never end in this country....
Now I ask you --- is this blatent discrimination or what??Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Presidential limousines......
I have it on good authority that this is NOT going to be the new Presidential Limousine:
'Course I was also told that this was "W"'s first choice until Laura put her foot down and said she had to date him in a pick-up, she wasn't gonna be first lady in one!
But -- what do I know????????
And Hellary ain't even Secretary of State yet....!
Sold-out movie thwarts Bidens
OK, if it wasn't them, then who were those Secret Service guys?
By ANGIE BASIOUNY
The News Journal
He's a heartbeat away from the presidency, but that apparently didn't help Joe Biden get a movie ticket Saturday night.
Employees at the Regal Brandywine Cinemas say the vice president-elect and his
wife, Jill, tried to attend the 7:45 showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" at the theater on Concord Pike but left after they were told the movie was sold out.
There's been no confirmation from the Biden camp, but the theater employees say they are sure it was him.
Inshirah Muhamut, an associate manager, said she closed her box-office line when she saw what appeared to be a Secret Service agent coming her way.
The man asked her about tickets for the movie, which stars Brad Pitt, then left.
A few minutes later, she said, the Bidens came into the lobby.
Jill Biden walked up to speak with Muhamut while Joe stood nearby.
"She was asking me about other shows, but they really wanted to see 'Benjamin Button,' " Muhamut said. "He was maybe five feet away, looking at her. He was standing with his other Secret Service men."
Remarkably, none of the other moviegoers appeared to notice. Employees said nobody mobbed Biden or called his name or asked for an autograph.
"It didn't seem many people recognized him," said employee Becky Gingrich, 21. "Honestly, I think people were just too wrapped up in themselves to notice."
The brush with Biden did give the employees a thrill, though.
"I was a little excited -- I'm not gonna lie," said Muhamut, a 21-year-old senior at West Chester University. "The Secret Service guy told me to calm down."
Muhamut plans to go to the Jan. 20 inauguration, so seeing the Bidens up close was a kick.
"I recognized him as soon as he came up," she said. "He had a black jacket and jeans on. He looked real casual. His wife had on a very stylish jacket."
Gingrich and Muhamut said the Bidens didn't ask for special treatment. They simply mulled over their movie options and left.
"We're just so crazy in here tonight [with patrons] that we would have had to go into the theater and move people around," Gingrich said.
OK, if it wasn't them, then who were those Secret Service guys?
By ANGIE BASIOUNY
The News Journal
He's a heartbeat away from the presidency, but that apparently didn't help Joe Biden get a movie ticket Saturday night.
Employees at the Regal Brandywine Cinemas say the vice president-elect and his
wife, Jill, tried to attend the 7:45 showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" at the theater on Concord Pike but left after they were told the movie was sold out.There's been no confirmation from the Biden camp, but the theater employees say they are sure it was him.
Inshirah Muhamut, an associate manager, said she closed her box-office line when she saw what appeared to be a Secret Service agent coming her way.
The man asked her about tickets for the movie, which stars Brad Pitt, then left.
A few minutes later, she said, the Bidens came into the lobby.
Jill Biden walked up to speak with Muhamut while Joe stood nearby.
"She was asking me about other shows, but they really wanted to see 'Benjamin Button,' " Muhamut said. "He was maybe five feet away, looking at her. He was standing with his other Secret Service men."
Remarkably, none of the other moviegoers appeared to notice. Employees said nobody mobbed Biden or called his name or asked for an autograph.
"It didn't seem many people recognized him," said employee Becky Gingrich, 21. "Honestly, I think people were just too wrapped up in themselves to notice."
The brush with Biden did give the employees a thrill, though.
"I was a little excited -- I'm not gonna lie," said Muhamut, a 21-year-old senior at West Chester University. "The Secret Service guy told me to calm down."
Muhamut plans to go to the Jan. 20 inauguration, so seeing the Bidens up close was a kick.
"I recognized him as soon as he came up," she said. "He had a black jacket and jeans on. He looked real casual. His wife had on a very stylish jacket."
Gingrich and Muhamut said the Bidens didn't ask for special treatment. They simply mulled over their movie options and left.
"We're just so crazy in here tonight [with patrons] that we would have had to go into the theater and move people around," Gingrich said.
If Joltin' Joe (he's from Scranton ya' know) Biden, is unrecognizable now in his home state -- wait 'til he becomes Hellary's valet.......
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
No way to treat a ski guest.......
Apparently, Vail is not always hospitable to visiting skiers... From TSG:
Skier Suffers Exposure
Man left dangling upside down, pantsless after Vail lift mishap
JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Friday morning. The January 2 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair's botched 10:30 AM boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair
Skier Suffers Exposure
Man left dangling upside down, pantsless after Vail lift mishap
JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Friday morning. The January 2 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair's botched 10:30 AM boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair
Monday, January 5, 2009
Take a minute - then get mad as hell - and remember Pilgrims!!
THE PARTY'S OVER
By Linda Monk
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America . The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism. This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko (
' Greed Is Good! ' ) capitalism.
What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative (Rep or Dem) cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess -- that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk? ' Government must save us! ' cries the left, as ever.
Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government -- the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy? For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars. We are going to have to learn to live again within our means.
THE PARTY'S OVER! Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent. But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "Global Companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico , Asia, China , and India , and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad. At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar. Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end. The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars, or balance its budget.
Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars. What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system. Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen. Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U. S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves. Unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us -- the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved -- the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away. Added Comments: How do WE THE PEOPLE put the villains who are responsible under oath and sit them down at public hearings to determine whose necks should meet the guillotine? Hypocritically, those who had oversight responsibility such as Senator Chris Dodd [Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee] and Barney Frank [Chairmen, House Financial Services Committee] who helped get us into this mess are on every TV channel voicing their righteous indignation and pompously sitting on their elevated platform glaring down at those they are chastising and grilling, trying to pass the blame to others.
WE THE PEOPLE should be on the elevated platform in judgment and execution of the likes of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, and the rest of the band of thieves and conspirators who are responsible for the financial collapse of the USA . To name just a few of the culprits: Henry Paulson Jr, Secretary of the Treasury Alan Greenspan & Ben Bernanke -- Chairman Federal Reserve Christopher Cox, SEC Chairman.
But not to worry -- YOUR PUBLIC SERVANTS who fear being voted out of office will take their self-awarded Golden Parachute Congressional Retirement, give WE THE PEOPLE the finger one last time and head for their safe havens as the World Citizens they are. However, before they waddle off into the sunset, they will go on record one last time denouncing corporate greed, lavish salaries, and bonuses for their key felons at Fannie May, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers & AIG Meanwhile, WE THE PEOPLE fiddle while Rome burns and were too lazy and indifferent to vote them out of office.
Who'da figured I'd agree with an attorney so much I'd post her whole article?
Linda R. Monk, J. D., is a constitutional scholar, journalist, and nationally award-winning author. A graduate of Harvard Law School , she twice received the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, its highest honor for law-related media. Her books include The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution, Ordinary Americans: U. S. History Through the Eyes of Everyday People, and The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide. For more than 20 years, Ms. Monk has written commentary for newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune
By Linda Monk
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America . The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism. This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko (
' Greed Is Good! ' ) capitalism.
What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative (Rep or Dem) cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess -- that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk? ' Government must save us! ' cries the left, as ever.
Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government -- the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy? For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars. We are going to have to learn to live again within our means.
THE PARTY'S OVER! Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent. But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "Global Companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico , Asia, China , and India , and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad. At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar. Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end. The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars, or balance its budget.
Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars. What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system. Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen. Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U. S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves. Unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us -- the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved -- the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away. Added Comments: How do WE THE PEOPLE put the villains who are responsible under oath and sit them down at public hearings to determine whose necks should meet the guillotine? Hypocritically, those who had oversight responsibility such as Senator Chris Dodd [Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee] and Barney Frank [Chairmen, House Financial Services Committee] who helped get us into this mess are on every TV channel voicing their righteous indignation and pompously sitting on their elevated platform glaring down at those they are chastising and grilling, trying to pass the blame to others.
WE THE PEOPLE should be on the elevated platform in judgment and execution of the likes of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, and the rest of the band of thieves and conspirators who are responsible for the financial collapse of the USA . To name just a few of the culprits: Henry Paulson Jr, Secretary of the Treasury Alan Greenspan & Ben Bernanke -- Chairman Federal Reserve Christopher Cox, SEC Chairman.
But not to worry -- YOUR PUBLIC SERVANTS who fear being voted out of office will take their self-awarded Golden Parachute Congressional Retirement, give WE THE PEOPLE the finger one last time and head for their safe havens as the World Citizens they are. However, before they waddle off into the sunset, they will go on record one last time denouncing corporate greed, lavish salaries, and bonuses for their key felons at Fannie May, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers & AIG Meanwhile, WE THE PEOPLE fiddle while Rome burns and were too lazy and indifferent to vote them out of office.
Who'da figured I'd agree with an attorney so much I'd post her whole article?
Linda R. Monk, J. D., is a constitutional scholar, journalist, and nationally award-winning author. A graduate of Harvard Law School , she twice received the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, its highest honor for law-related media. Her books include The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution, Ordinary Americans: U. S. History Through the Eyes of Everyday People, and The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide. For more than 20 years, Ms. Monk has written commentary for newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune
Sunday, January 4, 2009
News is a funny business nowadays.....
I keep seeing the MSM trumpet the fact that President Bush's approval ratings are at an 'abysmal' 30% as he leaves office.
But then I see Gallop and Rasmussen release the approval ratings for Congress!! Single Digits!
Approval of Congress' job performance is down to single digits again for the first time since early September.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters found that only nine percent (9%) give Congress good or excellent ratings, while 54% give the legislature poor marks. Just one-out-of-50 voters (2%) think Congress is doing an excellent job.
Seems to me that on 'O''s inauguration day --- Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid ought to tip their hats to ''W" and say "Hell of a job George! Your approval ratings are triple what ours is!"
Fat Chance!
But then I see Gallop and Rasmussen release the approval ratings for Congress!! Single Digits!
Approval of Congress' job performance is down to single digits again for the first time since early September.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters found that only nine percent (9%) give Congress good or excellent ratings, while 54% give the legislature poor marks. Just one-out-of-50 voters (2%) think Congress is doing an excellent job.
Seems to me that on 'O''s inauguration day --- Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid ought to tip their hats to ''W" and say "Hell of a job George! Your approval ratings are triple what ours is!"
Fat Chance!
Political Correctness Continues to run amok !!
Don’t use the S-word. This is a place of learning, not a school
Critics condemn show of ‘political correctness’
Critics condemn show of ‘political correctness’
Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
When is a school not a school? When it is “a place for learning”.
Watercliffe Meadow Primary in Sheffield has adopted the new phraseology because it thinks that the word school may have negative connotations for pupils and parents.
Linda Kingdon, the head teacher, said that the change would bring the school (or place of learning) closer to real life. But critics condemned it as laughable political correctness.
Watercliffe Meadow is among scores of schools that are dropping the “Sword” from their titles to reflect their changing uses and trends in education. Ms Kingdon said that Watercliffe Meadow, which was formed from the merger of three schools, decided from an early stage not to use the word “school”.
“This is Watercliffe Meadow, a place for learning. One reason was many of the parents of the children here had very negative connotations of school. Instead, we want this to a be a place for family learning, where anyone can come. We were able to start from scratch and create a new type of learning experience. There are no whistles or bells or locked doors. We wanted to deinstitutionalise the place and bring the school closer to real life,” she said.
Richard Caborn, the local MP, is unimpressed. “I’m always open to new ideas, but the reality is education is about preparing young people to live in the real world,” he said. “I just don’t think the case has been made to drop the word school to a place of learning. I don’t know why they have done it.”
A spokeswoman for the Campaign for Plain English said that it was laughable. “This is the whole political correctness agenda. Using unfamiliar words instead of a simple one like ‘school’, will get in the way of children’s ability to learn,” she said.
Andrew Sangar, Sheffield City Council’s Cabinet member for children’s services and lifelong learning, said that as far as he was concerned Watercliffe Meadow was a school and that was how the council would continue to refer to it.
Watercliffe Meadow Primary in Sheffield has adopted the new phraseology because it thinks that the word school may have negative connotations for pupils and parents.
Linda Kingdon, the head teacher, said that the change would bring the school (or place of learning) closer to real life. But critics condemned it as laughable political correctness.
Watercliffe Meadow is among scores of schools that are dropping the “Sword” from their titles to reflect their changing uses and trends in education. Ms Kingdon said that Watercliffe Meadow, which was formed from the merger of three schools, decided from an early stage not to use the word “school”.
“This is Watercliffe Meadow, a place for learning. One reason was many of the parents of the children here had very negative connotations of school. Instead, we want this to a be a place for family learning, where anyone can come. We were able to start from scratch and create a new type of learning experience. There are no whistles or bells or locked doors. We wanted to deinstitutionalise the place and bring the school closer to real life,” she said.
Richard Caborn, the local MP, is unimpressed. “I’m always open to new ideas, but the reality is education is about preparing young people to live in the real world,” he said. “I just don’t think the case has been made to drop the word school to a place of learning. I don’t know why they have done it.”
A spokeswoman for the Campaign for Plain English said that it was laughable. “This is the whole political correctness agenda. Using unfamiliar words instead of a simple one like ‘school’, will get in the way of children’s ability to learn,” she said.
Andrew Sangar, Sheffield City Council’s Cabinet member for children’s services and lifelong learning, said that as far as he was concerned Watercliffe Meadow was a school and that was how the council would continue to refer to it.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Somehow I feel safer with her going 54 mph in a 35 mph zone.....
...then some of these soccer moms driving a four ton SUV at 35 mph, while they are talking on the cell phone, wrestling with kids, and putting on their eye make-up!
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona: Danica Patrick paid a $196 (140 euros) fine to settle a speeding ticket after the star race car driver was caught going 54 mph (85 kph) in a 35 mph (55 kph) zone last month.
Patrick, the first woman to win an IndyCar race, was due in traffic court on Monday, but a Scottsdale City Court clerk says she paid the fine on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old driver was pulled over by Scottsdale police on Dec. 9 in her hometown while driving a 2007 Mercedes. A year ago, she was ticketed for driving 57 mph (90 kph) in a 40 mph (65 kph) zone in Scottsdale and was ordered to attend traffic school.
Scottsdale court records show the recent tickets are among several she has received in the past three years.
A call to Patrick's racing team wasn't immediately returned.
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona: Danica Patrick paid a $196 (140 euros) fine to settle a speeding ticket after the star race car driver was caught going 54 mph (85 kph) in a 35 mph (55 kph) zone last month.
Patrick, the first woman to win an IndyCar race, was due in traffic court on Monday, but a Scottsdale City Court clerk says she paid the fine on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old driver was pulled over by Scottsdale police on Dec. 9 in her hometown while driving a 2007 Mercedes. A year ago, she was ticketed for driving 57 mph (90 kph) in a 40 mph (65 kph) zone in Scottsdale and was ordered to attend traffic school.
Scottsdale court records show the recent tickets are among several she has received in the past three years.
A call to Patrick's racing team wasn't immediately returned.
Michelle Malkin's wake up call on the state of our borders.....
The State of Our Borders 2008
Michelle Malkin
Friday, January 02, 2009
If you think the bad economy has "solved" America's immigration problems, welcome to your end-of-the-year reality check. It's certainly true illegal crossings from the south are down and that many foreign workers are returning to their native lands as work dries up. But border chaos, haphazard enforcement, massive backlogs and deportation negligence remain the order of the day.
A half-million citizenship applications have been pending for more than nine months. Some 700,000 illegal alien absconders -- fugitives from deportation like Barack Obama's aunt Zeituni Onyango -- are free. An estimated 4-5 million illegal visa overstayers from around the world remain in the country. Both Big Business and left-wing ethnic groups have colluded to prevent an employer verification program for workers' citizenship status from getting implemented nationwide. And the borders are still largely borders in name only.
In June, the White House pushed through a $1.6-billion border security spending plan ... for Mexico and Central America. While our own border fence remains incomplete, taxpayers shelled out for helicopters, surveillance equipment, computer infrastructure, expansion of intelligence databases, anti-corruption initiatives, human rights education and training, and anti-money laundering programs for our southern neighbors. So, how's the so-called Merida Initiative working out?
As terrorized citizens of Mexico will tell you, all hell has broken loose. Corrupt police officials and narco-insurgents have left a horrific trail of beheaded and bullet-ridden bodies in their wake on both sides of the border. Mexican Army incursions into U.S. territory are a regular occurrence. In Monterrey, bandits opened fire and threw a grenade at the U.S. consulate this fall. A top Mexican immigration official was arrested in October carrying about 77 kilos of pot in Arizona. On a single weekend in Tijuana, 40 people were murdered, including nine victims who were decapitated. Two weeks ago, famed American anti-kidnapping negotiator Felix Bautista disappeared from the "relatively safe" northern industrial city of Saltillo in Coahuila state. No word on his whereabouts.
The apocalyptic conditions have prompted some Mexican lawmakers to revisit the country's ban on capital punishment. That's right. Members of the same foreign government that took America to court over our death penalty laws -- and tried to block the state of Texas from executing illegal alien Death Row murderers -- are now open to the idea of imposing the death penalty on the thugs on their own soil. And after years of vehement protests against the United States for its meager attempts at immigration enforcement, Mexico is cracking down hard on illegal Cuban immigrants caught trying to enter the country from the south. They forged an agreement with Cuba to immediately send back illegal aliens -- none of that "undocumented worker" mushiness for them -- and punish human smugglers.
Such lawlessness, Mexico has apparently realized, is a grave threat to its people. Without order, there can be no peace. And chaos, as I've argued endlessly since September 11, is an invitation for those with far more nefarious intentions. Perhaps this is why Mexico slapped a 60-year prison term on a human smuggler who helped some 200 illegal aliens cross into the United States from Mexico -- including Hezbollah supporters. In a little-noticed announcement this month, Mexican prosecutors reported the stiff sentence against Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, a Mexican of Lebanese descent who operated a cafe in Tijuana and smuggled terrorist sympathizers into San Diego. Mucharrafille's accomplice was Imelda Ortiz Abdala, a Mexican foreign service official who helmed the Mexican consulate in Beirut.
No illegal alien demonstrations ensued following the sentencing.
No cries of racism and xenophobia clouded the news. No demands for amnesty and open borders arose. One hopes the incoming Obama administration can learn from our neighbors to the south the hard lesson Washington has abandoned since 9/11: Immigration control is a national security issue. Blood-stained reality clarifies the mind.
Michelle Malkin
Friday, January 02, 2009
If you think the bad economy has "solved" America's immigration problems, welcome to your end-of-the-year reality check. It's certainly true illegal crossings from the south are down and that many foreign workers are returning to their native lands as work dries up. But border chaos, haphazard enforcement, massive backlogs and deportation negligence remain the order of the day.
A half-million citizenship applications have been pending for more than nine months. Some 700,000 illegal alien absconders -- fugitives from deportation like Barack Obama's aunt Zeituni Onyango -- are free. An estimated 4-5 million illegal visa overstayers from around the world remain in the country. Both Big Business and left-wing ethnic groups have colluded to prevent an employer verification program for workers' citizenship status from getting implemented nationwide. And the borders are still largely borders in name only.
In June, the White House pushed through a $1.6-billion border security spending plan ... for Mexico and Central America. While our own border fence remains incomplete, taxpayers shelled out for helicopters, surveillance equipment, computer infrastructure, expansion of intelligence databases, anti-corruption initiatives, human rights education and training, and anti-money laundering programs for our southern neighbors. So, how's the so-called Merida Initiative working out?
As terrorized citizens of Mexico will tell you, all hell has broken loose. Corrupt police officials and narco-insurgents have left a horrific trail of beheaded and bullet-ridden bodies in their wake on both sides of the border. Mexican Army incursions into U.S. territory are a regular occurrence. In Monterrey, bandits opened fire and threw a grenade at the U.S. consulate this fall. A top Mexican immigration official was arrested in October carrying about 77 kilos of pot in Arizona. On a single weekend in Tijuana, 40 people were murdered, including nine victims who were decapitated. Two weeks ago, famed American anti-kidnapping negotiator Felix Bautista disappeared from the "relatively safe" northern industrial city of Saltillo in Coahuila state. No word on his whereabouts.
The apocalyptic conditions have prompted some Mexican lawmakers to revisit the country's ban on capital punishment. That's right. Members of the same foreign government that took America to court over our death penalty laws -- and tried to block the state of Texas from executing illegal alien Death Row murderers -- are now open to the idea of imposing the death penalty on the thugs on their own soil. And after years of vehement protests against the United States for its meager attempts at immigration enforcement, Mexico is cracking down hard on illegal Cuban immigrants caught trying to enter the country from the south. They forged an agreement with Cuba to immediately send back illegal aliens -- none of that "undocumented worker" mushiness for them -- and punish human smugglers.
Such lawlessness, Mexico has apparently realized, is a grave threat to its people. Without order, there can be no peace. And chaos, as I've argued endlessly since September 11, is an invitation for those with far more nefarious intentions. Perhaps this is why Mexico slapped a 60-year prison term on a human smuggler who helped some 200 illegal aliens cross into the United States from Mexico -- including Hezbollah supporters. In a little-noticed announcement this month, Mexican prosecutors reported the stiff sentence against Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, a Mexican of Lebanese descent who operated a cafe in Tijuana and smuggled terrorist sympathizers into San Diego. Mucharrafille's accomplice was Imelda Ortiz Abdala, a Mexican foreign service official who helmed the Mexican consulate in Beirut.
No illegal alien demonstrations ensued following the sentencing.
No cries of racism and xenophobia clouded the news. No demands for amnesty and open borders arose. One hopes the incoming Obama administration can learn from our neighbors to the south the hard lesson Washington has abandoned since 9/11: Immigration control is a national security issue. Blood-stained reality clarifies the mind.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Congress runs amok -- American citizens fiddle! Why?
Why it’s not as easy as One, Two, Three…..
1. The Tenth Amendment (X) to the Constitution of the United States:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
That’s pretty simple and straightforward, is it not?
2. The current oath for all incoming members of Congress & the President was enacted in 1884:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
That’s pretty simple and straightforward is it not?
3. Enumerated Powers Act Would Bring the Constitution to Capitol
The Enumerated Powers Act (H.R. 1359 & S. 3159) would require all legislation introduced in Congress to ‘contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority’ empowering Congress to enact it. Bills lacking such a statement or containing one of questionable merit would be subject to challenge by Point of Order, a procedural devise to delay consideration until the problem is corrected or the objection overruled.
That seems pretty simple and straightforward does it not?
Unfortunately, although the Enumerated Powers Act has been introduced in the House every session since 1995 by Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ), this year with 44 co-sponsors, it has gone absolutely nowhere.
This Session, Senator Tom Coburn, (R-OK) joined Shadegg and offered it as Senate Bill 3159 with similar results - nobody in the Senate leadership will even acknowledge it.
Pilgrims, you are going to be hearing a lot more about the Enumerated Powers Act in this forum and many others the next few months. Why not Google it and the Tenth Amendment, and get comfortable with them both - so you can discuss it with your friends and your congressional representatives.
Just in case you fail to see the problem, ask yourself where in the Constitution does it say that the Congress can establish class sizes in your home town, or make menu selections for your children. Where does it authorize Congress to step into our lives in the thousands of ways that they do each year. Protecting our borders and controlling interstate commerce - yes! Nationalizing banks and auto companies - redistributing wealth - No!
Will the members of congress give up their unlimited legislative powers and accede to the limits imposed by the Constitution willingly? No! Do we the Voters have the voice and power to bring them back to toe the line? Yes!
The only folks that can save us -- is us!
1. The Tenth Amendment (X) to the Constitution of the United States:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
That’s pretty simple and straightforward, is it not?
2. The current oath for all incoming members of Congress & the President was enacted in 1884:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
That’s pretty simple and straightforward is it not?
3. Enumerated Powers Act Would Bring the Constitution to Capitol
The Enumerated Powers Act (H.R. 1359 & S. 3159) would require all legislation introduced in Congress to ‘contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority’ empowering Congress to enact it. Bills lacking such a statement or containing one of questionable merit would be subject to challenge by Point of Order, a procedural devise to delay consideration until the problem is corrected or the objection overruled.
That seems pretty simple and straightforward does it not?
Unfortunately, although the Enumerated Powers Act has been introduced in the House every session since 1995 by Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ), this year with 44 co-sponsors, it has gone absolutely nowhere.
This Session, Senator Tom Coburn, (R-OK) joined Shadegg and offered it as Senate Bill 3159 with similar results - nobody in the Senate leadership will even acknowledge it.
Pilgrims, you are going to be hearing a lot more about the Enumerated Powers Act in this forum and many others the next few months. Why not Google it and the Tenth Amendment, and get comfortable with them both - so you can discuss it with your friends and your congressional representatives.
Just in case you fail to see the problem, ask yourself where in the Constitution does it say that the Congress can establish class sizes in your home town, or make menu selections for your children. Where does it authorize Congress to step into our lives in the thousands of ways that they do each year. Protecting our borders and controlling interstate commerce - yes! Nationalizing banks and auto companies - redistributing wealth - No!
Will the members of congress give up their unlimited legislative powers and accede to the limits imposed by the Constitution willingly? No! Do we the Voters have the voice and power to bring them back to toe the line? Yes!
The only folks that can save us -- is us!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
New Years Eve in Frigid City
Since I was reading a good western novel last evening (New Years Eve), I had occasion to watch Hellary & Bubba join Mayor Bloomerberg kic
k the glass ball off the roof on Times Square. The actual temp was about one degree --- the temperature surrounding our ex-national loving couple was twenty degrees cooler.
k the glass ball off the roof on Times Square. The actual temp was about one degree --- the temperature surrounding our ex-national loving couple was twenty degrees cooler.When the clock struck 12 midnight, everybody commenced to huggin', swappin' spit, and having a real hot ole' time. Hellary & Bubba however, grabbed shoulders, blew an air kiss by each other's cheeks and then 
commenced to dance. The only difference between this unemotional shuffle and the one they did on the beach without music, after Monica aired her dirty laundry, err dress, was that this time they were layered with coats over coats!
commenced to dance. The only difference between this unemotional shuffle and the one they did on the beach without music, after Monica aired her dirty laundry, err dress, was that this time they were layered with coats over coats! Brrrrrrrrrrr - ain't a whole lotta luv'n goin' on in that family!! Bless their cold, hard, scheming little hearts...!
It may be a new year Pilgrims, but we slide faster and faster down the rabbit hole!
All of you folks who served our country in uniform will surely love this news item in the NY Times..:
New Rules in Iraq Add Police Work to Troops’ Jobs
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
BAGHDAD — In late November, around the time the security agreement between the American and Iraqi governments was ratified, an order came down to Company C at its Sadr City outpost.
In accordance with the agreement’s new rules on searches and detentions, troops from Company C of the First Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, were to begin operating under a policy called “warrant-based targeting.”
Up to that time, First Lt. Jamen K. Miller’s platoon had been the most prolific in the company when it came to arrests, seizing more than half of those captured in the past seven months. But he soon found himself explaining to an Iraqi officer that, yes, a certain man his platoon had declined to arrest was a bad guy, but that nothing could be done yet without a warrant.
“The gears of the system,” Lieutenant Miller said of those first few days, “looked like they were coming to a halt.”
In many ways, Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite quarter in northeastern Baghdad, is on the front line of the recent security agreement. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, American forces have relied heavily on mass arrests without charges of people suspected of being insurgents.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis were detained and some held for years, in a practice that Americans insisted was necessary but that was strongly condemned by human rights groups and Iraqis.
But starting Thursday, American soldiers will be required to secure arrest warrants, a change welcomed as an important step toward Iraqi sovereignty but one that also raises concerns that the longer and more complicated arrest process could jeopardize recent gains in safety here.
Still, insurgents are taking cover in the vast slums of Sadr City and the holdouts are being tracked down, one by one, though it is not entirely certain how all of this will work in the new year.
“It’s all being defined as we go,” said Maj. Rich Ramsey, who works on a task force that is addressing some of the changes with the Third Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division, in Baghdad.
After years of quick-response raids, American troops are having to adjust to gumshoe work, which involves lots of conversations with civilians about who has done what in the neighborhood. Though a judge makes the decision on what is needed for a warrant, it typically requires at least two sworn statements by witnesses to a crime, American officers said.
Many of these witnesses will have to testify before Iraqi investigators, judges or members of the security forces, depending on a trust that has been violated countless times in the past, often violently.
An Iraqi who had been kidnapped this year told Lieutenant Miller recently that he would sign a statement against his captors, as long as his identity was kept from any Iraqi. That will probably cease to be an option now that Americans must conduct all operations with Iraqi forces.
Obtaining warrants can be a frustratingly long process. First Lt. Guy L. Allsop of Company C said that he had submitted 18 warrant requests since the agreement had been passed. Weeks later, one had been approved.
After an arrest, the detainee has to be turned over to Iraqi authorities within 24 hours, and the Iraqis have to bring the case to a judge, who rules on whether the detainee should be held or released.
Some Iraqi Army officers said they worried about the new rules.
New Rules in Iraq Add Police Work to Troops’ Jobs
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
In accordance with the agreement’s new rules on searches and detentions, troops from Company C of the First Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, were to begin operating under a policy called “warrant-based targeting.”
Up to that time, First Lt. Jamen K. Miller’s platoon had been the most prolific in the company when it came to arrests, seizing more than half of those captured in the past seven months. But he soon found himself explaining to an Iraqi officer that, yes, a certain man his platoon had declined to arrest was a bad guy, but that nothing could be done yet without a warrant.
“The gears of the system,” Lieutenant Miller said of those first few days, “looked like they were coming to a halt.”
In many ways, Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite quarter in northeastern Baghdad, is on the front line of the recent security agreement. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, American forces have relied heavily on mass arrests without charges of people suspected of being insurgents.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis were detained and some held for years, in a practice that Americans insisted was necessary but that was strongly condemned by human rights groups and Iraqis.
But starting Thursday, American soldiers will be required to secure arrest warrants, a change welcomed as an important step toward Iraqi sovereignty but one that also raises concerns that the longer and more complicated arrest process could jeopardize recent gains in safety here.
Still, insurgents are taking cover in the vast slums of Sadr City and the holdouts are being tracked down, one by one, though it is not entirely certain how all of this will work in the new year.
“It’s all being defined as we go,” said Maj. Rich Ramsey, who works on a task force that is addressing some of the changes with the Third Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division, in Baghdad.
After years of quick-response raids, American troops are having to adjust to gumshoe work, which involves lots of conversations with civilians about who has done what in the neighborhood. Though a judge makes the decision on what is needed for a warrant, it typically requires at least two sworn statements by witnesses to a crime, American officers said.
Many of these witnesses will have to testify before Iraqi investigators, judges or members of the security forces, depending on a trust that has been violated countless times in the past, often violently.
An Iraqi who had been kidnapped this year told Lieutenant Miller recently that he would sign a statement against his captors, as long as his identity was kept from any Iraqi. That will probably cease to be an option now that Americans must conduct all operations with Iraqi forces.
Obtaining warrants can be a frustratingly long process. First Lt. Guy L. Allsop of Company C said that he had submitted 18 warrant requests since the agreement had been passed. Weeks later, one had been approved.
After an arrest, the detainee has to be turned over to Iraqi authorities within 24 hours, and the Iraqis have to bring the case to a judge, who rules on whether the detainee should be held or released.
Some Iraqi Army officers said they worried about the new rules.
Sure sounds to me that rather than tie every American soldier's right arm behind his back, it might be time for the United States to close up shop and get the hell outta Dodge City! I thought that Bubba was dumb, trying to treat terrorist attacks as 'tort cases', but these new rules foisted upon our combat troops in harms way ---- are the work of bureaucratic nimrods, both Iraqi and American!
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