Monthly Archives: February 2009
Of Obama, Marxulus,and broken promises.
Lots of broken promises Lots, as in, seven of them! Way to go Obama!
1. Make government open and transparent.
2. Make it “impossible” for Congressmen to slip in pork barrel projects.
3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. (Even Congressional Republicans shut out.)
4. No more secrecy.
5. Public will have 5 days to look at a bill.
6. You’ll know what’s in it.
7. We will put every pork barrel project online.
Change that keeps changing!
US missile 31 Jihadists 0
I do smell bacon
At least 31 people died Monday in a remote area of Pakistan in what seems to be a U.S. missile strike, a witness and a Pakistani government official said.
The attack by the pilotless aircraft occurred near Parachinar, a town near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the semi-autonomous Kurram tribal region, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Monday. A government official said those killed were all thought to be Taliban militants.
The official and a resident both said U.S. drone aircraft were seen in the area before the strike near the village of Sur Pul. The target was a camp used by Taliban militants, the government official said.
Video-The Glory of Socialized Medicine
Very funny, but also very informative, please make all your Liberal friends watch! H/T Flopping Aces
Happy Birthday to the greatest American hero
We are indebted to three sources for our liberty.
1- God, who created us chose, in His wisdom, to bless us with liberties no man or government can take.
2- Our soldiers who have and continue to sacrifice for our liberties
3- Those who founded our nation
Today is the bithday of, to me, the greatest of those founders. Happy Birthday to the Father of this great nation. I pray we begin to recall what he and the other founders risked to give us the country. Lord knows we could use the great man now.
Also, Babalu Blog has some thoughts on Washington as well.
And now a musical interlude
One of the best parts of blogging is sometomes running across a song you had not heard in years. Take a peek what I just ran across at Babalu Blog
Smartest president EVER, still cannot decide about Afghanistan
Look, I do not care if he wants to think things over, and talk to the military leaders before taking a course of action on Afghanistan. Bu he was dead sure what needed to be done while he was running for president wasn’t he? So, what is the hold up?
Just wonderful! Lets nationalize our banks too!
As long as we are committing economic suicide what the Hell! Let’s really screw ourselves! H/T Hot Air
Great! Even White House says don’t get too hopeful over Marxulus!
Typical! After hearing how we had to do this massive bill NOW!!!!, We are now told, not to expect too much, it will take some time.
So, again, as I pointed out yesterday, it was the RUSH about getting this passed that scares me the most. It was never about stimulating anything, it was about getting more government control over this nation.
JB Williams: Every American will Pay The Price of Gross Ignorance
Life, property, speech and guns, are at the foundation of American freedom and the corrupt Chicago cabal now in charge, is aggressively coming after all of them.
Obama’s “economic bailout” is a global socialist buyout of the U.S. free market system. ALL private property is under siege, as advised by George Soros. [1]
Former Clinton Chief of Staff become George Soros stooge and Barack Obama advisor John Podesta leads the charge against free speech with his version of the “Fairness Doctrine” aimed at silencing the voice of dissent at talk radio. [2]
Obama Gun Rights advisors John Podesta and Rebecca Peters, responsible for UK and Australian gun ban laws, are leading the charge against the U.S. Second Amendment, also funded by George Soros. [3]
And of course, the right to life itself, both inside and outside of the womb, has been a successful target of the left for more than 40 years now.
Most Americans already oppose almost every early step of the Obamessiah administration. The Democrat congress continues to enjoy the lowest public opinion rating in U.S. history. Yet Americans have no clue where their power is, how to use it, or when to say enough is enough.
Our nation’s Founders knew that this day would come. “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” – Declaration of Independence
The natural tendency of a peaceful prosperous society is to quietly tolerate repeated affronts to their collective well-being, so long as the personal pain is tolerable. So long as life remains personally tolerable, the people will resist any urge to draw a line in the sand and take an individual stand against tyranny. They will suffer incremental losses, until the accumulative pain becomes personal and intolerable… and then, all of a sudden… they will awake!
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
You can’t fight city hall! Politicians are scum, but what can we do? My vote doesn’t count. Washington DC is not listening to the people. The people have no power. I don’t support what they are doing, but I dare not withhold my taxes, for fear of imprisonment. Our hands are tied…
No, our hands are not tied, yet. But they will be tied soon, if we continue to tolerate that which should never be tolerated in this country. Americans MUST get the horse ahead of the cart. They must “change” themselves, before they can change anything else. And they must begin at square one!
Square One
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – Declaration of Independence
More than 40 million innocent American children have been denied their fundamental American right to life. And even though most Americans oppose abortion on demand, they sit silent, tolerating that which they childishly thought, would never affect them personally…
Yet, if your society will not respect and defend an unalienable right to life, then you have no rights at all, beyond those temporarily afforded by your rulers, used only as a disposable tool of political gain.
I don’t care what your politics are or what excuses you have adopted to justify the brutal taking of innocent life in the past. A society with NO regard for innocent human life cannot be trusted with anything else.
We can know the enemies of freedom by this single subject alone. We need look no further. We must know the enemies of freedom by this subject alone, because a complete disregard for innocent human life is at the foundation of their contempt for all other human rights, including freedom itself.
There is NO escaping this reality. This is not a litmus test. It is a non-negotiable reality and NO excuses will do. Fail to defend innocent life and you have already failed to defend individual freedom, period!
Where the right to life itself is not protected, no other rights are safe. That’s why our Founders listed LIFE as the first protected unalienable right, endowed by our Creator. Whether Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or Independent, fail this fundamental test of freedom, and you can pass no other.
One Step at a Time
Read the rest here
Frank Salvato It’s Not Obama’s “Stimulus” Bill
Now that the behemoth “stimulus” package has been reconciled in conference it appears that we, the taxpayers, will be saddled with financing a superfluity of special interest projects and entitlements. From programs that serve to combat sexually transmitted diseases and facilitate smoking prevention initiatives to the $30 million earmarked – yes, earmarked – for a wetlands restoration project meant to protect the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, We the People have been bamboozled into financing the biggest raid on the US Treasury in the history of our nation. But before we grab the pitchforks and the torches and start marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House in protest, we should consider the facts surrounding the crafting of this abysmal piece of pork legislation.
The American citizenry has employed the convenient practice of blaming the President of the United States for all things enacted or ignored by government. This practice has been facilitated by the mainstream media for decades, if not since the birth of our nation. It can be argued that we have fallen into this practice primarily because it is easier and less time consuming than keeping tabs on each of the 535 voting members of Congress. But in taking the less engaged and less accurate approach to holding our elected officials accountable we perpetuate the misconception that the Executive Branch is all powerful. In fact, it is the Legislative Branch of our government that is charged – exclusively – with the tasks of finance and legislation.
Article I, Section 1 of the US Constitution reads, in part:
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
With this entry into the Charters of Freedom, the Framers entrusted the sole authority to craft, amend and enact legislation. While the Executive Branch does indeed have the luxury of the bully pulpit, in the end the only roll the President has, with regard to legislation, is to either sign the bill into law or veto the bill. A veto sends it back to the Legislative Branch to either survive through a vote to override the presidential veto or be cast off into oblivion.
Article I, Section 7 reads, in part:
“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”
And Article I, Section 8 states, in part:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises…”
With this the Framers ensconced the sole authority over the legislation of issues of revenue to the Legislative Branch.
This clarity of constitutional literacy understood, my emphasis on the constitutional actualities should in no way be misconstrued to imply support or defense for President Obama’s efforts in this debacle. His advocacy for this unprecedented raid on the US Treasury – through the efforts of his Chicago Democrat machine enforcer, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel – makes him culpable in its enactment, as does his signing it into law. But the true ownership of this appallingly irresponsible piece of legislation rests with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
In defense of my consternation for this piece of special interest legislation one need only look honestly at what is included in the bill. Here is a partial yet disturbing list of what can only be seen as special interest projects offered up in HR1:
▪ $650 million for digital TV coupons
▪ $50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts
▪ $200 million for the National Mall, including repairs of grass destroyed during the inauguration festivities
▪ $400 million for “National Treasures”
▪ $99,600 for doorbells in Laurel, MS
▪ $500,000 for a dog park in Chula Vista, CA
▪ $3,450,000 to “rehabilitate” sidewalks in Alexandria, VA
▪ $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees
▪ $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities
▪ $75 million for “smoking cessation activities”
▪ $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges
▪ $6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings
▪ $850 million for Amtrak
▪ $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint
▪ $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems
And my favorite – and, evidently, Nancy Pelosi’s as well – $30 million for a wetlands restoration project in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse. Not coincidentally, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has championed preserving the mouse’s habitat in the past.
The larger point I am trying to make – aside from the fact that this piece of legislation is as much a stimulus bill as my electric bill – is that because of our collective habit of taking the less engaged avenue in governmental oversight, in attributing blame for this act of pure politics over good government, we will allow the mainstream media and political operatives to place the onus of either congratulations or condemnation onto President Obama. While the president does deserve a portion of the condemnation that will surly rise once our citizenry wakes-up from their “hope & change stupor” only to realize they have been manipulated into believing that installing doorbells in Mississippi and protecting the salt marsh field mouse will somehow save the economy, the true ownership of this massive fraud rests with Congress. This is the Pelosi-Reid Special Interest Appropriations Bill, not an economic stimulus package.
If we are ever to affect an ideological revolution in this country, where politics is banished from the halls of Congress and good government trumps politics, we must first and foremost abandon the practice of superficial oversight of our elected officials. In truth, We the People have abdicated this constitutionally mandated oversight in our political apathy. This abdication is antithetical to the intentions of our Founders and Framers for they envisioned a citizenry that understood that in our ownership of the US Constitution and the Charters of Freedom – and it is we who own these brilliant documents, not the government – we literally gave birth to the government, our covenant (The Charters of Freedom) limiting the power of government, not empowering it above the oversight of the citizenry.
If we are to take back control of our runaway government – both in our state houses and in Washington DC – we must abdicate our apathy, not our responsibility. We need to do this for future generations otherwise the promise of that shining city on the hill and the light of liberty will become the things of history books…just like the greatness of the Roman Empire.
A reason to smile, even if you are single on Valentines Day
Hellfire missile 27, Jihadist swine 0! Do I smell bacon?
suspected U.S. missile strike by a drone aircraft flattened a militant hide-out in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing 27 local and foreign insurgents, intelligence officials said.
Several more purported militants were wounded in the attack in South Waziristan, a militant stronghold near the Afghan border where Al Qaeda leaders Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding.
The new U.S. administration has brushed off Pakistani criticism that the missile strikes fuel religious extremism and boost anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world’s only nuclear-armed nation.
Pilotless U.S. aircraft are believed to have launched more than 30 attacks since July, and American officials say Al Qaeda’s leadership has been decimated. Pakistani officials say the vast majority of the victims are civilians.
Taliban fighters surrounded the compound targeted Saturday in the village of Shrawangai Nazarkhel and carried away the dead and wounded in several vehicles.
Stimulus not socialist, but fascist?
the state is getting more and more deeply involved in business, even taking controlling interests in some private companies. And the state is even trying to “make policy” for private companies they do not control, but merely “help” with “infusions of capital,” as in the recent call for salary caps for certain CEOs. So state power is growing at the expense of corporations.
But that’s not socialism. Socialism rests on a firm theoretical bedrock: the abolition of private property. I haven’t heard anyone this side of Barney Frank calling for any such thing. What is happening now–and Newsweek is honest enough to say so down in the body of the article–is an expansion of the state’s role, an increase in public/private joint ventures and partnerships, and much more state regulation of business. Yes, it’s very “European,” and some of the Europeans even call it “social democracy,” but it isn’t.
It’s fascism. Nobody calls it by its proper name, for two basic reasons: first, because “fascism” has long since lost its actual, historical, content; it’s been a pure epithet for many decades. Lots of the people writing about current events like what Obama et. al. are doing, and wouldn’t want to stigmatize it with that “f” epithet.
Second, not one person in a thousand knows what fascist political economy was. Yet during the great economic crisis of the 1930s, fascism was widely regarded as a possible solution, indeed as the only acceptable solution to a spasm that had shaken the entire First World, and beyond. It was hailed as a “third way” between two failed systems (communism and capitalism), retaining the best of each. Private property was preserved, as the role of the state was expanded. This was necessary because the Great Depression was defined as a crisis “of the system,” not just a glitch “in the system.” And so Mussolini created the “Corporate State,” in which, in theory at least, the big national enterprises were entrusted to state ownership (or substantial state ownership) and of course state management. Some of the big “Corporations” lasted a very long time; indeed some have only very recently been privatized, and the state still holds important chunks–so-called “golden shares”–in some of them.
Hmmm, I would agree certainly that no one is calling for the government to take private property, YET! I see this insidious bill as just the next step in the in the Left’s non-stop campaign to bring Marxism to America. The Left has, since FDR’s New Deal, been slowly trying to steer America down the Marxist path. They have seized upon this crisis, a crisis their policies helped to create, and a crisis their president threatened would become a catastrophe unless we took immediate action.
Certainly selling panic, fear, and class warfare is something the Liberals are experts at. They create, or at least use crisis to push through legislation that forces America farther to the ideological Left. The Marxulus Bill is a classic example of that.
So, I will say maybe it isn’t socialism now, maybe it is fascism. Either way, it is a very bad road for this nation to take.
Video- Michael Steele: Yes, the GOP sucks!
It is about the PRINCIPLES STUPID!
Glenn Beck makes the very point I would if I were advising Steele. Stop talking and start doing. We do not need sales pitches, we need action! For his part, Steele says that is what he is going to do, and I hope he gets it done.
H/T Hot Air
The Marxist Doctrine ripped by a Liberal
The audio clip is here, and wil likely be music to any fair-minded person’s ears. For me, it is highly refreshing to hear a Liberal who actually IS open-minded and tolerant.
H/T to Hot Air
The end of the road for Chavez? UPDATED!
Is the time for Chavez to go bye bye at hand? We can hope!
The beginning of the end is setting in for Hugo Chávez.
The authoritarian Venezuelan president is holding a referendum tomorrow on a constitutional change that would allow him to run for president indefinitely. Pollsters say Chávez leads slightly, but the election is mostly irrelevant. Barring an oil miracle, the former army paratrooper is slowly being undone by his economic mismanagement and corruption, like any of a number of populist strongmen before him.
Oil prices may recover somewhat from their current lows of around $40 a barrel, but not soon and not anywhere near the more than $80 a barrel that Chávez needs to stave off a major currency devaluation that would stoke rampaging inflation and food shortages. His is a chronicle of a political death foretold, an old story that ended in most of Latin America in the 1980s but that Chávez and too many Venezuelans chose to revisit.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
