Let it Snow...

I fully realize that anecdotal evidence has nothing to do with the current debate on the existence (or not) of man made global warming … but this is just too rich. From Bloomberg news:

March 1 -- The largest snowstorm of the season is on it way to New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area, with as much as a record-setting 14 inches expected to fall tonight and into tomorrow’s rush hour, said Gary Conte , a National Weather Service meteorologist in Upton, New York.

“The record for March is 10 inches, set in 1896. Obviously, based on our forecast, that is in jeopardy. ”

This storm comes on the heels of Obama’s plan to tax all carbon energy sources.

READ MORE

image photo - fnn - Plumber truck

The Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear

It seems that if despotism came to be established in the democratic nations of our day, it would have other characteristics: it would be more extensive and milder, and it would degrade men without tormenting them. ..  .  .

When I think of the small passions of men of our day, the softness of their mores, the extent of their enlightenment, the purity of their religion, the mildness of their morality, their laborious and steady habits, the restraint that almost all preserve in vice as in virtue, I do not fear that in their chiefs they will find tyrants, but rather schoolmasters. .  .  .

I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. ..  .  .

Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living?

So it is that every day it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will in a smaller space and little by little steals the very use of it from each citizen. ..  .  .

Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which government is the shepherd. ..  .  .

I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the external forms of freedom, and that it would not be impossible for it to be established in the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people.

--Alexis de Tocqueville
From Democracy in America, volume two, part four, chapter six: "What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear"

SOURCE

image toon - 1st mny - Someday mountain of debt all theirs

Obama buries Reaganomics under $3.6 trillion mountain

As Barack Obama prepared to deliver his speech to a joint session of Congress last week, his aides raced to television studios to deliver the official spin. Evoking the cheerful optimism in tough times of a fondly remembered president, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs predicted his boss would be ''Reaganesque''. (Snip)

The Great Communicator of the 1980s would have recognised his successor’s upbeat tone, but not his policies...

READ MORE

Gingrich raps Obama for 'big-government' budget

Washington - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is labeling President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget plan a ''higher-tax, weaker-economy, fewer-jobs'' blueprint that should trigger the most crucial policy debate since 1980.

The leading Republican said he he actually agrees with much of Obama's rhetoric, but that there's a ''gap between the words and reality'...'

READ MORE

THE OPTION

.

Washington solutions of more money, more government, more power for politicians, more debt, and more bureaucrats will not lead to real growth in jobs and prosperity.

We need a clear and decisive alternative that creates jobs and rewards work, saving, and investment.

12 American Solutions
for Jobs and Prosperity

1. Payroll Tax Stimulus. With a temporary new tax credit to offset 50% of the payroll tax, every small business would have more money, and all Americans would take home more of what they earn.

2. Real Middle-Income Tax Relief. Reduce the marginal tax rate of 25% down to 15%, in effect establishing a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 9 out of 10 American workers.

3. Reduce the Business Tax Rate. Match Ireland’s rate of 12.5% to keep more jobs in America.

4. Homeowner’s Assistance. Provide tax credit incentives to responsible home buyers so they can keep their homes.

5. Control Spending So We Can Move to a Balanced Budget. This begins with eliminating Congressional earmarks and wasteful pork-barrel spending.

6. No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud. Require state governments to adopt anti-fraud and anti-theft policies before giving them more money.

7. More American Energy Now. Explore for more American oil and gas and invest in affordable energy for the future, including clean coal, ethanol, nuclear power and renewable fuels.

8. Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match China, Singapore and many other competitors. More investment in America means more jobs in America.

9. Protect the Rights of American Workers. We must protect a worker’s right to decide by secret ballot whether to join a union, and the worker’s right to freely negotiate. Forced unionism will kill jobs in America at a time when we can’t afford to lose them.

10. Replace Sarbanes-Oxley. This failed law is crippling entrepreneurial startups. Replace it with affordable rules that help create jobs, not destroy them.

11. Abolish the Death Tax. Americans should work for their families, not for Washington.

12. Invest in Energy and Transportation Infrastructure. This includes a new, expanded electric power grid and a 21st century air traffic control system that will reduce delays in air travel and save passengers, employees and airlines billions of dollars per year.

Learn More About Our Plan->

[and as always, 'go viral' - pass this on...]

[your children will thank you]
.

image toon - mny 1st US baby with deficit under the crib

Congressmen Question Saudi Lobbyist for Head of National Intelligence Council

.
Which of the following would disqualify a person for the position of chairman of the National Intelligence Council, whose

"goal is to provide policymakers with the best information: unvarnished, unbiased and without regard to whether the analytic judgments conform to current U.S. policy"

?

A. Heading an organization which accepted $1 million donation from the Saudis;

B. Lobbying for the Saudi government;

C. Accusing Israel of Nazis tactics; [snip]

F. Promoting public schools textbooks which the independent Textbook League describe as "a vehicle for disseminating disinformation with the principal purpose of inducing teachers to embrace Islamic religious beliefs;

G. Marketing educational materials which recreate world history and refer to the land of Israel only as Palestine;

H. Blaming the U.S. for the terror attack of 9/11;

I. Praising Hamas as the only democratically elected government in the Arab world;

Two congressmen are answering, "All of the above" in response to the appointment of Chas W. Freeman Jr. for the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council. [snip]

Another question might be: how could the President think that assigning a key intelligence post to someone whose prejudices are so extreme that they have convoluted history, who excuses enemies of the U.S., and who condemns its friends would be able to provide the unvarnished, unbiased information that the nation needs for its security?

READ MORE



"OPPOSE FREEMAN NOMINATION TO NIC"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

..

Mubarak is the Only One Who Got it Right

[HT:BD, Re: latest Hamas actions in Gaza]

There may be a lot of things that one can say about President Mubarak, not all of them complimentary, but one thing that cannot be said is that he is either a newcomer or naïve in the nuances, strategies and politics of the Middle East. Here is what President Mubarak said in a speech last week:

"Why did (Hamas) object to our attempts to prolong the cease fire? And why did they not heed our warnings that their positions constitute an open invitation for an Israeli assault? Was this planned and deliberate? For whose benefit?... the recent crisis has exposed an attempt to exploit the Israeli aggression in order to impose a new reality on the Palestinian and Arab arena -- a new reality that will stack the cards in favor of a well known regional force, Iran, for the benefit of its plans and agenda." [snip]

In the words of Presidnet Mubarak

" I have stressed this before and I'll say it again (Hamas) must face the cost benefit test... of the benefits it has brought for their problems along side the casualties, the pain, and the destruction it has caused... For how long will Arab blood be shed, only to listen to those who admit their mistakes later... and who wave resistance slogans over the corpses of casualties, the ruins and the destruction."

One wonders when some in the Western media will begin asking the same question and demanding the same answers.

[Recommended > ]

READ MORE

How Did This Happen?

.
Isn't it worth, say, ten minutes to try to figure out how this happened? [snip >]

Actually, how do we know the bad thing spread from the US to the rest of the world, and not vice versa? I invite you to look at the data. If you do, you will find that Europe's economic decline started before, and is deeper than, the US's.

Look at the 2nd quarter of 2008, for example. In that quarter, the US economy grew 0.7%. Yet the economies of France, Germany, Italy and Japan all shrank by 0.3% to 0.9%. In fact, the average for the Euro area was an economic shrinkage of 0.2%.

Those European economies that shrank in the 2nd quarter also shrank in the 3rd. By that time, so did the US's economy - but by just 0.1%. The Euro area's average shrinkage was twice that. The economies of Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom shrank five to six times as fast. [snip]

I don't think this is Bush's fault. I also don't think it's Barney Frank's fault. I think even looking for the blame in some part of the US, whether its housing market, some mysterious lack of regulation or some politician, is a red herring. If this situation is "inherited," I'd say we inherited it from Europe.

Given that no one involved, from the US to Iceland, Latvia or Europe generally, has been a bastion of "laissez-faire" capitalism, I think we can also dismiss blaming capitalism or free-markets for this one.

[Lots of good info., Highly Recommended > ]

READ MORE

Brown woos Obama on global deal

.
GORDON BROWN hopes to forge a partnership with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, to call for a “global new deal” to lift the world out of recession.

As he prepares for his first White House visit since the president’s inauguration, the prime minister has hinted that he is ready to make tax cuts to boost the UK economy. [snip]

Many US politicians believe economic policy should put America first, and have shown little interest in concerted global action.

[Too true: this is yet another scam-America ploy: we're to escalate our enormous spending and incur of generations of debt, while signing up for 'world' standards that will undercut our economic sovereignty - while they implement tax cuts to truly stimulate their economies...

Oh well, if it will make the President a more popular 'world citizen'...]

READ MORE

Marxist-Leninism is Coming to America

.
A new Fox Dynamics Poll shows really how much trouble we currently have in America. Universal food? Should the government provide food for every person? In the Fox Poll, 68% say yes. Healthcare? 66% say yes. Housing? 52% say yes. A job, 51% say yes.

People haven’t been taught why socialism is bad. We can no longer sit back, just go to work, and assume everything is going to be okay. America voted for “change.” Contrary to what conservatives have been saying, the Fox Poll seems to indicate that the voters may very well have known exactly the type of change they wanted. Is there any doubt that Obama, Pelosi and Reid are going to attempt to deliver European-style socialism to America by the end of 2010?

Or, would it be more correct to say that they are going to deliver “more than socialism”? Nationalizing banks and dictating to private corporations is beyond socialism; we are moving towards a Marxist State. When the Obama stimulus package fails, as it will, there will be a demand for more government. This is exactly what happened in the 1930’s...

[I.e., this isn't a simple case of 'majority rules' when choosing our political system and the role of government because socialism doesn't work - it is not a viable option.

But evidently another generation, which has been indoctrinated into believing desire can somehow serve as functional policy {despite all historical evidence to the contrary}, will have to learn for itself, the hard way, that it just isn't so.

When we decline to insist on responsible behavior from our institutions such as education and the major media, there are consequences.

Highly Recommended - especially for Californians [addressed] > ]

READ MORE

image c-art - POLL OB maniipulating america 1st mny crpt bbro sclm -

The Obama Revolution

Paid for by the people.

In the closing weeks of last year's election campaign, we wrote that Democrats had in mind the most sweeping expansion of government in decades. Liberals clucked, but it turns out even we've been outbid. With yesterday's fiscal 2010 budget proposal, President Obama is attempting not merely to expand the role of the federal government but to put it in such a dominant position that its power can never be rolled back.

The only impetus for growth in this budget comes from the government spending more money that it is taking out of the job-producing private economy. With $1 trillion of new entitlements, $1.4 trillion in new taxes, and $5 trillion in new debt, America's entrepreneurs aren't getting any help soon from Washington.

Democrats will want to rush all of this into law this year while Mr. Obama retains his honeymoon aura and they can blame the recession on George W. Bush. But Americans are only beginning to understand the magnitude of Mr. Obama's ambitions, and how much of their own income will be required to fulfill them...

READ MORE

Carbon Regulation: One Scientist's Unscientific Dream?

.
There's an understandably growing unease about the likely prospect that the Obama administration will soon choose to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. But that disquiet would likely turn quickly to rage if more people knew the truth about the scientific conclusions on which this unprecedented incursion on both industry and individual freedom was based. You see, it appears that those conclusions weren't based on accepted scientific procedure at all, but were instead predetermined -- and perhaps by a single man. [snip]

"In the early days of the IPCC, I was visiting the head of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy -- the director, Dr. Robert Watson, who later became the first Chairman of the IPCC.

He informed me and a work associate with me that since we had started to regulate Ozone depleting substances under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the next goal, in his mind, was to regulate Carbon Dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning.

This was nearly twenty years ago. There was no mention of a scientific basis for that goal. So, as you can see from the beginning of the IPCC process, it has been guided by desired policy outcomes, not science." [snip]

With green believers ruling both the Executive and Legislative branches, and a Judicial majority voting sympathetically alongside them in April of 2007, these words from Lindzen just one month prior have never rung more foreboding:

"Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life."

Needless to say -- our language offers countless pejoratives for governments that control lives through big lies, extortion and intimidation.

Not to mention the scientists who formulate or sustain those lies.

[An astounding look of how the 'authoritative body' re AGW really works - Highly Recommended > ]

READ MORE

Caught in the chaos

[HT:SN]
A 22-year-old man from Houston and his 16-year-old friend are hauled out of a minivan in Mexico, shot execution style by thugs in a black Lincoln Continental, and left dead in the dirt.

The body of a 65-year-old nurse from Brownsville is found floating in the Rio Grande after a visit to a Mexican beauty salon.

An American retiree, an ex-Marine, is stabbed to death as he camps on a Baja beach with his dog.

More than 200 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2004 — an average of nearly one killing a week, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation into the deaths.

Rarely are the killers captured.

READ MORE

More freedom, less government, for education

.
I share President Obama's concerns about education. We certainly need to do a better job, particularly in our low-income communities. But, from what I see so far, we're on very different pages regarding how to think about the problem.

According to Department of Education data, reported by the Cato Institute, K-12 spending per student, adjusted for inflation, went from $5,393 in 1970 to $11,470 in 2004. Over the same period, there were tiny increases in math scores among 17-year-olds and no improvement in reading scores.

In his address to Congress, Obama was clear that he understands it's not just money but how it's spent. " ...our schools don't just need more resources, they need more reform," he said.

But can we really believe that over the thirty-five years that per pupil spending doubled it did not dawn on any educator that reform was in order? There are endless new ideas about how to spend money to manipulate kids into learning.

The problem with professional bureaucrats is that they think we learn about human beings in laboratories and academic studies. It never occurs to them the problem is a bankrupt culture, which they themselves often reflect, and what's needed is a return to traditional values.

We need more common sense and freedom in K-12 education -- not more government programs and money.

[And I would add less 'contrary interests', by which I mean unions.]

Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (www.urbancure.org). She can be reached at parker(at)urbancure.org

READ MORE

Obama told Idahoans he wouldn't take away their guns. He lied.

.
Remember back in February 2008 when President Obama came to Boise and spoke at a big rally? He made a big point of saying, "I won't take away your guns," because those nasty, dishonest Republicans were saying that Obama was going to do that.

It sure didn't take long for Obama to reveal his intentions. The afternoon of the inauguration, the White House Web site's Urban Policy page admitted that he is indeed going to try and do exactly that.

"Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof."

It is impossible to make guns "childproof" without making them adultproof. So far, I have seen no technology that works well enough to do one without doing the other. That's why many of the proposed laws requiring "childproof" gun technology exempt guns sold to police departments. Police department guns have to work reliably; civilians defending themselves from criminals, obviously, don't need reliable guns, because criminals will stop their attack when they realize that you are having a malfunction.

So far, it appears that President Obama misled the hard left wing of the Democratic Party about where he was going to go on foreign policy - at least, judging by his picks for Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense. But he did more than mislead Idahoans when he said, "I won't take away your guns." He lied to us.

READ MORE

Lawyers: ACORN Destroying American Elections

.
Activist group ACORN is subverting America's election system by using fraud and corruption to mislead poor, minority communities, and the media is complicit in the effort, an organization of Republican lawyers claims.

The group discussed ACORN’s track record of election fraud, which is concerning considering the group is the largest grass roots organization in America with 170 affiliated organizations. Despite a series of complaints of voter registration fraud by ACORN representatives, however, the mainstream media is reluctant to report on the group’s transgressions, RNLA officials say.

“If somebody testifies in court, under oath, and tells the truth and has evidence, certainly then the truth will come out,” Heidelbaugh surmised. She then brought the court transcript to the CNN investigative reporter covering the court case.

“I was interviewed by a CNN reporter with a camera at the trial. It [the story] never got out,” Heidelbaugh said. “I was later told, ‘We’re not going with this story; it’s a game-changer.’ ABC World News tonight? Same story. This is the failure of our democracy. This is the failure of the mass media to enforce our First Amendment.”

Heidelbaugh said the Obama campaign provided a spreadsheet listing its maxed-out donors to ACORN to raise funds, which was admitted into evidence and was released to every media outlet in Pennsylvania, the Associated Press, and CNN.

“After two days of working with the news outlets, the investigative reporter for CNN said, ‘We’re shutting the story down’" “There might be one thing worse than having Al Franken in the Senate,” Heidelbaugh quipped, “and that’s ACORN conducting the census."

READ MORE

Arrest Made in Home Foreclosure Civil Disobedience Program

Police in Baltimore today made what is believed to be the first arrest in a civil disobedience program aimed at supporting homeowners who refuse to vacate their foreclosed homes.

An activist with ACORN — the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now — faces criminal charges after breaking into a home in southeast Baltimore on Thursday to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the country.

READ MORE

Gingrich Challenges Holder to 'Dialogue About Cowardice'

.

"We now have more than enough evidence of what this administration thinks of the American people," ... "Let me say to Attorney General Holder, I welcome the opportunity to have a dialogue with you about cowardice, anywhere, anytime."

He suggested the face-off— "dialogue, not a debate. Let's be above partisanship," he said. —could happen in Detroit, Mich., a city ill-served by the liberal policies Holder and the Obama administration promote;

"Let's discuss the total failure of the Detroit political system, which has taken a city of 1,800,000 with the highest per capita income and has driven it into the ground so that there are now fewer than 900,000 living there," ... "With a per capita income that is 62nd in the United States."

"I hope Attorney General Holder will talk about the failures of the institutions he supports, the failure of the unions he supports, the failure of the policies he supports, and let's talk about it in a one of the cities that has been betrayed by those policies most sadly and most tragically."

"It is the function of bad government, bad politicians, bad bureaucracy, bad ideas, Let's talk about that."

A challenge to take on the first black attorney general in Detroit's inner city on race issues and the domestic issues that disproportionately affect African-Americans? You can't fault him for not being bold.

READ MORE

Elect a crazy council, get crazy results

[HT:LW]
Nowhere is Michigan's brain drain on greater display than in the Detroit City Council chambers. My hopes for Detroit's future faded as I watched the tape of last Tuesday's council meeting, the one that considered the Cobo Center expansion deal.

It was a tragic circus, a festival of ignorance that confirmed the No. 1 obstacle to Detroit's progress is the bargain basement leaders that city voters elect. The black nationalism that is now the dominant ideology of the council was on proud display, both at the table and in the audience.

Speakers advocating for the deal were taunted by the crowd and cut short by Council President Monica Conyers, who presided over the hearing like an angry bulldog; whites were advised by the citizens to, "Go home."

[And the media re: this un-American activity? Hello? Will such conduct be included in our national discussions on 'race relations'?]

READ MORE

When Is a Deluge Still a Drought?

CALIFORNIA

Call it Dickinson’s First Law of Editorial: A media narrative, set in motion, will persist in the face of clear, even overwhelming, contradictory evidence.

Exhibit A: California “drought” coverage.

Here’s the reality. California has had a really dry couple of years and this year’s January — usually a wet and wild month — was eerily mild and bone dry. This state of affairs triggered the state and the national media to go big with the OMG IT’S a DROUGHT! coverage. And rightly so. The pattern was alarming.

But then Feburary comes along and the rain starts dumping. Pouring. Build and Ark! kinda rains. Rain totals that were at 60% of normal are now up to 85 and 90%. Some places in the Southland are brimming at 120% and 130%.

The crisis is clearly over. But not the media narrative.

The San Francisco Chronicle, to cite but one example, goes front page today with DROUGHT! coverage, continuing to sound the alarm about dangerously low reservoir levels.

But you read along and you come by this bit of information:

San Francisco, for example, draws its water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite. Normally, the reservoir runs at about 70 percent of capacity at this time of year - currently it’s 67 percent.

Here’s a banner story about the “drought” in San Francisco’s paper of record, and the actual news is that the city’s water source, Hetch Hetchy, is at 95.7% of normal.

READ MORE

Media ratings

.
The TV ratings for February have been tabulated, and in the world of cable news there is weeping on the left. Fox News Channel, which is generally more inquisitive of the president's politics, hammered the two networks that most favor President Obama - CNN and MSNBC.

Also, unique visitors to the Obama-loving Web site Daily Kos have declined a whopping 73 percent since last fall - a disaster. What’s going on? [snip]

The recession is bringing massive pain to America, and responsible citizens want the truth about public policy, not partisan cheerleading. [snip]

"I think it’s fair to say that this brutal economic downturn took most Americans by surprise. It certainly shocked me. Even though I’m a journalist, I had no idea that mortgage companies were gaming the system [created by government regulation] by bundling risky loans and selling them to dunces at Lehman Brothers. I was clueless. In hindsight, I should have been more skeptical of the housing bubble."

The point is that concentrating on ideology instead of accumulating information can lead to a distorted view of reality. Ideology has corrupted the watchdog press that our Founders envisioned...

READ MORE

[HT:LDot]

home improvements

I didn't say a thing.

It Just Keeps Getting Worse
[a good piece re: why I think there's an alternative agenda]

Remember when liberals were wringing their hands and accusing President George W. Bush of being a dictator and a king? Of course, that was breathtakingly absurd, but what's really ironic is that these people actually want a king, provided they get to pick him.

As Barack Obama feverishly presses forward with his socialist agenda, one wonders whether any act of executive overreaching might cause the compliant, nay, conspiratorial Democratic congressional majorities to pause or, better yet, to resist.

I think not. Every assault Obama inflicts on the budget is met by Congress with: "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"

I realize liberals take umbrage at the pejorative terms "Marxist" and "socialist," but in invoking them, my purpose is neither to exaggerate nor to provoke. If the terms bother you, could you please tell me how Obama would be behaving differently if he were a socialist or Marxist just elected in this country?

Better yet, given the policies Obama and Congress are cramming down our throats, please tell me why you even mind those terms? Why not wear them proudly?

Just before the election, I wrote: "With (Obama's) ideas about spreading the wealth, entrepreneurial selfishness … (and) the inherent evil of corporations … are you not concerned at just how far Obama might go if he's got a nearly veto-proof Democratic majority at his back? … Before our very eyes, America stands poised to elect as president the most radical man ever to run for this office credibly. Don't say we didn't warn you."

Some, including certain highbrow right-wingers, accused me of hyperventilating. They told us knuckle draggers that Obama is pragmatic and centrist and that we should just calm down and give him a chance. We responded that we didn't have the luxury of being calm, because if we let our guard down, Obama would rush through his agenda before we had time to react.

Tell me, now that we're five weeks into this administration, which of us has egg on his face?

It's not just elitist conservatives. I'd also like to know how self-professed conservative Democrats, who have always vehemently denied their liberalism, would explain their blind faith today. At this point, I swear they'd walk off a cliff for Obama if he told them to.

Even if some on both sides of the aisle are slow to grasp this, what we're really witnessing here is the fury of liberal power unleashed. In the name of compassion and fairness, they are exerting increasing control over our lives and using the economic crisis as cover, as they seek federal power to:

--Further dictate our children's education curricula. "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work." Where did we get the idea that Washington is better-suited for this than our local school boards?

--Increase their control over Americans' private health care decisions.

--Run banks and set salary caps for corporate CEOs -- something that ought to horrify free market adherents everywhere, even those suspicious of excessive corporate salaries.

--Prohibit corporate perks and private-jet trips while sanctioning their own taxpayer-sponsored ones.

--Decide who is worthy of being relieved of irresponsible home-purchasing decisions.

--Discourage charitable giving with their further phasing out of charitable deductions.

--Dole out money to "worthy" municipalities in order to position themselves as micromanaging federal enforcers: "Nobody messes with Joe Biden."

--Replace the free market as the engine of economic growth. You can't watch Obama operate without concluding he truly believes that government, not the private sector, generates wealth in this nation.

--Be the arbiter of income distribution for all citizens.

--Impose paralyzing cap and trade mandates on private corporations based on dubious, disputed, non-consensus-based "science," which amounts to nothing more than another tax on private industry and flies directly in the face of Obama's promises to be friendly to small business.

Almost as alarming as the foregoing, President Obama is engaged in what seems to be a deliberate effort to talk down the economy for the presumed purpose of ensuring our panic mode represses a stock market recovery long enough to fuel his frantic agenda.

Adding insult to injury, at a time when these liberals are growing government in areas never contemplated by our Founders nor authorized by the Constitution, they are eviscerating the defense budget, relaxing our foreign policy toward enemy dictators and, in effect, unilaterally declaring the war on terror over and forcing us to revert to our pre-9/11 mode of treating the war as a law enforcement matter.

If we could afford to let down our guard and sleep during this period, I'd be inclined to do so and ask whether someone would please be so kind as to awaken me when this nightmare is over.



by David Limbaugh

SOURCE

sclm bbro vals - Congress = shopping mall

Obama eyes revenues via green policy, taxing rich

President Barack Obama is moving to raise new revenues and curb a massive deficit through two key channels under his maiden budget plan: a 'green' energy scheme, and taxes on 'the rich'...

[You've probably forgotten the >9000-Earmarks in the 410 Billion 9-month (to Sept. '09) spending bill passed just yesterday...

Well, evidently today's another day...]

READ MORE

Obama's Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes

President Obama's budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.

1) On people making more than $250,000.

$338 billion - Bush tax cuts expire
$179 billlion - eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion - capital gains tax hike

Total: $636 billion/10 years

2) Businesses:

$17 billion - Reinstate Superfund taxes
$24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion - codify "economic substance doctrine"
$61 billion - repeal LIFO
$210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
$4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
$1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers
$882 million - eliminate advanced earned income tax credit

Total: $353 billion/10 years.

READ MORE

[Or, to explain this budget in graphical terms:

image c-art - OBAMA circle chart re not understanding where deficits come from fnn -

Obama can't win war on business

Making war on business is no way to stimulate an economy. But read between the lines of President Barack Obama's address to Congress and you find a battle plan for a broad attack on industrial America.

His proposals reflect a stunning disregard for the impact of government policies on economic output and a clear preference for jobs created by government spending rather than private investment...

READ MORE

THE DEFICIT CHARADE

.

"And that's why today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office,"

President Obama said at his summit. But what does that mean?

• The administration says President Obama's promise to "cut the deficit we inherited in half" means he will reduce it from $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2009 to $533 billion in fiscal 2013.
• This $533 billion deficit -- that President Obama vows will be the lowest annual deficit he runs in any of the next four years -- is larger than any deficit the profligate President Bush ran before this recessionary year.
• In fact, President Obama's planned $533 billion deficit for fiscal 2013 is more than twice as large as the $248.1 billion deficit Bush ran in 2006 and more than three times as large as the $162 billion deficit Bush ran in 2007.

In other words, President Obama is planning to permanently increase the scale of government borrowing -- even before we are hit by the fiscal tidal wave that will come when the bulk of the baby boom generation retires and begins collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Every dollar President Obama borrows and spends, like every dollar President Bush borrowed and spent, adds to the permanent burden of government laid on the backs of our children.

READ MORE

image c-art + txt POLL re Will spending stimulate economy

THE 2 PERCENT ILLUSION

President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."

This is going to be some trick, says the Wall Street Journal. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2 percent":

• Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006 (that's about 7 percent of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point).
• These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62 percent of all federal individual income receipts.
• The richest 1 percent -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9 percent of all income tax revenues.

Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35 percent top marginal rate, and that Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6 percent, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax.

These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Obama is going to need. Even if Obama confiscated 100 percent of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006, this would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue - or about half the spending he's proposed so far.

READ MORE

Many Americans Question Fairness of Tax System

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% say people who earn twice as much as they do pay less than twice as much in taxes. At the same time, 37% say those who earn half as much pay less than half as much in taxes.

Only 14% believe those with higher incomes pay a higher share of it in taxes.

[*More proof that class warfare propaganda campaigns work.]

READ MORE

Government Is Still the Problem

In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that

“government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that this basic view of the American people has not changed: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.

READ MORE

[Make that media popularity:]

One month in, Barack Obama's approval slips, disapproval doubles

One month down, 47 to go.

And Barack Obama's poll numbers have slid almost 10% already. According to the latest Gallup Poll, the new president's approval rating of 68% in January has slipped now to 63%, about average for recent new presidents one month in.

What isn't average, however, is Obama's new disapproval rating -- 24%, or 50% higher than the 16% average for a month-old new presidency.

And it's twice the 12% disapproval rate that Obama had last month.

Additionally, Obama's support has weakened among middle-class Americans, those touted during the campaign as benefiting from his promised tax cuts. Among that working crowd, Obama's approval fell from 69% to 58%.

Historically, 63-62% approval after a month is about average; Ronald Reagan had the worst at 55%, and Jimmy Carter had the best at 71%. Look how they turned out.

READ MORE


[Isn't that interesting about Regan and Carter - any chance media bias influenced those early numbers {before actual performance trumped spin}? MEANWHILE, the 'poll' getting all the TV coverage:


Survey Reveals Broad Support for President

President Obama is benefiting from remarkably high levels of optimism and confidence among Americans about his leadership, providing him with substantial political clout as he confronts the nation’s economic challenges and opposition from nearly all Republicans in Congress, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

A majority of people surveyed in both parties said Mr. Obama was striving to work in a bipartisan way, but most faulted Republicans. [?]

[Same President, same basic polling topic - just a complete lack of context {trending or historical} with a little partisan demagoguery thrown in. What bias? And to think an organization like this is going bankrupt - go figure.]
.

Mastermind of 9/11 gives Texans a chill

Rep. Michael McCaul called the moment chilling and eerie. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said she froze in place. And Rep. Pete Olson stared through the one-way glass, thinking, “My God, that’s the man who planned the attacks.”

There he was in a stark cell at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, kneeling on a prayer rug, head bowed, wearing the white cap of faithful Muslim men worldwide. [snip]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 44, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 al-Qaida attacks on the United States, appeared thinner than in the photos taken the 2003 night of his capture in Pakistan. [snip] But from what three members of Houston’s congressional delegation observed during a tour of the Guantanamo Bay facility, Mohammed remains every bit as bent on America’s destruction as the day he orchestrated the synchronized suicide attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. [snip]

The visit, cleared by Attorney General Eric Holder, was part of the Obama administration’s new public relations campaign to show human rights advocates that all 241 prisoners are being treated humanely...

READ MORE

Gitmo in Conformity with Geneva Convention

The Guantanamo Bay prison where terror suspects are held was examined by a special task force ordered by President Barack Obama. In its 81-page report, released Monday, the task force concluded:

“After considerable deliberation and a comprehensive review, it is our judgment that the conditions of confinement in Guantanamo are in conformity with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.”

[Again, control of language as spin: the conventions explicitly do not apply to those who have acted as the terrorists have - yet again and again it's portrayed as if they somehow do - and is this what we're to believe 'humane' treatment of terrorists is to mean?...>]

The report also noted that the prison, popularly referred to as Gitmo, keeps its thermostat set between 75 and 80 degrees, provides art classes to the prisoners, and holds a library of 13,000 books, 900 magazines, 300 DVDs and regular TV programs. Also, there is a “detainee newsletter.”

Every prisoner has a copy of the Koran in the language of their choice. Each prisoner is given prayer beads, cap, rug and current prayer schedule. “Guards and staff have received specialized cultural and religious sensitivity training,” and the report adds, “guards have been disciplined for interfering with prayer time.”

The recreation includes a “large recreation yard with facilities/equipment to support soccer, basketball, volleyball, jogging, table tennis, foosball (sic), treadmill and elliptical machines – for up to 20 hours daily.”

The prisoners are provided three hot meals per day with between 4,500 and 5,000 calories daily. They have “six menus for detainees to choose from,” with a typical meal consisting of “meat, starch (plus bread), vegetable, dessert, fruit, fruit juice or similar drink.”

[more, disgusting.]

READ MORE

I Will Defend to the Death Their Right to Silence You

In Amsterdam, the capital of freedom and tolerance, a Dutch Muslim nearly decapitated filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had made a movie that criticized the mistreatment of women in Islam. Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot's depiction of Mohammed set mobs of Muslims in a rampage not only in Holland, but all over the world. Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders produced a 17-minute film Fitna, which juxtaposes quotations from the Koran and documentary footage of Islamic leaders inciting violence (jihad) based on those quotations. Wilder is on 24-hour police protection since al-Qaeda issued a fatwa calling for Wilder's murder.

There is some pushback. Despite the threats to his own life, Geert Wilders has come to the U.S. this week to make the case for an "International First Amendment." Wilder and the International Free Press Society, in conjunction with the Center for Security Policy, are speaking out against the he insinuation of Shariah legal codes and practices into Free World.

Apparently some in Congress still understand the need to protect Free Speech. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has invited Geert Wilders to present the film Fitna to the United States Senate this Thursday in the Senate office once used by Lyndon B. Johnson. Our gratitude goes to Wilders and to Kyl and a strong message to those who are sacrificing freedom for political correctness. The credo of Western Liberty must not be distorted to read, "Islamists disapprove of what you say, so I will defend to the death their right to silence you."

Wilders' movie has been pulled from the web many times, but here is a link to Fitna the movie.

READ MORE

How Democracies Become Tyrannies

Can a free people willingly choose servitude? Is it possible for democracies to become tyrannies? How? Back in 1959 the philosopher Eric Hoffer had this to say about Americans and America:

For those who want to be left alone to realize their capacities and talents this is an ideal country.

Flash forward fifty years to the election of Barack Obama and a hard left leaning Democrat Congress. What Americans want today, apparently, is a government that has no intention of leaving any of us alone. [snip]

The deeper theme of Plato's Republic is the nature of education and the relationship between education and the survival of the state. In short, it's about a journey that results in the realization that justice and happiness in a community rests upon the moral condition of its citizens.

The short version of his theory is that the combination of freedom and poor education in a democracy render the citizens incapable of mastering their impulses and deferring gratification. [snip]

The progressive left in America has spent countless generations destroying the guardians of our inner citadel: religion, family, parents, and tradition - in short, conservatism and limits. When we exhaust the financial and moral capital of previous generations (and future ones, as with the current stimulus bill) we will dutifully line up at the public trough, on our knees.

[Highly Recommended > ]

READ MORE

"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have...."

-- Thomas Jefferson

image toon bdd sclm mny - New American seal = something for nothing

A FUNNY SORT OF DEPRESSION

.
Are we headed to something like the Great Depression?

There is clearly much to be worried about. Most of America's private retirement 401(k) accounts have significantly decreased in value since last autumn's crash. Home equity has plunged. The unemployment rate is above 7 percent and climbing. [snip]

Given all that news, we are in a funny sort of depression. Our spiraling national deficit is being financed by China, Japan and other overseas concerns at almost no interest -- saving the United States trillions of dollars in debt service costs.

Nearly 93 percent of those Americans in the workforce are still employed. Americans, who import 60 percent of their transportation fuel, along with natural gas, have been given about a half-trillion-dollar annual reprieve. [snip]

The vast majority of American homeowners -- well over 90 percent -- meet their mortgage payments. They have no plans to flip their homes for profit. Most are confident that after a few years their houses will appreciate again. As for now, working young couples have a chance to buy a house that would have been impossible just two years ago.

The majority of working Americans are not pulling out their sinking retirement funds. Most are still putting away pre-tax money each month, apparently confident that within a few years their portfolios will return to their former value. Some are even consoled that they are now buying mutual funds at rock-bottom prices. [snip]

For the vast majority of Americans, the fall in prices for almost everything from food to cars has, in real dollars, meant an actual increase in purchasing power.

I live in southeastern Fresno County, one of the poorest regions of a now nearly bankrupt California. Many people are hurting. Yet to go to the local Wal-Mart is to see late-model cars in the parking lots and plenty of cell phones, iPods and BlackBerrys among the shoppers. Carts are stuffed with consumer goods, lots of food and Easter confections.

So are we in a depression that justifies a vast redefinition of government and a massive takeover of the private sector? Not quite. What we are a witnessing instead is a sharp downturn from the most affluent era in the history of civilization.*

For the last two decades, we borrowed and spent as if there were no tomorrow. Now we are living in that tomorrow of cutting back and making do. In relative terms, it is no longer 2005, but that does not mean it is 1932.

[*And we need remember what brought us that prosperity {hint: it wasn't government} - Highly Recommended > ]

READ MORE

Paved With Renewable Mandates

Highly informed sources (don't you love that phrase) tell us that Senate majority leader Harry "Hands-Off-Yucca-Mountain" Reid will be pushing for the Senate to adopt a national renewable energy portfolio within the next two weeks. Reid has reportedly told Senator Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, he wants a bill on the Senate floor within two weeks.

[Here we go again: two weeks, for a national energy policy.
We're witnessing the creation of the next major investment bubble, and it's green.]

READ MORE

Repeal Health Care Fascism

[HT:BN]
Buried in Barack Obama's so-called stimulus bill is funding for a bureaucratic structure for the government to begin rationing the health care of the American people. (Snip)

Unless this is stopped, many of you reading this article right now will one day suffer death-by-liberalism, when the government bureaucracy decides that the health care you need is not worth the cost, or puts you in a waiting line where death will arrive before treatment...

READ MORE


Hollywood Extols National Healthcare While Closing Its OWN Actors Hospital and Long-Term Care Facilities

The self-aggrandizing denizens of Hollywood constantly scold Americans over a lack of national healthcare. It is the biggest failure of American society ever that there is no cradle to the grave program for free health care, they constantly tell us.

And now, in keeping with these nearly universal Hollywood "principles," to prove how Hollywood is far more moral than we lowly citizens of flyover country, and to show that they are better than the great unwashed in the backwaters of America... Hollywood is closing its nearly 90-year-old Motion Picture Fund hospital and accompanying long-term living facilities for aging actors.

Yep, dumping it. Walking away. Fuggedaboutit.

READ MORE

Most Say Affirmative Action No Longer Relevant

Americans are closely divided over the need for continued affirmative action programs now the country has elected its first African-American president.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) of adults say affirmative action is still relevant, but 41% disagree in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure.

Last August, prior to the election of Barack Obama as president, 46% of Americans said affirmative action programs were no longer needed.

READ MORE

Southington Council Member Suspended For Comments

A long-time member of the Southington town council has been suspended for two weeks without pay from his job as director of the town's chamber of commerce for comments at a recent council meeting in which he referred to a Satanic symbol while mentioning President Barack Obama.

[Say something nasty about this president, lose your livelihood. Liberal tolerance in Amerika.]

READ MORE

ABC 2001: 'Hard Core' Conservative Bush; 2099: No Label for Obama

Despite calling for massive new spending on education, universal health care and more money for bailing out banks, no ABC anchor on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning used the word liberal in describing Barack Obama's February 24 address to Congress.


In contrast, ABC host Terry Moran on February 27, 2001 anticipated that a similar speech by President George W. Bush would be "conservative." Following that address, he spun it as "hard core conservatism: fiscal restraint; deep, across-the-board spending and tax cuts; the privatization of part of Social Security."

[What bias? Move along...]

READ MORE

What's Free Enterprise? Don't Ask Us!

Since the economy slipped into a recession last year, Americans have seen leaders of both parties push unprecedented policies in response to the downturn, including federal bailouts of banks, automakers and mortgage holders.(snip)

Do Americans understand the free enterprise system — the system that made this nation wealthy in the first place — well enough to intelligently scrutinize the policy proposals now being advanced by our elected leaders?

[1) Control the money. 2) Control the media. 3) Control the schools.]

READ MORE

Slightly historical

So the proposed re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec has been scrapped.

Even though it would have been entirely accurate, if appallingly over-sensitive to the losers, it told a truth that was not pleasant to militant separatists. And nobody wants to in any way offend anybody in modern Canada.

Welcome to the wonderful world of historical revisionism. [snip]

So what other historical truths must never be mentioned for fear of hurting feelings?

That Africans themselves often sold people to white slavers and that long after slavery was abolished, particularly under African and Arab leadership.

Or that the Ottoman Empire's surveys revealed that very few people lived in the area later known as Palestine until the Jews returned to it, and that it was not considered a nation state or a separate political entity.

Or that after Israel had conquered Gaza and the West Bank it offered them back to Egypt and Jordan and both refused. [because Israel's (only) 'price' is that it be recognized.]

Or that the Crusades were not known as such until long after they had stopped and that they were merely a direct response to Islam's invasion of the Christian heartlands of North Africa and the Levant.

Or that Joseph Stalin killed more people than Hitler, that Che Guevara was a mass murderer.

Or that Galileo was a faithful Catholic whose patron was a cardinal and that Copernicus was a priest. [missed that one][snip]

There is a terribly politically incorrect joke about French roads being lined with trees so that Germans can march in the shade. This joke should never be re-enacted because it might cause offense to someone.

Trees perhaps.

READ MORE

[Point: Revisionist history is rampant in every sphere dominated by the Left; media, government and worst of all (public) education. It erodes the very foundation of our society. So what to do? {tell me if you've heard any of these before}:

Media: internet not TV.
Government: pay attention and act.
Education: demand universal-unencumbered vouchers {and elect those who support}.

Big problems don't have push-button solutions, they have paths to recovery - traversed one step at a time...]

Delta, Northwest mechanics reject union representation

Mechanics at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, the two carriers that merged in March to create the world's largest air carrier, have decided they won't be represented by a union, the company announced Thursday. (snip) The National Mediation Board, which oversees labor issues for railroads and airlines, revoked the union's certification this morning following a vote of the 6,700 employees.

READ MORE

Anti-terror unit asked to protect Ayers

Millersville University has asked the regional counter-terrorism task force to provide security when William Ayers, a former militant anti-war activist, speaks at the university next month. Area law enforcement officers are disturbed.

Speaking on their behalf, Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman said law enforcement must provide security if the university requests it, "regardless of how we feel about an unrepentant terrorist."

[Professionally done.]

READ MORE

image photo - fnn - SCOOL sign