Common Sense Alert!

Business Management 101

2012-01-11T08:22:00.002-05:00

The pupose of a business is to make a profit = capitalism
The purpose of a business is to provide jobs = socialism

I'm amazed at how many so-called Conservatives have lost sight of these basic concepts, not to mention the fact that, in the end, the first provides far more better paying jobs than the second. This shows just how desperately education in this country needs a radical overhaul.

"If you love me...."

2011-09-14T17:25:00.002-04:00

Obama's latest appeal to his obsequious heart-trobbing constituency: "But if you love me you've got to help me pass this bill." This is the most juvenile and unpresidential thing I've heard him say yet.

2011-09-02T09:41:00.002-04:00

No house divided

2011-08-08T20:05:00.001-04:00

U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln asserted in his now-famous "House Divided" speech that the United States could not "endure, permanently, half slave and half free." Lincoln believed that the forces behind abolition and those pushing for the expansion of slavery were too powerful and too dynamic to be confined by state borders or latitudinal lines. While we take Lincoln's words for granted today, the prevailing wisdom for generations had been that the states could remain divided over the slave question.

Senator Marco Rubio made an analogous assertion on Senate floor just after that body had voted to raise the debt ceiling. Rubio, who had given several powerful speeches throughout the debate, had saved his most profound sentiments for last. He painted a picture of two Americas. One of a powerful, effectively limitless welfare state where the government acts as guarantor of prosperity and driver of the economy. The other of an America where government is a protector of rights and thereby allows the opportunity-seeking citizenry to create prosperity and drive the economy.

These visions have wrestled for control for roughly 80 years. The recent acceleration toward a "government of guarantees" is why the Tea Party exists. The Tea Party is a national reawakening to the fact that America can become "all one thing," or unfortunately "all the other." In our modern politics it is stylish to suggest that both visions can coexist indefinitely. Most notably, President Obama rose to power on the platitudinal idea of "red" and "blue" state unity. Rubio resists this notion.

These are two very different version of America and two very different types of solutions. And ultimately we may find that between these two points, there may not be a middle ground. And that in fact as a nation and as a people we must decide what we want the role of government to be in America. Like Lincoln, Rubio recognizes the incompatibility of the competing visions of government. (condensed from an article in the American Thinker by Joseph Ashby, 8-8-11)

Learn from Europe, America.

2011-08-04T16:35:00.002-04:00

Words worthy of thoughtful consideration from Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic:

Europeans today prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism and group entitlements to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans, but the difference continues to grow. Economic freedom has a very low priority here. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and do not understand that their current behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to defend their non-economic freedoms—the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern or post-modern European society—but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent.

The critical situation in Europe today is visible to everybody. It is not possible to hide it. I had believed that this spectacle would be a help to the cause of political and economic freedom in Europe, but this is not proving to be the case. Of course, with the way your American government has been going, you might be able to catch up with us—in terms of our problems—very soon. But you are not as far along yet. So maybe seeing Europe’s crisis today will at least help you in America turn back toward freedom.

Ideological Purity

2011-07-28T12:22:00.006-04:00

Well, John Boehner, master political manipulator, is at it again. He has pulled out his ultimate weapon, the same one he used to push TARP through the House back in 2008. He has told his recalcitrant House members that they should not allow their "ideological purity" to stand in the way of doing what is necessary for the country. This is equal to the infamous Bush line, that he suspended free market principles in order to save the free market. Maybe we can save Christianity by suspending the teachings of the Bible!

We have about 100 new House members who were sent there last November by the honest hard-working people of our nation to stand up for certain specific Constitutional principles. To ask them to set those principles aside is like telling them to compromise what they, and many of us, believe is in the best interests of the nation. This is not only stupid and unreasonable, it's an attack against the character of these House members. Boehner is essentially asking these men and women to stand down, to surrender their beliefs, all in the interest of political expediency. If they give in to his sinister manipulations, it's all over. Now is not the time to compromise; it's the time for all of those so-called Tea Party House members to stand firm.

Compromising on principles is not, and never will be, an option. The opposite of ideological purity is ideological corruption.

Respecting the office

2011-06-21T13:23:00.003-04:00

We hear today that we must respect the office of the president. This is code language for: we must not criticize the sitting president too directly, too severely, too personally. When did this concept arise? As I recollect, it started when the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair was made public. All of a sudden we had to respect the office, even when its occupant was engaging in the most juvenile kind of behavior. To criticize Clinton for his "indiscretions" was off limits because we had to respect the office of the president. Well, I don't think any true, Constitution-loving American ever disrespected "the office," but from Washington's second election onward, many have shown utter contempt for the occupant of the office, and have been quite willing to express their contempt in the most colorful language imaginable. And never, until Clinton, was this considered to be tantamount to disrespecting the office.

Today John Huntsman, the most recent addition to the growing list of Republican wanna-bees, said that he respects the sitting president; he just disagrees with him on what is best for the country. This is political pablum. What is a man other than the sum total of his beliefs and opinions. To couch the current situation in terms of a polite disagreement between two intelligent, well-meaning people is to completely deny reality. As far as I'm concerned, the substance and tone of Huntsman's opening announcement is all I need to hear to know that I would never want this man to be our president.

Weiner out.

2011-06-07T18:32:00.003-04:00

Weiner should go, not just because he lied, but because he's a fool. What kind of an idiot in a high profile position would post such photos on Facebook? This is the kind of stuff high school kids do. A man with such poor judgment is utterly unfit to serve in the US Congress. I know that some would argue that this is exactly what makes him fit, but I say, "Out with him!"

Flag hypocrisy

2011-06-02T13:59:00.003-04:00

Commenting on Sarah Palin's bus tour, Martin Bashir says, "It all sounds like a wonderful commitment to American values and American history, but it's nothing of the kind. In fact, the whole thing could be in breach of a federal law because the United States Flag Code establishes important rules for the use and display of the stars and stripes, the flag of the United States. Under standards of respect and etiquette, it's made clear that the flag of the United States should never be used for any advertising purpose whatsoever. Yet that's precisely what Sarah Palin is doing. She's using the flag of the United States for her own financial purposes."

Mr. Bashir may have contempt for the way Sarah uses the flag, but I would bet a year's pay that he would defend her right to burn a flag.

The meaning of "natural-born citizen."

2011-05-23T09:03:00.002-04:00

In a May 22, 2011 article on the meaning of the term "natural-born citizen," Joe Kovacs writes:

The Founders' chief concern, as demonstrated in a 1787 letter from John Jay to George Washington, was that the commander-in-chief not have dual loyalties. Jay, who later became president of the Continental Congress and the first Supreme Court chief justice, wrote: "Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen."

The definition of natural-born citizen approved by the first U.S. Congress can be seen in the Naturalization Act of 1790, which regarded it as a child born of two American parents. The law, specifying that a natural-born citizen need not be born on U.S. soil, stated: "The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States."

The first U.S. Congress included 20 delegates to the Constitutional convention. Among the 20 were eight members of the Committee of Eleven that drafted the Constitution's natural-born citizen clause. While the act was repealed five years later, it, nevertheless, represented the will of the Congress that the U.S. not be led by someone with dual loyalties.

Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, a principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmed in a discussion in the House on March 9, 1866, that a natural-born citizen is "born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty." "The Law of Nations," a 1758 workby Swiss legal philosopher Emmerich de Vattel, was read by many of the American Founders and informed their understanding of law later established in the Constitution.

Vattel specified that a natural-born citizen is born of two citizens and made it clear that the father's citizenship was a loyalty issue. Vattel writes: "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. … In order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country."

Significantly, when the U.S. Senate resolved in 2008 that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Republican presidential nominee, was a natural born citizen, it specified that his parents were American citizens.

If this is true, then short of a constitutional amendment, Rubio and Jindal are ineligible for the presidency.

Some Wisdom from Lew Lehrman

2011-04-27T17:10:00.003-04:00

In a piece in the April 26 Wall Street Journal in which he proposes tying the dollar to gold, Lew Lehrman makes a great point: "What persistent debtor could resist permanent credit financing? For a government, an individual or an enterprise, 'a deficit without tears' leads to the corrupt euphoria of limitless spending." That is the approach of our government. According to Lehrman, it is for this reason that if we don't tie the dollar to gold, our deficits will persist. The government can just keep "printing" money.

Ensign-ing Off

2011-04-22T15:16:00.004-04:00

GOP Senator John is resigning for getting caught having an affair with his deputy chief-of-staff's wife. He's unrepentant. "I haven't violated any standard of conduct of the Senate." Maybe he's right: their standards are pretty low. A true profile in courage, he's resigning like a little bunny rabbit in the desperate hope the ethics committee won't publicize its findings. Good luck with that, John!

There are reports in the media that shortly after the affair became known, Ensign's parents paid $96,000 to the staffer and his wife. As if the initial transgression didn't stink badly enough.

Perhaps we cannot expect much out of the state of Nevada. How can a state based so heavily on gambling and prostitution produce moral people, especially in politics?

Obama Motors: Disgraceful Government Boondoggle

2011-04-21T15:34:00.006-04:00

"The government plans to sell most of its remaining stake in General Motors in the coming months and lose $11 billion in the process, The Wall Street Journal reports." So says Newsmax, in a story attributed to Money News. So much for Obama's lies about getting our money back. The article says the government bailed out GM with $50 billion, and needs to sell its (our) shares at $53 a share in order to recoup its (our) money. What is Government Motors selling for now? Thirty bucks. I wonder if our brilliant bureaucrats can do addition and subtraction here. Who will defend this idiotic boondoggle, except the unions who were the ones really getting bailed out here? This company should've been allowed to go out of business, like any other failing company. More efficient firms would have bought up some of its assets, if any of them were willing to stake their own money (not yours and mine), and this manufacturing capacity would've appeared in a different incarnation, provided that were profitable. That's the way it works in a free-market (as distinct from Soviet) economy. It's called "creative destruction," and it's a fact of life. Leftists decry free-market capitalism, but they love this disgusting type of crony capitalism because they have their incompetent fingers all over it.

Tax fairness???

2011-04-18T13:15:00.001-04:00

The top 10% pay over half of all federal income taxes + the botton 45% pay no income tax = the rich need to pay their fair share. Did I add that up right?

The Filth is in Your Face

2011-04-14T16:54:00.007-04:00

There was a review in the WSJ by the paper's theater critic, Terry Teachout, of a Broadway play called "The MF-er with the Hat." (I've redone the abbreviation to make it less offensive than the abbreviation in the actual play title.) Interestingly, comedian Chris Rock, for whom the "F" word is a mainstay, is among the cast. Mr. Teachout concludes: "Don't let the stupid title put you off. If you do, you'll miss one of the best new plays to come to Broadway in ages." Ages? And, no doubt, one of the most profanity-filled plays to come to Broadway, probably ever. I don't think that's good enough. It's bad enough that movies, TV and plays are full of profanity. Now we get treated to it in the titles. That way, you can't escape; they're forcing their filth and vulgarity on you. They're not giving you any choice. I mean, all I did was open my daily newspaper. This play could be the second coming of "Othello," and in my mind, the title would be enough reason to boycott it. And publications like the WSJ should make a stand by not enabling the further dragging of our society into the gutter. This is the same newspaper, after all, that only recently ended its policy of referring to people in its articles with their surnames preceded by "Mr.," "Mrs.," "Miss" or "Ms."

The new tone in Washington

2011-04-09T12:13:00.008-04:00

Thursday, April 07, 2011 by Dan Joseph (CNSNews.com) "Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said today that the new Republicans elected to the House of Representatives last November came to Congress "to kill women." She also likened Republican efforts to prohibit federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is endangered to actions taken by Nazis." Take a good look at this woman. She is totally nuts.

Irresponsible government on display!

2011-04-05T09:24:00.002-04:00

Monday, April 04, 2011 by Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Treasury has released a final statement for the month of March that demonstrates that financial madness has gripped the federal government. During the month, according to the Treasury, the federal government grossed $194 billion in tax revenue and paid out $65.898 billion in tax refunds (including $62.011 to individuals and $3.887 to businesses) thus netting $128.179 billion in tax revenue for March.

At the same time, the Treasury paid out a total of $1.1187 trillion. When the $65.898 billion in tax refunds is deducted from that, the Treasury paid a net of $1.0528 trillion in federal expenses for March. That $1.0528 trillion in spending for March equaled 8.2 times the $128.179 in net federal tax revenue for the month.

The lion’s share of this federal spending went to redeem Treasury securities that had matured during the month—most of which were short-term Treasury bills that have terms of one year or less. In fact, during March the Treasury redeemed $705.3 billion in Treasury securities of which $623.9 billion were short-term bills with a term of one year or less. After the disbursements made to pay off the $705.3 billion in loans that came due in March, three of the other top four federal spending items for the month were entitlements programs. The other top item was payments to defense contractors. The Treasury paid $49.8 billion in Social Security benefits in March, $47.4 billion in Medicare benefits, and $22.575 billion in Medicaid benefits. It also paid $37.9 billion to defense contractors.

The federal government’s cash-flow situation was summed up pungently in Senate Budget Committee testimony by Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and is now the co-chair of President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility. "I'm really concerned," Bowles told the committee last month. "I think we face the most predictable economic crisis in history. A lot of us sitting in this room didn't see this last crisis as it came upon us. But this one is really easy to see. The fiscal path we are on today is simply not sustainable.

"This debt and these deficits that we are incurring on an annual basis are like a cancer and they are truly going to destroy this country from within unless we have the common sense to do something about it," said Bowles. "I used to say that I got into this thing for my grandchildren," Bowles said. "I have eight grandchildren under five years old. I'll have one more in a week. And my life is wonderful and it is wild. But this problem is going to happen long before my grandchildren grow up.

"This problem is going to happen, like the former chairman of the Fed said, or the Moody's said, this is a problem we're going to have to face up," he said. "It may be two years, you know, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. But if our bankers over there in Asia begin to believe that we're not going to be solid on our debt, that we're not going to be able to meet our obligations, just stop and think for a minute what happens if they just stop buying our debt.

"What happens to interest rates?" asked Bowles. "And what happens to the U.S. economy? The markets will absolutely devastate us if we don't step up to this problem. The problem is real, the solutions are painful, and we have to act."

The words of a true communist

2011-03-03T07:09:00.000-05:00

"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it," Michael Moore told Laura Flanders of GRITtv. "I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates. They need to -- we need to see these jobs as something we some, that we collectively own as Americans and you can't just steal our jobs and take them someplace else," Moore concluded.

The Face of Evil

2011-01-20T14:22:00.002-05:00

Kermit Gosnell, 69, faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman following a botched abortion at his office, along with the deaths of seven other babies who, prosecutors allege, were born alive following illegal late-term abortions and then were killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

Christian extermination

2011-01-09T07:01:00.004-05:00

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that Christian minorities in the Middle East are victims of "religious cleansing," following deadly attacks on churches in the region. "We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly wicked programme of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing," he said in an annual New Year's address to religious leaders.

An attack on a Coptic church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on January 1 killed 21 people. No one has yet claimed responsibility for that attack, which came after threats published online against Egypt's Copts from an Al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq which had said it was behind a deadly assault on a church in Baghdad in October. (reported on the Middle East Online, 1/7/11)

Anyone who does not believe that Muslims are systematically driving Christians out of "their lands" should read The Body and the Blood by Boston Globe reporter Charles Sennott. Even NPR reported on this the other day. So much for religious tolerance and "Islam, the religion of peace."

The Great Ronald Reagan, in Perspective

2011-01-08T19:36:00.001-05:00

I think the advent of Obama has helped us to understand even more clearly that Ronald Reagan was fighting for good against evil, and on more fronts than just the battle against Soviet communism. The Gipper stood up for good, true American values; and by so doing, he smoked out all the leftists. They complained about everything he did and said, and tried vainly to paint him as a cruel racist. Sadly, many of these communist creeps are now in charge of the United States government. But nothing has changed. Reagan's principles were right for the 80s and they are right for all time. They don't change, just as God's law doesn't change.

I think that with decades of hindsight we can see that the "kinder, gentler nation" was just a more liberal nation, involving capitulation to the leftists on many fronts. The man who saw the "thousand points of light" barely put up a fight against the disgraceful satyr and liar Clinton in 1992. Clinton disgraced the presidency; however, Bush the Second couldn't even bring himself to condemn the looting of the White House by the outgoing Clintonoid barbarians. W Bush then scandalously betrayed the people who (barely) elected him twice, then committed the crowning insult of setting the table for the malevolent communist Obama. Now, we must deal with the rubble left in the wake of Obama and the last Congress.

Few politicians have had the principled courage that Ronald Reagan had to champion conservative values. They've always had to have qualifications and provisos and wrinkles. They've always had to have an excuse for standing on conservative principles. Precious few have had the courage, when it might have mattered, to stand up and say that our principles are right, and liberal-socialist principles are wrong and inimical to American society. The result is that the damage cannot be repaired without great dislocation. I don't believe that many people have the taste for that sort of thing. I think what we are looking at is accelerating decline and ultimately, domination by peoples who have no hesitation about becoming strong and dominant.

When I worked as a volunteer in the Reagan-Bush '84 campaign, the campaign handed out buttons to us that read, "We can make a difference." I believed that slogan and felt that it actually meant something. I don't believe that it is true anymore. I recognize that the "Tea Party" has accomplished a great deal; but I see it as a wrestler who has achieved a "reversal" in a long, grueling match that will be resolved in accordance with the Book of Revelation. Praise God.

No Hillary in 2012

2011-01-02T16:59:00.002-05:00

I retract my prediction that Hillary will run against Obama in 2012. This photo kills, once and for all, any chance she may have had.

No Christ in Red Cross

2010-12-20T08:38:00.003-05:00

UK Red Cross Bans Christmas in Shops
Friday, December 17, 2010 08:26 AM

Christmas has been banned by the Red Cross from its 430 fund-raising shops in the United Kingdom, according to a MailOnline report. After staff members were directed to remove any other signs of the Christian holiday, there followed criticism from both Christians and Moslems.Christine Banks, a volunteer at a Red Cross shop in Kent, said: 'We put up a nativity scene in the window and were told to take it out. It seems we can't have anything that means Christmas. We're allowed to have some tinsel but that's it. When we send cards they have to say season's greetings or best wishes. They must not be linked directly to Christmas.'

When we asked we were told it is because we must not upset Moslems.'Banks added: ' We have been instructed that we can't say anything about Christmas and we certainly can't have a Christmas tree."

My Question: Will the Red Cross soon have to change their name so as not to upset the Moslems?

Taxpayer outcry success

2010-12-19T17:01:00.004-05:00

Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2010, concerning the demise of the omnibus spending bill:

Anti-spending Republicans credited the tea party and the rising power of the conservative grass roots. "This bill never would have been defeated if not for the outcry from taxpayers across America," Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) said.

Power to the people, right on!

This is brilliant!

2010-12-06T13:40:00.001-05:00

Here's a solution to all the controversy over full-body scanners at airports. All we need to do is develop a booth that you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have hidden on or in your body. The explosion will be contained within the sealed booth.

This would be a win-win for everyone. There would be none of this stuff about racial profiling and the device would eliminate long and expensive trials. This is so simple that it's brilliant. I can see it now: you're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter an announcement comes over the PA system, "Attention, standby passengers! We now have a seat available on flight number...." The booth will have a self-clean feature.

T.J. is smiling!

2010-12-06T10:53:00.001-05:00

In its next session beginning in January, the legislature of Virginia will consider proposing a constitutional "Repeal Amendment." The Repeal Amendment would give two-thirds of the states the power to repeal any federal law or regulation. Its text is simple: "Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed."

At present, the only way for states to contest a federal law or regulation is to bring a constitutional challenge in federal court or seek an amendment to the Constitution. A state repeal power provides a targeted way to reverse particular congressional acts and administrative regulations without relying on federal judges or permanently amending the text of the Constitution to correct a specific abuse.

The Repeal Amendment should not be confused with the power to "nullify" unconstitutional laws possessed by federal courts. Unlike nullification, a repeal power allows two-thirds of the states to reject a federal law for policy reasons that are irrelevant to constitutional concerns. In this sense, a state repeal power is more like the president's veto power.

This amendment reflects confidence in the collective wisdom of the men and women from diverse backgrounds, and elected by diverse constituencies, who comprise the modern legislatures of two-thirds of the states. Put another way, it allows thousands of democratically elected representatives outside the Beltway to check the will of 535 elected representatives in Washington, D.C. (full article at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12144).

A moment of Algore honesty

2010-12-01T06:01:00.007-05:00

On November 23, while speaking in Greece, Al Gore admitted: "First-generation ethanol, I think, was a mistake." And whose mistake was it, Mr. Gore? In 1994, it was Gore himself who ended a 50-50 tie in the Senate by voting in favor of an ethanol tax credit that added almost $5 billion to the federal deficit last year. And that number doesn't include the many ways in which corn-based ethanol mandates drive up the price of food and livestock feed. Whether Gore meant well or not can be debated, but according to Reuters, Gore also said, "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president." Why should we believe anything this man has to say? He is a joke.

Shaking the world

2010-11-20T15:03:00.004-05:00

Pat Buchanan writes: At the G20 gathering in Seoul, South Korea, Barack Obama got an earful from China about the Fed sinking the dollar and learned that Beijing would not be revaluing its currency to help with our chronic trade deficits. As China holds a huge share of U.S. debt, Obama is not about to get sassy with our banker, who might just cut off the credit America, running a budget deficit of 10 percent of gross domestic product, desperately needs.

So the question arises: Who put us in this predicament? Who awakened, fed and nurtured this tiger to where she is growling at all Asia and baring her teeth at the United States? Answer: the free trade uber alles Republicans. Richard Nixon opened China. His 1972 Shanghai communique pointed inexorably to what Jimmy Carter did in 1979: break relations and abrogate our security pact with Taiwan, and recognize the People's Republic as the sole legitimate government of China. In 1982, the Ronald Reagan White House signed on to a communique with Deng Xiaoping's China by which we agreed to reduce and eventually end all arms sales to Taiwan as tensions in the strait diminished. Under George H.W. Bush, Beijing's crushing of the Tiananmen Square protest with tanks was not allowed to interfere with business.

Repeatedly, Republicans voted to extend most-favored-nation status to China. Dissenters were castigated as "isolationists and protectionists." Under Bush II, the GOP made MFN permanent and sponsored Beijing's entry into the World Trade Organization, despite China's downing of a U.S. surveillance plane and incarceration of its American crew on Hainan Island. Colin Powell was forced to apologize.

For decades, corporate America championed investing in China and trade with China, though the massive transfer of U.S. factories, technologies and jobs was clearly empowering China and weakening America.

Now, with U.S. political, military, industrial and strategic decline vis a vis China manifest to the world, we hear the wails of American businessmen that they are not being treated fairly by the Chinese. And the politicians responsible for building up China are now talking tough about confronting and containing China. Sorry, but that cat cannot be walked back.

Review commission chair Dan Slane says his members have concluded that "China is adopting a highly discriminatory policy of favoring domestic producers over foreign manufacturers. Under the guise of fostering 'indigenous innovation' ... the government of China appears determined to exclude foreigners from bidding on government contracts at the central, provincial and local levels."

Imagine that! The Chinese are ignoring WTO rules and putting China first. Don't they understand how the Global Economy works? You're not supposed to tilt the field in favor of the home team.

The policy the Chinese are pursuing, economic nationalism, was virtually invented by the Republican Party. Protectionism was the declared policy of the GOP from the day its first president took office in 1861 to the day Calvin Coolidge left in 1929. Free trade was the policy of a Great Britain whose clocks those generations of Americans cleaned, even as the Chinese are cleaning ours.

Napoleon said of the Middle Kingdom, "Let (China) sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world." The shaking has begun.

My comment: Is it the "shaking" or the "shake down"? Pat may be more right about all this than I've given him credit for in the past.

An example of a "true Muslim."

2010-11-17T14:39:00.004-05:00

http://cloudvideos.tangle.com/c41d1763008601510d3e9a679de49839.flv

This is the mind-set we are up against. By "we" I mean the West. Eventually it will move against the East too. But for now, we are the target.

If the link above does not work, cut and paste this one.
http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=0861ff3eabea1ceb73e4

Wrong rhetoric

2010-11-05T08:25:00.007-04:00

Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, Mitch McConnell said: "When the administration agrees with the American people, we will agree with the administration. When it disagrees with the American people, we won’t. This has been our posture from the beginning of this administration. And we intend to stick with it."

I think this is the wrong rhetoric and is potentially quite dangerous. We live in a Constitutional Republic. This means that the public elects men and women to go to Washington to represent their interests. We are supposed to elect wise and experienced people who can thoughtfully focus on the matters at hand and use good judgment in making decisions, considering both the interests of their constituents and the interests of the nation at large. Goodness, there have been times when the majority favored legalized abortion, but that doesn't make it right. It is quite likely, given the fact that nearly half the population pays no federal income tax, that the majority may oppose tax reductions, but that doesn't make it right. If our representatives are only responsible for doing what the majority of their constituents want, then we don't really need representatives. Lackeys will do. I would sure prefer to hear the Republican leader of the Senate affirming his party's commitment to governing according to tried and true Conservative principles, not "the will of the people." That's mob rule, the tyranny of the majority, not Republicanism.

Islam's war against the West

2010-10-27T11:02:00.003-04:00

DUBAI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said the kidnapping of five French nationals in Niger last month had been prompted by France's unjust treatment of Muslims, in an audio message aired on Al Jazeera television on Wednesday.

Looks like the new front on Islam's war aginst the West is France. Will they recend their ban on veils? Will they get out of Bush's war in Afghanistan (that's bin Laben's appellation)? I guess we're about see what kind of stuff the French are made of. There are presently 5 million Muslims in France. That's enough to create a lot of havoc.

WH bristles over top Republican's remarks

2010-10-27T07:25:00.002-04:00

CNN White House Correspondent Dan Lothian

The White House is firing back at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell after he told the National Journal that "the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." With his usual sarcastic tone, spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters "maybe Senator McConnell is interested in running for President."

Gibbs said there will be time in two years for a presidential campaign, but that "members of the Senate are elected and hired by the people of the United States to get stuff done for the people of the United States, not posture and play political games, gum up the system."

What hypocrisy! The Senate isn’t even in session. There isn’t any business McConnell is supposed to be doing right now. We’re in the midst of a hot political campaign. And on top of all that, isn’t the President of the United States "elected and hired by the people of the United States to get stuff done for the people of the United States, not posture and play political games"? And isn’t his office in session every day of the year? Yet he gets to run around all over the country politicking as usual, lying about the opposition, and generally doing his best to gum up the system. Gibb's hypocrisy is stunning!

Let the money in...

2010-10-26T17:01:00.004-04:00

I'm coming to the conclusion that, with perhaps a few exceptions, as a general principle you really can't buy an election. I say that because Meg Whitman has spent $120 million of her own money yet it looks like she isn't gonna win. Could she win if she spent $200 million or $300 million? I doubt it. People are gonna vote for who they decide to vote for. At some point you have put out as much advertising as you can. Putting out any more just isn't going to change the outcome.

This also leads me to think that the money flows toward whoever is perceived as the likely winner. In other words, the reason so many conservative candidates are likely to win is not because so much money is flowing toward them; the money is flowing in their direction because people think they're going to win. If it's true that as a general rule, the money is the result of success and not the cause, then I say repeal McCain-Feingold (looks like Feingold will be repealed). Why not take all the limits off political contributions? All you really need is exposure of the donor list. My concern all along has been that my rights are being trambled on when the government tells me that I can't give a candidate more than $1000.00. And all it does is impower PACs and big labor. Let's put the money back into politics. With good sunshine laws, the risk of money corruption politicians is greatly limited. And we have done rather well in recent years at discovering the corrupt ones and throwing them out on their ear...sometimes into prison.

This is an embarassment

2010-10-25T17:20:00.001-04:00

Ascension of the moderates?

2010-10-23T09:41:00.002-04:00

I heard Rush saying the other day that in the next Senate, it will be the so-called moderates who have the power, being neatly situated between the left-wing flaming liberals on the one side and the right-wing Tea Party extremists on the other. Does this mean that John McCain will morph back into a "moderate"? I'm sure we can count on that. Too bad the good people of Arizona didn't dump him when they had the chance. Does this also mean that the real power brokers in the next Senate will be the cooperators and compromisers like Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, and the Maine girls? Probably. It may be better than having socialists like Reid and Shumer calling the shots, but it certainly isn't much better.

Also, I predict again that by the end of January Hillary will have resigned so she can run for president. The next two years could be very unpleasant for the current occupant of the White House as Bill and Hillary roam the countryside criticizing his every move. I suspect they will make the criticisms from the right look like pablum.

Liberalism at odds with democratic government

2010-10-22T14:29:00.002-04:00

Modern liberalism is fundamentally at odds with democratic government because it demands results that ordinary people would not freely choose. Liberals must govern, therefore, through institutions that are largely insulated from the popular will. The most important institutions for liberals’ purposes are the judiciary and the bureaucracies.

In his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln asserted: "The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." Lincoln was thinking of Dred Scott. Today, however, his observation is even more pertinent, as we have resigned into the hands of the federal judiciary ever more vital questions affecting the whole people. We have in very significant measure ceased to be our own rulers.

The Supreme Court, without authorization from any law, has changed our policies and our culture. That process continues as the lower federal courts are following the Supreme Court’s example. The courts, without the authorization from law, are taking out of the hands of the American people the most basic moral and cultural decisions. [Robert Bork, 1995]

The most recent example of what Judge Bork describes is a federal judge ordering the military to accept out-of-the-closet homosexuals.

Sick and Perverse

2010-09-19T17:21:00.005-04:00

Writing in an Opinion piece on Foxsnews.com, Annemarie McAvoy says (concerning the Petit killers): "If these men did do the crimes that they have been accused of doing, then our anger, outrage and disgust are certainly warranted. However, if we execute them then we are applying the same 'method' that they did, we are killing them. We are stooping to their level by acting as they did."

Suggesting that there is parity between vicious cold-blooded murder and painless execution by the state following due process is sick. It is beyond sick. It is perverse. It is evil. If there were ever been two human beings (and I use the term loosely) who deserve death, it is these two. In fact, they deserve a slow agonizing death such as they inflicted on their poor victims. Annemarie needs to wake up; she needs to get a life. I'll bet she has no problem at all with the viscious cold-blooded murder of a baby that hasn't even been born yet. Most of the people who thinking like her don't. How perverse her thinking! How utterly sick!

The Trojan Horse

2010-09-01T08:53:00.006-04:00

Writing in Der Spiegel Online, Erich Follith excoriates in the serverest terms the anti-Muslim rhetoric taking place in Germany. He then admits: "Of course, these fears are not completely unfounded. Conditions in areas like Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood give rise to very real, justified concerns. There are schoolrooms where three-quarters of the students are from immigrant families, students whose German is barely good enough to get by. There are Arab and Albanian family clans that control crime syndicates and receive welfare benefits. There are phenomena like forced marriages and honor killings. In some mosques, imams are encouraging the faithful to engage in Islamist terror. All of this exists, and yet it has nothing to do with ordinary Islam and the day-to-day lives of well over 90 percent of Germany's Muslims. And yet these are precisely the kinds of things that fuel cheap attempts to create stereotypes of Muslims as the enemy." (8/31/10)

The dangerous flaw in Herr Follith's analysis in revealed in his statement, "All of this exists, and yet it has nothing to do with ordinary Islam and the day-to-day lives of well over 90 percent of Germany's Muslims." To insist on making a distinction between "radical Islam" and "ordinary Islam" is the fatal error that will, if not forsaken, inevitably bring the world to it's knees. The truth is, the 90% of "ordinary Islam" is the Trojan Horse for the 10% of "radical Islam," which is more accurately described as "true Islam." And 10% of one billion is a lot of dangerous soldiers of Allah.

People such as Herr Follith better wake up before it's too late. Europe is already well on its way to becoming fully Islamicized.

Danke and Merci!

2010-08-13T09:54:00.004-04:00

Aug 12, 6:20 AM (ET) By MARCY GORDON
WASHINGTON (AP) - The $700 billion U.S. bailout program launched in response to the global economic meltdown had a far greater impact overseas than other countries' financial rescue plans did on the U.S., according to a new report from a congressional watchdog.
Billions of dollars in U.S. rescue funds wound up in big banks in France, Germany and other nations. That was probably inevitable because of the structure of the Treasury Department's program, the Congressional Oversight Panel says in a new report issued Thursday.
The U.S. program aimed to stabilize the financial system by injecting money into as many banks as possible, including those with substantial operations overseas. Most other countries, by contrast, focused their efforts more narrowly on banks in their nations that usually lacked major U.S. operations.
But the report says that if the U.S. had gotten more data on which foreign banks would benefit the most, the government might have been able to ask those countries to share some of the cost.
"There were no data about where this money was going," panel chair Elizabeth Warren said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "The American people have a right to know where the money went."
An example: Major French and German banks were among the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. rescue of American International Group Inc., yet the American government shouldered the entire $70 billion risk of pumping capital into the crippled insurance titan. The report compares that with the $35 billion that France spent on its overall financial rescue program and the $133 billion that Germany spent.
Much of the $182 billion in federal aid to AIG - the biggest of the government rescues - went to meet the company's obligations to its Wall Street trading partners on credit default swaps, a form of insurance against default of securities. The partners included French banks Societe Generale, which received $11.9 billion in AIG money, and BNP Paribas, which got $4.9 billion, and Germany's Deutsche Bank, $11.8 billion.
Of the 87 banks and financial entities that indirectly benefited from the U.S. aid to AIG, 43 are foreign, according to the report. In addition to France and Germany, they include banks based in Canada, Britain and Switzerland.
In addition to AIG, many of the U.S. banks and automakers that received billions in bailout aid derive a large proportion of their revenue from operations outside the U.S., the report noted.
The watchdog panel was created by Congress to oversee the Treasury Department rescue program that came in at the peak of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008. It has said it's unclear whether U.S. taxpayers will ever fully recoup the cost of the AIG bailout. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that taxpayers will lose $36 billion.

Now we know where the real money is.

2010-08-10T15:17:00.001-04:00

Is Bloomberg a total idiot?

2010-08-05T08:53:00.003-04:00

NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the decision of the City Landmarks Commission to allow the building of the mosque to go forward by saying, "Of course, it is fair to ask the organisers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation – and in fact, their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. By doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our city even closer together and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam."

In contrast to Mr. Bloomberg's opinion, the Koran says, "Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you" (Sura 9, Repentance, verse 123). And, "Fight against such as those to whom the scriptures were given as believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day …. (ibid., verse 29). And, "Kill them [the unbelievers] wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage (Sura 2, The Cow, verse 191). And, "The unbelievers are your sworn enemies (Sura 4, Women, verse 102). And, "Those who follow Him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another" (Sura 48, Victory, verse 48). And, "Allah loves those who fight for His cause in ranks as firm as a mighty edifice" (Sura 41, Battle Array, verse 4). And, "I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them. (Sura 8, The Accessions, verse 12)

Sestak running against Sestak

2010-08-04T20:54:00.003-04:00

Headline in our local paper on August 3 says, Sustak faults Democrat policies. I love this. Senatorial candidate Joe Sestak is now running against his own party. As a matter of fact, since he has been a Democratic member of the House of Representatives for the last 31/2 years, he seems to be running against himself. If he is so concerned about the failure of Democrats to
"change politics despite promises to do so, and deal with the national debt," why hasn't he been crying out for change for the past 3 years? And if he is really concerned about the "looming Medicare and Social Security insolvencies" and believes they "will demand higher taxes on the wealthy and fewer corporate tax breaks," why hasn't he been demanding that his fellow Democrats inact these changes? The reason is obvious. Sestak now knows that in order to have any chance of getting elected, he has to run against Washington. Even though he has been a part of Washington, he has to posture himself as though he hasn't. He has to become as much like Pat Toomey as he possibly can.

A Democrat, Trashing Affirmative Action?

2010-07-23T13:01:00.009-04:00

I don't often read Democrat propaganda in the op-ed pages of the newspapers. However, a piece in today's Wall Street Journal by Virginia Senator James Webb stopped me in my tracks. I thought it was a giant misprint or a mistake. Webb writes that "diversity policies have marginalized many white workers." He talks about the Old South, saying that the vast majority of whites didn't own slaves. He concludes, "Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end. . . . Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners." What?! In the age of Obama? All the current regime does is pick winners and losers. Opportunity? That's just a code-word for oppression and an obstacle to equality of outcomes. Webb's piece obviously runs counter to the entire communist agenda that has this country in its grip. According to the current regime, America is a bad nation, which has a lot to be ashamed of and to apologize for. It was founded by white slave-owners. Everybody who is not white is to be preferred, in all respects. White people have been privileged for too long, and it's now payback time. This is the whole Obama philosophy and world view.

So how in the name of Joe Biden can a Democrat U.S. Senator, in a state that went for Obama in the 2008 election, and who is not up for re-election until 2012, so directly challenge one of the central tenets of Obama and his fellow communist revolutionaries? I'm at a loss. Is some mighty challenger emerging already to take on Webb? Does anybody have any ideas?

Check out the Webb piece.

Freedom of "worship"?

2010-07-18T14:04:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - The change in language was barely noticeable to the average citizen but political observers are raising red flags at the use of a new term "freedom of worship" by President Obama and Secretary Clinton as a replacement for the term freedom of religion. This shift happened between the President's speech in Cairo where he showcased America's freedom of religion and his appearance in November at a memorial for the victims of Fort Hood, where he specifically used the term "freedom of worship." From that point on, it has become the term of choice for the president and Clinton.

A purposeful change in language could mean a much narrower view of the right to religious freedom. Does this change of language indicate a change of policy? As Catholics, this is an area where we must remain vigilant. These small changes can be used to change our perception of rights and freedoms.

In her article for "First Things" magazine, Ashley Samelson, International Programs Director for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, stated, "To anyone who closely follows prominent discussion of religious freedom in the diplomatic and political arena, this linguistic shift is troubling: "The reason is simple. Any person of faith knows that religious exercise is about a lot more than freedom of worship. It's about the right to dress according to one's religious dictates, to preach openly, to evangelize, to engage in the public square. Everyone knows that religious Jews keep kosher, religious Quakers don't go to war, and religious Muslim women wear headscarves-yet "freedom of worship" would protect none of these acts of faith."

Deja vu all over again!

2010-07-16T10:48:00.001-04:00

Writes Walter E. Williams: The Great Depression did not end until after WWII. Why it lasted so long went unanswered until Harold L. Cole, professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Lee E. Ohanian, professor of economics at UCLA, published their research project "How Government Prolonged the Depression" in the Journal of Political Economy (August 2004). Professor Cole explained, "The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes. Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened." Professors Cole and Ohanian argue that FDR's economic policies added at least seven years to the depression.

No Islamic terrorists around here!?

2010-07-12T15:13:00.005-04:00

On May 26, John Brennan, President Obama's chief national security adviser for counterterrorism, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that "describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie propagated by al Qaeda and its affiliates to justify terrorism, that the United States is somehow at war against Islam. The reality, of course, is that we have never been and will never be at war with Islam. After all, Islam, like so many faiths, is part of America." In another speech he said: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind and, as Americans, we refuse to live in fear. Nor do we describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam meaning to purify oneself of one's community."

Now let me get this straight: the people we are fighting in Afghanistan and the people who attacked us in New York, Washington, and Fort Hood were not all devout Muslims who define jihad as Islam's struggle to take over the world and rid it of against all non-muslims (Islam's historical goal from the start). And they are not using terror as their primary weapon. And they are not fighting us for ideological reasons at all, but because...uh, why exactly are they fighting us? If it's not because they believe they are obeying the Koran, then why is it?

Mr. Brennan is either dangeroiusly naive or he is actually working to advance our enemy's cause.

Unmitigated claptrap!

2010-06-14T13:53:00.005-04:00

President Obama recently told Politico: “Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much. Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”

This is unmitigated claptrap. Is it not possible that people may want the president to step up and show leadership in an area of legitimate federal interest while simultaneously wanting him to cease his efforts to control matters that are beyond his constitutional mandate? To assert that believing B is hypocritical because you did not believe A is disingenuous and deceptive. This is the kind of rhetoric that's designed to appeal to simple-minded partisans. Anyone with half a brain ought to be able to see through this untenable and patently illogical assertion.

Put old people in prison

2010-06-12T11:51:00.003-04:00

Here's an idea for AARP to start promoting: Let's put all senior citizens in prision and the criminals in nursing homes. This way the seniors would have access to showers, hobbies, and walks; they would receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs, and they'd receive money instead of paying it out. They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly if they fell or needed assistance. Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell. They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool, and education, simple clothing, shoes, slippers, and PJs. In addition, legal aid would be free on request. There would be a private, secure room for all, with an outdoor exercise yard. Each senior could have a PC, TV, radio, and daily phone calls. There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The criminals, on the other hand, would get cold food and be continually left alone unsupervised. Lights would be off at 8 pm and showers provided once a week. They would live in a tiny room, pay $5000.00 a month, and have no hope of ever getting out.

Thin-skinned president

2010-05-25T21:02:00.003-04:00

The description below by Senator Roberts resonates. I have gotten the impression several times that the president is rather thin-skinned, a sign of insecurity as a person. This is pretty typical of young men who grew up without a strong father figure. Here is what Roberts said: "The more he talked, the more he got upset," Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said. “He needs to take a valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans and just calm down, and don’t take anything so seriously. If you disagree with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re attacking their motives — and he takes it that way and tends then to lecture and then gets upset.”

Byline: Biddeford, Maine

2010-05-09T07:50:00.003-04:00

I spoke to a man last night who had just returned from the Maine State Republican Convention. He said that someone introduced a totally new platform for consideration that went straight down the list of core conservative values. About half-way through the reading of it someone made a motion to kill it, even before it had been fully reviewed. A vote was called and the motion received a handful of yeas. When the call was made for all who oppose, there was a roar from the crowd that overwhelmed the place. The new platform was overwhelmingly approved, much to the consternation of Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. This man said it was as though the tea-partiers had just taken back the Republican Party, at least in Maine.

The dream of total equality

2010-05-06T07:16:00.004-04:00

Rev. Al Sharpton has said that M. L. Kings dream of social justice was that "everything is equal in everybody's house." This is classic language of the committed fascist. Of course, we must understand what it really means. It means the American middle class declines to the level of the Third World masses, while a select elete, the all-wise philosopher-kings who govern the impoverished masses, get to live in the lap of luxury. Think Robert Mugabe. I'm sure Rev. Al figures he will be part of this select few. It sounds so noble: "Equality for all!" Ha! What a fraud!

BTW, I thought King's dream was that all men would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. On that basis I judge Rev. Al to be a man of contemptible character. See his statement here... http://www.breitbart.tv/al-sharpton-we-wont-have-true-social-justice-until-everything-is-equal-in-everybodys-house

Armed to the hilt

2010-05-03T10:08:00.003-04:00

This video clip shows in the clearest of terms why every law-abiding family in America ought to be armed to the hilt. http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/754.html%C2%A0%3E%3E

Reasons for a vigilent Tea Party Movement

2010-04-24T16:33:00.004-04:00

Some have wondered why the tea partiers are so worked up about taxes. Why, President Obama hasn't raised anyone's taxes. In fact, he lowered taxes for nearly everyone. This is baloney in its purest form. First of all, a tax rebate or tax credit is not lowering taxes. Only a reduction in rates can be considered lowering taxes. Rebates and credits are manipulations. Second, here is the short list of tax increases that are currently on the table.

1. Increase on stock dividends from 15% to 40% to take effect in 2011 (Senate Budget Committee). This would be a cyanide pill for the economy.

2. Increase in captial gains taxes due to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

3. Increase in the alternative minimum tax.

4. Increase in the inheritance tax (AKA the death tax).

5. The new "bank tax" promoted by Obama in his Cooper Union speech (4/22/10).

6. Last but not least (and not yet officially on the table), the European-style value-added tax (VAT). I might favor a VAT if it replaces income taxes, but if it's on top of the tax on income, then I'm adamantly against it.

These are six good reasons why the Tea Party Movement needs to remain vocal and vigilent.

Apocalypse now (or at least soon)

2010-04-19T17:06:00.005-04:00

Interesting facts regarding the last presidential election: Obama won 28 states plus DC while McCain won 20. The total number of square miles of Obama states was 1,483,702 while McCain's were 2,310,315 (1,719,311 if we take out Alaska). The average murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by Obama was 6.56 while in McCain's counties it was 3.6.

While the divide was less severe than in 2004, the continued reality is that the poorer, less law-abiding sectors of our nation continually vote for the Democrat while the more affluent and more law-abiding populations vote Republican. Should it be a surprise that the result of this trend is a progressive increase in the size of government largess. This is not to say that Republicans never engage in government-run charity, but clearly the Democrats are the primary progenitors of such programs. They certainly campaign the most stridently on their willingness to provide even more direct assistance to the "needy" among us.

Today, nearly half the population pays no income taxes at all, and many of these same people (perhaps as much as 40% of the population) depend on some form of government hand-out. We have an ever-growing divide between the providers of revenue and the recipients of benefits. The question is, how do we ever stop our nation from continuing to move in this direction?

We have recently seen in Greece what happens when citizens are threatened with the loss of government entitlements: rioting in the streets. Once a benefit is bestowed, it is virtually impossible to take it back, regardless of the consequences it's having on the economy. This is why the Founders foresaw the inherent dangers in granting gifts from the public treasury to the voting citizens. Human nature inclines most people to vote themselves the best benefits, regardless of how it effects anything else.

Today we have a society that is putting its government gifts on a charge card and saddling the next generation with the payments. This is serious enough, but if Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal immigrants, and they begin to vote, we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years. I think that this clearly plausible scenario can rightly be call an Apocalypse.

Ticked off press.

2010-04-14T08:35:00.002-04:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/13/AR2010041303067_pf.html

Interesting how the mainstream press is beginning to turn on the president, not because of any policy concerns, but because he is dissing them.

Gonorrhea Lectim

2010-04-09T10:38:00.003-04:00

Important information has just been released from the Center for Disease Control that all Americans should be made aware of. It concerns a new and virulent strain of an old disease called Gonorrhea Lectim (pronounced "Gonna re-elect 'im"). This disease is contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior involving putting your cranium up your rectum. Many victims contracted it in 2008, but now most people, after having been infected for the past 1-2 years, are starting to realize how destructive this sickness really is. It's sad because it is so easily cured with a new procedure just coming on the market called Votemout! You take the first dose/step in 2010 and the second in 2012. You must then avoid engaging in such behavior again in the future, otherwise it could become a permanent condition and eventually wipe out all life as we know it. Several states are already controling the spread of this disease such as Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, with many more seeing the handwriting on the wall. Please pass this important announcement on to every American you really care about.

Unprecedented retreat

2010-04-08T00:17:00.004-04:00

Here's the lead sentence from a story on Breitbart today:

NASA announced Tuesday that it signed a contract with the Russian space agency to shuttle US astronauts to the orbiting International Space Station.

And here's the lead from a story linked on Drudge:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered Wednesday to help Uruguay expand a refinery and supply it with crude oil. Chavez and visiting Uruguayan President Jose Mujica are expected to sign accords pledging to deepen trade and energy ties between the two South American nations.

You've seen the stories about the Nuclear Posture Review (The politicization of this process itself is scandalous and dangerous, but that's another matter)

And the stories about Putin offering Ahmedinejad and the Iranians pretty vast support for their nuclear enterprise and ramped up military support.

And the stories about sabotaging Israel. And sandbagging Karzai.

All of these - from space, to our own hemisphere, to our strategic deterrent, to our humiliation of our allies, to our impotence in the face of Russian/Iranian provocation - all of these tell a tale of American retreat from global leadership that is unprecedented. Our weakness is provocative. The rational response of our longtime friends will be to make their own security arrangements; what choice do they have? The response of our enemies will be to become emboldened to be more adventuresome. And our response will be . . . what? To apologize?

I don't think the left has a clue as to how vital US strength is to the global order. In its absence, we'll see the realization of Yeats' warning: "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

Turn out the enablers

2010-03-22T22:19:00.002-04:00

At the end of this shameful week, the individuals I actually have the most contempt for are the opportunistic democrats who voted no.

They apparently believe, cowards that they are, that they can vote no and thus get a pass from their constituents come November. But it is these cowardly SOBs who made it possible for Pelosi to be Speaker in the first place and effectively control the legislative agenda of the nation.

Pelosi, after lots of head-counting and strategizing with her brain trust, gave these guys a free pass to vote no. She added up the numbers and came to the conclusion that by voting no now, these "renegades" survive politically to vote "yes" for her next year. These fence-straddling no voters, in other words, are Pelosi's biggest enablers. It is precisely these 34 "no" democrats who need to be turned out - along with a select few others, of course. Come fall, Republicans need to campaign against these guys as Pelosi enablers.

These phonies will posture during the upcoming election, of course, that they stood up to the powers that be; nothing is further from the truth and they mustn't be allowed to get away with claiming otherwise. The break-away democrats were allowed by the goddess to vote no; allowed to posture about their agonizing struggles of conscience; allowed even to publicly challenge the leadership. It was all an act, a well-thought out, carefully orchestrated charade. Come January, these brave souls will vote Pelosi back into the Speaker's chair and the agenda to dismantle America will continue apace.

Turn 'em out. Turn 'em out now.

Oh, Don't Worry; He's Just Dead

2010-03-08T19:16:00.002-05:00

Oh, look: A 22-year-old man dies of thirst in one of those lovely socialized British hospitals. There they go again, those rascals. Check it out.

Emotional Blackmail

2010-02-26T13:08:00.003-05:00

Here is the Democrat's strategy for winning people to their side on healthcare (as practiced yesterday by Tom Harkin, the denture lady, et al): "I know someone who is suffering and I'm suffering, therefore you must accede to my opinion--and you’re heartless if you don’t." Notice there is no appeal to intellect, no appeal to reason, no appeal to common sense. This is pure emotional blackmail. A political ploy. It is an effort to overcome reasonable argumentation with raw emotion. It is cheap. It is phony. And in the end it will not work.

Perhaps this is why the Canadian Premier Didn't go to Great Britain

2010-02-25T20:06:00.009-05:00

Here is a most interesting report from British news service Reuters, no evil conservative news outlet. Where did I hear about the Reuters report? ABC-NBC-CBS? No. CNN-CNBC-MSNBC-Public TV-NPR? No, not them, either. Why, it was on the Rush Limbaugh Program.

Oh, yeah: we definitely need some of this superior British-style free socialist health care over here. Can't say I've ever been treated to anything like this. They certainly seemed quite concerned about keeping their costs down. You don't suppose there was any rationing going on, do you? Well, at least we'd never have to worry about that happening here. For some reason, these Brits didn't seem to have much of an incentive to take care of the poor patients in this lovely hospital. Of course, they do have a centralized system, so shouldn't all the hospitals be the same? But that would make them all like this. No, that's ridiculous; this is Great Britain, a socialist utopia. No, perhaps some capitalist insurance companies sneaked in. No, no; the article specifically states it was an NHS--that's National Health Service--hospital. Hmm. . . I wonder what that missing incentive could be. . . . You don't suppose it's profit, do you? Aaaaachhhh! I feel dirty even suggesting it. But wait a minute; where else did they try (only for about 70 years, though) central planning without the incentive of profit? Oh, it's on the tip of my tongue. . . Swaziland, Soweto. . . Soviet Union! But they were communists. We don't have any of those here. Well, I mean, except Van Jones. Oh, and that lady in the Obama administration who admires Mao as one of her favorite political philosophers (well, he was responsible for tens of millions of dead comrades, but nobody's perfect). And that union ally of Obama's who agrees with Mao that power comes from the barrel of a gun. Well, that's just poetry or something, right? Ach! It's all coincidence! And lies, lies! Oh, excuse me; there I go sounding like Stalin or. . . like Obama.

[We, the editors of Common Sense Alert, sincerely apologize for the foregoing display of thought and reasoning.]

Read all about it.

Canadian Premier Goes to Miami for Heart Surgery

2010-02-23T16:15:00.003-05:00

Well, what do you know about that? I wonder why he didn't go to Great Britain?

Read it.

The great Scott Brown!

2010-02-22T20:24:00.003-05:00

I had my doubts about this guy from the get-go, with his avoidance of the very word Republican during his entire campaign. Now he joins with other "Republicans" (Snowe, Collins, and Voinovich) to help Harry Reid and the Leftists advance a so-called "jobs" bill. This is a good thing? It turns out it's Teddy Kennedy's seat after all.

Brown is talking about a desire to bring "bipartsanship" back to Washington.

Bring it back!?! When was this vaunted time when Washington was a bipartisan city? When was this time when Democrats and Republicans hugged and kissed and made whoopee together? When was the time, when was the era, of this vaunted civility that we have supposedly lost? These are fanatsies, people.

Leftists and conservatives have always hated each other and always will - and for very good reason. They think we're stupid, racist, insensitive, greedy and who knows what else. We know they're totalitatians at heart, arrogant, presumptuous, sanctimonious, and self-satisfied. And ultimately, we know they're like the lost boys - they never grow up. What's not to hate?

Excepting brief periods when the nation was at war, Washington has never been bipartisan, nor should any sane person want it to be. I don't want to meet Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, or Barack Obama halfway. I want them to lose and lose big. Lose totally. I want to see them and their socialist agenda repudiated. That's my agenda - and Scott Brown is not helping to advance it, not one whit.

Is Biden serious?

2010-02-11T17:55:00.002-05:00

Joe Biden told Larry King last night, "I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government." Is he serious? Bush does all the heavy lifting and takes all the slings and arrow, then Obama counts it as his great achievement. As I remember it, both Biden and Obama vehemently opposed and criticized the so-called surge, which obviously was what finally put down the so-called insurgency. But never mind the truth, if Joe says it's Obama's great achievement, then it will certainly go down in history as Obama's great achievement. PU!

Obama's first-term achievements

2010-02-03T12:40:00.000-05:00

They Don't Know How to do Anything Else

2010-01-28T12:29:00.003-05:00

Oh, great: Now it's $8 billion in "stimulus" money for "high-speed rail," for which there is no market. Have these socialists ever heard of Amtrak? Hmmm. . . query for you: Does AMTRAK compete with private rail systems? Oh, and don't forget force-funneling money to private banks so they can lend it to small business. Why do we need an incompetent, wasteful government as a middle-man? These guys only know one way to operate: Tax money away from the productive sectors of society, launder it through their union-organized bureaucracy, then pay it out to favored, wasteful sectors, which inevitably become money pits. Of course, they'd rather die than cut taxes on the same small businesses they profess to want to help. Let's hope people don't buy this nonsense any more than they buy health care "reform."

How conservative?

2010-01-20T22:39:00.002-05:00

I will rain - just a little bit - on the Scott Brown parade.

I find it interesting and telling that in his victory remarks (and for that matter, throughout his campaign), he has emphasized the "independent majority" in Massachusetts. That appeal obviously proved to be very smart and effective politics.

To be sure, Brown's positions sound to me like they classify him as more conservative than otherwise - at least on fiscal and security matters. But it's my guess that you're not going to see him appearing on the same platform with Sarah Palin, not buddying around with Glen Beck and Rush. He will keep a arm's length from movement Conservatives; he won't do anything to alienate them, but won't want to seen to be associated with them too closely, either.

He's tapped into a potent political force - that independent majority - and I expect he'll work that angle pretty vigorously.

He may be a guy on the white horse, in other words.

No media bias, no, none.

2010-01-20T07:57:00.003-05:00

I find it fascinating that the lead story this morning on CNN.com reads, "Democrats distanced themselves from Martha Coakley, and blamed her lackluster campaign for her stunning loss in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts." Scott Brown's name cannot even be found on the home page. So if I have this right, the real story this morning is that Coakley blew it, not that Brown won it. That is such typical liberal spin. It had nothing to do with what the candidates stood for, but only which candidate ran the worst campaign. I think everyone in Massachusettes knew exactly what both candidates stood for and if they didn't before, they certainly did after our articulate president's visit on Sunday. I mean, once the teleprompter has spoken, everything is made clear, is it not.

The Legislative Process

2010-01-19T17:58:00.004-05:00

Our congress at work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywgUCdefSW8

This clip causes me to feel embarrassed to live in Pennsylvania, home state of the lead character in this pathetic display.

Full-body scanners?

2010-01-05T11:13:00.005-05:00

In light of the terrorist threat, what should the Conservative position be concerning the use of these full-body scanners at airports and elsewhere? How do we maintain consistency in our values yet protect ourselves as best as possible from terrorism?

A Liberal by any Other Name…

2010-01-04T16:44:00.009-05:00

[Note: This piece was written by my good friend, Christian D. Malesic. Brian.]

Those on the Left side of the political spectrum have always wrestled with labels, wearing them proudly until they become dirty words and then throwing them quickly to the curb. Nonetheless, in order to communicate with one another, our language needs a term that describes the political views of those who oppose the Conservatives of the Right.

Historically speaking, they were ‘Progressives’ then ‘Liberals’ now they want to be ‘Progressives’ again. Around the start of the 20th century (circa 1900), the term Progressive came into popularity and common use. It was used proudly by many on the left to describe their political ideology until sometime in the 1940s when it began to fade away. Essentially, the Progressives themselves showed the American public what it was that a Progressive believed through President Woodrow Wilson’s anti-Capitalism and pro-Socialism stances on to which President Franklin D. Roosevelt placed an exclamation point with his New Deal.

As politics played out in the ‘40s and early ‘50s it was clear that the term ‘Progressive’ invoked negative thoughts in the minds of the public. Meanwhile, the word ‘liberal’, derived from the Latin word liberalis, had been floating around since at least the 14th century and carried with it a very positive meaning. Before the 1960s, in very simple layman’s terms the common usage of ‘liberal’ meant “free from restraint to study, to think, to speak” as in ‘Liberal Arts Degree’. As the 1960s came into full swing, the American Leftists stole the term ‘Liberal’ to describe themselves, knowing full well that they stood for the exact opposite of the freedom that the word ‘liberal’ represented. They then allowed ‘Progressive’ to die a slow death.

It didn’t take long for the common man to realize that a Liberal was a re-packaged Progressive who stood against the values and historical traditions that made America great. President Lyndon Johnson made that message clear with his Great Society, forever ruining the term Liberal.

In the last few decades, ‘Liberal’ became the “L-word” and politicians ran from the label as fast as their doublespeak could carry them. They were a political ideology without a name. Often they would don their most sheepish face and attempt to ask innocently “why do we have to use labels at all.” Conservatives continued to call them Liberals, not understanding that the word had become a modern day insult. After all, Conservatives were proud of their label and the principles & values that their label represented.

On 23 Jul 07, then Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton let out the battle cry heard around the world – we will begin to re-use the term ‘Progressive’ to define ourselves – in the CNN-YouTube Democratic Debate. In her words, when asked straight up, “How would you define the word ‘liberal’ and would you use this word to define yourself?” she replied, “… I prefer the word ‘progressive’ which has a real American meaning going back to the Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20th century. I consider myself a Modern Progressive…”

So there it is! A Progressive is a Liberal is a Progressive again. But, since the Left would have you forget history and the words of our Founding Fathers, they don’t want you to make that connection. Somehow, they want you to think that they are not Liberal which is seen as a bad word. They are something different - Progressives, a new and good word. Sure, we may argue the differences between a Mallard and a Pochard in a college classroom; but, to many of us common folk out here – If a bird looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.

We’ll just call them Liberal Progressives so that everyone clearly makes the connection.

[Christian D. Malesic holds Bachelors degrees in Political Science and Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University and Business Management from Elizabethtown College. He currently serves the citizens of the Central Dauphin (Pa.) School District as the President of the School Board. He is the President and CEO of CM Squared, Inc., an electrical contracting firm.]

Christmas Greetings

2009-12-22T08:09:00.005-05:00

We wish you a hearty Merry Christmas and may your New Year be joyful and prosperous!

Dave, Brian, and Bill

Common Sense Alert!

Fascism comes to America

2009-12-21T13:35:00.010-05:00

Yesterday, David Alelrod acknowledged that one of the ways the Senate health care bill will slow down the rise of medical costs is by 1) limiting the salaries of the CEOs of health insurance companies, 2) limiting the amount they can spend on administration, and 3) limiting the amount of profits that can go to shareholders. Another way of saying this is,
1) diminishing the quality of leadership, 2) diminishing the quality of administration, and 3) diminishing the ability to attract investors. No one could argue that this is anything less than true and pure fascism (government control of private industry).

To the pragmatist, this may seem like a reasonable approach, but to those whose pragmatism rests on a foundation of core principles, this is unAmerican. If the federal government can simply legislate this level of control over one industry, it can legislate total control over all industries. Is it really unreasonable to suspect that this may be the secret agenda of certain of our nation's power brokers? Is it really only a wild conspiracy theory to believe that, just as there have been men in the past who have thirsted for power, there are men alive today who are motivated primarily by a desire to exercise power over others? After all, Mussolini was a favorite of the American left until his association with Hilter made him anathema.

New Hitlerian definition of humanity.

2009-12-15T07:45:00.004-05:00

Apparently China and the UN are now defining human beings in terms of "tons of CO2 emissions." See the following excerpt from China Daily (December 15, 2009).

As a result of the family planning policy, China has seen 400 million fewer births, which has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions a year, Zhao said. The UN report projected that if the global population would remain 8 billion by the year 2050 instead of a little more than 9 billion according to medium-growth scenario, "it might result in 1 billion to 2 billion fewer tons of carbon emissions."

In other words, if we could just eliminate enough pre-born babies, or as they do in China, eliminate by needle in the brain more born but unlicensed babies, then we could stem the tide of global warming and save the planet. But what kind of cold and unfeeling planet would it be for those who survive this holocaust to live in!

As for the Videos. . .

2009-11-17T21:45:00.003-05:00

The first one was good. It was great to see the Gipper as he burst onto the scene with "The Speech."

Unfortunately, I did not make it even half-way through the second video, interesting though it was. I cannot stand to watch or listen to Obama. My four minutes of viewing did remind me, however, what a complete jackass he is. And a dangerous jackass. Fawning and groveling before the world of Islam was an utterly disgusting spectacle. This creep is a disgrace to this country, and a traitor to this country. I don't know about his birth certificate; but if he did turn out to be an alien, totally unqualified to be the president, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

Doesn't he love to quote "the holy Koran"? Can anybody remember this "Christian" ever quoting the Holy Bible?

The False God of Diversity

2009-11-14T19:22:00.004-05:00

Almost immediately after the shootings at Fort Hood on November 5, General George Casey said, "Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse."

How sad for the families who lost loved ones in the attck to have to listen such tripe from the Army's Chief of Staff. Casey went on to reiterate, "I will tell you that I firmly believe the strength of our Army comes from our diversity." To be kind, this is pure balderdash. Diversity is not the strength of the Army or our nation. Our strength is in our freedom, established by God and enshrined in our Constitution.

America has always had diversity in the armed forces and always will. But its strength is in the liberty that produces this diversity, not in the diversity itself. The Army could be just as strong even if every soldier was a fair-skinned, freckle-faced red head from Terre Haute, IN. The real strength of our Army is in each individual's commitment to serve and defend this great Constitutional American Republic in which we live.

Diversity has no intrinsic value in and of itself. Only the competence and integrity of individuals have intrinsic value. People should be judged on their competence and interity regardless of their ethnicity (I believe MLK said something about this). Today's definition and practice of diversity is devoid of common sense. It is a misplaced priority, a false god. Instead of extolling the virtues of diversity, General Casey ought to be extolling the virtues of allowing every United States soldier to carry his side-arm with him (or her) at all times, 24-7.

Forget about diversity, General Casey. We have sacrificed our resolve and unity as a nation for too many inane concepts such as this and now it has cost us 13 precious lives.

Now, Obama Won't Go to Berlin

2009-11-04T13:11:00.010-05:00

Rush reports today that the Obamessiah has spurned the invitation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to visit Germany for the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin wall. Rush surmises, correctly, I think, that Obama doesn't want to be upstaged by the memory of Ronald Reagan calling on "Mr. Gorbachev" to "tear down this wall." Rush says communists don't celebrate their defeats, that Obama will go there when the wall is put back up, in order to sign it. Great stuff by Maharushie.

To celebrate Obama's fear and respect for the Gipper, enjoy the Brandenburg Gate speech.

For some video. . .

The true motive behind legalized abortion.

2009-10-27T11:12:00.005-04:00

According to data collected in 2005 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, abortion killed at least 203,991 African-Americans in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race. During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 African-Americans nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined. These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year.

As Ruthy Ginsburg recently acknowledged, "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion" (July 2009). Yes, she really said that.

AOL Readers Don't Like Obama

2009-10-07T13:54:00.003-04:00

A state-run AP poll makes a big deal of how, it claims, Obama's approval rating has risen from 50 to 56%. AP apparently wasn't checking with many AOL readers, however. Apparently, the leftist web site's readers can't stand Obama. On general approval, the economy, health care reform and Afghanistan, readers disapproved of Obama by 70 to 75%, with 25 to 30% approving. And the samples were pretty large, approximately 150,000. Apparently AOL's readers are not fooled by the web site's biased reporting.

Connect the Dots

2009-10-07T08:21:00.000-04:00

"Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Qaddafi and Vladimir Putin have all praised Barack Obama. When enemies of freedom and democracy praise your president, what are you to think? When you add to this Barack Obama's many previous years of associations and alliances with people who hate America-- Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfleger, etc.-- at what point do you stop denying the obvious and start to connect the dots?"

--Thomas Sowell, 2009

Declaration of Rights

2009-10-05T11:47:00.004-04:00

"[A]ll men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights. . . among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty."

--George Mason, Declaration of rights for Virginia, quoted in McCullough, John Adams.

(Photo from Creative Commons)

Wall Street Village Rolling Stone

2009-10-02T10:31:00.001-04:00

With the exception of the editorial pages, I am so fed up with the Wall Street Journal. I'm also starting to believe that it doesn't matter what the news is anymore. As long as we understand first principles, we don't need some leftist's interpretation of the news. Those freaks are simply incapable of reporting an event without propagandizing. We can get everything we need to know from Newsmax, or the Drudge Report, or the foreign press, all of which can be accessed online, or we can listen to talk radio.

On the front page of this morning's Journal, we are treated to this title: "Meet Ardi, Your Newest Oldest Relative." A hairy ape is pictured. The caption reads, "MOVE OVER LUCY: A trove of fossils, a million years older than the heralded hominid, sheds a sharper light on human lineage." (Did Rupert Murdoch write this himself?) When you turn to the article, you see the caption, "Down from the Trees." And best of all, who has authored this article? Why, that embracer of global warming theories and all-around iconoclast, Robert Lee Hotz, with whom I have communicated a number of times. The article is just a jumble of contradictions and inconsistencies that demonstrates to me that these scientists (to say nothing of Mr. Hotz) have no idea what they are talking about. "After 15 years of rumors, researchers made public fossils from a 4.4 million-year-old human forbear they say reveals that our ancestors were more modern than scholars had assumed, widening the evolutionary gulf separating humankind from apes and chimpanzees." Huh? "Although the differences between humans, apes and chimps today are legion, we all shared a common ancestor six million years or so ago. These fossils suggest that the ancestor--still undiscovered--resembled a chimp much less than researchers have always believed." So we shared this ancestor, but they haven't discovered it. Doesn't that mean that this is only an unproven theory? And these scientists learned something that is different from what "researchers" have "always" believed. Does that not suggest that what they have "always believed" has been wrong, and that there have been flaws in their assumptions? "In fact, so many traits in modern chimps and apes are missing from these early hominids that researchers now question the notion that chimps and apes are a repository of primitive traits once shared by our ancestors." What? And this: "[T]he human hand today actually may be the more primitive appendage, [the researchers] said." "'They are not what we would have predicted,' said anthropologist Bernard Wood at George Washington University. Already, the discoveries have experts reworking the human pedigree. They undoubtedly will shape debates about human origins for years to come, as scholars argue whether these creatures should be counted among our most ancient direct ancestors or cataloged as an intriguing dead-end." Well, at least there's a debate here. And if "scientists" are having a "debate," that means that there is no consensus among scientists about human origins. Is that a fair statement?

Elsewhere on the front page, we have the typical contradictions, assuredly without any type of analysis: "Stocks tumbled to start the fourth quarter, with concerns about employment and earnings driving investors to safer harbors." But I thought the recession was over. Right after this blurb, the following: "An expansion of manufacturing activity, growth in consumer spending and improved home sales indicated the U.S. economy is on the mend. [But here comes the usual caveat:] But it remained to be seen if a recovery will continue in the absence of federal help." What!? In the absence of federal help? What do they think TARP, the budget blowout and the "stimulus" bill have been? With any more federal "help," there won't be an economy. And what proof can these fools offer that all this spending has caused the economic activity to which they refer? Are they saying that our economy can now function only if it has federal "help"?

And last but not least, we have this blurb: "Senate Democrats fought off Republican charges that their health bill will raise taxes on average Americans." This suggests that these Democrats have proven that they are correct. Is the Journal acting as communications director of the Democratic National Committee? When you get to the headline of the article, you read, "Democrats Reject GOP Challenge to Health Bill." The essential fact is that by a margin of 12-11, the Senate Finance Committee defeated a Republican amendment "that would block any tax or fee from hitting individuals who earn less than $200,000 a year and families earning less than $250,000." Hmmm; didn't they simply reject the promise Obama has made to all of us over and over and over? Don't they have confidence in the Messiah, or in their own bill?

Which civil society?

2009-10-01T10:14:00.002-04:00

In her book It Takes a Village, Hillary defines "civil society" as a "term social scientists use to describe the way we work together for common purposes." In Hillary's world, the "common good" is the ultimate objective of society and the federal government is the arbiter and enforcer of "goodness." But in the minds of our Founding Fathers, a civil society was one in which various groups, individuals, and families work together for their own purposes, the result being a healthy and prosperous democratic nation. To them, the primary purpose of government was to prevent bad people (whether foreign or domestic) from interferring in this enterprise.

To my brother Tom, which of these definitions best describes your view of a civil society?

Flawed Hero

2009-10-01T08:53:00.004-04:00

Well, Newt is at it again. Our favorite corpulent popinjay, erstwhile savior to conservatives, was pictured on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, posing with the notorious "Reverend" Al not-so-Sharpton, as the two of them make a tour to tell us how we should run the education system. Why would the great, brilliant "conservative" savior associate himself so visibly with such a scoundrel? Newt just has a fatal flaw. He talks tough, for example, about the phony stimulus bill; then some people get him in a room inside the Beltway (which is where he now dwells exclusively), and he nervously appears before the cameras to tell us why we have to approve the phony stimulus. Now (and this is not new, by the way) he tours around the country with the notorious scoundrel and charlatan, Sharpton. Is Newt just so much smarter than the rest of us? Is it only he who can recognize what every other reasonable person somehow just can't, that there is a shred of merit to "Reverend" Al? There are only three explanations for this behavior: 1) abject stupidity; 2) a political tin ear; or 3) incredible arrogance. None of these alternatives is very flattering. Newt is of absolutely no use to honest, thinking conservatives. He should be tuned out.

The Government Can

2009-09-28T08:23:00.003-04:00

http://www.timhawkins.net/video/government-can.html

The Vast, Right-wing Conspiracy

2009-09-27T17:05:00.003-04:00

AP reports: Bill Clinton says a vast, right-wing conspiracy that once targeted him is now focusing on President Barack Obama. The ex-president made the comment in a television interview when he was asked about one of the signature moments of the Monica Lewinsky affair over a decade ago. Back then, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton used the term "vast, right-wing conspiracy" to describe how her husband's political enemies were out to destroy his presidency.
Bill Clinton was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether the conspiracy is still there. He replied: "You bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was." Clinton said that this time around, the focus is on Obama and "their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail."

I think the name of the vast, right-wing conspiracy he's speaking of is Rush! And I think it's just as big as it was back then, about 20 million a week.

I Don't Mourn Kennedy

2009-08-27T12:26:00.006-04:00

Even Fox News Radio asserts that "the nation mourns Ted Kennedy." This part of "the nation" emphatically does not mourn Kennedy. The man was a scoundrel, the worst of the bad Kennedy "dynasty." For decades, he epitomized the unthinking, arrogant, hypocritical, elitist liberal who knew better than you what was good for you. Many people have hated Ted Kennedy since he left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown while he wandered around, thinking up ways to salvage his political career. Worst of all, he never owned up to what he did, trying to generate sympathy for himself with his pathetic neck brace. Other than partisan socialists, who have always believed that the ends justify the means, people recognize those who are bereft of good character, and they recognize Kennedy as one of those. An AOL poll I saw since Kennedy died showed that an overwhelming percentage of respondents viewed him negatively. As one commenter to an online article put it, Kennedy wasn't a lion, he was a rat.

I'll never forget reading of the "waitress sandwiches" Kennedy and his fellow Senate bum Christopher Dodd enjoyed making in Georgetown. Kennedy was also on hand in Florida, partying shamelessly, when his infamous nephew, William Kennedy Smith, was accused of raping the "blue dot lady."

The left will turn Kennedy's death into a days-long religious observance. Of course, they didn't do that when the great Senator Jesse Helms passed away, issuing no encomiums then. My only thought on the passing of this disgraceful politician is that they'll only replace him with someone just as bad.

Words to Live By

2009-08-22T12:25:00.003-04:00

"The past shows unvaryingly that when a people's freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all."

--Richard Weaver, 1962 (quoted in Liberal Fascism, the Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, by Jonah Goldberg, p. 391.

Could it be. . . ?

2009-08-20T18:39:00.001-04:00

Bill, though the battle is far from over, I have to give you credit: You have suggested all along that these Marxists of ours would overreach. I believe that is what we are seeing, especially in the Obama-Don't-Care Plan and in Cap-and-Tax. The question is whether there will be enough opposition among the populace to turn the tide. The Marxists thought that because of Obama's 53-47 victory and big majorities in both houses, they could ram their Marxist agenda right up our collective you-know-what. That's what I thought as well. You know me: I'm the pessimist. (With Bob Novak, I was in pretty good company.) I have thought that the dumbing-down of the citizens of this country had dealt a death blow to common sense. Perhaps there remains more common sense than I thought. Levin's and Beck's books have sold well. Interest in and attention to the details of the health scare plan have grown exponentially, while the media ineffectually tries to run interference for the Community-Organizer-in-Chief.

On the other hand, most of the leftists in Congress are defiant of their constituents; they know that a few malcontents at their Town-Hall dog-and-pony shows will not prevent their reelection. And even some Repubicans (that's right: Repubicans) have defied their constituents. Nevertheless, I have a hard time believing that Comrade Obama and his Politburo have all this time been attempting to ensure Republican (or even Repubican) support for their health scare monstrosity.

All in all, I'm cheered to see that the Republic is not going down without a whimper.

No surprises here

2009-08-10T15:23:00.000-04:00

Is anyone who’s been paying attention to the American left for the past several generations – but particularly over the past decade or so – really surprised at the turn of events in Washington? I’m not talking about the various policy proposals on the table; those are the same tired leftist “solutions” to existential human problems we’ve seen forever and have been shown in case after case to be tragically counterproductive.

No, no one who has paid attention to the left these many years can be at all surprised that the usual suspects are again trotting out their socialized medicine plans, their breathless save-the-planet plans, their adolescent tax the successful plans. These are all mother’s milk for the left.

But really, can any student of the left be surprised that it is doing everything it can to stifle discussion aboiut anything and everything and is very close to criminalizing dissent? It was clear even at the time that its attacks on the Bush administration about matters of public dissent were a case of projection, pure and simple.

The fact is, for anyone honest enough to look at the evidence, the Bush administration was almost heroically stoic in the face of often wildly unfair and unfounded political and character attacks. Far from being “brave” for attacking Bush and his policies (for such was the conceit of the pony-tailed, earth-shoed Prius-driving bohemian bourgeoisie), criticizing Bush became a ritual, like something you had to recite to join the fraternity, as rigid and structured and ossified as a Japanese Noh play.

The febrile attacks (circa 2009) on legitimate criticism – or even legitimate questioning of policies for which one seeks clarity – betray the adolescent heart beating deep within the body of leftist ideology.

The teenagers are in control, they know best and the stupid adults are the ones who have caused the mess (as Obama puts it) we’re in today. They just need to shut up and let the kids show that we can all get along.

The danger here – the scary part – is that there is no one more sanctimonious and capable of the most sociopathic rationalization than the self-satisfied teenager with his dudgeon up. I wouldn’t want to predict how far and fast this situation could get out of control.

When is that magic moment?

2009-07-29T10:53:00.012-04:00

"Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil." ~ Albert Schweitzer

I do not agree completely with Dr. Schweitzer's definition of morality, but taken as it is, it would certainly consign abortion to the side of evil. No honest person can argue that life does not begin at conception. Would anyone suggest that a fertilized egg is not a living "thing"? The argument is over when this "thing" should be protected under the law--when it becomes a life worthy of maintaining, protecting, and enhancing. People can argue if it should be at twelve weeks, six months, or eight months. But whichever position a person takes, he must admit that, according to his position, one moment the unborn is unworthy of protection and the next moment, voila! it is worthy. But who among us has enough insight to assume the prerogative of determining when that exact moment is? The mother? The father? The abortionist? A Supreme Court justice? Put the question to any five-year-old child and see what answer you get. People have to educated out of believing that all unborn children should be protected. The natural human inclination is to protect the innocent and vulnerable. Every position that presumes to set some magic moment when an unborn child suddenly has the right to life is arbitrary, arrogant, and, as Dr. Schweitzer would say, on the side of evil.

The Rahm-bama Youth

2009-07-28T12:38:00.002-04:00

The Rahm-bama machine is now proposing that every young person in America serve three months at boot camp where they will learn how to respond in civil disasters and what it means to be a good citizen. After all, "citizenship is not an entitlement program" (so says the Rahm). When asked by a reporter if this public service would be compulsory, Mr. Emanuel responded, "Only in the sense that it will be required" (yes, I heard it with my own ears). Can there be any doubt that this is a smokescreen for a program to remove every young citizen from his environment where he can be drilled in the protocals of the New Order?

2009-07-24T19:00:00.001-04:00

Poll numbers below 50 pecent in the new Rasmussen poll
Obamacare tanking
India and China laughing at his lectureas on climate change
Europe yawning
Cap and Trade in trouble
Police "stupidity.

I believe the term, gentlemen, is Schadenfreude

Why is Jacko a hero to blacks?

2009-07-13T08:21:00.006-04:00

Has there ever been a man who so thoroughly repudiated his own race? Clearly Michael Jackson despised his blackness and did all that his millions could do to eliminate it. He whitened his skin, he altered his facial features, he straightened his hair, he obtained white children through a white woman (though he was not the actual father). Yet he is celebrated as a hero of the black race. Hard to figure why any black person would give him the time of day.

"Gangster Government"

2009-07-13T08:16:00.002-04:00

Excellent speech by Rep. Michele Bachman...

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=thR-lVuztIY

This does not make sense

2009-06-29T15:57:00.002-04:00

I happened to hear HHS secretary Kathleen Sabelius discussing Obama’s federal health insurance option with Bret Baier on Fox News. Her mantra was that we need to bring competition into the health insurance industry to lower prices. They are obviously trying to make it seem like a reasonable idea, since they’ve chosen to use market-place competition as their primary selling point. Here’s how the plan will work: the federal government will open up a health insurance company run by public employees. The president said that this would enable them to run a cheaper operation, presumably because federal bureaucrats are such tireless and efficient workers. This will then force the private health insurance companies to streamline in order to compete. But this would not be fair, since the government insurance company would not need to make a profit in order to stay in business. In fact, if it were to run at a loss, the loss could be made up with tax money. So Mrs. Sabelius assured Bret that "the playing field will be level." But how would this happen? By the government increasing their prices? Wouldn’t this defeat the whole purpose of creating competition? Maybe by subsidizing the private companies. But how does this result in any actual decreases in health care costs. And the fact is, today there are hundreds of companies selling health insurance, so how is one more going to suddenly make the whole system more competitive? Frankly, this whole thing has to be a cover for something else because it makes no sense at all.

"It's a Cookbook!"

2009-06-26T14:36:00.000-04:00

The phony promises of this cap'n crunch bill remind me of two themes from American entertainment. First, Charlton Heston's immortal cry, "Soylent Green. . . it's people!" Second, the classic Twilight Zone episode in which the Kanimids, giants from another world, arrive on earth and fix all of earth's problems with their advanced technology. They then begin offering tours of their planet to the grateful earthlings. After it's too late, the American cryptologist figures out that the mysterious Kanimid book, entitled "To Serve Man," is a cookbook. Hence, the immortal line, "Mr. Chambers! That book, 'To Serve Man': it's a cookbook!" It is, unfortunately, too late for Mr. Chambers, who is off to become some giant's meal. If this nonsense passes, we, too, will learn that "it's a cookbook!"

MIdnight Basketball Anyone?

2009-06-25T10:28:00.001-04:00

The Harrisburg Patriot-News reports today that there have been 11 shootings in the city in the past 18 days. Some of these shootings have taken place in broad daylight. Not surprisingly, community members got together and had a “vigil.” What do they want? More police, and more programs for the children. I find it very hard to believe that there are no programs for the children. It’s not a question of programs. It’s a question of do you want to go to the gym or the pool, or do you want to drive around shooting people? Neither the government nor the police can raise your children. Until fathers stay with their children, and until parents condemn drug-dealing and gang-banging by their children, this will only get worse and worse.

My brother on NPR

2009-06-16T10:32:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, NPR launched its full-throated campaign to get Obama's nationalized health care plan adopted. A huge percentage of it's two-hour show All Things Considered focused on the issue. My older brother Herb was featured as an example of a 61 year old man who had a heart attacked and no health insurance. Herb's heart attack was about a month ago. He was interviewed a few days later while still in the hospital. The interview was aired yesterday, by chance the very same day Obama was out introducing and defending his plan in a highly visible speech to a bunch of doctors. The collusion between the tax-payer supported NPR press and the Obama administration is obvious. I have long opposed giving tax money to NPR. Newt tried to cut it off once but capitulated to the pressure groups. It is now long over due to stop the public funding of this political arm of Globalist Liberalism.

Why did they fight at Normandy?

2009-06-10T08:50:00.005-04:00

"It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt." Ronald Reagan, D-Day speech at Pointe du Hoc, June 6, 1984

Mr. Obama, I'm sorry you feel the need to apologize for such American actions.