"If you love me...."

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.

No house divided

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.

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

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

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.

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

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."

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

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

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

"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???

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

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

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!

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

"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

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

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

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

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.