Teapot Tantrums

Google Fun

1.) Go to Google.

2.) Type "Chuck Norris Google" in the search bar.

3.) Press the "I Feel Lucky" button.

4.) Clean Off Your Keyboard.

Archbishop of Denver to Catholics: "Hope Is Not A Virtue"

From FreeRepublic.com, we learn about a recent speech in Toronto, Canada by the Archbishop of Denver:

Toronto, Canada, Feb 23, 2009 / 09:03 pm (CNA).- Canadians packed St. Basil’s Church in Toronto on Monday evening to hear Archbishop Charles Chaput speak about how Catholics should live out their faith in the public square. He warned that in the U.S., Catholics need to act on their faith and be on guard against “a spirit of adulation bordering on servility” that exists towards the Obama administration.

The public lecture by Archbishop Chaput took place on the campus of the University of Toronto at St. Basil’s Church and was attended by an overflow crowd of more than 700 people.

After giving a sketch of the basic principles in his New York Times Bestseller “Render Unto Caesar,” the archbishop offered his insights on the need for an honest assessment of the situation of the Church in the public square.

“I like clarity, and there’s a reason why,” began the archbishop. “I think modern life, including life in the Church, suffers from a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners, but too often turns out to be cowardice. Human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy. But we also owe each other the truth – which means candor.”

The Denver prelate then provided his critique of President Obama.

“President Obama is a man of intelligence and some remarkable gifts. He has a great ability to inspire, as we saw from his very popular visit to Canada just this past week. But whatever his strengths, there’s no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope and change. Of course, that can change. Some things really do change when a person reaches the White House. Power ennobles some men. It diminishes others. Bad policy ideas can be improved. Good policy ideas can find a way to flourish. But as Catholics, we at least need to be honest with ourselves and each other about the political facts we start with.”

Yet this will be “very hard for Catholics in the United States,” Chaput warned.

According to the archbishop, the political situation for Catholics is difficult to discern because a “spirit of adulation bordering on servility already exists among some of the same Democratic-friendly Catholic writers, scholars, editors and activists who once accused pro-lifers of being too cozy with Republicans. It turns out that Caesar is an equal opportunity employer.”

Looking ahead to the coming months and years, Chaput offered four “simple things” to remember.

“First,” he said, “all political leaders draw their authority from God. We owe no leader any submission or cooperation in the pursuit of grave evil.”

“In fact, we have the duty to change bad laws and resist grave evil in our public life, both by our words and our non-violent actions. The truest respect we can show to civil authority is the witness of our Catholic faith and our moral convictions, without excuses or apologies.”

In a reference to the messianic treatment the Barack Obama received from some Americans during the presidential primaries, Archbishop Chaput delivered his second point: “in democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs.”

Noting that Obama actually trailed in the weeks just before the election, the Denver archbishop said that this places some of today’s talk about a “new American mandate” in perspective.

“Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis. That’s the mandate. They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion. That retooling could easily happen, and it clearly will happen – but only if Catholics and other religious believers allow it.”

The third point to focus on when the beliefs of Catholics are challenged is that “it doesn’t matter what we claim to believe if we’re unwilling to act on our beliefs,” Chaput counseled.

“The fourth and final thing to remember, and there’s no easy way to say it,” remarked Archbishop Chaput, is that the “Church in the United States has done a poor job of forming the faith and conscience of Catholics for more than 40 years.”

“And now we’re harvesting the results – in the public square, in our families and in the confusion of our personal lives. I could name many good people and programs that seem to disprove what I just said. But I could name many more that do prove it, and some of them work in Washington.”

American Catholics need to realize that many in the current generation haven’t just been “assimilated” into the American culture, but have in fact been “absorbed and bleached and digested by it,” Archbishop Chaput asserted.

If this realization doesn’t happen, the coming generations will continue on the same path and “a real Catholic presence in American life will continue to weaken and disappear,” said Chaput.

Citing the example of “unhappy, self-described Catholics who complain that abortion is too much of a litmus test,” he stated, “We can’t claim to be ‘Catholic’ and ‘pro-choice’ at the same time without owning the responsibility for where the choice leads – to a dead unborn child.”

The archbishop also addressed the “abortion reduction” argument being made by some in politics.

“We can’t talk piously about programs to reduce the abortion body count without also working vigorously to change the laws that make the killing possible. If we’re Catholic, then we believe in the sanctity of developing human life. And if we don’t really believe in the humanity of the unborn child from the moment life begins, then we should stop lying to ourselves and others, and even to God, by claiming we’re something we’re not.”

“Catholic social teaching goes well beyond abortion,” Chaput noted. “In America we have many urgent issues that beg for our attention, from immigration reform to health care to poverty to homelessness.”

Winding his talk down, the Archbishop of Denver remarked on the misunderstanding of the word “hope.”

“For Christians,” he explained, “hope is a virtue, not an emotional crutch or a political slogan. Virtus, the Latin root of virtue, means strength or courage. Real hope is unsentimental. It has nothing to do with the cheesy optimism of election campaigns. Hope assumes and demands a spine in believers. And that’s why – at least for a Christian – hope sustains us when the real answer to the problems or hard choices in life is ‘no, we can’t,’ instead of ‘yes, we can.’”

The full text of the archbishop’s speech can be found here: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/document.php?n=790

No Child Left Behind .... News Flash!

Everyone blames the concept for "No Child Left Behind" on former President George W. Bush. Hold on! Not so fast! Check out the parts I highlighted in red text.

Rename Law? No Wisecrack Is Left Behind

By SAM DILLON

Published: February 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — Two years ago, an effort to fix No Child Left Behind, the main federal law on public schools, provoked a grueling slugfest in Congress, leading Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, to say the law had become “the most negative brand in America.” Secretary Arne Duncan agrees. “Let’s rebrand it,” he said in an interview. “Give it a new name.”

And before Mr. Duncan has had time to float a single name, scores of educators, policy wonks and assorted rabble-rousers have rushed in with an outpouring of proposals.

The civil rights leader Marian Wright Edelman took the high road, suggesting it be called the Quality Education for All Children Act. But a lot of wise guys have gotten in on the act too, with suggestions like the All American Children Are Above Average Act. Alternatives are popping up every day on the Eduwonk.com blog, where Andrew Rotherham, a former Clinton administration official, is sponsoring a rename-the-law contest.

One entry, alluding to the bank bailout program, suggests that it be called the Mental Asset Recovery Plan. Another proposal: the Act to Help Children Read Gooder.

Part of the problem is that the law, which comes up for reauthorization every five years, became closely associated with President George W. Bush, and as his popularity slid, the law, and its name, came under attack and ridicule.

Jay Leno, for instance, pointed out in 2006 that Mr. Bush’s approval rating had dropped to 35 percent. “You know Bush’s No Child Left Behind program?” Mr. Leno said. “Now even the children left behind are going, ‘You go ahead, we’re fine.’ ”

The law dates to 1965, when Congress passed it to channel federal money to poor children in the war on poverty, calling it the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

By the early 1990s, a school accountability movement was gaining momentum. In the 1994 reauthorization, the Clinton administration required states to develop new math and reading standards, use more tests, and adopt a benchmark for school improvement known as “adequate yearly progress.” And it gave the law a new name: the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994.

Most people clung to the original name, however, until Mr. Bush signed No Child Left Behind.

The phrase appears to be borrowed from Ms. Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, who throughout the 1990s seasoned speeches with the phrase “leave no child behind.” In 1994, the organization registered “Leave No Child Behind” as a trademark.

But as early as the mid-1990s, Mr. Bush, then the Texas governor, was routinely using similar phrases.

In 2000, the organization reminded the Bush campaign about its trademark, but those complaints were brushed aside. After Mr. Bush’s inauguration as president, he sent Congress a thick packet of education proposals to guide the law’s 2001 rewriting, titled No Child Left Behind.

Sandy Kress, a Texas lawyer who helped compile those proposals, said the phrase nicely summarized the president’s views, especially his provision requiring that authorities publish test scores for all minority groups, shining a spotlight on the low scores of poor students previously hidden by schoolwide averages.

Just about everyone praised that feature of the Bush-era law. But other provisions aroused opposition, including the requirement that every child be brought to proficiency in reading and math by 2014, which many educators said was like requiring law enforcement agencies to end all crime.

Nicknames for the law proliferated: No Child Left Untested, No Child’s Behind Left, No School Board Left Standing.

Since Mr. Rotherham announced his contest last week, Eduwonk has received 41 entries, including: the Double Back Around to Pick Up the Children We Left Behind Act, the Rearranging the Deck Chairs Act, the Teach to the Test Act and the Could We Start Again Please Act.

So ... it's all blamed on President Bush, but it was originally put through by the Democrats ... once again ... they do something and blame Republicans for it.

God Lives In the Post Office

My mother sent this to me this weekend. Enjoy!

This is one of the kindest things I've ever experienced.   I have no way to know who sent it, but there is a beautiful soul working in the "dead letter office file" of the US Postal Service..

Our 14-year-old dog, Abbey, died last month.   The day after she died, my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey.   She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her.   I told her that I thought we could so she dictated these words:

~~~~~~~~~

Dear God,

Will you please take care of my dog?   She died yesterday and is with you in heaven.   I miss her very much.   I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.

I hope you will play with her.   She likes to play with balls and to swim.   I am sending a picture of her so when you see her, You will know that she is my dog.    I really miss her.

Love, Meredith

 _________________________________

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven.   We put our return address on it.   Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven.   That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office.    A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet.   I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith,' in an unfamiliar hand.    Meredith opened it.    Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.'    Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope.   On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

_____________________________________ 

Dear Meredith,

Abbey arrived safely in heaven.

Having the picture was a big help.   I recognized Abbey right away.

Abbey isn't sick anymore.   Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart.   Abbey loved being your dog.   Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.

Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me.   What a wonderful mother you have.   I picked her especially for you.

I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much.

By the way, I'm easy to find.   I am wherever there is love.

Love,
God

If My People ...

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.­

          -- 2 Chronicles 7:14

Guest Post: On Personal Responsibility by Paul Baptist

There is a new voice that I've become aware of and I wanted to share with you. Please read this post by Paul Baptist.

On Personal Responsibility

Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:24 pm

My personal political leanings have been taking a rather nontraditional twist of late. While still generally on the conservative side, I'm becoming less and less concerned with right or left these days, and more concerned with what will do the most to promote personal responsibility and people taking control of their own lives. Government is increasingly being seen as a crutch factory these days: abortion on demand as a fallback for those too lazy to take precautions, continued welfare for minimal effort at procuring employment, and enforced socialized medicine are just the tip of the iceberg here. Who needs to worry anymore? The government's going to ensure you have all you need!

There is a major worry, however: It creates reliance on the government. What the government gives, it can also decide to take away. Furthermore, it fosters a sheep mentality and reduces the ability of the dependents to take care of themselves.

The groundwork for socialism is, in many ways, a modern interpretation of feudalism. In feudalism, the King appointed vassals to manage the land who controlled virtually every aspect of the lives of the serfs. The serfs were utterly dependent on the vassals for food and protection. In Socialism, the Government takes the role of the king and provides all of the basic needs of the people. The government doles out benefits based on the perceived “need” of groups of people. I'll let you insert your own obligatory 1984 Big Brother reference here.

Let's take a look at socialism in the past, and the countries that have embraced it:

• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• National Socialist German Workers Party
• any nation with ”People’s Republic” in its formal name

”Those were imperfect implementations of socialism! They weren’t real socialism!” you'll hear people say. They claim that we can do it better now. While I’m a believer in learning from mistakes, however, how are we to correct for the nature of the human condition? Historically, Socialist nations have a tendency towards becoming strongly wrapped up in cults of personality around their leaders (c.f. Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-Sung, et. al.). While modern implementations such as the EU may not have a single figure to wrap itself around, it can wrap itself up in a nationalist fervor of enthusiasm for either the unified European state or the member states within it. Barring that, the recent presidential election has shown how easy it can be to usher in a personality during a perceived crisis.

"Socialism is working in Finland and the EU, the US is just being paranoid!" is another argument that I have seen before. Even if you were to concede that it was somehow being made to work there, however, the fact of the matter remains that scalability of the solution is important as well. Four US states are larger than Finland in terms of area, while 20 are larger by population. When you've just got 20 million people to take care of, it's much simpler to take care of those who aren't producing at the average rate than when you've got hundreds of millions.

A properly run government and a properly run corporation have many things in common. The head office of a corporation rarely deals with issues solely affecting single field offices. The field office deals with it on its own, then the region steps in if the scope gets too large, and so on up the pipe. After all, who knows the needs of the community better than the people living in it? Someone taking lobbyist donations up to 3,500 miles away from said community?

At the end of the day, the federal government can only really provide blanket policies designed as one size fits all solutions to problems. It doesn’t factor in regional differences in needs; It treats symptoms, while doing little or nothing to treat the underlying causes. By having the issues handled by people who have a stake in the result (as opposed to federal senators and congressmen being paid by lobbyists and special interests to take a side), we are more likely to see meaningful progress towards resolving problems. Places that are making socialism "work" don't have either the geographic or demographic diversity that is found in the United States.

Unfortunately, propaganda over the past decades has lead to the perception that States Rights is tantamount to enshrined racism on the basis that several states had Jim Crow laws in place after the abolition of slavery. While it's impossible to deny that states have used their power to curtail the rights of groups of people in the past, the doctrine of states rights does not supersede human rights. The protection of essential rights in our country is an appropriate matter for the federal government to rule on. Unfortunately, protection of our rights has given way to finding ways to curtail our rights while creating new, previously inextant rights for victims. Victimization shifts the blame from the first person ("I") to the third person ("Him"), and then proceeds to make the second person ("You") pay for it.

A classic, yet current, example of this is the battle for free speech and other first amendment rights. Distasteful though some speech may be, racist and bigoted speech is protected by the first amendment just as much as speech promoting the message of tolerance is. This protection is essential for our continued freedom; our first amendment rights become meaningless when we allow the federal government to censor “inappropriate” thought. Instead, however, we have been conned to believe that we're getting a bargain with all this new legislation inhibiting our right to free speech. Now instead of one right, you're getting three! You've lost your right to free speech, but now you've got the "right" to not be offended, the "right" to silence others' demonstrations of free speech, and the "right" to sue for damages resulting from their exercise of free speech, when no physical damage has taken place! You retain the right to ignore acts of free speech performed by others, but that's been largely ignored since it's been proven to be less lucrative in a court of law.

Taking things full circle, the greatest threat posed by socialism is that what the state provides can be taken away. The state may provide healthcare or bread now, but what if it were to find that you, according to the numbers, needed no further services? In socialism, the need for aid, and thus access thereto, is set by the government. "If you don't meet what the government says here, you're not worthy. Long waits for service are acceptable, that's how it's supposed to be. Jews are unworthy of hospital services and only entitled to white bread." Having the government say who was entitled to what is a key part of Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s, under the banner of National Socialism.

The government has already started taking away our right to free speech. Freedom of the press is hollow and frail without free speech. Once the government has started enforcing prohibitions on hateful speech and bad press, what's to prevent them from banning religion on the basis that it creates intolerance, or that certain denominations refuse to bow down to government mandates about matters such as abortion and homosexuality? Ostracizing people who promote given ideas also provides a strong disincentive for assembling freely to espouse those beliefs.

While socialism may be a sweet deal for those whose agenda is being put forward, it runs the risk of planting the seeds of revolution in proponents of the other side. Instead of promoting equality and working towards a classless society, it heightens classism by inciting those who are unable or unwilling to contribute to the system to demand of those who have the greatest stake in it to put more in. They in turn either bow down out of fear of the government or defy the government's mandates, and risk the consequences. Eventually the pressure cooker will burst. Regardless of the “winner” of the resulting battle, history has shown that rarely is said victor truly any more benevolent than his predecessor; wounds from it will run deep. The time has come for serious prayer and reflection on the direction things have taken thus far, and what our role is to play in countering it.

Obama Sweeps the Oscars!!!

Obama scores big at Oscars! 

Published: Saturday, February 21, 2009 6:15 AM EST

  In an unprecedented event in Hollywood history, Barack Obama won multiple awards at the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony held at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.

 Obama picked up the award for Best Actor for his performance in The 2008 Presidential Campaign. Judges cited his ability to step into a role in which he had virtually no knowledge or real life involvement with and make the audience think that he had done it all his life. ‘You simply had no idea that he had no actual experience in running anything, much less the most powerful nation on the planet,’ gushed actor Sean Penn. ‘I’m just tickled pink. I haven’t seen anything like this since Jesse Ventura’s performance in The Minnesota Governor.’

 In another upset, the award for Best Supporting Actor was given to Barack Obama for his role in Escorting the Bush’s to the Helicopter. ‘I tell ya,’ said an anonymous Hollywood insider, ‘if you didn’t know better you’d think the guy really liked Bush.’

 Continuing the unprecedented night of upsets, Barack Obama edged out Mrs. Bill Clinton to win the award for Best Supporting Actress for his edgy performance in the drama The Humiliation of Hillary, the story of a jilted political wife who funnels her loathing for her cheating husband, her loveless marriage and her unconsummated, sexual passion into a quest to become the first, female president.

In a new category this year, Best Spontaneous Performance, Obama also picked up an Oscar for Taking the Oath of Office and Taking the Oath of Office Part II — The Do-Over, co-starring John Roberts. ‘We call him one-take Barry,’ said movie mogul Syd Weinstein. ‘He’s the kind of actor that he doesn’t even know he’s acting, sometimes — he’s just a natural.’

 All of Hollywood was abuzz over the evening’s unparalleled developments. ‘I’ve never, ever seen anything like him,’ said Director Peter Panzy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Butthead. ‘The camera loves this guy. It’s like he’s been acting his entire life.’

 Though obviously surprised by the multitude of totally unexpected awards, President Obama was gracious in the 20-minute acceptance speech he read from prepared notes.

  ‘I’d like to thank everyone who made this possible,’ he said. ‘Each of you played a role in this victory   —from the uninformed citizens who voted for the first time in their life despite not even knowing who my running mate was — to hard-working organizations, like ACORN, who managed to get all those dead people to the polls, to my patriotic pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright — hey Jerry — we God@#%$^^ did it! — to Bill Ayers and all his politically active associates, to my friends in Hollywood who kept producing TV shows with black presidents in order to brainwash the masses, to director Oliver Stone — hey Ollie, don’t be making a movie called BO in eight years you rascal...ha-ha — to Oprah who told us all not just what to eat, what to buy, and how to stay married — but how to vote! Hey, who cares that she’s overweight, rich and single — we won. But, most of all, I’d like to thank the mainstream media for having the courage to abandon all journalistic integrity by distorting and shaping the news instead of just reporting it. Katie, Brian, Peter and the rest of you...your courage will long be remembered.’

  ‘And, speaking of remembering — thank you to the Academy for a striking reminder to America of the financial extravagance and waste that is encouraged and celebrated by the hypocrites in Hollywood, while the rest of the world goes down the toilet!'

Another "Or Else" from Obama

In the traditions set forth by many of our common ancestors of centuries past, it seems to me that Obama's last name should be changed to "Warner" ... the man is always warning *someone* about *something* .... "or else" ...

Or else what?

Or else he will "name you" and  "shame" you. Wasn't it just a while back when we were all told by the great and ubiquitous "THEY" that "you aren't supposed to shame people"??? Wasn't that supposed to be judging them? Wasn't judging people supposed to be wrong?

Oh that's right ... I forgot, silly me .... that's only wrong if you fall into one of the three "open season" categories ... Christian, Conservative or Republican. What on earth was I thinking?

In a 2/20/09 (in my local paper it appears in the 2/21/09 section A), we find this AP article:

Obama Warns Mayors Not to Waste Stimulus Money

Feb 20, 9:33 PM EST

(Is it just me ... or does he always seem to be lecturing/chastising us!!!)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Invoking his own name-and-shame policy, President Barack Obama warned the nation's mayors on Friday that he will "call them out" if they waste the money from his massive economic stimulus plan.

"The American people are watching," Obama told a gathering of mayors at the White House. "They need this plan to work. They expect to see the money that they've earned - they've worked so hard to earn - spent in its intended purposes without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud."

In the days since the White House and Congress came to terms on the $787 billion economic package, the political focus has shifted to how it will work. Obama has staked his reputation not just on the promise of 3.5 million jobs saved or created, but also on a pledge to let the public see where the money goes.

His budget chief this week released a 25,000-word document that details exactly how Cabinet and executive agencies, states and local organizations must report spending. It is a system meant to streamline reports so they can be displayed on the administration's new Web site, Recovery.gov.

(there he goes again)

Using his presidential pulpit, Obama demanded accountability, from his friends in local government as well as his own agencies. He said the new legislation gives him tools to "watch the taxpayers' money with more rigor and transparency than ever," and that he will use them.

"If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money, I will not hesitate to call them out on it, and put a stop to it," he said. "I want everyone here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will call them out on it, and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it."

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, who leads the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said he welcomed Obama's warning.

"Absolutely. We get called out every day at the local level," Diaz said, drawing laughs from other mayors in a gathering with reporters on the White House driveway. "We have plenty of constituents who will be doing that before the president does."

Mayors of both parties said they appreciated the invitation to meet with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a handful of Cabinet secretaries. They cautioned, though, that the stimulus plan will only work if leaders at the state level direct the money to their cities in a clear, timely way.

The economic plan will inject a sudden boost of cash into transportation, education, energy and health care. Beyond new spending, it aims to aid people through a package of tax cuts, extended unemployment benefits and short-term health insurance help. The cost will be added to a growing budget deficit.

Obama said government leaders have asked for the "unprecedented trust of the American people."

"With that comes unprecedented obligations to spend that money wisely, free from politics and free from personal agendas," he said.

The president did not specify how, exactly, he would call out one of his own agencies or a local government about wasteful projects.

And then, if you read the article carefully, we hear talk again about "transparency"... yep, you should be able to look at this brand spankin' new website called "Recovery.gov" (talk about propaganda ... a new web site for every ObaMao propaganda tool as it pops up on the scene) and see exactly how the ridiculously huge and wasteful spending stimulus bill is being used.

Wait a sec ... hold on ... "but Obama *did* promise transparency when he was campaigning" you say? Yeah, but remember the part about where he promised transparency within his own administration??

Hmmmm ... take a look at the "Change" Obama "promised" as outlined in a 11/07/2008 posting at  Propublica.org:

Obama Details Promises for Transparency

by Eric Umansky, ProPublica - November 7, 2008 5:32 pm EST

WDCPIX

Yesterday, we looked at President-elect Obama’s stance on transparency [1]. As we noted, Obama’s record on the issue isn’t spotless, but he did make promises during the campaign to run a far more transparent presidency. This morning, Obama’s transition Web site, change.gov [2], offered some details [3] on "using cutting-edge technologies" to create "a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America's citizens."  

Among the ideas listed on the site [4]:

• Centralize Ethics and Lobbying Information for Voters: Obama and Biden will create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format. (transparency for *others*)
  
  
• Require Independent Monitoring of Lobbying Laws and Ethics Rules: Obama and Biden will use the power of the presidency to fight for an independent watchdog agency to oversee the investigation of congressional ethics violations so that the public can be assured that ethics complaints will be investigated. (transparency for *others*)

• Create a Public "Contracts and Influence" Database: As president, Obama will create a "contracts and influence" database that will disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, and what contracts they are getting and how well they complete them. (transparency for *others*)
  
  
• Expose Special Interest Tax Breaks to Public Scrutiny: Obama and Biden will ensure that any tax breaks for corporate recipients — or tax earmarks — are also publicly available on the Internet in an easily searchable format.   (transparency for *others*)
  
  
• Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for five days. (Yeaaaaah ... that's one's busted, isn't it?? -- no transparency here to see ... move along)
  
  
• Shine Light on Earmarks and Pork Barrel Spending: Obama's Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act will shed light on all earmarks by disclosing the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, along with a written justification, 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate. (transparency for *others*)

We’ll be watching to see what happens after January 20^th.

I guess it's just me again ... I must not have been listening with a babblefish in my ear ... the kind that were passed out to all the ObamaBots with their cups of purple Kool Aid.

As we can see, he must've mean transparency *for everyone else* would be insisted upon (maybe he was saying those words in his head during those long pauses in his speeches) ... we still have never seen the guy's original birth certificate, his school records, or his passport to prove that he is who he says he is and has "always" been (we know he's gone by several different names ... could they just be "other facets" of his personality, the one the big cult is built up around?

Personally, every time I see a picture of him, I keep looking for those teensy tiny strings I know are being pulled by someone else .... but who could be doing the pulling? I sure hope we find out before it's too late.

Where Was I When Atlas Shrugged?

Some friends and I are doing a "read along" (RAL) on the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Wow!

OK ... here's the deal. I read a few years ago about Atlas Shrugged supposedly being the second highest-rated book (behind the Bible) as being the most influential in people's lives. In fact, I had someone I used to work with tell me the exact same thing. I'd been reading 1984 and Brave New World with a friend, so I thought I'd pick this up and read it, too.

But I couldn't ... y'see, the volume I picked up (new, at a used book store) has nearly 1100 pages and it's in *tiny* type ... 8 point or smaller. With these eyes, that's hard to follow, especially with  story that doesn't grab you at the get-go.

So, what did I do? I picked downloaded the audiobook version from iTunes. It's *much* easier to listen to and follow, even if I'm doing it at work.

So I'm listening and marveling every step of the way at how the attitudes and events in the book seem to be mimicking the attitudes and events in our own society, much like I saw attitudes (if not all events) in 1984 and Brave New World.

Then yesterday, while surfing at lunch, I stumbled across the following article Wall Street Journal article from 1/9/2009:

'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
By STEPHEN MOORE

Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a "virgin." Being conversant in Ayn Rand's classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only "Atlas" were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.

Getty Images -The art for a 1999 postage stamp.

Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.

Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?

These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

When Rand was writing in the 1950s, one of the pillars of American industrial might was the railroads. In her novel the railroad owner, Dagny Taggart, an enterprising industrialist, has a FedEx-like vision for expansion and first-rate service by rail. But she is continuously badgered, cajoled, taxed, ruled and regulated -- always in the public interest -- into bankruptcy. Sound far-fetched? On the day I sat down to write this ode to "Atlas," a Wall Street Journal headline blared: "Rail Shippers Ask Congress to Regulate Freight Prices."

In one chapter of the book, an entrepreneur invents a new miracle metal -- stronger but lighter than steel. The government immediately appropriates the invention in "the public good." The politicians demand that the metal inventor come to Washington and sign over ownership of his invention or lose everything.

The scene is eerily similar to an event late last year when six bank presidents were summoned by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to Washington, and then shuttled into a conference room and told, in effect, that they could not leave until they collectively signed a document handing over percentages of their future profits to the government. The Treasury folks insisted that this shakedown, too, was all in "the public interest."

Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer.

One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."

"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"

"Fire your government employees."

"Oh, no!"

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as Barack Obama puts it.

David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."

Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W11

Ayn Rand did an amazing thing with this book ... now, if only it were required reading for everyone who wanted to hold public office and/or spend public money.

Thanks for the Priviledge ... Yeah, Right!

Isn't it bad enough that the folks are suddenly unemployed due to the bad economy ... which we can mostly lay at the feet of our government and their poor management and judgment?

Nope, now a lot of people who are receiving unemployment benefits have no choice but to get those benefits via the "convenience" of a new debit card ... sure, you can swipe it at McDonalds, but if you need to get cash at an ATM, you're getting charged anywhere from $0.50 to $2.00 a pop. And many people aren't getting the option of having a paper check anymore (too expensive) or a direct deposit to their checking account (to much hassle to set up) ... nope, let's give 'em a debit card and let people rip them off!

Christopher Leonard's 02/20/09 story follows:

Jobless hit with bank fees on benefits
Feb 20, 12:25 AM (ET)

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD

For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there's a new twist to their financial pain: Even as they're collecting unemployment benefits, they're paying bank fees just to get access to their money.

Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc. (C) (C), Bank of America Corp. (BAC) (BAC), JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp (USB) (USB), an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 - even though they could decline charges for more than what's on the card.

"It's a racket. It's a scam," said Rachel Davis, a 38-year-old dental technician from St. Louis who was laid off in October. Davis was given a MasterCard issued through Central Bank of Jefferson City and recently paid $6 to make two $40 withdrawals.

The banks say their programs offer convenience. They also provide at least one way to tap the money at no charge, such as using a single free withdrawal to get all the cash at once from a bank teller. But the banks benefit from human nature, as people end up treating the cards like all the other plastic in their wallets.

The fees are raising questions from lawmakers who just recently voted to infuse banks with taxpayer money to keep them afloat.

Steven Adamske, spokesman for the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, said he wasn't aware of the debit card programs before he was contacted by the AP, but was concerned about card holder fees.

"Our hope ... would be that banks who are getting federal assistance would forgo these kinds of fees as we're trying to help everyone in society deal with this recession," Adamske said.

Some banks, depending on the agreement negotiated with each state, also make money on the interest they earn after the state deposits the money and before it's spent. The banks and credit card companies also get roughly 1 percent to 3 percent off the top of each transaction made with the cards.

Neither banks nor credit card companies will say how much money they are making off the programs, or what proportion of the revenue comes from user versus merchant fees or interest. It's difficult to estimate the profits because they depend on how often recipients use their cards and where they use them.

But the potential is clear.

In Missouri, for instance, 94,883 people claimed unemployment benefits through debit cards from Central Bank. Analysts say a recipient uses a card an average of six to 10 times a month. If each cardholder makes three withdrawals at an out-of-network ATM, at a fee of $1.75, the bank would collect nearly $500,000. If half of the cardholders also dial customer service three times in any given week (the first time is free; after that, it's 25 cents a call), the bank's revenue would jump to more than $521,000. That would yield $6.3 million a year.

Rachel Storch, a Democratic state representative, received a wave of complaints about the fees from autoworkers laid off from a suburban St. Louis Chrysler plant. She recently urged Gov. Jay Nixon to review the state's contract with Central Bank with an eye toward reducing the fees.

"I think the contract is unfair and potentially illegal to unemployment recipients," she said.

Central Bank did not return two messages seeking comment.

Glenn Campbell, a spokesman for Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., said the congressman would support a review of the debit card programs nationwide.

Another 10 states - including the unemployment hot spots of California, Florida and South Carolina - are considering such programs or have signed contracts. The remainder still use traditional checks or direct deposit.

With the national unemployment rate now at 7.6 percent, the market for bank-issued unemployment cards is booming. In 2003, states paid only $4 million of unemployment insurance through debit cards. By 2007, it had ballooned to $2.8 billion, and by 2010 it will likely rise to $10.5 billion, according to a study conducted by Mercator Advisory Group, a financial industry consulting firm.

The economic stimulus plan signed by President Barack Obama this week will increase federal unemployment benefits by $40 billion this year. Subsequently, there will be more money from which banks can collect fees. The U.S. Department of Labor allows the fees as long as states create a way for recipients to get their money for free, spokeswoman Suzy Bohnert said.

"Beyond that, the individual decides how to manage his drawdowns using the debit card," she said in an e-mail.

A typical contract looks like the agreement between Citigroup and the state of Kansas, which took effect in November. The state expects to save $300,000 a year by wiring payments to Citigroup instead of printing and mailing checks.

Citigroup's bill to the state: zero. The bank collects its revenue from fees paid by merchants and the unemployed.

"If you use your card the right way, you're not going to pay fees at all," said Paul Simpson, Citigroup's global head of public sector, health care and wholesale cards.

But that's not always practical.

Arthur Santa-Maria, a laid-off engineer who lives just outside Albuquerque, N.M., said he didn't pay any fees the first time he was laid off, for several months in 2007. His unemployment benefits were paid by paper checks. He found a new job last year but was laid off again last fall.

This time, he was issued a Bank of America debit card - a "prepaid" card in industry lingo - but he was surprised to learn he had to pay fees to get his money. He asked the bank to waive them. It said no. That's when Santa-Maria called back to ask how to check his account online. He logged on and saw that the call cost him a half dollar. To avoid more fees, Santa-Maria found a Bank of America ATM at a strip mall and withdrew $80 at no charge. When he got back to his car, he decided to take out the rest of his money - $250 - and deposit it in his bank account.

Afterward, Santa-Maria logged on to his account and saw a charge of $1.50 for two withdrawals in one day.

"They're trying to use my money to make money," Stanta-Maria said. "I just see banks trying to make that 50 cents or a buck and a half when I should be given the service for free."

New Mexico authorities bargained with Bank of America to get lower fees for unemployment recipients, said Carrie Moritomo, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Workforce Solutions. The state saves up to $1.5 million annually by switching from checks to debit cards.

Bank of America spokeswoman Britney Sheehan pointed out that the fees charged in New Mexico are similar to those charged in the 29 other states with unemployment debit cards. The bank believes "the fee schedule is reasonable and consistent with similar programs," she said.

Banks could issue unemployment debit cards with no fees for cardholders, but that would likely mean that states would have to pay more of the administrative costs, said Mark Harrington, director of marketing for Citigroup's prepaid card services. If a state demanded no cardholder fees and could pay the difference, Citigroup might enter such a contract.

"We would be open to that," Harrington said. "We're not looking to structure any programs where we would lose money, but we're definitely flexible."

Simpson noted that the cards can save money for jobless workers who have no bank accounts. In the past, these people had to use corner check-cashing shops that charged fees as high as 2 percent, or $6 for a $300 check. Now, they can swipe their cards at McDonald's, Wal-Mart or elsewhere for free.

Kenna Gortler, a laid-off paper mill worker in Oregon, said her union is advising members to avoid the debit cards and sign up to get their benefits through direct deposit. More than 300 of her fellow workers have lost their jobs at the mill in the last three months, and horror stories about ATM fees and overdraft charges are starting to filter back to others who are just now signing up for their benefits.

"It's discouraging," Gortler said. "People have limited funds and they don't need to be giving money to the banks. They need to be keeping that money to feed their families and pay bills."

Feb, 2008: Barack Will Never Allow.....

Bunker Mate "Ragdollcatz" pointed this out:

Remember when Michelle Obama said this, back in February of last year?  I wonder what we WILL be allowed to do ..... I'm just sayin'.....

WarriorKnitter pointed out that she's a winter ... And because I, too, am a "winter", I look horrible in khaki ... shouldn't we have an option for jewel tones for the uniforms???

Who Does the Census Job Really Belong To?

Traditionally the job of taking care of the census and digesting and reporting the numbers has been the job of the Commerce Department. Well, it seems that this won't likely be the case anymore.

Courtesy of my Bunker mate "TravelingGal" we find this article from the WashingtonPost.com by Mary Anne Akers:

Get Ready For the U.S. Census Fight, Chicago-style

Republicans are fit to be tied over the Obama administration's Tom DeLay-style strategy of removing the U.S. Census Bureau from the jurisdiction of the Commerce Department and transfering it to the White House.

Their biggest fear, of course, is that with the 2010 census looming, Democrats will attempt to redraw congressional districts to their party's ultimate benefit. (Not that Republicans have ever used politics as their guiding tool in carving out congressional districts to their liking, right Mr. Delay?)

"With all of its political implications, hijacking the Census from the Commerce Dept. and letting it be run out of Rahm's office is like putting PETA in charge of issuing hunting permits," a Senior Republican Senate Aide fumed to the Sleuth. (The aide said he needed to remain anonymous for fear of "being redistricted -- Chicago style.")

So is the White House trying to pull a Tom DeLay?

"All DeLay did was rearrange the deck chairs," said the irate GOP aide, adding, "this would allow Rahm to redesign the whole ship affecting everything from congressional districts to who and where eligible S-CHIP children, adults and 'poor' rich people live."

House Minority Leader John Boehner also blasted the White House move today. In a statement, he said, "The United States Census should remain independent of politics; it should not be directed by political operatives working out of the White House."

The New York Times -- a day before it was revealed that Obama would be removing the census from the Commerce Department's jurisdiction -- editorialized on Wednesday that Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) might not be the best choice to lead the agency tapped with conducting next year's census, given that he has routinely tried to cut census funding:

"Mr. Gregg was never a friend of the census," the editorial said. "As chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the Commerce Department's budget, he frequently tried to cut the bureau's financing. In 1999, he opposed emergency funds for the 2000 census requested by President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled House."

Problem solved on that front. Voila, the very next day, a Congressional Quarterly report revealed President Obama would be moving the Census over to the White House.

Stay tuned... the census fight will get interesting, and ugly.

As pointed out by another Bunker mate, "ARNie":

I am questioning the President’s decision to transfer jurisdiction of the Cenus Bureau from the Commerce Department directly to the White House.

How is this not a Complete Conflict of Interest? By controling the data produced by the 2010 Census, this allows him to unfairly re-draw districts to benefit his party. How is this BiPartisanship? How does this serve the People for whom the President is supposed to serve… ALL the people he is supposed to serve?

The President promised us Change. Is this the Change he meant: tactics and policies that Stalin and Hitler would use?

I am asking that the President do what is best for the entire Nation, and not just for him and his party. Please reverse the decision, and move jurisdiction of the Census Bureau back to the Commerce Department.
~~~~~~~~~~

Oh… I just had another thought….

Thank you so much for moving jurisdiction of the Census Bureau from the Commerce Department to that of the White House. The re-drawing of the districts after the 2010 Census to benefit the Democrats and the President himself, is just the type of criminal act we’ve come to expect from this President.

This Facist move will be filed in the People’s quickly growing stack of bribes, fraud, tax evasion, and other criminal acts supported by this President. Given the short amount of time for this current term, and the thickness of the file; the People should have enough to impeach this President by the end of the year.

ok… so that one would garner me a call from the FBI or the CIA.

As posters commented on the article:

Where is the Washington Post editorial decrying the politicization of the census? Is this CHANGE? If Obama doesn't trust Gregg with the census, he should appoint them.

Emanuel is a low-life thug from Chicago. When not counting all the money he got from FANNIE MAE, helping to create the mortgage disaster, he will be sending ACORN to count Mickey Mouse 200,000 in one house in LA. Welcome to disaster.

AND

Will Rahm Emanuel and his minions jiggle the numbers? Will the sun rise tomorrow?

Obama: Equal Opportunity Opportunist

So ... Obama has something to say. He doesn't plan to talk about it in the morning or at lunch time or in middle of the afternoon ... when talk jocks can make hay out of it ... Nope, he plans to hijack the airwaves during prime time, taking ad revenues out of the mouths of broadcast companies ... he has no problem interfering with their income stream if he wants to try to indoctrinate talk to "the people" (that's "sheeple" to you and me).

Yep, Obama plans to take over Monday nights the next two weeks for "moderate/small" speeches, and then there's at least a two-hour "state of the union" speech (which he shouldn't actually be giving until *next* year) ... All in all, he'll be yanking airtime for himself that will cost the networks a collective $8 million or more.

How long 'til people just start turning off the TV when he comes on. Personally, I can't stand to listen to or watch the guy, with his constant looking down his nose at people, jutting his chin in anger, staring down the camera/viewer, and preaching what he won't practice.

When that happens it could have two results:

1.  People will miss him announcing something they actually need to be warned of hear about.

2.  The Networks will begin to complain and be less "understanding" and possibly less complimentary of him.

Gore: "Don't Listen to Your Parents"

In Nazi Germany, didn't the National Socialist movement begin really taking hold when they started indoctrinating the children? Wasn't one of the precepts of this indoctrination telling children ***not*** to listen to their parents because their parents weren't as smart about this stuff as the children?

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Does it seem to anyone else that history is repeating itself, but from a socialist green perspective this time?

How long 'til we see a push for some kind of Obama Youth Corp that kids will be forced encouraged to join?

Rain Forest Mythology

You know how EcoNazis are always screaming about how we have to save the Amazon rain forest, and how the deforestation there is contributing to global warming, and how there are no other major rain forests, and how there's all this forest being cut down and it will never be replaced, and how we're losing all these medicinal plants 'cause that's the only place they'll grow, and how the animals are leaving and won't have anywhere to live so they'll all go extinct ... yeah ... it's not true. Read the article at World Net Daily:

Major media sources are finally beginning to acknowledge what WorldNetDaily has been reporting for years: The world's rainforests aren't the desperately endangered and depleted resources that the environmentalist mantra makes them out to be.

Eight years ago, WND reported on scientists, studies, Brazilian natives and even disillusioned environmental activists who testified that the Amazon rainforest, far from disappearing at human hands, is actually thriving and replenishing itself through the secondary growth that emerges after a section of older trees is eliminated.

This week, the New York Times reported that scientists are now recognizing that secondary growth around the world is happening much faster and much more effectively than environmentalists advertise.

"These new 'secondary' forests," the Times reads, "are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rainforest — an iconic environmental cause — may be less urgent than once thought."

The Times continues, "By one estimate, for every acre of rainforest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster."

I don't guess the EnviroNazis will be able to to prove their point when so many scientists are coming out and saying they're wrong ... but wait, the same thing's happening with GloBull Warming, and everyone ignores the scientists about that .... I guess the EnviroNazis will just keep making up their own facts like they've been doing since the 60s.

Oh, and you know how they keep saying how the planet would be better off if all the humans would just die already? I'm sure they'll make up some facts to prove that, too.

If the Ice Storm in Kentucky Had Happened While Bush Were Still in Office

Lessee ... it's five days after the huge ice storm hit Kentucky, FEMA still hasn't shown up and taken care of everything. People have died, there's no more room in the shelters ... and Barack Obama hasn't taken  a tour of the ravaged area ... in fact, he's throwing a swanky Super Bowl party (oh, but it's bipartisan, so that makes it ok and worthy).

How would this go if George W. Bush were still in the White House and he had the Super Bowl party and ignored what was happening?  (Even if there wasn't a blamed thing he could do about it?)

Hmmm ... as noted on the American Thinker blog, 24 hours after the winds stopped blowing during Hurricane Katrina, people were already blaming the whole storm and the destruction of George Bush, FEMA didn't have things cleaned up, and some were saying "George Bush hates black people and wants them to die."

That was 24 hours after the storm had finally stopped!  This has been FIVE days ... oh, FEMA says they'll be sending "some people" to Kentucky "in the coming days" ... how many people, to which parts of Kentucky, and exactly how long is "in the coming days" anyway?

Read the American Thinker post here. And then there's a good post at JamieWearingFool.

'Course, it seems that Obama doesn't have much time for people who can't deal with ice and snow ... and in fact, when DC schools were closed due to icy conditions, he had the gall to say:

"My children's school was canceled today because of what? Some ice."

Obama said his daughters -- Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7 -- pointed out that school in Chicago is never canceled.

"In fact, my 7-year-old pointed out that you'd go out for recess. You wouldn't even stay indoors," Obama says.

"We're going to have to try some flinty, Chicago toughness to this town."

As one commenter on the IMAO site pointed out, wasn't Obama supposed to control the weather? See, falling down on the job already.

Just Once, Please!

Just once, I'd like to see this new Congress (and the leftovers from the last one) actually think with their heads and use common sense, instead of listening to their baser, craven natures and doing what they think they need to do to keep their cushy jobs.

Last night the House of Representatives pushed through the next portion of the bailout bill, packed tight with Dem/Lib pork ready to be taken to home districts and fried up for the masses ... which is what we all expected of an 'economic stimulus' package, right?

From the AP via the New York Slimes and then the Register Guard "the" newpaper for the Willamette Valley:

House passes stimulus package Prodding from the president helps persuade Democrats to approve it

By Jackie Calmes

The New York Times

Published: Jan 28, 2009 09:37PM

WASHINGTON — Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as congressional Democrats sought to temper their own differences over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending.

As a piece of legislation, the two-year package is among the biggest in history, reflecting a view in Congress that urgent fiscal help is needed for an economy in crisis.

But the size and substance of the stimulus package remain in dispute, as House Republicans complained that it tilted heavily toward new spending instead of tax cuts.

All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan and 177 Republicans voted against it. The 244-188 vote came a day after Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to seek Republican backing, if not for the package then on coming issues.

OK, this part I just loved, being from this guy's congressional district:

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who has been critical of the stimulus plan, voted in favor along with Oregon’s three other House Democrats. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., voted no.

DeFazio said he’s unhappy with the package, but hoped it would get better in the Senate.

“I don’t normally depend upon the Senate to improve things, but I’m hoping that they will,” he said.

DeFazio was among a group of lawmakers who folded an additional $3 billion into the bill for mass transit projects.

The congressman said those were the sorts of investments he would like to see more of. “My bottom line is that all this money is borrowed. If you’re going to borrow money you should show a benefit for future generations.”

He doesn't normally depend on the Senate to improve things?? He's hoping they'll "improve things"??? What the heck does that even mean? Does he want them to add even more than the additional $3 billion he and his cohorts "folded into" the bill? Is he hoping they'll vote it down because he didn't have the cojones to vote against it, even though he "was unhappy with it"??

Perhaps the only reason he was "unhappy with it" was because he didn't think it went far enough. Yeah, he probably want ObaMao to bail him out and let him start driving a new car instead of that 1960s POS he drives around the valley. Oh, and he wants to see butterflies and rainbow-farting unicorns shower us all with happy dust while he's at it.

Obama, in a statement hailing the House passage of the plan, did not take note of the partisan divide but signaled that he expects changes to be made in the Senate that might attract support.

“I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan before it gets to my desk,” he said. “But what we can’t do is drag our feet or allow the same partisan differences to get in our way. We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do.”

What all the jockeying means at the local level remains uncertain. For example, school districts in Lane County might see a cumulative $30 million over two years as a result of the stimulus plan. Most school officials haven’t determined what the local impact might be.

Brett Yancey, director of business operations for the Springfield School District, said it’s unclear how much bearing his district’s estimated $9 million share of the package would have on a looming budget shortfall for next year. Based on the state’s December forecast, the magnitude of cuts in Springfield would total at least $7.5 million, he said — and there’s good reason to believe anticipated state revenues will diminish further.

“We welcome any resources — in the kind of deprivation we’re in, we need all the help we can get,” he said.

But the federal funds have lots of strings attached, he said. Nearly $3.5 million of Springfield’s share is earmarked for “shovel-ready” construction, which districts typically pay for through capital bonds separate from the general operating fund.

The failure to win Republican support in the House seemed to echo the early months of the last Democratic administration, when President Clinton in 1993 had to rely solely on Democrats to win passage of a deficit-reduction bill that was a signature element of his presidency.

Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, had met the night before at the White House with 11 moderate House Republicans, none of whom ended up supporting the bill. “The most important number here for this recovery plan is how many jobs it produces, not how many votes it gets,” Emanuel said.

As Senate Democrats prepare to bring their version of the package to the floor on Monday, Democrats from the House and the administration indicated that they ultimately would accept a provision in the emerging Senate package that would adjust the alternative minimum tax to hold down many middle-class Americans’ income taxes for 2009. The provision was not in the House-passed legislation.

Its cost would drive the overall package’s tally to nearly $900 billion. That would exceed the roughly $850 billion limit that Obama has set for Congress, according to House Democratic leadership aides, and leave no room for other proposals that senators of both parties are sure to seek during Senate debate next week.

While the House and Senate measures are similar, they are likely to differ in ways that could snarl a conference committee and delay getting a measure to the president. House and Senate Democrats are split over how to divide $87 billion in relief to the states for Medicaid, with senators favoring a formula more beneficial to less populous states.

Democrats also are under pressure from the White House to be open to proposals from Senate Republicans who might support the final legislation if their interests are accommodated, and which might draw a few House Republican supporters on a final vote.

The provision on the alternative minimum tax, for example, was a top priority for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who successfully added it during the Finance Committee’s work on the legislation on Tuesday.

Democrats’ goal is to have the stimulus package, which is about two-thirds new spending and one-third tax cuts, to Obama’s desk by Feb. 13.

Democrats voluntarily drop-ped from the package several provisions that Republicans had singled out for derision in recent days, including money to restore the Jefferson Memorial and for family planning programs. But the day’s debate contrasted with the president’s conciliatory gestures.

The House voted down several Republican proposals, including a substitute package made up entirely of tax cuts for individuals and businesses. That tax-cut-only approach was defeated on a mostly party-line vote of 266-170.

By another party-line vote, of 270-159, the House rejected a GOP plan to delete a number of spending programs and to add instead $36 billion for highway construction, more than doubling the $30 billion in the bill, and $24 billion for Army Corps of Engineer projects.

Register-Guard reporter Anne Williams contributed to this report.

“I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan.”

— President Obama

Hmmmm ... the guy got elected shouldn't he finally start saying what he actually means?? Doesn't he mean "I hope we can continue to strongarm this plan through the process"???? Do the Libiots in Congress have any concept that their constituents want this stupid bailout bill because they think it will actually help Americans who've fallen on hard times? Or do they really think their constituents just want them to pass every bit of leftover pork that's been sitting around for the last 40 years as a bone to throw at to them in supposed appeasement?

People start paying attention and start tapping good conservatives and more moderates with decent common sense ... those are the people we need to send to Washington. Let's vote out the current bums and put in some new blood.

2010 here we come!

Bipartisan Cooperation? Wake Up, Sheeple!

Yep, the newly minted Prez is willing to "listen" to Republicans and "consider" their input ... and he's just as willing to totally ignore it and do whatever he wants, with the willing complicity of the Democrats in Congress.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast Cheat Sheet:

Stimulus Clears House

Score one for Obama! Congress this evening passed his $819 billion stimulus plan, filled with new spending and tax cuts, by a vote of 244-188. The bill is at the core of the Obama administration’s plan for reviving the flailing economy; the president declared earlier today that “we don’t have a moment to spare.” The stimulus now moves to the Senate, where debate will begin this week on a companion measure. Democrats want the legislation ready for Obama’s signature by mid-February.

Read it at The Washington Post

All this without a single Republican affirmative vote.

If you didn't see this coming, you need to stop doing nothing but watching TV and playing video games and pay attention. Unless there is some proposal so heinous as to jar even the Dems, no matter what happens, the Dems will get their way in Congress until the American Sheeple wake up again from their social narcolepsy and start demanding actual representation from the people elected to go to Washington DC, and to their state legislatures.

BTW, I thought I'd maybe finally coined a term, as I hadn't heard it before, but apparently there's a blog called Social Narcolepsy ... so what? I'm using it anyway!  ;^)

Be Careful of the Words You Say ....

My grandma used to caution us kids sometimes when we were being unkind to each other, or making things up:

Be careful of the words you say
Keep them nice and sweet.
You never know from day to day
Which one you'll have to eat.

You'd think that anyone currently in national-level political office would be old enough to have heard this adage at least once. Well, maybe some of them have heard it, but some need to remember it ... particularly President ObaMao.

Remember "back in the day" when he was being critical of the War in Iraq?

"We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

Barack Obama
On US troops in Afghanistan
August 14, 2007

So what happens his first week in office, as the most powerful man in the world? (Please wake me up now and tell me it's just been like a bad episode of Dallas!!!)

Courtesy of Gateway Pundit:

Bombs away...

President Barack Obama air-raided two villages and killed innocent civilians today.
ABC reported:

The CIA's bombing campaign against al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan continued with two more attacks today, an indication, senior officials say, that President Barack Obama has approved the U.S. strategy that has killed at least eight of al Qaeda's top 20 leaders since July 2008.

The two attacks today in Pakistan were the first since President Obama took office on Tuesday.
Asked about it at his daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "I'm not going to discuss that matter."

During the campaign, Obama called for cross-border attacks against high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, even before the CIA campaign began.

Pakistani officials and villagers told ABCNews.com that 17 people were killed in two successive strikes against compounds in North and South Waziristan.

It looks like the Barack Obama Administration is determined to start a civil war in nuclear Pakistan.

During the campaign Barack Obama said he would invade American ally Pakistan.
Maybe he's putting that off until week two.

Now let's look at this in a bit of a different way. Courtesy of the Looking Glass News (Posted by Lissa on January 26, 2009), what would have happened if the same thing took place had John McCain gained the office of POTUS:

Within the first week of President-Select McCain’s term, he has proved that his aggressive, unilateral policies will follow in the footsteps of former President Bush.  Like his predecessor, President McCain seems to have little concern for world opinion; he looks to squander international goodwill at a record-setting pace.  The Times of London reports:

“Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since John McCain became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.

Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven “foreigners” - a term that usually means al-Qaeda - but locals also said that three children lost their lives. ”

Naturally, Op-Eds condemning President McCain as a warmonger have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post; McCain was excoriated on Hardball by Chris Matthews and declared the “Worst Person in the World” by Keith Olbermann. 

 . . . no?  That’s not how it happened?

Welcome to Through the Looking Glass News. 

Are there legitimate complaints to be made about the Obama government?  Sure.   Will there be impotent kvetching and whining regarding actions by the Obama White House that aren’t really important?  Absolutely!

But what really chaps my ass (besides the fifteen degree weather) is that McCain would not receive one iota of the understanding, the perspective, the nuance that the Obama government enjoys.  Can you imagine that McCain would have gotten an article like this from Reuters?

The News wrote that the ‘rather optimistic assurance” given by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani earlier on that the Predator drone attacks would stop once Obama took charge had been dashed. And it added that it wasn’t clear why or how Gilani made such a statement when he was in no position to issue a guarantee on behalf of the Americans.

The missile attacks, and there have been around 30 over the past year, have caused both physical and psychological damage in Pakistan, it said. But what is the way out? Islamabad must somehow persuade the Americans that fighting the militants on its soil was something best left to Pakistani forces. ”The U.S. decision-makers need to be persuaded of the damage caused by the drone attacks and how they contribute to the growth of militancy,” it said.

Somehow, I don’t think McCain’s treatment for the EXACT SAME ACTIONS would have been as favorable.

(In other news, I think the sun will rise in the East tomorrow, and set in the West.)

Yeah, looks like another new site I need to check regularly, along with The Daily Beast.

Some Interesting Stimulus Package Facts

With a hat tip to Ravelry Bunker mate AllyKatt, who got it via Glenn Beck:

Total Cost of Stimulus Legislation: $825 billion

How does this compare?

·         In 1993, the unemployment was virtually the same as the rate today (around 7%). Yet, President Clinton’s proposed stimulus legislation only contained $16 billion in spending

·         The total cost of this one piece of legislation is almost as much as the annual discretionary budget for the entire federal government.

·         This legislation nears a trillion dollars. President Reagan said the best way to understand a trillion dollars is to imagine a crisp, new stack of $1000 bills.

·         If you had a stack four inches high, you’d be a millionaire. A trillion-dollar stack of $1000 bills would measure just over 63 miles high.

·         In $20 bills, a trillion dollar stack would be 3150 miles high. That’s about the distance between DC and Trujillo, Peru.

·         President Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save 3 million jobs. This means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the U.S. is $42,000 a year.

·         This bill provides enough spending to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700.

·         This bill will cost each and every household $6,700 in additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.

·         Although this legislation has been billed and described as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, but only three percent ($30 billion) of this package is for road and highway spending.

·         Much of the funding within the proposed stimulus package will go to programs which already have large, unexpended balances.

·         For example, the draft bill provides $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which already has $16 billion on hand.

·         And, this year, Congress has plans to rescind $9 billion in highway funding that the states have not yet used.

·         Deficit spending will not expand the economy. If that were true, then the current $1.2 trillion deficit – the largest in history – would already be rescuing the economy.

·         $800 billion more will not change that.

·         Trade groups state that every $1 billion in highway “stimulus” can be spent creating 34,779 new construction jobs.

·         But Congress must first borrow that $1 billion out of the private sector.

·         The private sector then loses or forgoes roughly the same number of jobs.

·         Japan responded to a 1990 recession by passing 10 “stimulus” bills over 8 years (building the largest national debt in the industrialized world). Their economy remained stagnant and their per capita income went from the second highest in the world to the tenth highest.

via: glennbeck.com

Do You Know How to Negotiate With a Terrorist? You Can't!

A friend of mine directed me to a web site that I think I need to check often -- HH Blowhard. The post she directed me to, from 2006, is called "How to Negotiate With Terrorists". I hope the author doesn't mind, but here's the text. Please check out his blog for yourself and see what else he has to offer.

How To Negotiate With Terrorists

This brief blog entry takes you through a series of negotiations over time between peacemakers and terrorists:

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of a line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker introduces himself. The terrorist kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker asks, "why did you kill my friend?" The terrorist kills him and rapes his wife.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker says, "Stop that!" The terrorist kills him, rapes his daughter and kills his wife.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker says, "I'll pay you $1000 if you stop attacking us." The terrorist agrees to the deal, takes the $1000, and kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker appeals to the United Nations. The United Nations says the peacemaker is at fault. The terrorist kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker now has a gun, and threatens to use it. Other peacemakers start chanting the old 60's whine, "Can't we all just get along?" The peacemaker hesitates. The terrorist kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker tries to convince his peacemaker friends that the terrorists aren't going to respond to negotiations, but they insist that if he kills the terrorist it'll just make the other terrorists mad. The peacemaker reluctantly agrees to try negotiating again. The terrorist kills him., his entire family, and his neighbor's family.

A heated debate now ensues between the peacemakers who want to be nice to the terrorists and the peacemakers who believe that there can never be peace until the terrorists are all dead. While they are debating, the terrorists kill 15 more peacemakers.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker asks himself, "Which is more important: being liked by everyone, or protecting my family?" The terrorist pulls a knife to kill the peacemaker, but the peacemaker pulls a gun and kills the terrorist first. The United Nations condemns the peacemaker's use of unproportional force. Many of his peacemaker friends turn against him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker apologizes for what his friend did to the other terrorist. The terrorist kills him, his entire family and his neighbors, and threatens to destroy the city as soon as they develop a bigger weapon.

A peacemaker refuses to meet at the line because every time a peacemaker goes to the line the terrorist kills him. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line and fires rockets into the peacemaker's town. The United Nations condemns the way the peacemaker provoked the terrorist by refusing to come to the line and meet with him.

Generations pass and not much changes until one day when the son of a peacemaker decides that the old strategy simply won't work. He walks up to the left side of the line a little early. As the terrorist approaches the right side of the line the peacemaker shoots him. Another terrorist approaches to replace the first, and the peacemaker shoots him too. This scene plays out several more times. Then a terrorist approaches carrying a white flag, but he also has weapons. The peacemaker shoots him. A terrorist next approaches with a ceasefire resolution from the U.N. The peacemaker shoots him also. A large group of terrorists approach and the peacemaker shoots them all and drops a nuclear bomb on the city they came from. The peacemaker continues killing the terrorists until the terrorists are all dead.

There is finally peace on earth and the United Nations takes the credit.

(No peacemakers or terrorists were harmed during the writing of this blog.)

Obamaland -- Our Future Doesn't Work ... Just Ask England

A compatriot of the great Mark Steyn has written a book that deserves notice and purchase.

Written by James Delingpole, it's called "Welcome to Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future and It Doesn't Work" ... you can buy it at WND.com.

If the election of Barack Obama fills you with dread rather than elation, you're not alone; in fact, pull up a chair next to James Delingpole who has seen this all before and knows exactly where America is heading: into a morass of sprawling government that will slowly start suffocating our economy, our liberties, and our culture. You might as well call it socialism, he says, because that's what it is. In Britain it came in under the smiling face of Tony Blair and has left the British bulldog castrated, whimpering, and sick; in America it's coming under the vibrant, youthful guise of Barack Obama. But the result will be the same: the brave, independent American eagle will become the American turkey, oven-basted by the nanny state of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

James Delingpole, whose coruscating wit and laugh-out-loud asides have earned his fame as a British political commentator, is here to tell us how bad things could really get. From the socialized medicine that will make us want to avoid going to the doctor even when our hand is on fire (as his literally once was); to eco-fascism that will have us spending millions, if not billions, if not entirely ruining our already shattered economy, to protect un-endangered, man-eating polar bears; to immigration non-reform that will leave us wondering what country we're living in anyway; to a further dumbing down of an already execrable school system, with more PC inanities, such as banning "competitive games" because it might disturb children's self-esteem; to so many symptoms of decline and fall that we might as well all move to Albania to enjoy the high life.

Hilarious, witty, impassioned, and perceptive, "Welcome to Obamaland" will have you laughing through your tears and taking courage from the eternal truth of conservative convictions.

Praise for "Welcome to Obamaland"

In 1997, Britain elected a young, charismatic, inspirational leader, and the entire nation was filled with hope. For the next ten years, we suffered the pain of gradual disillusionment as Tony Blair failed to live up to every single one of our expectations. Why not save yourselves the trouble of slowly having your hearts broken and fast forward straight to the bitter and cynical phase? James Delingpole, one of Britain's most astute political journalists, is here to give you a quick reality bath. He has seen the future--your future--and it doesn't work.

• TOBY YOUNG, author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People Totally brilliant. As funny as St. Mark Steyn.
• ANDREW ROBERTS, historian and author of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900.

From "Welcome to Obamaland" Think of me as the hero of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, bursting into your present, my clothes all tattered and torn, and on my face an expression of dire horror and impending doom. For I am afraid I have a terrible message to impart. I have just seen the future. Your future. And I'm sorry to say it sucks. This new president you've elected. You think he's going to make everything okay, right? Even if you didn't vote for him, you're kind of hoping that some good must surely come of it. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. That's the sound of me laughing darkly, by the way. So what, if any, consolation do I have to offer you in these dark and difficult times? Precious little, I'm afraid. Virtually nothing in fact, save the warm, self-affirmatory glow you get when someone tells you you're right, that some day your beliefs will be vindicated, that however long it takes, reality will win out.

NOTE: Purchasing "Welcome to Obamaland" from WND's online store also qualifies you to receive three FREE issues of WND's acclaimed monthly print magazine, Whistleblower. Watch for the FREE offer during checkout.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing (January 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596985887
• ISBN-13: 978-1596985889

Lie To Me ... Required Viewing??

As I sit here blogging, I'm listening to the new show called "Lie To Me" ... an interesting show, all about the close examination of expressions and gestures to determine the truth.

I suggest that this show should be required viewing for anyone who doesn't have social narcolepsy. For example, in the case involving a basketball player, they watch footage of the guy and note the chin thrust, which is an indicator of anger.

And it dawned on me .. this is something that ObaMao does **a lot** ... when he makes speeches about how we have to be responsible, how we have to get along with bipartisanship ... lots and lots of chin thrusts.

I may have to watch this show on a weekly basis so I can learn to discern what's going on with the politicians I see all the time. We have to learn the classic signs of deceit, etc.

Little Blue Book?

One of my fellow Ravelry Bunker mates, TravelingGal, posted about an item earlier this week about a new book about ObaMao (as if there weren't enough of them already).

"Why a little blue book", I initially wondered? "Shouldn't it be a "little red book"?? "

Well, it may as well be a "little red book" but blue is the new color of communists progressives after all, so it kind of makes sense, I guess.

Why do I think the current day's little red .. er .. blue book could be a problem? Well, unless the authors have their tongues firmly on the inside of their cheeks, it has all the makings of something that could go from "an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times", as the editors of The History Company say about their new book "Pocket Obama", to an official requirement. With the way President ObaMao keeps showing clear signs of trying to edge us closer and closer toward "democratic socialism", can you think something like this could be far behind?

Pocket Obama (10 copies)

$49.50

Printed in a size that easily fits into pocket or purse, this book is an anthology of quotations borrowed from Barack Obama's speeches and writings. POCKET OBAMA serves as a reminder of the amazing power of oratory and the remarkable ability of this man to move people with his words. His superb and captivating oratory style has earned comparisons to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and this historic collection presents words that catapulted his remarkable rise to the American Presidency. It is an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times.

The little blue book includes themes of democracy, politics, war, terrorism, race, community, jurisprudence, faith, personal responsibility, national identity, and above all, his hoped-for vision of a new America. POCKET OBAMA is a portable, everyday primer for readers who want to examine the substance of his thought and reflect on the next great chapter in the American story.

SAVE $10.00 on the purchase of this exclusive 10-copy pack.

For single copy purchase of POCKET OBAMA go to Amazon.com.

Pocket Obama (10 copies)

As one friend's husband said when he heard about this and the editors' comment:  "Papers, please?"

If you want to buy the book from the History Company, you have to buy them in quantities of 10. If you want to buy single copies, you can order them from Amazon.com ... but you might want to read the comments first. As of this posting, there are currently seven (7) pages of comments.

A couple of my favorites:

The only thing they missed was the hammer and sickle and "The Thoughts of Chairman Obama" on the cover. Here is "Change you can believe in". May God have mercy on us.

and

Truly am thankful --this is a bargain---when hyperinflation hits and it costs $30 for a roll of toilet paper---i can be happy knowing that I can use Obama's nuggets of wisdom to wipe my nuggets in the crapper. See I'm going to reduce global warming by helping to recycle the garbage!

and

One reviewer said that if you looked inside, you would see this is a joke. Well, I looked inside and it doesn't look like a joke to me. This is an actual collection of Obama quotes. They aren't mocked or changed. It's not delivered tongue-in-cheek in any way that I can see.

The preface/description could be viewed as being parody. Or, if the publisher actually is an Obamaton and zealot, it could be serious. I've certainly heard many Obama supporters, from the regular person off the street all the way to Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, espouse far more extreme embracements of Obama. So this could very well be serious.

I certainly hope it is a joke. If it isn't, this is not a good sign of things to come. With the cultish behavior of Obama supporters all across the country, though, it has become very hard to discern what is a joke and what is actual idol worship.

Why do I compare it to Chairman Mao's "little red book"?

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (simplified Chinese: 毛主席语录; pinyin: Máo zhǔxí yǔlù), better known in the West as The Little Red Book, was published by the Government of the People's Republic of China from April 1964 until approximately 1976. As its title implies, it is a collection of quotations excerpted from Mao Zedong's past speeches and publications. The book's alternative title The Little Red Book was coined by the West for its pocket-sized edition, which was specifically printed and sold to facilitate easy carrying. The closest equivalent in Chinese is 红宝书 (hóng bǎoshū), literally "The Red Treasured Book", which was a term popular during the Cultural Revolution. "Little Red Book" in Chinese would be 小红书 (xiăo hóngshū).

The most printed book in history, Quotations had an estimated 5 to 6.5 billion copies printed during Mao's attempt to transform Chinese society. The book's phenomenal popularity may be due to the fact that it was essentially an unofficial requirement for every Chinese citizen to own, to read, and to carry it at all times during the later half of Mao's rule, especially during the Cultural Revolution.

During the Cultural Revolution, studying the book was not only required in schools but was also a standard practice in the workplace as well. All units, in the industrial, commercial, agricultural, civil service, and military sectors, organized group sessions for the entire workforce to study the book during working hours. Quotes from Mao were either bold-faced or highlighted in red, and almost all writing, including scientific essays, had to quote Mao.

To defend against the theory that it would be counter-productive, it was argued that understanding Mao's quotes could definitely bring about enlightenment to the work unit, resulting in production improvement to offset the time lost.

During the 1960s, the book was the single most visible icon in mainland China, even more visible than the image of the Chairman himself. In posters and pictures created by CPC's propaganda artists, nearly every painted character, except Mao himself, either smiling or looking determined, was always seen with a copy of the book in his or her hand.

After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and the rise of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the importance of the book waned considerably, and the glorification of Mao's quotations was considered to be left deviationism and a cult of personality. The original books now became a collector's item and some editions are highly sought after. ^[1]

Mao's quotations are categorized into 33 chapters in the book. Its topics mainly deal with Mao's ideology, known in the West as Maoism and officially as "Mao Zedong Thought."

Somehow I don't think we're that far off the mark on this one. God forbid this should become required reading ... but if it were to, I'd say study up and be able to tell 'em what they want to hear. They've been doing it to us for so long they won't recognize it when it's reversed, will they?

You Know What's In the Bailout Bill, Right? Think Again!

So you think you finally understand what President ObaMao and his cohorts in Congress have planned for this next part of the "economic stimulus package", right? It's all for jobs creation, right? There's going to be transparency and accountability, right? It's all necessary, right? And the Republicans are going to have  say in how the thing's crafted, right?

Think again.

My cousin sent this to me this morning, horrified at what she'd read. Unless you're an ObaMao supporter, I have a feeling you might feel the same.

A 40-Year Wish List

You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill.

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic "stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.

AP

We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There's even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President's new budget director, told Congress a year ago, "even those [public works] that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."

Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?

Here's another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?

Another "stimulus" secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments -- that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There's $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren't job creators.

As for the promise of accountability, some $54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as "ineffective" or unable to pass basic financial audits. These include the Economic Development Administration, the Small Business Administration, the 10 federal job training programs, and many more.

Oh, and don't forget education, which would get $66 billion more. That's more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush. Some $6 billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that "No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools." Horrors: Some money might go to nonunion teachers.

The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will become part of the annual "budget baseline" that Congress uses as the new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it's hard -- no, impossible -- to believe that Congress will cut spending next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels. The likelihood is that this allegedly emergency spending will become a permanent addition to federal outlays -- increasing pressure for tax increases in the bargain. Any Blue Dog Democrat who votes for this ought to turn in his "deficit hawk" credentials.

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

UPDATE:  More information from Northwest Republican. Check him out often.

Read the stimulus bill. Creating jobs? Really?

Oh and how bout some highlights.
-- pg 14: None of the funds provided by this Act may be made available to the State of Illinois, or any agency of the State, unless (1) the use of such funds by the State is approved in legislation enacted by the State after the date of the enactment of this Act, or (2) Rod R. Blagojevich no longer holds the office of Governor of the State of Illinois.

-- pg 19: Establishment of an "Accountability Board" and several pages discussing the powers of that board. Reminiscent of Roosevelt's NRA.

-- pg 36:For an additional amount for ‘‘Salaries and Expenses,’’ $245,000,000, for the purpose of maintaining and modernizing the information technology system

-- pg 36: (How bout this for stimulating jobs) For an additional amount for ‘‘Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations’’, $350,000,000, of which $175,000,000 is for necessary expenses to purchase and restore floodplain easements

-- pg 44: (How many "jobs" from this expenditure?) For an additional amount for the special supplemental nutrition program, $100,000,000, for the Secretary of Agriculture to provide assistance to State agencies to implement new management information systems or improve existing management information systems for the program.

-- pg 52: For an additional amount for ‘‘Procurement, Acquisition and Construction’’, $600,000,000, for accelerating satellite development and acquisition, acquiring climate sensors and climate modeling capacity, and establishing climate data records: Provided further, That not less than $140,000,000 shall be available for climate data modeling.

-- pg 53/54: (Science jobs?) For an additional amount for ‘‘Science’’, $400,000,000, of which not less than $250,000,000 shall be solely for accelerating the development of the tier 1 set of Earth science climate research missions recommended by the National Academies Decadal Survey. For an additional amount for ‘‘Aeronautics’’, $150,000,000.

For starters.

Bin Laden's Message to Obama

After numerous rounds of ‘We don’t even know if Osama is still alive’, Barack Obama has now been telling everyone he will capture Osama Bin Laden when elected.

So, Osama himself decided to send Barack Obama a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game. Obama opened the letter and it contained a single line of coded message: 370H-SSV-0773H

Obama was baffled, so he emailed it to Howard Dean. Dean and the DNC and his aides had no clue either, so they sent it to Joe Biden. Joe Biden could not solve so it was sent to the FBI and the CIA.

Eventually they asked John McCain and his Staff to look at it. And within minutes McCain’s Staff emailed Obama with this reply: ‘Tell Obama he’s holding the message upside down’.

Christmas in Texas (or My Own Travel Horror Story)

Bear in mind that I tried to post this for about a week, but was having issues with Typepad's new login process, which I *just* got resolved yesterday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

There’s always something to be said for spending time with family, especially around the holidays. We’re fortunate to be one of the families that enjoy spending time with ours, although it normally happens closer to home. This year, though, things got a little convoluted.

It all started with my husband’s desire to head for Texas to spend Christmas with his family, seeing a how it has been about 11 years since we’d been to Dallas for Christmas. Flights and fares were researched, schedules were consulted for us, our daughter and our son & his wife. Plans were made, discarded, rescheduled, and added to, and vacation days requested, approved and reserved.

Then there’s the weather. What to pack? It’s Dallas, Texas at Christmas, after all, so it’s hard to know what to expect, so it’s hard to know what to pack. When in doubt … over-pack!! I packed lighter long-sleeved shirts, sweatshirts, and a couple of sweaters, but only packed jeans, knowing that they’ll always work in a Dallas winter time. Lots of warm socks, as it’s always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to warm hoofies. Sneakers … two pair, please, in case one should need drying or airing out.

But then the Oregon weather decided to get … wonky.

For the first time in a long time we experienced a major cold snap in Gdansk on the Willamette, starting over a week before we had to leave, nearly two weeks before Christmas. The weather the last week I worked before vacation was cold …. colder than I’d seen in mid-December since I don’t remember when (damn that Global Warming!! Someone call AlGore!!).

On the last Monday I worked, I got stuck at the corner where I normally turn to get on the highway … after sitting through 7 lights, I finally got help in the combination of my husband arriving on the scene and a nice passerby who helped me back up around the people behind me and get out of the way. The rest of the week I got to work ok, but with delays. Thank God I have a great boss who allowed me to use remaining sick time to help make up for the time missed due to weather delays.

The weather in Gdansk on the Willamette cleared and became more manageable with the passing of the week, and we began to look forward to flying to Dallas. We left at nearly first light on Saturday, picking up the son and his wife on the way out of town and made our way north. While we didn’t have to put the tire chains on during the trip up, I was still glad to know we had them in the trunk “just in case.” We got to Portland and tried to see if the son and wife could check into their hotel early, as they weren’t flying out until Sunday a.m., but to no avail. Instead, we drove on to the airport and let son and wife drop us off and take the car.

We had no trouble getting to PDX in plenty of time for our flight. We got some breakfast, some Starbucks, and sat down to wait for the time to board the plane. We talked to fellow travelers and between the three of us (daughter was going out on the same flight with us), and did just fine. It’s hard to believe that a 21-year old daughter can still get a kick out of moving sidewalks, but she does.  {grin}

We looked at the screen in the boarding gate area frequently, looking for signs of a canceled flight, which we expected at any moment, yet the cancellation was never announced. We did finally see that the flight had been delayed, but only by about 30 minutes or so. We boarded at about the time we were originally supposed to take off … and then we waited. And we waited. And we waited some more. We taxied out to the runway in an attempt to take off, but that was called off, so we went back to the terminal for improvement in runway/weather conditions. After announcement after announcement by the flight attendants and the pilots … after three hours on the plane, after waiting for an announcement that the flight had been cancelled after all, we were allowed to get off the plane … for a total of about 20 minutes, as it turned out. Seems they wanted us to stay in one area in case we got clearance and a window of about 20 minutes for the runway to be “decontaminated” and the plane to be de-iced … again.

I had just enough time to call my friend, who was house sitting and taking care of my fuzzy children. I had to cut the conversation short in order to herd hubby & daughter back onto the plane … to wait. And wait. And Wait Some More.

Yeah, seems that “they” had missed the window, and the tower was trying to decide if it was safe enough to fly, and “they” had to decide whether they could de-ice and anti-ice and whether the wings were unfrozen enough to fly in time to "make another window." And we waited for them to “call” the flight, to say it wasn’t safe enough, to say that the weather wouldn’t allow it, to say that they couldn’t get the ice to stay off the plane.

Some fellow passengers finally had enough of it and decided they’d try another way to get to Oklahoma for Christmas (which I’m certain they didn’t), and it appears they found some “press” people in the airport and complained that we were being “held hostage” on the plane without food or drink. Lucky for us (my family) that we’d brought plenty of snacks and had taken empty water bottles with us that we’d filled with water on the other side of the security screening area, so we were set and offered to share with passengers around us.

The flight attendants finally broke out snack foods (that they would normally sell) and because they don’t carry much food in “coach” class anymore, they asked if passengers could share. They also broke out the water, sodas, etc. and did the best they could. I would say that these women were grace itself under pressure and held up really well, and they didn’t get near enough appreciation for what they were doing, trying to keep everyone calm, updated, etc. After all, they couldn’t go anywhere either, they were anxious to get home for the holidays, and they were still obligated to do their jobs.

There were several children on the plane as well, and except for minor fussing that was totally expected and understandable, they children did really well. It could’ve been miserable, but it wasn’t bad at all.

Finally, at about 7:30 Pacific time, we got the word that we were ready to taxi yet again, that the de-icing and anti-icing had taken place and that the wings were indeed safe enough for flight, and that we were going to hope for the best. Where we’d been told at 3:30 that 1/8” of fresh snow on the runway made it “contaminated” and unacceptable for take-off, we were now told that 1” on the runway was going to be OK. I don’t know how or why the difference in snow depth was now fine, but we were going to try it.

You know, I’m not averse to flying. I don’t like it much, but I’m not totally averse to it. I’m not afraid of all of it, mind you … just the taking off and the landing … and that part when you’re in the air. The taxi-ing part … well, I’m fine with that.

I prayed a lot on take-off, during the flight, and on landing (I particularly detest landing and take-off in Dallas, considering I lived there when Delta 191 and Delta 1141 (I think those were the flight numbers) crashed between 1981 and 1989 due to wind shear. I will never be comfortable going in and out of there.

Anyway, we landed at 12:30a local Dallas time, and I was beat. And then there was the drive from DFW airport to a suburb outside Dallas proper and we didn’t get to bed until after 2:00am.

The next day, at hubby’s brother’s house, we got a call from our son telling us that their flight was canceled and wouldn’t be re-scheduled. Yes, this was the first year that I’ve been separated from my son since he was born at Christmas time in 1984. Yes, I cried because it’s important to me to be around family for the holiday. Yes, I missed him this week, but was glad I'd see him by the next weekend.

We spent the majority of the time here at my brother-in-law’s house (when we weren’t traveling around the major Dallas area going to see this, that, and the other thing. We had our family Christmas time there at Paul’s on Sunday because he was scheduled for some very major surgery on Tuesday.

We ran errands, bought a lot of food to feed the whole brood that was there for the holiday (including another of hubby’s brothers and his girls, and Paul’s kids – his wife is spending the next several days with Paul at the hospital), and hubby’s dad, and Paul’s wife’s folks. Yep, we fed 14 people. It was a zoo, but it was great and a challenge all at the same time.

The next bit of good news is that Paul’s surgery went great and he’s out of the woods so far. We saw him in the hospital Wednesday and he was awake, alert, and doing well. It seems that his surgical situation is one that hasn’t been dealt with before (or at least not very much) and the surgeons took film of it and documented it well otherwise, and that it may be worked up in one of the major medical journals as what to do if/when this situation arises. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me to find this scenario worked out on Grey’s Anatomy at some point in the future.

On Christmas Day we deep fried two turkeys, I made potatoes au gratin, and we had side dishes made by others, and some yummy rolls from the Black-Eyed Pea restaurant. We hung out with the gang, watched movies, visited and over-ate … and recharged the new battery I bought with my Christmas bonus (hurray!) at least twice so I could try to post again, or at least catch up with my friends on Ravelry.

On Thursday night we kept checking the weather and understood that it looked like we should be able to take off to fly home on Friday (the weather had previously looked like it would be stormy, but the forecast looked like the storm system should come through in the evening). The big question was whether we would be able to land in Portland or whether we’d be re-routed to Lord Knows Where.

When we got to DFW airport on Friay a.m. we found that our flight was on time and expected decent landing conditions at PDX. We got back to Oregon with a minimum of turbulence (which I prayed through just the same), and we landed smoothly, greeted by gentle Oregon rain and cold (but not freezing) temperatures. The son and his wife came up to pick us up, seeing as how we'd otherwise have to rent a car 'cause they had to take ours to get back home to Gdansk on the Willamette on Sunday.

Does Life Ever Remind You of "Animal Farm"?

Victor Davis Hanson has an amazing insight into the way things work, the way things are, the way things shouldn't be, and the way thing ought to be. With a hat tip to my gal pals in The Bunker at Ravelry.com, I give you his December 27th post at Pajamas Media:

Life at the New Animal Farm Won't Be That Bad

December 27, 2008 3:31p

by Victor Davis Hanson

Posted at Pajamas Media

By July, we will come to feel that 2009 will be one of the most upbeat years in our history, as what used to be the news media∗ begins to get behind America and report on all the mysteriously wonderful things that are suddenly taking place.

All the campaign talk of the Great Depression, a Vietnam-like war, and our shredded Constitution will now thankfully subside as the Obama administration assumes office and solves problems with conciliation, dialogue, and multilateral wisdom, rather than shrillness, unilateralism, preemption, and my-way-or-the-highway dogmatism. We will hear that, by historical levels, unemployment is still not that bad, that GDP growth is not historically all that low, and that deficits, inflation, interest rates, and housing starts are all within manageable parameters. “Depression” will transmogrify into “recession” which in turn by July will be a “downturn” and by year next an “upswing” on its way to boom times.

Indeed, almost supernaturally crises will be solved with the departure of the hated Bush: no more flooding streets from cracked water mains that were a result of a President’s neglect of infrastructure, and no more spontaneous crashes of Mississippi River bridges due to diversions of critical federal aid from cash-strapped states to Iraq. And when the temperatures rise or drop, the wind howls, the clouds burst forth or go away, the snow melts or piles up, it will be, well, nature that caused the havoc, not the current occupant of the White House who failed to sign Kyoto.

As we watch the innocent die from natural mayhem, it will be due to the breakdown of local responders who now suddenly kill people, not federal inaction—except perhaps for an occasional few Bush federal holdovers that have not yet been rooted out. Human nature, of course, now will be seen more culpable, more selfish, as in needlessly resisting wise and caring federal interventions, rather than being inherently noble but shunned by an uncaring Washington. Yes, when dikes collapse and planes collide on crowed runways, it will be due to a cruel and unpredictable nature, or intrinsic design flaws, or improper local use and maintenance, or the past President’s nefarious legacy, not current government policies. (But if you still must bash the government, it will be wise to do it in 1950s style of inattentive state and local officials, prone to regional and tribal prejudices, blocking the infinite wisdom of a caring federal government.)

Some military action abroad could be necessary—and necessarily reported on as measured and reluctant, rather than cowboyish and gratuitous. European whining will be a result of miscommunications or the Euros’ unfair caricatures of Americans, not Bush’s alienation of allies. If radical Islam strikes, it will be, well, radical again and sometimes even dangerous, not a figment of neocon pipe dreams. If an administration official quits, goes on 60 Minutes, and writes a nasty tell-all book about Obama’s insensitivity and his government’s directionless ennui, he will be a heretic, a whiner, a turncoat, not a truth teller or brave maverick who blew the whistle in need of a bestseller hyped from NPR to the New York Times. We will come again to hate the filibuster, obstructionist Congressional policies, and the occasional loud-mouthed Senator who voices slurs against our nation in unpatriotic fashion.

Those around Barack Obama understand that precisely those measures most derided during the campaign—wiretaps, the interrogation of prisoners in Guantanamo, the decimation of al Qaida members in Iraq and Afghanistan, overseas detentions—probably account likewise most for the absence of another 9/11-like attack. In other words, as the Obamians privately ignore the media hype about flushed Korans and hundreds of innocents caught in the cauldron of war and unfairly detained, and instead examine the sort of killers who are presently in Guantanamo, the type of intelligence gathering that led to prevention of dozens of planned attacks since 9/11, and those who turned up and were killed or arrested in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will realize how dicey it will be to follow through with campaign rhetoric about Bush, Inc. torching the Bill of Rights, fighting made-up enemies abroad, and generally alienating our allies.

So all that will change for now will be the sudden absence of shrill complaints that we live in an America without a Constitution. Static, same-old, same-old government policy will, of course, be said to have altered radically (”hoped and changed”), but it will also be refashioned in the media as “sober” and “judicious”, as the administration moves “in circumspect fashion” to probe and explore “complex” and often “paradoxical” matters of national security that “indeed at the end of the day have no easy answers”.

Expect much of the same on the economic front. For all the campaign hysteria about greedy Bushites who destroyed the economy, Obama realizes that in fact the seeds of the current financial weeds were sown years ago, and watered and fertilized by an array of both Democratic and Republican facilitators in Congress and hacks in government-affiliated mortgage sinecures. So expect the bailouts to continue. We will see Wall Street in about 24 hours after January 20 transmogrified from Gordon Gecko’s habitat into a sort of the old Robert Rubin/Warren Buffet-like necessary institution about which a Sen. Schumer or Chris Dodd can offer invaluable advice and consultation.

Socially, we will get a mix of Maya Angelou, Oprah, and Rick Warren, a rich diversity of therapeutics that appeals to everyone’s popular feel-my-pain tastes. Rev. Wrights and Father Pflegers are “that was then, this is now” has-beens (not that they and their Blago-ilk with a memoir or weird disclosure won’t try to crash the party from time to time), replaced by the bromides of the Purpose-Driven Life. The Left will once again see the U.S. as the last, best hope for mankind, a flawed, often errant nation that nevertheless in its heart always showed the world what was right in the end. “Diversity” and “progressive” themes will replace Bush’s hokey old-time patriotism, as we return to a more nuanced and sophisticated love of country that at last “came home.”

In other words, one can also at last enjoy that nice wood-floored study, tastefully granite-countered kitchen, with plenty of stainless steel appliances, in a mostly un-diverse neighborhood, still send your kids to a mostly predetermined racially-appropriate school, and still make a pretty good salary, drive a comfortably large car (though please—preferably a Volvo or Mercedes SUV rather than a Tahoe or Yukon), and feel like you are out there on the barricades of radical environmental, cultural, and political change (and hope too!).

Al Gore will be courted, get an occasional photo-op head-pat—but when he gets too loud quietly sent back upstairs to the closet. Ditto the uncouth Sharpton and Jackson, snapping pit bulls muzzled and dispatched to the kennels. Jimmy Carter will once again be weird old jet-setting Jimmy Carter, a meddler, a spoiler, a PR junkie on the verge of senility rather than the principled Nobel laureate of the Carter Center.

Those inside the big house change, the commandments on the barn wall subtly are crossed out and updated, but the farm for us animals stays about the same.

______________

∗ I say used to be the news media, since when they report good news about the Divine Obama we have no idea whether it’s encomium or fact; and if they are ever slightly negative, we don’t know whether the complaint derives from His real error or merely that they are stung by past criticism and ostensibly trying to be periodically balanced. In short, the age of Murrow is over—and the divine era of Augustus with his Livy and Dio is upon us.

Merry RamaHanuKwanzMas

With a hat tip to our good friend EllieJane of Ravelry;



Merry Christmas ... take *THAT*, ACLU!

When Soldiers Come Home

We've all seen them. Guys/gals in their fatigues, traveling to and from home to deployment, running into Starbucks for a cup o' joe on their way in to their reserve weekend, just being normal people. It can be intimidating, but if I get the sense that the soldier I see would be receptive, I like to take a moment to thank them for what they do. It's really easy. Living here in Gdansk on the Willamette, I often get a surprised look, with a humble (sometimes embarassed) "thank you, but I'm just doing my job."

I don't automatically know what they do in their branch of the service, and the particulars don't matter in the grand scope of things, I guess, but I'm thankful for them nonetheless. All the jobs function together like cogs in a gear; without all of them, it doesn't work quite as well. So everyone does their job, sometimes for different reasons, but they make sure the job gets done. And they help keep us all safe, in so many ways.

But there's another side of them that people don't see, at least the guys and gals that have come home from "over there," having completed one or more deployments in some really tough conditions of which you and I (probably) can't even really imagine. So, to get a sense of this, and put our own comfortable lives in perspective in comparison, I thought I'd share with you the contents of this email that my cousin sent me. (Her son was shipped to Iraq in October and is currently stationed in Balad.)

Please consider sharing this with your friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


.

... to listen to his son whine about being bored

.

... to keep a straight face when people complain about potholes

.

... to be tolerant of people who complain about the hassle of getting ready for work

.

... to be understanding when a co-worker complains about a bad night's sleep

.

... to be silent when people pray to God for a new car

.

... to control his panic when his wife tells him he needs to drive slower

.

... to be compassionate when a businessman expresses a fear of flying

.

... to keep from laughing when anxious parents say they're afraid to send their kids off to summer camp

.

 ... to keep from ridiculing someone who complains about hot weather

.

... to control his frustration when a colleague complains gripes about his coffee being cold

.

... to remain calm when his daughter complains about having to walk the dog

.

... to be civil to people who complain about their jobs

.

... to just walk away when someone says they only get two weeks of vacation a year

.

... to be forgiving when someone says how hard it is to have a new baby in the house

.

The Only Thing Harder Than Being a Soldier

.

... Is Loving One.

.

Machosauce: "Declaration of Dependence"

More from Machosauce:

Yeah ... I Want To Be At the Pearly Gates To See Them Explain **THIS**

Oh, let's just re-write the Book by God, shall we??? Sheesh!

A gay version of the Bible, in which God says it is better to be gay than straight, is to be published by an American film producer.

New Mexico-based Revision Studios will publish The Princess Diana Bible – so named because of Diana's "many good works", it says – online at princessdianabible.com in spring 2009. A preview of Genesis is already available, in which instead of creating Adam and Eve, God creates Aida and Eve.

Read More.

But Wait ... There's More ... Courtesy of WorldNet Daily and Likelihoodofsuccess.com

A homosexual man who has a blog on Sen. Barack Obama's campaign website is suing two major Christian publishers for violating his constitutional rights and causing emotional pain, because the Bible versions they publish refer to homosexuality as a sin.

Bradley LaShawn Fowler, 39, of Canton, Mich., is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing in lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Grand Rapids Press reported.

Fowler filed his claim against Grand Rapids-based Zondervan Monday, alleging its Bibles' references to homosexuality as a sin have made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of "demoralization, chaos and bewilderment," the paper said.

He filed suit against Tennessee publisher Thomas Nelson in June.

And also from http://likelihoodofsuccess.com/2008/07/10/un-fabulous/

First… if you want it… I’ve downloaded the insane, hand-written complaint here. Go ahead, you read it. Now, the bullet points:

• As Kevin D. over at Dean’s World points out, you can slice this seven ways to Sunday but 1 Corinthians 6:9 does not exactly have a monopoly on condemnation of homosexuality as sinful. After all, we Jews don’t have a Corinthians besides in our Plymouth Volares, but there’s the not-so-minor matter of Leviticus.

• This leads to the obvious conclusion that, accepting Fowler’s premise that the opinion of the Bible itself matters, he really should be suing God. After all, that’s what they do in Europe! And isn’t Europe where we look for moral guidance, if we’re guys like Fowler? (UPDATE: A-hah! Via Dean.)

• Then there’s the small matter of the facts, Jack: “A company spokesman [says] that Zondervan doesn’t translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations but relies, instead, on the “scholarly judgment of credible translation committees.” All right, fair enough — that’s a fact question amenable to the litigation process, but a big one.

• Next there’s this Constitution thingy. God and Culture guy Paul Edwards frets, “Will a federal court actually go so far as to get involved in what words can be used in the translation of a sacred text?” Survey says: No, for two reasons: (1) The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, and (2) the First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Plus…

• Let’s drill down from “Constitution” to “justice.” The PACER federal court filing system reports that Fowler is asking for $9,999,000 in damages. I’m sure this number has some meaning. Still, we have a concept in the law called “proximate cause“: It is not enough to be a link in the causal chain between, say, your having adding fuel to a fire used to forged an anvil in Allentown, Pennsylvania and that anvil falling on some poor fellow’s head as he walks past 1407 Broadway; he has to prove your act was basically what we might call the “main reason” for his injury. No matter how wicked a version of the Bible I cook up, the law will not and cannot hold me responsible for some third party’s reading it and committing “verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.”

• Especially because no one murdered Fowler, seeing as how he filed this lawsuit and stuff.

• There’s more to the story! “U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. refused Monday to appoint an attorney to represent Fowler in the Thomas Nelson case, saying the court “has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims.” Huh? Yeah, he asked for a court-appointed lawyer — here’s the application. Civil plaintiffs do not get court-appointed attorneys, pretty much regardless of the merit or lack of merit of their claims. But evidently in the Eastern District of Michigan, the form for pro se litigants more or less invites them to try.** Can you blame him, especially considering, er, the other indicia of discretion?

Then, beyond bullet points, there’s the Obama issue. On one hand, this was the same day America’s Savior, engaged in a mad (dare we say heedless?) dash to the center as it is, got a public relations present from erstwhile gag candidate Jesse Jackson for being too damned reactionary. Jackson took time out from whatever it is he actually does to volunteer to perform a surgical procedure on Obama that actually would have done the Rev. Jesse some good on precisely the topic at hand. On the other hand, the same day the LORD taketh it away with this lunatic.

It’s obviously not reasonable to tar Obama with the brush of this nut … entirely. Is it?

Obama Graphics

I just ran across the Obama campaign poster and can't stand to look at it any more ... so I decided to modify it .... just a little.

The New Kid

Hat tip to Ragdollkatz (my friend from Ravelry):

It was the first day of a school in USA and a new Indian student named Chandrasekhar Subramanian entered the fourth grade. The teacher said, “Let’s begin by reviewing some American History. Who said ‘Give me Liberty , or give me Death’?”

She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Chandrasekhar, who had his hand up: ‘Patrick Henry, 1775’ he said.

‘Very good!’ Who said ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the Earth?’

Again, no response except from Chandrasekhar. ‘Abraham Lincoln, 1863’ said Chandrasekhar.

The teacher snapped at the class, ‘Class, you should be ashamed. Chandrasekhar, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do.’

She heard a loud whisper: ‘F— the Indians,’

‘Who said that?’ she demanded. Chandrasekhar put his hand up.

‘General Custer, 1862.’

At that point, a student in the back said, ‘I’m gonna puke.’

The teacher glares around and asks ‘All right! Now, who said that?’

Again, Chandrasekhar says, ‘George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.’

Now furious, another student yells, ‘Oh yeah? Suck this!’

Chandrasekhar jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts to the teacher , ‘Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!’

Now with almost mob hysteria someone said ‘You little shit. If you say anything else, I’ll kill you.’

Chandrasekhar frantically yells at the top of his voice, ’ Michael Jackson to the child witnesses testifying against him 2004.’

The teacher fainted.

And as the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, ‘Oh shit, we’re screwed!’

And Chandrasekhar said quietly, ‘I think it was the American people, November 4th, 2008”.

Thanks, Ragdollkatz!

Has the World Ever Seen a Leader Like Obama Before?

Once upon a time, there was a young charismatic and eloquent young leader who decided his nation needed a change and that he was the one to implement it. The people were receptive and ready for a change.
 
He spoke passionately when denouncing the existing system and the media loved him. Nobody questioned what he believed in or who his friends were. He would help the poor and bring free medical care and education to all. He would bring justice and equality. He said: I am for hope and change and I will bring you both.
 
Nobody bothered to ask about the change, so by the time the executioners' guns went silent; all personal firearms had been confiscated.
 
When everyone was finally equal, they were equally poor, hungry and miserable. Their free education was worthless. When the change was fully implemented, the country had been reduced to a Third World status. More than a million people fled in small boats and rafts.
 
The charismatic young leader was Fidel Castro; the nation, Cuba. The citizens of the United States would never fall for a charismatic, eloquent young leader who promises hope and change without asking, 'What change, and how much will it cost us? Would we? Yes, we have.
 

 Remember these words:

* You cannot help the poor, by destroying the rich.
 
* You cannot strengthen the weak, by weakening the strong.
 
* You cannot bring about prosperity, by discouraging thrift.
 
* You cannot lift the wage earner up, by pulling the wage payer down.
 

* You cannot further the brotherhood of man, by inciting class hatred.
 
* You cannot build character and courage, by taking away men's initiative and independence.
 
* You cannot help men permanently, by doing for them what they could and should, do for themselves.

 
Do you recognize the author?
 
It was Abraham Lincoln. Very, very wise words, written years ago and we still don't seem to get it.

Are Black People Still Being Manipulated/Programmed by Democrats?

I absolutely love this guy! He hits the nail on the head every single time I see one of his video blogs.

Can White Guilt Finally Be Put to Rest Once and For All?

One can only hope so. Personally, I've never felt "white guilt" ... I have nothing racial to feel guilty about! I was raised to believe that all people have the same worth and should have the same opportunities, whether their skin is black, white, purple, pink, plaid or polka-dotted. If the person bleeds red, they're not better and no worse than I am. I don't deserve more than anyone else by virtue of my skin color, nor does anyone else deserve more than I do by virtue of theirs.

We've heard a lot about how we need to be a "color-blind society," but I maintain that the expectation has been directed mostly one way ... toward whites. For me, I've been told that I'm more "color indifferent" ... I notice a person's skin color (be honest, it's one of the first things anyone notices about another person ... you notice a face, and a face has skin, and that skin (unless totally transparent, ick!) has a tone to it. The thing is, I don't care what color I find there. It doesn't matter to me, and it shouldn't matter to anyone else. The fact that I happen to have a "pasty white" face shouldn't matter to anyone who has a "much better tan" than I do.

If you've listened to the news much at all in the last 50 years or so, you'd have learned that "people of other ethnicities" don't have any opportunities to advance themselves and better their circumstances. The "man" is always conspiring to "keep them down." You would learn that Americans are all racists ... well, at least the ones with the lesser tans (that's code for those with Anglo heritage, folks), that is. You'd learn that no matter how far they think they've advanced, minorities are constantly being kicked back down the stairs to "their place" (wherever that is ... as if any one segment of society has a certain "their place" where they must stay and never try to leave -- of course, this ignores the fact that the social/wealth strata statistically change quite often). You'd have learned that there has been no improvement in the plight of the poor, that those who've had a tough time in life will never find a way out of their circumstances, that they had no choices .... oh, and if you listen to the news, you'd also think that all of them were "melanin-enhanced" individuals. "Disadvantaged" people are normally portrayed as being poor, uneducated (or at least undereducated), often portrayed as being in poor physical/dental/mental health, living in squalor, forced to eke out a living by selling drugs, prostitution, or committing some other crime/s.

Now things have changed. If you've listened to the news in the last couple of weeks you'd have noticed that America has elected the first-ever president of African-American descent. (Yep, his daddy was African, and his mom was American.) This is a man whose ancestors never spent time as slaves in America. This is a man whose education took place a tony prep schools, and Ivy League universities. This is a man who was adopted into the Chicago Political Machine, embraced by terrorists, hate-mongers, America haters and race baiters. This is a man who wrote two memoirs of his life before reaching the age of 50 ... who would've ever imagined that he'd have enough of a life to write a memoir about it at such a young age?? This is a man who constantly warned the American public that the Republicans would be in their collective face with warnings of "but he's black!" ... even those warnings were never fulfilled ... the warnings, however, were constantly levied by the new president-elect and his crew.

Yes, racism and bigotry still exist. It's unfortunate, but true, and it would be horribly naive to say that it didn't. I wish they were a thing of the past. I truly do. I don't want my skin color held against me any more than I believe anyone else should have theirs held against them.

But let's also get rid of the white guilt thing, K? People of all races have opportunities and access, if they'll have the initiative/drive to do something for themselves instead of allowing others to do something to them.

So, without further ado, here is a great article from the Common Conservative website. (Bear in mind that the article was recommended by a friend. I do not necessarily endorse the rest of the website):

White Guilt Is Dead
Free at last, free at last!

By Tom Adkins

Editor's note: This originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Look at my fellow conservatives! There they go, glumly shuffling along, depressed by the election aftermath. Not me. I'm virtually euphoric.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not thrilled with America's flirtation with neo-socialism.. But there's a massive silver lining in those magical clouds that lofted Barack Obama to the Presidency. For today, without a shred of intellectually legitimate opposition, I can loudly proclaim to America: The Era of White Guilt is over.

This seemingly impossible event occurred because the vast majority of white Americans didn't give a fluff about skin color, and enthusiastically pulled the voting lever for a black man. Not just any black man. A very liberal black man who spent his early career race-hustling banks, praying in a racist church for 20 years, and actively worked with America-hating domestic terrorists. Wow! Some resume! Yet they made Barack Obama their leader. Therefore, as of November 4th, 2008, white guilt is dead.

For over a century, the millstone of white guilt hung around our necks, retribution for slave-owning predecessors. In the 60s, American liberals began yanking that millstone while sticking a fork in the eye of black Americans, exacerbating the racial divide to extort a socialist solution. But if a black man can become President, exactly what significant barrier is left? The election of Barack Obama absolutely destroys the entire validation of liberal white guilt. The dragon is hereby slain.

So today, I'm feeling a little "uppity," if you will. From this day forward, my tolerance level for having my skin color hustled is now exactly ZERO. And it's time to clean house. No more Reverend Wright's "God Damn America," Al Sharpton's Church of Perpetual Victimization, or Jesse Jackson's rainbow racism. Cornell West? You're a fraud. Go home. All those "black studies" programs that taught kids to hate whitey? You must now thank Whitey. And I want that on the final.

Congressional Black Caucus? Irrelevant. Maxine Waters? Shut up. ACORN? Outlawed. Black Panthers? Go home and pet your kitty. Black separatists? Find another nation that offers better dreams. Go ahead. I'm waiting.

Gangsta rappers? Start praising America. Begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. And please, no more ebonics. Speak English, and who knows where you might end up? Oh, yeah, pull up your pants. Your underwear is showing. You look stupid.

Black Fraternities? Seek diversity. Race card? It’s now the joker. Miss Black America? Get in line with all the other lovely ladies. Reparations? Paid.

To those Eurosnots who forged entire careers hating America? I'm still waiting for the first black French President.

And let me offer an equal opportunity whupping. I've always despised lazy white people. Now, I can talk smack about lazy black people. You're poor because you quit school, did drugs, had three kids with three different fathers, and refuse to work. So when you plop your Colt 45-swilling, Oprah watchin' butt on the couch and complain "Da Man is keepin' me down," allow me to inform you: Da Man is now black. You have no excuses.

No more quotas. No more handouts. No more stealing my money because someone's great-great-great-great grandparents suffered actual pain and misery at the hands of people I have no relation to, and personally revile.

It's time to toss that massive, obsolete race-hustle machine upon the heap of the other stupid 60s ideas. Drag it over there, by wife swapping, next to dope-smoking. Plenty of room right between free love and cop-killing. Careful, don't trip on streaking. There ya go, don't be gentle. Just dump it. Wash your hands. It's filthy.

In fact, Obama's ascension created a gargantuan irony. How can you sell class envy and American unfairness when you and your black wife went to Ivy League schools, got high-paying jobs, became millionaires, bought a mansion, and got elected President? How unfair is that??? Now, Like a delicious O'Henry tale, Obama's spread-the-wealth campaign rendered itself moot by it's own victory! America is officially a meritocracy. Obama's election has validated American conservatism!

So, listen carefully…Wham!!!

That's the sound of my foot kicking the door shut on the era of white guilt. The rites have been muttered, the carcass lowered, dirt shoveled, and tombstone erected. White guilt is dead and buried.

However, despite my glee, there's apparently one small, rabid bastion of American racism remaining. Black Americans voted 96% for Barack Obama. Hmmm. In a color-blind world, shouldn't that be 50-50? Tonight, every black person should ask forgiveness for their apparent racism and prejudice towards white people. Maybe it's time to start spreading the guilt around.

Tom Adkins is the former publisher of CommonConservative.com. He can be reached at tomadkinscc@yahoo.com.

Obama = Forein Policy God? Um.....NO

We have all heard the now famous tapes on which Obama said that he'd meet with foreign dictators and negotiate (isn't this what the Secretary of State is supposed to do???) without preconditions, which included Iran, of course. He stood by this statement ... before he backed off it and said that he "never said that" ... and reformulated the answer to try and make people think that he'd said something *similar*, but that the entire country did a collective, "That's not what I *thought* he said..."

Yep, Obama wasn't going to have any preconditions ... wasn't going to say certain things needed to happen or be agreed upon before he could meet and negotiate.

Well, seems he did do what John McCain said he shouldn't do ... say "out loud" what he planned to do, foreign-policy wise. Because it seems to have backfired before Obama even takes office.

According to Keya Dash of the NetRight Writer's Group:

Even before taking office, and even before the election is formally certified on December 15, the Obama administration already has achieved a doozy of a foreign policy blunder.

The heart of Obama's foreign policy was a less arrogant tone to negotiations, especially with our enemies. Obama's prime example was  Iran, with whom he would hold negotiations at the highest levels and without preconditions.

This policy was ridiculous and naive to begin with. The U.S. has been negotiating with Iran since the 1979 revolution. Europe has been negotiating with them, too. Considering that Iran has been interfering with and killing American military personnel in Iraq with no response save a few rounds of weak sanctions due to their nuclear program, it is safe to say that U.S. policy has basically been all talk and no positive results.

According to yesterday's Washington Post article (emphasis added by MizDi/HMIL),

    "in recent interviews, advisers to Ahmadinejad said the new U.S. administration would have to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, show respect for Iran's system of rule by a supreme religious leader, and withdraw its objections to Iran's nuclear program before it can enter into negotiations with the Iranian government.

    'The U.S. government must prove that their policies have changed and are now based upon respecting the rights of the Iranian nation and mutual respect,' said Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, the president's closest adviser."

So while Obama offers to talk without preconditions, what did it get him? Iranian preconditions (five, no less)!  Biden said during the Democratic primaries that Obama would need on-the-job training should he be elected, and we are now witnessing it. The lesson for Obama is that negotiating from weakness only breeds stridency in the opposition. So the score is Ahmadinejad 1, Obama 0, and the game hasn't even started yet. Hopefully, Obama is a quick study.

But remember, Iran's just a "tiny little country that poses no serious threat to us" ... we have nothing to fear from them.

I'm Thankful for Burping Cows and Farting Termites! (or Would They Please Make Up Their Minds Already?!?!?!)

Back in the 70s "THEY" warned us of global cooling. We'd all be freezing our collective tuckuses off (if any of us survived, that is) and the Statue of Liberty would be buried in ice! Then came the 90s and ... whoops! "THEY" were wrong! It was Global Warming we had to be afraid of!!! Carbon dioxide was the culprit ... oh, and HUMANS, too! They're just horrible. Burping cows and farting termites became the scourge of the earth and threatened mankind humankind's very existence. Much study by the great thinkers of the day (hey, leave me alone, part of me is listening to the "Wizard of Oz"!) thought a lot and decided that we had to reduce carbon dioxide as much as possible to save mankind humankind.

Egads! Switch Gears, QUICK!

So, everyone switched gears and became terrified of Global Warming and rising seas and, Lo, a "Messiah" rose up and convinced every brainless moron that He and Only He (his alternate narcissistic personality????) could "cool the planet and slow the rise of the seas" ... and many rejoiced and elected them as the new leader of their land, and it was good ... unless, of course, you had a brain capable of independent thought.

But wait! Word just came down the wire about the Global Cooling we were warned about in the 70s, how it's back on schedule, and that it's due in large part to ... falling carbon dioxide levels!!!!

Give me a burping cow or a mound of farting termites any time!!!

Oh! And would someone please pass me a sweater and some warm socks, please.

Obama Set to "Rule" From Day One

Executive (Dis)Order

By Isaac MacMillen

President-elect Barack Obama has already signaled his determination to change the direction of the country by wielding the Executive Order pen to heavily influence foreign and domestic policy.

And one is reminded of the somewhat chilling edification of Executive Orders from top aide to former President Bill Clinton, Paul Begala: “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.”

Presently, there is talk of President-Elect Obama deciding it would be “kinda cool” to use an Executive Order to reinstate the executive ban on offshore drilling. President Bush terminated the ban while urging Congress to do the same—and they did. At the time of the reversal, on July 14th, the national price of unleaded fuel was $4.11 per gallon. Since then, it has sunk to its current average of about $2.24/gallon.

But, apparently, Mr. Obama’s chauffeur has not yet informed him of the price cut.

Were a ban to be reinstated on offshore drilling, the economic effects would be devastating, as the oil companies would raise prices again, seeking to insulate themselves against the inevitable decrease in future projected supply.

That’s just the beginning of the havoc the new President could wreak with a single “stroke of the pen.”

And, it touches upon an even more fundamental issue: Namely, the legitimacy of a president using massive Executive Orders to create policy. The fact is, there is no constitutional provision explicitly authorizing Executive Orders. There is a vague grant of "executive power" given in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution and the statement "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" in Article II, Section 3. And, indeed, U.S. Presidents have issued Executive Orders since 1789.

Most such orders, however, have been issued by the President to administration officials simply to help direct the day-to-day operation of government. They have not historically been a used as coercive tool to override or obviate the prerogatives of the legislative branch – or the will of the people – on critical policy issues.

Two Presidents, however, have fallen into the trap of abusing Executive Orders to such an extent that the federal courts have had to intervene.

In 1953, President Harry Truman issued an EO in an attempt to place all steel mills in the country under direct federal control, prompting a rebuke from the Supreme Court. In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952), the High Court ruled Truman’s Executive Order 10340 nationalizing the steel industry was invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution

In 1995, when President Bill Clinton issued a EO 12954 directing federal agencies not to do business with contractors who hire permanent replacements for striking employees, the District of Columbia Circuit Court, in Chamber of Commerce v. Reich, similarly ruled the act illegal. The Court reasoned that the Clinton executive order would upset the balance struck by Congress on an issue that "surely goes to the heart of United States labor relations policy."

Now, John Podesta, Obama's administration chief, has told the Associated Press that Obama will act quickly through Executive Order because he thinks Obama "feels like he has a real mandate for change. We need to get off the course that the Bush administration has set." That change of course, Obama advisors have suggested, could amount to as many as 200 EO’s in the first days of the new Administration.

According to the New York Times, "As Mr. Obama prepared to make his first post-election visit to the White House on Monday, his advisers were compiling a list of policies that could be reversed by the executive powers of the new president."

Already, that list includes the aforementioned ban of domestic oil drilling, the lifting of the ban on stem cell research, and opening the door to full diplomatic relations with Cuba. What else is on the Obama EO agenda remains to be seen.

But one thing is certain: If Barack Obama moves as forcefully to rule by executive fiat as his aides now indicate, Executive Orders – long a gray area in the balance of power mix – may become the focal point of a presidential-legislative-judicial showdown the likes of which the Republic has rarely seen.

And “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land” may end up being not so “kinda cool” after all.

Isaac MacMillen is a contributing editor of ALG News Bureau.

http://alg31blog.timberlakepublishing.com/default.asp?Display=726

And So It Begins??

Another World Record

By Bill Wilson

Over the last week we’ve all become accustomed to hearing how “historic” the Obama election is, how the world loves us now, how “record breaking” the campaign was. But virtually no attention has been paid to the real world record Barack Obama has set.

Within 48 hours – not days or weeks, but hours – after his election was declared, Barack Obama not only broke one of his most serious promises, he showed the world how his campaign was little more than showmanship, slight of hand to fool the rubes. In short, Obama snickered at the American people and raised his middle finger.

This may seem a harsh analysis. If anything it is kind. Consider the facts. In 2007, then Senator Barack Obama selected Robert Malley as a foreign policy advisor for his Presidential campaign. Malley raised eyebrows at the time because of his anti-Israeli writings and his involvement with the Clinton era efforts at brokering a decidedly pro-Palestinian Mid-East settlement. When the Clinton Camp David talks fell apart, it was Malley who blamed Israel, giving fodder to enemies of the United States and Israel that is still used today.

So, there were legitimate concerns from the very start. But then in May of this year, the Times of London was preparing to report a bombshell. The Times reported that Malley was in regular contact with the terrorist organization Hamas. This is the same Hamas that cheered as the World Trade Center Towers collapsed. It was the same Hamas that has declared unyielding hostility to the very existence of Israel. And the same Hamas that maintains contacts with the darkest enemies of civilization throughout the world.

As he did on numerous other occasions, Obama threw an ally and associate, in this case Malley, under the bus. A spokesman for Obama, Ben LaBolt said, "Sen. Obama strongly opposes talking to Hamas, a terrorist group committed to Israel's destruction. As president, he will work to isolate Hamas and target its resources, and rejects any dialogue until Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces terrorism, and abides by previous agreements."

LaBolt, downplaying Malley's role, said, "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."

Well, not so much. Two days after the election, a mere 48 hours after the “historic” vote, Obama entrusted the very same Rob Malley with the first Obama diplomatic mission. The President-elect dispatched Malley to meet with Egypt’s President Mubarak and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to outline the Obama policy agenda. The same person PR hack LaBort assured the American public would not “play any role in the future.”
The background and history of Mr. Malley need not divert us here. He is, as so many of Obama’s associates are, steeped in communist and radical politics and actions. He has a top pedigree, all the best schools and all the elitist, authoritarian impulses as the others.

But what should concern all Americans is the raw, arrogant disregard for the public on display with this action. When the outcome was in doubt, the Obama regime-in- waiting flat lied. They knew their top advisor was meeting with terrorists and they just lied about it. Once the threat is removed, they do whatever they want, including sending love and kisses to Hamas and Syria.

This is a very ominous and inauspicious start. Will we ever be able to believe anything this new Administration says? Will there be no promise or commitment kept? Those middle class tax cuts are looking more and more like an illusion just like the Obama pledge of support for Israel and commitment to respect 2nd Amendment rights.

If Obama remains true to form, breaking one new promise every 48 hours, we can expect to endure an additional 17,499 broken promises by the end of Mr. Obama’s first term in office. And that shouldn’t be any problem at all for this record-setting president.

Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

http://alg31blog.timberlakepublishing.com/default.asp?Display=727

Why Do All of Obama's "Corps" Programs Sound So Danged Familiar??

Also courtesy of The Daily Grind:

ObamaCorps

By Isaac MacMillen

Despite the fact that America faces a severe economic crisis, President-elect Barack Obama has laid out a sliver of his plan to increase the scope and scale of the federal government—and he’ll do it on the backs of the youth, using it to promote Big Government in the minds of a generation.

In his new transition website, Change.gov, “Office of the President-elect,” Barack Obama promises to “expand national service programs” such as Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. While there are many benefits to volunteering for the country, Obama’s plan has the potential to cause some severe side-effects: Money, Education, and even Constitutional Rights.

By increasing the size—both in terms of members and monies—of these organizations, Obama may well hope to produce a short-term benefit, a decrease in unemployment numbers. At the same time, however, he would be creating a severe long-term problem: By decreasing the size of the available workforce and increasing the expenditures of the federal government, Obama forces the government to take more money from fewer sources—and ultimately increasing the amount taken—tax hikes.

The Fiscal Year 2007 Peace Corps budget was $320 million, with $344 million estimated for 2009. The President’s AmeriCorps budget request for 2009 is nearly $830 million. So far that’s an estimated $1.17 billion. But he wants to expand both organizations even further, as well as establish new Classroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps.

Where will many of these people come from? He plans to tap into the youth that helped propel him into office—requiring “50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.” No doubt some of those eager college students who voted him in will regret the additional work. 50 hours/semester are equivalent to an extra class (about 3 hours/week), and many students already have families, jobs, or participate in extra-curricular activities.

In 2006, the Census Bureau reported that about 16.5 million children were enrolled in middle school, 17.5 million in high school, and 17.1 million were pursuing an undergraduate degree. Assuming no growth in school attendance (unlikely), the budget necessary to expand (and create) all these service corps to handle the influx of over 50 million new “volunteers” is going to be enormous.

If one takes AmeriCorps, with its under 2 million workers and volunteers, and multiplies its budget by 25, you get over $20 billion. And that’s only a fraction of the amount Obama has promised to spend on his “civilian national security force” that’ll have the same funding as the military. Assuming Rep. Barney Frank’s 25 percent cut, that’s still in the $400 billion range.

Probably the worst national effect, however, is that it will have a net result of decreasing the education levels of the American population. According to Upromise, 10 percent of full-time students in 2000 also held full-time jobs. An additional 47 percent worked part-time. Nearly one third of students labeled themselves as workers first, students second.

Adding a “volunteer” requirement would have the negative consequence of discouraging working persons from obtaining higher education. Full-time working students are more likely to drop out of college than non-full-time students as it is. At the very least, the additional requirements would delay their progress through school by adding 300+ hours of extra work to their quest for a degree. And that’s ignoring the question of high-school dropouts.

Finally, one cannot discuss this proposal without looking at the constitutional impact it may have. First and foremost—how far-reaching would this requirement be? Would private schools that refuse government funding be forced to take part? What about homeschoolers?

If it turns out to be a blanket requirement, it will without a doubt end up before the Supreme Court. Not only does the constitution forbid “involuntary servitude,” but it could also violate the liberals’ favorite right, the right to privacy.

If it is not a blanket requirement, but only impacts government schools, then it would raise questions of whether or not the school can actually compel students to “volunteer.” First amendment rights, anyone? Conservative blogs are already jumping on the issue.

Of course, this isn’t the first time a nation has mandated national service for its youth. Nazi Germany is most (in)famous for its Hitler Youth, but North Korea (“Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League”), Soviet Union (“Pioneers” and “Lenin’s Little Potatoes”), Communist China (“Communist Youth League of China”), and Italy (Mussolini’s “Opera Nazionale Balilla”) have had their own state-run youth organizations.

In short, President-elect Obama’s plan will increase spending, decrease individual initiative (and education), and provide a permanent indoctrination tool by which Big Government can preserve itself.

Isaac MacMillen is a contributing editor of ALG News Bureau.

http://alg31blog.timberlakepublishing.com/default.asp?Display=718

Who's Afraid of Sarah Palin?? The Left and the Media

Courtesy of The Daily Grind:

Trying to Put the Final Nail in the Coffin

By William Warren

Senator John McCain may have lost this week, but make no mistake: Conservatism did not.

Although Barack Obama won the presidency, conservative and limited government ballot initiatives faired quite well from sea to shining sea—even in liberal havens like California. Measures supporting term limits, traditional marriage passed, and all but one environmentalist initiative failed. It seems that when traditional, limited government conservatism appeared on the ballot in its most unfiltered form, voters were attracted to it.

And no one better represented traditional, limited government conservatism in this campaign than Governor Sarah Palin.

And because of that, she energized the base of her party and simultaneously replaced George W. Bush as the media’s and the left’s favorite person on which to spew vicious hatred. This loathing translated into one of the most bloodthirsty and well-coordinated personal attack campaigns modern American history—in which the media and Democrats were complicit.

Nothing was off limits. Her teenage pregnant daughter was vilified, her down-syndrome child scoffed at, her husband’s 20-year-old D.U.I. made an issue. Her Alaskan lifestyle became SNL’s hottest item—giving the struggling comedy show a much needed boost.

Even the fake “troopergate” scandal—in which Governor Palin was found entirely innocent of any wrongdoing—was deliberately fashioned out of thin air. Even the very day on which she was officially vindicated, November 3rd, was calculated. Moreover, the sexism-driven assault which made the Governor’s skirts and blouses a serious campaign issue and talking point was deplorable to say the least.

The attacks were unprecedented in their vitriol and limitless in scope.

And they still haven’t stopped—even with the campaign over.

The fact is, those on the left are trying to put the final nail in Governor Palin’s political coffin because they are afraid of her. They are afraid because more than anyone since the Gipper himself, no one has quite embodied true Reagan conservatism like Sarah Palin. And as the left certainly remembers with great disdain and bewilderment, the last time Reagan conservatism was on the ballot it handedly won with 525 electoral votes—i.e., a true landslide.

Her ability to draw large crowds and fire up conservatives also troubles them. It’s no wonder that Governor Palin’s convention speech was the most watched in history and her VP selection sent Senator McCain’s poll numbers into the lead. Until the economic crisis became the issue of the campaign, Sarah Palin was the talk of the town.

That it why they must stop her now. They must pound her so far into the ground that even Joe Scarborough’s shovel wouldn’t be able to dig her out.

If the liberal media and Democrats thought Sarah Palin was truly a dunce and a total drag on the Republican Party, wouldn’t they want her to stay in the limelight? Wouldn’t they want her to carry the torch for the GOP so that she’ll subsequently drop it and burn up the party in the process?

While they may not openly admit it, their ongoing attacks bear witness to their fear.

That being said, let’s clear the air once and for all: Governor Palin did not bring Senator McCain down. Mr. McCain’s philosophy of compromised conservatism brought his campaign down when he crucially needed to outline a clear conservative alternative to Senator Obama’s message.

So while the Arizona Senator may be willing to concede defeat and walk away smiling, Sarah Palin is not. The moose-hunting, tough-as-nails Governor of Alaska doesn’t go down that easily.

And neither does true conservatism.

William Warren is a contributing editor of ALG News Bureau.

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Free Speech in the Age of Obama???

British Columnist Peter Hitchens Sees America as it Was ... the Last Best Hope for Earth

The Night We Waved Goodbye To America... Our Last Best Hope On Earth

by Peter Hitchens

Mail Online

 

Last updated at 9:52 PM on 08th November 2008

 

Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

 

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self_deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela_worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.

 

I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.

 

It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama’s victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn’t yet a children’s picture version of his story, there soon will be.

 

Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little_read and hard to find.

 

If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left_wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche_stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves.  It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.

 

He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

  

Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a ‘new dawn’, and a ‘timeless creed’ (which was ‘yes, we can’). He proclaimed that ‘change has come’. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn’t know what ‘enormity’ means. He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don’t try this at home).

 

I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.

 

And it was interesting how the President_elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – ‘Yes, we can’. They were supposed to thunder ‘Yes, we can!’ back at him, but they just wouldn’t join in.  No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice. He’d have been better off bursting into ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony’ which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.

 

Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know. They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America. They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state_subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.

 

They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV_watching habits and its choice of fast_food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.

 

If Mr Obama’s election had threatened any of that, his feel_good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now_departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.

 

If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.

 

And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti_racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.

 

I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America’s beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election_night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

 

As I walked, I crossed another of Washington’s secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.

 

They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.

 

Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

 

These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

 

They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left_wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far_off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

 

More on Obama and Narcissism

This is a long article, which you can reach at the following link. For a flavor of the article, read below.

Understanding Obama: The Making of a Fuhrer

By Ali Sina

I must confess I was not impressed by Sen. Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident – a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such a quasi "religious" impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects. Barack Obama is a narcissist. Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love, also believes, "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist."

Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens. Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao, Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time. All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers' souls, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope! They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom. When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until it is too late.

One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse. "Obama's early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations," says Vaknin. "Mixed-race marriages were even less common then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old). Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then, his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia: a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white) grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995."

One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his co-dependents.

Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective. They are focused on one thing alone and that is power. All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them and do not deserve their attention. If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present" vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Why should he implicate himself in issues that may become controversial when they don't help him personally? Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him.

Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. The University of Chicago Law School provided him with a fellowship and an office to work on his book. The book took him a lot longer than expected and at the end it devolved into…, guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which, he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self. He entitled the book Dreams from My Father .

Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself?

Narcissists are often callous and even ruthless. As the norm, they lack conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month. A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who has raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power. A narcissist cares for no one but himself.

This election is like no other in the history of America. The issues are insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world?

I hate to sound alarmist, but one must be a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others. They are simply self serving and selfish. Obama evinces symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton, for example. To him reality and fantasy are intertwined. This is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent. It is this disguise that makes them treacherous.

Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama. But this man could put an end to their party. The great majority of blacks have also decided to vote for Obama. Only a fool does not know that their support for him is racially driven. Let us call a spade a spade. This is racism, pure and simple. The truth is that while everyone carries a misconceived collective guilt towards the blacks for wrongs done centuries ago by a bygone people to a bygone people, the blacks carry a collective rancor, enmity or vendetta towards non-blacks and to this day want to "stand up" to the white man.. They seem to be stuck in 19th century.

The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites. The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites. The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960s. Obama will set the clock back decades… America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations. It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castrists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge of destruction. There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president.

McCain's 11/1/08 Appearance on Saturday Night Live

As a general rule, I don't care for Saturday Night Live much anymore. Heck, I haven't found it consistently funny ... well .... *ever* ... although it was funniest in the first few seasons "back in the day."

However, I do appreciate it sometimes, like the Weekend Update segment ... and when Sarah Palin was on recently. The following is the transcript from this past weekend's appearance by John McCain in a comedy sketch and also in the Weekend Update segment. (I have to admit ... I nicked this from Patrick at Born Again Redneck.)

From SNL tonight:

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN – "Good evening, my fellow Americans, I'm John McCain.

TINA FEY AS GOV. SARAH PALIN – "And, you know, I'm just Sarah Palin."

MCCAIN – "The final days of any election are the most essential. This past Wednesday, Barack Obama purchased airtime on three major networks. We, however, can only afford QVC."

FEY AS PALIN – "These campaigns sure are expensive. (She strokes the rich fabric of her jacket's lapel)

MCCAIN – "They sure are. So tonight, we come before you to give you some final remarks on our campaign."

FEY AS PALIN – "And, as part of our agreement with the QVC folks, we're gonna try and sell you some stuff."

MCCAIN – "This has been an historic campaign, so why not remember it with our line of collectible products. Such as ten commemorative plates that celebrates the ten Town Hall debates between Senator Obama and myself. They're blank, he wouldn't agree to those debates. Too bad. They're still nice plates.

FEY AS PALIN – "And who wouldn't want the complete set of limited edition 'Joe' action figures? There's 'Joe the Plumber,' 'Joe Six-Pack,' and my personal favorite, 'Joe Biden.' If you pull this cord, he talks for forty-five minutes.

(SHE pulls cord)

JASON SUDEIKIS AS SEN. BIDEN (O.C.) — "I take the Amtrak to work every day. Then — after work — I take it home. Let me tell you something about Joe Biden..."

MCCAIN – "It's great if you want to clear out a party."

FEY AS PALIN – "Or keep deer out of your yard."

MCCAIN – "But we're not just here to sell products. We're here with a message. We are at a crossroads in American history. The leadership of the next four years will have many challenges and I believe my experience and my leadership will make a difference.

FEY AS PALIN – "Also too – sorry — I need to remind you that there are just two minutes left in our 'Washington outsider jewelry extravaganza.'"

MCCAIN – "Are you someone who likes fine jewelry and also respects a politician who can reach across the aisle? If so, you can't go wrong with McCain Fine Gold.

(CINDY MCCAIN displays the "McCain Fine Gold" like a game show model)

MCCAIN (CONT'D) – "It commemorates the McCain Feingold Act — and also looks great with evening wear. Thank you, Cindy."

FEY AS PALIN – "And what busy hockey mom wouldn't want to freshen up her home with Sarah Palin's 'Ayers Fresheners.' You plug these into the wall when something doesn't quite smell quite right. Also too, it's good because it reminds people about William Ayers."

MCCAIN – "Having trouble cutting through a tough piece of pork? Not anymore, with John McCain's complete set of pork knives. 'They Cut The Pork Out!'"

FEY AS PALIN – "So instead of going to one of those elite department stores with their liberal agendas and over-priced items and their gotcha return policies that violate your First Amendment rights, why not do your holiday shopping with us? (SHE turns to a different camera) Okay, listen up everybody, I am goin' rogue right now so keep your voices down. Available now, we got a buncha' these 'Palin in 2012' T-shirts. Just try and wait until after Tuesday to wear 'em okay? Because I'm not goin' anywhere. And I'm certainly not goin' back to Alaska. If I'm not goin' to the White House, I'm either runnin' in four years or I'm gonna be a white Oprah so, you know, I'm good either way."

MCCAIN – "What's going on over there, Sarah?"

FEY AS PALIN – "Oh...just talkin' about taxes." (SHE winks)

MCCAIN – "Look, would I rather be on three major networks? Of course, but I'm a true maverick — a Republican without money. And I'm not like my opponent; my only showbiz connections are Jon Voight and Heidi from 'The Hills.' So, I'm here on QVC, and like QVC, this campaign promises you three things: quality, value and convenience."

FEY AS PALIN – "And great deals on juicers."

MCCAIN – "So when you go to the polls on Tuesday remember, 'Country First,' as a reminder all undergarments are non-refundable and Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then there was Weekend Update:

SETH MEYERS – "With the election only three days away, most polls show Barack Obama leading John McCain by a slight margin. Here to comment on his campaign strategy, Senator John McCain."

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN – "Thank you Seth. You know, a lot can happen in three days. And while I am confident that we will emerge victorious, I'm also considering a few radical last-minute strategies."

MEYERS – "New strategies, like what?

SEN. MCCAIN – "Well you know how people call me "the maverick"

MEYERS – "Yeah."

SEN. MCCAIN – "Well, I thought I'd try a strategy called the 'Reverse Maverick.' That's where I do whatever anybody tells me. I don't ask questions – I just go with the flow. If that doesn't work, I go to the 'Double Maverick.' That's where I go totally berserker and just freak everybody out. Even the regular mavericks."

MEYERS – "That doesn't sound like the best strategy."

SEN. MCCAIN – "It isn't. And here's another bad one. It's called 'The Sad Grandpa.' That's where I get on TV and go, 'C'mon, Obama's gonna have plenty of chances to be President! It's my turn! Vote for me!'"

MEYERS – "Yeah, I don't know if I'd do that."

SEN. MCCAIN – "Ok, then here's a good one. It's called 'The Charleston.' That's where I only campaign in Charleston, South Carolina. Really lock it down. Meet every single resident three or four times. Or how about 'The Forrest Gump.' That's where I just start jogging across America and eventually everything works out.

MEYERS – That might work.

SEN. MCCAIN – "Or maybe 'The Rocky IV.' I live alone in the wilderness and pull a sled through the snow until I'm in peak physical condition."

MEYERS – "How would that help you win an election?"

SEN. MCCAIN – "It won't. But if I ever have to fight Vladimir Putin, I'll be ready."

MEYERS – "Alright, well if you had to choose one strategy in the remaining days, what would it be?"

SEN. MCCAIN – "Seth, my basic strategy is the one I've stuck with since I started this campaign: connect with the voters, talk with them honestly about the issues, and stand by my record of service to this great country."

MEYERS – "And if that doesn't work?"

SEN. MCCAIN – "Probably the 'Double Maverick.'"

MEYERS – "Senator John McCain everyone!"

Fascinating Comparison of Obama and Hitler

This was recommended by my Ravelry friend, Vereteno and can be found here at FaithFreedom.org.

The Hitler Factor: Is It Fair To Compare?

By Roberts, Matthew Edward

Since World War II there have been many political candidates who have been compared to the likeness of Adolph Hitler. This was the case for George Bush, Al Gore, and both Bill and Hillary Clinton; to name a few. Try as we might to modify graphic images to resemble the physical appearance of Hitler, any attempt to make a genuine comparison using these pictures crumbles when we face the ugly truth about Adolph Hitler’s personality and actions.

Some have attempted to make the comparison of Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. This kind of thing has been done so many times before that people no longer think it credible. The shock value is gone and people almost expect such comparisons to be made during the election campaigns. The smear attempt which aims to anger supporters hardly gives them cause to raise an eyebrow.

This situation of being resistant to the “Hitler Factor” could eventually become a dangerous thing for the voting public of any country. How would citizens recognize another Hitler-type politician in the future if they have become resistant to the idea of making the comparison? If citizens are accustomed to instantly rejecting any comparison of a candidate to Hitler, will they be able to apply the lessons of history in order to prevent electing another one like him in the future?

What is it about Hitler we should remember so as to prevent electing another similar candidate who appears to be following in his footsteps? Many believe Adolph Hitler had Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which is a documented mental disorder. People who have NPD have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. They believe that they're superior to others and have little regard for other people's feelings.1 It is not hard to see these traits when we view images or videos of Adolph Hitler.

In the general population only 0.5-1% of people are thought to have NPD2, although many will remain undiagnosed and untreated for their entire lives. People may interpret lower levels of expressed narcissism as mere conceitedness, selfishness, or arrogance.
Given narcissism is centered around the idea of self-importance and the need for adoration from others, it should be no surprise to find narcissists are often attracted to those things which feed their emotional needs for recognition and adoration. They may, for example, pursue careers as movie stars or politicians in order to gain elevated social status and popularity. Nothing screams “elite” and “fame” like celebrities and politicians attending red carpet events.

Rarely do the minor expression of narcissism cause any real damage to anyone, but in a position of influence things can go awry very quickly for someone with a severe case of NPD. Adolph Hitler showed us just how bad things can get under that kind of leadership.

What exactly causes NPD? One expert and author by the name of Dr. Shmuel Vaknin offers the following explanation, “The onset of pathological narcissism is in infancy, childhood and early adolescence. It is commonly attributed to childhood abuse and trauma inflicted by parents, authority figures, or even peers. Pathological narcissism is a defense mechanism intended to deflect hurt and trauma from the victim's "True Self" into a “False Self” which is omnipotent, invulnerable, and omniscient.”3

It must be said here nearly all children are born with narcissist traits and Sigmund Freud believed that to be normal.4 However, the development of NPD as a pathological disorder is thought to be rooted in childhood neglect and abuse. Adolph Hitler certainly had a qualifying childhood which would have contributed to the development of NPD.

Adolph Hitler was born to a communist father who worked as a government employee who had several other children with multiple women. His father was considerably older than his mother and they conceived their famous son prior to getting married. His father was not interested in child-rearing, abused alcohol, and the future German leader would reside in several different residences in his early years. The young boy felt alienated from his father. He would attend several different schools, including a catholic school run by strict priests and nuns.

A teacher would later describe Adolph using these words, “... reacted with ill-concealed hostility to advice or reproof; at the same time, he demanded of his fellow pupils their unqualified subservience, fancying himself in the role of leader, at the same time indulging in many a less innocuous prank of a kind not uncommon among immature youths."5

If there were no bias against the name “Adolph Hitler” one might actually feel sorry for this young boy who grew up in such a dysfunctional family and knew so much instability, turmoil, and sorrow. It should come as no surprise how someone like Adolph could develop pathological NPD as a means of deflecting years of emotional trauma. He clearly had a childhood which could have contributed to the development of NPD. Given the comment of his teacher in later years it is clear Adolph was exhibiting signs of having NPD (see definition in the last paragraph of page one).

As a self-defense mechanism, Adolph imagined himself to be all-powerful and invincible, but that was contrary to his true personality as “nervous and awkward”.6 The fantasy aspect of his invincible “False Self” was becoming deeply rooted in his mind and even overshadowing the personality traits of Hitler’s “True Self”. Eventually, Hitler wouldn’t be able to separate fantasy from reality and Hitler’s “False Self” would totally convince him that he could conquer the world.

So, in getting back to the comparison of Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler, one could say there are some similarities. However, there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of children who share some of these similarities. Having a childhood similar to Hitler does
not mean a person will grow up to develop NPD, as only 1% of the general population would do so.

Like Adolph Hitler, Barack Obama was born to a communist father who worked as a government employee who had several other children with multiple women. His father was considerably older than his mother and they conceived their famous son prior to getting married. His father was not interested in child-rearing, abused alcohol, and the future leader would reside in several different residences in his early years. The young boy felt alienated from his father. He would attend several different schools, including a catholic school run by strict priests and nuns.

He was described by peers who would later say, “He used to be a naughty boy particularly among his female seniors. Once he destroyed the school’s fence which made from bamboos.’ ‘In a creative writing lesson, other students said that they wanted to be a doctor or pilot, but Barry claimed that he wanted to be a president.”7 His childhood friend, Keith Kakugawa said, "He is such a people person now, it's really amazing because he was a very, very shy -- I wouldn't say introverted -- but he was just a very shy, cautious kid".8

Unlike Hitler, Obama did not experience the death of his father at the age of thirteen. However, Barack Obama did see his father alive for the final time at the young age of only ten. It does seem many things about Obama’s early years are quite similar to those found in Hitler’s childhood. Barack Obama had no control over these matters so there is not a single person who would dare hold these things against him. However, we must also understand that Obama was affected by these experiences. It is, therefore, possible that Barack Obama, like 1% of the general population, could have dealt with those emotional issues by developing NPD. According to the comment of his teacher and childhood friend, it appears he was expressing signs which are associated with NPD. Both Hitler and Obama were considered to be shy/awkward while also desiring power.

However, it must be clarified at this point that neither Hitler nor Obama were officially diagnosed as having NPD. Suspicions can arise as a result of observing their behavior, but conclusions would nevertheless remain inconclusive. The best we can do is to compare the history, behavior, and interests of Hitler to see if a political candidate followed a similar path. Merely having a childhood which is similar to that of Hitler is not sufficient to make a comparison. We all know how Hitler turned out, so we should be wary of someone who had similar childhood experiences, seems to show signs of having NPD, has similar interests and ideas, and appears to be retracing Hitler’s footsteps.

So what are Adolph Hitler’s historical footsteps?

At the age of 35 Adolph Hitler would write a book called, “Mein Kampf” (translated as “My Struggle”). It would be an autobiography containing insights pertaining to his early years, political ideas, and thoughts on race.

At the age of 34 Barack Obama would write a book called, “Dreams of my Father”, also an autobiography highlighting his early years, political ideas, and thoughts on race.

Hitler’s “Zweites Buch” (translated as “Second Book”) contains a deeper understanding of his political ideas. The same can also be said about Obama’s second book, “The Audacity of Hope”.

Both Hitler and Obama used their books as a springboard to further their political careers. The title of Obama’s second book was based on a sermon of Reverend Wright and was the foundational basis of the speech he gave at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. It was that speech which caught the attention of the media and the public, both of whom propelled him to political stardom. He further expounded on those ideas to publish his second book in 2006, just before announcing his run for the Presidency. The book was on the New York Times best-seller list for 30 weeks.

Ok, so they have a similar childhood and they both wrote two books around similar themes. So what? Well, we suspected both might have had NPD too. Let’s talk a little more about NPD to see if there is really a connection to be concerned about here.
Criteria for narcissistic personality disorder to be diagnosed include9:

1. Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
2. Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power or beauty
3. Believing that you are special and can associate only with equally special people
4. Requiring constant admiration
5. Having a sense of entitlement
6. Taking advantage of others
7. Inability to recognize needs and feelings of others
8. Being envious of others
9. Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

I would be willing to speculate that a person who feels the need to write an autobiography in their mid-thirties might be entertaining an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Both Hitler and Obama felt their life was worth documenting for the public even before either had started their political careers.

As mentioned earlier, both Hitler and Obama were described by others as being shy or awkward children with dreams of being in powerful positions of leadership. Both followed that dream, perhaps because they were preoccupied with fantasies about success and power?

As I go down the list of nine NPD criteria I can see a number of them which could be applied to both Obama and Hitler. This should be a concern because we know the outcome in Hitler’s case, but we don’t really know all that much about Barack Obama. He hasn’t released the vault copy of his birth certificate, records of his activity logs while in the Illinois State Senate, SAT scores, college transcripts, thesis paper, medical records, tax returns, list of clients he worked for as a lawyer, etc. Like Hitler, Obama has distanced himself even from childhood friends10 (see below right), not to mention other controversial associates such as William Ayers, Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, Frank Marshall Davis, etc.

Without full transparency people must look at documented history and recorded actions to learn what this man is all about. Does Obama hold the same or similar convictions and/or associations as Hitler?
Abortion (Infanticide)...Yes

(http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59702)

Universal Health Care...Yes

(http://obama.senate.gov/speech/070125-the_time_has_co/)

Gun Control...Yes

(http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Barack_Obama_Gun_Control.htm)

Anti-Semitism...Yes
(Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Samantha Powers, Robert Malley, William Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, El-Hady)
Left-Wing Radicalism...Yes

(http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/10/13/updated-a-dangerous-mixture-of-lies-and-omissions-obama-ayers-wright-and-farrakhan/)

Communism...Yes

(http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/chicago-obama.pdf)
(http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/hawaii-obama.pdf)

Socialism...Yes

(http://www.military-money-matters.com/barack-obamas-stealth-socialism.html)

Ok, so they have a similar childhood, show some signs of having NPD, wrote similar books at the same age, pursued a career in politics, respect many of the same radical political ideas, have similar associations in their relationships; but we are talking about two totally different time periods in history. Yes, that is true, but you may be surprised to know the signs of the times today are very similar to those in Hitler’s era.

At the time Hitler was rising to power after WWI, Germany had a bad reputation in the eyes of the world. The actions of the country were seen as an act of dishonesty, betrayal, treachery and a war crime. Hitler promised to correct this. Americans are also seen in similar ways for the way we justified and proceeded with an invasion of Iraq. Barack Obama has promised to correct this.

The Germans felt deceived and humiliated after WWI and had just entered into the Great Depression. Hitler capitalized on this feeling by offering hope and change. Americans also feel deceived and humiliated by their own government which allowed the current financial crisis to happen, followed by their passage of a $700 billion bailout plan. Americans have just experienced the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and Obama is also capitalizing on this feeling by offering hope and change.

There was weakness in the ineffective German Constitution which angered many German citizens while few freedom-fighters remained to resist change. Hitler was seen as one who would resolve Constitutional issues while being capable of dealing with resistance. Many Americans have a few problems with the U.S. Constitution, namely the Second Amendment. Obama offers a solution which claims to respect tradition while also allowing for gun-control laws. He will have to deal with those who resist infringement on Second Amendment rights.

The financial contributions of private supporters enabled Hitler to fund his campaign. The same can be said of Obama, for he has collected record-breaking funds from private donors.

Hitler promised something to everyone, just as Obama is doing today.

The Nazi propaganda machine convinced people Hitler was their last hope. In a similar way, the media is supporting the idea Obama represents the only hope for change from the policies of President Bush.

Hitler was an excellent orator, community organizer, and politician who could motivate and inspire huge crowds. His self-confidence was instrumental in convincing voters to elect him. The public viewed him as their savior. The same can be said of Obama11.
Hitler realized there was strength to be found in the young. Hitler Youth were extremely dedicated and instrumental to his success. I am sure we have all heard about the Obama Kids singing songs of praise to their leader. Obama’s own website offers the following encouragement for youngsters to get involved in his campaign:

“Do you feel like you want to get involved in the political process but you don’t know how? Do you feel like there’s something important coming up in the Presidential elections? Get involved in KIDS FOR OBAMA! Studies have shown that kids can affect their parents and their siblings’ opinions and even change the opinions of older family members . . . including those of voting age. Are you still with me? Great, Let’s get started!” (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/kidskit)

Beyond children, Obama is receiving an incredible amount of support from college students and young adults.

Hitler held extremely leftist ideals. Barack Obama has been called one of the most liberal Senators in Congress12.

Obama and Hitler can even be compared on having similar preferences, such as their desire to give their major speeches against a backdrop of Greek-style temples.

Where Hitler gave a speech in Vienna, Austria, March 1938 (above left)
Hitler giving a speech, date unknown (above right)
Where Obama accepted the nomination in Denver, Colorado, August 2008 (below left)
Where Obama announced Biden as his running mate in Springfield, IL (below right)

“Obama is the hope of the entire world.” - Louis Farrakhan
“Hitler was a very great man.” - Louis Farrakhan

Barack Obama is fully aware the nation’s problems are helping pave the way for him to be President. His poll ratings went through the roof during the bailout mess, so he obviously wants to talk more about the economy to make even more political gains. On October 22, 2008, Obama gave a speech in Virginia which included the statement, “I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here.” He may not be able to fully explain why he is having such great success in his campaign, but I’m not entirely convinced “righteous” was the appropriate word to use since it taps into religious overtones. Like Obama, Hitler claimed to be a Christian too, but I doubt anyone would believe his election success was a result of divine influence or intervention. The fact of the matter is both Obama and Hitler have the right qualities and message which influenced the right people in just the right way at just the right time. The question is: What will they do when elected?

We need to be cautious when we see historical experiences, thought processes, behavior patterns, courses of action, belief structures, personality traits, and career goals in a candidate which are found to be strikingly similar to those of Hitler. Combined with lack of transparency we have a serious red flag waving before us. We absolutely cannot afford to be wrong about this. With 12 million total deaths, the holocaust was simply too tragic for anyone to allow it to happen again. It might hurt our pride to vote for another candidate, any other candidate, when we want to pull that lever for our beloved candidate so badly. He seems so promising! Yet, so did Hitler. We would suffer much worse if that candidate proved to be something we never anticipated. I can only imagine how many Germans eventually came to regret casting a vote for Hitler.

This article was written as a reminder we need to continue being wise in judgment and unafraid to make comparisons when necessary. Turning a blind eye and responding with anger in defense of our preferred candidate can be quite dangerous. Some might choose to insist Obama would not be one who would take us through another holocaust. Indeed, they may be right, but few can deny the many similarities between Obama and Hitler. I would rather not take the chance of being proven wrong later on in life. I, for one, will always consider “The Hitler Factor” when choosing which candidate will receive my vote and hope others will do the same so we may always learn from our past mistakes.

1. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/DS00652
2. "Narcissistic Personality Disorder". Personality Disorders - Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Armenian Medical Network (2006).
3. http://samvak.tripod.com/npdglance.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_(psychology)
5. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/father.htm
6. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/father.htm
7. http://hubpages.com/hub/barrack-obama-indonesia
8. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=2989722&page=1
9. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/narcissistic‐personality‐disorder/DS00652/DSECTION=tests‐and‐diagnosis
10. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=2989722&page=1
11. http://redstaterusa.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama‐messiah‐has‐spoken.html
12. http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

Exactly Which Campaign is On the Ropes Again?

Hugh Hewitt's posted a "guest column" by Clark S. Judge that should give some much needed confidence to me and my fellow McCain supporters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama’s Defensive Rhetoric – Bad Sign for His Closing Campaign
By Clark S. Judge
 
Perhaps it’s my imagination, but as we enter the last 48 hours of the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s rhetoric on the stump is sounding increasingly defensive. That is a bad sign for his prospects.  Here’s why.
 
I wrote speeches – in three cases many, many speeches -- for Republican candidates or key surrogates (for example, President Reagan in 1988) in every presidential race from 1984 through 2000.  In that time, I learned a thing or two about campaign gamesmanship.
 
Key is that from the conventions through mid-October, you are not fighting over votes to be cast so much as over whose agenda will dominate the last two and a half weeks before the voting.  If, as I do, you believe that most poll movement from mid-September to mid-October this year was statistical noise – with each candidate’s numbers moving up and down within the margin of error – this year’s race looks like most others. The bulk of the electorate effectively decided which nominee they would support months ago.
 
These voters surely do favor Senator Obama but judging from the best of the polls, not by much. The highly regarded IBD/TIPP tracking survey released Sunday showed a spread between the candidates of only 2.1 percent.  It also showed 8.7 percent undecided.  The last three months have been about controlling the terms of debate during the period that this 8.7 percent would make up its mind. 
 
Here is the rule: whichever candidate sets the terms of discussion in the closing days of an election will emerge as the winner.  This year – thanks to several inexplicable late-game gaffes – Barack Obama has found himself responding to John McCain throughout this final weekend.
 
Gaffe #1: “Spread the wealth”:  Made on a rope line in response to a question from the now-iconic Joe the Plumber, Obama’s comment went entirely unnoticed until a video clip of that exchange – apparently made with a cell phone -- popped up on YouTube.  Until then, Senator McCain had been struggling to define the difference on economic policy between him and Mr. Obama.  He brilliantly seized on the remark and Joe the Plumber as his emblem of the American people and their aspirations during the final debate.  Suddenly Obama was the one who didn’t get it about the middle class.  The Illinois senator fumbled with Senator McCain’s debate attacks and then made a second unforced error at a rally a day or two later.
 
Gaffe #2: “Selfishness”:  I know that it is current campaign orthodoxy that every charge must be rebutted, but the candidate doesn’t always have to be the one who rebuts.  This is a lesson apparently lost on Mr. Obama and his operatives.  Despite MSM instant surveys that named the Democratic candidate the winner of that final debate, Team Obama and in particular the candidate himself must have understood that they had taken it seriously on the chin that Wednesday night.  So they decided to respond, having Obama tell a rally that McCain was making “selfishness” the center of his campaign.
 
Most Americans do not believe that paying higher taxes is a sign of “patriotism”, as Joe Biden had put it, or that resisting higher taxes is a sign of “selfishness.” Neither did it help that Obama used another rally to mock Joe the Plumber (“How many plumbers do you know who make $250,000 a year?”).  Sunday’s IBD/TIPP poll showed for the first time McCain winning those whose education stopped at high school, as, one presumes, Joe’s did.
 
And then, fumbling even more, Obama, Biden and their surrogates started moving the threshold of taxation down from $250,000 income a year to $200,000, to $150,000, to $75,000.  Perhaps they wanted to establish that they had a mandate to tax more broadly than Obama had originally suggested, but whatever the reason, it soon looked as though they wanted – as McCain was charging -- a green light to take everybody’s wealth and spread it around.  In other words, they were caught in the web of Senator McCain’s themes on the defining economic issues of the contest.  Their every answer was confirming his redistributionist and socialist charges. Even worse for them, they were answering McCain’s themes, playing on his court, not on their own.
 
Gaffe #3: “He’ll be tested”:  This was Joe Biden’s gaffe, of course.  If he loses, Senator Obama can thank cell phones and private tape recorders, which caught not just this amazing riff and Obama’s “spread the wealth” one but also Obama’s “cling to their religion and their guns” remark to wealthy donors in San Francisco about the same Western Pennsylvanians Congressmen John Murtha even more unbelievably and entirely publicly characterized as “racists” and “rednecks.”  Everyone talks about the Democratic ticket’s innovative messaging.  And this much is true – repeated insults directed at a group of voters who may well decide whether you win or lose everything does set a new standard in American political rhetoric.
 
But Biden’s talk about a “manufactured” international crisis to test a President Obama reminded voters at exactly the most pivotal time that Mr. Obama has not gone through a test in his life more strenuous than the LSATs.  So, suddenly, once more, the Obama campaign found itself responding, this time playing on turf where thematically it can never win.
 
So, as I say, count me in the dumb money.  Something is happening in this campaign.  The candidate everyone says is winning acts as if he’s on the ropes.  The one everybody says to be down is scoring the blows.  Whatever the MSM would like to believe, this fight isn’t over yet.
 
Clark S. Judge is managing director of the White House Writers Group in Washington.  He was a special assistant and speechwriter to President Reagan.

I don't know about you, but I find this incredibly encouraging.

Jeremiah Wright --- No Influence on Obama? Right

You don't refer to someone as an "uncle" in your family, without that person having an influence on your life.

I'm sorry ... you don't spend 20 years in someone's company without their influence rubbing off on you.

This is the man in whose church Barack Obama spent 20 years ... it appears to me that the two or three sound bites most people are familiar with were the only ones and, therefore, ones that Obama didn't have "opportunity" to hear. Seems to me that this kind of vitriol was common.

So, without further adieu, I present (courtesy of FoxNews' Hannity & Colmes program) several other Jeremiah Wright soundbites which you might find interesting.