Let's do away with laws! - a paraphrase of Linda Greenhouse of the NYT

Arizona passes a law to enforce laws regarding illegal immigrants and Linda Greenhouse goes off on a tangent I can't even understand! I love these lefties!!

Read her diatribe here.

the Great Uniter!

Watch this clip of BHO attempting to divide our country in the 2010 election. If this does not upset you, you are an ideologue in his pocket!

And this is a dangerous road to go down!

"A Plague of 'A' Students"

P. J. O'Rourke writes the most humourous and accurate of columns explaining why Barack Obama and his administration is so irksome!

The best paragraph - and most insightful:


"Let us allow that some intelligence is involved in screwing up Wall Street, Washington, and the world. A students and Type-A politicians do discover an occasional new element—Obscurantium—or pass an occasional piece of landmark legislation (of which the health care reform bill is not one). Smart people have their uses, but our country doesn’t belong to them. As the not-too-smart Woody Guthrie said, “This land was made for you and me.” The smart set stayed in fashionable Europe, where everything was nice and neat and people were clever about looking after their own interests and didn’t need to come to America. The Mayflower was full of C students. Their idea was that, given freedom, responsibility, rule of law and some elbow room, the average, the middling, and the mediocre could create the richest, most powerful country ever."


A must read, particularly for supporters of BHO. Absorb a little perspective!!


Read the column here - you will appreciate his humor!

My Green Friends: Please Read This!

From the WaPo - for whom I have great respect publishing this article - Robert Bryce puts perspective on misconceptions of our Green Friends. The first paragraph:


"Americans are being inundated with claims about renewable and alternative energy. Advocates for these technologies say that if we jettison fossil fuels, we'll breathe easier, stop global warming and revolutionize our economy. Yes, "green" energy has great emotional and political appeal. But before we wrap all our hopes -- and subsidies -- in it, let's take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what "green" means."


and on America:


"Over the past three decades, the United States has improved its energy efficiency as much as or more than other developed countries. According to data from the Energy Information Administration, average per capita energy consumption in the United States fell by 2.5 percent from 1980 through 2006. That reduction was greater than in any other developed country except Switzerland and Denmark, and the United States achieved it without participating in the Kyoto Protocol or creating an emissions trading system like the one employed in Europe. EIA data also show that the United States has been among the best at reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per $1 of GDP and the amount of energy consumed per $1 of GDP."


and his conclusion:


"America's move toward a more service-based economy that is less dependent on heavy industry and manufacturing is driving this improvement. In addition, the proliferation of computer chips in everything from automobiles to programmable thermostats is wringing more useful work out of each unit of energy consumed. The United States will continue going green by simply allowing engineers and entrepreneurs to do what they do best: make products that are faster, cheaper and more efficient than the ones they made the year before."


Cap and Trade? Forget it - let the free market solve the energy problem. It will do a better job and not extract extra taxes from us for the power grab!

Read the column here.

"In Praise of Cheerful Men"

George Will shares a story of World War II American-Japanese soldiers who were liberators of Dachau at the end of the war. A small piece of why we were a "great society" and these were the "greatest generation."

"Populism of the Privileged"

James Taranto critiques the silliness of the left - and particularly E.J. Dionne, one of their popular spokesmen - in their effort to discredit and smear the tea parties.


"It's a good thing we have two hands, or we'd be running out of fingers as we count the efforts to discredit and smear the tea-party movement. First it was "AstroTurf" (i.e., fake grass-roots). Then it was extremist, with Nancy Pelosi seeing swastikas. Then it was racist, with still-unsubstantiated claims of invidious slurs. And it was about to turn violent, with Bill Clinton reliving his Oklahoma City glory days.

The Washington's Post's E.J. Dionne is trying yet another new tack. He opens his latest column by saying this movement is really a big nothing:


'The Tea Party is nothing new. It represents a relatively small minority of Americans on the right end of politics, and it will not determine the outcome of the 2010 elections.'


Don't bother voting, guys. E.J. and his friends have that taken care of--and if you don't believe it, just ask Gov. Jon Corzine and Sen. Martha Coakley. But here's the new anti-tea-party theme:


'Their findings suggest that the Tea Party is essentially the reappearance of an old anti-government far right that has always been with us and accounts for about one-fifth of the country. The Times reported that Tea Party supporters "tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45." They are also more affluent and better educated than Americans as a whole. This is the populism of the privileged.'


What exactly does Dionne mean by "privileged"? It seems unlikely that the group he describes includes many who have inherited wealth or special legal advantages. Rather, they are, by and large, people who have worked hard to get ahead. Dionne resents them as "privileged" because they are successful.

Further, if we shouldn't take the tea-party movement seriously because it consists of "the privileged," how seriously should we take E.J. Dionne? We don't know how much the Washington Post pays him, but our educated guess is that it's considerably more than the median tea partygoer makes.

Even more to the point, think of what the tea-party people have done to draw Dionne's disdain: exercise their right to free speech. Think about the enormous privilege Dionne enjoys in that regard. His position at the Washington Post gives him an enormous megaphone, a far greater degree of political influence than most individuals, including tea-party activists, can ever hope to enjoy. For Dionne to sneer at them for being "privileged" shows an enormous lack of self-awareness and class."


And I say again - SILLINESS - that only an ideologue could appreciate!

A Pro-Empathy Column - in honor of fairness!

Geoffrey R. Stone pens a column supporting "empathy" and the lefts approach to judging. Not convincing to me! Is it to you?

I found this sentence interesting:


"First, empathy helps judges understand the aspirations of the framers, who were themselves determined to protect the rights of political, religious, racial and other minorities."


So Originalism is the ultimate "EMPATHY". I like it!

And the framers were "determined to protect the rights of....racial" minorities!! Might ask our black brothers about that! Read it all and see which argument is more convincing.s

"Empathy and the Supreme Court"

Jonah Goldberg explains the problem with a "sighted" (empathetic) Justice in his column today. These two paragraphs caught my eye:


"Of course impartial justice is an abstraction, but it isn't so much a myth as an ideal. Since we are all designed from the crooked timber of humanity, we can only approximate perfect justice.

What I don't understand is why we should abandon an ideal simply because it is unattainable. If I can't be a perfect husband, should I get a divorce? If an umpire can't call each game flawlessly, should he stop trying? Maybe for 95% of pitches the ump should call 'em straight, but for the other 5% he should give the black or gay batters the benefit of the doubt?"


Read the whole column - a concise and interesting view in preparation for the appointment of Justice Steven's replacement! Can you explain why Mr. Goldberg's logic is incorrect?

The Illinois Spiral (DOWN!!)

The Chicago Tribune editorializes on that states problems - with politicians - and this paragraph caught my eye and pretty much summarizes the nations problem:


"Those pols treat the public sector with fawning reverence while ignoring, or even scorning, a private sector that supplies their lifeblood revenues. Why so? Because the pols and their allies have a good thing going, and no incentive to disrupt it. So, unlike in scrappier states, there is precious little talk in Illinois of curtailing teacher tenure, or reducing benefits for current public employees, or capping government expenditures, or exterminating townships and other costly relics, or demolishing obsolete institutions, or ..."


Our politicians are "killing the goose that laid the golden egg" and are too ideologically blinded to recognize their errors!

Beware VAT: VAT is a fix for spending addicts!

The Washington Examiner explains why VAT is a very bad idea at this time!

The closing paragraph:


"That's why the fundamental problem here is not that Americans pay too little in taxes, it's that Washington politicians can't stop spending more and more of our money every year. By 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending will equal 90 percent of the country's gross domestic product. So our politicians clearly have no intention of checking into spending rehab. They're counting on getting that euphoria with the VAT fix. If they do, the rest of us will be left with a dead economy."

START and unintended consequences - Obama should look at history

Between 1914 and 1946 77 MILLION people died in wars - 15 MILLION in WWI and 62 MILLION in WWII.

Our use of nuclear weapons to end the Second World War acted as a deterrent from 1946 to today. I don't know how many people died from war in those years - 64 years versus 32 years in the first statistic - but it was trivial in comparison.

And we are going to eliminate our nuclear weapons? So we can go back to killing 77 MILLION every 32 years? Is this what Obama and the left want?

Silly!! As so much of their agenda is!!

False START

The Heritage Foundations Morning Bell has this interesting commentary on START:


"Just hours before President Barack Obama unveiled his Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that the Kremlin maintained the right to withdraw from the new START agreement if the United States pursued its missile defense program. Late last night, the White House responded to Lavrov's statement, insisting: "The Russian statement does no more than give the United States fair notice that it may decide to pull out of the New START Treaty if Russia believes our missile defense system affects strategic stability. We believe it doesn’t."

But the Russians could care less what the Obama administration believes about missile defense. The Russians have made it exceedingly clear that Kremlin compliance with the treaty will evaporate at any point when Moscow decides our missile defense program threatens them. And the Russians have already said repeatedly that they believe it does. There is a good reason that neither Russian President Dmitri Medvedev nor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have uttered a word about the treaty in public. As New York University professor of Russian Studies and History Stephen Cohen told MSNBC just seconds after Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed the agreement: "Politically it is an unstable treaty." Why should the U.S. Senate ratify a treaty that Russia maintains it can exit at any time?"


Indeed, why would they? We will see.

Democrats/Left/Liberals: Why don't you care about the poor?

John Stossel, a libertarian, in a column titled "What Am I?" gives a great explanation of todays "Liberals" (really leftists) and how the meaning has changed over time, forcing him to call himself a libertarian. The following is the close to his column:


"David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, took the discussion to a deeper level.

"Instead of asking, 'What should we do about people who are poor in a rich country?' The first question is, 'Why is this a rich country?' ...

"Five hundred years ago, there weren't rich countries in the world. There are rich countries now because part of the world is following basically libertarian rules: private property, free markets, individualism."

Boaz makes an important distinction between equality and absolute living standards.

"The most important way that people get out of poverty is economic growth that free markets allow. The second-most important way -- maybe it's the first -- is family. There are lots of income transfers within families. Third would be self-help and mutual-aid organizations. This was very big before the rise of the welfare state."

This is an important but unappreciated point: Before the New Deal, people of modest means banded together to help themselves. These organizations were crowded out when government co-opted their insurance functions, which included inexpensive medical care.

Boaz indicts the welfare state for the untold harm it's done in the name of the poor.

"What we find is a system that traps people into dependency. ... You should be asking advocates of that system, 'Why don't you care about the poor?'"

I agree. It appears that when government sets out to solve a problem, not only does it violate our freedom, it also accomplishes the opposite of what it set out to do."


Great points. Do you agree?

Social Security: a humorous but accurate - and sad comparison

Patriot Humor compares our Governments Social Security System with the "Bernie Madoff System" for which he is in jail. Our representatives just keep rolling along!!

We better wake up! I think W had the right idea and I would suggest the Republicans pursue his fixes after they win the House and Senate in November. This would be an effort that would prove to the people they understand!

"A Postmodern Presidency" by Victor Davis Hanson

Mr. Hanson has summarized brilliantly the situation we have put ourselves in with the election of Obama - our first postmodern President. As a great historian he has analyzed the events of the last 14 months and is telling us why it is happening and where it will lead.

THE BEST ANALYSIS OF OBAMA I HAVE SEEN!! A MUST READ!!!

His closing paragraph gives you a summary of his explanation:


"I could go on, but you get the picture of our first postmodern presidency. For 14 months we have tried to use abstract benchmarks like “did Obama contradict himself?,” “did Obama break another promise?,” “did Obama really think borrowing another $2 trillion won’t help to bankrupt us?,” “did Obama indeed think another entitlement ’saves’ money?,” “did Obama snub another ally and court another enemy?,” “did Obama apologize again?” — when, in fact, such linear thinking, such artificially constructed “norms,” such “facts” are nothing of the sort at all. To Obama, our first postmodern president, such facts and truth are mere signatures of privilege, and so he is offering us another — a postmodern — way of looking at the world."

Fellow Conservatives: Let's Not Repeat 1992 by Splitting Our Power!

Dan Quayle in a WaPo column "Don't let the tea party go Perot" reminds us of 1992 and warns not to make that mistake.

His better example is 1980 where a properly directed tax revolt movement - not a third party - gave us Ronald Reagan and the establishment of an economy that not only became the fastest growing in history but buried the old Soviet Union in its wake. Let's repeat that!

The Republican Party is the only conservative vehicle we have. Let's use it to our advantage, developing the good and working to eliminate the bad. It can be done!

Disarmament Silliness!

Steve Chapman in "Obama's 'Unilateral Disarmament' is Neither" gives you a clear explanation of what is going on. An important read which is summarized as follows:


"In the 65 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no country has used the Bomb. Nor is any of them (or any future nuclear state) likely to, because it would invite utter annihilation. The most horrendous weapon ever created turns out to be a powerful force for peace.

It is not about to be phased out by either the U.S. or Russia. The notable fact about this accord is not that it does so much to reduce nuclear arsenals, but that it does so little. Even if no one wants to admit it."


Let's not be silly in rewarding the posturing leaders of both countries!

Obama Chutzpah

James Taranto gets it right in WSJ Best of the Web Today:


'Hurry Up and Wait

In his latest show of chutzpah, Obama asks for patience with the law he rammed through.


By JAMES TARANTO

No, it was not an April Fool's joke, but an actual headline from the Associated Press: "Obama Urges Patience as Health Care Law Kicks In." Here's what the president had to say Thursday in Portland, Maine:



"Every day since I signed reform into law, there's another poll or headline that says, 'Nation still divided on health reform, no great surge in public support.' Well, yeah. It's only been a week," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery. "Before we find out if people like health care reform, maybe we should wait until it actually happens. Just a thought."



For the past year, Obama has been demanding that Congress enact his so-called reform immediately. Last July, it had to be done before the August recess. Then, after Democrats suffered big losses at the polls in November, it had to be done by the end of the year. It was so urgent that the House voted stayed in session late into Saturday night after Election Day, and the Senate actually voted on Christmas Eve.

"Slow down!" shouted the voters of Massachusetts. In January they elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate for the first time in almost 40 years, in large part on Scott Brown's promise to stop ObamaCare. The president charged ahead anyway, declaring that the time for debate was over. His allies in Congress bribed, bullied and cajoled their way to a razor-thin one-party majority in the House, and in the Senate they found a procedural work-around to render Massachusetts voters irrelevant.

Last month, in a process as ugly as it was heedless of public opinion, Obama got what he wanted. Two weeks ago the time for debate was over. Now the president is still talking ObamaCare, trying to sell the public on what he and congressional Democrats have already imposed upon us. And he's insisting that the public owes it to him to be patient.

It reminds one of that old joke about the definition of chutzpah: when a member of a death panel denies medical treatment to his parents, then pleads for mercy because he's an orphan.'


Megalomania cannot be treated in the President of the United States who has too much power to allow treatment, so, almost three more years to observe the mistake. Fortunately he will be neutered in November and we can begin the work of fixing our country.