Awesome: Dogs of War Edition
But when I suggested this for the pup, Epouse Quantique thought I was crazy. (H/T Jonah Goldberg)
Daily Right 7/28/10
Malaise
*How to Bankrupt a Country in Three Easy Steps, by Roger Kimball.
“What is happening all around us is like a real-life dramatization of those pages Alexis de Tocqueville devoted to “democratic despotism.” There are two sides to this novel form of tyranny. The fundamental political question, said Lenin, is “Who-Whom?” For the “whom,” i.e., for the ruled, democratic despotism has an enervating effect. It acts to reduce energy, initiative, the spirit of derring-do and entrepreneurship. If you are more dependent on the state, if your activities are more hemmed in by bureaucracy, regulation, and taxation, you will be less likely to embark upon morning enterprises that require an appetite for risk, adventure, and ambition.
For the “who,” however, the fundamental effect of democratic despotism is a net increase in arrogance and unaccountability.”
Read the whole thing.
*Why Have We Lost Confidence? By Jay Ambrose.
“Our economy is hugely at risk, and Congress did this to us.”
Racism
*From Reverend Wright to the Sherrod Affair, by Victor Davis Hanson.
*Cry Racism! And let slip the dogs of politics, by Tony Blankley.
“In the last fortnight: 1) The NAACP called the tea party racist; 2) Andrew Breitbart called the NAACP racist; 3) Shirley Sherrod called Republican opponents of Obamacare racists; 4) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called Shirley Sherrod racist; 5) many in mainstream media called Andrew Breitbart racist; 6) Howard Dean called Fox racist; and, 7) it was revealed that liberal journalist Spencer Ackerman proposed calling Fred Barnes and Karl Rove racist.
Thus, through a confluence of bizarrely unlikely events, the vicious act of falsely accusing people of racism became a laughingstock. It went from being a career killer to a punch line; from villainy to vaudeville; from knife in the back to pie in the face.”
Let’s pray that it’s true.
*Our Divisive President, by Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen.
1st Amendment
*Breathe a slow sigh of relief, DISCLOSE act fails to garner 60 votes.
*Our precarious 1st Amendment, by Jennifer Rubin.
“The DISCLOSE Act — a nefarious attempt to do through the backdoor that which the Supreme Court barred by the front door, namely government regulation of First Amendment–protected speech — is dead for now. It is a lesson in how precarious (57-41 was the cloture vote) is our attachment to basic constitutional values.”
*The Left’s Crusade to End Debate, by Andrew Klavan.
Daily Right 7/27/10
The Administration
*Obama: Post-Racial, Post-Partisan, or Post-Sanity, by Dan Miller.
“The beatings must continue until morale improves; besides, the beatings mean more government employees to administer and regulate the beatings which the “little people” of the country will feel but can’t comprehend. This stimulates employment and that must in and of itself be a good thing.”
*The Calamitous Effects of Obama’s Tax Hikes, at Washington Examiner.
*Rule By Decree, by Mario Loyola.
Global Cooling Warming Climate Change
*It looks as though Cap-and-Trade is dead for the moment, Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman hardest hit. Damn you wingnut deniers, damn you straight to carbon hell.
*How’s that 2nd Chakra working out for you Mr. Vice President?
*No sooner asked then answered: Is it Time to End Climate Alarmism? By Mark Landsbaum.
“Global warming zealots have lost. It’s only a matter of time until they realize it and move on to a new contrived catastrophe, where doubtless they’ll be warmly received by a compliant press and amply rewarded with more tax-subsidized grants. It seems there are insatiable appetites and never-ending tax dollars for the proper causes.”
*Desperate Days for the Warmists, by Christopher Booker.
Journ-O-lism
*Journolist Debates Making Coordination With Obama Explicit, by Jonathan Strong.
*Journolism, by David Warren.
“Do journalists collude with one another on how to “spin” stories? On developing “talking points,” just like politicians? On which red herrings can be purposely thrown in, to mislead and distract readers from the truth? On how to hide hard but inconvenient facts? On how to help their friends, hurt their enemies, and generally, stage-manage the presentation of the news to advance a common political agenda?
I would say, no, they don’t have to. These are all things they (er, “we”) can do instinctively, without any need of formal co-ordination. All that is required is a profession whose practitioners form a self-recognizing class; who share a settled (and rather conformist) view of the world; and who spend most of their lives in each other’s company, hardly ever meeting, let alone mixing socially with, people of other classes with other points of view.”
*Surprise! Andrew Sullivan not the only Journ-O-List obsessed with Sara Palin’s uterus. In Ezra Klein’s defense, he seems as disgusted by the thread as I am.
Misc.
*U.N. Threatens Second and First Amendments, at the Washington Times.
*Rauf’s Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble, by Andrew C. McCarthy.
Citizen Hulk: Administration Runs Amok — Breitbart Blamed And Fox Attacked
As someone who has, on many occasions, been accused of “running amok”- I’m quite careful of throwing the word about too casually. However in the case of the Shirely Sherrod video and its amateurish aftermath, encompassing both a rush to judgment and a just as ill advised rush to reinstatement the, chicken little aspect of the administration’s response and its self-destructive behavior merits that description.
A YouTube video sent to one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites is posted and barely begins to penetrate the haze of the multi-verse that is the Internet when the Obama administration, who is clearly monitoring these conservative sites, sees the video and apparently rather than react to its bizarre statements seemingly reacts most strongly to the idea that radio and Fox news personality Glenn Beck might use the video on his show. We know this because according to the star of the videos own words on CNN, she was contacted three times by the USDA management mandarins while in her car where Mr. Beck’s name was brought up and according to her ended with her being told to “pull over and resign”.
I happened to be monitoring both news outlets at the time and know that as Ms. Sherrod was finishing her interview on CNN the Fox news anchor Megan Kelly was announcing that she was on her way to the Fox studio to give an interview in connection with her firing. This was literally minutes apart and Fox news had not ran the videotape prior to her being asked ask for her resignation or called for anyone’s resignation. During the Fox news program when it was approaching the time for Ms. Sherrod’s appearance the host announced that the guest had canceled her interview. The NAACP, who had hosted the event at which the video was extracted had already issued a rebuke and was attempting to distance themselves from the video comments, despite the fact that they had in their possession the entire speech which was later found to contain ending comments that seem to disarm the racial component of the edited version as posted by Breitbart; in the form which he had received it.
After viewing the complete video the White House became involved and decided that it clearly did not look good to have acted so precipitously in such a manner and offered to give the video’s star speaker her job back at the USDA and blame Breitbart for posting the video, Fox news for talking about the video and lastly the Secretary of Agriculture for acting precipitously. Criticism then flowed in from the left for the administration’s apparent fear of the hated Fox news network which seem to be clearly stronger than their love for MSNBC. The narrative line of the story has constantly been attempted to be changed by the administration and their angry and jealous followers of the left to somehow craft this as the fault of Fox and the Internet Beelzebub, Andrew Breitbart. This is not political shading or misspeaking on behalf of these outlets, it is simply a lie.
The driving force behind this exercise in false witness is the hope, by those on the left who are quite fearful of Fox and the millions of Americans who would like to have their news delivered in a factual manner, that the majority of people who hear the story from other sources will not be familiar with the chain of events and believe this was at best a rush to judgment and at worse a piece of spite on the part of the right.
This will not work because the information and timeline are too familiar to too many people and tracing the story down is too easy to do. In most instances this might prove to be more effective but as Americans near one of the most important elections in the country’s history, they are heavily engaged in following news and are becoming more equipped each day with ways to find whether or not it has been “reimagined”.
What’s intriguing about this story is that the video, even shown in its entirety, does not paint a flattering portrait of a government employee and this obsession on the left with redressing what they in fact inflicted upon her only draws attention to her background and prior statements which will not find much common ground or generate patriotic zeal the part of most Americans. Since most trying to perform this journalistic sleight of hand also lack that common ground with most of America they are unable to see the damage that has been done by their crude efforts and the damage yet to come by the way they’ve handled the situation.
In the end, I find the left-wing press’s obvious opinion of much of America to be insulting. It makes Hulk mad when people insult American’s intelligence… no one act like America stupid! Hulk smash!
Daily Dose of Awesome: New Tron Trailer
Released at Comic-Con. My reaction is somewhere between Holy God and Most Awesome Thing Ever, but I distrust myself after The Phantom Menace. (h/t HotAir).
Daily Right 7/20/10
*Do Not Trust the Republicans, by Kevin D. Williamson.
“Check out the spending under your guys, Senator McConnell. Notice how it doesn’t go down? This is why nobody trusts Republicans on spending: because Republicans have not earned anybody’s trust.”
RELATED: Lott Confirms He’s a Paid Tool of the Washington Establishment, by Mark Tapscott.
*American Politics Has Caught the British Disease, by Janet Daley.
*Budget reconciliation is off the table for next years congress, because no budget was passed this year. Thank God for small favors.
*There are many, many gems in the latest VDH piece at Pajamas Media,Pity the Post-Modern Cultural Elite. A few examples:
“Much of modern elite neuroticism derives from the combination of not working physically with the desire to look as if one did….
and
…There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense.”
Read the whole thing.
*First the came for the bloggers: 73,000 blogs shut down by the fed with no explanation as to why.
*Shocker: Journolists conspired to minimize the craziness of Jeremiah Wright by painting conservatives as RACISTS!!! The key word here is conspired.
RELATED: Race Card Fraud, by Thomas Sowell.
“There is not now, nor has there ever been, anything post-racial about Barack Obama, except for the people who voted for him in the mistaken belief that he shared their desire to be post-racial. When he leaves office, especially if it is after one term, he will leave this country more racially polarized than before.”
*Liberty or Tyranny? By David Solway.
*Kindle books are now outselling paper books at Amazon.
*President Haters, by J.R. Dunn.
Daily Right 7/16/10
President Obama
*We Only Expected Competence, by Abe Greenwald.
“It somehow has never dawned on the Obama devotees who like to cite the administration’s “inherited mess” that this president’s failures don’t exactly reflect the over cautiousness of a leader constrained by a crisis. Taking over one-sixth of the private sector in an unintelligible health-care scheme is not an indication of tied hands; it’s a demonstration of unbridled recklessness. So too is dumping unprecedented billions into a liberal wish-list and calling it a stimulus. And so is cooking up financial reform that makes growth impossible and charges responsible banks with the task of bailing out irresponsible ones.”
*The White House Against the World, at IBD.
*The Backlash: Dems Still Don’t Get It, by Rich Lowry.
Two columns worth reading, by two very smart men, reaching wildly opposing conclusions:
*Obama’s Second Act, by Charles Krauthammer.
“Obama is down, but it’s very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he’s done much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do, he knows, must await his next 500 days — those that come afterreelection.
So 2012 is the real prize. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans. Republicans underestimate him at their peril.”
*When Did the Rules Change? By Jonah Goldberg.
“For nearly a century now, the rules have said that tough economic times make big government more popular. For more than 40 years it has been a rule that environmental disasters — and scares over alleged ones — help environmentalists push tighter regulations. According to the rules, Americans never want to let go of an entitlement once they have it. According to the rules, populism is a force for getting the government to do more, not less. According to the rules, Americans don’t care about the deficit during a recession.
And yet none of these rules seem to be applying; at least not too strongly. Big government seems more unpopular today than ever. The Gulf oil spill should be a Gaia-send for environmentalists, and yet three-quarters of the American people oppose Obama’s drilling ban. Sixty percent of likely voters want their newly minted right to health care repealed. Unlike Europe, where protesters take to the streets to save their cushy perks and protect a large welfare state, the tea-party protesters have been taking to the streets to trim back government.”
Economy
*When Debt Flies Off the Charts, by Veronique de Rugy.
*About That Financial Reform ‘Victory’, by Kimberly Strassel.
“The financial regulation bill was cast from the same big-government, antibusiness mold as ObamaCare and the stimulus. The public turns against those laws by the day. Maybe financial regulation will prove third time lucky for this majority. They shouldn’t count on it.”
Daily Right 6/14/10
| *It’s Not “Just the Economy, Stupid” This Time, by Sean Trende.
“The bottom line is that Obama’s approval ratings are almost certainly influenced by economic conditions. But a controversial energy bill, a prolonged, contentious fight over health policy, and yes, even a “snakebit”response to the oil spill, have had a substantial effect on the President’s approval ratings. If missteps continue, it could make the difference between a bad and awful midterm election for the Democrats.” Read the whole thing. *If this were a story about the GOP, we would be inundated with stories about a “Republican Civil War,” complete with references to Stalinesque purges and raging fundamentalists (market or religious). Since it’s about the Dems, we get: Pelosi Vents About Gibbs. *Obama’s Crisis is GOP Opportunity, by Jonah Goldberg. “For a year or so, Republicans have been the so-called party of no. Contrary to the expectations of its critics, that tactic has been good for the GOP. It seems that the “tea parties,” America’s natural antibodies to Obamaism, have provided some vital stem cell therapy, helping to regrow the Republican spine. But that spine is only valuable if you use it for something.” Indeed. *Jihadists bombing Africans makes them RACIST! Thank you Mr. President, for continuing to obscure instead of clarify. Jennifer Rubin at Commentary asks the obvious: “It is this sort of thing that fills one with dread and raises this question: is there no limit to the lengths Obama will go to avoid spelling out the real motive behind Islamic fundamentalist terror?” No Mrs. Rubin, there is no limit. And you’re a racist Islamophobe for asking the question. *Attacks on Freedom, by John Stossel. *Is the Tea Party Racist, by Timothy Dalrymple. *New Scientist declares: You can’t fight violence with violence. I disagree, for reasons better said by the godfather of Sci-Fi, Robert A. Heinlein:
 Roughneck “But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had learned. One girl told him bluntly: “My mother says that violence never settles anything.” “So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn’t your mother tell them so? Or why don’t you?” They had tangled before — since you couldn’t flunk the course, it wasn’t necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, “You’re making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!” “You seemed to be unaware of it,” he said grimly. “Since you do know it, wouldn’t you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.” |
Daily Right 6/13/10 (Delayed)
*I know this is going to shock you, but the artist who started “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” has been marked for death.
*The Muslim Civil War, by Barry Rubin.
*Bedtime Stories for the Muslim World, by Rich Lowry.
“The short version of the story is that in the battle between science and religious obscurantism in the Islamic world, obscurantism won in a rout.”
Economy
*Think Big: Republicans should embrace Paul Ryan’s roadmap, by Fred Barnes. You know where I stand on this issue:
*The Disintegration of the Welfare State, by Neil Reynolds.
“Democracies produced Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, fulfilling the expectation of Socrates and Machiavelli that democracies end in tyranny. Now democracies are fulfilling the complementary expectation of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman that democracies end in bankruptcy.”
*The Answer to Our Economic Problems: Changing Fiscal Policy, by Jeffrey Carter.
*Signs of the Times, by Thomas Sowell.
*Government Spending Cannot Fix the Economy, by Michael Barone.
ClimateGate
*The Whitewash Continues, by Patrick J. Michaels.
“Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called “a nice, tidy story” of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.
Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, “nothing to see here.”
*The IPCC and Climate Change Spin, by Jillian Melchior.
Misc.
*Our Year 2 A.B., by Victor Davis Hanson.
“In the last two years, we have evolved also beyond the old Neanderthal notion of the “law,” as if it were some moral notion engraved on stone tablets that “deserves” our “adherence.” How quaint is that?
Instead, a higher moral calling now adjudicates legal obedience. Immigration law is a construct that at times can or cannot be followed, depending on the plight of those affected. Voting fraud is really a race and class issue: one man’s “fraud” is another man’s “activism.” Big polluters can be invited to contribute billions to remedy their errors — and, low and behold, they most certainly will if asked properly! Contracts? What contracts?”
*Health Care Rationing Obama Believes In, by Nat Hentoff.
*No one questions Bruce Dickenson Rep. Rodriguez (D-TX)
Living the Grand Life
Those of you who have listened to my radio spots on Getting it Right with Rick Wagner have probably heard Rick’s interviews with another frequent guest, Gene Kinsey. He’s got a great blog over at livingthegrandlife.blogspot.com. Get over there and check it out, and tell him QC sent you.
Every Possible Argument Regarding Immigration Reform…from an ethical perspective
The black and white (the system):
1) Illegal Immigrants have broken the law. If we view ourselves as a law-abiding nation that works because of the rule of law, we should be appalled by this situation.
2) Companies who hire illegal immigrants have broken the law. See above. If we punish them, the demand for illegal labor will drop.
3) This country (the USA) was founded by – you guessed it – immigrants.
4) This country is made stronger by immigrants bringing their trades, skills, intellects, and experiences from all over the world for over 2 centuries. This is evidenced by the incredibly diverse culture as well as the sustained GDP growth of the USA, from which we all benefit.
5) (3) and (4) pertain to legal immigrants as well as illegal immigrants – though not in the same proportion. We must then examine the fairness of rewarding those that break the law and punishing those that follow the law, stand years on wait lists, and spend remarkable amounts of both effort and money to come to the USA. It is not fair, ethical or legal.
6) Immigration quotas for each country have not been revised in over 20 years. Perhaps we should revisit these to accurately reflect the current state of demand (or fix the demand {item 2} and then revisit the quotas).
7) $10 tomato argument –
- Short term – prices on things from produce to newly constructed homes go up marginally (remember there is a relatively free market at work to moderate these forces).
- Long term – innovation and automation will bring prices back to levels more palatable to the market. See (8) below.
8) Government, in not enforcing immigration law and allowing people to work for slave wages, is in effect SUBSIDIZING products that benefit from the low-wage labor markets – on the backs of these poor illegal immigrants. This stifles the innovation and automation that would otherwise enter these markets. Innovation will always find a way to optimize price for consumers’ benefits, and here the Government is standing in the way. There are some things that are impossible to export, for those who try this argument. Final point – how were wheat and almonds harvested 100 years ago? How are they harvested today? (Answers – by hand. by automated equipment designed, built, operated, and maintained by Americans)
9) To argue that the economic boom of the 90’s would not have happened without illegal immigrants is just plain silly. The boom was in large part due to the Plaza Accord of 1985, which made the US dollar weak and led to a boom in manufacturing (last time I checked that is skilled labor) that sustained us through most of the 1990’s until Clinton reversed it in the 1995 Reverse Plaza Accord, which had the opposite effect – a strong dollar which decimated US manufacturing and relegated us to the role of World Consumer. Other factors in the boom of the 1990’s were historically low interest rates, which induced large amounts of business investment. Again – nothing to do with illegal immigrants.
10) Economic Impact Argument –
- Illegal Immigrants do not pay (completely) into the system which they and their families draw from. The same can be said of drug dealers and prostitutes who are paid under the table and do not pay (fully) their taxes. This is clearly illegal and unethical (if not also unpatriotic, per our current Vice President).
- Illegal Immigrants (particularly those from Central and South America) send hundreds of millions of dollars back to their home countries every year. This is money taken out of our economy. Anyone remember the multiplier effect from Econ Class? There is a multiple attached to this figure that makes the NEGATIVE effect on GDP much larger than the hundreds of millions that leave the USA every year in this manner.
11) Crime Argument – crime rates go up with illegal immigration. Argue the whys and hows another time.
12) Impoverished Southern Neighbors Argument – A foreign policy issue actually, but more to the point, if immigrants from these countries are here illegally, they cannot take full advantage of the benefits of living and working in the USA. An example – in Georgia if you make and keep a 3.0 average in high school and college, your college tuition is paid and you get money for books. Opportunity for anyone who wants to benefit themselves, on the government dime. Of course, you have to be a citizen to get these benefits – it has its privileges.
The grey (the warm and fuzzy):
A) We do have ethical obligations to each other as human beings. It’s how we are wired. I do not wish any human goodwill/ill any more than another based on their country of citizenship.
B) Illegal Immigrants endure a perilous trek to get into the USA to work for below market (some would argue market) wages with no healthcare. If ethics enter the conversation, this should be appalling to all of us, and we should look to reform the system, even if our tomatoes cost $0.75, instead of $0.50, as a result.
C) Ownership argument -
- Previous generations of legal immigrants retain the culture of their homeland, but embrace that of their new home – calling themselves Americans, using English as a primary language, and a great many fought and died under the flag of the USA in the wars we have fought.
- Current Illegal immigrants do not have this ownership, because they have not earned it. The effect is that they retain their homelands’ cultural identity and do not fully integrate themselves into the US culture. They have no stake in the game – if you will. This is bad for the USA “melting pot” culture as well as for the overall respect of our laws, communities, and environment. Think how much most Americans take for granted the freedom for which their ancestors fought and died. Then think if you pretty much had those freedoms, but better, you were not accountable, how little you would value your country of residence. Welfare has this same problem. Those on it are unhappy with what they are given, because they have not earned it. Much Psychology going on here and I am not fully qualified to explain it.
D) Slippery slope argument – ethically speaking, once you break one law (entry of the country illegally) it is easier the next time when faced with an ethical/legal decision to do it again. Crime rates in areas prone to illegal immigration would support this argument.
So if we don’t like the current state of affairs – what reforms should we implement? Let’s start by agreeing on some common goals:
Immigration Reform Goals:
- Limit human suffering (including slave labor, human trafficking, poor living conditions, etc.)
- Re-establish the “Rule of Law” that makes the greatness of this country possible (Adam Smith’s take on the necessary requirements for Capitalism).
- Encourage Legal Immigrants to come to the USA to the benefit of both immigrant and the USA. They are our lifeblood.
Can we agree that these 3 items are the core of what needs to be fixed?
OK, then how do we go about it?
Immigration Reforms in Action:
- Enforce the laws that are on the books for Illegal Immigrants – deport them, but do not hold it against them when re-applying to be legal workers in the US. If phrased this way, we offer both a carrot and a stick approach. Go home, apply legally, and we won’t hold it against you that you broke the law the first time.
- Enforce the law and increase the penalty for Companies breaking the law when hiring illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration is a push/pull problem. Remove the demand, the pull will drop significantly.
- Revise the quotas for legal emigration from various countries to reflect the current demand. Note – this demand for workers abroad might change abruptly when companies are held accountable, in particular for unskilled labor.
Anyone notice a common thread in these reforms?
They aren’t actual reforms, just enforcing the laws that are currently on the books.
Hence – The Rule of Law.
The “Rule of Law” as explained by Adam Smith is the fundamental principle that makes capitalism possible. We should embrace this principle, as Americans of past generations have, and realize that we – for the most part – are all descendants of emmigrants to this great nation.
Daily Right 7/7/10
| Economy
*Dare we say the D word? “The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP. The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost. The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era.” *Read this job chart and weep:
*Democrat’s Jobs Problem: Their Own, by Jennifer Rubin. “The new New Deal has worked as poorly as the original, and the barrage of tax increases, mandates, and uber-regulation has left the private sector reeling.” Oil Spill *Heartache: Twenty Photo’s That Obama Doesn’t Want You to See, by DIRECTORBLUE.
*The BP/Government Police State, by Glenn Greenwald. “The very idea that government officials are acting as agents of BP (of all companies) in what clearly seem to be unconstitutional acts to intimidate and impede the media is infuriating. Obviously, the U.S. Government and BP share the same interest — preventing the public from knowing the magnitude of the spill and the inadequacy of the clean-up efforts — but this creepy police state behavior is intolerable.” “Police state behavior.” This is from Salon, as liberal a publication as you can get. NASA: A Muslim Affair First, take a look at this video of Charles Bolden, the newly appointed head of NASA discussing the Obama administrations new tasks for the agency: “When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.” You read that right, NASA is no longer concerned with manned space flight, but has been re-tasked to make the Muslim world feel good about itself. Unbelievable. At this rate, the Jihadi’s won’t have anything left to destroy, we’ll have done all the work for them. *The Distance NASA Travelled Over 48 Years, by Jim Prevor. *Is It NASA’s Job? By Elliot Abrams. “A more serious task might be to make them feel terrible about the present level of education in Muslim lands, not least for women and girls, in the hope that we could spur them to reform and improvement.” *It Cannot Be That NASA Has Nothing Better to Do, by Victor Davis Hanson. Misc. *An Afternoon at the Willard, by Matt Patterson. *The New Frontier: ‘Covering’ Conservatives, by Jonah Goldberg. “And just what is the conservative beat? Well, according to many of the nation’s leading editors, it’s that shadowy, often-sinister world where carbon based-life forms of a generally humanoid appearance say and do things relating to, and supportive of, conservative causes and the Republican Party. These strange creatures have been observed using complex tools, caring and nurturing their young and even participating in complex social rituals. Most worship an unseen sky god that traces its roots back to the ancient Middle East. Even more astounding, these creatures are having a noticeable impact on American politics. And that is why many of our leading journalistic enterprises have found it worthwhile to assign full-time reporters to the task of spelunking through the dark caves of conservatism to better understand these fascinating, if vaguely worrisome, beings.” |
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer,James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Week In Review
Some Headlines You May Have Missed
*Robin Williams Steals Fart Joke From Eight Year Old
*America: Now Brought To You By China
*Dick Cheney 6: Heart Disease 0
*Mother Earth Files Restraining Order Against Al Gore
"Work that 2nd Chakra!"
*Report: Hot Chick Has Douchebag Boyfriend
*Supreme Court Strikes Down Constitution in 5-4 Decision
*Video Games Now Better Movies Than Movies
*Russian President Actually Russian Spy
*Unstable Weatherman Decries “Ball-soaking” Temps
*Man Could Use Burrito About Now
Bikini Friday
BONUS!! Independence Day Edition…
Happy 4th of July everyone! Celebrate safe.
-TF
Daily Right 6/30/10
2nd Amendment
*Gun Shy, by Jacob Sullum.
“In their dissenting opinions, Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer (joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor) worry that overturning gun control laws undermines democracy. If “the people” want to ban handguns, they say, “the people” should be allowed to implement that desire through their elected representatives.
What if the people want to ban books that offend them, establish an official church, or authorize police to conduct warrantless searches at will? Those options are also foreclosed by constitutional provisions that apply to the states by way of the 14th Amendment. The crucial difference between a pure democracy and a constitutional democracy like ours is that sometimes the majority does not decide.”
TEA Party
*Where Did the TEA Party Anger Come From? By Victor Davis Hanson.
“There is a growing sense that government is what I would call a new sort of Versailles — a vast cadre of royal state and federal workers that apparently assumes immunity from the laws of economics that affect everyone else.”
*The Ugly Party vs. The Grown Up Party, by Michael Gerson.
The Economy
*Spend Baby, Spend, by David Harsanyi.
* Why Obamanomics Has Failed, by Allen H. Meltzer.
“Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.”
Religion of Peace™
*Lion’s Den: Jihadi Undercuts President, by Daniel Pipes
“Shahzad’s willingness to express his Islamic purposes and spend long years in jail for them flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy, preferring such lame formulations as “overseas contingency operations” and “man-caused disasters.”
*The Myth of Modern Jihad, by Robert Wright.
“Now, for a Muslim holy warrior to see his attacks as revenge runs counter to Pipes’s longstanding claim that Islamic holy war is about attack, not counterattack. Roughly since 9/11, Pipes has been telling us that jihad is “unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.” This notion of “jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life” and is now “the world’s foremost source of terrorism.” That’s why you have to
respond with “superior military force.”
Now we have Shahzad suggesting roughly the opposite — that the holy war could end if America would stop using military force.”
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I agree with Daniel Pipes in this argument. Mr. Wright suffers from the peculiar lefty habit of appeasement, failing to realize that bullies will keep coming at you until you bloody their nose.
For a fantastic look at Jihad in the Muslim faith, as written by Muslims, read The Legacy of Jihad.
Energy
*Obama: Spill, Schmill – Where’s My Energy Tax? By Chris Horner
“Maybe the crisis that the Obama administration itself represents won’t go to waste — and will serve to persuade the public to elect a competent government in the two political branches.”
*Paying President’s ‘Price on Carbon,’ at IBD.
“Cap-and-tax would impact almost every aspect of our lives, from higher gasoline prices to soaring utility bills, to restrictions and regulations related to the “energy efficiency” of our homes. It is a hidden tax on our freedom and our prosperity. It will limit our choices and our actions. It will reduce our supply of energy and thereby increase its costs, another hidden tax.”
Daily Right 6/29/10
2nd Amendment. Victory. Supreme Court overturns Chicago gun ban, recognizes (again) individual right to bear and keep arms.
*Gun Prohibition, R.I.P, by David Rittgers.
“A generation from now, legal and policy discussions will look back and see gun control for the sham that it has always been. The real shame is that it took decades of political action, millions of dollars in litigation, and thousands of lives lost to end the preposterous idea that governments can reduce the number of victims of violent crime by first taking away their means of resistance.”
Emphasis mine.
*Gun Control Laws, by Thomas Sowell.
*The New Normal: The 2nd Amendment After Heller and McDonald, by Glenn Reynolds.
“Nonetheless, the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions have made a major difference. In particular, they have offset the gun-control community’s longstanding effort to “denormalize” firearms ownership — to portray it as something threatening, deviant, and vaguely perverse, and hence demanding strict regulation, if not outright prohibition. That effort went on for decades, and received much media support. Two decades ago, it seemed to be working.
But with the Supreme Court saying that it’s clear the Framers regarded individual gun ownership as “necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” that effort must be seen as a failure now. Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law. It will stay so, as long as enough Americans care to keep it that way.”
Read the whole thing.
*The NYT is unimpressed.
*Paul Krugman’s Depression, by IBD.
“Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says the U.S. is in the “early stages of a third Great Depression.” If he’s right, it’s only because American policymakers have been following his advice.”
Heh.
*Our next Supreme Court justice thinks it’s alright for the government to ban books. No, seriously:
*The Dodd-Frank Overreach, by John McCormack.
*New poll confirms: American’s are dumbasses
*Andrew Breitbart: “$100,000 for the head of Inigo Montoya the full JournoList archives.
*I’ve Never Seen Israel Like This, by William Galston.
Don’t Be a Smartass
Yet another example of our ruling class’s disdain for the small people, this time courtesy of the Vice President:
Citizen Hulk-An Incredible Conservative Speaks on the Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
Today I thought it might be instructive to spend some time watching the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. I was disappointed as I was watching the hearings it became obvious to me that exploring the viewpoints of Ms. Kagan had little or nothing to do with the speech in lieu of of interrogatories being delivered by the various Senators.
It reminded me a great deal of the seven minute question that Sen. Barack Obama delivered to General David Petraeus during his confirmation hearings for his Iraq posting.
For those of you who do not remember, the Sen. took the entire seven minutes allotted for his question and answer to lecture and deliver a speech to the general and left no time for an answer. This same misidentified opportunity to question the Supreme Court nominee was on display today as various Senators took the opportunity to puff and preen before the C-SPAN cameras and deliver partisan swipes at opponents as many of the Democrat Senators tried to plump up the qualifications of the nominee who has mysteriously managed to occupy a couple of very high posts without having written directly about much of anything. As mysterious as her appointment to the deanship of the Harvard Law school clearly was, it was only matched by the lack of intellectual productivity in the form of scholarly articles published during her time in that position. There is a parallel however, with the President himself who also was mysteriously appointed to be the editor of the Harvard Law Review yet never seemed to publish scholarly pieces– which are normally the sum and substance of such a position. As President Obama has refused to release any of his academic
records and is probably the holder of the title of least transparent seeker of the presidential office in modern times, we shall probably never know if the similarity between himself and Ms. Kagan is coincidental.
The short story is, if you’re going to shove through a stealth nomination on the basis of a super majority of far left progressives in the Senate then just do it and don’t subject all of us to your pious, self-serving and frankly boring pontificating. We know we’re getting a pig in a poke and you’re not gift wrapping it with tedious and obvious sophistry.
You’re wasting our time, and Hulk hates time-wasters… especially when they won’t surrender the microphone and drone on and on… HULK SMASH MICROPHONE!!!!
Week In Review
Some headlines you may have missed:
*Angry Arizonans Storm, Burn Down Taco Bell
*Salma Hayek’s Breasts To Appear On Talk Show
*BP Throws Midget Orgy On Yacht: “We Love The Small People” Says Exec
*Unemployed Trucker To Pursue Lifelong Passion For Friendship Bracelets
*Secretary Of Treasury Appears On “Pawn Stars”, Tries To Hock Mt. Rushmore
*Grateful Earth Thanks BP For Relieving “Terrible Pressure And Bloating,”
*General Blasts Rolling Stone Reporter For Bogarting Roach
*Report: Stimulus Funds Used To Give Biden’s Van “Killer Paintjob”
*Inconsequential Nations Compete To See Who Can Score The Fewest Goals
*Africa Still Hellhole
Daily Right 6/22/10
*Of Course It’s a Shakedown, by J.E. Dyer.
“Joe Barton (R-TX) is right: the $20 billion escrow fund is a shakedown. Not because BP isn’t liable for the oil spill, and not because BP shouldn’t help the people losing their livelihoods on the Gulf Coast. But because Obama extorting the escrow fund from BP is an exercise of executive power outside the rule of law.”
Again, the rule of law is dead.
RELATED: An Apology to be Truly Sorry About, at IBD.
*Does Obama Want to be President? By Roger L. Simon.
“So what does this mean that POTUS hates his job? On the extremes, he could have a breakdown (as blogger David Thomson has predicted) or simply quit. Neither of these things are likely to happen, though they certainly are within the realm of possibility.
More likely he will stumble on, spending as much time as he can on the golf course or on vacation. Meanwhile, the role of the presidency will begin to diminish. More people will disregard his wishes. If the Republicans win big in November, he will retreat further. This man is not a fighter, because he has never had to fight. He lives in a very close, protective bubble, among people he has worked with for many years, most from Chicago. That will only increase as the wagons circle
Except for the most partisan among us, none of this is cause for rejoicing. America cannot thrive with a president who wishes he weren’t there. Nothing does. We can only hope that the damage that is done is reversible. Sometimes I think that it is. Sometimes not.”
*Amid Crisis, Obama Declares War…On Arizona, by Byron York.
*President Obama’s Enigmatic Intellectualism, by Richard Cohen.
*The Left’s New Enemy: Empire, by Daniel Pipes.
“The prime enemy is something called “Empire” (no definite article needed), a supposed global monolith that dominates, exploits, and oppresses the world. Sternberg summarizes the Left’s all-embracingindictment of Empire:
People live in poverty, food is contaminated, products are artificial, wasteful consumption is compelled, indigenous groups are dispossessed, and nature itself is subverted. Invasive species run rampant, glaciers melt, and seasons are thrown out of kilter, threatening world catastrophe.
Empire achieves this by means of “economic liberalism, militarism, multinational corporations, corporate media, and technologies of surveillance.” Because capitalism causes millions of deaths that a non-capitalist system would eliminate, it also is guilty of mass murder.
Read the whole thing.
Daily Right 6/21/10
*Tea Partiers Late to the Party, by Matt Patterson.
“The painful truth is this: To give them the kind of government that the Tea Partiers they would like, the new and virtuous Republicans we are promised would have to abolish whole swaths of the federal government as it is currently constituted, including extremely popular programs, entitlements, and bureaucracies (Department of Education, anyone?). You may rest assured that that will not happen.”
Read the whole thing.
*Energy Pipedreams, by Robert Samuelson.
*Israel and the Surrender of the West, by Shelby Steele.
“This is something new in the world, this almost complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations. And if Helen Thomas’s remarks were pathetic and ugly, didn’t they also point to the end game of this isolation effort: the nullification of Israel’s legitimacy as a nation? There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world’s oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.”
*The Paranoid Delusions of the Expert Class, by E. D. Kain
*Gulf War Three, by Mark Steyn.
“Chris Matthews and the other leg-tinglers invented an Obama that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, they’re stuck with the one that does, and it will be interesting to see whether he’s capable of plugging the leak in his own support. If not, who knows what the tide might wash up?”
*Running on Empty, by Fred Barnes.
*Obama’s Straws and Our Tired Backs, by Victor Davis Hanson.
“There is another problem for the Democrats: I don’t think Obama cares much about a midterm correction for reasons other than his own narcissism. One, he already is a laureate and post-presidential historical figure. If Bill Clinton or Al Gore is any guide, he can make a billion or two sermonizing and philosophizing for the next forty years. If Jimmy Carter can create an empire of self-absorption, any president can.”
*Obama is in Over His Head, by Hugh Hewitt.
“Democrats expect voters not to notice, or care if they do notice, that legislators have not passed a budget for next year’s federal spending…
…Thus do the Democrats steel themselves to face a furious electorate: “What deficit? We don’t have no stinking deficit. We haven’t even passed a budget yet.”
RELATED: Dereliction of Duty, by Stephen Hayes.
*World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur, by Mort Zuckerman.
CITIZEN HULK-A Leisurely Stroll To Disaster
It’s not that I would begrudge an executive a round of golf occasionally, I sometimes enjoy the game myself (big drive, poor putting), but it shows either a tin ear for public opinion or an arrogant disregard of it when a chief executive like the President plays golf as his constituents suffer.
The man has played 39 rounds of golf since taking office and this in addition to the fancy dinners, date nights and single along ’s with various celebrities has made this one of the most leisurely presidencies on record and this in the face of some of the most turbulent foreign affairs and economic catastrophe the country has exhibited in 50 years.
It’s not that any of us begrudge a busy president time away from his demanding schedule to refresh himself, I know between science and smashing, I often am so busy that I need a weekend to just decompress. But the situation is not the case with this president as he has neither a demanding schedule nor particularly busy time at work when measured against prior occupants of the office. He seems to fashion his workday more along the lines of a Bourbon monarch than an elected public servant. In fact the old Washington adage is that every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president looking back but in this case it seems we have a president looking in the mirror and seeing Louis XVI looking back- where one simply issues edicts, strolls out of the room and waits until the orders are presented for his signature and then off to a fancy dress ball.
It is perhaps a symbol of this president’s tenuous relationship with America that he seems somewhat unfamiliar of the expectations the American people have for the office he now holds which- that it is expected to do something for the common good and is not a lottery prize or hereditary leftover or even the patronage favor of a huge political machine.
Golfing is just a symptom, but the symptoms need to stop and while this president’s most productive time for America would be sitting in a room quietly with his hands folded until 2013; public displays of disdain for the citizenry suffering are annoying. They are more than annoying…lazy golfing make Hulk mad…HULK SMASH!!
Week In Review
Some Headlines You May Have Missed
*John McCain’s Adopted Children Deported Under New AZ Immigration Law
*Association of American Men Lobby For Bailout of Wet T-Shirt Industry: Cite Boobies “Too Big To Fail”
The Association of American Men Approves This Message
*Western Leaders Capitulate To Muslim Radicals After Screening of Sex & The City 2
*Man Hoping “Shark Week” Will Alleviate Crushing Ennui
*Sean Hannity’s Moral Indignation Warps Space-Time, Creates Wormhole to Other Dimension
*US Takes Out Second Mortgage On Alaska
*New iPhone To Make, Receive Calls
*Hollywood Writer With Original Idea Ritually Flogged, Executed By Peers
*Prince Charles Enslaves, Forcibly Veils Wife: “We Must Follow Peaceful Muslim Example,” Says Prince
*Christina Aguilera To Lady Gaga: “My Diamond Studded Ball Gag Is Totally Different From Yours”
When Congressmen Attack
When Congress exempted themselves from the ObamaCare mandate, I believed we had seen the ultimate expression of hubris from the political class. I was wrong. Evidently, Democrat Congressmen can now assault people on the street and face no censure, no police investigation, and suffer no consequences. Hell, the troops will even rally around them, questioning the motives of the citizen attacked.
Congressmen Etheridge promptly apologized in a written statement:
“I have seen the video posted on several blogs. I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction and I apologize to all involved. Throughout my many years of service to the people of North Carolina, I have always tried to treat people from all viewpoints with respect. No matter how intrusive and partisan our politics can become, this does not justify a poor response. I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse.”
He’s not joking, he’s got the word “respect” tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand. After bitch-slapping the American people around for the last few years, I guess he just wanted to make it a little more personal.
The Rule of Law is dead my friends. Our representatives rulers refuse to pay their taxes, exempt themselves from onerous legislation they force on the rest of us, and now, adding injury to insult, they assault their constituents for daring to ask questions. And while the Chris Mathews’ of the world continue to hyperventilate over non-existent TEA Party violence, the left becomes ever more brazen in their calls for dictatorship, one-party rule, and the silencing of opposing voices.
I think it goes without saying that we are well, and truly, fucked.
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