by Jeff Schreiber by Jeff Schreiber On a day when Russia has ceased all military cooperation with NATO and blocked the only entrance to neighbor Georgia's main port city of Poti despite promises to pull out, and only a day after Moscow responded to Poland's missile defense deal with the United States with threats of action "beyond diplomacy," it may be a good time to remind everyone that the 44th president of the United States will take office in only 151 days. While the Olympic Games, conflict in Georgia, and decreased gasoline prices due to President Bush's tough talk on offshore drilling has tempered somewhat the furor over energy policy among average Americans, energy independence must be on the top of the GOP's priority list for issues capable of shifting the balance of power in Congress and the White House. Senator Jeff Bingaman, Congressman Nick Rahall, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who oppose producing more American oil are in a bind. They know voters are hurting from high gas prices and overwhelmingly want the government to allow more American oil production. But they can’t side with the American people and risk upsetting their left-wing base. So they needed a way to make us think they support more drilling – while effectively preventing us from ever drilling a single new well. They think they’ve found a solution: a proposed “use it or lose it” law on federal leases for energy exploration. Bingaman, Rahall and fellow drilling opponents accuse the oil industry of “sitting on” 68 million acres of “non-producing” leased land. They want to force energy companies to “use” this leased land within ten years – or lose all exploration and drilling rights. America can only hope the proposed law is Bingaman and Rahall’s clumsy attempt at political jujitsu. The alternative is that the politicians in charge of committees that determine US energy policy are confused and ludicrously disconnected from reality. First, lease agreements already require that leased land be used in a timely manner. The 1992 Comprehensive Energy Policy Act requires energy companies to comply with lease provisions, and explore expeditiously, or risk forfeiture of the lease. So the Bingaman-Rahall “solution” effectively duplicates current law. Second, and more disturbingly, Bingaman and Rahall’s groundless accusation and proposed legislation rely on the absurd assumption that every acre of land leased by the government contains oil. Obviously, that’s not the case. The truth is, finding oil is a long, complex, cumbersome, expensive process. It starts with an idea – about what kinds of geologic structures are likely to hold this vital resource. Based on that idea, companies purchase leases: agreements that allow them to test their ideas, and hopefully find and produce oil and gas from leased properties. Then geologists look at existing data and conduct seismic, magnetic and geophysical tests of the leased areas. They create detailed 3-D computer models of what subsurface rock formations look like, and whether there might be any “traps” that could hold petroleum. Most of the time, all this painstaking, expensive initial analysis concludes that the likelihood is too small to justify drilling an exploratory well, since the cost of a single well can run $1-5 million onshore, and $25-100 million in deep offshore waters. Only one of three onshore wells finds oil or gas in sufficient quantities to produce it profitably; in deep water, only one in five wells is commercial. Thus, only a small percentage of the leased acres end up producing oil. This is important because it means most of those 68 million acres Bingaman and Rahall want to force oil companies to drill actually don’t have enough oil to make it worth drilling. Either they know that, and are trying to deceive us; or they don’t know it, because they haven’t done their homework. Third, if a commercial discovery is made, more wells must be drilled, to delineate the shape and extent of the deposit. Production facilities and pipelines must be designed, built, brought to the site and installed. Only after oil or gas is actually flowing does the lease become “producing.” In one example, Shell Oil and its partners leased an area in 7800 feet of water 200 miles off the Texas coast. They spent five years exploring and evaluating the area, punched several “dry holes,” and finally drilled a discovery well in 2002. Three appraisal wells (at $100 million apiece) confirmed a major field, and in 2006 the company ordered a huge floating platform and pipeline system that will initiate production in 2010. Total investment: $3+ billion. That’s hardly “sitting on their leases.” But those leases will be “non-producing” until 2010. Clearly, a “use it or lose it” law will do nothing to change these hard realities. Further complications often stymie energy companies from obtaining and using leased land. Every step in the process must be preceded by environmental studies, oil spill response plans, onsite inspections, and permits. The process takes years, and every step is subject to delays, challenges – and litigation. In the Rocky Mountains, protests against lease sales rose from 27% of all leases in 2001 to 81% in 2007, according to government and industry records. Numerous additional prospects were never even offered, because land managers feared protests. The justification used to be endangered species. Now it’s climate change – as though US oil causes global warming, but imported oil substitutes do not. Where leases are issued, seismic and drilling work is often protested. Some years ago, an endangered plant held up drilling – until companies realized the Astragalis was locoweed, which ranchers had been trying to eradicate because it sickens cattle. This year, the excuses are drilling fluids that are 98% water and clay – and sage grouse, even though hunters shoot thousands of them every year. The obstructionist tactics mean hundreds of millions of dollars in lease bonuses and rentals, seismic surveys and other exploration work are in limbo. None of this money has been refunded to companies, and no interest is paid to the companies. The money would pay for thousands of wells that drilling opponents say companies refuse to drill. These lands are non-producing, not because companies are procrastinating – but because politicians and bureaucrats have bowed to pressure from radical environmentalists, and refused to issue permits. We don’t need a “use it or lose it” law – or more cheap-rhetoric, big-oil conspiracies. Congress simply needs to allow drilling on the 60% of onshore federal oil and gas prospects and 85% of Outer Continental Shelf prospects that it has placed off-limits. Furthermore, instead of a “drill it or lose it” law, we need a “permit or pay” rule: When you go to the ballot box this fall, remember who’s really behind the outrageous prices you’re paying for the energy that makes your job, home, car and living standards possible. Remember the simple solution: Issue leases and permits. Drill here. Drill now. Pay less. The founders of America knew war. They knew economic difficulty. They even knew Islamic terrorism. Obviously, they were also aware of the many ways in which everything they fought for could be perverted and tossed aside, but I fear that they would nonetheless be alarmed and dismayed today at the effort put forth by some Americans to undermine everything for which the country stands. Sitting here this afternoon, the weather is perfect. Our founding fathers, with whom I came here to sit and connect, were not. That alone is why it is so necessary that common, everyday people like you and me stand guard, keep watch and, if necessary, rise up and fight for During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati. And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval. It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series. "Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism. In the past, such rhetoric was just that -- rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state. In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all). Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" -- a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns. It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor. Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old. Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" -- "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means. Among his proposed "investments": His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't. That's just for starters -- first-term stuff. Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department -- from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike. You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress. But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)? Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path -- and those who guided it -- leads to the same unsettling conclusion. The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii -- and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed. A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 -- a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" -- was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities." As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment. "They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**." After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago. His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America. The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters. After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" -- on a large scale. While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply -- as well as teach -- Alinsky's "agitation" tactics. (A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" -- terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.) Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa. As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans." His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all." "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development." Taxes and "investment" ... the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine. (Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.) In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro. With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere. Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits. (Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.) With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer." He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud. Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice." He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington. Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist. Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington. The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word. But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words. Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them -- at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk. Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster. In a dramatic revolt against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) refusal to allow Congress to vote on legislation to increase American-made energy and lower gas prices, House Republicans today refused to leave the House floor after Speaker Pelosi adjourned the House for the five-week August break, staying in the chamber to speak directly to Americans watching the historic event unfold above the floor in the House gallery. Even after lights, cameras, and microphones in the chamber were turned off, House Republicans were undeterred, continuing to make speech after speech demanding that Speaker Pelosi listen to the calls of the American people – including those coming from whistling, applauding, and cheering Americans sitting in the gallery – for more environmentally-responsible drilling for oil and gas here at home to reduce the price at the pump. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) defied the Democratic majority by providing live updates on the protest via Twitter directly from the House floor. Members participating in the spontaneous uprising included Reps. Roy Blunt, John Boehner, Michael Burgess, John Campbell, Eric Cantor, Shelly Moore Capito, John Carter, Mike Conaway, John Culberson, Charlie Dent, Jeff Fortenberry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Pete Hoekstra, Duncan Hunter, Thaddeus McCotter, Mike Pence, Tom Price, Ted Poe, Adam Putnam, Bill Sali, John Shadegg, John Shimkus, Tim Walberg, and Lynn Westmoreland. The protest came just minutes after House Republican leaders delivered a letter to Speaker Pelosi demanding that she call the House back into emergency session this month to deal with America’s ever-worsening energy crisis. Two Interesting Pieces I Feel Compelled to Share The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow. When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?” In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites. And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world. He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world. And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more. From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it. And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light. And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares. From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet. In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace. As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites. And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over. The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for. And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again. Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it. And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times. Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length. But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him. And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets. Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not. On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One. And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.” Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W." There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past. And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell. "The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans. Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror -- films like "In The Valley of Elah," "Rendition" and "Redacted" -- which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe. Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"? The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be? The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of "The Dark Knight" itself: Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified. Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms. Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless. The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love. When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him." That's real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror. Perhaps that's when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day. Conservatism and the Young, Idealist Urge to Help
FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008
Eligibility Goes Beyond Citizenship
America's Right.com
I don't know if the allegations found in Phillip Berg's civil action are true. I did not sever Barack Obama's umbilical cord, I do not know anyone who did, and therefore I cannot know for sure absent more than circumstantial evidence whether or not Stanley Ann Dunham opened wide and gave birth to the Illinois liberal in Kenya, in Hawaii, or elsewhere.
Perhaps we can look into the destination for mass shipments of gold, frankincense and myrrh in early August of 1961. Or perhaps we could just ask Keith Olbermann -- I'm sure he has a framed photograph of the blessed event.
What I do know is that, when the United States Constitution was penned mere steps from where Berg's lawsuit was filed yesterday afternoon, those imperfect but brilliant gentlemen who wrote the fifth clause of Article II, Section 1 established the trio of specific eligibility requirements--citizenship, age and residency--in hopes of increasing the probability that the elected officials who were to assume the presidency in years to come would be of sound mind, of good judgment, and in possession of a soul rooted in an undying love for America.
It was important to those courageous men that the future leaders of their fledgling nation understand what it means to be an American. Every clause in that document is there for a reason, each a lesson learned from fresh wounds of tyranny gone but not forgotten, and the framers made a point to require that, at the very least, a potential president must have been a citizen of the United States "at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution." Unfettered, undivided devotion and loyalty to America was of the utmost concern; simply put, only those who fought and bled for Her independence, or at the very least understood the meaning behind, need for and potential of this great experiment could be trusted with its charge.
Regardless of whether Barack Obama was born in a hospital in Honolulu or a hut in Kenya, the real question brought forth by Phillip Berg's civil action, to me, is not one of constitutional eligibility but rather of moral and intellectual and even ideological qualification.
Barack Obama's actions show a penchant for blaming America first and placing Her needs second. His associations show that no unimaginably awful deed goes unrewarded, that the want for friendship, appeasement and superficial detente overshadows the need for a firm grasp on reality and unapologetic employment of common sense. His aspirations make us believe that we can live our lives blameless for societal and economic ills, and that centuries-old blood feuds can be solved with a handshake and conversation over coffee and a chilled plate of arugula.
John McCain, wrong on so many issues, was 100 percent right on Wednesday when he stated that he never questioned Obama's patriotism, only his judgment. At a time when the United States faces unprecedented threats from every angle, within and without, at a time when Congressional malfeasance--or, in the case of Pelosi's House and the energy crisis, nonfeasance--could have disastrous effects for decades to come, sound judgment is of the utmost importance.
For our founding fathers, unflinching patriotism, unassailable public virtue and unflappable judgment were inherent among those who helped to establish the United States of America, whether on the battlefield in Trenton or in Congress in Philadelphia, as those who were citizens "at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" knew why they were there, what America was about, and why She was so desperately needed.
Regardless of whether he was born in Kenya or in Hawaii, regardless of whether his birth certificate is his half-sister's or his own, or whether he went by the name of Barack Obama or Barry Soetoro, this self-proclaimed "Citizen of the World" has much to learn about what it truly means to be an American.THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2008
Obama Sued in Philadelphia Federal Court on Grounds he is Constitutionally Ineligible for the Presidency
America's Right.com
A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.
Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit--just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver--for the health of the Democratic Party.
"I filed this action at this time," Berg stated, "to avoid the obvious problems that will occur when the Republican Party raises these issues after Obama is nominated.".
Berg cited a number of unanswered questions regarding the Illinois senator's background, and in today's lawsuit maintained that Sen. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen or that, if he ever was, he lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia. Berg also cites what he calls "dual loyalties" due to his citizenship and ties with Kenya and Indonesia.
Even if Sen. Obama can prove his U.S. citizenship, Berg stated, citing the senator's use of a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii verified as a forgery by three independent document forensic experts, the issue of "multi-citizenship with responsibilities owed to and allegiance to other countries" remains on the table.
In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.
Berg cites inconsistent accounts of Sen. Obama's birth, including reports that he was born at two separate hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.
Should Sen. Obama truly have been born in Kenya, Berg writes, the laws on the books at the time of his birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and non-citizen parent if the former was at least 19 years of age. Sen. Obama's mother was only 18 at the time. Therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama could not be registered as a "natural born" citizen and would therefore be ineligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Moreover, even if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed "natural born," that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen. Berg also states that he possesses copies of Sen. Obama's registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.
The Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg says, is a forgery. In the suit, the attorney states that the birth certificate on record is a forgery, has been identified as such by three independent document forensic experts, and actually belonged to Maya Kasandra Soetoro, Sen. Obama's half-sister.
"Voters donated money, goods and services to elect a nominee and were defrauded by Sen. Obama's lies and obfuscations," Berg stated. "If the DNC officers ... had performed one ounce of due diligence we would not find ourselves in this emergency predicament, one week away from making a person the nominee who has lost their citizenship as a child and failed to even perform the basic steps of regaining citizenship as prescribed by constitutional laws."
"It is unfair to the country," he continued, "for candidates of either party to become the nominee when there is any question of the ability to serve if elected."
For more, read the accompanying commentary, Eligibility Goes Beyond CitizenshipAugust 21, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
Bloomberg's Wind Power Talk Just Blew Smoke
(FROM: Newsday) I am all for using wind and solar power in conjunction with the establishment of new nuclear facilities, coal plants and renewed drilling efforts for oil. We need it all. However, by suggesting that New York City should toss windmills on top of its buildings and skyscrapers is just asinine. Offshore? Sure, but good luck with passing it by the same environmentalists who yearn for clean energy, who have railroaded other such plans off Cape Cod for interference with birds and beautiful vistas. Nuclear and coal for energy, American oil for cars, conservation and responsible alternatives throughout -- that, my friends, is the root of an energy plan. Not affixing a windmill atop the Chrysler Building (which, by the way, was only a month or so ago purchased by an Abu Dhabi fund).
America is Better Off Without Musharraf
(FROM: The Wall Street Journal) Interesting perspective. On its face, many plugged-in people are worried about the uncertainty which will inevitably follow the ousting of a guy like Gen. Musharraf, but the idea that anti-American sentiments among the Pakistani people may ease due to the lack of perception that the U.S. is backing what the author calls "an unpopular strongman" is definitely worth wrapping your head around.
Obama to Pony Up 'Street Money' in November
(FROM: Philadelphia Daily News) Before the hotly contested Pennsylvania primary, Obama decried such a practice, paying ward leaders and party committee members for work on Election Day, saying that "we're not going to pay for votes or pay for turnout." Now, however, he appears to have changed his tune. While he needs a large margin of victory here in Philadelphia--he certainly cannot count on much support from the middle of the state, filled with bitter white people who cling to their guns and religion--I'm tempted to tell him to save his money; he'll win the City of Brotherly Love in a landslide of biblical proportions.
With DNC in Mind, City Bans Carrying Urine, Feces
(FROM: Rocky Mountain News) Insert your own Democratic party convention-related joke here. Personally, I just want to know who voted against the ban.
L.A. Ordinance Would Require New Home Improvement Stores to Set Aside Sites for Day Laborers
(FROM: USA Today) I can see it now: "Honey, I'm just heading to Home Depot for some twine, a three-quarter-inch drill bit, and a half-dozen Mexicans from the day laborer aisle." All kidding aside, this is absolutely insane. These people are here illegally. In the country illegally. Not supposed to be here. No habitamos Americanos Home-o Deepos. And we're going to provide them shelter? Water? Amenities? Furthermore, how about arresting and deporting the law-breaking day laborers sitting in the council chambers, the ones who applauded the passing of the measure? I can't stand it anymore. Why is it that nobody seems to care about our laws? If I were to walk into Lowe's, stick a 50-foot garden hose in my shorts and try to walk out with it, I'd be arrested and prosecuted for shoplifting, yet these people are breaking federal immigration laws simply by being here, and they get a nice place to hang out. If I were to get stopped on I-95 with 17 illegal immigrants packed into my Hyundai like a circus clown car, wouldn't I be arrested and charged with aiding these law-breakers? Why can't we do the same to Home Depot?
Report: Networks Gave Obama the Nomination
(FROM: Newsmax) Personally, I didn't need the report from the Media Research Center to tell me this. Perhaps I came to the realization that the mainstream media is pulling for Barack Obama when Chris Matthews mentioned that his oratory sends a chill running up his leg. Or maybe it was when all three major network anchors followed him on his European tour, when John McCain's overseas trips were rarely mentioned at all. Or perhaps it was when the New York Times ran an op-ed piece penned by Obama but refused to run a commentary by McCain. Perhaps it's the four-to-one ratio of news articles written on Obama versus McCain that did it. Then again, maybe it was the media's protection of Obama by not jumping on the John Edwards scandal before Hillary Clinton was ousted from the primary. Or, if none of that helped expose the media bias, perhaps Time Magazine placing him on its cover this week for the seventh time in one year (McCain has been on twice) will finally shed some light. Regardless, we're in deep trouble in this country if the media, feeding on the celebrity-obsessed culture, can get an inexperienced, ultra-left-wing socialist elected president.Quick Reminder: Russia will still be out there in 151 days...
It will either be John McCain who, despite his many faults, values national defense and understands the Cold War threat and nature of war better than most, or it will be Barack Obama, who was boogie-boarding in Hawaii while McCain was denouncing the Russian invasion of its sovereign neighbor.
Either way, America must continue to be watchful during this transitional time in world history, as energy acts as catalyst for a great shift in wealth and power, as a great motivator for aggression and detente alike. America must be ready to react at a moment's notice, and never be afraid to do so. We must continue to raise the bar when it comes to military technologies, to unmanned devices allowing us to move swiftly and decisively when faced with trouble or threats impacting our national interests or those of our NATO allies.
That being said, along with the fact that Moscow has ten times the tactical nuclear arsenal than we do, perhaps we should take another look at the Illinois senator's plans for our military.TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2008
Why I Think Barack Obama May Choose Sen. Joe Biden
Please, no wagering.
Especially based upon these arguments, as I am certainly not sure of anything myself.
In fact, before today and certainly over the past few weeks, I was convinced that Barack Obama would take someone young, someone perhaps a little unknown, someone with relatively unestablished moderate liberal chops as his running mate. I was convinced that it would be Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh or Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. In fact, I'm still not convinced it won't be.
I was sure of myself in arguing that Obama would never, in his right mind, pick Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden or former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, namely because of the former's long tenure in Washington--he's been there since long before I was even born--or the latter's issues with voting gay democrats. Frankly, neither Nunn nor Biden fit in with Obama's message of "hope" and "change." Joe Biden especially, between his suits, hair and attitude, just reeks of fat-cat politics.
Today, however, I had a change of heart.
Tim Kaine, while an attractive choice who provides the Illinois senator with a chance to capture prized Virginia, would do nothing to augment Obama's lack of experience in foreign policy and beyond. Evan Bayh may provide Obama with a shot at turning a red state blue, and his ten years in the senate may add seasoning without the feel of an establishment politician, comes from old Washington stock. And Sebelius, while I feel as though she might be the one, might trample on supporters of Hillary Clinton who wanted their candidate to be the woman in the spotlight.
Enter Biden. As chairman of the foreign relations committee, he makes up for a large perceived shortfall in Barack Obama's candidacy. As a stark-raving-mad liberal, he was vehemently anti-war, and relishes every opportunity to malign the Bush administration. As a grade-A prick, Biden could be unleashed on the attack, saving Obama to look soft and cuddly for the superficial American voting public. And, while his 36 years in D.C. may very well run afoul of Obama's entire message of "change" but, properly spun, could actually serve to enhance his candidacy.
"I know Joe Biden has been in government for a long time," Obama could very well tell his supporters. "I know he doesn't exactly look like the spitting image of a changed Washington. But who better to know exactly how Washington needs to be changed than a man who knows Washington as well as Sen. Biden?"
The number one rule of picking a running mate is simple: do no harm. That being said, if Biden can forego tradition and avoid sticking his foot in his mouth, his presence on Barack Obama's ticket may have more upside--and avoidable downside--than any of the other names thrown around for the past few weeks and months.
Personally, I'd love to see it. I'm not sure that Obama can spin his way into convincing voters that Biden fits into the "change" mantra--especially if he's not privy to a teleprompter--and I don't trust the Delaware senator for a second to not spout off and ruin everything with a poorly timed, tasteless remark.
So there you have my guess, just as so many others make their guesses as well. For all I know, Obama may try to turn the GOP's energy crisis arguments on their head by picking Al Gore. Heck, it could even be Oprah. Nobody knows for sure. Ralph Nader seems to think Hillary Clinton will get the nod. Michael Moore is Dick Cheney obsessed and wants Caroline Kennedy, after running the vetting process for the Illinois senator as Cheney did for President Bush, to pick herself for Obama's number two spot just as Cheney did. Personally, I think it's going to be Biden, since Elvis is dead and since Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin are currently busy elsewhere.
Maybe we're all wrong. Does Fidel Castro have another brother?THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2008
Drilling Congress on Energy
My feelings on the matter, while I've made them known in my own words over the past few weeks and months, are summed up and reinforced nicely by the following two pieces, the first by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the second by outspoken rock legend, naturalist and Second Amendment activist Ted Nugent.
Certain measures could guarantee energy independence--and the prosperity and security which comes along with it--for the United States of America, but those measures are being shot down by the inexcusable and even traitorous actions of congressional democrats:
Read both pieces, please. Print them, link to them, share them with friends. What we do in terms of energy policy now will affect America for years beyond the term of the 44th president.
-- Jeff
Idle Leases -- or Addled Minds?
by Newt Gingrich, Townhall.com
Gang of Sellouts
by Ted Nugent, HumanEvents.com
Joining five Democrats to make up the Gang of Ten, five Republican senators tossed Sen. John McCain under his Straight Talk Express Energy bus.
The five Republican senators (Graham, Thune, Chambliss, Corker, and Isakson) should be renamed the Gang of Sellouts.
The Gang of Ten is a bipartisan group of senators who recently offered an energy policy -- intentionally or stupidly otherwise -- that can only benefit Senator Obama, whose energy policy up until this point was to tell us to keep our tires just as liberals prefer Fedzilla: properly inflated.
McCain had Obama on the energy ropes and was scoring some big-time political points, but the Gang of Sellouts has let Obama off the ropes. Just when McCain was making headway, the Gang of Sellouts let the air out of his energy fight.
According to Kimberly Strassel’s August 8th article in The Wall Street Journal, the Gang of Ten’s energy policy is to allow four states to determine whether or not to allow drilling for oil on offshore federal land and deny drilling within 50 miles of our coasts and any drilling in ANWR. Oil companies would be allowed to explore for oil off Florida’s coasts. You know, like those stalwarts of environmentalism China, Cuba and India are planning to do in the next couple of years.
Additionally, the Gang of Ten would provide over $80 billion in tax credits for alternative fuels by eliminating $30 billion in tax breaks for oil companies, which of course ultimately comes out of American consumer's pockets. That’s right: raise taxes on the very companies that would invest in finding more real energy to help make America energy independent, while propping up more Fedzilla hoaxes like ethanol. The Emperor not only has no clothes, he's fat, wart-riddled and ugly.
Increasing taxes is never the right approach if the goal is to provide incentives to expand business, lower prices, and provide jobs. Only Democrats do not understand that raising taxes destroys incentives. One would think, even pray and dream, that Republicans -- even the Gang of Sellouts -- would know this.
The first rule of Republican economic politics must always be to never cut deals with the Tax Devil. The second economic maxim is that America can not tax and spend its way to prosperity. These two fundamental rules should be burned into the doors of all Republican senators and congressmen's offices. Even tattooed onto their foreheads.
Unable to drill within 50 miles of our coasts, we will not be able to tap into the rich energy reserves that lay just off of our coasts.
As George Will pointed out in his June 5th op-ed The Gas Prices We Deserve, the US Minerals Management Service restricted offshore areas may contain 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which is ten times the oil and 20 times the natural gas Americans use annually. Read that again. Whose side are these numbskulls on?
The Gang of Ten’s proposal would restrict us from this energy -- energy that would help make America more energy independent. Thanks for nothing, Gang of Sellouts.
“America is serious about becoming independent of foreign oil," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a member of the Gang of Sellouts. Either he is lying or he is tremendously stupid. The energy policy he helped create with the Demonrats on the Gang of Ten will make America more dependent on foreign energy, not less.
But energy independence is not what Democrats want. For whatever perverted, anti-American reason, Democrats detest American oil companies and want us to be energy slaves to other countries who, by and large, do not like America. Burn this into your memory: Democrats do not support drilling for oil. Welcome to Planet of the Apes.
At least in the short term, drilling for oil and gas off of our energy-rich coasts and at ANWR is indeed the answer, along with every imaginable energy mining upgrade possible. Ordinary Americans understand this and overwhelmingly support increased drilling. Even McCain, who previously did not support increased drilling, has come around to this reality.
The Gang of Republican Patriots in Congress -- who refuse to go home for a five-week vacation and are pressing Speaker Pelosi to order the return of the other congressmen to vote on an energy bill -- deserve our admiration and praise. Note to McCain: conduct an energy news conference from the darkened floor of the House of Representatives with these congressional patriots.
Energy independence must be the goal. This goal can not be achieved by endorsing an extremely flawed plan that will not lead to drilling where the energy is located. That’s a fool’s game, which is why the Democrats endorse it.
Energy is, and will remain, the defining issue of the presidential campaign. The Gang of Sellouts has made McCain’s job of capturing the White House more difficult and has added fuel to Obama’s anti-drilling political tank.
Drill now for energy freedom and independence. Meanwhile, send the Gang of Sellouts “Obama for President” bumper stickers and a broken tire gauge. They'll know where to put it.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2008
August 13, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
Fly, Tigers: A Georgian Opportunity
(FROM: National Review) I had previously heard of Pappy Boyington and his exploits in the early days against Imperial Japan, but hadn't thought of it with regard to the unfortunate and sticky situation in Georgia. A similar, semi-covert measure is certainly a nice thought, but with the limited resources of the Georgian military and an American free press determined to undermine any and all common sense measures undertaken by the Pentagon in pretty much any theater, I cannot imagine a situation where the same sort of mission would work against Russia today.
SEE ALSO:
Bush and Georgia, from The Wall Street Journal
Sources Contend Edwards Fathered 'Love Child'
(FROM: WorldNetDaily) I have no doubt whatsoever that the child is his. The guy is a scumbag, a liar, a trial attorney who gives trial attorneys a bad name. I also have no doubt that America is seeing this man for what he truly is, going on camera and justifying his affair by saying stuff like, "well, I was fooling around with the other woman while my wife's cancer was in remission." Furthermore, I have no doubt that the mainstream media sat on this story back in the fall of 2007 when the National Enquirer first broke it NOT to protect John Edwards, but to protect Barack Obama -- Edwards was spoiler for Hillary Clinton, and derailing his campaign might have put Clinton over the top for the Democratic party nomination. Regardless, someone should have told Edwards that pulling out only works in presidential primaries.
Leach, Chafee Cross Party Lines, Back Obama
(FROM: Newsmax) Lincoln Chafee? James Leach? Rita Hauser? The democrats can have 'em. As it is, the GOP needs to return to its conservative roots, and these people--and more like them--are just dead weight.
Democrats 'Still Don't Get it' on Guns
(FROM: CNS News) On a day when the chairman of the Democratic Party of Arkansas was shot and wounded in his own office, it cannot be more obvious that the American political left do not understand the concept that it takes a person to fire a weapon, that no amount of legislation or regulation will dissuade someone who wants to do harm. Criminals inherently do not abide by the law; whether the gun used in today's Arkansas shooting was legally obtained is not the issue -- the issue is that, gun or not, a person determined to do harm to another will find a way to do it. I keep coming back to Philadelphia, where a young Starbucks manager was beaten to death by three teenagers on a subway platform. Just as no gun ban could have stopped his death, no amount of legislation could likely have prevented the Democratic party chairman in Arkansas from getting shot today. Know what could have? A co-worker with a concealed carry permit and a gun of his own on the hip.
Why Safe Kids are Becoming Fat Kids
(FROM: The Wall Street Journal) My two-year-old daughter was having a blast watching some of the olympic gymnastics over the past few days, in some cases up way past her bedtime. Standing on the sofa and mimicking what she saw on the television from half a world away, she would raise her arms over her head, smile, and leap straight up into the air, landing butt-first back down onto the cushion below. "Taa-daaaaa!" she'd exclaim, throwing her hands up in the air again like a 12-year-old Chinese olympic gymnast. As an overprotective father, I was terrified that she was going to get overexcited and fall from the sofa, face-first, to the hardwood floor below. Being a parent is terrifying stuff. Hearing that shrill cry after a bump or bruise startles your child is never easy. Still, kids need to fall. They need to get sick. They need to see blood, feel the sting--ouch!!--of Bactine on a skinned knee. That's how they build immunity to little illnesses, how they learn that jumping from a high tree branch into a small, shallow sandbox might not be a smart idea. Just like adults, kids need to fail in order to succeed. It's hard for parents, I know, but our job is to facilitate the transition from failure into success, not prevent the failure in the first place. Such an attitude, such a propensity to coddle our children will have unfortunate but hardly unseen ramifications for years to come, on an individual and even a worldwide level.
SEE ALSO:
Coddling Ourselves into Oblivion, by me.TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2008
Even in Beijing, American Mainstream Media Bias is Evident
Don't get me wrong -- I've been watching every minute of Olympic coverage that I can, and think that in their mission of covering the sporting events and human stories of the 29th Olympiad, NBC is doing a fantastic and comprehensive job.
The twelve-hour time difference between the east coast of the United States and China has worked out wonderfully for live coverage of events which, in past years, have been tape delayed and for that reason a little less dramatic. All in all, I've been an out-of-shape American, glued to my television set and relishing in the tremendous athletic and psychological accomplishments of men and women from across the globe.
One detail, however, stuck out to me like a sore thumb in terms of coverage by NBC and, indeed, a reflection upon how America is viewed by the American media and much of the rest of the world.
On the first full day of the Olympic Games, Todd and Barbara Bachman of Lakeville, Minnesota, in Beijing to cheer on the United States olympic volleyball team--their daughter played on the team in Athens and son-in-law was coaching in China--were attacked while visiting the Drum Tower, an ancient landmark in the Chinese capital. Todd Bachman was killed; his wife left in critical condition in a Beijing hospital.
The murder was treated as an afterthought by NBC, pigeonholed into segments touching on the added adversity faced by the volleyball coaching staff and team. Apologies were made, but so far as I know were not made on camera. Every so often, an update from Bob Costas on Barbara Bachman's condition was interspersed with regular programming. Beyond that, nothing.
If, however, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games were being held in Los Angeles, in New York City, or in Philadelphia (the latter of which made a very public and miserably failed bid for the 2016 games) and a Chinese couple, or Russian couple, or Iranian couple were visiting from overseas in the same manner as the Bachmans and were attacked and killed while visiting Griffith Observatory, or the site of the Battle of Brooklyn, or Pat's Steaks, the media coverage of the murder would be unending, the pressure relentless, the apologies heartfelt and continuous. America's laws would be questioned, the ensuing investigation placed under intense scrutiny. The stories on NBC would not be about how the team in question was going to pull together, but rather on why America's streets are so much more violent than those in Beijing, in Moscow, in Tehran. The murder would immediately be labeled a hate crime, and would be deemed by the world media as nothing short of an international incident.
Hypothetical? Of course. Damned close? You betcha.
The perception of America from overseas can be understandably attributed to our status as the world's greatest superpower and driving force in the global economy, as well as our semi-obligatory role as the world's night watchman. Shortly after the tsunami struck in 2004, we were there. After the recent cyclone in Burma, we tried desperately to provide aid despite efforts by the leadership in Myanmar to block it. And just yesterday, when Russian forces captured the town of Gori and made toward their nation's capital, Georgians everywhere asked anyone who would listen: "Where is America?"
The perception of America from the American mainstream media and the rest of the Blame America First crowd, however, is beyond understanding. Despite being the most generous nation on Earth, America is perceived as the cause of the world's problems. America's military deposes one of the most brutal leaders and violators of human rights in Iraq, and is subsequently blamed for putting the country on the brink of civil war. United States Attorneys are fired, and the measure is perceived not as the termination of at-will employees but rather an act of discrimination based upon political leanings. Meanwhile, in China, where government officials are executed for failing to do their job, where the State provides weapons and financing to brutal Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir, where dissidents and protesters are exiled, jailed or worse, and where the Chinese state-controlled media forces an agenda onto its people, the American mainstream media fawns over every nook and cranny of the oppressive communist culture.
During the staggeringly beautiful opening ceremonies, NBC's Matt Lauer gushed over the symbolism of the individual supported by the masses and bragged about the state as guarantor for the future of the nation's children. The horrible losses of the May 2008 earthquake in the Sichuan provice were mentioned, yet nobody seemed to add that the Chinese government has graciously allowed devastated parents to defy the nation's one-child policy so they can replace those which had been lost.
The Olympic Games are indeed the greatest imaginable showcase of global unity and kindred spirit, and NBC has done a fantastic job in presenting everything. Still, it is also a chance to see the underlying global socialist nature of those in our mainstream media charged with bringing us such beautiful images of courage, of motivation, of sportmanship and pride.
All that being said, I plan to sit back, eat popcorn, and enjoy everything that I can. I hope that all of you do the very same.MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 2008
August 11, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
There should be no question whatsoever as to who pulled the trigger on Russia's operation in Georgia.
Solzhenitsyn, Reagan, and the Death of Detente
(FROM: American Thinker) With the Olympics upon us, I find the consistent dialogue about peace-at-all-costs interesting. The enthusiasm and passion behind such talk, however, I find disheartening, maddening and even a little scary. Peace is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but longing for peace at the expense of freedom and basic human rights is dangerous -- and more than a little hypocritical, considering the much-lauded host of the 29th Olympiad and the conflict which raged in Georgia as the rest of the world fixed their eyes upon Beijing.
Russia Brushes Aside Ceasefire Calls After Georgia Withdraws
(FROM: The Guardian/UK) I'm with President Bush on this one, the Russian response to Georgia's military action in South Ossetia has indeed been disproportionate. What, however, can we do to stop it? At the very least, this provides added perspective on something we already knew -- despite the new Russian president, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is still very much in charge. Such a spit in the face of democracy sheds further light upon the Russians' true intentions with this conflict: (1) regime change in Georgia, a democratic republic known for its affinity for the United States and Western civilization, and (2) a veiled challenge to our own status as the world's superpower. Now, with the Georgian president pleading America to intervene, we find ourselves in a bind. Mediation is one way to help Georgia, an ally with thousands of their own troops on the ground in Iraq, but if Russia presses beyond that, where do we go from there?
SEE ALSO:
Will Russia Get Away With It? by the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol.
When Frozen Wars Heat Up by James Robbins of National Review
Why Barack Obama Will Not Win
(FROM: American Thinker) All in all, the information in this piece is stuff that we've heard before, things that do help me believe that perhaps the author is correct. Still, the article contains a nice, succinct case against the Illinois senator, and is perfect for an e-mail to that friend that feels as though they should vote for Obama but cannot explain why. The piece delves into his inexperience--who writes an autobiography before age 35, anyway?--as well as his extremely liberal agenda and inability to be "post-racial" without invoking race. As for me, I cannot pin down whether I believe he will win in November. I certainly hope not, but I keep going back and forth on the race, and the susceptibility of the American public to the mainstream media's contribution still remains a huge unknown variable.
Al Franken Event: One Person Shows
(FROM: Newsmax) Gee whiz, Al. Nobody liked you during your stint as headliner for Air America, because nobody wants to listen to bitter people all the time. Democrat or republican, people just won't willingly listen to whiners and complainers. It's why every blatantly anti-war and anti-Bush movie coming out of Hollywood crashes and burns at the box office; It's why CNN and MSNBC cannot touch Fox News Channel in television ratings; It's why your little liberal radio station was broadcasting to crickets; and it's why your campaign was doomed from the start. So, keep telling yourself that you're good enough, that you're smart enough and that, dog-gone it, people like you, and the rest of the country will continue to change the channel and look elsewhere for dreadfully unfunny people with trendy eyeglasses.
Mainstream Media Notes Enquirer Scoop
(FROM: The Wall Street Journal) As a former newspaper reporter, I can definitely understand why the original allegations of John Edwards' affair last fall were overlooked; if things were any different, much more of our nation's newspapers would be devoted to toothless rednecks who, despite that empty case of Pabst Blue Ribbon on the front porch, swore on their mama's bunions that they saw aliens kidnap the love child of Bigfoot and Roy Orbison. Still, like Will Smith and Al Gore's college roommate in Men in Black, the more credible-sounding of these stories must at the very least be treated as an anonymous news tip, something to check up on with minimal effort before dismissing altogether. All in all, it was the mainstream media's obvious bias which drove editors across the country to pan the story--would they pan a similar story if it were Mike Huckabee, or Mitt Romney, instead of Edwards?--and, while we all know it, it's still a lot of fun to watch these so-called journalists admit they were scooped.
What America's Daughters Need to Know About Nancy Pelosi
(FROM: TownHall) Last I checked, Madame Speaker only sold about 3,000 copies of her book, "Know Your Power," by all accounts a work about courage, about values, about determination and the will to sacrifice in order to succeed. You know, authors always say that there is value in writing about things you know -- perhaps Pelosi's book bomb is a testament to that idea.
Must-See Videos from Beijing:
After the French team--including Fred Bousquet, who trains at Auburn University, my Alma Mater--flapped their lips and said that they planned to "smash" the Michael Phelps-led American relay, the Americans responded with perhaps the greatest relay in Olympic history. I was sitting at the foot of my bed, careful not to wake my wife, pumping my fists in the air. It was amazing. For those who haven't seen it, please watch:FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2008
Lunchtime Thoughts from America's Birthplace
The United States of America was born approximately 100 yards from the tree-shaded park bench on which I now sit. For months now, I had told myself that, should I have some extra time during a nice day downtown, I would leave my office and walk the block or so to our nation's birthplace, if for no other reason but to walk the same grounds that our founding fathers had walked so many years before, sit where they had been seated, and reflect upon what they had done so long ago.
I wonder what they would think today, these great but imperfect men, of the throngs of people--Americans--who come from hundreds and thousands of miles just to see their houses, offices and places no more extraordinary to them in the late 1770s as my office is to me now more than 230 years later. I wonder what they would think of the man to my right, dressed in shorts and a golf shirt, manically telling stories of their everyday lives, of their hastened reality, of their dreams, setbacks and unfettered resolve to smiling tourists and wide-eyed children.
Of these scenes, of children posing for photos at the feet of a statue depicting little-known American naval hero John Barry, of the elderly woman proudly displaying the American flag--with more stars than fathomable at the time--mounted on the side of her wheelchair, our nation's founders would indeed be proud. America was, and still is, a great experiment, and during the long days of the Revolution as congressmen awaited news from our forces in Boston, Brooklyn and, later, Trenton, I cannot help but imagine that there was much uncertainty about the future of such a fledgling nation facing such innumerable odds.
The men who walked here, talked here, sat here and dreamed of freedom from tyranny and oppression, the men who gave their lives for the cause furthered by those in the room not 100 yards to my left, may very well have been amazed by all of this, but doubtfully surprised.
Our founding fathers came here for a reason, designed America and her government through careful thought and consideration, wanting for the country and her people what England and the King had been determined to stifle, enjoin and eliminate. America, to them, was to be everything their previous country was not, and Americans were to be unequivocally blessed with and granted natural and soon-to-be constitutional rights which could not be enjoyed elsewhere.
Perhaps it is in that regard where many of those who signed the Declaration of Independence and, later, the United States Constitution here at Independence Hall would be so dissapointed. These men and their contemporaries gave their hearts and souls for rights which have today been largely taken for granted, whittled away or in some cases completely forgotten. After 230-plus years, America has no doubt departed drastically from our founders' design; this, I believe, would be a difficult reality to bear.
America, by far, is the single greatest nation on Earth. Always has been, always will be. She is the last, best hope for the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed. But this apple has fallen far from the tree, and our nation's potential is hindered by such a radical departure from the ideas and ideals of those who sat here, worked here and lived here years before.
Our government is too large, too centralized at the expense of progress, the several states, and the people. Our culture is decaying, a result of God and religion no longer perceived as a cornerstone but as a crutch. Our status in the world is weakening, due in part to our beneficence, but largely due to our failure to muster the strength and courage with which this great experiment was undertaken, and our refusal to understand the ideals from which the country was born.THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2008
August 7, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
(FROM: CNSNews) Let's review the timeline:
Now, this repeat-offending drug smuggler has been sentenced to less prison time than the agents who were only doing their job in preventing him and his cargo from entering the United States of America. If it weren't so maddening, if these drugs weren't assisting in the degradation of our culture, if illegal immigrants weren't costing American taxpayers billions of dollars, the whole thing would be hilarious. As it stands, however, I'm not laughing.
Three States to Consider Affirmative Action Ban
(FROM: CNSNews) Good. You cannot preach the merits of affirmative action and advocate racial equality in the same sentence; the two concepts are diametrically opposed. For crying out loud, an African-American man may very well be the 44th president of the United States -- the opportunity is there for whomever wants to reach out, work their ass off, and take it.
Ann Coulter: Only His Hair Dresser Knows for Sure
(FROM: Human Events) In defending their non-coverage of the budding scandal surrounding John Edwards, his probable mistress and possible love child (not to mention the possible tax implications of the alleged $15,000 per month hush money payments), the mainstream media has been quick to point out that unlike sitting Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, whose wide stance/gay bathroom sex scandal went on for weeks in the mainstream press, Edwards is merely a former candidate, and is not a public official. Between you and me, the media needs to close its legs a bit -- it's bias is showing. Think about it. If Mike Huckabee--a former governor, former presidential candidate and no longer a public official--was caught coming from a hotel room at the wee hours of the morning after being seen with a woman rumored to be a mistress, the mainstream press would be all over it, regardless of the evidence, regardless of whether the grainy photos ran opposite alien autopsy pictures in the Weekly World News. Perhaps, because of Edwards' high profile, because of the public's affection for his ailing wife, the coverage of this story in conjunction with the out-of-proportion coverage of Barack Obama's overseas adventure could possibly shake the average, superficial American's faith in the objectivity of the mainstream media. A man can dream, can't he?
Could Obama Still Lose the Nomination?
(FROM: American Thinker) Hillary Clinton is up to something, and you'd better believe she's not merely baking cookies for Barack Obama's nomination party. No, ma'am. She's been sweet-talking superdelegates and sending her husband out to do some dirty work. Obama's inevitability seems to be fading, and staunch Clinton supporters just ... won't ... go ... away. Now, we hear that she has not ruled out putting her name up for the nomination at the convention, and Obama has surprisingly seemed just fine with it. The man, perhaps too confident and self-righteous for his own good, claims that Hillary just wants to "unite the party." Yeah, and Bill was just looking for his lost cigar cutter between his intern's fat, milky thighs.
Two Campaigns Seek 'Truth' about Obama's Birth
(FROM: WorldNetDaily) Could this be why Hillary Clinton is gunning for representation at the convention? Does she know something we don't? Remember -- never count out the Clintons. Also remember that, back in February, John McCain was forced to undergo scrutiny regarding his own birth, to a pair of American citizens but in the Panama Canal Zone; the mainstream press covered that story for a news cycle or two but--imagine this--I haven't heard squat about this story anywhere else. It hasn't been the first time a major presidential candidate was pushed out of the race for failing to meet the constitutional standards put in place by our founding fathers, either. George Romney, a candidate in 1968, was born in Mexico; Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona territory prior to its statehood. It makes me wonder if this is what Hillary Clinton has up her sleeve.America Invaded Again, Still Nobody Cares
If a squad or two of United States Marines traveled across the Iraqi border into Iran and stuck their rifles in the face of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer, it would be perceived by the international community as an act of war.
Why, then, is there no such outcry when a United States Border Patrol agent is held, at gunpoint on American soil, by soldiers in the Mexican Armywho crossed the border illegally?
That's exactly what happened on Sunday night. And it wasn't an isolated incident.
For years, Border Patrol agents have warned the federal government about the invasion, into United States territory, by Mexican soldiers providing protection for smugglers of drugs and people and "trained to escape, evade and counterambush" intervening American forces. On occasions confirmed by the FBI and too numerous to list, heavily-armed Mexican Army units have been spotted on U.S. soil, often resulting in standoffs involving American Border Patrol or law enforcement agents.
In late June, Mexican paramilitary squads in American police uniforms forced their way into a pair of homes IN PHOENIX, approximately 175 miles from the Mexican border, once detaining and pistol-whipping homeowners and another time carrying out an apparent drug execution. During the latter operation, somewhere between 50 and 100 rounds were fired in a central Phoenix neighborhood and, according to police reports, the men were planning to ambush any real police officers who confronted them.
The United States of America is being invaded and attacked daily, and nobody seems to care. Instead of rushing Army soldiers and National Guard members to the border in exponential numbers, instead of clamping our southern border shut like a dry oyster, and instead of providing our law enforcement officials with the tools and discretion they so desperately need, we're sending Border Patrol agents to federal prison for doing their jobs--among other charges, agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were charged with infringing the Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure of a repeat-offending, violent drug smuggler illegally crossing the border into the United States--and forcing their families to nearly lose everything.
Have we all gone insane? The Statue of Liberty reads "Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free." It plainly, clearly does not say anything about "your drunk drivers, your drug-resistant tuberculosis carriers, your violent criminals longing to sell drugs, rape children and murder innocent people."
There are thousands upon thousands of people waiting in line to have their chance at the American dream -- doctors, scientists, physicists, educators, artists, athletes and more. Yet they are forced to sit at the back of the line while millions wade across rivers and struggle across desert in the dark of night to sap every ounce of virility from our healthcare system, from our correctional system and more.
These people are here illegally. This isn't illegality along the lines of tearing the do-not-tear tag away from your pillow-top mattress; these people are breaking federal immigration laws, set-in-stone guidelines which are supposed to have consequences. But nobody cares. All discretion, all benefit of the doubt is given to those who willingly break our laws rather than those who stand post and uphold them.
Mexican soldiers continue to threaten and laugh at American Border Patrol agents. Illegal immigrants continue to assert rights reserved by the United States Constitution for AMERICANS when they are somehow mistreated when caught at the border. Drunk drivers who are in America illegally and have been caught before but never deported, people who aren't even supposed to be in America and on American roads, are killing innocent people. Gang affiliations are rising, and groups like MS-13 continue to spread like wildfire across the United States. And our borders continue to be open to any and all who wish to steal their way into the country.
When are we going to wake up? When another 60 Americans are kidnapped from Laredo, Texas? When a radical Muslim decides to come through the southern border into America and vaporizes most of a major American city with a bomb built from Iranian uranium? When does it stop?
Invading another country is an act of war. Plain and simple. With regard to our southernmost neighbor, it is about time such incursions are treated that way.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2008
Barack Obama's Socialist Roots and Agenda Deserve Another Look
As I mentioned yesterday, this article was first brought to my attention by a friend who shares a number of things with me, including my Alma Mater. It really is an excellent synopsis of where the Illinois senator came from, how his perspective and worldview has been shaped since childhood, the nature of his plans for America, and the way that he softens his Marxist-Leninist standpoint for digestion by those who aren't already so taken aback by his freshness, eloquence and musky odor that the issues no longer matter.
Please read the piece, along with others--should you have the chance--in the Investor's Business Daily series, The Audacity of Socialism. There is so much at stake this November, and the more we learn and share, the better off we all will be.
--Jeff
Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism
from Investor's Business Daily
Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code -- socialist code.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2008
August 5, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
Obama Proposes Tapping Oil Stockpiles
(FROM: Associated Press) On July 7, not even a month ago, Barack Obama voiced his dissent regarding any plan to tap the strategic oil reserve, stating the following: "I do not believe that we should use the strategic oil reserves at this point. I have said and, in fact, supported a congressional resolution that said that we should suspend putting more oil into the strategic oil reserve, but the strategic oil reserve, I think, has to be reserved for a genuine emergency."
He also made a similar statement back in August 2005, stating on his Web site: "[T]he reserve should only be used in the event of an emergency, and that we shouldn't be tapping the reserve to provide a small, short-term decrease in gas prices."
First, I guess that a nine-point shift in poll numbers over the course of one week counts as a "genuine emergency." Secondly, where was this information on the change in perspective in the Associated Press piece? If it were John McCain and not Barack Obama who made such a drastic change, the HEADLINE to the article would point it out. In recent weeks, Obama has been spotted in more different positions than John Edwards in a Motel 6, and the media has largely ignored each shift. 2008 may be known as the year that journalism in America died a slow, agonizing, yellow death.
What is a 'Windfall' Profit?
(FROM: The Wall Street Journal) Besides being an obvious sign of Barack Obama's socialist roots, the specifics as to the "windfall" profit are a bit hazy. Where, pray tell, does the "regular" profit end and the "windfall" profit begin? Even if the "windfall" profit can be defined, after all, what is to stop the slippery slope? As I've written before, it wouldn't stop with oil. Taxing windfall profits on oil companies would leave the door wide open for doing the same with any successful organization or industry. Technology would quickly move from America to India or China. Pharmaceuticals would inevitably be next, and the increased taxation on profits would be a perfect segue into the disaster that is socialized medicine.
Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism
(FROM: Investor's Business Daily) While we're on the subject of Obama's socialist tendencies, a friend of mine brought this article to my attention. It does a great job translating HopeChangeSpeak into what it truly is, the same old Marxist-Leninist garbage that has been brought forth by every American liberal since FDR, if not long beforehand. It also does an excellent and comprehensive job showcasing just how deep the socialist roots run in Barack Obama, his acquaintances, and his family.
Plant Drops Labor Day for Muslim Holiday
(FROM: wsmv.com) The Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee has already built a special prayer room inside the facility for the nearly 700 Muslims who work there. Now, on the holiday schedule, Labor Day has been replaced by Eid al-Fitr, an Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Shoot ... obvious appeasement aside, let's look at the pros and cons here. First, because Ramadan is a whole month of fasting, I am sure that the barbecues for Eid al-Fitr are--goats notwithstanding--nothing short of stellar. Secondly, if one of your relatives at the barbecue acts a fool and embarrasses the family -- stone her! On the other hand, however, other tenets of Islam prevent the drinking of booze, and what's a barbecue without 16-ounce pounders of Pabst Blue Ribbon?
McCain's Ad Strategy Paying Dividends
(FROM: TownHall) A nine-point shift in the polls. Over the course of one week. Granted, I think that with the gas prices what they are, and the democrats so obviously at fault, a chimpanzee might be able to effectively attack Obama, but McCain's camp has done more than just attack him on gas prices. They've tied together the energy issue, something that bridges the superficiality gap between Capitol Hill and Main Street USA, and Obama's celebrity, and used both against him. I've said many times over the past week that the advertisements were brilliant -- it's nice to see that I'm right every once in a while.
Hollywood Takes on the Left
(FROM: The Weekly Standard) Finally, a right-leaning movie that takes on the stupidity which is the American political left. David Zucker, who brought us the campaign advertisement seen below, has put together what sounds like a decent comedy starring a veritable who's who of conservatives in Hollywood -- Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, James Woods, Robert Davi and even Chris Farley's younger brother, Kevin, channeling Michael Moore in his starring role as a slovenly liberal filmmaker. Read the article and still have your doubts? Take a look at the advertisement put together by David Zucker a few years back:MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 2008
Happy Birthday, Mr. Pres-- oh, wait.
who turns 47 years old today!CONGRESSIONAL REVOLT!!!
On Friday afternoon, after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House of Representatives for its summer break without allowing a vote on oil drilling, members of the Republican majority remained on the House floor, speaking, arguing and giving speeches despite the lights having been darkened and microphones silenced. C-SPAN, whose camera feed is on or off at the discretion of Speaker Pelosi, was also off-line at the time.
Even republicans who had left were coming back in a steady stream. Rep. Kevin Brady got off an airplane before takeoff and returned to cheering colleagues as he brought his luggage with him onto the House floor. Mike Rogers and Robert Bishop, of Michigan and Utah respectively, were spotted on the floor, making speeches in shorts and sandals.
At one point, Rep. Devin Nunes from California, off on the majority's side of the chamber, pretended for a moment to be a democrat, shouting out a list of all GOP energy-related bills which had been shot down. Then, he shouted "I am a democrat, and here is my energy plan!" and held up a poster-sized photo of an old Volkswagen Beetle with a sail attached to it and paraded it around the chamber while everyone cheered.
A statement from House Minority Leader John Boehner's office was later released:
All of those who participated deserve phone calls and letters conveying appreciation on the part of all Americans, especially Georgia Rep. Tom Price and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, who both played a large role in putting this together.
Today, the House republicans are back at it. Rep. Pence has said he cannot believe that Congress is taking a five-week-long, paid vacation while Americans like you and me struggle to pump $4 per gallon gasoline. He stressed that the president should call a special session of Congress, bring them back, and force a vote.
On Friday, when Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich) stated that the chamber represents "the People's House" and "not Pelosi's politburo," he was absolutely correct.
Last month, when President Bush first lifted the ban offshore oil drilling and encouraged a congressional vote, oil dropped by more than $9 per barrel -- that day. Imagine what effect actual resolve, actual action would have on world gas prices.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the democrats in power in Congress are there to represent us. They work for us. The majority of Americans do not want to pay so much at the gasoline pump, and many don't like that we are so dependent upon countries who hate us for the oil that drives our cars, heats our homes, and greases the wheels of our economy. What the congressional republicans did on Friday was something for Americans to be proud of -- finally, they stood up for something that Americans care about, that Americans call about, that Americans think about and lose sleep over. It's too bad that barely anybody in America knew about the little congressional revolt.
Sadly, because C-SPAN's cameras had been extinguished by Pelosi, and because the mainstream media doesn't want to paint the democrat-led Congress in a bad light, barely anybody heard of the spontaneous uprising. Flash back, however, to a stunt pulled by Harry Reid in May 2005during which cots--ultimately unused--were brought in to demonstrate the democrats' willpower in debating judicial nominations, and the story led the evening news. Unequivocally, no such coverage followed the republicans' action on Friday, and I'm sure not much more can be expected today.
What is Pelosi afraid of? I'll tell you. She is afraid of pigeonholing Barack Obama into taking a stand and casting a vote one way or another. She is afraid that the American public, given the chance to hear a debate on one of very few political subjects which transcend the superficial gap between the District of Columbia and office watercoolers in Anytown, USA, will finally understand that her action and inaction, that the nonfeasance and malfeasance of the Congress under Democratic party control, led to the dangerous and expensive predicament we are in now.
Simply put, she's afraid of the lights finally going on in Washington, D.C., so she turned them off.
President Bush NEEDS to reconvene Congress, and he must do so as a matter of national security, as a matter of economic importance, and as a political matter as well. Force the mainstream media to cover this, and the debate will subsequently be forced upon the American people.
Prior to November, the American people must know that the democrats have no energy plan to speak of, no ideas about how America can free herself of foreign oil. Wind and solar power won't do it alone. Ethanol is a crock of you-know-what, a net energy loss that drives up food prices across the globe and causes more environmental harm than good. And, with all due respect to Sen. Barack Obama, merely checking our tire pressure and getting a tune-up is NOT an energy plan.
Instead, the solution to our growing energy problem--as almost always--involves government getting out of the way. America is the only developed nation which bars access to its own resources, and the key to energy independence involves the restoration of that access. Congress must allow drilling in the outer continental shelf, in ANWR and beyond, and exploration and extraction of oil shale in the western United States. That, combined with reasonable assistance from alternatives and renewables such as solar and wind, and responsible conservation by the American public, is the only way to render us independent of the Middle East with respect to oil and energy needs. That, my friends, is an energy plan; that, my friends, is a plan which the political left is sorely lacking.
Without an energy plan which (1) is good for America and (2) fits into their socialist, globalist ideology, the democrats are left with nothing, which is why they have actively shot down daily requests for a vote on oil drilling. Instead, over the past few weeks, they have formally denounced and apologized for slavery and investigated the possibility of impeachment hearings for President Bush, a second-term president with less than six months left in the White House.
Proudly putting party before country -- it should be the Democratic party slogan.
In the meantime, tell your friends about what happened today. Link them to this page, or others that tell the same story. Tell them why it's so important. Even if it's just for a good-hearted laugh, tell them about Rep. Nunes and his wind-powered VW bug.
We need to let the sun shine in and illuminate the goings-on in the United States House and Senate -- I'm tired of the wool being pulled down over the eyes of Americans who care enough about America to look. We need to open up the dialogue between ordinary American men and women, so often dominated by sports and celebrity, to debate and events and causes and consequences that affect us all. Lastly, we need to show that many of the officials we select to represent us and maintain the safety, security and prosperity of America would gladly jeopardize all for sustained political power.THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2008
July 31, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
Obama Tied to Iraqi Government Fraud?
(FROM: WorldNetDaily) The key players are Aiham Alsammarae, Tony Rezko and Barack Obama. Alsammarae is a board member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and a longtime friend of Rezko, the corrupt Syrian businessman and Obama friend and supporter, and has contributed to Obama's campaign himself. Despite being a critic of the war--even last month, he cheered on the insurgency in Iraq in a press conference--and a public supporter of Saddam Hussein, Alsammarae served as the United States-appointed electricity minister to Iraq, during which time he misappropriated $650 million from the coalition government, and awarded a $150 million power plant contract to a Rezko-controlled operation. Obama's senate office was involved with the lobbying effort undertaken by a Rezko company to have the federal government sign off on an additional $50 million contract to train Iraqi security personnel in Illinois.
McCain Campaign Chief: Obama 'Played the Race Card'
(FROM: Politico) In Missouri yesterday, Barack Obama preemptively struck at his adversary's possible use of race in the presidential contest, stating "[w]hat they're going to try to do is make you scared of me -- you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." First of all, Obama supporters and Obama himself have been the only ones to be so divisive as to bring up the color of the Illinois senator's skin, and the same goes for this instance, where he was the one to dust off the old standby. Secondly, the last time I checked, only ONE president is on the dollar bill.
Fairness Doctrine Vote Not Happening, House Majority Leader Says
(FROM: CNS News) Indiana republican Mike Pence wrote a bill which would permanently ban the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a liberal manifestation meant to control a free-market approach to information, opinion and news dissemination in the United States, and the democrats in charge said that the bill will not even come to a vote. Why? It's simple, really ... the democrats, should they stay in control of Congress and Barack Obama win the White House, will bring forth a number of bills that were pulled early from the debate, including the cap-and-trade bill (which both McCain and Obama will support) and the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. John McCain is fuzzy at best on the Fairness Doctrine--I don't trust him--as he has previously shown the ability to defecate on the First Amendment without hesitation; Obama, however, has come out against reinstatement of such regulation, but would likely change positions if given the opportunity.
California Attorney General Cracks Down on Nestle Bottling Plant
(FROM: Associated Press) That's right. Jerry Brown, California's attorney general, says he will sue to enjoin Nestle from establishing a water-bottling facility in northern California until ... of course ... the effect that such a facility will have on global warming can be examined. At what point are these companies, willing to invest shareholder money in expanding their businesses, just going to give up on working in America because of the excess regulation and legislation? We're chasing jobs, economic growth and tax revenue out of our country -- and for what? Because of a theory? Because we're so egotistical to think that, after surviving ice ages and asteroids and earthquakes and floods and drought, that the Earth will somehow be destroyed by water bottles? Someone needs to find Lex Luthor and just let him knock the lefternmost edge of America out into the Pacific.
Exxon Mobil 2Q Profit Sets Record
(FROM: Associated Press) Good. This is America. Successful businesses are the posterchildren for capitalism. The only problem I see with this is the potential for boring commercials from democrats, wailing about the need for taxes on windfall profits. Damn hippies and socialists...
McCain Should Pick Romney, and Soon
(FROM: RealClearPolitics) I've thought since McCain clinched the nomination that Mitt Romney would be a fantastic match, for a number of reasons. This piece, however, looks past the conventional reasons--economic bona fides, etc.--and points out Romney's skill at delivering an attack, something that McCain, as likable as he is, doesn't do very well. Plus, I do think that Romney has the ability to generate a little more enthusiasm than, say, governors Tim Pawlenty or Mark Sanford.
The Tools of Free Men
by A.W.R. Hawkins, HumanEvents.com
Oil is the fuel of free nations, guns and speech the tools of free men. Thus the three have freedom in common. Ironically, oil, guns, and free speech have something else in common as well: all three are scorned by the Left. Democrats are opposed to further oil exploration, individual gun rights, and speech that is free from the constraints of political correctness.
We need oil now, and there is no doubt about the amounts of untapped oil off the shores of California, under the surface of the earth in Wyoming and Colorado, and up in that pristine rock quarry called ANWR. But the Democrats are so opposed to further oil exploration that they will not even hear of drilling for these deposits or exploring oil shale extraction with new technologies. As a result Democrats, who claim to represent the “common man,” are pushing the price of a gallon of gas above that of what many a common man can afford.
The Democrats use ecological concerns as a cover for their inflexibility on this issue, yet their refusal to drill is actually contributing to ecological problems. Off many of our coasts, the amount of untapped oil is so great that the deposits themselves create a pressure that forces oil to seep through the ocean floor and into the ocean. As a matter of fact, on the beaches of Santa Barbara, it is not uncommon for beachcombers to step into a “glob of tar” while walking the beach. The only way to decrease both the occurrence and size of the globs of tar is to increase oil production, according to a 1999 press release by the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In truth, however, neither the common man nor the environment matter to the Democrats. Rather, they are driven by what they fear, and what they fear is a people free enough to live independently of a paternal government.
When hunting pheasants out here in West Texas, I have often commented that my gun is an extension of me. And so it is. Whether the gun under discussion is a shotgun, a rifle, or a handgun, it is a tool that provides me certain advantages men without such a tool will never know. Just as a hammer provides a builder with the advantage of being able to drive nails or a wrench provides a mechanic with the advantage of being able to bolt together an engine, so too my gun provides me with the advantage of being able to shoot an animal, kill an intruder in defense of myself or my family, and if need be, to stand and deliver on every citizen’s inherent, God-given duty to defend his nation. What could the Democrats have against these things? You’d be surprised.
The gun is antithetical to the Left’s agenda for the simple reason that the possession of one affords men the ability to defend their freedom. It was this ability to defend freedom that caused the author of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, to exult that “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
But the Democrats do not have the mentality of our Founders. They do not view an armed citizenry as an “advantage” but as a threat to their agenda. They want to be able to encroach upon the people’s freedom a little at a time or even all at once if they think they can get away with it. This is why the Democrat City Council in Washington D.C. is still refusing to remove their citywide gun ban even though the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in the Heller case. They don’t want to let go of the control they’ve leveraged over the people in that city since the ban was implemented in 1976.
Speech is another tool the free man uses to defend his freedom. Through speech he explains the origins of freedom, the price of freedom, and the limitations that should be imposed on government rather than men. Not surprisingly, the Democrats are opponents rather than proponents of such language; tyrants of every stripe always are.
Every politically correct policy that limits speech is a direct assault on the ability of men to use language on behalf of freedom. And each such policy is but the latest in what has been a long chain of usurpations of free speech in our nation’s history.
In 1765 King George III encroached upon the speech of our Founding Fathers with the Stamp Act. This act was issued to limit access to affordable paper in the colonies and thereby decrease the colonist’s ability to spread the idea that liberty was intrinsic to life itself. The king wanted to ensure that pamphlets such as Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” could not be printed and distributed among the populace. But the pamphlet was printed in 1776, and through it Paine lit a fire in the hearts of the colonists. He urged them to give themselves wholly to the American Revolution by assuring them that “common sense” dictated they should throw off the yoke of so great a tyrant as King George.
Today, the Democrat Party is full of a myriad of King Georges who seek the passage of their own stamp acts through legislation such as the Fairness Doctrine, academic “speech codes,” and various internet taxes and regulations. Notice -- they don’t deny the truth of their own tyranny as much as they seek to suppress its disclosure. Democrat goals and policies are antithetical to freedom.
We must get more oil. We must keep our guns. And we must tell our children, our students, and those among whom we live and work that freedom comes from God, not government. As such, it s not the gift of Senators Barrack Obama, Charles Schumer, or Harry Reid, nor is it ours because of the benevolence of Representative Pelosi. Once we get our children, our students, and those among whom we live and work to understand this, we can rest assured in the shared knowledge that freedoms which government cannot give are also freedoms which government cannot take away.
Doing this may not be easy, but “those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it.” (Thomas Paine)WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 2008
Another Decent Advertisement by McCain
I've been thinking about the chance for a potential backlash against Obama, given the feeling of inevitability about the senator's presidential campaign. Heck, by the looks of a headline today,The Washington Post already deemed him victorious. I'm not sure, given the amount of support he has from the mainstream media, that such a backlash will emerge, but McCain's camp does a nice job nonetheless of pointing out a few things.
This advertisement in particular hits on two essential notes -- the democrats' responsibility for high energy prices, and the celebrity-like obsession over an enigmatic presidential candidate who has less experience in relevant work than a typical cashier at McDonald's.
Nicely done. I hope that these continue.TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2008
July 29, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
Ahmadinejad: The Big Powers are Going Down
(FROM: CNN) According to the news article, the Iranian president blamed the United States and other Western powers for AIDS, nuclear proliferation, and pretty much everything else wrong in the world, and stated that the U.S. exploits the United Nations and other organizations for its own gain and at the expense of developing nations. Sound familiar? In a January 2006 sermon, Barack Obama's self-proclaimed "spiritual advisor" and pastor for 26 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, insinuated that the United States was to blame for AIDS and said that "America is still the number one killer in the world ... we are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty." Or maybe I was thinking of just a few days ago when, in an obvious attempt to channel Ronald Reagan while speaking to a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin, Obama himself said that "the walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand." Either way, I constantly find the similarities between those messages disseminated by American liberals and America's enemies shockingly astounding.
House Formally Apologizes for Slavery and Jim Crow
(FROM: Associated Press) Okay. Good. I get it. I'm not trying to be insensitive here, but how about the House apologize for prohibiting access to our own energy resources? Last week, they'relooking into impeachment proceedings for President Bush, now we're picking this as the best time to formally apologize for slavery? I'm glad that they're doing it, but come on, people. Quit dragging your feet -- drill here, drill now.
The Brangelina-fication of the Obamas
(FROM: TownHall) Many moons ago, back in bone-chilling mid-February amidst the ugly head of winter in Philadelphia, I wrote that "inevitable Democratic party nominee" Barack Obama "is truly the perfect political weapon for this time." Even before Super Tuesday, how did I get it so right? It's simple, really -- I looked at the nation, not the candidate, and I saw an apathetic, war-weary, superficial and celebrity-obsessed populace. The American public, I saw, was like a dozen doughnuts on the table outside a Weight Watchers meeting, ready and willing to be plucked in full despite the knowledge that being snatched up doesn't do anybody any good. In the linked article, Michelle Malkin does a nice job bringing together our culture and the media attention commanded by the Illinois senator. The vast majority of disconnected American people would sooner dine with Tom Cruise than Thomas Jefferson, and seem anxious to march on down to the voting booth to elect an inexperienced socialist with questionable associations and a murky background, all because his oratory brings out a reaction unseen since The Beatles first touched down on American soil. Sad, it is, the state of our country.
Appeals Court Upholds Border Agent Convictions
(FROM: CNSNews) It never ceases to amaze me how, in this country, we trample over ourselves to afford rights to those who intentionally break our laws, while simultaneously refusing to provide the benefit of the doubt to those who put their lives on the line for America and her people. I see it almost weekly here in Philadelphia, where soulless, murderous thugs are scrutinized less than the police who seek to rid the streets of them. I see it with our Border Patrol, and I pray for agents Compean and Ramos, as well as all of the others who stand guard knowing that the government of the country they protect would sooner send them down the river than be perceived as mistreating those who break the law.
Kaine on Obama's Short List?
(FROM: The Boston Globe) The Virginia Governor is an interesting pick for Barack Obama. While Kaine has no foreign policy experience to speak of, leaving a gaping hole in a prospective Obama/Kaine ticket, he does have some executive experience at various levels and would be consistent with Obama's message of "change" on Capitol Hill -- definitely more on-message continuity than he would get with Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, Sam Nunn or even Evan Bayh. All in all, an interesting pick. The next few weeks could be good ones.
McCain Backs Off his No-New-Tax Pledge
(FROM: CNSNews) Even though John McCain touts himself as a conservative, even though he has repeatedly pledged to refrain from raising taxes, a payroll tax increase for social security is suddenly "on the table." Seriously? Can the man do anything else to alienate conservatives? Maybe a front-yard, full-term abortion? Maybe a Madonna-like french kiss with a mustachioed illegal Mexican immigrant? Maybe he can urinate on the United States Constitution [again]? The answer to the mounting social security problem is privatization -- heck, the answer to pretty much everything boils down to the free market and minimal government involvement, yet Johnny Turncoat has no problem whatsoever abridging political speech, increasing federal involvement in American businesses and homes in the name of the farce that is global warming. I'm really growing tired of it.SUNDAY, JULY 27, 2008
July 27, 2008 -- Assigned Reading
(Cartoon by the exceptionally talented Michael Ramirez. The mere fact that these fundamentalist Muslim butchers are being considered for Miranda rights drives me up the wall. More on this in a little bit, I promise.)
The Case of Expelled Embed
(FROM: American Thinker) I am not a fan of the embedded journalist, not so much because I believe that journalists shouldn't be with our fighting men and women in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond, but rather because I do not believe any longer in actual journalists. The reporter in question, Josiah Miller, seems to have some obsession with the bloody consequences of war, and was tossed from the theater for posting grisly images of dead Marines on his Web blog. Of course, images of blood and gore cannot be ignored--as it is war, after all--but (1) from a cursory look at his work, he looked dementedly obsessed, and (2) under no circumstances should he be publicizing photographs of dead United States Marines. "Treason" is defined in part as "aiding and/or providing comfort to the enemy," and the deplorable act of publishing such photographs is not only tasteless, but treasonous as well.
Top Ten Things that Creep Me Out about Obama
(FROM: Rightwing Nuthouse) With a name like "Rightwing Nuthouse," the source of this story needs to be vetted a bit before it becomes a reliable, everyday source for Assigned Reading atAmerica's Right. Still, when it comes to this particular piece, I love it. I don't quite know if he "creeps me out," such as I get creeped out by tofurkey or that pederass that falsely admitted to loving and murdering JonBenet Ramsey, but as a living, breathing, working American, he absolutely scares the bejeezus out of me. I am not one to say that life, as we know it, will cease upon Obama's election--I think there's a good chance it could be 1992 all over again, and if the GOP finds a candidate in 2012 stronger than Bob Dole was in 1996, we could have Congress and the White House after four long years--but I will admit that the closest I'd like him to get to the Oval Office is a flat tire next to the Pennsylvania Avenue exit on I-95.
Foreclosures More Than Double in Second Quarter
(FROM: CNS News) Perhaps, if the government would get out of the way and let the consequences for speculation and bad loans happen, this housing and credit crisis could run its course sooner rather than later. We've got to realize that things are cyclical, and the cyclical nature of the economy needs breathing room.
Rebel With a Cause: Bobby Jindal's Spiritual Journey
(FROM: The Wall Street Journal) Meet the man who, in my opinion, may hold the key to the prosperity and perpetuity of the conservative movement in America. Bobby Jindal. Every time I hear him speak, I find myself applauding (sometimes out loud!). I always want to hear more from him, and I find it refreshing that such a young man is so enthusiastic about this nation. While this piece is solely regarding his religious transformation, I encourage each and every one of you to watch the following video about Jindal, the Second Amendment, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and afterward seek out every interview with him that you can. The man is amazing and, while I will be happy if he is not on a ticket with John McCain, I sincerely hope that he will be on one in 2012, should McCain fail this November.
Bush Should Strip Sanctuary Cities of Federal Funds
(FROM: Human Events) Michael Reagan is right. Normally, I'm a staunch federalist, against any sort of federal involvement in state issues. Here, however, this is an issue of city-sanctioned lawlessness, the municipality-induced overt disregard of federal law. There must be consequences for it, and if the federal government was willing to withhold highway funds from any state that refused to deem 21 as the age of majority, it should be able to withhold funds from cities which spit in the face of United States immigration law.McCain's Crew Should be Applauded for Advertisement
In terms of timeliness and political advertisements, John McCain and his crew couldn't have done much better than this.
In order to defeat the democrats this fall, in the presidential election but especially in the congressional contests, the average American needs to connect the dots between the failure of the Democratic party-led Congress to act properly and the amount of money it takes to fill the tank every week.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, I feel as though Americans are at their most superficial. It explains the boom in elective cosmetic surgery. It explains the obsession with celebrity. It explains the success of Barack Obama, a good-looking and great-sounding but radically socialist green senator with questionable associations and roots.
Issues such as tax rates and free trade and healthcare and the strength of the dollar are difficult to make interesting. Even enormously important issues such as border security and nuclear proliferation hold less attention than American Idol or Dancing With the Stars. The average American doesn't even seem to want to pay enough attention to know that the increase of oil prices leads to increased food prices, plastics prices, freight transportation prices and more -- yet everyone can talk about whether they paid $3.97 or $4.12 per gallon on the way into work that day.
The price at the pump transcends the tragedy that is American superficiality. McCain and his handlers, as well as anyone who wants to keep Obama out of the White House, should hammer home the idea that democrat-controlled congressional malfeasance and nonfeasance have caused such hardship.FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2008
From Batman and Bush to Obama the Messiah
Normally, when I see a news article or commentary piece that stands out, I'll throw a link and brief thoughts in that day's "Assigned Reading" selection. Sometimes, however, something catches my attention and I want to make sure it catches yours as well, so I'll include it in its entirety. Two such examples follow.
The first is by Gerard Baker of The Times (UK), and is a wonderful and brilliant satire of the mainstream media's take on Illinois Senator Barack Obama. The second is by perhaps one of a dozen conservatives in Hollywood, a screenwriter named Andrew Klavan (he also has a book out that I'd like to read). He compared Batman with President George W. Bush and, while I believe that Bush has left much to be desired with regard to, say, border security and government spending, his comparison with the president's handling of the Global War on Terror is interesting.
Read, and enjoy.
-- Jeff
He Ventured Forth to Bring Light to the World
by Gerard Baker, The Times (UK)
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
by Andrew Klavan
A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2008
Band-Aid, or Tourniquet?
This morning, I had the chance to speak with a delightful young woman about law school, about the urge to help people, and about her political and possibly judicial aspirations.
She "has a big heart," she told me, and mentioned that she is going to school to be a paralegal and eventually plans on attending law school out of hope that she might provide assistance to those in need. At just 21 years old, and obviously in possession of big ideas, she reminded me a little of myself at her age, and it took a good deal of effort to avoid the condescending "well, when I was your age…" conversational tack.
Truth be told, it was eight years ago that I was 21 years old, working for a small South Carolina newspaper in the months preceding the 2000 presidential election. I was young and very much an idealist and, making less than $20,000 yearly while working long hours for the paper, I was much like a rudderless ship when it came to the best possible outlet for my hopes, dreams and aspirations.
Like many of the students at the university I covered as part of my beat, I found the cult of liberalism a comfortable fit for my worldview. After all, why shouldn’t the great, big federal government provide everything for everyone? Why shouldn’t the President of the United States be directly responsible for the health and welfare of all American citizens? Proper education, healthcare, social services and more were often unattainable for those who didn’t know someone, or didn’t pull a salary far beyond what funded my spaghetti and ramen noodle diet.
I wish it were that easy.
Over the past few years, and a little more every day, I have learned and continue to learn that, for people to reach their greatest potential, government must get out of the way. Overreaching government leads, more often than not, to unintended consequences. A little more than ten years ago, for example, President Bill Clinton worked with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase homeownership in the United States. As a result, many of the traditional bellwethers for obtaining financing were thrown out the window, among them the ability of the new homeowner to pay back the money owed. As a result of this and other measures, we now find ourselves in a housing predicament, with many of the same people at risk of losing their home if they haven’t already.
Welfare programs similarly backfire, causing dependence and perpetual poverty, much in the way that an extra 60 cents given to the haggard, bearded man sitting on the street corner will do nothing to bring him off of the street and under a roof, but rather fund the heroin addiction which put him where he is in the first place. Yes, the system needs to be in place and, yes, we need to be able to open our hearts and wallets to pick up Americans that have stumbled and fallen, but such benefits need to be easy to obtain -- but difficult to maintain.
Taking the risk of sounding clichéd--or more religious than I actually am--it goes back to Jesus and his fishing skills. Much like He said that we must teach people to fish for themselves in perpetuity rather than provide them with a disposable meal, the only way to truly open our hearts is to effect a remedy for each problem at its root. Anything other than that, any effort to provide a Band-Aid when only a tourniquet will do, and we run the risk of disastrous consequences of the unintended kind.
Knee-jerk, superficial reactions to a particular problem can make matters worse:
In response to rising violence in the District of Columbia, an unconstitutional gun ban was instituted. As a result, violent crime increased, as criminals by their very nature refuse to heed new laws.
In response to the perceived threat of global warming and the need for alternative fuels, carbon-soaking Brazilian rainforest is being plowed under for soybean-to-ethanol fields and precious agricultural resources are being squandered here in the United States for the same reason. However, nearly a gallon of conventional, petroleum-based fuel is needed to produce a gallon of ethanol, and between the plowing, planting, harvesting, manufacturing and shipping, the biofuel is a net energy loss. As a result, rainforests are disappearing, and food prices are skyrocketing -- here in America, that may mean a heftier food bill at the local supermarket, but across the world people are subject to rationing, to malnourishment, to the inability to obtain food at all.
You know me. I could go on and on.
It’s easy to look at hardship from a typical liberal perspective. I still do it. In a few years, once done with law school, I plan on practicing plaintiff’s side insurance law, representing homeowners who have been unlawfully denied benefits to which they are entitled. My own direction and determination arose from a problem we had with our own homeowners provider last year, when water damage from a burst pipe caused our ceiling to come down, and benefits were refused. Still, even my own quest to help frustrated homeowners have unfortunate consequences, as large settlements and defense costs incurred by these insurance companies contribute largely to increased premiums for all.
At 21, I didn’t grasp anything beyond the problem. I was working for a newspaper, after all. I met and wrote about men and women who lost their jobs, but was blissfully ignorant and unaware of the improper, runaway government regulations which forced the closure of their manufacturing plant. I was short-sighted, superficial and uninformed. That November, just after my 22nd birthday, I voted for Al Gore.
Even now, as I grow older, I learn more and more about the merits of conservatism, and it becomes more and more apparent that the long-term success or failure of this great experiment known as America depends upon whether the conservative movement and its tenets are embraced on a large scale.
In the long winter of late 1775 and early 1776, as General George Washington lay siege of General Howe’s British troops [and Loyalists] in Boston, he wrote to personal friend and Philadelphia attorney Joseph Reed about the state of his cold, demoralized and distracted army, and the importance of the Glorious Cause at hand.
"The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep," Washington wrote. "Few people know the predicament we are in."
Substitute "country" for "army," and Washington's words could be applicable today. Our economy is crumbling, due in most part to our own action and inaction. Our people are demoralized by any number of factors, distracted by Hollywood, celebrity and cable T.V. We face perhaps the greatest threat we’ve ever known in fundamentalist Islam. The fabric of our culture, dominated by media-spun filth and degradation, is coming apart at the seams.
As a result, we fall back into the corpulent lap of idealism. We allow ourselves to be seduced by a bright, enigmatic, young statesman who preaches about much-needed hope. And we embrace it, unintended consequences be damned. We allow ourselves to overlook the adverse consequences of blind diplomacy with those who dream of our destruction. We allow ourselves to be sucked into the inaccurate and dangerously idyllic notion that the government can and will provide for all -- education, healthcare, social services, and everything else.
We need to separate emotion from action. Gain perspective beyond what our hearts tell us.
Our hearts may tell us to increase unemployment benefits for those who are out of work or cannot find a job, but a little perspective may show that the best way to fight unemployment is to get government out of the way, instead fostering job growth by reducing regulations on businesses and the tax burden on those who establish and maintain them.
Our hearts may tell us to enact new legislation, initiatives, programs and mandates with regard to augmenting education and bettering our nation’s schools, but a little perspective may draw upon Ronald Reagan’s “thousand sparks of genius” philosophy and realize that the best way to provide the greatest possible education to America’s children is to get government out of the way, to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and allow the several states to manage schooling and education as best fits individual needs, and learn from others’ successes and failures.
Emotion often provides the easy way out, a quick fix or simple, temporary solution. Lasting change and perpetual hope, however, demands that the paint be stripped from the bureaucracy before the holes are patched up. Doing the right thing can be difficult, but so long as America is filled with people who wake up each day wondering how they can make things better for someone else, I think we'll be just fine.SUNDAY, JULY 20, 2008
Gaseous Emissions Gone Wild
I've warned before that the global warming phenomenon is less about the environment and more about advancing a Marxist-Leninist ideology. And people are buying into it. Now, even legendary oil man T. Boone Pickens says that, should Barack Obama win the presidency, he'd support Al Gore as energy czar for the new administration.
Personally, I think that "czar" is an interesting choice of words.
The DNC has been staffing "official carbon consultants" for its upcoming convention in Denver, and I think it provides us of a glimpse of things to come. Business owners, be prepared for someone from the federal government to show up at your shop, store, restaurant or warehouse for an assessment of how much carbon you're allowed to emit on a monthly or yearly basis. Homeowners, be prepared to bring in your weed-whackers for yearly inspections. If you exceed your allotment, calculated and furnished by the same government which gave us programs such as Medicare and Social Security, be prepared to fork over extra cash to buy credit from a neighbor who or neighboring business which doesn't expect to meet their quota.
What effect do you think this extra regulation, the implementation of fees for financial success, will have upon businesses large and small, and the American economy as a whole? If you wanted to start, say, a large-scale printing business--boosting the economy and providing a whole bunch of new jobs in the process--would you rather start it here in the States, or overseas in China or India where there is no such legislation, where businesses are not subject to rules, regulations and obligations placed upon them by an overreaching federal government that aspires to convert America into a socialist state?
Businesses, and therefore jobs, will run far away -- and for what? To supposedly save the world from something that may or may not be a problem?
Friday, 22 August 2008
(Cartoon by the great Michael Ramirez. The "sweater" reference, of course, is reminiscent of Former President Jimmy "Dhimmi" Carter, who insisted that cardigans were the answer to the energy crisis later tempered by Ronald Reagan and his call for America to "reawaken this industrial giant.")
Drug Smuggler Gets Less Prison Time than Border Agents
This article was actually linked to in yesterday's assigned reading, but after reading it a second time and sharing it--in physical, printed, tree-killing form--with a few acquaintances, I wanted to run it in its entirety here so those of you too lazy to follow the link (I'm guilty of that from time to time) get a chance to read, print and share.
Happy birthday to Sen. Barack Obama,
(Funny, it seems a little warm outside to be Christmas.)
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