No Honor Among Liberal Thieves

"They're in the bank, they've got their guns out. They can run outside with no money, or they can stick it out, go through the gunfight, and get away with the money."
-- A Democratic operative describing why liberal lawmakers continue pushing the unpopular, pork-laden, bribe tainted health care bill

Gangs of DC

Sitting down with a lawyer buddy of mine over Sunday morning biscuits and gravy, he remarked that the most important thing to remember if you're going to pull off a robbery is to wear a mask.  It's surprising how many criminals are too stupid or too brazen to follow that simple rule.

The next most important thing is to remember that your fellow thieves will give you up in a heartbeat to save their own skin.

Dems are turning on one another

It is with a smug and giddy glee that conservatives watch the dems run like scaled dogs from the electorate, and those left behind are turning on one another like the criminals they are.

Uber Liberal Robert Kuttner is mad as hell that the whole health care issue, like a failed bank robbery, has gone south for the Dems.  He goes after Rahm Emanuel with knives drawn in his HuffPo Piece.

So, how did Democrats get saddled with this bill? Begin with Rahm Emanuel. The White House chief of staff, who was once Bill Clinton's political director, drew three lessons from the defeat of Clinton-care. All three were wrong.

As a resident of Massachusetts, in the last two days I've gotten robo calls from Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Martha Coakley, and Angela Menino, the wife of Boston's mayor -- everyone but the sainted Ted Kennedy.

In Obama's call, he advised me that he needed Martha Coakley in the Senate, "because I'm fighting to curb the abuses of a health insurance industry that routinely denies care."

Let's see, would that be the same insurance industry that Rahm was cutting inside deals with all spring and summer? The same insurance industry that spent tens of millions on TV spots backing Obama's bill as sensible reform?

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Sit back and pop open a beer, 2010 looks to be an entertaining year...

Mountain West was Democratic Pipe Dream

A Colorado Collapse
The Mountain West has never been a liberal place.  Progressive refugees fleeing the messes they've made in California and other collapsing liberal bastions were all that even gave the modern day Democratic party a chance out here.  Unable to learn a lesson, these escapees demand their new home provide the same big government, liberal nannyism that destroyed the place they came from. 

Gripped by Obamamania, normally common-sense Coloradans joined forces with the liberal rabble and swept Obama into office, voting in liberal senator Mark Udall to boot.

The Democratic party can continue to rely on clueless college students and their naive professors whose real-life ignorance guides their politics.  But outside the huddled masses of effete Denver metrosexuals, Boulder neo-hippies, and Fort Collins ivory tower pseudo intellectuals, the rest of the state is pretty middle of the road. 

"Leave us Alone" Libertarianism is a common thread running through everyday Dems and Repubs alike out here

That accounts for Democrat Ken Salazar winning his senate race a few years back.  He's not a wild-eyed liberal.  As soon as I saw his campaign commercial and that of republican Pete Coors, I knew Salazar, a rancher in a cowboy hat, would win.  Pete Coors' image, perhaps unfairly, is that of a detached multi-millionaire firmly ensconsed in the foothills of Golden overlooking Denver who deigned to descend from his beer empire citadel.  It was no contest.

Today, Mr. Salazar announced he will not run for Governor.  He had Obama's blessing, and it would have been a great opportunity to return home and continue public service without the DC hassles.  The only logical reason for him not seizing the opportunity is because he couldn't win.  That's a really bad sign for Democrats in this state.

The hopium smoke has dissipated, the euphoria is gone.  Look for a Democrat retreat in the Mountain West.  We just don't need all that coddling...

Broken Promises, Broken Government, & BOHICA

More concerned with getting reelected than principle, the proper functioning of democracy, or the good of the country, democratic lawmakers set aside procedure in an attempt to foist their bitter health care pill down the throats of the unwilling.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34692080/ns/health-health_care

Officials announced today that in order to effectively hide from individual accountability at the polls, they will bypass formal conference committees and cut a three-horse back door deal between House, Senate, and White House Democrats. 

This is in order to avoid any possible time consuming votes (the bane of any democracy....voting), and avoid having to go on the record and risk back lash at the polls on possibly politically troubling votes they might later be held accountable for by (the other bane of any democracy) their constituents. Welcome to the new transparency of the Obama administration... and third world parliamentary tactics worthy of Hugo Chavez. So much for Oberfuhrer Pelosi's "I look forward to working with members of the House, the Senate and President Obama to reconcile our bills and send the final legislation to the president's desk as soon as possible,".

So much for President Obama's campaign pledge to "broadcast health care negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are". So much for President Obama's July 20th statement that "There will be a conference committee where the House and Senate bills will be reconciled, and that will be a tough,lengthy, and serious negotiation process."

Even the Democratic Progressive Caucus Chairman Rep. Paul Grijalva has said that " it would be a serious mistake if Senate Democrats attempt to steamroll their health care bill over (sic) through the house without the mid-step of a conference committe"

Amid legislative bribery and procedural gerrymandering lies the US Democratic Party...running on transparency, openness, and accountability in government since 2006.

Meanwhile, constitutional challenges are already gathering steam based upon the individual mandate.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34667462/ns/politics-washington_post/

Randy Barnett, professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center argued that in order to uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate they would have to find that the Constitution's commerce clause has "no limits". He wrote that "If Congress can mandate this, they can mandate anything... Congress could require every American to buy a new Chevy Impala every year or pay a 'tax' equivalent to its blue book value, because such purchases would stimulate commerce and repay government loans." By individual mandate Congress moves from regulating a class of economic activity to regulating "inactivity".

Unfortunately Professor Barnett, this has occurred in "the history of this country"... I believe the last time the subject was "British Tea" and we all know how that turned out. Read the legal argument here: http://www.heritage.org/research/legalissues/lm0049.cfm

2 November 2010: Act Now

~Finntann~

Cap and Trade: A Hopium Smoker's Pipe Dream

Democrats want to take us back to 1875
George Will, commenting on President Obama's flailing attempts to regain his mojo, incidentally mentions why Waxman-Markey (Cap and Trade) is an economically unfeasible pipe dream. 

I broke it up into smaller bites to make it easier to follow.  Follow it through to the end and you will see how this crazy scheme requires the nation to reduce its per capita carbon dioxide level to what it was back in 1875.  We cannot do this and survive economically.  

That legislation is a particularly lurid illustration of why no serious person nowadays takes seriously Washington's increasingly infantile bandying of numbers.

The point of cap-and-trade is to impose a ceiling on the nation's greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions—primarily carbon dioxide. The legislation endorses the goal of holding the global carbon--dioxide level to a maximum of 450 parts per million by 2050. That. Will. Not. Happen.

Steven Hayward and Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute do the math.

Waxman--Markey endorses the goal of reducing all of this nation's GHG emissions 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

In 2005, the United States' carbon-dioxide emissions were 6 billion tons, so an 83 percent -reduction would permit about 1 billion tons—what America's emissions were in 1910, when the population was 92 million and the economy was one twenty-fifth of today's.

But by 2050, the population probably will be about 420 million, so per capita carbon-dioxide emissions would have to be 2.4 tons—one quarter of 1910's per capita emissions.

Today France, which generates approximately 80 percent of its electricity by nuclear power, and Switzerland, which generates most of its electricity by nuclear or hydropower, have per capita emissions of 6.59 and 6.13 tons, respectively.

To see the original AEI article Will cites, go here.  Is is long but full of hard facts and detailed explanations. 

The Democrats want to cut our per capita emissions to one-third of nuclear-powered France, and not one stooge in the press has asked them how we get there from here without destroying our economy.
  
Further Reading:
Pethokoukis
WaPo - CBO Estimate

Democrats Advance Soviet Style Agenda

Congratulations to Harry and the Pelosicrats for advancing Dear Leader's Long March!  

That $300 million bribe to Senator Landrieu was classic!  Chicago Democratic machine politics comes to Washington...  Lord only knows what dirty deals will never see the light of day...

Here we are in the age of hyper-freedom.  Top 40 DJs who told us what to listen to are a thing of the past.  Fan clubs?  What's that?  You can start your own site dedicated to whatever or whoever you want on the internet.

Those Nostalgic Democrats!
We're in the age of iPods, indy music, facebook, ultimate internet freedoms, customizable mortgages and car loans...  And the Dems rock it old school by unabashedly advancing a we-say-so, one-size-fits-all monument to Soviet-style central planning.

Kids too young to remember the 70's will now get to relive them!

Democrats Living in the Past

Healthcare Worthy of A Communist Politburo

Daniel Henninger observes that the Democratic party, although led by a hip young rock star, is looking oh so last century:

In a world defined by nearly 100,000 iPhone apps, a world of seemingly limitless, self-defined choice, the Democrats are pushing the biggest, fattest, one-size-fits all legislation since 1965.

And they brag this will complete the dream Franklin D. Roosevelt had in 1939.

The culture still believes the U.S. has a hipster for president. But the Obama health-care bill, and maybe this whole administration, is starting to look totally out of sync with the new zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.

Precisely.  In this age of hyper-choice, where we are free to redefine ourselves daily and videos go viral on the internet, the Democratic Politburo is imposing the largest, most expensive, all-encompassing, smother-everything program since the glory days of the Soviet Union.

RCP - Henninger

Liberals Blowing Smoke and Breaking Windows

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, used a Wall Street Journal article to extol the virtues of carbon trading to her Wall Street constituents: 

According to financial experts, carbon permits could quickly become the
world's largest commodities market, growing to as much as $3 trillion
by 2020 from just over $100 billion today. With thousands of firms and
energy producers buying and selling permits to emit carbon, transaction
fees for exchanges and clearing alone could top nearly half a billion
dollars.

That $3 Trillion Will Come Out Of Our Pockets

What's good for Wall Street is bad for Main Street.  It takes carbon to heat our homes and bring consumer goods to the store. We will end up footing the bill for these transaction fees as businesses pass these Wall Street costs onto us in the form of higher light bills and rising retail prices. 



Liberals are Economically Ignorant

Gillibrand and her economically-ignorant fellow Democrats have fallen for the broken window fallacy.  Cap and Trade creates no new wealth.  Rather, it destroys wealtht through regulatory compliance costs and transaction fees.



About - Economics

WSJ - Gillibrand

Camille Paglia Skewers Elite, Gullible Democrats

How has "liberty" become the inspirational code word of conservatives rather than liberals?

Camille Paglia is the only reason I visit Salon. She's a liberal feminist lesbian college professor who is also a brilliant thinker and writer. She enjoys skewering the unthinking, illiberal, doctrinaire left, and she defends Sarah Palin from the unfair attacks while still disagreeing with every stitch of her politics. She is a rarity: A true, intellectually honest liberal academic.

She can't stand elitism, least of all in her own ideological cohort:

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills).

She asks the question I often ask. How did these supposedly smart, iconoclastic liberals become so gullible?

Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem.

They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them.

What does she blame for this? Our Education System

Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught.

Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible.

The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote "critical thinking," which sounds good but is in fact just a style of rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms ("racism, sexism, homophobia") when confronted with any social issue. The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it's positively pickled.

It is refreshing to hear someone from the hallowed halls of academe say this. We no longer teach students how to think so much as what to think.

The election of an ordinary, inexperienced, neighborhood agitator to the highest office in the land needs no further explanation.

Salon - Paglia

Government Health Care for All, and Other Fairy Tales

Government-run health care is a hopium smoker's pipe dream

Do Obama and the Pelosicrats think we're fools? Ordinary Americans know there's no such thing as a free lunch. Here's a quote from the Wicked Witch of the West Coast's spokesmouth:

 The Pelosi camp, for its part, sees no reason to be discouraged.“The Congress will pass and the president will sign this year health insurance reform that will lower costs, retain choice, improve quality and expand coverage,” said Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami. (The Hill)

... And this just in! 
The Tooth Fairy has announced she's now paying $1000 per tooth and Santa's elves are working overtime to meet Jolly Old St. Nick's pledge to double the amount of goodies under out trees this year!

Meanwhile, back in the real world, congressmen are listening to a burgeoning cohort of constituents who don't believe this crap anymore.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A leader of a pivotal group of moderate House Democrats says he can no longer support a new public insurance plan in a health overhaul bill. [...]

But Ross said that after hearing from constituents over the recess he could not support a bill with a public plan. (AP-Breitbart)

The following Democratic lawmakers have indicated opposition to the healthcare plan moving through the House. (The Hill)

John Adler (N.J.)
Jason Altmire (Pa.)
John Barrow (Ga.)
Dan Boren (Okla.)
Rick Boucher (Va.)
Allen Boyd (Fla.)
Bobby Bright (Ala.)
Travis Childers (Miss.)
Jim Costa (Calif.)
Henry Cuellar (Texas)
Parker Griffith (Ala.)
Frank Kratovil (Md.)
Betsy Markey (Colo.)
Eric Massa (N.Y.)
Jim Matheson (Utah)
Charlie Melancon (La.)
Walt Minnick (Idaho)
Tom Perriello (Va.)
Earl Pomeroy (N.D.)
Heath Shuler (N.C.)
Bart Stupak (Mich.)
John Tanner (Tenn.)
Gene Taylor (Miss.)

When you run as a "Conservative Democrat," your constituents expect you to vote like one.

Drill There! Drill Now!

Far be it from me to accuse an international currency manipulator of dirty deeds, and I certainly wouldn't want to accuse a Chicago politician of political kickbacks, but where there's smoke...

US to Finance Oil Exploration off the Coast of Brazil
Our President is going to lend $10 Billion to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the Tupi oil field, as covered in this short Wall Street Journal article. This gigantic oil field find is great news, and I'm glad we're in on it, but the WSJ rightly asks, why aren't we doing the same here at home?

Soros to Finance Oil Exploration off the Coast of Brazil
Bloomberg reports that George Soros just invested $811 in the same Petrobras on 30 June 2009. He stands to benefit greatly once this massive resource is tapped. He'll get his billions quicker thanks to the Obama administration decision to help fund this project.

He Ain't Scary, He's My Brother
Can you imagine what a hated figure George Soros would be if he were a conservative? A shadowy international currency manipulator, uber rich, powerful, and so involved in American politics. He would be reviled daily by the left. But he hates capitalism (while profiting richly from it) and uses his proceeds to fund socialist propaganda here and abroad, so he's OK!

From a Recent News article lionizing this America-hating globalist for handing out free money:

Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg joined Soros to announce the payments at Public School 208 in Harlem, where the billionaire reminisced that as a penniless student in London, he survived because of a handout he got from Quakers.

"This gift has a special personal meaning to me, because I was once also a recipient of charity," Soros said in a choking voice. "I'm very pleased that I'm able to repay what they gave me."

This international exploiter was so grateful that he repayed England by trying to crash their currency.

This would be a scandal if...
Remove President Obama, George Soros and Brazil. Replace them with President Bush, Rupert Murdoch, Saudi Arabia. Throw in hysterical mention of Halliburton and Blackwater, and we'd have a red-banner, five-alarm, around-the-clock screaming scandal on our hands. This must be more of that Change they're talking about...

HT to OD





NY Daily News

Goldman Sachs: Really Good or Really Corrupt?

Goldman Sachs announced record quarterly profits while their competitors struggle. Are They Really That Good?

Long the Wall Street firm everyone loves to hate, Goldman saw the brickbats rain down last week after it posted blowout second-quarter results and set aside a record amount for compensation. Even the arch-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page joined the attacks.

I smell crony crapitolism*
Sure, they paid the money back, but how much did they benefit from government picking winners (Goldman, AIG) and Losers (Bear, Lehman Brothers), propping up the entire system, keeping it from collapsing upon their gold-plated ears? We will probably never know just how much they benefited from cosying up to Uncle Sam and having double agents inside our government.

I hear echos of Bernie Madoff

For starters, most folks aren’t quite sure how Goldman manages to make prodigious amounts of money. That leads to a feeling the firm must either be taking huge risks, or unduly benefiting from its extensive government connections.

Goldman hasn’t done a good job dispelling such notions and it sometimes makes matters worse. The firm has failed to adequately explain its trading relationship with American International Group Inc. and give a clear sense of whether and how it benefited from the massive bailout of the insurance giant.

Remember what everyone was saying after the Madoff house of cards collapsed? It was too good to be true, they should have known something was wrong... Goldman is way outperforming the market. Something is fishy.

Good thing they've bought Obama and the Democrats with lavish campaign contributions. Results like this would ordinarily bring government regulators knocking at their door.

* Yes, I know how to spell. Phony capitalism + The DC Capitol = Crapitolism

Bloomberg

Democrats are the Tools of Billionaire Businessmen

Cap and Trade will put millions in the pockets of big business. How about you?

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--T. Boone Pickens offered the following statement on passage of Waxman/Markey climate legislation entitled, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009:

“I congratulate Chairmen Waxman and Markey and the House leadership for taking important first steps in advancing the use of renewable energy in our nation’s power grid. The American public wants this, and they recognize the important role a Green Bank, Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and transmission provisions will have in revitalizing our economy..."

Silverfiddle's Statement on the Passage of Tax and Slave:
You morons. A billionaire just patted you on the head for doing his bidding with my money and you are too stupid to realize it. Do you really think you can turn down the earth's temperature like a house thermostat? How will you know when you've got the temperature just right? When we're all living in caves and wearing loincloths because construction and manufacturing have been driven from the country?

How do you reduce dependence on foreign oil?

Use domestic oil! And gas! And coal! If your damned windmills were economically viable, T. Boone, you wouldn't have to be mooching my tax dollars to keep your Rube Goldberg scheme going.

"The People's House": Bought and Paid for by Big Business

The Democratic party, along with some ignoramuses in the GOP, just slit the throat of the American worker. Businesses deemed "dirty" or "ungreen" will simply move to where they don't have to put up with this statist BS. The Democratic party, and some of its associate members in the GOP, have just taken a giant crap on the little guy, the forgotten man, who can barely put gas in the tank and pay the light bill right now.

Can we now drop, once and for all, this liberal fantasy that the GOP is for big business and the Democrats are for the little guy? This legislation is worth millions to T. Boone Pickens. How much is it worth to you?

Conservatives are Happier

Republicans are Happier Than Democrats

Men are happier than women, older people are happier than the middle-aged, and Republicans are happier than Democrats. This according to the latest PEW survey as reported by Robert Roy Britt in Live Science.

How can this be, with the GOP in disarray?

I think it is because conservatives are better able to separate real life from politics and pop culture. We don't derive our identity from movements and causes. Conservatives also tend to be realists, understanding that mankind is irreparably flawed. World peace will never happen and ending poverty is a pipe dream. We are Hobbeseans; we know that life outside the shadow of a benign leviathan is nasty, brutish and short. It's the natural order of things. Working to carve out a clean, secure corner for ourselves and our kinfolk is rewarding. It makes us happy and gives our lives a purpose.

Liberals on the other hand, fall prey to fantastic worries like global warming, Christian theocracy, and gender equity. They see the world as it is and they don't like it: There's a hobgoblin around every corner. Every silver lining brings a raincloud. The sky is always falling.

Liberals are not content with rolling up their sleeves and cleaning up their little corner of the world. They demand gargantuan national and international movements that gobble trillions of dollars in the chimeric pursuit of eradicating every perceived evil.

Progressive agitators and their know-it-all politicos have been preaching deliverance through the state for generations. The hopeless, the helpless and the gullible are still waiting.
No wonder liberals are unhappy.

Live Science - Britt
Yahoo - Live Science - Britt

Obama is All They Got

What explains the continued Democratic dominance?

Their headliners are grotesque freaks: (Pelosi, Frank, Kucinich), angry jackasses (James Webb, Al Franzen), criminals (Rangel, Balgojevich, Jefferson) or grumpy anonymi (Harry Reid, Carl Levin)

The states and cities they control are putrid sinkholes of corruption and economic collapse: California, Detroit, New York , DC

So what explains the Democrats' success?

President Barack Obama. He's all they got. If the bloom falls off that handsome, teleprompter-articulate rose, they're done, which explains why the press is straining so hard for him against the forces of reality.

Jay Cost at RCP, commenting about the Democratic-Republican self-identification polls (GOP fortunes are improving), explains that the disinterested non-voter skews the numbers towards the Dems:

So, the little information non-voters acquire about politics has thus been quite partial to the Democratic party in recent months. Combine this with their their lack of strong feelings about many political subjects - then toss in the GOP's inability to control the agenda in Washington - and this could take us a long way to explaining the drop-off for the GOP among non-voters in some previous surveys.

Meanwhile, as the new car smell of Obama's presidency has faded, perhaps those otherwise inclined to the GOP have returned to calling themselves Republican (although I'd note that the recent Fox poll, of registered voters, shows no change from the previous one).

The Dems control the agenda, which bad for America, but will eventually be good politically for the GOP. There is still a wellspring of goodwill for the new president, but it won't last forever.

Bush's spending spree is pocket change compared to the money Obama and the Pelosicrats have blown. At least President Bush spent our money on worthy pursuits like rounding up bad guys. The Dems are chasing windmills. And when voters realize they are in joint ownership of the auto industry with the UAW, while bailing out gilt-edged union pension funds to the tune of hundreds of billions, they may begin to view our president and his political syndicate in a whole new light.

The Democrats will go too far; they always do. When the President's poll numbers fall to mere mortal levels, they're done. Because Barack Obama is all they got.

RCP -Jay Cost

I'm a Democrat...

Courtesy of my ol' Air Force buddy OD. We fought the war on drugs with radios and rum. South America may never be the same...

I'm a Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

I'm a Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.

I'm a Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

I'm a Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

I'm a Democrat because I trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing now that we've elected Obama President and there's no more GWOT.

I'm a Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don't start driving a Prius.

I'm a Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies, so long as we keep all death row inmates and al Qaeda terrorists alive.

I'm a Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as our wise lawmakers and bureaucrats see fit.

I'm a Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to reinterpret the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own."

Let the eye of vigilence never be closed...

The Democratic party often claims to be "the party of Jefferson", tracing it's roots back to the 1824 split of the Democratic-Republican party... my you've come a long way baby!

Give some consideration to the following, penned by your self-claimed founding father:

"Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste."

"The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations."

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

"With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole."

"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

"Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction; to wit: by consolidation first and then corruption, its necessary consequence. The engine of consolidation will be the Federal judiciary; the two other branches the corrupting and corrupted instruments."

"There is no danger I apprehend so much as the consolidation of our government by the noiseless and therefore unalarming instrumentality of the Supreme Court."

"A most powerful objection always arises to propositions of [public works]. It is that public undertakings are carelessly managed and much money spent to little purpose."

"The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses enabled us to discontinue internal taxes. These covering our land with officers and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property."

"The government which steps out of the ranks of the ordinary articles of consumption to select and lay under disproportionate burdens a particular one because it is a comfort, pleasing to the taste or necessary to the health and will therefore be bought, is in that particular a tyranny."

"To reform the prodigalities of our predecessors is understood to be peculiarly our duty, and to bring the government to a simple and economical course."

"I... place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared."

"The conclusion then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time."

"The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves."

WAKE UP!

Cheers!

~Finntann~

Everybody Needs Somebody to Hate: A Rush of Emotions

Liberal Democrats define themselves by who they hate

Working class family with a 5-gallon tank flush toilet and a carbon emiting barbeque grill: Bad

Millionaire enviro hypocrites with a carbon footprint the size of a small African country, wrapping the globe in private jet contrails: Good

Bankers who squander trillions of private investor money: Bad

Politicians and government bureaucrats who squander trillions of taxpayer money: Good.

Presidents Bush and Reagan: Bad

Presidents Carter and Obama: Good

You get the picture. Every Us needs a Them. Every great movement needs a nemesis, someone to hate.

In Orwell’s 1984, the people of Oceania hate Emmanuel Goldstein, traitor to the party. In real life, Stalinists poured out their hatred on Leon Trotsky, forcing him into a Mexican exile

The Democrats have found their own Emmanuel Goldstein, their own object of hatred: Rush Limbaugh.

James Carville, everybody at MSNBC, and now even White House operatives are stirring up their own version of the Two Minutes Hate. They direct their vituperation at the too-wealthy, overly-articulate Rush Limbaugh, a man of outsize girth and powerful rhetoric who dares criticize The Great Leader. Of course, they don't really believe their own BS, but it's good for stirring up the proletariate and distracting them from The Party's shortcomings.

The Democrats remind me of the sweaty, screaming hordes of pious Muslims at Mecca, inflamed by fervid religious passion, stoning Satan, often trampling fellow believer in the emotionally-pitched frenzy.

Who's the leader of the Republican party? Who cares? It's leaderless and adrift, like Europe or the UN. This means nothing to conservatives. Conservatives don’t need a leader. We’re conservative and we do conservative things because that’s the way we are, not because someone tells us to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19596.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2009/03/whos_the_leader_of_the_gop.html

The Trillion Dollar Man

Lee Majors was the $6 Million Dollar Man . A-Rod was on his way to being the first Billion Dollar man before he turned into A-Fraud. Michael Phelps may yet get the title, drunk driving and bong hits notwithstanding.

With economic doom hanging over the free world, President Obama has bravely grabbed the mantle of Trillion Dollar Man.

The Bush era pirates blew a hole in the side of the Treasury and wasted hundreds of billions with their Friends and Family Plan. No wait, that's cell phones. The Bush Administration invented the TARP, an acronym for the Taxpayer A-- Rape Plan. Next came the competing warlord gangs, the Harry Senators on one side and the Pelosicrats on the other, to fight over who gets to loot the leftovers.

Into this aftermath steps President Obama, Transcendent Hero and our first Trillion Dollar Man. He shrewdly hammered out a Solomonic House-Senate compromise that split the difference by giving both sides everything they wanted, to the tune of a trillion dollars.

And now, (No, I didn't clip this from The Onion) he's shifting his concern to the budget deficit...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457407865686565.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/opinion/14ryan.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Sign the Democrats' Rush Limbaugh Petition!

The Democrats, having nothing better to do, have started an on-line petition against Rush Limbaugh because he said he wanted President Obama to fail. In the Democrats' funhouse world, it's OK to wish for defeat in Iraq and trash President Bush at every turn, but speaking ill of their chosen one is beyond the pale. I went and signed it. Here's what I wrote:

It's called the first Amendment. Just like when I was wiring up radios in Iraq and Sen Reid declared all my efforts were in vain. Stupid? Yes. Irresponsible? Yes. Illegal? No

You politicians have real constitutional and budget problems. Instead of facing them, you waste time on trivialities like this...

You are irresponsible and should be ashamed.

Please go sign the petition! Sign early, sign often, and be sure to leave them a scalding message. Like everything the liberals do, this is a farce. So in the spirit of bipartisanship, join in and do your part to make it even more farcical!

Dem Press Targets Hillbilly Health

Remember how America had no homeless people until uncaring conservatives elected that evil Ronald Reagan? Then, when The Man From Hope was elected, homelessness magically disappeared. These are the silly gyrations the press goes through during White House transitions.

Well, the agenda this time is health care and the focus is on (Republican) rural West Virginia and its benighted country folk:

Huntington's economy has withered, its poverty rate is worse than the national average, and vagrants haunt a downtown riverfront park. But this city's financial woes are not nearly as bad as its health.

Nearly half the adults in Huntington's five-county metropolitan area are obese — an astounding percentage, far bigger than the national average in a country with a well-known weight problem.

Huntington leads in a half-dozen other illness measures, too, including heart disease and diabetes. It's even tops in the percentage of elderly people who have lost all their teeth (half of them have).

Now that the Democrats have the inner-city poor permanently corralled, their next step is to socialize those ignorant, slack-jawed yokels who cling to guns and religion. And all this unhealthiness calls for more nanny state restrictions on fatty foods, smoking, drinking, number of pizza parlors per square mile, etc...

Expect more focus on poor, rural America and it's unenlightened ways...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081116/ap_on_he_me/med_unhealthiest_city_1