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I decided to move my blog over to WordPress - you can find it here:


http://trueconservatism115.wordpress.com/

Obamacare Unconstitutional?

A federal judge has ruled that the provision in President Obama's health care bill that requires US citizens to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional.  In light of the news, Democrats both in the Obama administration and in Congress are smugly predicting that the ruling will be overturned.

The sad thing is, they're probably right.

Incoming House Majority Whip Eric Cantor wants to take the case directly to the Supreme Court, and I agree, the case should be brought before the High Court.  The problem is, the decision over the constitutionality of Obamacare shouldn't feel like a gamble - yet bringing Obamacare up before the Supreme Court as a Tenth Amendment case feels a lot like playing Russian roulette with the nation's future: in a divided court, it could go either way...and with the Court's recent history of 5-4 decisions, it feels like Russian Roulette with 5 bullets in the cylinder.  We can only hope that the High Court will stand up for the rights of individuals and the states and acknowledge that the Democrats have overstepped their Constitutional bounds in their health care law.

Reaction Won't Stop Terrorism

There are two main issues surrounding the big stink over the TSA's new policies.  The first, which I addressed in my last post on the topic, is the 4th Amendment.  Purchasing an airline ticket and attempting to board a flight does not constitute probable cause to justify the kinds of invasive searches these government agents are putting people through.  Some pretty basic pre-screening criteria could fix that, but the government is so afraid of accusations of racial profiling that they simply refuse to take the common-sense approach, opting instead for the foolish shotgun approach, hoping that they just so happen to randomly select the terrorists for heightened screening measures.

The other issue has to do with the TSA's modus operandi:  they operate primarily as a reactionary agency, which is not an efficient way to stop terrorism.

On 9/11, Muslim extremists hijacked airplanes using box cutters.  In response, the newly-formed TSA immediately banned sharp objects on airplanes.

Then, Richard Reid tried to detonate explosives he had smuggled aboard a plane in his shoes.  In response, the TSA began requiring all passengers to have their shoes X-rayed.

Then, authorities were able to stop a plot to blow up airliners using liquid & gel explosives that were to be smuggled aboard planes in bottles.  In response, the TSA began restricting the amounts of liquids and gels that passengers could bring onto planes (which would not stop a bombing if enough people brought their 3 oz. of explosives on board and combined them together).

Now, the TSA is responding to the Christmas Day bomber, who smuggled explosives on board a plane in his underwear.  However, there have been conflicting reports about whether the full body scanners would have detected the type of explosives the bomber had in his underwear - I've seen reports saying that the body scanners would have stopped the attack before the terrorist boarded the plane, and I've seen other reports stating that the body scanners would not have detected the type of explosive he was using.

Either way, the TSA, since its inception after 9/11, has primarily adjusted its policies in response to whatever method has been used in the latest terror attack.  This should work fine, as long as the terrorists try to smuggle knives, or explosive-laden shoes onto an airplane, or end up being randomly selected to have a TSA agent check out their explosive-laden jockey shorts.  With this kind of reactionary strategy, all the terrorists have to do is use a tactic that they haven't used in the past - something the TSA isn't currently specifically screening for.  For example, the full body scanners and pat-downs wouldn't detect explosives smuggled in a body cavity - so if that tactic is used in an attack in the future, will the TSA then begin requiring random body cavity searches for airline passengers?  Where does it end?

This is why the TSA's current policy shift won't work: not only does it violate people's Constitutional rights, but as long as the terrorists keep innovating and coming up with new ideas, they will continue to out-think the TSA, and innocent Americans will continue to be put at risk.  This is why El-Al style screening measures make so much more sense: these screening measures are proactive, not reactive.

As it is now, the TSA isn't looking for terrorists at all, they are looking for bombs and weapons.  The government's politically-correct fear of accusations of racial profiling have forced TSA agents to look for things, not to seek out the people that would use the bombs or weapons to attack America.  By removing the human element and looking only for the terrorists' tools, the TSA remains only marginally effective, and chances are they won't be able to prevent the next attack.

The Second Korean War?

It looks like the big news of the day is that North Korea and South Korea have started shooting at each other.  North Korea started shelling a South Korean island this morning, and is threatening further "merciless" attacks.  Meanwhile, South Korea is threatening massive retaliation, and reports have come out that the South has returned fire.

This is definitely a chintzy situation; hopefully diplomacy will win out and the two Koreas will be able to resolve the situation peacefully.  We went through enough hell in the first Korean War; we don't need a second, and with the North in possession of nukes, it's a whole new ballgame.

Keep both nations in your prayers as they hopefully move forward to a cessation of hostilities.

The TSA is Out Of Control

This stink going on with the TSA doing their body scanner/aggressive pat-down thing truly is ridiculous, if only for one reason: the 4th Amendment.

The 4th Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution, states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Since when did wanting to fly on an airplane constitute probable cause to have breasts and genitals groped in search of explosives?  I totally understand the safety concerns surrounding terrorism and air travel, but this situation is ridiculous.  The new policies were put into place because of last year's underwear bomber, but that situation could have been avoided had they given this type of increased screening to each and every passenger who was on a terrorist watch list.  Doing this to random people just doesn't make any sense at all.

Personally, I fully support National Opt-Out Day.  The government does not have the right to perform these searches solely based on the fact that people purchased airline tickets and want to fly on a plane.  I know there has been a lot of hysteria over "racial profiling," but "no profiling" is not an acceptable alternative.  Is it too much to ask to have some expectation of competency for the people expected to keep our airports safe?  They should be able to use at least some basic profiling criteria to differentiate between potential terrorists and innocent civilians.

But then, to add insult to injury, the TSA is threatening $11,000 fines for people who opt-out of the body scanners and then leave the airport without going through the groping pat-down.

On the one hand, I can understand the TSA's mentality: if they automatically assume that everyone who flies is a terrorist, they will be more likely to catch the terrorists...but what the Department of Homeland Security and TSA seem to be ignoring is the fact that Americans have rights, and their current policies violate the US Constitution.  When President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program became public knowledge, the bottom line was that, whether it helped to catch terrorists or not, it violated the Constitution, and it could not be used.  The same message needs to go out about the TSA's new policies: while these aggressive new policies might help the TSA to catch terrorists (emphasis on the might, because it'll only help if the terrorists get chosen for random screening), they have already violated hundreds, if not thousands of American's 4th Amendment rights.  It may be inconvenient for the TSA to have to work around the 4th Amendment in order to do their job, but the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure is a fundamental right for all American citizens.  It was written into our Constitution for a reason, and the TSA, as an agency of the US government, is bound by US law to abide by it.

 

Restoring Sanity? Not So Much...

Speaking as a reasonably sane individual, I have a hard time taking political sanctimony from a comedian seriously.

Judging from these first glimpses, it doesn't look like the Stewart/Colbert rally really accomplished anything productive.

And The Fun Continues...

It isn't even election day yet, and the "voting irregularities" have already begun.

Voters in Las Vegas have reported that, when they went to vote for Republican Sharon Angle, Harry Reid's name was already selected.

A voter in Craven County, NC has reported that when he selected to vote for all Republican candidates, he found that all of the Democrats had been selected.

This will only get worse come election day; be vigilant and pay attention when you vote.

The Obama Implosion

It's kind of fun watching the Democratic Party collapse in on itself as they continue to realize just how slim their chances are in next month's elections.  They've gone into full-fledged panic mode, because all indications now show that they face monumental losses in the House, and if they manage to hold on to their majority in the Senate, it will be by the slimmest of margins.

But as the pressure on the Democrats increases, their campaign rhetoric becomes more and more dangerous.  While their recent attack on the Chamber of Commerce has absolutely no basis in fact, President Obama is sticking with it, offering more and more baseless speculation as to where the GOP's campaign funding is coming from.

Now, you would think that if the GOP is doing something illegal in funding their campaigns, and the President knows about it, he would start an official investigation into the matter.  The fact that there is no investigation is telling: there is no wrongdoing, just more and more ambiguous accusations by the President of the United States.

This is just one more instance of President Obama making accusations against unnamed "special interests."  Before, his only complaint was that "they talk about me like I'm a dog."  But now that they're truly threatening his ability to push his corrupt socialist agenda onto America, he is calling them "a threat to our democracy."  Think about that: that's quite an accusation for a sitting president to make with absolutely no evidence to back him up.

See the video on RealClearPolitics

As much as I would love to see the GOP run roughshod over the Donkey Party next month, if they're taking illegal campaign contributions, it should be investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted.  If, on the other hand, President Obama, his administration and his party are just making up false accusations in the hopes of whipping up their base and maintaining power, then it becomes a question of whether President Obama should be impeached.  He is, after all, making a very serious accusation - he's right on the edge of accusing the GOP of treason.  High crimes and misdemeanors?  Possibly.  It's already come to light that the First Lady directly violated Illinois election law by campaigning at a polling place in Chicago, and Illinois elections officials and the Obama administration have made it abundantly clear that they plan to do absolutely nothing about it.

It seems that there are no depths to which the Democrats will not go in order to maintain power.  All citizens should definitely be vigilant come election day.

A New Conservative Joins The Fold

Announcing the birth of Emma Claire Cleveland, born on October 6 2010 at 12:46 am.  She weighed 8 lbs, 2 oz at birth and measured 20.5 in.

Why The Buckley Rule Doesn't Apply

With Tea Party Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's primary election victory in Delaware, many Republican and conservative commentators are calling the choice of O'Donnell a bad thing, citing "the Buckley Rule."  Charles Krauthammer came out today with a column criticizing the Tea Party and the O'Donnell pick, citing the Buckley Rule, saying

"Of course Mike Castle is a liberal Republican. What do you expect from Delaware? A DeMint? Castle voted against Obamacare and the stimulus. Yes, he voted for cap-and-trade. That's batting .667. You'd rather have a Democrat who bats .000 and who might give the Democrats the 50th vote to control the Senate?"

But there is a problem with this line of thinking: it ignores the big picture of the Tea party.

The Buckley Rule:
Support the most conservative candidate who is electable.

The Buckley Rule sounds good on the surface, but you just can't apply it to the O'Donnell election because in this case, using the Buckley Rule assumes that the Tea Party has a singular goal of undoing the Democrats' majorities in the House and the Senate.  While that does happen to be one of the Tea Party's short-term goals, the issues that brought about the frustration and angst that resulted in the Tea Party's creation won't be solved in a single election cycle...and in point of fact, electing liberal Republicans just happens to be antithetical to the entire purpose of the Tea Party.

In fact, it was the Buckley Rule and the Republican Party's "big tent" strategy that directly contributed to the creation of the Tea Party - the GOP is supposed to be the conservative party in America, but they have sold their soul in order to win elections, and their base conservative constituency is tired of it.  We're done with seeing our values sold out by Republicans like Lindsay Graham, John McCain, Olympia Snowe and, I dare say, George W. Bush.

Criticizing the Tea Party for not adhering to the Buckley Rule demonstrates the incredibly short-sighted view of the Tea Party held by the party elites and many commentators.  The Tea Party isn't just about winning a few elections in the short term in order to stop Obama's agenda.  While that is one goal of the Tea Party, there are also many in the Tea Party looking to bring the Republican Party back to its conservative roots; bowing to the party's misguided ideas about "electability" is what got the Republican Party relegated back to the minority in 2008.

If the Republicans want to remain a viable force in American politics in the long-term, they would do well to heed this lesson from the Tea Party: getting back to conservatism is the overriding goal.  While there are no guarantees that Christine O'Donnell will lose her Senate race, as most of the commentators are predicting, it's better for the Republicans to lose a few elections than it would be to see conservatives split from the party, because a split in the party would guarantee lost elections for the Republicans for years to come.

Establishment Politics Takes A Hit

The Republican Party establishment is upset today.  It's all over The Drudge Report and conservative talk radio about how the election of Christine O'Donnell in the Delaware Senate primary.  Why?  O'Donnell was endorsed by the Tea Party, and she roundly trounced her Republican establishment opponent, Rep. Mike Castle.

Now, before digging into this, I should make it clear that I know pretty much nothing about Christine O'Donnell or Mike Castle beyond what I've heard & seen in the media over the last couple of days...

But what this essentially boils down to is that change is hard, particularly in the arena of national politics.  After moving much too far toward socialism for far too long, many people in America are coming to their senses and seeing that conservatism actually does offer real solutions.

Of course the Republican establishment isn't going to enjoy seeing their candidate lose a primary - as a political party, they are in the business of winning elections, even their own primaries, and let's face it: the major parties aren't used to losing their own primaries.  This is a big deal.

But what's happening in Delaware isn't a rejection of the Republican party, it's evidence of a continued reformation among Republicans.  These battles aren't "civil wars" within the party as the media suggests, they are attempts by conservatives to bring the party back to a winning strategy and ideology.  For too long, the strategy among Republicans has been to push voters into voting for the best "electable" candidate.  The problem with that strategy is that the definition of electability is determined either by party elites who are completely out-of-touch with the real world, or by the media.  This strategy is, after all, what got John McCain the Republican nomination in the 2008 election: every time the rank-and-file would start to get behind a candidate, the media would drag them down, because they had their eyes on McCain the entire time...and let's face it: McCain was one of the worst choices in the field of Republican candidates, and putting John "Maverick" McCain up against a tabula rasa candidate like Obama was the worst thing the GOP could have possibly done, especially in the race to replace George W. Bush.  In fact, the only thing that gave McCain a fighting chance in '08 was Sarah Palin, who brought some conservatism to the ticket.

For too long, the political establishment and the media have been telling conservatives that we shouldn't vote our ideals.  According to them, winning is more important than ideology - this is what led to the Republican "big tent" philosophy.  But the political winds have shifted.  We've seen what big tent strategies get us: spineless RINOS and "compassionate" conservatism which only ends up taking us down the same road as the socialist Democrats, just at a slightly slower pace.

The truth is that Republicans aren't the only ones facing a potential split and/or transformation.  The Democrats have had their own in-fighting of late; the only major difference is that the Progressive sect of the Left has thus far successfully smashed down the "Blue Dog" revolt.

The Republican Party's attempts to form a big tent party have only ended up marginalizing the GOP, primarily because the media has convinced the party elites that they have to move to the left in order to remain a viable political movement.  But conservatives aren't buying the party line anymore: we can see how today's Republican Party holds to many of the same ideological roots as the Democrats, and we see no reason to allow this ideological takeover of the GOP to continue.

Playing the "electability" game will only hurt the Republican Party and the nation in the long-run.  As much as the Democrats love to whine and cry about the "party of no," it is extremely important to have an opposition party that actually stands in ideological opposition their political opponents.  They way things have been going for the last decade or so, the message of both parties has essentially been "Our big government is better than their big government."  It's about time that we saw some true small-government conservatives elected under the Republican mantle, and if we keep selling out our values in the name of big tents and the liberal media's definition of electability, it will never happen.

So to all of those Republican elites bashing Christine O'Donnell over her so-called "electability," get over it.  It's time to start backing the conservatives, because America has seen where neocons and RINOs will get us, and we have roundly rejected that philosophy.  Eventually, the party elites will have to accept conservatives will not be silenced, or they will either be driven out of the GOP, or see their party split, which will make any Republicans unelectable for years to come.

Religious Fruits & Nuts

The Florida church that is planning to burn copies of the Koran on September 11 has now gained international attention.  Protests have broken out in Afghanistan and Indonesia, and the State Department and General Petraeus, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, along with commentators across the spectrum, have sounded off to condemn the planned actions.

The church's protest has been denied a permit, but the pastor insists that the event will go on anyway.

But here is the question: why is a 50-member church in Florida garnering this kind of attention?

The answer is blindingly obvious: the media latched on to this story right away because it makes Christians and the Right look bad.  Never mind the fact that no reasonable person is defending this pastor or his church - in light of the wide-spread condemnation the Ground Zero mosque has received in recent weeks, the leftist media needs something to use against the opposition to the mosque - something that is completely unrelated to the vast majority of the opposition, but an issue nevertheless that they can generalize to the rest of the mosque's opposition to try and make the Right look bad.

The truth is that this pastor and any of his congregation that is going along with his book-burning are wackos who have been universally condemned.  As far as Christian sects go, they rank right up there with the Westboro Baptists or Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United.  They're stupid extremists and not really worth paying attention to.  But instead of ignoring them like they deserve, the media has sensationalized this story to the point that it has now become an international incident. 

Just like the Westboro Baptists, the best thing the media could do to marginalize these freaks would be to ignore them.  But to the media, this opportunity was just too good to pass up, and as a result, they have given the fringe an international stage and sparked unnecessary conflict in a region just looking for an excuse to demonize the United States.

This is not to say that the media is responsible for this planned act of gargantuan stupidity; only the pastor and his congregation can truly carry the blame.  But the duplicity of a media that tries to pass itself off as unbiased while ignoring the extremism of the church President Obama attended for 20 years and sensationalizing a small fringe group can not and should not be ignored.

Debating The Religion Of A Functioning Atheist

With the release of a recent poll showing that 20 percent of Americans think that Barack Obama is a Muslim, the leftist media has gone apoplectic...and, of course, the media on the right has gone apoplectic as well, in response to the left.

Basically, the Left points out that the right is stupid for believing that President Obama is a Muslim, and the Right defends the 20 percent by pointing out President Obama's Muslim heritage and all of the favoritism President Obama has shown to Islam during his tenure as president.

I say, who cares?

There is no reason to defend or rebuke anyone over this poll result, because it really doesn't matter what religion President Obama says he identifies with, or what religion or religions he shows particular favor to in his policy decisions: President Obama is, for all intents and purposes, a functioning atheist.  His religion is anti-Americanism.  He is god unto himself.

As soon as he was elected, President Obama stopped attending church. He says that this is because he doesn't want to tie up traffic, but I'm not buying it - he ties up traffic wherever he travels, and I have yet to hear him apologize for it.  What's more, he doesn't seem to have any issues with tying up traffic at the country club - he plays a round of golf almost every weekend.

President Obama professes to be a Christian, but his Christianity is not something he is proud of - the church he attended in Chicago was part of one of the most extreme sects of American Christianity I have ever heard of.  But it does make sense: the anti-American aspects of Black Liberation Theology seem to fit pretty well with President Obama's overall opinion of America.  The only problem for the President is, to normal Americans, Black Liberation Theology comes across as extreme as the Westboro Baptists - you know, the "God hates fags" church.  The only difference is, because Black Liberation Theology fits more with the liberal worldview, it doesn't generate as much press as Wesboro.

But it really doesn't matter whether President Obama is a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu, or a Buddhist, because according to his actions, he may as well be an atheist.  After all, Atheism is the best fit with modern liberalism, where the State basically functions as God.

So what does it matter if 1 in 5 Americans think President Obama is a Muslim?  He gives more deference to Islam than he does to Christianity, but as far as his public policy & lifestyle since taking office go, it's quite obvious that religion doesn't play a significant role in the Obama presidency.

The only reason this poll garnered so much media attention is because it gave the leftist media another opportunity to portray the right as a bunch of stupid hicks, and it gave the right another opportunity to point out the favoritism Obama has shown toward Islam.  In the end, though, it's all just a bunch of hot air.  Obama is just another liberal atheist.  He is god, and the Congress, the courts, and the bureaucrats are his angels as he sits in Washington D.C. (or wherever he happens to be vacationing this week) and dispenses his benevolent tyranny.

  

Setting Up The American Monarchy

President Obama and various members of his administration have been out touting America's supposed economic "recovery," but recent evidence proves that their claims are nothing but more lies and propaganda from an administration built entirely on lies and deception.

The jobs gains President Obama was touting just a month ago are gone.  This was inevitable: most of the jobs gains were temp jobs to begin with - hiring done by the Census Bureau...plus the fraud of firing and hiring in cycles in order to artificially inflate those numbers so the President would have some kind of success to talk about.

The President loves to talk about how the nation is recovering, but that just isn't the case.

The Obamas have spent a lot of time telling America all about how we're in lean times, and it's time for the people of America to conserve, to tighten their belts and buckle down for the rough times that are ahead.

In the meantime, the Obamas have been taking expensive vacations and throwing lavish parties, living the "do as I say, not as I do" lifestyle all too prevalent in today's political culture.  Americans are wondering whether they'll be able to keep their homes, and the Obamas are flying their dog up to Maine on a separate plain for their vacation.  A recent column in the New York Daily News comparing Michelle Obama to Marie Antoinette became immensely popular this week in light of her extremely extravagant vacation in Spain.  It wouldn't be as much of an issue had the Obamas covered the entire expense of the trip, but a hefty chuck of the bill was paid by the US taxpayers - and in a day when wasteful government spending has reached epic levels and already overtaxed Americans are looking at tax hikes next year, this kind of extravagance is most definitely unwelcome.

It seems that Barack Obama, in his constant push toward socialism, is trying to set up a new ruling class in America.  As a socialist, Obama loves to demonize our current capitalist economic system, all the while pretending to be a friend to American workers and an advocate for small business.  Under the Obama administration, the corporate world has come under attack...but while the large corporations have been Obama's primary target, but in his push for over-regulation and ever-increasing taxation, small businesses are feeling the pain as well, and the main victims are everyday working Americans who cannot find jobs because companies can't afford to hire.

But the President's main objective is to set himself and his party up as a permanent ruling class.  All of their efforts so far have primarily focused on grabbing up as much power as they possibly can as quickly as they possibly can, all the while ignoring the Constitution they swore to protect, plowing roughshod over the freedoms of the people.

The Obamas are living as the new American monarchy: the King and Queen, with the Democrats in Congress as their royal Court.  Instead of the "two Americas" the Democrats so love to preach about during their campaigns, pitting the rich vs. the poor, but instead of the rich vs. the poor, we are now looking at the government vs. the people.  It really is the same old setup that socialist and communist dictators have gone for each and every time they take power.  It's the same setup they had in Soviet Russia, in China, in North Korea, in Vietnam...the pattern goes on and on.  The political class demonizes their opponents and either eliminates them, as they're trying to do to Fox News and the right-wing media, or they absorb their opponents, as they did with General Motors and they are trying to do with the health care and banking industries.

Barack Obama may be the President of the United States, but he and his political allies have proven themselves to be dangerous to America's way of life.  The US economy is under attack, but the Obama administration continues to get in front of the cameras singing "Happy Days are Here Again," trying to convince us the economy is recovering, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress cannot lie to us forever. We have an election coming up, and even if the Republican party isn't able to win enough of a majority to roll back at least some of the damage the Democrats have done, at the least they may be able reign in the Left and prevent them from doing any more damage until Obama is voted out of office in 2012.

Sherrod To Sue Breitbart

Shirley Sherrod has announced that she plans to sue Andrew Breitbart for outing her as a racist.

The problem is, the entire controversy over Shirley Sherrod has been completely and entirely contrived by the media and the White House.

Andrew Breitbart's original post made reference to the fact that Sherrod's speech was about her realization that rich vs. poor was more important than black vs. white - and that context was even included in the edited video posted on Breitbart's website Big Government.

In fact, Breitbart's real target was the NAACP audience, who were laughing and agreeing with Sherrod as she described how she discriminated against a poor farmer because he was white.

In fact, Breitbart had been railing against the NAACP for a few days on Big Government due to the NAACP's baseless accusations of racism in the Tea Party movement.

But none of the facts have stopped the Left from re-branding the incident as an indictment of Fox News and right-wing bloggers taking someone on the Left out of context - something the Left is very, very good at - just take a look at Media Matters for America, the true masters of taking things out of context...and the liberal media tend to pick up on Media Matters' material all of the time and report their out-of-context videos as fact.

The truth of the Sherrod case is that the liberal media and the White House jumped all over the point they thought Breitbart was making by posting the Sherrod video, and in doing so, they missed the true point completely and overreacted before getting all of the facts.  Personally, I'm not convinced that Shirley Sherrod isn't a racist - she made several comments in her speech and in the media frenzy that followed its posting that show quite clearly that she still views people primarily through the prism of black vs. white.  But the truth is that I and many other Americans would be perfectly willing to overlook her views due to the troubles in her past, as long as those views don't influence her decisions in her position in the federal government - and in her speech, she was saying just that: her first reaction was to allow her racist views to influence her decisions as an employee of the Department of Agriculture, but then she realized that was wrong, and in the end she helped the poor white farmer.

The truth is that the White House and the Leftist media are shifting blame in this incident to Breitbart and Fox News because the Obama administration and the media took the entire situation out of context and it was they, not Breitbart or Fox News, who smeared Sherrod and fired her before examining all of the evidence.  In many ways, this case is reminiscent of the incident last year where President Obama publicly smeared the Cambridge Police, saying the "acted stupidly," without first getting all of the facts about the case.

This is the Left's version of a "post-racial" society: they get to determine who is racist and who isn't.  Fox News and Andrew Breitbart are the racists, but President Obama and former President Clinton are allowed to rewrite history in order to praise liberal icon Robert Byrd at his funeral, saying he was only a member of the KKK in order to get elected in the South, when there is plenty of evidence to show that Byrd was an unapologetic racist.

The American Left cannot be trusted to run the United States, and they can not be trusted in issues of race.  They are all too willing to smear, lie, obfuscate, and label, all while claiming victim status and using the liberal media to spread their lies. 

The True Nature of Education in America

Who Controls Our Children?

My sister shared this video with me, and part 1 was so interesting that I had to watch all 6 parts.  It's a speech/seminar about the federal government's takeover of the education system nationwide, but it really is much more interesting than that - the speaker outlines in detail how control is being taken away from parents and local school districts and is given over to the state and federal Departments of Education, which are trying to mold America's children into what the government deems to be good citizens.

It truly is frightening and enlightening - I highly recommend watching all 6 parts.

Corrupt Scumbag Finally Charged

Senator Charlie Rangel has finally been charged by the Senate Ethics Committee...pretty much all there is to say is, it's about time!


Rangel has been violating Senate rules for a long time now, and has been allowed to get away with it in spite of Speaker Pelosi's pledge to "drain the swamp," primarily because Pelosi's pledge was directed toward draining the swamp of corrupt Republicans, not corrupt Democrats. 

Rangel has been under investigation for some time for a variety of violations: accepting trips paid for by corporations, preserving a tax shelter for an oil company, using rent controls improperly for his campaign office...the list goes on and on.

The charges against Rangel have been a long time coming...and hopefully, he is only the first of many.

Killing The Private Sector

Today, the Democrats passed their so-called "bank bill."  In reality, this isn't so much a bank bill as it is a move by the Democrats to take control of the US economy.  They have taken over AIG and GM.  With the health care bill, the federal government set itself up to take over the health care and health insurance industries - as the news stories tend to put it, fully one sixth of the US economy.

Obama's socialism is failing.  His bank bailouts haven't saved the banking industry.  His economic stimulus bill hasn't improved the jobs market - though President Obama does seem to enjoy lying to the American people about how much worse the economy would be without his wasteful spending.  And with these ever-increasing regulations, the Democrats are once again trying to lie to America, attempting to finagle the people of America into believing that their socialist policies might actually do something to fix our economic problems.

This couldn't be further from the truth.

The Democrats are trying to pull a big lie/little lie sting on America.  The small deception is the lie that the AIG/stimulus/heal care/wall street takeovers will have a net positive effect on the American economy.  The large deception is the lie that the Democrats are actually trying to help the American economic situation.

The Democrats aren't trying to help the American economy, they are trying to take over.  The problem for the Democrats is that the more they trample on the Constitution, the more they enable the Republicans to do so when they take power - and they will take power.  The political pendulum tends to swing back and forth, as the American people vacillate between one lying political party and the other.

The truth rests in between the lies of these two parties: the government needs to maintain some control over the US economy, but moderation is the key to success.  It was, after all, lack of government regulation of Fannie May and Freddie Mac that helped to bring on the US financial crisis in the first place.

It was over-regulation that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster being so far out to sea that the best minds in British Petroleum and the Coast Guard couldn't "plug the damn hole" until very recently.  On the flip side of that coin, it was government corruption and lack of regulation that led to the circumstances that caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

In like manner, it was over-regulation that forced banks to make bad loans to people who couldn't afford them.  The powers-that-be in the federal government believed that artificially inflating the housing market was more important than making responsible loans to people who could afford them.  At the same time, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and other politicians in the Banking Committee wouldn't allow proper regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because they were taking sweetheart deals.

The truth is that the American people can't trust either side of the political aisle with the kind of power the Democrats are currently taking through this banking bill.  It is exactly the ind of thing the Democrats will take advantage of while they're in power, then will complain about when the Republicans take over.

To trust either political party with the kind of power the Democrats continue to flirt with would be a monumental mistake on the American people, but the Democrats are continuing forward regardless.  It's almost as though they have designs on the upcoming elections, either in 2010 or 2012.  Either way, the Democrats are up to no good, and the Republicans cannot be trusted to reverse this trend enough to matter over the long-term.

The Democrats don't just want to create a nanny-state, they want to create a mommy-state.  Are you hurt?  Mommy will heal you.  Unemployed?  Mommy will take care of you.  In poverty?  Mommy will support you.  Not a US citizen?  Mommy will change that.  The Mommy State will keep you safe and warm and happy.

No political party can be trusted with this kind of power, and no political party should be.  This is why we have a Bill of Rights, but the parties are all too willing to ignore the rules and remake the government in whatever way will maintain their power and keep them in control of the people.

Yet Another Power Grab

They're trying to bill it as "financial reform," but what the Democrats' financial overhaul amounts to is yet another power grab by the federal government.

According to Senator Chris Dodd (D-Ct), "This is about as important as it gets, because it deals with every single aspect of our lives."  Dodd was also quoted as saying "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done."

So let me get this straight: Chris Dodd, one of the architects of our current recession, is pushing a bill giving the US government unconstitutional oversight authority...and he doesn't even know what is in the bill?  Dodd was, after all, in bed with Fannie May and Freddie Mac and was largely responsible for their failure, all the while insisting that Fannie and Freddie were healthy and being properly regulated.  The very idea that Dodd is still has any kind of a hand in regulating the US financial sector is appalling.

This is typical of the Democrats: every crisis is an opportunity to take more and more power away from the American people and put it in the hands of the federal government.  The financial crisis has already led to the takeover of GM and AIG, and it seems that every time a major business starts showing some signs that it's in any kind of trouble, it is immediately demonized by the Democrats, who automatically assume that the federal government has to step in to save them, all the while completely ignoring the role that government interventionism played in their demise.

It's as if the Democrats in Congress, Chris Dodd especially, are completely blind to their part in the current recession.

The very idea that the American people should have this kind of legislation hefted upon us by a buffoon like Chris Dodd is ridiculous, at best.  Dodd is a joke - a lame-duck Senator who finally realized how much of a failure he is, so he decided not to run for re-election.  This, it seems, is his last-gasp effort to cement his legacy as an enemy to the American way of life and to do as much damage to American freedom and the US economy as possible.

What's more, the Democrats are continuing their trend of putting forward legislation that would curtail American freedoms without even knowing what is in the bill.  Dodd's "no one will know until it's in place" quote is eerily reminiscent of Nancy Pelosi saying "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it" of the health care bill that passed earlier this year...and from the looks of things, this bill could be just has harmful to American freedom as the health care takeover.

In the ultimate irony, if the bill passes, President Obama plans to sign it on Independence Day.

***UPDATE ***

From President Obama, before departing for the G20 Summit:

Now, let me be clear.  Our economic growth and prosperity depend on a strong, robust financial sector, and I will continue to do what I can to foster and support a dynamic private sector. But we've all seen what happens when there’s inadequate oversight and insufficient transparency on Wall Street.

The reforms making their way through Congress will hold Wall Street accountable so we can help prevent another financial crisis like the one that we’re still recovering from. 

We’ll put in place the toughest consumer financial protections in our history, while creating an independent agency to enforce them.  Through this agency, we’ll combine under one roof the consumer protection functions that currently are divided among half a dozen different agencies.  Now there will be one agency whose sole job will be to look out for you.

President Obama seems to love creating his so-called "independent agencies,"  especially when those agencies are beholden to and report to him.  The truth is that President Obama has no idea what is in this bill - it is enough for him to know that it will increase his power of the US economy and turn more American freedoms over to his control.

It seems that every time President Obama utters the words "let me be clear," he's getting ready to lie to the nation - he hasn't done anything to "foster and support a dynamic private sector," and this bill won't do anything to help that.

Throwing Cash Down The Rabbit Hole

President Obama has formally asked Congressional Democrats for another stimulus bill.

That's right - after the first stimulus proved to be a complete failure, the president now wants to throw away another $50 billion of the taxpayers' money.

Why do we need another stimulus bill?  The first one didn't work, why should we assume that a second stimulus will succeed where the first failed?

President Obama pledged to the American people that his first stimulus, which totaled over $700 billion, would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.  Not long after the bill was passed, unemployment shot up to ten percent, and is now hovering around 9.7 percent - a drop of 0.2 percent primarily due to temporary hiring and manipulation by the US Census Bureau.

The President and Congressional Democrats told us the first stimulus was a pork-free bill, but that's only because the entire bill consisted of nothing but each Congressman's pet projects - a rather transparent tactic for a Congress that pledged to end pork spending.

The real question behind this is, if $700 billion wasn't enough to stimulate the economy, how is another $50 billion going to help?  All the government can do with these stimulus bills is to artificially stimulate the economy - not only are they making people dependent on the government through increased government hiring, welfare programs and socialized health care, but now they're trying to make the entire economy dependent on government intervention.  It didn't work during the Great Depression, and if FDR couldn't pull it off, why should we trust Barack Obama?

By passing repeated stimulus bills, the president hopes to do two things: the first, of course, has to do with pure politics.  The November elections are approaching fast, and the scene looks bleak for liberal Democrats.  If President Obama starts pushing for another stimulus now, then there's a chance he'll be able to maneuver the process so that the money starts flowing before the election - and there are enough people out there who are interested in hand-outs that it could make a difference in November.  Of course, with more and more Americans increasingly aware of the wasteful spending going on in Washington, it could easily come back to bite the Democrats in a big way.

The other goal of repeated stimulus bills is to further prop up the US economy, and this goal could also come back to bite the Democrats.

Picture the US economy as a house with a crumbling foundation.  These stimulus bills are like balloons used to prop up the house as the crumbling foundation fails.  There are a few problems with this scheme, however: first off, the US government, was the one who took a jackhammer to the foundation in the first place, by over-regulating businesses even to the point of forcing banks to give home loans to people who couldn't afford the payments.  Second, the US government is blowing up the balloons with a limited air supply.  Our national debt is already so high that we can barely afford the interest payments, and as time goes on, we get closer and closer to having our national credit rating downgraded.  Eventually, the stimulus "balloons" will pop, and our economy will be worse off than it was before.

We cannot afford another stimulus, and we do not need another stimulus.  The US economy may not rebound suddenly; it takes time for an economy to recover fully, but it seems that the Democrats are looking for a quick fix, and in doing so, they are trying to put a band-aid on a shotgun blast.  It's not going to fix anything over the long run, and our nation will be worse off for their ignorance.






Reading suggestions for the President and Congress:

Why Sestak Matters

The press on the Sestak affair seems to have died down somewhat, but personally, I don't think the importance of this scandal could be overstated: This is Obama's Watergate.

Obama was elected on a platform of hope and change.  He promised to do away with the "failed policies of the past" and to fight to clean up corruption in Washington.  Instead, he has not only accelerated the failed policies of the Bush administration - out-of-control spending, but now it's plain to see that he has also brought Chicago to Washington, adding even more corruption to a city filled with liars, thieves and swindlers.

The Democrats have been selling this same bill of goods for far too long.  When Nancy Pelosi was sworn in, she promised to "drain the swamp."  She then proceeded to do absolutely nothing when thousands of dollars of bribe money was found in Congressman William Jefferson's (D-LA) freezer.  In fact, it seems that the only scandals Pelosi has the slightest interest in investigating are those involving Republicans.

Now we have a president who rose to prominence in a city known for corruption and machine politics - it only figures that he would bring the same tricks that got him to where he is to the White House.  The irony is that with Congressman Sestak's revelation that the Administration offered him a job in exchange for dropping out of his Senate race, more scandals have come to light.  Now it has come out that Obama's administration was similarly trying to influence Andrew Romanoff's Senate bid in Colorado.  There is even some unconfirmed speculation that President Obama may have been involved in the Blagojevich scandal, trying to facilitate a deal between Blagojevich and SEIU to get a union-friendly replacement into Obama's vacant Senate seat.

All of President Obama's lofty promises have turned out to be a lot of hot air.  The change he has brought has brought no hope to America.  He brings nothing new to the table - just a lot of lies, corruption, and more of the failed policies of the past.  Here in California, the primaries are coming up.  We can only hope the voters will usher in some real change - God knows our state, and our nation, could use it.

Why I Can't Stand Glenn Beck

I have been a long-time fan of Glenn Beck - long before his show on Fox News, or even his now defunkt show on Headline News.  I even recently wrote a column defending his stance on Social Justice.

I want to be a Glenn Beck fan...but I can't.

I've never really cared to watch Glenn Beck on television - he's always come across as scripted and insincere.  I was always a fan of his radio show, where he shared honest, sincere viewpoints and, for the most part, lived up to the show's tagline, "The fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment."  Over time, though, the show's emphasis shifted much more towards enlightenment than entertainment, making it much less enjoyable to listen to, but Beck tended to be right on the issues, and he offered a historical perspective you just couldn't find anywhere else.

Take away the microphone, and Beck is what many conservatives strive to be: someone who started out in a hard-working, middle-class family, worked hard, started his own business, and grew it into a massive success.  Throw the microphone back in, and you've got the nation-wide sensation that conservatives love and liberals love to hate.

And even though I used to love listening to Glenn Beck and the unique perspective he brings to conservative media, I just can't stand him anymore, for a couple of reasons.

To preface this, I first realized that I couldn't handle The Glenn Beck Program anymore when I turned my radio back on after giving up on talk radio for a couple of weeks.  I was stressed enough at home and at work; I didn't need the extra aggravation of hearing each day how the liberal progressives were screwing America.

But when I turned the radio back on, the Glenn Beck Program seemed different.  There was no "fusion of entertainment and enlightenment."  The show wasn't entertaining, and frankly, wasn't all that enlightening anymore.  The show consisted primarily of two things: Glenn Beck preaching religious conservatism, and Glenn Beck bemoaning the fact that liberals were out to get him.

I'll cover the first point just by saying this: when I want to hear a sermon, I go to church.  Beck used to use logic and history to argue his points, but more and more it seems that he's using his religious views more than logic or history, which in the end just makes him easier to dismiss as a right-wing religious wacko.  Conservatism doesn't need that, especially from as popular a media figure as Glenn Beck.

The other point is a little more touchy, because it deals with finding a happy medium.  I think just about every talk show host that gets criticized spends some time going over the critics and the criticism, offering counter-arguments, etc.  But for talk show hosts, it is very important that they not take that too far.  If they're constantly talking about themselves and how they're under attack, they end up coming across as egotistical and self-important, and that turns a lot of listeners off.  And that is what Beck is doing.  Ever since he started taking on the Obama administration by pointing out the numerous Communists, socialists, and otherwise leftist wackos in Obama's cabinet, the administration has fired back in various ways...and Glenn Beck took it personally...and it was all he talked about (when he wasn't quoting the Bible).

I've given the Glenn Beck Program a few tries since I stopped listening, and the results weren't pretty.  The first time, as soon as I turned the radio on I heard Beck quoting Deuteronomy.  I immediately turned the radio off.  The second time, he was in an uproar about how the White House was attacking him.  I gave him a little leeway this time, but after a couple of minutes I just couldn't take it anymore.  The third time, if I remember correctly, he was quoting Revelation, and the fourth time he spent several minutes talking about how his program did so much more research than anyone else.  I haven't tried again since then.

So, I would like to offer this piece of advice to Glenn Beck (who, in all likelihood will never read this):  Bring back the fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment.  Listening to your program used to be fun.  Yeah, you took the issues seriously, but then you would do More On Trivia every Friday and lighten things up.  Frankly, I don't remember a whole lot about your show from when you were talking about the issues, but I do remember the first time I found your program on the dial and you were making fun of how fat you were.  As a fat guy, I found that very funny, and that's why I tuned in again the next day.  I remember the bit you did where you threatened to kill a puppy if people didn't buy enough copies of your book - that was a very funny bit.  I remember looking forward to More On Trivia on Fridays, and your "Revised Scholastic Films" bits.

And furthermore, use logic and history to argue against liberal progressivism.  That is, after all, how you rose to the heights in conservative media.  I'm not a Mormon, but I do agree with a lot of your religious views.  The problem is, when you're offering counterpoints to people who don't believe, they'll automatically disregard you when you use religion as an argument.  It's a great way to marginalize yourself, but doesn't do much more than that.

As I said before, I want to be a Glenn Beck fan, but when I have to wrap my head in duct tape before turning my radio on, not because of the issues of the day, but because of the host of the program, maybe it's time for me to say goodbye for good.  I'll give Glenn another chance after a while, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope that his show will get better...not with the current administration in power, anyway.

Thousands Of Protesters Show Their Ignorance

Today is May Day, that revered Pagan/Communist holiday that has now become the annual occasion where the illegal immigration lobby gets as many supporters together as they can, and proceeds to embarrass them all in the streets of cities throughout America.

Today, tens of thousands of protesters marched across America.  The entire protest, of course, is a huge lie.  These groups haven't given an honest protest since their first, when they marched in the streets carrying Mexican flags and declaring that they were on a crusade to take back the Southwestern United States for Mexico.  When they realized the legal citizens of America got more than a little pissed off when they did that, they changed their tune.

Now, the protesters carry American flags - in fact, there are so many American flags at these protests that I suspect the organizers are still purposely handing out American flags to people so the crowd will look patriotic, cutting down on bad press.

Of course, the thing that makes this year's May Day protests particularly voluminous is the recent passage of Arizona's immigration bill.  The basic summary of the bill is this: The Arizona legislature decided that it had given the federal government long enough to get their act together and protect the state's citizens by securing the southern border.  Since the federal government obviously wasn't going to act, it was time for the state to take matters into their own hands.

Under this bill, if a law enforcement officer comes across someone during the course of his (or her) duties who he suspects is in the United States illegally, he can check that person's immigration status.  If the person is in the US illegally, they are to be handed over to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Border Patrol.  Illegal immigrants currently serving out prison sentences are to be handed over to ICE or the Border Patrol as soon as they finish their sentence. 

Critics of the bill call it "racist," "anti-immigrant," and have drawn comparisons to Nazi Germany, with officers demanding "show me your papers."  The truth, however, is that all of these arguments are false.  Mexicans aren't the only ones coming across the Southern border illegally, and even if they were, it wouldn't be racist to enforce our laws.  The bill also isn't anti-immigrant.  People are still allowed and encouraged to immigrate legally.

The "show me your papers" argument is also a non-sequitur.  It is true that immigrants and US citizens may be forced to "show their papers," should they commit a crime and the police suspect that they are in the country illegally, but the bill states that "their immigration status shall be verified with the federal government."  We're not talking about deporting someone just because he left his drivers license at home or didn't have a copy of his birth certificate in his shirt pocket.

The truth is that Arizona has long had serious problems with criminals crossing their Southern border illegally, causing problems in their state.  Drug smugglers bring hundreds of pounds of marijuana across the border each month.  Human smugglers and coyotes bring people across, sometimes the hard-working people looking for a better life that the news media loves to tout, but oftentimes for more nefarious purposes.

These are the people Arizona's immigration bill is aimed at, because these are the people causing problems for the state.  Recently, Phoenix was nicknamed "kidnapping capital of the US," largely due to drug and gang-related kidnappings.

Recently, an Arizona rancher was murdered on his own land.  It is suspected that the perpetrator was an illegal alien drug smuggler or coyote.  The sad thing about that case is that the murdered rancher routinely helped illegal aliens who were in trouble and in need of medical attention.  In fact, he had radioed in to his ranch that he was on his way to help someone in trouble before he was found dead.

But instead of paying attention to the important issues facing the state of Arizona and looking at the true reasons this bill was signed into law, the protesters would rather dredge up the same old, tired lies. 

Of course, for many of the groups behind the protests, it isn't about finding solutions for America's immigration problems.  La Raza (translated as "The Race") is a racist organization that wants to take back the Southwest for Mexico.  The Aztlan movement has the same goal.  Many of the groups, such as La Raza and MEChA also have ties to communist organizations - which is one of the reasons they have chosen to protest on May Day, aka "International Workers Day."

When watching the news and listening to the debate, don't believe everything you hear.  The news media has been strangely silent on the problems that have been plaguing Arizona (and also southern Texas), but the instant the protests started, they were there with cameras and correspondents.  Make sure you know the truth about the Arizona law, and let others know, as well, as the debate over this bill could very well shape the upcoming debate over federal immigration policy.

Read Obama's Lips: No New Taxes

On April 15, tax day, thousands of Americans took to the streets to protest wasteful government spending and high taxes.

President Obama's response to the event was to say that he's cut taxes..."You would think they'd be saying thank you"

Why should we?  Yes, Obama has cut some taxes, but he's raised others.  And if Obama truly was a tax-cutter, then maybe the press would actually call him on all of his Bush-blaming.

Then, mere days after his snide remark, the news comes out the president is considering a Value Added Tax.  Now, there are few ways that Obama could damage our economy more than through a VAT, which would raise prices for consumer products across the board. 

Obama's spending has already been so bad that the Democrats have decided to wait until after the November elections to vote on the budget.  As idiotic as his policies are, the President isn't stupid.  He knows that he'll have to raise taxes in order to pay for all of the entitlements & bailouts that have embodied his agenda.

The question is, why does Barack Obama seem to assume that the people of America are all stupid?  We know what tax cuts are.  We know what fiscal conservatism is.  We know that Barack Obama isn't moving our nation toward either one.

The Left has made a game out of minimizing and slandering the Tea Party movement, but they do so at their own risk.  The voters can see who is right and who is lying, and right now, the President and the Democrats are lying almost with their every breath.

This November's elections should be very interesting, indeed.

Why Shouldn't Blacks Be Conservatives?

From a story (surprisingly) coming from the AP (via Breitbart), black conservatives are taking heat...for being black conservatives.

The story actually focuses on blacks who support the Tea Party movement, but this kind of thing has been going on for some time.  Colin Powell was routinely criticized for being a black man working for the Bush administration.  Condoleezza Rice came under similar criticism.  Michael Steele was also criticized (and reportedly attacked with Oreo cookies during his run for Lieutenant Governor of Maryland).  It didn't matter that their positions within the government were "historic" (a word that the Left just loves to throw around).  They're black, and don't conform to what the Left sees as the norm for black people, and that in itself is enough to earn them the Left's vitriol.

From the article, quoting Timothy F. Johnson of the Frederick Douglass Foundation:

"Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks,"

This is what continually astounds me on the issue of African-American conservatives.  Liberals are the ones who say we should move beyond race.  Liberals are the ones who urge us to avoid labels.  But when the rubber meets the road, the Left is all talk and no action.  They are the first ones to look at race.  They are the first ones to apply labels.  They are the ones who blindly enforce their stereotype that all minorities should, by default, be Democrats.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are the ones who are more willing to look beyond race.  One of my favorite political conversations of all time was when I watched a conservative African-American woman take on a white liberal man who said he planned to vote for Barack Obama because he would be the first black president.  For conservatives, it's not about race, it's about ideals and ideas.  It's not about race, it's about policy.

The defining line from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speech states:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 

The Left has made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of living up to this, the defining ideal of the Civil Rights Movement that they purport to treasure so dearly.  Whenever the Left says they want racial equality, the first thing they do is focus on skin color, judging and stereotyping people arbitrarily based solely on the color of their skin.  

Those on the Left love to engage in race-baiting, but in the final analysis, it's very clear who the real racists are. 

Obama Tells The Right To Tone It Down

In an interview with CBS News, President Obama was asked what he thinks of his critics on the Right.

From Politico's coverage of the CBS story:

"I’ve been listening to talk radio, the kindest of terms is a socialist, worst of which I’ve heard is you called a Nazi, are you aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves about you?" asked Smith.

"Well I think that when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it's pretty apparent, but keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out," said Obama. "It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious, but that's not the vast majority of Americans. I think vast majority of Americans know that we're trying hard. I want what's best for the country. They may disagree on certain policy issues but I didn't buy all the hype right after inauguration where everybody was only saying nice things about me and I don't get too worried when things aren't going as well because I know that, over time, these things turn.

"I do think that everybody has a responsibility — Democrats or Republicans — to tone down some of this rhetoric, some of these comments. …It used to be that someone who said something crazy, they might be saying it to their next door neighbor or it might be on some late night AM station at the very end of the radio dial and now with the blogs, it ends up getting a lot more attention and you guys end up covering it a lot more. It's not as if there haven't been a lot of crazy things said out and about over the years, it's just that it gets much more magnified much more quickly."

In a nation that was founded on values of Freedom and Liberty, where the nation was born when the people rose up in revolt against government tyranny, excessive taxation, and a government that would not listen to the people, we have seen the government increasingly spending more and more money on wasteful programs, redistributing wealth based on their arbitrary standards of who is deserving and who isn't, taking over private industry, and constantly increasing the size and power of government.

The Right has been criticized for not standing up in opposition to George W. Bush like they have stood against Barack Obama, even though they are committing many of the same offenses against the Constitution.  Well, Barack Obama is to many on the Right what Abraham Lincoln was to the South.  The difference between then and now is that when Lincoln was elected, the South secceeded because they believed in their right to own slaves.  Today, the Right is standing against the government's attempt to enslave the populace.  The government has been buying the people off, little by little, through government programs and so-called "entitlements."  It has gotten so bad that today, large portions of the population will support a candidate solely on the basis of what handout they can expect that candidate to give them - bribery for votes, all with taxpayer dollars in the name of compassion and charity.

The leftist progressives in our government, with the aid of the mainstream media's pro-left propaganda machine, have set themselves up as the modern-day Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor.  They seem to forget the fact that in the tale of Robin Hood, the rich were the fat-cats in government, and the poor were the citizenry living under oppressive taxation.  Over the long run, all their socialist policies will lead to is a universally poor populace, enslaved by the government, while those in power live as kings.  We've seen it before - the only difference between modern America and Soviet Russia is that while Russia transformed their society very quickly through revolution, the United States is going about it more slowly, through the use of propaganda and government policy.

And now, in the face of a socialist revolution undertaken and led by those in the government who will benefit the most from their own policies, we are told to tone it down.  Never mind that we see more and more of our freedoms slip away on a daily basis, this kind of "vitriol" has no place in American politics.  Never mind that those on the Right are constantly made out to be racists, bigots, and even criminals because of our opinions, it's wrong for us to speak our minds.

When George W. Bush was president and the anti-war activists were shouting all kinds of crazy things, up to and including comparing Bush to Hitler and expressing how they would like members of the Bush administration to die, we were told by the Democrats that "protest is the highest form of patriotism" (Nancy Pelosi herself said paraphrases of this several times).  Now that the Left is in power, protests are no longer patriotic.  Protest is dangerous, insidious, and wrong.

As freedom-loving Americans, we should not allow this kind of rhetoric from the President to slow us down.  We have just as much freedom of speech as the rabid leftists who turned out in droves to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have First Amendment rights, whether those in the government like it or not - after all, the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the people when the government doesn't like what they're saying.

If you live on an island, watch out!!!

This video is all over the internet today, mainly because the idea of someone this stupid being elected to Congress is just so outrageous!



This is Congressman Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia.

Now, I've heard various excuses for why Congressman Johnson made these horrifically stupid remarks, among them:

• He has Hepatitis C and is heavily medicated.
• He was joking.
• He is being taken out of context.

Now, if he has Hep C and is so heavily medicated, what is he doing at this hearing?  If his judgment is this impaired, he should probably be taking some time off.

Also, was he this high on Hep C meds when he voted for Obamacare?  If so, shouldn't his vote not be counted since his judgment is obviously impaired?

If he was joking, why is there no laughter?  You can see some people in the audience laughing, and the Admiral is quite obviously struggling to not bust up, but the Congressman doesn't even crack a smile.  He wasn't joking.

The clip is almost 3 minutes long, most of which is filled with the Congressman's nonsensical ramblings leading up to his insane "tip over and capsize" remark.  After that remark, he keeps going!  There is plenty of context.


It's only a matter of time before the race card is played in defense of Congressman Johnson (if it hasn't been played already).  This is not racism - it would be just outrageous had Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, or even my own Congressman, Kevin McCarthy said it.

And this is not the first time that Johnson has made himself appear insane.  After Congressman Joe Wilson shouted "You lie" at President Obama during Obama's speech to Congress several months ago, Johnson claimed that Wilson's remark would lead to the return of the Ku Klux Klan.




It's pretty obvious that Hank Johnson does not possess the mental capacity to effectively execute his responsibilities as Congressman.  The question is, will anything be done about it?

After all, the current Democrat leadership is full of criminals, tax cheats, and liars.  Getting one insane man out of Congress really won't do all that much...but, as they say, every little bit helps.