Deborah Durkee's Blog

Answers to unconstitutional federal acts. The Constitution & Freedom Parts 3, 4. Islamic infiltration.

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:33:31 GMT

Answers to Unconstitutional federal actions.

Rather than trying to get the Federal Government to respect state sovereignty, Daniel Baker over at The American Thinker says to use Thomas Jefferson as your guide in his answer to the Alien and Sedition Act. This act ran afoul of the First Amendment when it was used as a way to forbid criticism of the government. Residents of the states should work within their own states to nullify any unconstitutional acts by the Federal Government. The Constitution is basically a partnership agreement between the states, and the Congress, the Executive and the Supreme Court is a creation of the partnership, not a party to it (they are our managers and employees, not bosses). Interesting read and makes much sense:

Over the course of the past two hundred and twenty-two years, we have forgotten many of the basic principles that were fresh in Thomas Jefferson’s mind when he drafted the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. These resolutions lay out the proper response to the federal government’s unconstitutional actions…

Foremost of the forgotten principles is the fact that the states were fully autonomous before uniting under a contract known as the Constitution. Each state voluntarily gave up a portion of its sovereignty, but never surrendered it completely, in joining the United States. Thus, every state is a party to the Constitution, with the other states as co-parties. Here are some excerpts from Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions:

1. Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution ... they constituted a general government for special purposes - delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government.

The Constitution is the equivalent of a partnership agreement, with the states as partners and the federal government as managers and employees…If (the manager) sets prices too low so that Benny and Gerald lose money, they will fire the manager; however, they must accept the loss because they gave the manager the authority to set the prices. However, if (the manager) decides to give half of the sales price of the ice cream to his favorite charity, then he has stolen from Benny and Gerald, who in turn have a right to demand the money back from the manager and take it out of his paycheck.

8. Resolved ... …where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy; that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact ... to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits.

The proper remedy for unconstitutional acts conducted by the federal government is to nullify those acts within the borders of the states finding them unconstitutional. This right belongs to the states based solely on the fact that they are parties to a contract. They owe a duty to abide by the contract only to the other states; they owe no duty to abide by anything outside the contract. Snip –

The final word concerning what is and what is not acceptable under a contract goes to the parties of the contract. The Supreme Court is a creation of the Constitution; it is not a party. So then if Congress, for instance, passes the Fairness Doctrine and the president signs it, then the great state of Missouri has the right, regardless of any Supreme Court decisions one way or the other, to declare the Fairness Doctrine unconstitutional and thus null and void within her borders. Missouri would have to answer to her sister states, but not to anyone else.

1. Resolved ... that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

8. Resolved ... that without this right, [the States] would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.

… Federalists shouldn't worry so much about changing the federal government to respect state sovereignty as they should about working within their own states to throw off unconstitutional acts of the federal government. If the states cannot nullify unconstitutional acts, then the federal government is able (and willing) to do whatever it wants, with no real constitutional limits in place. Our country is then only a few steps away from despotism, with the final arbiter of what is "constitutional" as the supreme dictator.

Perhaps your state legislators should receive a copy of this article. I dare say most state legislators, especially today, know nothing of Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions, and how much power each state has if it will use it. Sounds like a great focus for the Tea Parties. Read it all here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/kentuckys_answer_to_unconstitu.html

The Constitution and Freedom – Parts 3 and 4.

Judge Andrew Napolitano’s look at the Constitution continues. Part three concerns the Executive branch and part four concerns the Courts.

http://www.thefoxnation.com/judge-andrew-napolitano/2010/01/11/judge-andrew-napolitanos-constitution-and-freedom-part-1

Islamic infiltration inside our government – Part 1.

Bill Whittle of PJTV interviews former government agents about the influence on the country’s leaders by members of CAIR, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Political correctness is putting our nation at risk by having leaders more afraid of offending those who would harm us than looking at the truth. Whittle discovers that our government is being infiltrated by those who put on nice masks while they are determined to bring our country down from within. About a nine-minute video.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2930

Islamic infiltration inside our government – Part 2.

This one is called “From influence to insurrection.” When those in the FBI aren’t even given counter terrorism training, what happens when those in the know leave the agencies tasked with protecting us? When those at the top turn a blind eye to reality, morale and defeatism set in, leaving the country more vulnerable to jihad either violent and in your face or calm and insidious. Watch it here:

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2934

Here’s Newsbusted’s latest video.

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Gd2GZukUVr

Obama is routing the recovery. State of the states (broker and broker). Constitution video, Part 2.

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:50:58 GMT

Obama is routing the recovery.

This is from Charles Gasparino over at the New York Post. This column reveals a version of Atlas Shrugged for the 21^st century. Small businesses aren’t all necessarily going bankrupt or closing their doors and heading for Galt’s Gulch (I’m sure some are), but the well-run businesses are holding their cash tight and laying off workers to survive the attack on capitalism that is the modus operandi of the Obama administration:

The number-crunchers at the Treasury Department have been celebrating what appears to be the end of the Great Recession as told through rising GDP, higher business profits and a buoyant stock market. But owners of small businesses -- the usual engines of economic growth -- are still refusing to hire back workers as they normally do when the economy turns up from a sharp decline.Snip –

When Obama met with big bank leaders last month, he complained that banks weren’t lending to small businesses.

At one point, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon politely interrupted Obama's monologue on how the banks should be lending more to small businesses to explain that many businesses simply don't want to borrow to expand their operations and hire more workers.

"Jamie basically said the demand for loans is way down because businesses, particularly those that are making money and can qualify for loans, simply don't want to borrow," said one person with direct knowledge of the conversation.

And they're not borrowing because they don't know just how high their tax bills will be when the president gets done implementing all his "hope" and "change." Snip –

Stock analyst, Peter Sidoti, researches smalls businesses and knows how they’ve survived the recession:

By cutting costs and hoarding cash, not expanding their business and hiring more people, even as the economy now is starting to recover.

During other recoveries, Sidoti says, firms like these would be hiring workers in droves as demand picks up for goods and services. This time around, they're not -- because "they don't know what their costs are going to be." And those costs are, of course, higher taxes.

He recalls a conversation with the CEO of one company he covers, Monroe Muffler, who said his average cost per worker is $35,000 a year, but he isn't going to expand his workforce much more if he has to pay another $8,000 a year in higher taxes, thanks to the new health-care plan and other government initiatives. Snip –

Now, does this sound like Atlas Shrugged to you?

The issue is strikingly similar to what the banks face. As we're all aware, the banks are making big money and waiting to pay out bonuses in the coming days. But the cash isn't coming from lending the money out. Instead, the banks are cutting costs, hoarding cash and investing some of it in low-risk bonds.

If you can still make money by laying people off and not expanding your business, why would you risk it at a time where government is out of control and promising to increase your costs down the road with a massive health care bill and a looming cap and trade fiasco? Can you say “jobless recovery?” FDR, here we come. Read it all here:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_obama_routing_the_recovery_zneMnksB1VnHzSS7QmuhnL

State of the States: broke and getting broker.

Frank Keegan, Editor of Watchdog.org, warns taxpayers of the pending tax increases in their states due to the profligate spending and fiscal mismanagement of taxpayer funds, especially in the often unreported mess made by earlier state legislatures’ promises of pensions to government workers.

Fiscal mismanagement leaders California and New York opened the hunting season on taxpayers.

Forty three other state legislatures convene soon to deal with the fiscal carnage they wrought through political profligacy and false promises to dedicated state workers during recent bubble years.

As of December, the National Conference of State Legislatures fiscal survey found: “Thirty-six states already report another round of gaps since FY 2010 began. The total now hit $28.2 billion, and the fiscal year for most states doesn’t end until June.” They already are in the hole despite raising taxes, cutting spending, squandering “rainy day” funds and using federal debt and accounting tricks to close $146 billion in cumulative budget gaps.

Those shortfalls pale against the lurid reality of unfunded promises to retirees, deferred public works projects and years of accounting tricks hiding true deficits.

Compounding all that is the fact that $248 billion in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds stop Dec. 31, halfway through most states’ fiscal years.

And, according to the National Governor’s Association “Fiscal Survey of States” released last week, “the $87 billion in Medicaid funds and the $48 billion in state stabilization funds … allowed states to offset planned budget cuts and tax increases,” meaning that’s another $135 billion they are going to have to take from somebody next year.

NGA admits some of these blunders and warn that taxpayers are in for a shakedown well after any national economic growth: “Even when recovery begins in the 2014–2015 period, states will be faced with a huge ‘over hang’ in needs and will have to accelerate payments into their retiree pension and health care trust funds, as well as fund deferred maintenance and technology and infrastructure investments. They will also have to rebuild contingency or rainy day funds. All of these needs were postponed or deferred during the 2009-2011 period and will have to be made up toward the end of the decade. According to a 2007 Pew Center on the States report, states have an outstanding liability of about $2.73 trillion in employee retirement, health and other benefits coming due over the next several decades, of which more than $731 billion is unfunded.” Snip –

Orin Kramer, chief executive of New Jersey ’s beleaguered pension fund, told the Financial Times this week America ’s total state pension unfunded liability is more than $2 trillion.

And the Government Accountability Office just released a study showing a minimum $530 billion deficit for retirees’ Other Post Employment Benefits, though GAO experts said that number is too low.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, America needs to invest $2.2 trillion over the next five years just to fix and replace “critical infrastructure” beyond its “design life.” That means crumbling bridges, roads, mass transit and water systems, dangerous dams and spewing sewage.

The day of reckoning is upon us. Don’t count on the governors and legislators who have done this to us taking any of the cost out of their paychecks and benefits. Snip –

Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrat David Paterson of New York gave their state of the state speeches Wednesday without including these huge hidden deficits.

Schwarzenegger put his state’s operating deficit at $20 billion and called for reform of “unsustainable” pension benefits going forward, but did not specifically include the minimum $62 billion in liability for retiree health benefits and Zero dollars set aside to pay it even though California increased taxes $10 billion last year.Snip –

Governor Patterson of New York has a similar story to tell, if not quite as outrageous as California’s, which you can read at the link.

… indication of how honest governors are going to be with taxpayers about the mess they’ve gotten us into, we would be safe to expect every governor and every legislature to deceive us.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the fiscal crisis of the states could quench any spark of national economic recovery.

Increasing taxes to pay for such government folly will guarantee it.

Now is the time for citizens to act. We must raise our voices to stop devastating tax increases to pay for folly.

This catastrophe came upon us without warning from traditional news media. It is taking most legislators and even some governors by surprise.

If ever there was a reason for citizens to become watchdogs, this is it. Contact your governors and lawmakers, learn details of your state budget.

What to do? Who knows? Tar and feathering comes to mind. Read it here: http://watchdog..org/2010/01/08/state-of-the-states-broke-and-going-broker/

Second video on the Constitution.

Napolitano takes on the Congress in part two of his five-part series.

http://www.thefoxnation.com/judge-andrew-napolitano/2010/01/11/judge-andrew-napolitanos-constitution-and-freedom-part-1

Obama: The Weak Horse. Intellectuals and society. GOP: Reinvent yourself. Napolitano on the Constitution.

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:34:46 GMT

Obama: The weak horse.

Jed Babbin of Human Events asks, “are we safer or in more danger than we were a year ago?” As he reviews Obama’s first year record, it’s plain to see that we aren’t and the reasons that is so:

…One of the first things the president did on taking office was to ban the “enhanced interrogation methods” ... Snip –

As George Tenet… said: "I know that this [enhanced interrogation methods] program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."

President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, said: "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country."

… the documents released by the CIA Inspector General last year…showed, in detail, how Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other high-value prisoners provided specific information that was used to interdict terrorist plots and capture some of the terrorists who were planning them.

Yet President Obama has prohibited the use of these interrogation methods. If they were as valuable as Tenet and Blair said, we are now left with intelligence gathering methods which are inferior and inadequate. The president and his White House political staff are now controlling interrogations, rather than leaving that business to those who know how to gain the intelligence that can be used to prevent coming attacks. Snip –

President Obama campaigned on the promise to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and ordered its closure within a year of his inauguration without any plan on where the detainees would go, or how they would be tried and possibly punished for their violations of the law of war.

He now plans to purchase the Thomson, Illinois maximum security prison and move the Gitmo detainees there. And even those such as 9-11 planner Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his cohort will be tried by civilian courts in American cities, not by the military commissions created for that purpose.

Last week, White House counterterrorism czar John Brennan said that we would still, on a case by case basis, release Gitmo detainees to Yemen . This despite the facts that would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was trained there by an al Queda cell that reportedly contains two Gitmo alumni and that the Yemenis released Jamal al-Badawi, one of the men responsible for the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Snip –

There is no substantive or legal reason to close Gitmo, only political calculation… at least 18 of those released have been captured again or killed on the battlefield, and -- as of 2008, according to the Defense Department, 43 more are suspected of having returned to terrorism.

Obama has classified the more recent estimates of how many Gitmo alumni have returned to terrorism. He is committed to closing Gitmo regardless of the risks, and doesn’t want us to know how many more of those released have gone back to their murderous ways. Snip –

Abdulmutallab’s isolation from intelligence gatherers may literally cost lives. He must know who trained him and where, and may know other terrorists who went through training with him. The others are a current threat. If -- as the Obama Justice Department plans -- he cooperates and negotiates a plea agreement, we may get some of that information. A year or more from now, when it’s no longer current. When it can no longer be used to save American and other lives. Snip –

Obama is a weak horse. His weakness is the weakness of all liberals, just as Ronald Reagan defined it: “the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.” Snip –

Obama believes that terrorists should be treated like common criminals, put into our civilian criminal justice system and protected from intelligence interrogations by methods because he finds them distasteful.

…(Obama) is apparently willing to accept a nuclear-armed Iran rather than take the military action which is the only path remaining to deny the world’s principal sponsor of terrorism those arms.

As Don Rumsfeld was fond of saying, weakness is provocative. Provocation results in danger, and loss of life.

Are we in less danger than we were a year ago? By the objective criteria we have to measure the danger of terrorism, the answer is an emphatic “no.” And, unfortunately, we likely soon to be able to measure it by another objective criterion -- the number of lives that will be lost to terrorism, the butcher’s bill -- that is paid for Obama’s knowledge of so much that just isn’t so.

Yes, it does seem the Obama administration is run less by the desire to keep the country safe than by the desire to not acknowledge that Bush did many things right, and they are basically naïve fools. And that for Democrats, in general, politics is more important than anything. The American people and their safety? Just politics as usual. Please read the whole thing here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35140

Sowell: Intellectuals and Society.

As if by way of explaining why Obama would even think that by acting weak, he would get some kind of consideration from Islamic extremists, Thomas Sowell’s interview with National Review Online’s Peter Robinson comes at the perfect time. Sowell explains that intellectuals believe that with them in charge, all will be right with the world because of their intellect. Sowell further says that when an intellectual’s output is ideas and they don’t work, they don’t suffer immediate consequences in the academic world. However, if an engineer’s idea of a building doesn’t work, it collapses and the consequences can be seen. So, once ideas meet the real world, as Obama’s have over this past year, shouldn’t that be their real test? Please watch part one of the interview regarding Sowell’s new book: Intellectuals and Society here:

http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MWYyOWMzOTgyZjgxYjk2ZWYzZTRkMTA5ZmU5NmEzZmY

Goldberg – GOP, reinvent yourself like Dominos.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online says Republicans can’t just win by saying “no,” they must reinvent themselves so that Americans can see that they haven’t thrown the country and conservatives over the cliff. They must admit where they went wrong over the past several years, especially during the Bush Administration.

The Democrats are poised to have a bad year; the only argument is over how bad it will be. And that question rests on whether or not the Republican party crafts an agenda voters will support.

So far the GOP has shrewdly been the “party of no.” Since I disagree with so much of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda, I happen to think that “no” is the correct position on the merits. But that’s not the point. Saying “no” has worked because that’s what most Americans say, too. Snip –

I’d tell the GOP to look not to Reagan in 1980 or Gingrich in 1994, as so many pundits suggest.

I’d look to Domino’s in 2010.

… Domino’s new campaign can be summed up easily enough: “We blew it.”

Focus groups and consumer surveys revealed something pretty much everyone outside of Domino’s has known for years: Their pizza stinks…

In their four-minute video (search YouTube for “the Pizza Turnaround”), executives, employees, and chefs at the company confront their harshest reviews head-on. They talk about how much it hurts to hear that their product “tastes like cardboard” and is worse than microwave pizza. But they admit the truth and commit themselves to starting over with more flavor, better crusts, and cheese that doesn’t taste like discount weather caulking. Domino’s says that the American palate has improved, and they want to update their recipe to take account of that fact.

The appeal of the campaign should be obvious: honesty. Domino’s admits they lost their way, and they want a second chance. They’re confronting the criticism head-on rather than denying it.

Obviously, the analogy to the GOP isn’t perfect…

But the GOP’s troubles over the last decade have a lot to do with the fact that Americans didn’t stop liking what the Republican party is supposed to deliver. They stopped liking what the GOP actually delivered.

… I would hate to see the GOP abandon conservative policies in order to be more popular. That would be like Domino’s listening to critics and then deciding to get into the Chinese-food business. Indeed, by my lights, that’s what George W. Bush tried to do with his “compassionate conservatism.” He surrendered to liberal arguments about the role, size, and scope of government on too many fronts. In effect, he said you can have your pizza and Kung Pao chicken all in the same dish…Snip –

So what would a GOP-turnaround recipe look like? …for starters, I’d look to young political chefs like Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.). He’s been the leader in attacking “crony capitalism” — the corrupt merger of big business and big government, a hallmark of the Obama administration. For too long Republicans confused supporting big business with supporting free markets, when big business is often the biggest impediment to fair competition. Other fresh new ingredients would almost surely include pro-family tax policies and the de-linking of legal and illegal immigration as interchangeable terms.

But first, the GOP needs to admit it screwed up. That’s what Democrats did with Bill Clinton, and it gave the “New Democratic Party” a new lease on life.

… More than any nation on earth, America is about second acts. We love contrition and redemption. We love it in pizza companies and politicians alike.

This makes much sense. With the Tea Parties attacking Republicans and Democrats alike, they just might be able to win more allies from those protesting in the streets by realizing what Americans want: adherence to the Constitution, government off of our backs, the end of political correctness, and doing things for the country not against it (via illegal immigration along with so many other things that political correctness and multiculturalism have done to tear the country apart and keep it in danger.)

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGJkNjhjZWFmYmYwODA0ZjZmZWE1N2FmNmE4ZWIwNGE=

Napolitano on The Constitution.

This is the first of five short videos on the Constitution. It’s well worth your time. Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News will be doing one every day this week.

http://www.thefoxnation.com/judge-andrew-napolitano/2010/01/11/judge-andrew-napolitanos-constitution-and-freedom-part-1

How will Obama’s Chicago Boys win elections? A response to stealing elections. Obama and Underpants.

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:48:00 GMT

How will Obama’s Chicago Boys win elections?

Hasn’t everyone wondered why Obama and the Democrats really don’t seem nervous about the fact that Americans hate basically everything they’ve been doing in Congress? Aren’t they committing political suicide? Well, I’ve often thought the slush fund they created with the so-called “stimulus” was what they were going to rely on to buy elections. But there is much more than that up their collective sleeves. Ed Lasky over at The American Thinker has also been curious, and he’s dug up a lot in this article:

…the release of the White House visitor logs that showed visits by Anna Burger, Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and named by Fortune Magazine as "the most powerful woman in the labor movement.”…

But Anna Burger is far more than an SEIU honcho; she also is the vice-chairman of a shadowy group called the "Democracy Alliance," composed of billionaire funders and savvy political operatives who set out a few years ago to change politics as we know it in America. Among their projects was something called the Secretary of States Project that set about electing secretaries of state in key battleground states.

These are the very officials who are charged with maintaining the integrity of the voting process. Recall the controversies in Ohio and Minnesota -- including ACORN problems -- regarding the accuracy of the votes in those states last year? The secretaries of state who gave a stamp of approval to these elections (where Democrats won) were Democrats supported by the Democracy Alliance. Various state chapters of the Democracy Alliance have formed to use a range of controversial methods to ensure Democratic victories. (See "The Colorado Model" by Fred Barnes for a display of the type of tactics that can be used to manipulate elections. These include creating faux controversies, spreading them through supposedly non-partisan groups created by Democrat activists, and relying on an echo chamber effect until the mainstream media picks up the "story" and broadcasts it far and wide. Other groups are formed to harass journalists and editorial writers who don't push the liberal line.)

Was Burger in the White House to plot future strategies with, say, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod? These are putatively the Chief of Staff and Senior Adviser, respectively, to President Obama. But before that, Emanuel was the maestro of political fundraising and spending, and Axelrod was a veteran political strategist who has run numerous political campaigns over the years (including Obama's). The Democracy Alliance has helped form front groups to get Democrats elected. Axelrod is a master at this type of tactic.

The Alliance's handiwork played a role in the victory of Al Franken over Norm Coleman, which helped secure a sixty-seat majority in the Senate. There was a group -- Alliance for a Better Minnesota -- that posed as a group of concerned citizens. The Alliance was funded by outsiders, namely the wealthy, hyper-partisan Democrats behind the Democracy Alliance. This was a so-called astrotruf group: it falsely appeared to be a true grassroots effort.

…the Obama team has killed off disclosure rules mandating that unions reveal how they spend the billions of their members' union dues. These, in turn, are often poured into "front groups" and other "funds" each year…

Then there’s Obama’s ditching of the superdelegates' role in nominating Democratic candidates for the presidency.

These superdelegates include Democratic members of Congress, national party figures, and established leaders of the Democratic Party. They vote at the nominating convention. The system was established in the wake of the 1972 Democratic Party nominating process, when anti-war radicals seized control of the party and ended up nominating George McGovern. The superdelegates were supposed to ensure that radicals did not take over the party's nominating process. Well, apparently that sort of restraint does not appeal to Obama, who now has taken steps to shape the nominating process to play to his preferred territory: the caucuses, where his brand of populism holds sway. The Wall Street Journal noted the trick:

…Take the case of Texas, which has both a caucus and a primary: Mrs. Clinton won the state's primary in which 2.8 million people voted, but Mr. Obama so controlled the caucuses where far fewer people (some 800,000) participated that he ended up with more delegates overall. The new rules, if approved, would likely mean even more of the same.

Since Obama's policies are sacrificing the careers of Democratic congressmen to fulfill his agenda, these politicians may withhold their support at a future nominating convention. What is the solution? Remove them from the equation by stripping their vote. Out they go, joining the ever-increasing number of bodies under the bus.

He goes on to show many other ways all the President’s men will be working to steal elections. In any other presidency, and especially in any Republican administration, the media would be all over these things. This isn’t just a bunch of plumbers breaking into a DNC office to see what dirt they can find. This is out and out stealing of elections and our “courageous” media yawns. Other ways he highlights is a manipulation of census data, which could affect the number of House seats awarded to each state. Those number affect federal funding dollars and determine electoral votes. And, don’t forget ACORN’s involvement.

Don’t forget they’re also talking about passing a law to override all state election laws and replace them with a federal mandate for universal voter registration. Add that to a desire to legalize all illegals (and register them as Democrats), and voila – they’ve created a huge number of Democrat voters just like that.

There is much, much more in this exhaustive article. Please read it all. The Republican Party and all the Tea Parties must be geared up to address what we know will be all out war to maintain control of the country.

If anyone now doubts that a little over a year ago the United States of America was taken over in a bloodless coup, he/she is willfully blind or part of the revolution. In order to keep this coup “bloodless,” we must beat them back during the next two election cycles. If politics is war without bloodshed, then Republicans need to start fighting this war to win before it becomes actual war, which is politics with bloodshed.

What we got was a team that will stoop very low indeed to win elections, honesty and transparency be damned. Obama may be a good basketball player, but he and his team excel in the blood sport of politics, and they will use every trick and tactic, no matter how disgraceful, to win. That may be the Chicago Way, but it is not the American Way.

Read it all here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/obama_and_the_white_house_chic.html

A response to stealing elections.

The following is from a commenter named “Valiant” as a response to the above article on American Thinker. I thought it had much usable information as a focus for the Tea Parties or as a way to get peopled involved at a local level.

The Secretary of States Project was the most brilliant, insidious effort of the last two elections. It undermines the voter registration and election process and may have accounted for the winning margin for (Obama).

Potentially, this may be the Tea Party's most important single effort as Patriot foot soldiers: identify, follow, watch, report, legally preempt and impede the Secretary of States' undermining of the electoral process day to day. Do it in each State.

On election day, man the voting precincts with real-time reporting capability, each with a designated rapid reaction force of media and lawyers prepared to act immediately to keep the voting within parameters, and to ensure there are no nightstick-carrying Democrat poll-watchers influencing the action.

We must shadow each Secretary of State and be ready to pounce with legal, media and moral suasion beginning in Spring 2010, well before the primaries.

AT can act as a key outlet with each Secretary of State followed and assessed ... shine the light of reporting and assessment on the voting mechanism and the performance of State oversight ... the AT SecState 'Czar' could be Ed Lasky. Rush, Heritage Foundation, Glenn et al will pick up on it and keep it in the public eye.

Hopefully, there will be enough political leverage left with which to force the Secretaries of State to do their jobs. This is something the Tea Parties can coalesce around and put up one helluva fight to literally save our Republic. It is that important.

So, as much as possible, we need a strategy for pre-emption that begins now, and one for seamless in-progress oversight and remediation. And, we need to exercise that strategy several times leading to the elections ... prior service folks will recognize those as dreaded, but essential, Command Post Exercises (CPX) ... but let's call them Election Place Exercises ... primarily to exercise communications. (Remember that the Democrats had cell and texting communications down to individual voter level in the last elections.)

Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich or similar strategic group could pull together the National and individual State scenarios, and State-level exercise committees develop the vignettes to drive County and precinct exercises, with some selected roll playing to come as close to election day situations as possible.
None of this is far-fetched. It could be pulled together in time to do a series of crawl, walk, run level 'command post exercises' of one or two days each to work out the bugs for saving our Republic right on the ground in your county or precinct…

Ed Lasky needs to do several progressive / follow-on pieces on this topic. Keep this discussion going. Get people up off the couch and focused on saving our electoral process.

If you’re involved in party politics, pass all of this information on to your local folks. They need to know what they’re up against and do something about this. This is urgent.

Scrappleface on Obama and Underpants.

In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253, President Obama, in a news conference from the Pacific White House in Hawaii, on Monday cautioned Americans to avoid "lashing out against folks in puffy underpants."

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, faces charges of attempting to destroy an airliner by detonating a high explosive sewn into what the FBI described as "boxers or briefs ... but clearly not adult incontinence undergarments."

"Our future as a nation depends on how we react to this incident," the president said. "If we start profiling people based on the mere appearance of their slacks, a lot of incontinent adults as well as infants and toddlers will be swept up in the discriminatory backlash. Civil rights and social justice must take precedence over our parochial concerns about fire, explosions, crashes and the potential of physical harm resulting from such events."

Standing side by side with the chairman of the Council of Adult Incontinence Relations, Obama noted that some of his own relatives had worn absorbent underwear, and "none of them ever attempted to down a jet."

Thermopylae for Health Care. DeMint's bold objection. State knew a lot about Christmas bomber?

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:37:13 GMT

Thermopylae for Health Care. Quin Hillyer at The American Spectator has written a rousing rebuke to Republicans for not fighting hard enough to keep the monstrosity of Health Care from coming to fruition. He likens it to the 300 Spartans…we must fight. Republicans just do not fight hard enough. Hillyer has some brilliant suggestions for the Stupid Party: Conservatives want Thermopylae. Congressional Republican leaders instead imitate the Confederate defense of Atlanta -- the one that led a local editor to write that General Joseph E. Johnston's reputation had "grown with every backward step." More...

Our Second Civil War. Hitler's Germany thought they were free. We're coming for you, Dems.

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:37:18 GMT

Our Second Civil War.

Bruce Walker, author of Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the LieandThe Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity, has penned an excellent column on what we’ve been experiencing since the 1960’s and has coupled it with the resurgence of the Left in the Obama administration. He says this Civil War we’ve experienced since the 1960’s must be won. Please read the whole thing for a look back to our recent past and see why we are where we are now. From The American Thinker:

…The 1960s, which ended forty years ago, was the time of our second trial -- our Second Civil War. It is a testament to its ferocity and its reach that the consequences of this internecine war for the soul of America remain undetermined.

Conservatives -- those who wanted to conserve the values of America going into the 1960s -- stood on one side of this battlefield. These Americans viewed our land as the best candle of hope in a stormy world. They strongly favored equal rights for blacks, despite an Orwellian rewriting of history painting them as racists. The Republican Party, the principle vehicle for conservatives, had a very long and clear record of opposing Jim Crow and the disenfranchisement and segregation of blacks.

…the 1960s became a period in which the ideal of equality was deformed into the notion of eternal entitlement. The conservative America ideal -- that merit, over time, lifts the lowly immigrant into success and status -- fought the Marxist ideal that classes of victims and oppressors never change. Social justice (or injustice) replaced individual justice. The mindset of these Marxists was identical to that of the Klansman or the Nazi: All wanted "social" justice and permanent, rigid lines of separation.

Conservatives understood that American greatness rested foremost upon private and broad fidelity to Judeo-Christian moral traditions. The Founding Fathers warned that American government could work only if the people were imbued with those values (which included religious tolerance). Snip –

… The abiding faith of Christians and of Jews, which had stabilized families and restrained notions of sin in a healthy check on the direction of culture, began to be portrayed almost always as bigoted ignorance…Two generations of Americans have grown up in this gulag of godlessness. Now, faith in anything beyond the top bureaucrat or trust in anything above the most decorated sociologists is heresy against militant secularism. Snip –

The 1960s saw the prevailing sentiment of America -- profound gratitude for the freedom and prosperity bestowed by brave and noble predecessors -- transformed by the left into a rude ingratitude, a mocking deconstruction of everything good in America, and an embrace of each imperfection as proof of some capital crime. Conservatives saw America as the place where everyone wanted to be, the one great nation which never had an emigration problem, the refugee country of all oppressed peoples. When GIs fought in Korea or in Vietnam, conservatives saw that the policy mission may have been foolish and the strategies unwise, but the underlying purpose -- to preserve freedom -- was never in question. The left, by contrast, seemed in the 1960s to adopt the belief that the people of South Korea would actually have been better off if they had been incorporated into the vast concentration camp which is North Korea. America in the 1960s became instead Amerika -- a fascist police state.

…The New Left, the Marxist left, emerged as the political commissar of everything which claimed to be on the left…Hubert Humphrey shepherded the civil rights legislation through Congress, assuring the nation that what we call affirmative action would be just as wrong as Jim Crow. The Marxist left abandoned him. Martin Luther King appealed, very directly, to the God of Christians and of Jews for the foundation of his movement. The God he cherished became an unperson to the Marxist left. It was JFK, icon of the left, who said that America would bear any price for freedom in the world. His vision of America as the Great Emancipator has been roughly cast aside.

… The Marxist left continues our Second Civil War because it exists in a smothering cocoon of relative truth, invented values, and faith in a purely material existence. This group, perhaps eight percent of the population, has influence far out of proportion to its numbers in America. It cannot be ignored, no matter how silly it seems. This Civil War for the soul of America must be won.

I finally awoke from my liberal sleep when the words of JKF were shown on the screen while watching Rush Limbaugh’s television show in the early 1990’s. JKF sounded like a conservative Republican, and that’s when I knew how far left the Democratic Party of my youth had traveled, and that’s when I knew how brainwashed I was. Read it here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/our_second_civil_war.html

Hitler’s Germany – thought they were free.

An interesting blog post over at neoneocon.com uses the rise of Nazism in Germany before WWII as a cautionary tale and reminds us that it didn’t take that long for Hitler’s rise. Be sure to read the comments at the post I’ll direct you to. Much to learn from the commenters as well.

…Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free. The book, first published in 1955, is an exploration of Germans’ attitudes in the period leading up to WWII and including the war and its immediate aftermath.

The following are excerpts from Mr. Mayer’s book:

…My friends observed that none of the non-Communist, non-Nazi leaders objected to the 35,000 Reichsmark salaries of the cabinet ministers, only the Communists and the Nazis objected. And the bitterest single disappointment of Nazism…was the fact that Hitler had promised that no official would get more than 1,000 Reichsmarks a month and did not keep his promise.

My friends wanted Germany purified. They wanted it purified of the politicians, of all the politicians. They wanted a representative leader in place of unrepresentative representatives. And Hitler, the pure man, the antipolitician, was the man, untainted by “politics,” which was only a cloak for corruption…Against “the whole pack,” “the whole kaboodle,” “the whole business,” against all the parliamentary parties, my friends evoked Hitlerism, and Hitlerism overthrew them all…

…Those Germans who saw it all at the beginning—there were not very many; there never are, I suppose, anywhere—called Hitler the Rattenfänger, the “ratcatcher.”

That last bit about Hitler being called the “ratcatcher” is a reference to The Pied Piper. Now, does this sound like anyone you know? And, didn’t our current president run for office excoriating “politics as usual” as he proceeded instead to perform Chicago politics as usual? And, isn’t he currently being put in a little bit of a hot seat (maybe just a lukewarm seat because of the irresponsibility of a complicit media) because of his campaign promise to open up health care negotiations to the public via C-SPAN? Of course, Brian Lamb of C-SPAN has sent him a letter reminding him of his promise, but our leader through his mouthpiece Gibbs is weaseling out of it. (Surprise!) You can see the video of JakeTapper questioning Gibbs and a video of Obama promising to broadcast negotiations here: http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/06/press-corps-grills-gibbs-um-didnt-obama-totally-shamelessly-lie-about-c-span/

Here’s the blog post concerning the cautionary tale of Germany. Could this be why Angela Merkel, Germany’s current Chancellor, looks at Obama with a jaundiced eye? She was raised in East Germany, you know. Read it here: http://neoneocon.com/2010/01/06/cautionary-words-from-hitlers-germany-they-thought-they-were-free/

We’re coming for you.

Great, short video called “America Rising.” We’re coming for you, Dem politicians. As posted by the guys at www.powerlineblog.com – and as they say, we never fell for the Obama/Dems as many Americans did, but the message works and well.

Check it out here, about three minutes long: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/01/025329.php

Late Night funnies.

"The weather here in California is very nice. But it's freezing all across the United States. In fact, in D.C., the weather is so bad — this is true — they actually hired convicted criminals to shovel snow at the U.S. Capitol. Isn't that amazing? So it's nice to see members of Congress doing something useful for a change." –Jay Leno

"President Obama spent the day talking to officials about airline security. One of the things they are doing is adding dozens of names to the no-fly list. Uh, hello, have you tried flying out of Newark? We're all on the no-fly list." –Jimmy Fallon

"Did you guys hear about this? The Secret Service just discovered that a third uninvited guest got into Obama's state dinner back in November, although Joe Biden insists he was actually invited." –Jimmy Fallon

"And conservatives have been criticizing President Obama. I guess they figure with ears like that he should have overheard something." –Jimmy Kimmel

Dem health bill will trigger unemployment. Obama: Jekyl and Hyde. Holder tries to kill school voucher ad.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:30:37 GMT

Dem Health bill will trigger unemployment.

By drips and drabs we’re finding out how dangerous this health care bill actually is. Don’t we need a little more unemployment? This is from Phillip Klein at The American Spectator blog:

One of the most onerous aspects of the House Democrats' health care legislation is the employer mandate, which would tax employers who do not offer health insurance to their workers. Not only does the proposal impose new costs on employers, but a whole new layer of red tape, both of which would undoubtedly lead to job losses and lower wages. Snip –

Under the provision, employers would have to offer every employee "qualified" health insurance coverage. The type of insurance that is considered "qualified" will be determined by the Health Choices Commissioner, a new post that will be filled by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Health Choice Commissioner, given many responsibilities throughout the legislation, would head up the newly-created Health Choices Administration. If a worker declines coverage but otherwise obtains insurance through the government-run insurance exchange, the employer will owe money to the government.

In order to prove that they're complying with the new mandate, employers must submit whatever information that the Health Choices Commissioner requests, and the information must also be provided to the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

For full-time workers, business will have to contribute at least 72.5 percent toward individual health insurance policies, and 65 percent for family policies. For part-time workers, the required percentage would be based on a proportion of how many hours they worked relative to the hours worked by a full-time employee. Snip –

Any employer with a total annual payroll of over $500,000 that does not meet these requirements will be subject to a new tax, which reaches as high as 8 percent once payroll reaches over $750,000.

The National Federation of Independent Business has estimated that an employer mandate would cost 1.6 million jobs over the first five years, and cut GDP by $200 billion…Basic economics tells us that if you raise the price of a good or service, then people will purchase less of it. In this case, rising prices for labor will mean lost jobs and lower wages. While the bill itself specifies that businesses cannot cut wages to comply with the mandate, this doesn't take into account that businesses could simply offer lower raises to their workers over time.

Just wondering what gravy train the Dems expect to ride on while the economy goes down the tube. They’ll get theirs and then run off to some Charlie Rangel island and leave the rest of us to rot with what’s left of our country. Read it all here:

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/10/30/how-democrats-health-care-bill

Obama: Jekyl and Hyde.

This is a fairly kind column all considering by Michael Gerson of the Washington Post regarding all the president’s enemies. Is this really any way to lead a country? He shows how different Obama’s campaign rhetoric was compared to his rhetoric and actions now. Divisiveness and hardball politics now, all sweetness and light then.

In November 2008, Obama was the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson to win the electoral votes of the Commonwealth (of Virginia). Obama's victory was a case study in how he might transform American politics, building an alliance of new voters and suburban Southerners to defeat Republicans at the heart of their power.

A year later, the Virginia governor's race displays a Democratic promise gone crusty and stale. The Republican candidate, Bob McDonnell, threatens to turn a lead into a rout. Democratic leaders, getting a head start on recrimination, fault Deeds' political skills, but mainly his tirelessly negative campaign. While McDonnell has talked of jobs and roads, Deeds has spent millions on ads warning of the Talibanization of Virginia by Mullah McDonnell…The charges did not stick. One unnamed White House official recently complained that Obama "had drawn a road map to victory in Virginia. Deeds chose another path."

But there is another explanation. Perhaps Deeds and Obama have declined in support for the same reason -- because they are taking the identical path.

It is difficult to remember now, but Obama was elected largely for his tonal, not ideological, appeal. His announcement speech in Springfield, Ill., denounced "the smallness of our politics." Snip –

But the tonal candidate also had a conventionally liberal policy agenda. And as that agenda has run into resistance -- on spending, health care and climate legislation -- the president's tone has utterly changed.

The Obama administration has gone after both Rush Limbaugh and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- showing an inability to distinguish between the burning of heretics and the burning of bridges. It has courted insurance companies, then publicly demonized them for showing independence. Obama has tended to define all opposition, particularly on health care, as resulting from fear, cowardice and selfishness -- instead of admitting genuine disagreement. At a recent fundraiser, he mocked Republicans as robots who "do what they're told." He has engaged in consistent, classless, self-excusing criticism of his predecessor. Other presidents have been known for a war on totalitarianism or a war on terror. Obama is known for a war on Fox News.

"The campaign," say Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen in Politico, "underscores how deeply political the Obama White House is in its daily operations -- with a strong focus on redrawing the electoral map and discrediting the personalities and ideas that have powered the conservative movement over the past 20 years." Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander…describes these tactics as behavior "typical of street brawls and political campaign consultants." It is also behavior typical of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who called town hall protesters "evil-mongers," and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who labeled them as "simply un-American."

There are many reasons why Obama, according to Gallup, has suffered the largest decline in approval, at this portion in his term, of any elected president since 1953 -- and why more Americans believe in UFOs than approve of the job done by Congress. But one reason is surely the bitter, brittle tone of the new Democratic establishment...

…Obama comes from Chicago, and suffers from an excess of Chicagoans around him. Many Democrats seem to like the street-brawling side of Obama and his team. Many independents and Republicans seem less enthusiastic that Mr. Hyde has moved in his furniture and clearly plans to stay.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/30/too_small_to_lead_98949.html

Holder tries to kill ad for school vouchers.

Things like this could be one of the multitude of reasons that Americans of all political stripes are backing away from the Obama Administration. Not only did Obama kill the D.C. voucher plan, but now he’s trying to strong-arm those critical of that decision. This administration is the most obnoxious and glass-chinned of any I’ve ever witnessed, and it is doing some frightening things because of it. This is originally from the Weekly Standard.

President Obama isn’t taking kindly to a television ad that criticizes his opposition to a popular scholarship program for poor children, and his administration wants the ad pulled.

Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad.

The 30-second ad, which has been airing on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and News Channel 8 to viewers in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, urges the president to reauthorize the federally-funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that provides vouchers of up to $7,500 for D.C. students to attend private schools.

The ad features Chavous and a young boy–one of 216 students whose scholarships were rescinded by the Department of Education earlier this year when the agency announced no new students would be allowed into the program. The ad also includes an excerpt taken from one of Obama’s campaign statements.

“I saw [Holder] at an event,” said Chavous. “He did ask me in front of others to pull the ad. My response was, ‘No, and I tell you what, if the president does the right thing, not only will we pull it but we will celebrate him.’ ”

Freedom of speech? Not in Obamamerica. You can view the 30 second ad at the link.

http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/attorney-general-eric-holder-tries-to-kill-a-tv-ad-for-school-vouchers,82907

Hat Tip: www.instapundit.com

October’s nanny of the month.

A short one-minute video from reason.tv via instapundit. Nothing like politicians sticking their big, fat noses into everyone’s business. It’s enough to make you want to scream. It is Halloween, so that might be appropriate. Watch it here:

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/87540/

Don’t go breaking my ???

This is a funny duet between Obama and Ahmadinejad based on the song “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” From the always bizarrely humorous The Nose on Your Face.

http://www.thenoseonyourface.com/conservative-satire/dont-go-breakin-my-balls-obama-and-ahmadinejad-duet/

Two Euro scientists--al Qaeda? Private sector proves its worth. Rush's interviews with NBC.

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:48:30 GMT

Two Euro nuclear scientists—al Qaeda?

Have you heard this story? Two European nuclear scientists (well-renown) were recently arrested because of ties to al Qaeda. They seem to be connected to the same al Qaeda group caught (many died) experimenting with the bubonic plague in Pakistan this past January. This is the same group, home base in Algeria, who bombed U.N. headquarters in Algiers, killing 41. Many Algerians live in France and move freely between the two countries. Hmmm…bombings, bubonic plague, nuclear scientists. Can you say “weapons of mass destruction?” This is from Annie Jacobsen of Pajamas Media who noticed something interesting online this past Friday night:

…a single-line item on the Counterterrorism Blog: “Switzerland: Terror cops arrest Collider scientist linked with al-Qaeda,” it said. The Collider is the largest nuclear research facility in the world. For at least the next forty-eight hours the story did not appear anywhere in the U.S. press, despite the fact that the arrested nuclear scientist, a 32-year-old Algerian-born French man named Dr. Adlene Hicheur, was being described by France’s Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence as a “very high-level” operative with AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). That’s the same group who’d been experimenting with bubonic plague earlier in the year. Adlene Hicheur had attended Stanford University, in California, in 1999 and 2002.

…Authorities say Dr. Adlene Hicheur and his 25-year-old brother Halim, also a nuclear scientist, had provided al-Qaeda with data on terrorism targets including the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. That facility, located underground on the Swiss-French border, is not your average nuclear facility. It is a 17-mile underground tunnel track where scientists are trying to create anti-matter by smashing atoms together. The results, the scientists hope, will create mini black holes and allow scientists to further explore theories about what happened after the Big Bang created the universe 14 billion years ago. Throw terrorists into that mix and a lot could go wrong.

It was at the Collider that Dr. Adlene Hicheur has spent the last six years working as an independent contractor for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)… Equally alarming and according to the Daily Mail, the younger Hicheur brother “carries out research at similar high-security scientific institutions around Europe.” This includes a top-secret nuclear research center in England called the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

French authorities have been watching the brothers for the past 18 months. According to Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, the decision to arrest the Hicheurs came after email correspondences between at least one of the brothers and known AQIM operatives had been intercepted by French intelligence agents.

“According to European intelligence sources, MI5 had been warned that the suspects ‘are outstanding scientists who had been honing their techniques in nuclear fusion across the world,’” says the Daily Mail.

Both brothers are internationally known and respected scientists with access to top-secret nuclear facilities throughout Europe. To those who knew the brothers personally, the news came as a blow. “They were held out to young people here as an example of what you could achieve, whatever your background,” a local youth worker from the brothers’ French town of Vienne told an Indian newspaper, the Siasat Daily. “There is a state of shock at what has happened and some anger,” the worker said.

But, but, they are respected scientists. How could they possibly do anything so horrendous? They’re just doing research, don’t ya know. Nothing could possibly go wrong. The world seems to be spinning out of control. Read it all here:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/two-european-nuclear-scientists-arrested-as-al-qaeda-suspects/

Hat Tip: www.instapundit.com

When private sector proves its worth.

This is an excellent eyewitness account of how the private sector got it together in a day to respond to the tsunami in Samoa. This is the proof (as if we needed it) of what a free people can do without government bureaucracy screwing everything up. This is from Marilia Duffles over at The American Spectator. Bravo.

September 29th, 10:48 a.m. PDT. Seismologists report a substantial earthquake epicentered on the ocean floor 120 miles south of the tiny bacon-strip island of American Samoa.

Within minutes the earthquake had spawned a tsunami with terrifying consequences.

By 8:00 p.m. PDT, the news was shattering. Cars, homes, personal possessions were destroyed or swept away by the massive waves. And there were deaths. Those too old to heed the tsunami warning and children ambling to school oblivious of the danger descending upon them disproportionately accounted for the dead.

Back in the U.S. a snap decision was made to mount and launch a disaster relief mission to fly much needed supplies and help to the beleaguered island.

At a moment's notice all available hands were called into action. Enthusiastic discipline prevailed. First, the aircraft schedule was shuffled to provide a plane. Check. Second, the situation at ground-zero was assessed to ensure the plane could land on the runway and that the fuel for the return flight had not been contaminated by the tsunami. Check. The FAA and TSA were contacted to ensure all systems go. Check.

With that, volunteers were urgently sought and over 100 quickly came forward to fill just 34 spots. Relief supplies were assessed and instantly purchased with a phone call to Wal-Mart's regional headquarters. Some 40,000 pounds of water, food, medical supplies and more were sorted, loaded and delivered to the awaiting aircraft. Logistics for smooth distribution upon landing were planned in great detail.

Communications experts and equipment -- satellite phones, computers, IT cables -- were quickly procured and brought onboard. A call went out that the unoccupied seats would be made available for any medical or government personnel and even the media. A medical disaster team, FEMA, the Coast Guard, two newspapers, and three television stations eagerly accepted the offer of transportation. Volunteers packed sheets and pillows with the full expectation of sleeping rough for a night or two.

September 30th, 4:00 p.m. PDT. A mere eighteen hours after the initial decision, the plane took off precisely at this pre-established time. A government operation? A launch from a military base?

No, it was a Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 767. I was one of the volunteers and in full disclosure, I am married to an employee. Snip –

Max Weber the 19th-century sociologist couldn't have said it better: "The individual bureaucrat cannot squirm out of the apparatus in which he is harnessed." This is precisely what the people's opposition to the government's control of banks, health care reform and so on is railing against. Our ancestors didn't take the enormous risk of traveling across the Atlantic to inhabit a new world that would be a carbon-copy of the rules-shackled society they left behind.

Like Hawaiian Airlines, they wanted to take off -- running with the freedom to be enterprising.

Please read the whole thing here:

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/10/14/the-business-of-compassion#comment_145973

Rush interview by NBC – part 1.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/10/12/rush_limbaugh_on_his_life_obama_gop.html

Rush interview by NBC – part 2.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/#33289087

Bachmann: Investigate ACORN-Franken votes.

Boy, this woman is the Dems’ worst nightmare in Minnesota. Bless you, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. We need more Republicans like her. She’s a scrapper. She’s articulate. She’s attractive. She’s smart. Video from a recent Bill O’Reilly show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10mkLCB-rdg

Here’s Newsbusted’s latest video.

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=GdSU8z6Ueu

Czar seeks "chilling effect." Withering free speech. Could Supremes overturn McCain-Feingold?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:06:47 GMT

Czar seeks “chilling effect.”

This is all about Cass Sunstein, the new “regulatory czar,” his latest book, and his desire to impose a “chilling effect” on Internet websites. This is an example of the folks who surround our president. How’s that warm and fuzzy feeling treating you today? This is from Lee Cary of the American Thinker:

The meta-message of Cass Sunstein's new book delivers a warning to those who would spread Internet "rumors" about Barack Obama.

The Regulatory Czar's latest book is entitled Rumors. It purports to be about how rumors spread…

The subtitle of the book is "How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done." … For Sunstein, "part of the answer lies in recognizing that a ‘chilling effect' on those who would spread destructive falsehood can be an excellent idea."…

Most of Sunstein's examples of rumor sources are directed against the Right. "If the National Rifle Association spreads a rumor that a political candidate wants to ‘confiscate guns,' or if an environmental organization spreads a rumor that someone believes that climate change is a ‘hoax,' many people will be affected, because they tend to believe the National Rifle Association or the environmental organization." …

… Like "When members of the Republican Party spread rumors about an appointee of a Democratic president, they hope to injure not only the reputation and the standing of the appointee but also that of the president and the Democratic Party as a whole, thus promoting the interests of Republicans."…

Do you think Sunstein was personally motivated on that “rumors” stuff when he himself was attacked for some of his thinking (some of which is actually confirmed by this scary book he has written.) So what happens when someone says something is a rumor, when it is actually a truth? Shouldn’t they be liable as well…if you’re going to attack the “rumor mongers” shouldn’t you also reserve a special place in this hell for the liars?

Another category of rumor propagators are the generally self-interested. Like when "Some right-wing websites liked to make absurd and hateful remarks about the alleged relationship between Barack Obama and the former radical Bill Ayers." (p. 13) ("Former" radical?) Snip –

Just as an aside here, more and more people believe that Ayers did actually write Obama’s book “Dreams from my Father.” Oops… is that a rumor or an opinion? See where this goes?

So, according to Sunstein, What Can Be Done about false rumors? Well, here's the ramp-up to his solution:

"These points should not be taken as a plea for any kind of censorship...Sometimes a chilling effect can be an excellent safeguard...We need, in short, to find ways to discourage the harmful effects of false rumors." (pp. 10-11)

Of course, creating a "chilling effect" isn't censorship. (Snark) Snip –

"Any marketplace requires standards and ground rules; no market can operate as a free-for-all. It is not obvious that the current regulatory system for free speech -- the current setting of chill -- is the one that we would or should choose for the Internet era." (p. 78)

And what might those "standards and ground rules" for the Internet era include?

1. “[A] general right to demand retraction after a clear demonstration that a statement is both false and damaging. If a newspaper (or) broadcaster or blogger refuses to provide a prominent retraction after a reasonable period of time, it might be liable for at least modest damages.”

2. "On the Internet in particular, people might have a right to ‘notice and take down.' [T]hose who run websites would be obliged to take down falsehoods upon notice."

3. "Damage caps and schedules could do a great deal to promote free speech values while also ensuring a measure of deterrence...A cap on damages, alongside liability to establish what is actually true, could work to leverage the propagator's concern for his reputation to good effect." (pp. 78-79) Snip –

"Some kind of chilling effect on damaging rumors is exceedingly important -- not only to protect people against negligence, cruelty, and unjustified damage to their reputations, but also to ensure the proper functioning of democracy itself." (p. 88) Snip –

If Czar Sunstein is able to enact the "chilling effect" that he proposes in Rumors by the next general election, websites like the American Thinker could become regular targets of retraction demands from the Left, and face the threat of fines for spreading what the Regulatory Czar defines as "rumors."

Perhaps a skit on Saturday Night Live that jokes about the Obama administration doing “nothing” – which is then (amazingly enough) fact-checked by CNN -- won’t be allowed on a comedy show. You see how this works? “Chilling effect” is just pre-emptive censorship. It’s a threat that hangs over one’s head – kind of like calling someone a racist keeps people from criticizing a black person (political correctness, in other words). These are all ploys of the left to shut up and shut down the right. This kind of thinking leads to the actual doing. Fight it regardless of whether it comes from the left or the right. Now, is that a rumor or an opinion? Or is it fact? Don’t write anything that might be critical because you don’t want to be sued do you? Just what is free speech? Let’s fight about this out loud, on paper, on television, on radio, on the Internet, then let the individual decide. That’s free speech. http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/czar_seeks_chilling_effect_on.html

Withering free speech.

Mark Steyn on the dismantling of free speech. This is from a blog post at The Corner on National Review Online.

…the superficial fluffily benign language of multiculturalism that comes so naturally to our rulers provides a lot of cover for the shriveling of free speech: See, for instance, what the Administration and its chums in Cairo (that bastion of liberty) have recently been up to at the disgusting UN Human Rights Council. The indefatigable Anne Bayefsky is one of the few journalists even following this story.

I actually blogged about Bayefsky’s column just last week here: http://www.politicallyempowered.com/Blog/tabid/7125/EntryID/1391/Default.aspx

But I was struck by something Dennis Miller said to me on the radio the other day:

I think if Obama had the chance to put something like Canada's Human Rights Commissions down here, he'd do it tomorrow.

As Canadians have discovered, liberty is lost very quietly and quickly. And trying to get it back is slow and painful - particularly at a time when artists, universities, publishers and others who congratulate themselves incessantly on their truth-telling courage find increasingly pre-emptive self-censorship the better part of valor.

Note Steyn’s terminology: “pre-emptive self-censorship.” Wording similar to my own in the above blog post. Multiculturalism and political correctness are exactly that: pre-emptive self-censorship. And please remember where political correctness and multiculturalism came from as Bill Whittle reminds us (it’s Marxism married to the culture rather than to the economy) here: http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2343

The Europe of 2020 will have considerably less freedom of expression than today. American exceptionalism is going to have to be exceptionally exceptional to hold out against that trend.

So, do your part, pass today’s blog around to your friends. Read all of Steyn here: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmE0ZDMxZWNlYTczOTRiYjUxN2I0Y2JhZTA0MWQzYzQ=

Could Supremes overturn McCain-Feingold?

Will they put the FEC on a leash that was loosened in 1990 and removed in 2003? This might be an interesting case to watch. Freedom of speech is being attacked from all quarters. This is from an unsigned editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

…the Supreme Court heard a historic reargument in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , and the Justices have a chance to revisit two of their greatest offenses against the Constitution.

The case involves a political documentary made during last year's Presidential primaries about then-Senator Clinton called "Hillary: The Movie." It wasn't what you'd call a glowing portrayal. Funded by a group called Citizens United, the film was intended to be shown on cable TV during the primary season, a profile that got it caught in the net of campaign finance reform laws that control political advertising.

At stake are two major precedents in the campaign-finance canon, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and a portion of McConnell v. FEC (2003). In Austin , the Court ruled the government may ban corporations from engaging in what's known as "express advocacy" directly from corporate treasury funds, requiring the funds to be channeled through a separate political action committee. In McConnell , the Court built on that decision to uphold most of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, a.k.a. the 2002 McCain-Feingold law, including a section that banned "electioneering communications."

The question now before the Court is whether corporations and unions may be singled out for speech restrictions. In March, the government suggested that under current law it could theoretically also ban other media like books. "That's pretty incredible," Justice Samuel Alito said at the time. Under the standard applied to the Hillary film, the Institute for Justice noted recently, books like Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's my Country" could also be in jeopardy.

In oral argument (September 8), Solicitor General Elena Kagan tried to backpedal the possibility of such a ban, but Justice Roberts wasn't buying. Relying on the discretion of the regulators wasn't a good option, he said. "We don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats." Snip –

The First Amendment was designed specifically to protect speech in just the kind of scenario "Hillary: The Movie" presents—the right to engage in the political process and to challenge and comment on candidates. Citizens United is the ideal opportunity to overturn a major swath of bad law.

We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of a “Regulation Czar” either. So, whatever Czar Sunstein commands could and should be brought before the Supreme Court as well. Let’s hope Obama doesn’t have a chance to pack that before Sunstein does his dirty work. Let’s hope the Supremes smack down McCain-Feingold once and for all. Read it all here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203585004574392613404881476.html

Free political speech.

Mona Charen also has an article about freeing political speech, not just from laws, but from FEC regulations that have tied the free-speech hands of everyday Americans. This is from National Review Online.

…As Brad Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, recently explained, campaign-finance laws continue to regulate over “70 different types of speakers — corporations, candidates, party officials, unions; and 30 different forms of speech, each with its own rules.” There are more than 200 pages of statutory language, over 500 pages of regulations, over 1,700 pages of explanation and justification of these regulations, and over 2,000 advisory opinions by the Federal Election Commission interpreting all of this.

Many Americans are unaware of how much their free-speech rights have been infringed. But as John Stossel reported, Becky Cornwall got a painful education. She opposed a ballot initiative that would have folded her town into the larger neighboring jurisdiction. Because she owned a printing shop, she made up signs saying “No Annexation.” Some of her neighbors joined her cause and knocked on doors sporting “No Annexation” t-shirts and seeking signatures for a petition. Before you could say “grassroots political activity,” she and her friends were slapped with a lawsuit for failing to register as an “issue committee” and list all of their expenses.

Or take the case of Ada Fisher, a retired North Carolina doctor who twice ran for Congress. “She ran on a shoestring budget, campaigning out of her own car, making her own signs and buttons. For staff, she relied exclusively on volunteers.” Unable to successfully navigate the 500 pages of FEC regulations, she and her (unpaid) campaign treasurer were fined $10,000 for late filings.

These FEC regulations are nothing more than an incumbent protection racket. Those grassroots activists trying to run their own candidates would do themselves a lot of good to get educated on these usurper-of-the-Constitution regulations. Make sure your friends and relatives know what is at stake as the government infringes on Americans’ rights while we’re looking elsewhere. Read it all here:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmZmNDc2N2QxODk5YjZiZDQxNWNkM2NjN2RmN2QwMTc=

Here’s Newsbusted’s latest video.

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=GdSUnzuzkU

They still spell it "Amerika." Rush and Rubin on Obama-Nobel. DeMint in Honduras. Graham signs on to Cap and Trade.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:13:58 GMT

They still spell it “Amerika.”

Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner has an excellent piece. We’re starting to see more and more of these columns in regular newspapers, and not just online, highlighting the influence on Obama by left-wing 60’s radicals. From online to regular newspapers…the next step is to those newspapers Washington politicians might actually read: the New York Times and the Washington Post, then maybe (maybe?) it might break into the alphabet networks and the left-wing cable news shows:

For those of us who grew up in the era when Weather Undergrounders Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn were familiar names in the news, it is always discomforting to be reminded of Barack Obama's many associations with people of the radical left - Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, etc.

Such folks' political thought never progressed beyond the 1960s because the revolutionary New Left didn't disapear, it simply went on to graduate school and then careers, mostly in the mainstream media, academia, the non-profits, the bureaucracy of state and local social work, and Blue State politics. Many bought BMWs and flat screens who nevertheless never stopped dreaming of revolution. In their hearts, they still spell it "Amerika."

More recently, as the first year of the Obama administration has unfolded and the basic outlines of his domestic and foreign policies have emerged, that discomfort has steadily become more tangible as the radical roots of the Sixties have broken ground in the White House and now are spreading rapidly into every corner of the federal government. Snip –

Whatever Barack and the people he has surrounded himself with may profess with their mouths at any particular time, their actions show they still loathe America and our standing as most powerful nation on earth, as well as our free enterprise, individual liberty, reverence for family and local communities, Main Street, the U.S. military, Christianity, and every other hallmark of the traditional culture and values of Western civilization.

And now they think they have the power and position to do what they've always wanted to do - tear it all down and remake it in their millenarian image of Leviathan…

Some people are waking up. Faster please. Read the whole thing here:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/They-still-spell-it-Amerika-63893957.html

Tapscott also mentions this excellent (and long) Krauthammer piece in The Weekly Standard called Decline is a Choice. It’s well worth reading here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/056lfnpr.asp?pg=1 http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/056lfnpr.asp?pg=1 http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/056lfnpr.asp?pg=1

Rush on Obama-Nobel.

Here’s Rush’s reaction to Obama-Nobel. He’s right on target as usual. This is from www.newsmax.com.

“The Nobel gang just suicide bombed themselves. Gore, Carter, Obama, soon Bill Clinton. See a pattern here? They are all leftist sell-outs. George Bush liberates 50 million Muslims in Iraq, Reagan liberates hundreds of millions of Europeans and saves parts of Latin America. Any awards?” Limbaugh says “Obama gives speeches trashing his own country and for that gets a prize, which is now worth as much as whatever prizes they are putting in Cracker Jacks these days.”

The award exposes an illusion surrounding Obama, Limbaugh said, adding, "It is a greater embarrassment than losing the Olympics bid. And with this 'award' the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States. They love a weakened, neutered U.S, and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too.”

The article goes on to point to some embarrassed liberal comments as well. Read the rest here. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/rush_obama_prize/2009/10/09/270488.html

Rubin: A step too far.

Jennifer Rubin in her blog post at Commentary Magazine goes into the left’s initial (embarrassed) reactions to Obama’s win of the Nobel Prize), and then concludes what a normal American might conclude if they’re actually paying attention.

(Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize is) a bad thing, a very bad thing, because he got it — as one must to snag a Nobel Peace Prize — by denigrating American values and exceptionalism, demonstrating an aversion to moral clarity, refusing to call out despotic regimes (the Iranian students will be thrilled to know that they give prizes to leaders who think of them as an annoyance), disarming America, repeatedly distorting history to fit false narratives, refusing to stand up to international bullies (excuse me, members in good standing in the international community), and spinning a great deal of hooey about global wealth-sharing and environmental extremism.

And here’s the thing: these regimes don’t like America any more than they used to. They love a U.S. president who shares their disdain for America’s role in the world. So they gave him a prize. “America Isn’t That Great” Man of the Year isn’t something to cheer…

And, The One with the swollen head will take this as encouragement to further diminish the United States. Welcome to “We are the World” and we follow the world; we do not lead it. Thanks, Obama voters. You really know how to “change” the country in a very short period of time. Be prepared for the next terrorist attack. Read it all here:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/121462

What Sen. DeMint heard in Honduras.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint just got back from Honduras on a fact-finding mission, and what did he find? Opponents and supporters of former Honduran President Zelaya, who was removed from office for usurping the Constitution are all on the same side: the country of Honduras followed the Consitution. (Perhaps we need some kind of trigger similar here for those in our government who usurp our Constitution.) The only person he spoke to who was still calling the removal a “coup” was the United States Ambassador to Honduras. Hmmm…who does he report to?

After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras's government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there. There is, however, chaos to spare in the Obama administration's policy toward our poor and loyal allies in Honduras.

That policy was set in a snap decision the day Mr. Zelaya was removed from office, without a full assessment of either the facts or reliable legal analysis of the constitutional provisions at issue. Three months later, it remains in force, despite mounting evidence of its moral and legal incoherence. Snip --

The evidence of Mr. Zelaya's abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted. Snip --

When I asked (U.S.) Ambassador (Hugo) Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a "coup," he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh's report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied. Snip –

He mentions the report from an analyst at the Law Library of Congress who has done a thorough fact-checking of the situation in Honduras and confirms the constitutionality of Zelaya’s removal.

Unlike the Obama administration's snap decision after June 28… So persuasive is the report that after its release, the (left-leaning) New Republic's James Kirchick concluded in an Oct. 3 article that President Obama's hastily decided Honduras policy is now "a mistake in search of a rationale." Snip --

(Obama has) revoked the U.S. travel visas of President Micheletti, his government and private citizens, and refuses to talk to the government in Tegucigalpa… frozen desperately needed financial assistance to one of the poorest and friendliest U.S. allies in the region. It won't release the legal basis for its insistence on Mr. Zelaya's restoration to power. Nor has it explained why it's setting aside America's longstanding policy of supporting free elections to settle these kinds of disputes. Snip --

America's Founding Fathers—like the framers of Honduras's own constitution—believed strong institutions were necessary to defend freedom and democracy from the ambitions of would-be tyrants and dictators. Faced by Mr. Zelaya's attempted usurpations, the institutions of Honduran democracy performed as designed, and as our own Founding Fathers would have hoped.

Hondurans are therefore left scratching their heads. They know why Hugo Chávez, Daniel Ortega and the Castro brothers oppose free elections and the removal of would-be dictators, but they can't understand why the Obama administration does.

They're not the only ones.

Well, the Obama administration wants to usurp our own Constitution, so they certainly can’t be seen defending a legal removal of a would-be dictator now, can they. (I refer you to the first blog post above.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

Lindsey Graham signs onto Crap and Tax bill.

South Carolina has a wonderful Senator in Jim DeMint (above), but for some reason keep electing an uncontrollable weather vane in Lindsey Graham. Wonder how South Carolina companies are going to love him after this? What is wrong with this idiot?

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has signed on to the Democrats’ massive green redistribution scheme masquerading as a planet-saving, national security-enhancing “energy independence” scheme.

Can John McCain and the rest of the Climate Change Republicans be far behind?

With the growing evidence out there that this will do nothing for the climate (even if there was a problem), Graham does this for “bi-partisanship” and because he and John Kerry think the EPA regulations threatened will be worse. Great reason to sign on to a piece of crap. Too depressing to post more. You can read it here:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/11/what-did-i-tell-ya-lindsy-graham-signs-on-to-cap-and-tax/

Rangel and his “ethics.”

Charlie Rangel is the poster boy for term limits. This Richard Cohen column from the Washington Post reviews Rangel’s win over Adam Clayton Powell in his first election for representative because of Powell’s disease of “Congressional Sclerosis.” That’s just a made-up term for being in Congress too long and thinking you’re above the law and the rules. Now Rangel has the disease.

Rangel is now the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and a man of immense importance in Washington. Nonetheless, he has been busy of late revising and amending the record, backing and filling, using buckets of Wite-Out as he discovers or remembers properties he has owned in New York, New Jersey, Florida, the Dominican Republic and God only knows where else -- and has forgotten or neglected to fully report on the required forms, not to mention the income from them…

Rangel recently even discovered bank accounts that no one in the world, apparently including him, knew he had. One was with the Congressional Federal Credit Union; another was with Merrill Lynch -- each valued between $250,000 and $500,000. He somehow neglected to mention these accounts on his congressional disclosure forms, which means, if you can believe it, that when he signed the forms, he did not notice that maybe $1 million was missing… Snip –

…he failed to report dividend income from various investments in addition to what he made by selling a townhouse in Harlem. The place went for $410,000 in 2004, and had been rented -- or not -- to various people, who paid rent or didn't -- since Rangel reported no income for years at a time. This is what he did, too, with the rent he earned on his Dominican Republic villa…

There is something wrong with Charlie Rangel. Either he did not notice that he was worth about twice as much as he said he was -- which is downright worrisome in a congressional leader -- or he thinks that he's above the law, which is downright worrisome in a congressional leader…

But he suffers from the degenerative disease called Congressional Sclerosis. Its symptom is the belief that the rules, especially the petty ones, no longer apply to you. This happens over time. It comes with seniority and a sense of victimization that combine to produce the onset of entitlement for goodies to which, in the course of things, you are not entitled. All this is abetted by the righteous belief that everyone else is making money and taking private planes and dipping their tootsies in the balmy Caribbean on a given February Friday -- and so why can't you? You have the power and the staff -- just look at all those people! -- and flunkies who will hold the elevator for you, pick you up at Reagan National Airport and on the other end at La Guardia -- and you ought to have some commensurate luxuries. This is only right.

This is the disease that ended Powell's career…Now, all these years later, the omissions, deletions, amendments, corrections and curious accumulation of wealth make one revise the history that Rangel wants obliterated: He didn't beat Powell. He joined him.

What’s worrisome about this is that the Congressional Black Caucus basically says, “Hey, there are people here worse than Charlie.” Now, does that sound like a banana republic to you? If, now that Obama is president, we can’t rid ourselves of a corrupt politician because he is black, do we have a system of laws anymore? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091402706.html

Hat Tip: www.michellemalkin.com

All of Barack Obama’s prizes.

Reason TV on all the other prizes Obama is just as qualified to win.

http://reason.com/blog/2009/10/10/reasontv-barack-obama-wins-200