Spotted...

In the past day, I have spotted on I-80 two bumper stickers featuring our current President while I was both going to, and coming home from, work. One made me laugh, and the other gave me an incredulous shake of the head.

The first was on a big Dodge HEMI-type pickup. The left-hand side of the sticker showed a photo of Obama with his chin sticking up in the air in one of his classic Mussolini poses. Next to the photo, the sticker said DOES THIS ASS MAKE MY TRUCK LOOK BIG?

I love it!

The next sticker I saw was on the back of a Toyota Highlander. This one also featured a photo of Obama, only the photo was as flattering as possible. Next to the photo, the sticker said GIVE HOPE A CHANCE.

Good Lord, talk about a hopeless true believer. I think we have given Caesar Obummus more than enough of chance already, don't you?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Thank God no one will have to read that horrible prayer anymore

I found out tonight about the story of Jessica Ahlquist, a busybody high schooler in Rhode Island who decided to impose her atheist beliefs on her fellow students at Cranston High School West.

For years, Cranston High had a banner hanging in the school that featured a prayer that students were free to look at (or not). After I read what was written on that banner, I guess it's a good thing that Jessica decided to wage her personal jihad on this banner and save her fellow students from its evil and corrupting influence. Witness now the text of the prayer that offended young Jessica so much that she convinced a U.S. District Judge into ordering it removed. You might want to tell your kids to leave the room if you plan on reading it out loud:

Our Heavenly Father,

Grant us each day the desire to do our best. To grow mentally and morally, as well as physically. To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers. To be honest with ourselves, as well as with others. Help us to be good sports, and smile when we lose, as well as when we win. Teach us the value of true friendship. Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.

Amen

Whew! Thank God that Jessica came along when she did. Who knows what kind of violence and mayhem that prayer might have caused her fellow students to commit.

On second thought, don't thank God for anything - Jessica might get offended.

This whole sad situation reminds me of one of my favorite verses from the Bible (Isaiah 5:20), which more and more shows Isaiah for the prophet he was:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

Woe unto you Jessica Ahlquist. You have declared this good and beautiful prayer to be evil, and even worse, you convinced a federal judge (Reagan appointee, unfortunately) into shoving your beliefs down everyone else's throats by having the prayer banner removed.

And our country continues to circle the drain.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The Debates: What the hell is the Republican Party thinking?

In the days leading up to the New Hampshire Primary, I found out that a Republican debate would be moderated by ABC News talking head George Stephanopoulos. It is bad enough that a Republican debate would yet again be moderated by a news-critter who is on the other side of the political spectrum from the Republican candidates, but what made it that much worse was that George Stephanopoulos was no ordinary news-critter; he was President Bill Clinton's communications director and chief spinmeister. Not surprisingly, his political partisanship came through loud and clear during the debate. At one point, he was even booed by the audience.

Media Research Center's Brent Bozell has much more to say about the idiocy of the Republican Party, and its willingness to agree to have hostile leftists moderate their debates.

Bozell begins his piece with some rather poignant questions:

"Who in the GOP in his or her right mind invites a historically shameless Democratic spin controller like Stephanopoulos to "moderate" a primary debate like this — ever...?"

"Why must the Republicans keep handing over their debate stage in the primary season to the people who desperately want them all to bumble, stumble and fall on their faces on national TV?"

Read the rest here.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

How bad is our debt problem? Watch and laugh (and cry)

Imagine a household budget composed of the following numbers:

Total Household Debt: $140,000

Household Income: $21,700

Household Spending: $38,200

Annual Household Deficit: $16,500

Amount of Spending Cut: $380

Doesn't work, does it? But just add a whole crap-load of zeroes to these figures, and you have the budget numbers for the United States of America. Taking away all of those zeroes really makes it all seem so painfully clear, does it not? For further perspective that tragically illustrates the impossibility of this situation, watch this humorous video of a man with this household budget going to his local bank to see about raising his debt limit:



Don't you feel for the poor kid? Mine are in the same boat. Oh, and keep in mind that this video is already out of date. That household debt is now over $150,000! Oh, you didn't know that our national debt has now topped $15,000,000,000,000?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Just like a movie... complete with techno-assassins and bumbling, wishy-washy U.S. bureaucrats

Imagine this scene being in a movie:

An Iranian university professor who is involved in Iran's nuclear program is driving down a Tehran street. All of a sudden, two men on a motorcycle pull up alongside the professor's car, attach a magnetic bomb to the door of the car, and then speed away. Seconds later, the bomb explodes, killing the professor. And talk about a personal hit: the bomb is just powerful enough, and is shaped in a way to only kill the intended target - the other two occupants in the professor's car are left with non-life-threatening injuries.

Forget movies; what I just described really happened earlier today. When I read the article, I could totally picture the whole scene in my mind as it would play out in a movie, but believe me when I say that I realize that this isn't a movie, and a man died for real. On the other hand, this man was apparently helping to realize the nuclear dreams that the mullahs of Iran have had for quite some time. Or for all we know, this poor sap was balking at helping the mullahs, and they had him killed as an example to the other Iranian nuclear scientists.

Either way, that doesn't change the limp response from a spokesman from the Obama administration about the incident:

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the U.S. "had absolutely nothing to do" with Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan's death and the U.S. condemns "all acts of violence, including acts of violence like what is being reported today."

OK, denying U.S. involvement in, and condemning this particular assassination is one thing, but for the Obama spokesmouth to say that the U.S. "condemns all acts of violence" is a bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say?

Killing Osama bin Laden would be a considered an act of violence, would it not? A Navy SEAL sniper taking off the head of a Somali pirate is an act of violence, is it not? Our continued operations in Afghanistan, where we kill Taliban members all the time, is an act of violence, is it not? How about Obama's Justice Department allowing guns to be taken into Mexico to be used in the murders of over 300 Mexican citizens and 2 U.S. law enforcement agents? Does that qualify as an act of violence?

I swear, Obama and his minions never miss an opportunity to make asses of themselves. If only the lamestream news media would actually report it.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

And I went to high school because...?

I have never been a big fan of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). As usual, it was seemingly passed by Congress and signed by President George H.W. Bush with seemingly the best of intentions. But as laws like this often demonstrate, the unintended consequences of legislation is an afterthought, or is not considered at all.

Very quickly, the ADA was used by ambulance-chasing lawyers to extort and shake down businesses that had the slightest violations of the law - whether it be a bathroom sink that was a few inches too high, or a step that blocked wheelchair access to an insignificant section of the establishment. Not to mention the fact that while the ADA was meant to stop workplace discrimination against handicapped employees, all the law did was to unintentionally encourage employers to not hire handicapped workers to begin with.

Now we have a new reason to despise the ADA. Apparently, the law is being violated when an employer requires a high school diploma. I will give you a link to a newspaper article about the particulars, but you really need to read the wording of the actual policy letter posted on the website of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). This is freedom and prosperity-snuffing bureaucracy at its finest:

Under the ADA, a qualification standard, test, or other selection criterion, such as a high school diploma requirement, that screens out an individual or a class of individuals on the basis of a disability must be job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity. A qualification standard is job related and consistent with business necessity if it accurately measures the ability to perform the job’s essential functions (i.e. its fundamental duties). Even where a challenged qualification standard, test, or other selection criterion is job related and consistent with business necessity, if it screens out an individual on the basis of disability, an employer must also demonstrate that the standard or criterion cannot be met, and the job cannot be performed, with a reasonable accommodation. See 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(6); 29 C.F.R. §§ 1630.10, 1630.15(b) and (c); 29 C.F.R. pt. 1630, app §§ 1630.10, 1630.15(b) and (c).

Thus, if an employer adopts a high school diploma requirement for a job, and that requirement “screens out” an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA’s definition of “disability,” the employer may not apply the standard unless it can demonstrate that the diploma requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity. The employer will not be able to make this showing, for example, if the functions in question can easily be performed by someone who does not have a diploma.

So, the high school diploma requirement is only a violation of the ADA if the requirement has nothing to do with the job duties. Right? Oh, wait, the letter goes on:

Even if the diploma requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity, the employer may still have to determine whether a particular applicant whose learning disability prevents him from meeting it can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without a reasonable accommodation. It may do so, for example, by considering relevant work history and/or by allowing the applicant to demonstrate an ability to do the job’s essential functions during the application process. If the individual can perform the job’s essential functions, with or without a reasonable accommodation, despite the inability to meet the standard, the employer may not use the high school diploma requirement to exclude the applicant. However, the employer is not required to prefer the applicant with a learning disability over other applicants who are better qualified. [Yeah, right!]

The EEOC lawyer takes his time with the legalese, but he finally gets around to essentially saying that if the job applicant had some sort of learning disability in high school, you can't require a diploma from him whether it is related to the job or not.

Oh, but worry not! The letter ends with this meaningless statement:

We hope this information is helpful. This letter is an informal discussion of the issues you raised and should not be considered an official opinion of the EEOC.

Sincerely,

/s/

Aaron Konopasky
Attorney Advisor
ADA/GINA Policy Division

It may not be an official opinion of the EEOC, but I think we are versed well enough with our Imperial Federal Government that when they "suggest" that you do something, you damned well better do it. For example, the government still insists that we pay our income taxes voluntarily. Hmmm... just watch what will happen to you if you volunteer not to pay them.

In the meantime, a proclamation like this from the EEOC is like chum for those sharks with law degrees who see a whole new lawsuit industry popping up that is just waiting to be exploited.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A lesson on how to handle the lamestream media

I don't support Rick Perry for the Republican presidential nomination, but I must give kudos to his handling of leftist tool Mike Allen of Politico.com.

Politico is rather notorious for using unnamed sources to carry a spurious story forward (see Cain, Herman), but when Allen tried this tactic on Perry, the Texas governor wasn't having it. Watch and learn, kids:



Whenever a reporter uses the term, "some say," be very wary.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Now that the presents are opened...

I just wanted to take a minute to remind myself and everyone else why we spent today opening gifts and stuffing ourselves full of glorious food. Hit it Linus:



Merry Christmas, Everyone!

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Bill of Rights eviscerated on their anniversary

On December 15, 1791 - 220 years ago, today - the Bill of Rights were officially ratified and added to the Constitution.

How sad it is that on this day of all days, President Obama signed the 2012 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes Section 1031. This section gives the President the option of ordering the military to indefinitely detain American citizens without charges, evidence, or trial if the citizen is suspected of terrorist activity. Of course, if you have ever read the PATRIOT Act, "terrorist activity" is pretty much whatever the government wants it to be.

There are plenty of people who continue to insist that people like me are confused, and that Section 1031 of the NDAA does not apply to American citizens. The Hill, for instance reports that,

In both cases, the bill does not create any new authority to detain U.S. citizens, ensuring their rights to a fair trial, and the military detention language does exempts U.S. citizens.

Of course, that assurance leaves me with little comfort when all one has to do is listen to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), insist that the power to detain American citizens does indeed exist because after all, it was President Obama who insisted that that power be included in the bill. Don't take my word for it. Watch this:



In addition to Senator Levin's candid assertions, there also exists a letter, signed by 40 members of Congress - many of whom I usually disagree on many other issues - that was sent to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In the letter, the signatories express their concerns about the application of NDAA Section 1031, stating:

...[T]he Senate-passed version of the NDAA, S. 1867, contains Section 1031, which authorizes indefinite military detention of suspected terrorists without protecting U.S. Citizens' right to trial. We are deeply concerned that this provision could undermine the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth amendment rights of U.S. Citizens who might be subjects of detention or prosecution by the military.

I know that many people will scoff at these events and say that we average American citizens have nothing to worry about; that this law is only meant to snag American citizens of middle-eastern background who are actively engaging in planned terrorist attacks against the United States on our own soil. The problem with this myopic view is that anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear and a brain to think knows that inevitably, the power of government grows over time, and what was once unthinkable in our society eventually becomes commonplace, especially if the government is given what appears at first to be some innocuous tool meant for a specific purpose that they eventually use as a broad brush.

Don't forget that just yesterday, Obama stated without ambiguity or secrecy that if Congress didn't do what he wants done, he is just going to bypass them and do it anyway, saying

"Well, what we're going to have to do is continue to make progress on the economy over the next several months. And where Congress is not willing to act, we're going to go ahead and do it ourselves. But it would be nice if we could get a little bit of help from Capitol Hill."

With that kind of unconstitutional attitude, do you really want to put into Obama's hands, the kind of power that Section 1031 of the NDAA affords? Really?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Pearl Harbor: 70 years ago

Before there was the Islamic attacks of 9/11, there was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

That infamous attack happened on December 7, 1941 - 70 years ago today.

They are getting a little slower in their step, but there are still survivors of that day. The Today show interviewed one of them, who was an 18-year old swabbie at the time. Click here to read his account of that "Day of Infamy."

I was born in 1972, so I missed the 30th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, however, I distinctly remember being 9-years old and sitting at the dinner table on the evening of December 7, 1981 as I watched a lengthy nightly news story on the 40th anniversary of the Japanese attack. Time flies.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

President Luddite

Seriously, Barack?

Hey everyone, did you know that two of the reasons our economy is in the doldrums is because of ATMs and the Internet? After all, these two technological advancements took away the jobs of travel agents, phone operators, and bank tellers.

Honest to Pete, that is what is our "smartest guy in the room" president actually thinks. Click here to watch Obummer make a fool of himself... again.

I wonder how our country ever survived after the people who worked in buggy whip factories and telegraph offices lost their jobs?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

The national unemployment rate: The devil is in the details

You gotta hand it to government; they have a language all their own.

My favorite example is the government definition of a spending cut. Seldom is the amount of spending on any particular government program actually cut, whereby the government spends less tax money on a program this year than last year. No, to the government, a spending cut is actually a reduction in the annual increase in spending on that program. More is spent than the previous year; just not as much as originally planned. And that is considered a spending cut. Nice, huh?

Then there is the unemployment rate. Our local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, had splashed across the front page a headline that trumpeted a reduction in the national unemployment rate from 9.1% to 8.6%.

Look around you. Look at all the businesses that have closed their doors, that are shuttered, abandoned, and defunct. Look at all the housing developments sitting half-completed. You are not going to tell me that the unemployment rate is only 8.6%. Guess what? It's not.

Once upon a time, when the government reported the unemployment rate, they used to report the percentage of the workforce that was out of work, but was either actively looking for work, or wanted to work but had given up looking. In 1994, the Bureau of Labor Statistics under the Clinton administration began to only report the percentage of unemployed who were actively looking for work, and it has been done that way ever since. People who had been unemployed so long that the unemployment insurance had run out and they had stopped looking? Those people - according to the government - were no longer considered to be unemployed.

Buried deep within the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a frequently-updated table that shows the percentages of different categories of unemployment. The U3 row shows the "official" unemployment rate, which again is currently 8.6%. What you want to look at is U6. This tallies the percentage of the work force that is either actively looking for work, has given up looking for work, or is only working reduced hours or reduced pay because that is the only work they could find. Factor all that in, and the unemployment rate is not an unrealistic 8.6%, but instead a very believable 15.6%! Percentages like that during the 1930s indicated that we were in an economic depression. What are we living in now?

See the BLS table for yourself. It is often updated, so the numbers may have changed from the ones I reported.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Barney Frank is a weenie

The 2010 Census caused Massachusetts to redraw their congressional districts, and look which district got more conservative as a result: the district represented by Democrat Rep. Barney Frank.

Frank is a bitter, nasty, mean, combative, insulting, pig of a man who also turns out to not have much courage either. Now that his redrawn district would provide some real competition for his reelection efforts, Frank is bowing out. He is not going to run for reelection next year. Thank God.

Now, the cynical conspiracy theorist inside me could easily believe that Frank is quitting for other reasons upon which he chooses not to elaborate, but if being a cowardly wimp is his story, then I will believe him. I know he is 71, but he just always struck me to be one of those power-hungry congresscritters who would only leave if they were not reelected or they were taken out on a stretcher or slab.

Either way, I am thrilled to see this... person... leave Congress in January 2013.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

It's like I'm a kid again!

But not in a good way. Several times during my childhood, I suffered from bouts of Strep Throat, but I had yet to suffer from it as an adult... until now.

My son has it too; we both caught it while visiting relatives in Las Vegas. A doctor friend of my wife's told her that the streptococcus bacteria that causes this horrid condition thrives in desert conditions.

So here we sit today at home, playing hooky from school and work. We have a 10:30am appointment to pick up our anti-biotics, and we can't get them soon enough. I don't know if you the readers have ever had strep, but it makes you feel like you are swallowing a handful of thumbtacks... if you are even able to swallow at all; my uvula - you know, the hanging thingy at the back of your throat that causes the gag reflex - is swollen to at least four times its normal size and is resting on the back of my tongue, causing me to gag - how ironic; add to this the requisite fever, chills, body aches, and headaches, and you have one heck of an affliction on your hands.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

How many feet high is 57,000 pages?

For the record, about 19 feet. What in the world would be a 19-foot tall stack of 57,000 pages? Try the 2010 corporate tax return for General Electric (GE).

But it gets better. After crunching GE's numbers into 57,000 pages of tax return, it turns out that GE paid not a penny on the $14 billion dollars in profit it made that year.

I'm sure it doesn't hurt that GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and that Immelt's company has received billions of dollars worth of tax credits from our federal government because they have joined in on the taxpayer-funded green energy gravy train.

Remember folks: human nature is human nature, and if the people who run corporations and businesses out there see a way to get a leg up on their competition, they are going to take it. When the government offers that leg up in the form of tax credits and the granting of monopoly status, a corporation would be stupid to not take advantage of that opportunity, as they figure if they don't, their competition will. What needs to happen then is that our federal government needs to get out of the business of picking winners and losers in our supposedly free-market economy.

The way to stop the federal government from picking winners and losers is to return it to the limits put upon it by the Constitution. Show me where in Article I, Section 8 Congress is given the authorization to grant tax credits to selected private businesses whose work the Congress (and the President) happens to like. If consumers in this country truly wanted CFL lightbulbs, wind power, and solar power, then they would voluntarily choose to use those products rather than have them forced upon the market through the use of coercive laws and taxpayer-funded subsidies to the companies who make these otherwise unprofitable products.

There is a reason that the Founding Fathers gave the federal government such limited powers in the first place. The power to use taxpayer money to pick winners and losers in our economy, and ensuing efforts by companies to influence government in order to be in the winner column is why the federal government was not given this power in the first place.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

A "Reader's Digest" version of two Obama Administration scandals that the statist media would rather you forget

It must be nice to be on the left side of the political aisle and thus have an entire media apparatus run interference for you by not reporting to the American people that which would be blasted from the rooftops if a conservative President occupied the White House. Here are the two scandals currently flying under the radar, either of which would sink a conservative presidency:

Solyndra:

It's simple really: Barack Obama hates oil and coal. He is one of these eco-topia nutballs who thinks we should do away with carbon-based fuel sources that are actually effective and inexpensive, and replace them with so-called "green" or "clean" sources of energy such as wind and solar that are mostly ineffective, prohibitively expensive, and not nearly as clean as he would like you to think. That is why his administration has been handing out billions of our taxpayer dollars to private companies - or more specifically, EVIL CORPORATIONS - that produce these pie-in-the-sky power products that can only turn a profit if they are heavily subsidized by Joe Taxpayer. Even then, after being thoroughly padded with our hard-earned tax money, many of these "green energy" companies still go under. And the tragic part is that apparently, the Obama administration is willing and able to give these companies our money even when it is perfectly clear that the company is doomed to financial failure.

One such example was Solyndra, a Fremont, California-based company that produced solar panels. Notice I speak of this company in the past tense because Solyndra is now bankrupt and defunct. But not before Solyndra first received about $530 million of our taxpayer dollars in the form of a federal loan guarantee. Emails are now surfacing due to FOIA requests and a House investigation revealing that the Obama administration pushed to have Solyndra receive this half-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded, loan even though it was already apparent that Solyndra was going broke. In fact, it now looks like the Obama administration was strong-arming Solyndra to not announce their inevitable layoffs until the day after the November 2010 mid-term elections. But boy, in the meantime, Solyndra made for a great success story photo-op when Obama made a visit to the company building to showcase to the American people what a great alternative solar was to that icky oil and coal on which we so much depend. Not only that, these "clean energy" loans somehow tend to end up in the hands of wealthy campaign donors and bundlers who helped Obama get elected, or are trying to help him get re-elected.

Fast and Furious:

Two years ago, the American lamestream media made great hay out of reports that many of the guns that were being used to commit crimes in Mexico were being traced back to the United States as the country of origin. In April of 2009, President Obama announced in a speech that more than "ninety percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States." That turned out not to be the whole truth, as not every gun recovered was traced. What was likely happening was that the Mexican government was submitting for tracing, guns that likely had come from the United States. That will of course increase the percentage.

Now that the Fast and Furious scandal has begun to gain some traction in the wake of the beginning of Congressional hearings that have made AG Eric Holder look like a liar or a blithering idiot, we can start to get an idea of why so many guns captured in Mexico turned out to be from the United States: because U.S. federal law enforcement agencies were ensuring that guns from U.S. gun stores were being smuggled into Mexico and handed over to Mexican drug cartels. Ultimately, those guns have been estimated to be involved in the murders of at least 200 Mexican citizens and 2 U.S. law enforcement agents.

Now why would Obama's Justice Department do such a thing? The purported purpose was to allow these guns to be traced to the cartels so that criminal charges against them could be shored up. However, accountability of the guns was quickly lost, and they disappeared into the netherworld of the Mexican crime world, only to resurface at the scenes of hundreds of murders.

I will now add my opinion. I believe Fast and Furious was an effort by Obama and Holder to demonize gun dealers and gun owners in the United States, and use the violence caused by the use of these weapons in Mexico as a pretext to strip law-abiding Americans of our right to defend ourselves through the keeping and bearing of arms as is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Why do I think that? Because I remember when the "90%" meme was being bandied about in 2009, politicians were calling for the stripping of the rights of law-abiding American gun owners in order to remedy the situation. How convenient is that?

----------------------------------------------------------------

Like I stated, this was only a "Reader's Digest" version of these two scandals; a primer if you will. For the finer details, do your own research. If you will only Google or Bing "Solyndra scandal" or "Fast and Furious scandal" you will find mountains of news stories, both from so-called mainstream and alternative sources, that will cover every angle of these scandals. The mainstream media do report on these scandals, but they either bury it on page A24, such as the N.Y. Times did with Solyndra news the other day, or they report it and then move on without further comment. A good example of this technique was noted the other day by the conservative blogo-sphere when the statist talking heads on MSNBC's Morning Joe program spent oodles of time mocking and insulting the Republican presidential candidates, but when a news story was mentioned about the Obama administration requesting that news of Solyndra layoffs be held off until the day after the 2010 midterms, those same talking heads clammed up, and far off in the distance, a cricket chirped. They spent a lot more time making fun of Herman Cain's fedora than they did about the deliberate waste of a half-billion taxpayer dollars.

Watch Newsbusters' compilation of the hilarity:



With that kind of hard-hitting coverage (/s) of Obama's scandals, it is not surprising that the average citizens out there haven't a clue what is going on.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Consistency is for fags

WARNING: EXTREMELY BAD LANGUAGE QUOTED AHEAD... SERIOUSLY, DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU OFFEND EASILY:

Now, now. Before you get all worked up, allow me to explain the context of my catchy title for this post.

I have become less and less interested in the annual Academy Awards broadcast as the years go by, but I couldn't help but shake my head in disbelief when I found out the reason that the director of this year's show, Brett Ratner, was fired.

When asked by a reporter about his methods of management, Ratner was quoted as saying, "Rehearsal is for fags!" That is it. According to news stories, that simple comment got him canned as Academy Awards show director. I heard that news while driving to work to the other day, and I yelled at the radio, "What about Eddie Murphy?!"

See, Eddie Murphy had been picked months ago to be the host of this year's show. But when Ratner was fired, Murphy quit. Nevertheless, the producers of the show had been fully intent on going with Murphy.

Does no one remember Eddie Murphy's stand-up comedy routine from the 1980s? Remember his 1983 show called Delirious? In one sketch, he imagined what it would be like if tough-guy actor Mr. T were homosexual.

So let's juxtapose. Which of the following statements should get you fired (or never hired)?

Brett Ratner: "Rehearsal is for fags."

Eddie Murphy (as a homosexual Mr. T): "Hey boy... Hey boy... you look mighty cute in them jeans. Now come on over here... and fuck me up the ass... Hey boy slow down... or I'll pinch up my butt cheeks and rip your dick off."

Unless I'm missing something here, I can't understand how Hollywood can get so worked up over Ratner's statement, when under that kind of standard, Eddie Murphy's past performances should have been something to keep him from ever being hired to host the Oscars. One might make the argument that Ratner was speaking his true feelings, while Murphy was just performing on stage. But if that argument were to be valid, why did comedian Michael Richards (you know, Kramer from Seinfeld) get in so much trouble when he repeatedly uttered the word "nigger" while performing on stage a couple years back?

I will never understand society's selective outrage where some people are allowed to say a word or phrase with no repercussions, while other people are crucified for saying the same thing.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Throwing bad court decisions after bad

A flurry of lawsuits have been filed by assorted state attorneys general since the atrocity known as Obamacare was shoved down the American peoples' throats in March of 2010.

While we have won some and lost some, we had a big loss the other day when Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found that one of the worst features of Obamacare - the individual mandate that requires that Americans purchase health insurance - is constitutional.

It is bad enough that this judge put lipstick on this pig of a law, but what really steamed me was his rationale for finding the law unconstitutional. Hear it from the judge first before I pick it apart:

The mandate, Silberman wrote, “seems an intrusive exercise of legislative power" and “certainly is an encroachment on individual liberty, but it is no more so than a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race, that gravely ill individuals cannot use a substance their doctors described as the only effective palliative for excruciating pain or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family.”

“The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local — or seemingly passive — their individual origins,” Silberman wrote.

I know I am just one of those lowly proletarians with no law degree, but this judge is out of his friggin' mind. Just look at the past examples of legislative overreach he uses for his justification:

...a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race: While people like to morally preen and feel all self-righteous by singing hosannas toward the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it is still a law that Congress was given no power to pass under our Constitution. A business today that tried to ban all members of a certain race as was done in the past would not be in business for long in our society. This would be true even if the 1964 CRA did not exist. Boycotts, social pressure, and ostracizing have always been more effective in shaping peoples' actions and behavior than laws ever have. Changes in attitudes about race were taking place even before the 1964 law, and would have continued to do so. The bottom line is that one can vociferously believe that the practice of racial discrimination by private businesses is wrong, but still demand that the Constitution be amended before the Congress passes a law in an area of concern for which they were given no authority under the Constitution.

...that gravely ill individuals cannot use a substance their doctors described as the only effective palliative for excruciating pain: Once again, show me in the Constitution where the federal government has the power to outlaw the use of drugs. News flash! There used to be no federal drug laws. Were there addicts out there? Yes. Did society survive? Yes. Like the previous example, you can be against the use of illegal drugs, but still recognize that regulating them is not the job of the federal government.

...or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family: This one is my favorite. As part of the New Deal, FDR and the Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which limited the amount of crops that farmers could grow. The intention was to prop up the price of food by creating an artificial shortage. One farmer - last name Wickard - grew more wheat on his farm than the law allowed, even though he was growing the extra wheat simply to feed his family. After being pursued for this act by the federal government, Wickard argued in federal court that Congress had no jurisdiction over his growing of wheat because what he grew not only stayed within his state, it stayed on his farm. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court. In the infamous Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Supreme Court found that even though farmer Wickard was growing the unauthorized wheat for his and his family's own consumption, and the wheat did not cross any state lines, Wickard's growing of the wheat still constituted interstate commerce (and thus the ability for Congress to regulate the situation) because that meant there was some wheat somewhere out there from another state that would not be purchased because Wickard had produced his own.

And let us not allow to slide by this final comment: ...and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local — or seemingly passive — their individual origins. No matter how local? The Tenth Amendment truly is dead with Circuit Court judges saying such things. It is so simple, I can type it from memory: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. That means if the issue is local, then it is NOT up to Congress to get involved, no matter how much they may want to.

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I am disheartened by Judge Silberman's comments. His justification for agreeing with the health insurance mandate is essentially that the federal government has run roughshod over our rights so completely over the past 70 years, what does it matter if they do so just a little bit more.

With different federal courts at both the district and circuit level giving differing positions on the constitutionality of Obamacare, and especially its mandate to purchase health insurance, the chattering classes are in almost unanimous agreement that the Supreme Court is going to take up this issue. If their decision-making processes are along the lines of Wickard vs. Filburn (or Kelo vs. New London, or Dred Scott vs. Sanford, for that matter), then we are in serious trouble.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

Thank You

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson

What the heck is a "Body Man," and why does the President have one?

President Barack Obama just had another member of his staff quit. This time, it was his long-time personal assistant, Reggie Love, to whom the President, and even the news agencies reporting the story, refer to as the President's "Body Man."

To whose body does the term refer? Is it similar to a bodyguard? If so, doesn't Obama have the Secret Service for that? Have other presidents employed someone in a similar capacity?

Just another headshaking feature of the Obama administration.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson