Right Of The Star

Carter Redeux -- The Embassy

2011-11-30T05:58:00.001-06:00

And now it's happening all over again. OK, so this time the Embassy in question is Britain's not America's. But the similarities are more significant than the differences. What is happening now is happening for a very particular reason: because the West has lost its authority in the Middle East. By attempting to appease it it has shown the weakness which the Islamic world despises and which it is now exploiting with vicious glee.

The rot set in, of course, with President Obama's infamous Cairo Surrender Monkey speech, in which, inter alia, he apologised for the crusades, pandered to the Islamist notion of the Ummah, referred to the 9/11 killers not as "terrorists" but "violent extremists", and gave the strong impression that it really wasn't any of America's business which crazed Islamist theocracies run by ravening lunatics hell bent on destroying the State of Israel had nuclear weapons and which ones didn't. Gee, thanks for that one, Barack

James Delingpole The Telegraph UK

More Of The Same -- Debates Update -- Now With More Proof

2011-11-10T02:08:00.001-06:00

Above the fold update:

As if we need more proof of my point below we get this from CNN (via Real Clear Politics - Video at link):

CNN Reporter Asks Obama: Are GOP Candidates "Uninformed, Out Of Touch, Or Irresponsible?"

"Last night at the Republican debate, some of the hopefuls, they hope to get your job, they defended the practice of waterboarding which is a practice you banned in 2009. Herman Cain said, quote, 'I don't see that as torture.' Michele Bachmann said that it's, quote, 'very effective.' So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?" CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian asked President Obama in Hawaii.

Once again this evening's CNBC debate demonstrated that the media simply do not get it. They operate and the premise of most of their questions are completely at odds with the voters.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.
Ronald Wilson Reagan

We don't need a new law, we don't need government to stop this or that. We need government to get out of the way.
DKK

Update 11/10/2011 16:07
American thinker puts it like this:

Weak Field" Spanks CNBC Liberals:

On the whole, it was a stunning display of free market and pro-liberty principles versus the nanny state mindset that government must be at the center of all problem solving. Every one of the eight candidates had strong moments against CNBC's self-anointed experts. Especially promising was how the field almost unanimously fingered federal regulations as the main problem with our economy and society -- and they did so as the faces of the questioners went into shock. Moreover there was near unanimity on the idea that the only answer to housing is, well, the economy stupid.

Targeting the Argument -- Is The Right Again Fighting The Wrong Fight? Updated - Now with even more regulation!

2011-10-31T18:34:00.000-05:00

Updated and bumped:

Forbes noticed and points out in Flat Tax This: Regulations Are The Boot On Hiring's Neck

Everyone’s talking about spending and flat taxes; but for healthy recovery, the hidden tax of regulation needs flattening too.

The right has a very good point about taxes, but it really isn't the full argument. The talking heads almost daily discuss the tax rates and compare them to rates of the past with lines like, "the Clinton rates were higher and the economy flourished."

What they fail to note is the sheer mountain of regulations that have been created since Obama took office continuing and expanding on a long history of over regulating.

It isn't JUST the taxes, the taxes are a means and they are high. No one should pay more then 1/3 of their total income to the government. With the taxes comes more regulations and rules.

(I will probably edit this, it is late but I wanted to get this out there).

Update: July 10, 2011 15:34

This opinion piece on jobs costing Obama his job sums up what I meant very well:

The private sector has regained about 30 percent of the manufacturing jobs it lost in the recession -- jobs created despite regulatory policies detrimental to manufacturing's expansion.
Add the administration's health-care policies (which drive up the cost of employment by increasing medical insurance costs) and environmental policies (which drive up the price of energy, particularly in Western Pennsylvania, where coal is a major source), and you can see why the private sector is skittish about enlarging payrolls.
That means the president has not only a small-business problem, but a blue-collar-worker problem. Both are sources of independent voters so essential to winning elections.
Add, too, the Dodd-Frank bill, which Larry Lindsey, former Federal Reserve governor, says "has made it much more difficult for banks to make business loans, as more of their resources must be devoted to regulatory compliance and (the) building of capital than to granting loans."
Partnerships are the key to economic growth. The great 20th-century economist Joseph Schumpeter described entrepreneurs as "gap-fillers and input-completers," meaning they bring together everything needed to create output and jobs in one place -- basically by partnering with various groups.
It's better that entrepreneurs, not government or academia, be central to this process because they typically know how to get things done, risk their own money and face real consequences if they fail.
"While the president often talks about having 'created' jobs ... he didn't," explained Lindsey. "Such jobs that have been gained have been produced by risk-taking entrepreneurs."
All that "shovel-ready" stimulus money filled many state budgets, but not so many private-sector job openings.
The president's resume includes little that indicates he knows how to create jobs -- which may, in the end, contribute to him losing his job.
Salena Zito

If the federal government's regulatory operation were a business, it would be one of the 50 biggest in the country in terms of revenues, and the third largest in terms of employees, with more people working for it than McDonald's, Ford, Disney and Boeing combined.
Under President Obama, while the economy is struggling to grow and create jobs, the federal regulatory business is booming.
Regulatory agencies have seen their combined budgets grow a healthy 16% since 2008, topping $54 billion, according to the annual "Regulator's Budget," compiled by George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis.
That's at a time when the overall economy grew a paltry 5%.
Meanwhile, employment at these agencies has climbed 13% since Obama took office to more than 281,000, while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6%.
...
The Obama administration imposed 75 new major rules in its first 26 months, costing the private sector more than $40 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation study. "No other president has imposed as high a number or cost in a comparable time period," noted the study's author, James Gattuso.
The number of pages in the Federal Register — where all new rules must be published and which serves as proxy of regulatory activity — jumped 18% in 2010.
This July, regulators imposed a total of 379 new rules that will cost more than $9.5 billion, according to an analysis by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
And much more is on the way. The Federal Register notes that more than 4,200 regulations are in the pipeline. That doesn't count impending clean air rules from the EPA, new derivative rules, or the FCC's net neutrality rule. Nor does that include recently announced fuel economy mandates or eventual ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank regulations.

Regulation Business, Jobs Booming Under Obama

Fundamental Flaw In Logic Our Founders Well Understood

2011-10-27T17:49:00.001-05:00

Here is an excellent video of Peter Schiff at the Occupy Wall Street Protests:

The fundamental flaw in the logic of these protesters is that Washington/government can ever be brought to heel!

Just one more regulation, one more law, or if we could only eliminate the money from Wall Street then we can control the system.

The assumption that government has to be big and in control is simply wrong and was well understood by our founders when they set up our system. As Peter points out, if you take away the power to control you take away the ability to influence and thus to be controlled.

Obama History "Fail" Once More

2011-10-26T17:56:00.000-05:00

At a fundraiser last night President Obama said:

"We've lost our ambition, our -- our imagination, and -- and -- our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country,"

Interesting fact about the Golden Gate (From California Historian):

"This bridge was the first of such magnitude and controversy to be completely financed by private citizens (Gronquist 128-129). All who did contribute money were promised restitution at four and three-fourths percent interest rate within a maximum of 40 years.

It is amazing how successful this way of financing was, considering the effects of the Great Depression."

More importantly the insurmountable level of regulations required to complete a project such as the Golden Gate Bridge or Hoover Dam would kill either of these projects before they even got to the drafting stage.

As Rush Limbaugh said today:

"The people in this country have their imagination. The people of this country still have their dreams and their willingness to do things. You stand in the way. The federal government stands in the way. Mountainous regulations. We did build the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the Hoover Dam, and the Empire State Building in ten years -- and we did it in the middle of the Great Depression. You couldn't do it today. Regardless the ambition, imagination, willingness, or desire, you couldn't do it in ten years today. Look at Ground Zero in Manhattan. You couldn't do it. I mean, physically it could be done, but it couldn't be legally done."

Income Disparity a Failed Government Policy

2011-10-12T05:35:00.001-05:00

Want to know why the income disparity has continued to grow, leading to much frustration?

As with most economic problems today you can tie the disparity directly to the policies of the government.

Our system had a built in solution to excesses of capitalism, including excessive CEO wages. It was known as a recession and it regularly forced everyone from the single mother to the largest corporate board to reevaluate their priorities. Companies fired underperformers! Unfortunately the government's desire to lessen the effects of a recession and protect the too big to fail companies has not only extended the pain we all feel but has nearly eliminated the very important effects of that self correcting, excess eliminating mechanism.

Update with some thoughts brought to you by a leftie site via Ace

You've people got it backwards. Capitalism calls for insolvent banks to fail. Socialism calls for them to be bailed out.submitted 11 hours ago by r3compile
Edit: Some more complete thoughts:
The free market gets rid of risky, unstable businesses. Capitalism means if you don't have a viable product, you go away. People vote with their own money.
In Socialism, you vote with other people's money. You keep throwing good money after bad because you like the idea of a stable bank and you don't want to admit that it needs to go bankrupt.
All a businessman can do is try to sell you something that you think is worth the money.
But a government can take your wealth by force, and allocate it to an area that has no viable market, purely for the benefit of catering to voters and trying to get re-elected.
As long as we have a big government trying to run every aspect of the economy, it will be taken advantage of by some minority to the detriment of the majority.
I sympathize with the message of OWS thanks banks get special favors from government. But the answer isn't to give more special favors to labor unions and employees. The answer is to get the government out of the way and let the market flush out all these bad banks so a viable economy can rise.

Boom or Bomb -- Policies Matter

2011-09-30T18:26:00.000-05:00

You can drop as many bombs and guided missiles on terrorists as you can afford, BUT, as long as the administrations policies and rhetoric capitulate to the goals of the terrorists you will never solve the terrorist problem.

That is the problem with the current administration. That was the goal of the left from the beginning. Don't bother changing the behavior and attitudes of the terrorists and their sponsoring governments, it is far easier for us to just learn to live with terrorism like Europe................hey I remember someone saying that right after 9/11.

So, on to the ill advised draw down in Iraq.

Comparison of Jobs Record

2011-09-08T18:40:00.001-05:00

Via HotAir

Need a Reagan, Not a Nixon.

2011-09-05T23:48:00.002-05:00

Okay, so why am I afraid that we will elect a Nixon when what we need is another Reagan?

Nixon believed in federal government solutions, hence his signing of the EPA and OSHA regulations to name a couple.

Unfortunately we need someone who believes government is the problem not the solution and I fear there isn't anyone running who really believes that today. Do you?
DKK

Obama's Role Model -- Diplomacy That Nearly Destroyed The World: Prediction Realized

2011-05-16T21:09:00.000-05:00

Update May 16, 2011 and reposted to front page: German Paper: Iran is Building Rocket Launch Bases in Venezuela. As I said at the bottom of this post, "If this is what Obama has in mind, getting the hell beat out of him by Kim and Mahmoud I don't want anything to do with it! I should just start digging the shelter now!"

I really believe it is as if Obama believes the past 2000 years were an anomaly rather then the human condition.

Original post dated May 8, 2008 follows:...............................................

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they did exchange correspondence before the war).
So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies", although of course we were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at that point. Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation?
(Just One Minute -- Don't Know Much About History...)

Yalta was considered a diplomatic disaster that enslaved millions in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt, who called Stalin, "Uncle Joe," failed to recognize the evil that would lead to the deaths of 15 to 20 million Soviet citizens -- Time Magazine (13 April 1998) (Some estimates as large as 52 million with 30 million being the median estimate).

I can't recall when Truman talked to our enemies, other then perhaps their surrender after he dropped the atomic bomb . Truman lead the UN into Korea and did so without talking to our enemies -- they were boycotting the UN -- rather then talk he gave ultimatums and took action to remove our enemies from South Korea.

As a matter of fact Truman has his own Doctrine (The Truman Doctrine) that supported our allies financially and militarily against Soviet (our enemies) influence. This lead to what was known as the Domino Theory and formed much of the Cold War doctrine that lasted for decades (a variation of which Bush uses to push democracy).

Along with The Marshall Plan The Truman Doctrine helped feed the Soviet reaction that led to the Berlin Blockade. It was only the show of determination and strength -- redeployment of B-29's to England, the same bombers that dropped atomic weapons on Japan -- that prevented escalation of the conflict during the 11 months of the airlift.

Kennedy escalated Vietnam as a part of Truman's doctrine and while he did speak to Kruschev during the Vienna Summit it was considered a failure that caused the players (Kennedy and Kruschev) to push the world toward the most dangerous nuclear stand off in history -- The Cuban missile Crisis.

(About Vienna, Kennedy later claimed of Khrushchev, "He beat the hell out of me.")

If this is what Obama has in mind, getting the hell beat out of him by Kim and Mahmoud I don't want anything to do with it! I should just start digging the shelter now!
DKK

Update: Great minds think alike - points made by Jack Kelly here at Real Clear Politics.

Kings of Non Sequiturs

2011-05-16T00:59:00.000-05:00

Why doesn't any journalist ever call the Democrats and environmentalists on the non sequitur they continue to use by comparing total oil reserves to total usage?

"We can't drill our way out of this, we only have 2% of the known reserves yet we use 25% or the worlds oil!"

Ah, yes. Forget for a minute that you can't increase your known (proven) reserves without exploring for more oil (see Brazil 1995 vs Brazil 2011), the comparison is completely apples to oranges.

Untapped oil under ground /= (is not equal to) oil in the pipeline!

It is like saying that it won't do any good for the electric company to produce any more electricity because the factory down the road, where everyone in the town works (see how I did that), uses 25% of the electric company's power, despite the fact that the company has unused generating capacity equal to 2% of the world's generators AND they can always find more if the market were to call for it.

Patriots or Patriots

2011-04-17T00:25:00.000-05:00

There is a group of millionaires who call themselves, "Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength" who are advocating raising taxes on the wealthy. They argue that they should be taxed for the good of society as a whole -- increase their taxes so we can reduce debt without impacting social spending.

Well, aside from the fact that no one is stopping them from making a donation to the government that can be applied directly to the debt (pay.gov), true patriots are those millionaires who are providing jobs and fuel for the nation's economic engine not sending money to the black whole of Washington.

Here is an idea, how about each one of these millionaires decide how much extra money they believe they should pay and then hire people to do whatever service they believe is worthy. For example if they want to support senior meal programs then they could take $200,000 in extra taxes and hire 8 people at $40,000 each and deploy them in the city they believe needs the assistance. They would not only be providing the seniors aid they would be creating jobs multiplied in the economy AND they would be providing additional tax revenue to all stages of government.

Killing two birds with one $200,000 stones. Each of those jobs helps to support another worker in the economy and according to Obama's stimulus they would create or save another job!

So, why are they so selfish and unpatriotic?

Bad day, btw, I'll come back and clean this up in a few days.

Dumb War Hypocrite........

2011-03-21T06:52:00.000-05:00

May 28, 2008 I analyzed Barack Obama's Dumb War speech and concluded it did not make the grade of real world experience.

Well, here is an upgraded version with just a few changes:

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear. I suffer no illusions about Muammar Quaddafi . He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, sponsored terrorists , developed chemical and biological weapons, and enriched himself at the expense of his country.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Libyan people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Quaddafi poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Libyan economy is in shambles, that the Libyan military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Libya will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Libya without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Oh how ~~things have~~ Obama has changed

The Worst of Both Worlds -- Failure to Lead

2011-03-17T20:47:00.000-05:00

President Obama's dithering and failure to lead on the Libya situation has lead to a no win situation for the US.

We won't receive any of the meager credit we could might have gotten if the rebellion succeeds and we will receive all of the blame if it fails.

Yes, this always happens anyway, but at least we had the opportunity to shape things somewhat and we would have gotten some credit from those objective few.

Root Cause.........

2011-03-17T00:54:00.000-05:00

How Much Does The Government Know About You?

2011-03-01T17:01:00.000-06:00

Atty. general: Ill. should release FOID card list

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. —
The Illinois attorney general says state police must release the name of everyone in the state who is authorized to own a gun.

Illinois state police determine who gets a Firearm Owners Identification card, which allows people to own guns. The police have always kept the list private.

But Attorney General Lisa Madigan's public access counselor released a letter Monday night saying the information should be public.

The Associated Press had requested the list of FOID cardholders but state police said that would violate the privacy of gun owners. The attorney general's office ruled that argument invalid.

State police officials have not said whether they will comply with the ruling.

There are Republican-sponsored bills in the Illinois House and Senate that would prohibit disclosure of the information.

Milton Friedman on Progressive Taxes

2011-02-25T06:47:00.000-06:00

A further factor that has reduced the impact of the graduated tax structure on inequality of income and wealth is that these taxes are much less taxes on being wealthy than on becoming wealthy. While they limit the use of the income from existing wealth, they impede even more strikingly -- so far as they are effective -- the accumulation of wealth. The taxation of the income from the wealth does nothing to reduce the wealth itself, it simply reduces the level of consumption and additions to wealth that the owners can support. The tax measures give an incentive to avoid risk and to embody existing wealth in relatively stable forms, which reduces the likelihood that existing accumulations of wealth will be dissipated. On the other side, the major route to new accumulations is through large current incomes of which a large fraction is saved and invested in risky activities, some of which will yield high returns. If die income tax were effective, it would close this route. In consequence, its effect would be to protect existing holders of wealth from the competition of newcomers. In practice, this effect is largely dissipated by the avoidance devices already referred to.

Capitalism and Freedom

Economic Freedom Is Tied To Political Freedom

2011-02-19T23:32:00.000-06:00

"The question becomes, are you going to have everyone play by the same rules, or are you going to try to rectify the shortcomings, errors and failures of the entire cosmos? Because those things are wholly incompatible. If you're going to have people play by the same rules, that can be enforced with a minimum amount of interference with people's freedom. But if you're going to try to make the entire cosmos right and just, somebody has got to have an awful lot of power to impose what they think is right on an awful lot of other people. What we've seen, particularly in the 20th century, is that putting that much power in anyone's hands is enormously dangerous."

Thomas Sowell via Glenn Beck; Broke

Ah The Unions!

2011-02-17T18:05:00.000-06:00

In 1943, a New York Supreme Court judge held:
To tolerate or recognize any combination of civil service employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy, but inconsistent with every principle upon which our government is founded. Nothing is more dangerous to public welfare than to admit that hired servants of the State can dictate to the government the hours, the wages and conditions under which they will carry on essential services vital to the welfare, safety, and security of the citizen. To admit as true that government employees have power to halt or check the functions of government unless their demands are satisfied, is to transfer to them all legislative, executive and judicial power. Nothing would be more ridiculous.

National Affairs: The Trouble With Public Sector Unions

Rockford's Sock Monkey Makes Time's Top 100 Toys!

2011-02-17T17:17:00.000-06:00

The Nelson Knitting Co. of Rockford, Ill., may not have invented the sock monkey, but it standardized its manufacturing process somewhat. In 1932, the company added a line of socks whose red heels assured their customers that they were indeed purchasing original "Rockfords." When worn out, the socks were then deployed as playthings by American mothers who made stuffed monkeys out of them, using the red heel as a mouth. Hearing about these enterprising homemakers and seeing great promotional opportunity, the Nelson Knitting Co. began including a sock-monkey pattern with every pair of socks.

Time Magazine All Time 100 Top Toys

The International Human Right -- Firearms!

2011-02-14T02:22:00.000-06:00

A recent article in the Washington University Law Quarterly argues that the most important thing we can do to prevent genocide is to ensure that civilian populations are armed:

The question of genocide is one of manifest importance in the closing years of a century that has been extraordinary for the quality and quantity of its bloodshed. As Elie Wiesel has rightly pointed out, "This century is the most violent in recorded history. Never have so many people participated in the killing of so many people."

Recent events in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and many other parts of the world make it clear that the book has not yet been closed on the evil of official mass murder. Contemporary scholars have little explored the preconditions of genocide. Still less have they asked whether a society's weapons policy might be one of the institutional arrangements that contributes to the probability of its government engaging in some of the more extreme varieties of outrage.

Though it is a long step between being disarmed and being murdered--one does not usually lead to the other--but it is nevertheless an arresting reality that not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed.

Fox News - Opinion -- The International Right

Why Small Government? Bureaucracies fail and damage many when they do!

2011-02-10T03:16:00.000-06:00

Alexander Natta, former General Secretary of the Italian Communist party:

At the same time we, the communists, having either overestimated or underestimated the functions of the “welfare state,” kept defending situations which, as it became clear only now, we should not have defended. As a result, a bureaucratic apparatus, which serves itself, has swelled.
...
Any bureaucratization encourages the apparatus to protect its own interests and to forget about the citizens’

That is the the best explanation of government and from an unlikely source.

Source: Margaret Thatcher: a legacy of freedom via Glen Beck Broke

On the concept of A Living Constitution

2011-02-10T03:05:00.000-06:00

“a formula for an end run around popular government” and is “genuinely corrosive
of the fundamental values of our democratic society”.
William H Rehnquist

Jefferson on Redistribution of Wealth

2011-02-01T22:33:00.001-06:00

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

America's weakness affects its friends, but aren't we all getting along now? Nay, not so much.

2011-01-31T16:55:00.000-06:00

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as "the president who lost Iran," which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who "lost" Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled.

The superficial circumstances are similar. In both cases, a United States in financial crisis and after failed wars loses global influence under a leftist president whose good intentions are interpreted abroad as expressions of weakness. The results are reflected in the fall of regimes that were dependent on their relationship with Washington for survival, or in a change in their orientation, as with Ankara.

America's general weakness clearly affects its friends.

Haaretz

Obama will go down in history as the president who lost Egypt

Best SOTU Response

2011-01-28T17:20:00.001-06:00

Obama said, "We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook."

And then the government outlawed Edison's great invention, made the Wright brothers' air travel insufferable, filed anti-trust charges against Microsoft and made cars too expensive to drive by prohibiting oil exploration, and right now -- at this very minute -- is desperately trying to regulate the Internet.

Ann Coulter

From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?

Charles Krauthammer

China Keeping the Lights On

2011-01-27T00:53:00.000-06:00

Of course President Obama is being nice to China. After all, now that the government has gotten involved in choosing your light bulbs for you we don't make any light bulbs here anymore. If we want to keep the lights on we need China to keep sending them to us.

God forbid we ever end up in a serious war with China it will be lights out literally.
DKK

This Is Not Your Father's Census -- The United States Census in the 21st Century

2010-03-15T02:24:00.000-05:00

Long gone are the days of completing the US census for the sake of civic duty or to ensure you are represented in Congress.

This is the Census of the 21st century (first minute is all you need):

It happens once every ten years.

It seeks to discover who we are and what we need.

It determines how we distribute more then $400 Billion dollars for things like schools, public works, emergency services, and senior centers.

It's the United States 2010 Census!

Or this one:

When you take, say, ten minutes to answer 10 questions you help our community get what it needs for, oh, the next ten years.

We can't move forward till you mail it back, 2010 Census.

DKK

Updated and bumpted (March 15, 2010):

And then there is the letter this week. Here is the text, make sure you get your money!

Dear Resident:
About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.

Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share. Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely, Robert M. Groves
Director, U.S. Census Bureau

Not A Right, A Responsibility and Responsibility = Control

2010-03-04T15:43:00.000-06:00

Health coverage is not a right, it is a responsibility.

As such the debate should be over who is responsible for your health coverage -- your employer, the government, or you.

Remember, responsibility for an issue is equal to control of that issue.
DKK

(Even today as the government assumes more control over health coverage the inevitable laws banning availability or taxing the consumables that may affect your health are creeping into the control over your body. Is there a right to control our own body as the left has always assured us?

Perhaps not, that is what we will decide as the health coverage debate begins again).

Didn't Believe Me Update, June 10, 2009:

Hot Air is reporting on a Politico story today:

Don’t be fooled by the presidential burger runs. Obama and Congress are moving across several fronts to give government a central role in making America healthier — raising expectations among public health experts of a new era of activism unlike any before.

Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs at workplaces and community centers. He wants more time in the school day for physical fitness, more nutritious school lunches and more bike paths, walking paths and grocery stores in underserved areas.

The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.

Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.

DKK

Updated and bumped:

On Red Eye early this AM (March 4, 2010) TV's Andy Levy pointed out that anything that requires you to do something like purchase insurance or requires another to provide you with a service cannot, by definition, be a right.

From Master Strategist to Master Batter Of Blame

2010-01-02T14:31:00.000-06:00

In his weekly radio address yesterday, President Barack Obama patted himself on the back for having "refocused the fight - bringing to a responsible end the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks".
He then told people to remember that "our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans", before decrying "fear and cynicism" and "partisanship and division" - the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 election campaign.

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father had courageously contacted the American Embassy in Abuja in November and met the CIA station chief to tell him that his son was involved with fundamentalist elements in Yemen. American intelligence had also intercepted discussions in Yemen about a possible attack by "the Nigerian".

The Obama administration knew most, if not all, of this by last Sunday, 48 hours after the attack was thwarted. But the priority in Obamaland was to play things down and take pot shots at the Bush administration.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief – who prefers the term "man-caused disasters" to "terrorism" - blithely stated that there was "no indication that it is part of anything larger". She then insisted that the "system is working".

Although Napolitano has taken a lot of flak for these comic utterances, she was not "misspeaking" but trotting out the agreed talking points of the day.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's chief mouthpiece, also stated that "in many ways this system has worked" and would say nothing about a possible wider plot.

In Hawaii, where Obama was holidaying, Gibbs's deputy Bill Burton told the press that "we are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us" and that Obama was reviewing "procedures that have been in place the last several years" (i.e. Bush instituted them). He added, without apparent irony, that "the President refuses to play politics with these issues".

Meanwhile, the White House was working overtime to build a case against Bush. A source in the White House counsel's office told The American Spectator of memos frantically seeking information that would "show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could".

Republicans smell blood. There is a pattern in the Obama administration of dismissing Islamist terrorist attacks as regrettable random acts. In his radio address after Major Nidal Hassan's slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas, Obama made no mention of terrorism or militant Islam, instead blandly promising that the "ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy" would "look at the motives of the alleged gunman".

Hassan was a committed Islamist who had corresponded with the fanatical Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki. In June, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert being watched by the FBI and who had previously travelled to Yemen, murdered a US Army recruit in Arkansas. That rated only a tepid statement by Obama about a "senseless act of violence".

But the violence wasn't senseless, it had a calculated objective - just as Abdulmutallab was not, as Obama described him, an "isolated extremist". No wonder many Americans want to grab Obama by the lapels and scream: "It's the Jihad, stupid." Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, clearly struck a nerve when he charged last week that Obama was "trying to pretend we are not at war".

The White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer eagerly descended into the political fray, responding to Cheney with the obligatory jibe about Iraq and also a litany of examples of Obama's "public statements that explicitly state we are at war".

It's a sure sign that you're losing the argument when you have to research quotes from your boss's speeches to prove that he gets it that America is at war. The problem for Obama is that people are now judging him by his actions as well as his words.

The incompetence of the US intelligence bureaucracy is not the only thing that makes Underpantsgate so damaging for Obama. More serious is his failure to understand or acknowledge the nature of the enemy - and to view war as mere politics.

Barack Obama is vulnerable on terror -- and he knows it -- Telegraph UK

We've gone from an administration of master strategists the press labeled as a bunch of bunglers to a bunch of bunglers the press labels as master strategists.

Iraq was no more a distraction from the War on Terror then the invasion of Sicily and Italy was in the War on Fascism. It managed to eliminate thousands of al Qaeda from the battlefield in the same manner Churchill called Italy the soft underbelly of Europe. (See reports early this year showing numbers of al Qaeda killed or captured in Iraq, al Qaeda appears near destroyed, zero combat deaths in 12/09 in Iraq, etc.)

As long as the left fails to see (for political reasons) that these aren't separate wars but separate battles in one war then we will never make headway again (as one US commentator said in late 2001, "we will just have to get used to terror attacks as a way of life like the rest of the world.")

We went from al Qaeda being near functional destruction, based on reports early 09, to resurgent and ready to attack by Christmas.

In 1989 after 8 years of Reagan the Berlin Wall fell because smart men kept up the pressure he had ramped up. In 2009 the smart men were sent home in favor of the polished -- to all our loss.

Cleverest Innovation of 2009

2009-12-30T14:50:00.001-06:00

New accounting standard BHO/DC-02009.01.

Using this standard a good friend of mine was able to create or save $30,000 by spending every penny he earned in unemployment as well as some of his child's college fund in 2009. He is thrilled with the results and feels he will be able to convince the bank not to foreclose on his home once he shows them his accurate online tracking of the funds.

Personally I was able to show that I lost or didn't gain 20 pounds!
DKK

Update:

This is the same system, including the web reporting that we are using to determine how many jobs were CREATED or SAVED by the stimulus. If it works for Washington....

Read the Speech, Mr. President, Don't Just Quote From It!

2009-12-03T04:01:00.001-06:00

During his December 1, 2009 speech to West Point President Obama quoted from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address of January 17, 1961,

I'm mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who -- in discussing our national security -- said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance. We've failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy.

With all due respect, Mr. President, it is frankly ironic that you would choose this speech. If you did read and understand this speech you would understand that it is a frank warning against everything you have done and proposed to date. (I have previously written about the Eisenhower speech while discussing the scientific-technological elite and global warming).

A few examples:

Take over of the nations health care:

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

Cap and Trade/Climategate:

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Bailouts/Takeovers/Nationalization :

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.

Stimulus/Economic/Resources :

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Foreign Policy/Honduras:

America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension, or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

War on Terror/Long Term Conflict:

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insiduous [insidious] in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

It really is a fascinating prescient speech, take a couple minutes and read the entire thing.

DKK

'An Army Of Davids' or Just A Different Gated Community?

2009-12-03T01:40:00.003-06:00

The blogosphere has no doubt improved information gathering and dissemination, including many stories not covered by the traditional media -- so much so that popular bloggers have taken to calling it an, "Army of Davids," based on popular blogger Glen Reynolds of Instapundit's book of the same name.

Is that still true?

As a disabled blogger who doesn't have the stamina to blog daily (though I have repeatedly tried) or even the ability to consistently formulate proper sentences (and sometimes even difficulty in spelling and word finding, due to the cognitive part of my illness) coming up with an idea and putting it in pixels can be taxing with some even simple posts taking hours to write, however it is often quite worth it as you see a good idea right there on the internet.

However that same excitement can turn quickly to disappointment when you see that same idea, often times in nearly the same form being linked by the big blogs -- despite your attempts at getting it noticed when you wrote it.

For example:

Yesterday Instapundit linked to Bill Whittle of Eject Eject Eject with the tagline:

BILL WHITTLE ON CLIMATEGATE: A warning from President Eisenhower.

Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 10:23 am (December 2, 2009)

Here is Bill's piece:

Hat tip to Michael Moore for reminding me about President Eisenhower’s famous “Beware the Military-Industrial Complex” speech, in which the Liberal Icon and Pacifist Saint Dwight David Eisenhower had this to say:
“…the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
(Emphasis mine – BW)
I wonder if this admonition from Eisenhower – uttered a few moments after he warned of the influence of the Military-Industrial complex — will be repeated among the Left with the same grave sense of somber warning as his previous few sentences?
December 1, 2009 11:46am

Strange thing is that if you Google scientific-technological elite the very first hit you get (as of the time of this posting) this piece I wrote almost a year ago and updated when the climategate issue came to light:

UPDATE: November 27, 2009 -- With the release of the University of East Anglia's emails this month and the beginning of the discovery of "climategate" this message has never been more important!

Everybody remembers Eisenhower’s warning about the, “military-industrial complex,” shoot, it has become the siren call of some.

(Google video search. "Eisenhower's Farewell." 53 most 2 minutes or less of a 46 minute speech one of the full speech. Reagan's, "Tear Down This Wall," gets less then half at 26, JFK's inaugural, "Ask Not...," gets 7, and FDR's, "Pearl Harbor," gets 3 (and one is from Crooksandliars ripping Condi for a comment she made))

Few if any recall — and it is never repeated — the second of the two specific warning he made in that very same speech:

“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” (emphasis added)
The scientific-technological elite, Eisenhower truly was prescient. Read the speech, it could have been written today.
DKK

More interesting are the exact same comment I made on numerous blogs during the past two and a half weeks, including the #3 commetn at Pajama Media's Exclusive Vincent Gray on Climategate: ‘There Was Proof of Fraud All Along’ (PJM Exclusive), which read:

“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” (emphasis and changes added)
Every Liberal remembers Eisenhower warning against the, “military-industrial complex” but few if any know his second stated warming in that same farewell message, his warning against the, “scientific-technological elite“!
This speech could have been made last week, read the whole thing.
David
Nov 27, 2009 - 5:43 am

Now I am NOT, no way, no how accusing Bill Whittle of anything -- people can come up with the same ideas. However I did send this story to Instapundit (another Pajamas Media Blogger and other blogs nearly 2 years ago and once again when the climategate issue broke last month with nary a reply, not to mention posting that comment on untold number of blogs.

Which leads me to wonder if the 'new media' is still an, "Army of Davids," or if it has become just another elite gated community where those not on the list aren't recognized?

Another example:

May 8, 2009 at 2:27 am I wrote:

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they did exchange correspondence before the war).
So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies", although of course we were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at that point. Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation?
(Just One Minute -- Don't Know Much About History...)
Yalta was considered a diplomatic disaster that enslaved millions in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt, who called Stalin, "Uncle Joe," failed to recognize the evil that would lead to the deaths of 15 to 20 million Soviet citizens -- Time Magazine (13 April 1998) (Some estimates as large as 52 million with 30 million being the median estimate).

I can't recall when Truman talked to our enemies, other then perhaps their surrender after he dropped the atomic bomb . Truman lead the UN into Korea and did so without talking to our enemies -- they were boycotting the UN -- rather then talk he gave ultimatums and took action to remove our enemies from South Korea.

As a matter of fact Truman has his own Doctrine (The Truman Doctrine) that supported our allies financially and militarily against Soviet (our enemies) influence. This lead to what was known as the Domino Theory and formed much of the Cold War doctrine that lasted for decades (a variation of which Bush uses to push democracy).

Along with The Marshall Plan The Truman Doctrine helped feed the Soviet reaction that led to the Berlin Blockade. It was only the show of determination and strength -- redeployment of B-29's to England, the same bombers that dropped atomic weapons on Japan -- that prevented escalation of the conflict during the 11 months of the airlift.

Kennedy escalated Vietnam as a part of Truman's doctrine and while he did speak to Kruschev during the Vienna Summit it was considered a failure that caused the players (Kennedy and Kruschev) to push the world toward the most dangerous nuclear stand off in history -- The Cuban missile Crisis.

(About Vienna, Kennedy later claimed of Khrushchev, "He beat the hell out of me.")

If this is what Obama has in mind, getting the hell beat out of him by Kim and Mahmoud I don't want anything to do with it! I should just start digging the shelter now!
DKK

After posting that in the comments of popular blogs and forwarding to many including Instapundit the next day Jack Kelly at RCP posted this:

May 09, 2008
Obama Needs a History Lesson
By Jack Kelly
In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.
In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."
That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.
I assume the Roosevelt to whom Sen. Obama referred is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Our enemies in World War II were Nazi Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler; fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and militarist Japan, headed by Hideki Tojo. FDR talked directly with none of them before the outbreak of hostilities, and his policy once war began was unconditional surrender.
FDR died before victory was achieved, and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Truman did not modify the policy of unconditional surrender. He ended that war not with negotiation, but with the atomic bomb.
Harry Truman also was president when North Korea invaded South Korea in June, 1950. President Truman's response was not to call up North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung for a chat. It was to send troops.
Perhaps Sen. Obama is thinking of the meeting FDR and Churchill had with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Tehran in December, 1943, and the meetings Truman and Roosevelt had with Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam in February and July, 1945. But Stalin was then a U.S. ally, though one of whom we should have been more wary than FDR and Truman were. Few historians think the agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam, which in effect consigned Eastern Europe to slavery, are diplomatic models we ought to follow. Even fewer Eastern Europeans think so.
When Stalin's designs became unmistakably clear, President Truman's response wasn't to seek a summit meeting. He sent military aid to Greece, ordered the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan, and sent troops to South Korea.
Sen. Obama is on both sounder and softer ground with regard to John F. Kennedy. The new president held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in Vienna in June, 1961.
Elie Abel, who wrote a history of the Cuban missile crisis (The Missiles of October), said the crisis had its genesis in that summit.
"There is reason to believe that Khrushchev took Kennedy's measure in June 1961 and decided this was a young man who would shrink from hard decisions," Mr. Abel wrote. "There is no evidence to support the belief that Khrushchev ever questioned America's power. He questioned only the president's readiness to use it. As he once told Robert Frost, he came to believe that Americans are 'too liberal to fight.'"
That view was supported by New York Times columnist James Reston, who traveled to Vienna with President Kennedy: "Khrushchev had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs," Mr. Reston wrote. "He would have understood if Kennedy had left Castro alone or destroyed him, but when Kennedy was rash enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job, Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed."
It's worth noting that Kennedy then was vastly more experienced than Sen. Obama is now. A combat veteran of World War II, Jack Kennedy served 14 years in Congress before becoming president. Sen. Obama has no military and little work experience, and has been in Congress for less than four years.
The closest historical analogue to Sen. Obama's expressed desire to meet with no preconditions with anti-American dictators such as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the trip British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French premier Eduoard Daladier took to Munich in September of 1938 to negotiate "peace in our time" with Adolf Hitler. That didn't work out so well.
History is an elective few liberals choose to take these days, noted a poster on the Web log "Hot Air." The lack of historical knowledge among journalists is merely appalling. But in a presidential candidate it's dangerous. As Sir Winston Churchill said:
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Jack's is better written then mine, but even in my often confused state I hit all the points he did and I did it a day earlier. His got picked up by the same blogs I sent mine to more then a day earlier and mine was ignored.

My point is this question, can a non journalist nobody with a cognitive disability still break through the gates or is the "Army of Davids" limited to those in the new gated community? Because if I can't, then is it still citizen journalism?
DKK

The Future Of American Health Care -- "Just Boil It and Reuse It!"

2009-09-28T01:09:00.006-05:00

I'm not sure why but I have yet to see the root problem with government writing a prescription for America's health care needs articulated using an easy to verify example.

The fact is, the root problem doesn't involve the debate over inclusion of a government option, it goes far far deeper then that; to the root of governments involvement in the health care process.

Most of us feel it deep down but don't really realize what the problem is. Perhaps that is because many people see evidence of what bothers them on a daily basis right there on their own television without even realizing it!

Government Central Planning of medical care through the Medicare system lead to the brilliantly idiotic idea that catheters could and should be reused. Medicare only covered 4 a month under the old ruling, today they cover up to 200.

People either had to pay for additional catheters or, it was recommended that users BOIL AND REUSE THEM. Seriously, grab a pan, we're cooking up a wonderful plan for your health! If you have had two (2) serious urinary tract infections in the past you could get yours covered -- that's right, you had go through the pain and risk twice.

Here is the kicker:

Even after the governments own FDA changed the labeling of catheters making them one time use products they were not covered!

Since the governments centrally planned Medicare system determined reuse was okay almost all private insurance companies followed suit! With the change in the ruling most insurances have changed their coverage as well.

This went on for DECADES!

It took people getting upset and finally getting a congressman to act -- that is not how we want our medical care coverage determined, via congressional fiat?

The key point -- when the government sets rules of coverage, for whatever reason (and you just know it will get political -- God forbid you get a disease out of favor with today's political will) the entire industry follows. Doctors change their recommendations, insurers change their coverage. Having the same policy as the government keeps you just one more step away from the lawyers!

The public option is not the devil, the devil is in the details of any program that offers or requires central planning by the government or any entity they set up. Leave the planning to your own doctors!

Governmental Central Planning is almost always the worst solution to even simple problems, and we know from history that it is a joke when it comes to larger issues!

Increase competition in both the insurance and the medical sides of the business, reduce government interference, and reform medical malpractice, that should be all the involvement the government should have in your health care!
DKK

Medicare Changes Catheter Ruling -- IC Disease Today

Update: It gets even better -- did you know that the Baucus plan included a tax on all medical devices? This tax would increase the cost to everyone. Initially it was all devices, tongue depressors, catheters, etc. but the saw some wisdom in that an have now increased that to items priced over $100. But does that make any sense? Imagine you need a prosthetic, or a back brace due to an accident -- you now will pay more for those, already very expensive items! Literally adding insult to injury! And as Hot Air points out this includes powered breast milk pumps!

Amazing, the ,"Boil it and reuse it," mentality will flourish even more then today -- seriously, do they even care about us at all because if they did they wouldn't be pulling this crap!
DKK

Public Health, Didn't We Try That Once? How Did That One Work Out?

2009-09-14T17:45:00.005-05:00

Updated and bumped*

You know I got to thinking, didn't we already try a public health option before? Then I remembered a reference to the Public Health System -- PHS -- it lasted about 40 years or so.

Here is what they offered:

"special free treatment"
"lower class African Americans, who often could not afford health care, the chance to join"
"Patients were to receive free physical examinations"
"free rides to and from the clinic"
"hot meals on examination days"
"free treatment for minor ailments"

Oh, it started great, there was a dedicated staff, the care was quality, they received praise for their work, they also received special praise for their, "flair in framing," the message to the potential patients encouraging many to join who would normally have been reluctant.

They had control of the costs and the treatments, what tests were done, what treatments were issued and it worked all quite well for the PHS.

Then about 1972 a whistleblower contacted the Washington Star and The New York Times and all hell broke lose.

I am simply amazed that anyone would even consider allowing the government to run a health system or more specifically set standards and recommended cost contained treatments for conditions. Even today when the government makes recommendations about medications and treatments most insurers and doctors use that as their guide and only cover or prescribe those treatments. That is why experimental treatments or medications are not covered!

But what really amazes me is why any black person in America would be in favor of a Public Health System following the end result of the above listed Tuskegee Experiment!

If you weren't aware of this your friends probably weren't either, send it to them all, click the email icon below and send it to them.
DKK

Update 9/15/2009

With the cries of racism reaching a fever pitch directed at anyone who would dare question the President (see Ace this week or HotAir this week), much of it directed at Republican lawmakers you would think that this would really freak liberals out -- how can you trust a PHS that may one day end up in the hands of those racists (everyone of them)!!!

Not gonna happen!

I keep waiting for Scotty to get that transporter fixed so he can beam me out of this alternate universe where everything is upside down!
DKK

*Update 12/11/2009 (original post date 09/14/2009 17:45)

Baldilocks tries to explain the reason Why Black Americans Think That the Federal Government Is Our Friend.

Whether it's the Emancipation or the desegregation of the Armed Forces or Brown v. Board or the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the federal government for the most part had seemed to be on the side of the black American as his constitutional rights were being oppressed by state or local governments.
What needs to be spelled, however is what the federal government did in the above-mentioned areas: it legally removed obstacles to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of Americans who are black. And that it what it was supposed to do.
The present problem in my unlearned opinion is this: the federal government began overstepping its bounds during the Great Depression and did so most infamously in the late sixties via the Great Society programs
Doing more that getting local racists out of the way, the federal government sought to and succeeded in making itself the suppliers of life, liberty and, putatively, the happiness of many black Americans. (Try telling a senior of any race that Social Security is sending the country to financial ruin. You'll get an earful about her "rights".)
And even many black Americans who do not rely on the federal government still view the fed as our friend because of that history.
What's needed in order to change this perception is obvious: education--not a new education but the old one, one which contains an objective explanation of the role of government.
Simply put, the role of the American government is to remove obstacles to liberty of the People--even when that obstacle is American government itself. Supplying all of one's needs is not government's role. That's God's purview.

Their Language and Concepts Were So Foreign to Our Way of Thinking...

2009-09-12T23:50:00.005-05:00

Aliens (Not The Good Kind) Descend Upon Washington DC,
Their Language and Concepts Were So Foreign to Our Way of Thinking We Dare Not Attempt to Translate.

That is what the headline should have read for the Washington Post's coverage of the DC Tea Party.

The WaPo seemed at a such a complete loss of understanding of what was happening and how these people could think this way that it seemed as if it was as foreign to them as, well, as MEAN HATEFUL scary aliens (NTGK - not the good kind) who had landed right there on the Mall! Ideas so foreign to them that they dare not interpret choosing rather to just listed the thoughts for all to see.

Wonder how that compares to other recent protest marches?

So did I so I checked back to see how they covered the anti war protest of 2002 and 2005. Here is what I found (all emphasis mine).

Headlines:

Tea Party

Lashing Out at the Capitol
Tens of Thousands Protest Obama Initiatives and Government Spending

2005

Antiwar Fervor Fills the Streets
Demonstration Is Largest in Capital Since U.S. Military Invaded Iraq

2002

100,000 Rally, March Against War in Iraq

The scary aliens (NTGK) lashed out and protested OBAMA while the others let their fervor fill the street, they didn't protest Bush mind you, no...

First paragraph:

Tea Party

Tens of thousands of conservative protesters, many complaining that the nation is racing toward socialism, massed outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, angrily denouncing President Obama's health-care plan and other initiatives as threats to the Constitution.

2005

Tens of thousands of people packed downtown Washington yesterday and marched past the White House in the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began.

2002

Tens of thousands of people marched in peaceful protest of any military strike against Iraq yesterday afternoon, in an antiwar demonstration that organizers and police suggested was likely Washington's largest since the Vietnam era.

Hmm, strange that isn't it -- scary aliens (NTGK) were angry and they were protesters who massed in the city center! Run, see if you can get out of the city before they attack! There were threats, or they saw threats or something like that. Pray all we get some of the peaceful people to help save us! But remember they were complaining, they complained for God's sake.

Second Paragraph:

Tea Party

The crowd -- loud, animated and sprawling -- gathered at the West Front of the Capitol after a march along Pennsylvania Avenue NW from Freedom Plaza. Invocations of God and former president Ronald Reagan by an array of speakers drew loud cheers that echoed across the Mall. On a windy, overcast afternoon, hundreds of yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags flapped in the breeze.

2005

The demonstration drew grandmothers in wheelchairs and babies in strollers, military veterans in fatigues and protest veterans in tie-dye. It was the first time in a decade that protest groups had a permit to march in front of the executive mansion, and, even though President Bush was not there, the setting seemed to electrify the crowd.

2002

Organizers with International ANSWER, a coalition of antiwar groups that coordinated the demonstration, had hoped for a turnout rivaling that of its pro-Palestine rally in April that officials estimated at about 75,000. Organizers said they easily eclipsed that figure yesterday, assessing attendance at well more than 100,000. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey also said he figured yesterday's rally turnout exceeded that in April, but he didn't provide a specific number.

You've got to be kidding me, right? -- Grandmothers, wheelchairs, and everything -- the scary aliens (NTGK) are loud and animated are clearly threatening grandmothers with vaporization from a primitive leader and their GOD (if Obama doesn't get them first). If only an electrified crowd could channel that power and save the babies!

Third Paragraph

Tea Party

"Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored," declared Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, urging protesters to call their representatives. The demonstrators roared their approval.

2005

Signs, T-shirts, slogans and speeches outlined the cost of the Iraq conflict in human as well as economic terms. They memorialized dead U.S. troops and Iraqis, and contrasted the price of war with the price of recovery for areas battered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Riffs on Vietnam-era protests were plentiful, with messages declaring, "Make Levees, Not War," "I never thought I'd miss Nixon" and "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam." Many in the crowd had protested in the 1960s; others weren't even born during those tumultuous years.

2002

"We think this was just extremely, extremely successful," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a D.C. organizer with International ANSWER, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. "It absolutely shows that when George Bush says America speaks with one voice, and it's his voice, he's wrong."

Mommy, the scary aliens (NTGK) roared, they roared I tell you! Antiwar protests were nothing but impressive! Hey, wait, they mentioned they were against Bush, huh!

You get the point.

A few more statistics:

Number of signs quoted:
Tea party -- 9
2005 -- 0 (mentions of Bush signs and one sign with the picture of a mothers son who was in Iraq)

Chanting/shouting:
Tea Party -- "We Own the Dome!"
2005 -- "Shame on you, Shame on you!" (a counter protester shouted)

"Peaceful"
Tea Party --0 (none)
2005 -- 1

"Angrily" or Angry
Tea Party -- 1
2005 -- 0

"Grandmother" and"Babies"
Tea Party -- 0
2005 -- One of each

Crowd estimate:
Tea Party -- No "official" estimate given
2005 -- 300,000 the organizers claim

Reason for protest:
Tea Party --

The demonstrators are part of a loose-knit movement that is galvanizing anti-Obama sentiment across the country, stoking a populist dimension to the Republican Party, which has struggled to find its voice since the 2008 elections.

2005 --

(T)he events were sponsored by groups including the ANSWER Coalition and United for Peace and Justice and focused on a succinct theme: "End the War in Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now."

Interesting:

Tea Party -- "(H)e watches Fox News host Glenn Beck "all the time" and wanted to be part of an event that he thinks will be historic. Beck had drummed up support for the march."

2005 -- "The protest groups helped organize caravans and carpools, and many participants began arriving early in the morning after bumpy, all-night bus rides."

BEEEECCCCCKKKKK!

Yea, I'm a bit over critical perhaps, but 8 years of coded Bush hate in the press and 2 years of blatant Obama love in the same press will do that.

Hey WaPo, how are that Acorn and vetting of the Czars story going?
DKK

Please forgive the grammar and if this reads choppy -- my meds have failed in clearing the cognitive issues lately.

Who Could Have Seen The Iranian Upheaval Coming? -- The Fruits of Victory In Iraq!

2009-06-22T19:41:00.012-05:00

While Obama sits stubbornly wedded to his promise to negotiate with the dictators of the world -- despite the human rights violations of those same dictators -- the intelligencia and Washington pundits are amazed that the upheaval is occurring. No one could have seen this coming. Better yet there are those who are besides themselves trying to credit Obama.

But who, nearly 6 years ago could have actually predicted this happening following a US victory in Iraq? And in nearly the exact manner in which it happened -- The Iranian regime losing it's credibility by rigging the Iranian elections denying the people of Iran the right to the democracy they demand.

"In Iran the demand for democracy is strong and broad … The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."

George W. Bush discussing the impact of a free Iraq on the Middle East, November 6, 2003. Nearly 6 years ago.

Ronald Reagan fought the cold war for eight years. The year he left office the Soviet Union began to crumble and fell. His successor was there willing to follow through and capitalize on that victory (albeit cautiously at first).

George W. Bush fought the Axis of Evil for seven years. The year he left office one of the remaining two members of that Axis stood on the brink -- will Obama stubbornly cling to his, "one world of rainbows and lollipops as long as we extend an open hand," philosophy or will he grab the hard fought victory that has been presented to him? (Credit where credit is due, Obama's election did shift the focus off of Bush allowing Iranians to look inward).

More:

Full text of the speech is here but here is another quote:

"Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution. "

Even Obama's White House is claiming his speech lead to uprising -- link to Hot Air!

Update, June 25, 2009:
Robert Kaplan at the Washington Post finally notices that this was part of the goal for Iraq, but fails to mention Bush at all on the entire page -- entire column, not once.

As if the entire thing was not part of the plan but was just an after effect ... WTF people there was a plan and it was articulated!

More Bush (thanks commenter Juliesa at Hot Air):

To the people of Iran: You are rich in culture and talent. You have a right to live under a government that listens to your wishes, respects your talents, and allows you to build better lives for your families. Unfortunately, your government denies you these opportunities, and threatens the peace and stability of your neighbors. So we call on the regime in Tehran to heed your will, and to make itself accountable to you. The day will come when the people of Iran have a government that embraces liberty and justice, and Iran joins the community of free nations. And when that good day comes, you will have no better friend than the United States of America.

George W. Bush Discusses the Importance of Freedom in the Middle East January 13, 2008.
DKK

The Left Is Starting To Get What Bush Did Successfully For Years! (But crediting Obama -- WHAT?)

2009-05-05T06:43:00.001-05:00

Just last November I said:

Was Iraq the only way to win in Afghanistan AND secure the homeland?

Divided and distracted the forces of jihad from a country fundamentally and historically unconquerable and another that was fundamentally vulnerable.

Which I had originally pointed out back in 2003 describing the honeypot theory.

Now NYT liberal columnist Thomas Frideman agrees, but somehow gives credit to Obama -- I don't get it either, it is a liberal mind game thing I guess. Commentary Blog went there so we don't have to!

But then we have a real doozy. It seems Bush kept us safe by taking the fight to the terrorists in Iraq, where it is still essential we complete the victory:
I believe that the most important reason there has not been another 9/11, besides the improved security and intelligence, is that Al Qaeda is primarily focused on defeating America in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world — particularly in Iraq. Al Qaeda knows that if it can destroy the U.S. effort (still a long shot) to build a decent, modernizing society in Iraq, it will undermine every U.S. ally in the region.
Conversely, if we, with Iraqis, defeat them by building any kind of decent, pluralistic society in the heart of their world, it will be a devastating blow.
So to recap: the Bush team kept us safe from an implacable foe by using interrogation methods which the American public approved of and by fighting (often against the admonitions of Friedman and his colleagues) and largely prevailing in Iraq. The latter effort may deal a death blow to Al Qaeda which one supposes made it a very worthwhile endeavor.

DKK

Manzullo Shows Why He's There -- Those Other Republicans Should Pay Attention! -- UPDATED WITH VIDEO

2009-03-26T15:48:00.002-05:00

Rep. Manzullo to Geithner: Your Plan Is 'Radical'

In testimony before the House Financial Services committee that just adjourned, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner just had to defend his institutional takeover plan against charges of radicalism.

"Do you realize how radical your proposal is?" Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.) asked.

"It's not radical. . ." Geither began, before Manzullo interrupted him.

"You're talking about seizing private businesses and you don't consider that radical?" Manzullo replied, his voice rising.

Manzullo is trying to get Geithner to give details of the plan -- that's where Geithner got stung before -- but Geithner doesn't have them yet.

If the plan were not radical, Manzullo said to Geithner, "you would have answers to some of my questions, such as, what size business would be subject to this?"

DKK
The Ticker (WaPo)

Update: Here is the video from Rep. Manzullo's YouTube page:

DKK

Thoughts of a Feebled Mind* -- What Iraq Was!

2008-11-24T23:51:00.000-06:00

Was Iraq the only way to win in Afghanistan AND secure the homeland?

Divided and distracted the forces of jihad from a country fundamentally and historically unconquerable and another that was fundamentally vulnerable.
DKK

* Random thoughts from the past few weeks that made it to the "draft" section but never made it to a post because of the downward swing in my health.

Obamaganda

2008-11-24T22:39:00.000-06:00

Obamaganda -- the MSM treatment of the 2008 election as described by Time Magazine Editor, Mark Halperin.

Thoughts of a Feebled Mind* -- Republican Plight

2008-11-21T00:59:00.002-06:00

Republicans are in the wilderness because -- as their standard bearer this year demonstrated -- they began to believe that the government could actually solve all of our ills.

Everyday Republicans are still here waiting for a return to sanity.
DKK

* Random thoughts from the past few weeks that made it to the "draft" section but never made it to a post because of the downward swing in my health.

Thoughts of a Feebled Mind* -- Dems Plan Will Leave World Wanting

2008-11-20T07:36:00.000-06:00

If Pelosi, Reid, and Obama get their way we will not drill another hole and will will deal with the consequences including financial for the poor here.

But how can they justify what their actions would do to the rest of the world we can't afford the cost of changing the third world over to tech.

But our Democrats don't seem to understand that fertilizer and everything else included in modern life cannot be replaced immediately -- the world will suffer.

* Random thoughts from the past few weeks that made it to the "draft" section but never made it to a post because of the downward swing in my health.

Wow -- Sorry -- I'll Try To Get Back

2008-10-23T01:52:00.000-05:00

Hey, sorry about not posting. I had a very rough time following that last round of testing. I was on too high a dose on one of my meds and it was causing problems and so it had to be reduced (something about toxic build up). Those meds gave a boost to my immune system and were probably why I was able to blog so much earlier this year. Unfortunately on a lower dose I am just beat all of the time.

It sucks, I can get meds that will give me some energy but they will kill me, or I can go at a lower dose and barely have enough energy to make it through the basics every day.

Hopefully I can readjust soon but I am not betting on it.
DKK

McCain Beats Obama Bloody Without Even Having To Lift A (North Vietnamese Torturer Broken) Hand -- Will Obama Save Himself From Himself?

2008-09-13T06:30:00.002-05:00

[Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):
McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner on National Review discussing this foolish advertisement by Barack Obama.

There is plenty of evidence in the Goldberg post that McCain does use the internet but because of his injuries his wife does the typing for him. He uses the internet with the mouse.

What makes it really bad is that when you attack a man for not using the internet or being able to send an Email because of injuries he sustained in the service of the country couldn't you at least spend 5 minutes on Google for the real story like many bloggers have done? Who looks the fool now, Barack!

I hate to do this, but alas, not all is lost for team Obama. Today is a perfect time for Obama’s own Sister Soulja moment. He could order that computer ad pulled, apologize directly for having placed it.

Considering how foolish and hateful it makes him seem and how much it distracts from the message in the second half it was a tactical mistake as well as a strategic mistake.

Reclaim the mantle of change and ‘new politics’ and only put ads on that proclaim what he will do. If he does it now he may be early enough to make McCains ads look petty if Obama never responds with anything but positive, “I will,” messages.

He would be locked in though — no negative replies at all.

That would be as bold a move as Palin was for McCain — for that reason he wont do it. He can’t face the screaming of the left and media. The critters at Kos, DU, and the other fever swamps of the left have been demanding that Obama hit back and hit hard.

The flailing by team Obama is really beginning to show. It's time a grown up stepped in to run that thing. Remember, this is what he considers executive experience that qualifies him to be President.
DKK

Update: Ace notes that Forbes Magazine noted McCain’s disability in 2000, too:

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

September 11 -- Seven Years Ago A Strong Man Comforted A Wounded Nation With More Then Just His Words!

2008-09-11T06:56:00.000-05:00

"The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."
- President George W. Bush, September 11, 2001 Address to the Nation

Confidence In Palin Pick -- Update Confirmation From McCain Camp

2008-08-31T06:25:00.004-05:00

Many of the talking heads in Washington are not thrilled with Senator John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his VP, but I have to say I think it is a very good move.

Some grouse that this removes the experience issue from McCain's quiver and that may in fact be true -- although this comparison by Red State of the Governor's record next to Obama's is somewhat devastating to the Senator.

But here is the key; In 2008 change trumps experience hands down.

The adds practically write themselves:

Open with the Hillary statement of McCain being qualified on day one and "Obama has a speech he gave in 2002"

Voice over -- that hot lady's voice (that hasn't been Palin all along has it?)
"One team has a record of "-- fill in the issues, or "One Candidate picked a VP from outside The Washington system and she has a record of,"
"Confronting and defeating corrupt political machines regardless of party affiliation." -- Show some of the many headlines of Governor Palin addressing the corruption in her own party in Alaska and McCain addressing spending and corruption in Washington (Republicans spending like drunken sailers anyone)
Hillary's Voice over in the background slightly echo/muted --
"And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002" while showing headlines of his ties to Rezko and the corrupt Chicago Machine and his admission to the boneheaded move that he profited from, and his picking Biden who has been in the Senate since Palin was 9.

End with the, "don't hope for change, vote for it!" line or an even stronger line about one team with a proven track record of change.

Pick an issue -- you want change, one team has a record of accomplishing real meaningful change. Hit the Maverick line hard, after all the press gave him the label, rub their noses in it!

Do an entire series hitting hard on energy policy, foreign policy, and the economy, but throw in education, Obama's death of aborted babies argument, you name it they can dig it up.

Gee' didn't Bill Clinton just propose this in his candidate X candidate Y scenario last week:

Suppose, for example, you’re a voter, and you have candidate X and you have candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything but you don’t think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that, on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver.

This is the kind of question that I predict - and this has nothing to do with what’s going on now - but I am just saying if you look at five, 10, 15 years from now, you may actually see this delivery issue become a serious issue in Democratic debates because it is so hard to figure out how to turn good intentions into real changes in the lives of the people we represent.

This type of attack would again put Obama on the defense and reduce the impact of the McCain/Bush talking point that Obama camp has been pushing so very hard.

As a matter of fact, here is another really good one that would put a huge dent in that meme:

Open with the Hillary statement of McCain being qualified on day one and "Obama has a speech he gave in 2002"

Voice over -- that hot lady's voice,

"One team has a proven record of fighting for the surge that was necessary for victory in Iraq," -- clippings or video of McCain's repeated calls for a surge.

Hillary's Voice over in the background slightly echo/muted --
"And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002" then show the interview of Obama saying his policies in Iraq were not much different then the Bush administration!

"Don't hope for change, vote for it -- McCain/Palin!"

DKK

Update --

Last Sunday, 24 hours after Mr. Obama announced his running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Mr. McCain met with his senior campaign team at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Phoenix. By then, campaign advisers said, the group had long decided that Mr. McCain’s “experience versus change” argument against Mr. Obama had run its course, to the extent that it had worked at all…
In any case, one campaign adviser said, Mr. McCain hated running as the wizened old hand of experience. Despite his embrace this year of President Bush and many of the administration’s policies, Mr. McCain, a campaign adviser said, still saw himself as the maverick who delighted in occasionally throwing political grenades at his own Party.

NYTimes via Hot Air
DKK

McCain Picks Palin

2008-08-29T16:12:00.000-05:00

Instapundit has a rundown on the early reactions.

It is quite interesting to me that I have yet to hear a Republican say the dreaded line I heard over and over for the last week about Biden, "I think Hillary would have been a better choice but Biden is ...."
DKK

Want To Know How An Obama Administration Would Run, Just Watch His Home State -- Illinois, The State With No Ethics, Hope OR Change!

2008-08-26T15:03:00.000-05:00

The Illinois Legislature passed a comprehensive reform measure to bring ethics to all areas of state government. For the most part, it ends pay to pay politics, which has caused all manner of corruption in Illinois.

The governor vetoed it putting an executive order in place instead. The problem:

The executive order won’t take effect until AFTER the election, and it won’t cover state departments or branches that are not under the governor’s control.

Plus, there are no penalties for breaking this order. So, the governor couild ignore his own ethics executive order and he could not be punished. Nor could anyone else. Plus, executive orders aren’t laws, they can be changed or abolished by whim.

DKK
Sweeny Report

Biden Doesn't Compliment The Obama Brand, He Alters It -- Forced By Poll Numbers?

2008-08-23T08:27:00.002-05:00

Obama has built up a brand. Biden does not fit that brand. He alters it.

I don't know if worldwide events influenced his selection of if poll numbers did, but he doesn't seem to fit. Just not quite right.
DKK

Update -- As if to prove my point:

Biden has accepted $5,133,072 in contributions from lawyers and lobbyists since 2003. Obama does not accept contributions from federally registered lobbyists.

And he has one other weakness that hasn’t received much attention to date. One of Biden’s sons, Hunter, is a registered Washington lobbyist in a year in which Obama has been excoriating lobbyists and the culture of corruption in Washington. The younger Biden is a name partner at the firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, LLP, and seems to have specialized in lobbying for just the kind of earmark spending by Congress that Obama has vowed to slash. Republican insiders say the party is likely to make an issue of Biden’s family lobbying ties.

Also expect to hear more about Biden’s close ties with credit card companies. His largest contributor (based on total contributions by employees) over the past five years has been MBNA, the Delaware-based bank aquired in 2005 by Bank of America than until then was the world’s largest independent credit card issuer and a major supporter of the 2005 bankruptcy bill that Biden crossed the aisle to support.

Hot Air

Obama Chooses Biden!

2008-08-22T23:56:00.000-05:00

Obama picks Biden for veep
DKK

Double Down On Democrat Win -- Democrats Major Sponsor George Soros Enriched By Democrats Energy Policy

2008-08-22T01:30:00.002-05:00

Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding.

As of June 30, the stake in Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer is known, made up 22 per cent of the $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Petrobras has since slumped 28 per cent.

Soros has increased his mining and commodities holdings, a move that accelerated in the first quarter with purchases of such companies as Cia. Vale do Rio Doce, the world's largest iron-ore producer, and Talisman Energy, a Canadian oil and gas company. In November, Petrobras announced the discovery of Tupi, a field with as much as 8 billion barrels of reserves, making it the largest find in the Americas since 1976.

"Petrobras has something that other oil companies don't have: oil - lots of it and they're going to find more," said Ricardo Kob-ayashi, equity fund manager with UBS Pactual in Rio de Janeiro.

"If you can buy now and hang on, if you have the staying power, it's great."

Tupi is part of a new deepwater offshore region known as the pre-salt that may contain as much as 50 billion barrels, according to Peter Wells, oil analyst with the UK's Neftex Petroleum Consultants.

Fine, Soros can invest in evil oil, I don't have a single problem with that! I appreciate that, it reduces the cost of my gas!

Here's what I have a problem with:

Soros has already been convicted in France of insider trading -- INSIDER TRADING, AKA; buying a security with info not available to the general public so that you can cash in on the security.
Soros has invested in a Brazilian company that drills for oil off of Brazil. They have made huge discoveries in oil that no one suspected might be there! That company makes more money when the price of oil goes up and stays up.
Soros is funding the Democrats to the tune of millions and the Democrats have dug in their heels on the "All Of The Above," energy plan because it includes drilling.
Because of this the price of oil goes up and stays up because we aren't allowed to drill off our own shores or in many places in the US.
Circle complete -- Money for money! International insider trading to the max! The man knows how to run an investment!

He is the perfect example of the culmination of every socialist society so far. The rich and powerful take advantage of the system for their own enrichment.

So what if you can't afford food or gas, he has important things to do with his money like getting guns off the street and electing Barack and he needs that oil to continue his good works!

Soros is the major sponsor of the nutroots who bragged that the Democratic party was theirs because they had bought and paid for it! Every time they block an all of the above energy plan they pay him dividends on that investment!

This man is really a slimy individual!
DKK
Gulfnews

New Ice Age Prediction -- Repeat After Me, "We Really Don't Know Enough About What We Are Doing To Risk Destroying It All!"

2008-08-21T09:42:00.000-05:00

An expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a "little ice age" which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity.

Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM, as argued earlier during a conference that teaches at the Center for Applied Sciences and Technological Development.
...
Velasco Herrera described as erroneous predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), pursuant to which the planet is experiencing a gradual increase in temperature, the so-called global warming.

The models and forecasts of the IPCC "is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity," said the specialist also in image processing and signs and prevention of natural disasters.

The phenomenon of climate change, he added, should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes and the very human activity, and external, such as solar activity.

DKK
Milenio (translation)

Obama Spent As Much Just In Ads As McCain Spent Total For July -- Yet Poll Numbers Dropping -- The More You Know Him...

2008-08-21T08:08:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama spent more on advertising last month than Republican rival John McCain spent on his campaign, new Federal Election Commission filings show.

Obama spent $57.2 million in July, including $33 million on advertising. McCain spent $32.4 million, with $18.7 million going for ads.

McCain entered August with slightly more money than Obama when funds in the bank accounts of the Republican and Democratic party committees are included.

DKK
Bloomberg

Media Can't Be Bothered With That -- They Are Too Busy Diggin Up Divorce Papers Or Something!

2008-08-21T07:25:00.002-05:00

THE OBAMA / BILL AYERS / ANNENBERG STORY has broken out into the Legacy Media now. Tom Maguire comments: "Hard to believe that with our aggressive national media covering a Presidential campaign that Obama and Daley could mange this cover-up in plain sight. Yeah, real hard."
I caution those who are excited about getting into the archives, though: It probably won't happen, and by now I'm sure that the files have been vacuumed of any seriously embarrassing matter anyway. This is Chicago.
UPDATE: What leaked out.

It really is amazing that the very same media that cleared the way for Obama's Senate win by suing to force the release of his opponent's sealed divorce documents just can't seem to care about the extent of Obama's ties to an unrepentent domestic terrorist.
DKK
Instapundit

Wiki info on Barack's Senate race:

Barack Obama's backers emailed reporters about the divorce controversy, but refrained from on-the-record commentary about the divorce files.^[7] On March 29, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' divorce records should be opened to the public, and ruled that a court-appointed referee would later decide which custody files should remain sealed to protect the interests of Ryan's young child.^[8] The following week, on April 2, 2004, Barack Obama changed his position about the Ryans' soon-to-be-released divorce records, and called on Democrats to not inject them into the campaign.^[7] The Ryan campaign characterized Obama's shift as hypocritical, because Obama's backers had been emailing reports about the divorce records prior to Judge Schnider's decision.^[7]

Ryan dropped out less then a week after the records were released.

And who demanded those documents to be released:

Ryan married actress Jeri Ryan in 1991; together they have a son, Alex Ryan. They divorced in 1999 in California, and the records of the divorce were sealed at their mutual request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released.

Answers.com
DKK

Yea, But He Does A Great Motor Boat Impression! "Um, Um, bu, bu, but, um um!"

2008-08-21T06:59:00.000-05:00

According to several Democrat political consultants presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama spent part of his Hawaiian vacation working on weaning himself from a heavy dependence on teleprompters. Even in what are staged as "town hall" events for Obama, remarks are scripted or formatted into bullet points that scroll on teleprompter screens. Obama has had several embarrassing events where the teleprompter either malfunctioned or the screens were not fully visible.

"He just locks down and can't get the words out," says one political consultant. "For such a fine speaker, it's really quite remarkable that he's had issues."

Obama's troubles with unscripted moments contributed to his campaign's refusal to participate in town hall format debates or discussions with Sen. John McCain, who feels much more comfortable in the unscripted moments.

DKK
American Spectator -- Washington Prowler

Red State Update: Thank You John Edwards

2008-08-21T06:34:00.001-05:00

DKK

Yet The Democrats Won't Let Us Drill Under The Wasteland Of The Caribou!

2008-08-21T05:49:00.001-05:00

Urban drilling bonanza pits neighbor against neighbor

Bishop Kenneth Spears always thought gifts from God came from above. He never imagined that the gifts would be hiding under his church in Fort Worth, Texas.

"The Bible says, 'Every place the sole of your foot should tread upon, I'll give it to you,' " said Spears, of the First St. John Missionary Baptist Church. "I walked and believed that if I prayed over that ground, if I walked over that ground, something good would come of it."

In 2006, he learned that all 15 acres of the church's property are on one of the largest natural gas fields in the country, known as the Barnett Shale.

Spears' church and thousands of residents around the Fort Worth area are cashing in on a unique urban drilling bonanza.

With the development of horizontal drilling technology and with gas prices sky-high, energy companies are racing to tap into the Barnett Shale natural gas field.

The Barnett Shale is the most-productive natural gas field in such a highly populated area spanning 5,000 square miles. The drilling here is being watched closely in Louisiana and Pennsylvania, which also have natural gas fields under urban areas

Energy companies are going door to door and negotiating mineral rights with the residents who get an initial payment and monthly royalties if the Gas is found and used. Some are not at all happy about the drilling, one Fort Worth blogger says, "It's a divide and conquer strategy by going around and giving everybody enough money to keep them quiet. Hush money is what I call it." (FWCanDo.org).

Others would call it paying the owners for the minerals they own -- after all they don't have the ability to extract it themselves and it wasn't doing them any one any good where it was. Wonder if the blogger feels the same about the money we send the Canadians, Mexicans, or Saudis each year.

Yet the Democrats won't allow us to drill under the friggin caribou! Nice energy policy you got there Nancy!
DKK
CNN

"Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle'"

2008-08-21T05:35:00.000-05:00

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher,

who's hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our president.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle'".

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, "When your driving down a country road on you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle".

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, and he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with".

DKK
Flicker: DrMadjack
Via Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

What Really Brought Down The Third Reich And Why Is Twitter Service Sporatic?

2008-08-20T05:24:00.001-05:00

I have seen this clip used in other parodies but this one was a good one.
DKK
Via Dvice

Knowing And Acknowledging What We Don't Know About Planetary Climate

2008-08-20T00:22:00.001-05:00

And here's the mystery. Even allowing for the greenhouse effect Venus is hotter then it should be.

And if our current theories can't even explain what happened to our sister planet, how can we possibly be sure about the future of earth!

Janet Sumner,
Earth Scientist, Open University of England
Science Channel -- Venus Unveiled

Wow, I thought we were told we had that greenhouse global warming thing all locked up -- you know, the debate is over and all that stuff!
DKK

More Manufacturing Jobs Being Imported From China -- I Blame Bush!

2008-08-19T06:42:00.000-05:00

A Washington-based brake drum manufacturer is relocating some of its machining work from China to Rockford, echoing a trend that’s becoming more common in North American factories.

The KIC Group is contracting with a new local company, Rockford Automated Machining, to make raw brake drum casings once manufactured in China. Rockford Automated Machining, created by the owners of FAC Consolidated Industries, will employ about 40 people at its 840 Airport Drive location.

John Schneider, vice president of sales for KIC, said multiple factors have eroded the Asian competitive advantage — increased ocean freight charges, the rising price of raw iron ore and the strengthening of the Chinese currency against the U.S. dollar.

DKK
Business Rockford

Chinese Corporation Solar Cell Assembly Plant In The Works For Rockford

2008-08-19T06:31:00.001-05:00

Wanxiang Group, the second-largest privately held Chinese corporation, wants to build a photovoltaic solar panel assembly plant at or near Chicago Rockford International Airport. The proposed 40,000-square-foot facility could be operational next year and employ 60 to start. President and CEO Lu Weiding signed an agreement with Rockford, Winnebago County and airport officials today to work out a development deal for the project. Wanxiang officials said they want to move fast, starting construction as soon as possible.
(...)
Wanxiang Group conducted a nationwide search for the site of its assembly plant, said Janyce Fadden, president of the Rockford Area Economic Development Council.

DKK
RRStar

Beat To Heck -- Update

2008-08-19T06:29:00.000-05:00

Hey, following tests I had a change in meds and I have been beat to heck. Hopefully I will be back to regular posting tomorrow.
DKK

Winnebago County Stands Out Front In The Lead To Restore Gun Rights In Illinois -- Popular Revolt By Vote Possible!

2008-08-14T02:18:00.003-05:00

Voters in Ogle County may soon join a growing number of Illinoisans who can cast a vote for president this November and, on the same ballot, decide whether their neighbor can pack a pistol.

An Ogle County Board committee approved a request from Winnebago County officials to place an advisory referendum on the November ballot asking Ogle voters whether they want to see concealed carry legislation in Illinois.

The request was one of the 101 unsolicited letters that Winnebago County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen’s office sent to every county in the state about a week ago, putting Winnebago County on the front lines of a statewide concealed carry debate.
...
Representatives from other Illinois counties, including Effingham and LaSalle counties, also have looked favorably on Winnebago County’s referendum request in recent weeks.

For those not from the area, Winnebago County is the top center county on the map with Ogle directly below it. Rockford, Illinois' third largest city is in Winnebago County. To the East is Boone County which is set to take up the issue next month.

Illinois and Wisconsin are the only two states without some form of concealed carry and Winnebago County is considering a county law that would allow people to carry if they received a permit from the Sheriff, but a state law would be a far better alternative

For the history of Winnebago County's excellent leadership on the restoration of rights and the releasing the state from the death grip of Chicago see the concealed carry label here.

DKK
RRStar

Welcome, and thanks to Glen Reynolds and Instapundit readers!

Regular Periodic Medical Testing This Week -- Light Posting

2008-08-11T03:28:00.000-05:00

'Chef '-- Isaac Hayes has died at 65

2008-08-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film "Shaft," has died, sheriff's officials in Memphis, Tennessee, say. Relatives found Hayes unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill. Hayes also voiced "Chef" for the animated series "South Park."

DKK
CNN

Bernie Mac Dies At Age 50

2008-08-09T08:29:00.000-05:00

CHICAGO — DEVELOPING STORY:
Bernie Mac's publicist says the actor and comedian has died. He was 50 years old.
Mac was recovering from pneumonia at the time of his death.

DKK
Fox News

McCain Practices The Art Of War -- Obama Arrogance Opens Up Death By A Thousand Cuts

2008-08-09T08:28:00.002-05:00

McCain is old!

We know he is old, he has admitted he is old, and he has even joked about it! The comedians have told us how old he is, even the media has slipped it into their stories as sly comments when they don't outright state it.

McCain embraces his joke line! It is a smart strategy similar to using the honey pot theory (understanding the Honey Pot Theory), sucking the comedians, media, and his opponent into a known flaw that most Americans don't consider a game ender.

Obama, either out of fear or out of arrogance, has gone out of his way to deny every single perceived error or flaw he may have. Doing so makes it appear that he really thinks he is a perfect and flawless god.

He lost the ability to pick the laugh line -- how he was defined! Democratic president candidates always make this same error, either out of fear of appearing less then perfect or, as it looks more and more every year, out of arrogance of actually believing their own press. They refuse to allow any area open for attack by the Republicans thus opening all areas for attack. Eventually some of the game changers actually do stick.

The comedians were short on material for jokes (while they had tons of old people jokes for McCain) leaving them struggling for something -- McCain gave it to them, Obama is an arrogant, empty 'celebrity'.

Because Obama is unable to laugh at himself, and because he was unwilling to embrace a benign flaw early, he set himself up for a death by a thousand cuts as everyone struggles for a way of describing him.

He has appeared arrogant and has demonstrated that he has a glass jaw and in a weakened candidate who can't laugh at himself that often leads to unforced errors.

This has made him vulnerable to a knock out punch. A punch at a time when he is vulnerable and lacking the ability to laugh it off because by that time doing so would be so out of his carefully crafted character that the general public won't believe a word of it.
DKK

Bejing Olympics Open To Stunning Ceremony

2008-08-08T20:21:00.000-05:00

Reuters

Here are some stunningly beautiful photo's.
DKK

Reagan/Carter -- McCain/Obama -- Nuance As A Default Position Is A Losing Position!

2008-08-08T19:06:00.000-05:00

"Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory,” McCain said in a statement to reporters shortly after his campaign plane landed in Iowa.

“The consequences of Euro Atlantic stability and security are grave,” he added.

He also called for “a truly independent” international peacekeeping force for South Ossetia, and said the United States should work with the European Union and the OSCE to pressure Russia to halt its military efforts.

McCain has been a sharp critic of the policies of the Russian government headed by Vladimir Putin.

In a statement sent to reporters, Barack Obama called for an end to the violence, but stopped short of assigning blame, or making strong demands on Moscow. “I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict," he said.

"Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis.”

Russia sent troops into the region Friday to defend South Ossetia from Georgian troops battling separatist forces there.

DKK
CNN

Edwards Admits Affair -- Stabs Media And Wife In The Back -- Media Forced To Finally Cover Story!

2008-08-08T18:00:00.002-05:00

Former Sen. John Edwards has admitted having an extramarital affair in 2006. In a written statement today, the former Democratic presidential candidate said he "made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs."

National Enquirer was right and the media covered it up, until they couldn't any longer. This was really a disgraceful display by the media.
CNN

Update: Hot Air -- David Shuster: You know who else deserves an apology from Edwards? The media

After all they did to suppress the story for him, it’s really the least he can do. Tip via TV Newser, which neglects to mention the punchline here: Upon pronouncing the media a hapless victim whose blind trust was so cruelly exploited by Edwards’s aides, Shuster then turned around and pulled rank on the one press outfit that actually bothered to do some reporting. This one’s for you, Kaus.

If David Schuster knows politics more then all the people at MSNBC then they are really in trouble!
DKK

Pump Up Your Tires, Save The Planet -- How 'Bout You Try Doing What Americans Want For A Change?

2008-08-08T10:08:00.001-05:00

RASMUSSEN: "Americans overwhelmingly believe there is an urgent national need to find new sources of energy, and this need is more important that reducing current energy usage, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. With energy issues taking center stage in the presidential campaign, 81% of Americans see development of new energy sources as an urgent priority. Only 9% disagree. For nearly two-thirds (65%), finding new sources of energy is more important that reducing the amount of energy Americans now consume. Twenty-eight percent (28%) think reducing current usage is more important."

DKK
Instapundit

Russia Invades Breakaway Georgian Region -- Georgia Says It Is At War!

2008-08-08T08:52:00.000-05:00

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said today his country is under "continuous Russian bombardments" and that Russian tanks are moving in. He accused Russia of targeting civilian populations as tensions over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia appeared to boil over into full-blown conflict.

DKK
CNN

Was Blair The First Obama Supporter In 1975 Or Are Obama-maniacs Saying 'Suck It'?

2008-08-08T08:10:00.001-05:00

(I)f a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. "Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong,

Isn't that is just cult creepy and reminiscent of bad things in history?

That was a nasty gesture when I was in high school -- saying to the person it was aimed at to suck it! (As it is shown it would be as if someone up front were telling someone behind them to suck it).

However, I did find what could be one of the first photo's of Obama's O' sign from way back in 1975! Former Prime Minister Tony Blair at college!

Okay, maybe both Blair and Obama are just saying "Suck It," but I believe it is all for Obama man!
DKK
US News
Just One Minute -- Working for the big "O"

Daily Trek -- August 8, 2008

2008-08-08T07:00:00.001-05:00

What'd I miss?

Everything you need to know to stay informed each day in 5 minutes or less! Read your regular news and include this and you will be able to participate in most any current events discussion.
---------------------------
Governor Blagojevich says he is considering speed cameras on the interstates to ticket speeders. The money is to be used to assist crime fighting measures in Chicago. Interestingly enough just yesterday I saw a photo showing a speed camera ticket of a car being towed for service over the speed limit. I am fundamentally opposed to traffic cameras of any kind.

A man was arrested for planning to assassinate Barack Obama. He had also made threats against President Bush but you wouldn't see that in CNN's report.

In Los Angeles there is a proposal to require any big box home-improvement stores to build a heated and cooled shelter, and toilet, for day laborers who often hang looking for work.

"Suddenly being green is not cool any more -- As the credit crunch bites, environmental policies are being ditched. But oddly we are doing better at saving the planet."

A seven year old gets it -- tells Michelle Obama we should finish what we started in Iraq. Barack, there is your hope for America.

OBAMA GETS MORE DONATIONS FROM EXXON THAN MCCAIN.

"You Read it Here First: We Won the War"

Mathew Sheffield reported today that Liberals are more than 12 times likely to use profanity than conservatives on the Web.

"Islamic Group Warns Muslims to Keep Children Away From Olympics (Video) -- 'Do not stay on the same bus, on the same train, on the same plane, in the same buildings, or any place the Chinese are.;"

It seems that in the last two weeks John McCain has taken the lead in YouTube hits
---------------------------
DKK

Senate Republicans Getting Into The Act -- Demand Harry Reid Allow A Vote On Energy Plan!

2008-08-08T06:50:00.000-05:00

House Republicans have attracted most of the attention the last week in the rebellion that erupted after Nancy Pelosi adjourned the session without taking a vote on drilling. Their colleagues in the upper chamber want to press the case as well. Fifteen Republican Senators have a new video demanding that Harry Reid allow debate and a vote on a “balanced energy plan”

DKK
Hot Air -- Video: Senate GOP calls for “balanced energy plan”

House Republicans Continue Protest Fighting For Energy Relief For Americans!

2008-08-08T06:46:00.001-05:00

“Republicans will not rest until we have an honest, up-or-down vote on the American Energy Act,” Boehner wrote in the memo written by Republican leaders. “To that end, we request that you contact the Whip’s Office and indicate any time you may have available to come to Capitol in the coming weeks. We specifically request that you indicate your availability for any days during the next two weeks, August 11th through 22nd, as soon as possible.”

Republicans began their protest on Friday, as the House went into its August recess. Through a handful of members, Republicans have been able to continue rounds of speeches on the House floor ever since.

The plan now seems to be to continue taking to the House floor every weekday until at least the start of the Democratic Convention, which kicks off on Aug. 25.

I still don't know if Congressman Manzullo stayed in DC or came home, but he did update his campaignM site with nice links to reports on this strong Republican reaction to a do nothing party that would rather you and I suffer just so they can get elected.

Several Republican members of Congress are asking constituents to send in their gas receipts, which will be presented to the vacationing Democrat leadership see the full report at Michelle Malkin.
DKK
Hot Air -- House Oil Party rockin’ to the Democratic Convention

Move On And The Far Left Really Are Ideologically Suicidal!

2008-08-08T06:00:00.001-05:00

A series of new MoveOn.org radio advertisements looks like they could backfire, big-time.

The liberal group is up with ads against six House Republicans attacking them for their support of offshore drilling. Problem is: most of the targets represent energy-rich districts where drilling is viewed favorably, to put it mildly.

One target, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), represents a west Texas district where the discovery of oil in the 1940s created wealth throughout the region, and the energy industry has since dominated the region’s economy.
...
“We wholeheartedly endorse this colossal waste of funds,” said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain. “Not only is MoveOn.org’s anti-drilling position out of step with 70 percent of Americans, but a member like Mike Conaway who represents the Texas oil patch will probably see his approval rating surge upward as a result of these ads."

DKK
Politico -- The Scorecard

Why Are You Running For President Mr. Obama? Well, America Is No Longer What It Once Was...

2008-08-08T05:01:00.000-05:00

“America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”

Here he is in 2004 discussing his book:

"The Basic Outline of the government we possess and our civic religion as a people is such that potentially at least, we could create a society that is a model for the world, it isn't right now."

I wonder when he was proud of America, remember his wife is finally proud for the first time. How about pre Civil War? How about when schools and buses were segregated?

Someone needs to ask this man that question because I have done so to liberals who make this same claim and they cannot point out a time that meets their standards! I addressed this in 2004 and came to the conclusion on Kerry that:

This man is anti-American and so is his party! Here is the key - they don't think they are anti-American because their idea of America is their utopian dream - not the reality of where America is (and the American people are)! In other words - they are in favor of what they want America to be - but they are definitely against everything America is currently. This is where they have been since the 60's!
This is how they can, with a straight face, demand apologies from anyone who would dare to question their patriotism. It is also why this is such a sensitive issue for them - see deep down they understand that this is really an un-American position.

Because of their hatred for the REAL America they would trust a murdering dictator over a Republican President. They would turn over control of our economy, our security, and our health to an international body that has a history of support for dictators and genocide but rabid hatred for democracies like Israel and America.

They are willing to sacrifice soldiers, civilians, national reputation, and national security in order to bring America down a peg or two because this is the only way they think they can accomplish their return to power. They believe that with that power they can remake the world in their Utopian image.
...
Where on earth does this come from, this demand for utopia? This failure to accept the reality of where we are today?

I think it can be traced to this a dramatic perversion of this quote from the closest thing to a God the left has:

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
Robert F. Kennedy
Now, just as Islam has been perverted by terrorists (who demand the destruction of civilization and the murdering of innocents as a means of accomplishing their conversion of the world) I believe this statement by RFK was also twisted from it's original meaning. A meaning that hearkened back to his brother John F. Kennedy where he admonished us:
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy
Instead of hunkering down and changing the world for the better the left has decided that there is nothing worth salvaging and that we must abandon all that is good about America and start from scratch. With America in a subservient position their goals will have been accomplished. These goals, according to the Lie-N-Hype'ers, are noble and patriotic!

Hot Air has a copy of Rush Limbaugh's response today:

LIMBAUGH: Alright, now here’s he’s brought it home. He had trashed his country in Germany, he has seen the result of that in his plummeting poll numbers. And now he does it again in Elkhart, IN. A 7 year old little girl. You’re running for President Sen. Obama, a little girl asks you a question, “Why did you start running for President?”

It’s a 7 year old Senator. Ya tell her because you love the country. You tell her because this is the greatest place on Earth. That we’ve got challenges, but you want to help the country through it. You don’t tell a 7 year old that her country isn’t what it once was. You do not lie to 7 year olds and tell them that your country sucks. You just don’t do it Senator.

America’s no longer what it could be? What it once was? How the Hell would you know Sir? Your experience has only been in one part of America. Elite, leftist academia.

Ace responded this way:

Unfortunately for Obama America has a fairly long history of rejecting ~~African America~~, arrogant and liberal candidates who run down their country. Just ask Jimmy Carter how he enjoyed his second term or Walter Mondale, Michale Dukakis and John Kerry how they liked being President at all.

DKK

Sick Of Him Yet -- The Danger Of 24/7 Media Love Fest, Public Tires Of Obama!

2008-08-07T14:58:00.000-05:00

From the Pew Research Center:

While John McCain closed the gap in campaign news coverage last week, equaling the attention garnered by his opponent, Barack Obama remains the far more visible candidate in the eyes of the public. When asked which presidential candidate they have heard the most about in the news over the last week or so, 76% of the public names Barack Obama while just one-in-ten (11%) recalls John McCain.

But the Democratic candidate’s media dominance may not be working in his favor: Nearly half (48%) of the public says they have been hearing “too much” about Obama lately. And by a slight, but statistically significant margin – 22% to 16% – people say that recently they have a less rather than more favorable view of the putative Democratic nominee. Not surprisingly, a very large number of Republicans say they have heard too much about Obama lately. But 51% of independents share this opinion, as do as many as a third of Democrats.

DKK
The Corner On National Review

Obama's Failing Poll Numbers Clearly An Emergency Situation!

2008-08-07T12:25:00.000-05:00

Oil at $133 a barrel: Obama opposes releasing the oil reserves, saying it should be kept for “a genuine emergency.”

Oil at $117 a barrel: Obama says release the oil reserves.

DKK
Don Surber

When Mathematicians Actually Check The Numbers The Global Warming Evidence Proves Flimsy -- Wonder Why No One Bothered To Look Before, Oh Yea, The Debate Is Over Already!

2008-08-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

“…I was well convinced, as were most technically trained people, that the IPCC’s case for Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is very tight. However, upon taking the time to get into the details of the science, I was appalled at how flimsy the case really is.”

Watts up with that has the whole post, it's worth reading!

You can a reaction to this gentleman to be proportional to Gore's Law!
DKK
Watts Up With That -- APS Fellow supports Monckton's position

'The Emperors New Clothes' -- Obama Just Makes It Up As He Goes And That Is Dangerous!

2008-08-07T09:45:00.000-05:00

On May 19 Senator Obama proclaimed Iran to be just "a tiny country." That's a tiny country with seventy million people, half of it covered with mountains that you can tunnel under for your nuclear hidey holes. A half-million men in the army plus the fanatical martyrs of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, a domestic terror apparatus to keep the people down, a growing nuclear and missile program, enough oil to finance it all, a strategic position at the head and the tiny choke-point of the Persian Gulf, a long, long imperial tradition, and an Islamofascist suicide ideology, thanks to Jimmy Carter's good friend Ayatollah Khomeini. The regime of this tiny country had a habit of sending hundreds of young boys to blow up mine fields with their bodies, wearing green plastic "Keys to Paradise" around their necks. It controls the "Shiite Crescent" from Lebanon to the Gulf using its powerful alliance with Syria and Hezb'allah, supplied by our good friends the Russians and Chinese. The regime has a habit of blowing up American soldiers in Iraq with state-of-the-art shaped-charge explosives. Iran has performed high-altitude missile tests that could only be used to set off a nuclear EMP explosion, designed to cripple any modern nation by zapping its electrical and communication grids. It's just a "tiny threat," said Obama --- until his staff told him that wasn't quite right, and he quickly changed his tune.

DKK
Powerline Blog

Musharraf To Face Impeachment

2008-08-07T09:02:00.001-05:00

Pakistan's ruling coalition parties say they will begin impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf.

Party leaders Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif made the announcement after three days of talks. They would need a two-thirds majority to impeach.

In the past Musharraf has said he would resign rather then face impeachment.
DKK
BBC News

More from CNN:

If Musharraf does not request a vote of confidence, the National Assembly will meet on Monday to consider impeachment proceedings, PPP spokesman Capt. Wasif Syed told CNN. Speaking a short time before Thursday's announcement, Syed said there are enough votes in parliament right now to impeach the president.

But Musharraf may still have one card up his sleeve: he could move to dissolve parliament and dismiss the prime minister.

DKK

House Republican Protests Continue With A Boost From Gingrich -- Dem's Policy Of Filling Tires Sends $700 Billion Of American Money To Dictators Every Year!

2008-08-07T07:10:00.002-05:00

Did Nancy Pelosi think it was more important to go on a book tour then vote on energy? Bad investment, her book hasn't even charted! (Drudge reports only 2737 sold first week)

Gingrich makes some good points in this video -- one recommendation he makes is for Dem's to ignore Pelosi's advice to stand up for drilling in the hope that she can block it just so they can get elected as there will more likely be a vote and they will be stuck on the record!

I haven't been able to find a list of the 15 or 20 Republicans still holding out on the floor but if I do I will post it. I hope Manzullo is one of them, energy is so vital to the Rockford area -- it is the lifeblood for the farming and what manufacturing we have managed to keep in the area!
DKK

Daily Trek -- August 7, 2008

2008-08-07T07:06:00.000-05:00

What'd I miss?

Everything you need to know to stay informed each day in 5 minutes or less! Read your regular news and include this and you will be able to participate in most any current events discussion.
---------------------------
A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

A young man, his father, and a friend were charged with wide ranging crimes related to a possible plot to assassinate the President. Maps of Camp David and the motorcade route were found along with weapons, pipe bombs, and instructions on killing at 200 yards.

Newt Gingrich says Republicans should shut down the government over the drilling issue, Pelosi did say there were Parlimentary tricks the Republcians could use to force a vote if they can get the support. This would be one of them. Of course Gingrich's didn't have much success with government shut downs when he was in charge, miscalculating who would be blamed.

George Clooney has a fundraiser planned for Obama in Switzerland, but after the recent beating he has taken over his Rainbow Tour Hugh Hewitt wonders if that will be the next thing to end up under the buss!

Democrat Congressman Tom Allen of Maine, who is running against Susan Collins for the Senate, called on the President to call Congress back into session. Problem is he voted for the adjournment just last week!

More fact checking of Obama's tire inflation claims. Did you know that about two thirds of us already inflate our tires? Not that much savings left to squeeze out of that remaining third is there?

The Washington Post doesn't think much of Obama's windfall oil tax, seems even they can figure out that it is just a shell game, "robing Peter to pay Peter"!

At leat one of the Presidential candidates has a sense of humor -- John McCain Suggests That His Wife Would Make A Good Entrant In Sturgis Topless Beauty Contest.

Al Gore has a new house boat -- BS One, well actually it is 'Bio-Solar One' but, if the boat fits sail it!

There is a spot in So Cal where the ground is 812 degrees! Some geological anomaly!

Germany gets it -- they are delaying or halting the decommissioning of some of their nuclear plants. They get about 40% of their natural gas from Russia and they have quite a bit of coal.
-------------------------------
DKK

Is Obama Being Tough Or Is The Stress Getting To Him?

2008-08-07T05:59:00.000-05:00

RALSTON: I guess what the American people want to know though Senator, is what is the real difference between you and John McCain. You are running this ad tying him to the industry saying that he has taken all of these contributions, but as you well know there is a story out today about how you supported the Dick Cheney bill and he opposed it. That bill gave subsidies to the oil and gas companies, John McCain opposed the bill saying those are tax breaks for those companies, Barack Obama favored it.

SEN. OBAMA: Hold on a second Jon, I thought I was talking to you instead of debating John McCain, but I am happy to let you serve as his proxy. The fact of the matter is that I supported that energy bill saying at the time that those tax breaks were wrong but also recognizing that this was the largest investment in alternative energy in history. And that it was important for us, for the solar industry to get off the ground in places like Nevada, for to get wind kicked off the ground, that that was something that we had to do and I immediately said during that time and subsequently that we should strip out those tax breaks for oil companies. I would point out that in December of last year, we had a vote to strip out those tax breaks for oil companies, there was one Senator that did not vote on that measure, and that was John McCain.

DKK
Hot Air -- Obama really doesn’t like a debate

What McCain Needs To Do Next -- Rove Offers His Two Cents!

2008-08-07T05:22:00.000-05:00

But to win, Mr. McCain must also make a compelling case for electing John McCain. Voters trust him on terrorism and Iraq and they see him as a patriot who puts country first. But they want to know for what purpose?

In the coming weeks, he needs to lay out a bold domestic reform program. He gave a taste on energy, but with a few missteps. He should appear in front of manufacturing plants where jobs depend on affordable energy, small businesses affected by fuel prices, and farms hurt by skyrocketing fertilizer costs -- and not in front of oil rigs. He needs to describe the consequences of specific domestic policy decisions. He must explain how his proposals on energy, health care, jobs and education will make a difference for ordinary families.

Mr. McCain also needs to elevate his arguments. It's not only that he opposes tax increases and Mr. Obama favors them. Mr. McCain must also make the principled case that there should be a limit to what government can take from its citizens. This argument will appeal to a large majority of voters. The top income tax rate is 35% and, according to the Tax Foundation, 89% of Americans believe that government should take no more than 30% from anyone's paycheck.

Go read the whole thing!
DKK
WSJ -- Rove -- What McCain Should Do Next!

Ouch -- Washington Post Caught With Pants Down As They Post Inaccurate Obama Propaganda!

2008-08-07T05:03:00.000-05:00

OKAY, I MENTIONED IT IN PASSING EARLIER, but this Washington Post correction is worth quoting in full: "An earlier version of this story about campaign donations that Florida businessman Harry Sargeant III raised for Sen. John McCain, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton incorrectly identified three individuals as being among the donors Sargeant solicited on behalf of McCain. Those donors -- Rite Aid manager Ibrahim Marabeh, and lounge owners Nadia and Shawn Abdalla -- wrote checks to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain. Also, the first name of Faisal Abdullah, a McCain donor, was misspelled in some versions of the story."

Next time, do some research to confirm what the Obama operatives email you, before you run the story on Page One. It'll work out to be less embarrassing in the end . . . .

DKK
Instapundit

McCain Trusted More Then Obama On 9 Of 14 Key Issues, Gains On Obama On The Other 5

2008-08-07T04:26:00.001-05:00

John McCain is now trusted more than Barack Obama on nine out of 14 electoral issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports. The latest national telephone surveys find that McCain has the biggest advantage on the war in Iraq, by a 51% to 39% margin.

Perhaps the most interesting finding of these polls is that McCain has expanded his leads on nearly every issue he had previously had the advantage on, while Obama’s leads have diminished over the past two weeks.

Iraq war, energy, immigration, national security, social security, federal budget,

The economy is the top issue for the majority of voters this election season. Voters have consistently trusted the Democratic Party more on this issue, but the two presidential candidates are tied at 45% as to who voters trust more. A week prior, Obama had a statistically insignificant one percentage point lead on the issue.

DKK
Rasmussen Reports

Harry Reid Under Pressure As Well -- And I don't Mean His Tires!

2008-08-06T07:50:00.000-05:00

Des Moines, IA – American Future Fund (AFF) today launched its latest radio ad, “Bargain,” which calls on Harry Reid to end his vacation and instead focus on the needs of Americans by scheduling a vote on S. 3202 to address high gas prices.
Reid adjourned the Senate last week, sending all 100 members on a five-week vacation, without holding a vote on this important piece of legislation.
The ad can be heard here: www.youtube.com/americanfuturefund.
“Weeks ago, AFF was calling on the Senate to stay until the job was finished, forgo their August vacation, and put in place a cohesive domestic energy policy,” said AFF Communications Director Tim Albrecht. “Unfortunately, the desire Americans have for the Senate to have a vote on this issue has fallen on deaf ears as Sen. Reid thought his vacation was more important than lowering gas prices.”
The ad buy runs statewide for two weeks in Nevada.
“Senator Reid’s refusal to do any work on this issue is a disservice to his constituents, and to every hard-working American family that finds themselves burdened with high energy prices,” said Albrecht.

DKK
Michelle Malkin

Republicans Call Pelosi's Bluff -- Calls For Democrats Who Want Drilling To Put Up Or Shut Up!

2008-08-06T07:44:00.000-05:00

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today issued the following statement in response to an article in today’s Politico that suggests Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has secretly signaled to rank-and-file House Democratic lawmakers that they should feel free to portray themselves publicly as pro-drilling if it helps them politically:

“My message to Democratic lawmakers is this: if you’re really for increased American energy production, then prove it by putting it in writing. Sign the discharge petitions House Republicans are circulating that will force votes on energy legislation Speaker Pelosi refuses to bring to the floor. And sign onto the American Energy Act, our ‘all of the above’ plan to increase conservation, innovation, and American energy production, instead of doing the Speaker’s bidding by voting against bringing it to a vote. If you aren’t willing to put it in writing, you’re fooling no one. You’re siding with the Speaker of the Drill-Nothing Congress and radical special interests that favor higher gas prices, at the expense of energy-strapped American families.”

“This cynical strategy is disgustingly dishonest. Without any real solutions to help Americans who are struggling with record-high gas prices, it appears the Democratic leadership has hit on a new plan: deceive. Deceive the press, deceive its members, and deceive the American people. Democratic members have a ‘pass’ from their leaders to talk about drilling at home, while the liberal Democratic leadership – which is beholden to special interests that want higher gas prices – plays ‘rope-a-dope’ back in Washington, ensuring there is no vote to help the American people before November. It’s cynical, dishonest, and wrong – and it won’t work.”

DKK
Hot Air -- Boehner calls bluff of “pro-drilling” Dems: Prove you’re not liars by joining with us now; Update: New grassroots website supporting House protest launches

Daily Trek -- August 6, 2008

2008-08-06T07:04:00.001-05:00

What'd I miss?

Everything you need to know to stay informed each day in 5 minutes or less! Read your regular news and include this and you will be able to participate in most any current events discussion.
---------------------------
High energy prices are causing an increase in the purchase of alternative heating systems that burn stuff, coal, wood, trash, pellets. So, Nancy, how is that, "saving the planet," going. Better get back to DC to pass a law preventing people from keeping their families warm since won't allow any drilling!

Texas carried out the execution of a Mexican national who raped and murdered two teen girls (then bragged about it and gave one of their watches to his girlfriend) over the objection of the world court. Don't mess with Texas!

“It sounds like Paris Hilton supports John McCain’s ‘all of the above’ approach to America’s energy crisis - including both alternatives and drilling. Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan.” Paris Hilton trying to strike back at McCain ends up endorsing his plan!

"O'Hanlon and Pollack, along with Stephen Biddle, have now returend from another visit to Iraq. In this New York Times op-ed, they argue that John McCain is right, and Barack Obama wrong, about the wisdom of a total withdrawal of combat troops by 2010." To win the peace, we must enforce it.

Englands NHS Hospitals are infested with vermin, rats, mice, cockroaches, maggots. Health care costs money, national health care costs lives!

"BUSH GOTS SEOUL!!... Pro-American Protesters Give Bush a HUGE Korea Welcome!!"

Former Presidential candidate Mike Gravel suggests supporters of a terrorist on trial get the address of the prosecutor and even the school address of the prosecutor's children.

Did Obama endorse rolling blackouts?

Alaska Gov. Palin Sues Over Polar Bear Listing-- AP Misreports

Colorado Governor, with more executive experience then Obama, says he isn't experienced enough to be Obama's VP!

The talk of drilling and recession has dropped oil to $118 barrel. I said as much here. Imagine what would happen if we could get the Democrats on board with expanding the economy instead of stagnation!
------------------------
DKK

Health care costs money, national health care costs lives!

2008-08-06T06:31:00.001-05:00

Vacationing 'Son Of A Beach!'

2008-08-06T06:22:00.000-05:00

DKK

If Obama Meets With Iranian Leaders Would It Cause A Singularity?

2008-08-06T06:02:00.001-05:00

Libya's Gaddafi is warning Iran that they are arrogant and that it can only end badly for them.

Strange that even he gets it but Obama still plans on sitting down with them!

I am concerned about the physics of such a meeting -- is it possible that the combining of the arrogance of, "The One," and the Iranians could rip apart time and space itself?

Another reason to vote for McCain -- you could be saving the very fabric of the universe itself!
DKK

Time And Factcheck Puff Up Obama's Air Pressure Claims -- Unfortunately They Need To Check Their Assumptions, They Are Half Full!

2008-08-06T05:53:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama's suggestion that we can't drill our way out of the current energy shortage, but we can solve the problem through tire inflation, has been the source of much hilarity. We did the math here, and found that it would take approximately 11,308 years of tire inflation to equal the energy we can obtain by developing our own petroleum resources.

Now, remarkably, Time magazine has rushed to the defense of its candidate, arguing that "Obama is right."

The author of the article, Michael Grunwald, mixes apple-and-orange statistics to try to create the false impression that there is more to be gained by inflating tires than through offshore drilling:
The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

Grunwald is trying, through sleight of hand, to conceal certain basic facts: Obama said that tire inflation could save energy equal to "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling,"

(...)

That's right: the EIA, writing in early 2007, assumed that oil prices would decline from their 2006 peak; that in 2008, the price of crude oil would be around $60 a barrel; that it would continue to decline until around 2013 to a low of about $50 a barrel; and that the price would then gradually increase to a little under $60 a barrel by 2030. Those were the assumptions on which EIA concluded that it would not be economically profitable to get most OCS oil out of the ground.

Earth to Michael Grunwald: that isn't what happened. The EIA was wrong. Currently crude oil is at around $120 per barrel, not $60. At the elevated prices we are now experiencing and are expected to experience in the future, vastly greater quantities of OCS oil (or ANWR oil, or shale oil) can profitably be exploited, and those resources can make a vastly greater contribution to our economic well-being.

When we read wildly inaccurate reporting in the mainstream media, it's often hard to tell whether the reporter is incompetent, or is deliberately trying to deceive. You can make your own guess. For now, suffice it to say that Time's attempt to rehabilitate Obama's tire-inflation gaffe is a failure.

To repeat what McCain and I have both said, great -- fill up your tires! But we are still going to need the energy! Obama's claim has nothing to do with an energy plan and does not discount the need to drill.
DKK
Powerline Blog -- Time Tries To Salvage Obama's Gaffe

"A Vote For A Democrat Is A Vote For Nancy Pelosi And Her Marie Antoinette Policies"

2008-08-06T05:48:00.000-05:00

Hugh Hewitt on Hannity and Colmes last night

DKK

-- Can't clip it because FNS helped close down Redlasso, too bad, it might have convinced you to start watching.

Winnebago County Crafting Details For Countywide Concealed -- Considers Protecting Those Who Exercies The Right From Liberal Media Retribution!

2008-08-06T01:51:00.000-05:00

A public database of who has a concealed carry permit might be out, while bringing a firearm to a county caucus meeting could be in.

Those are a couple of the changes members of a Winnebago County subcommittee suggested Tuesday night as they draft a proposed county law that would allow Winnebago County residents to carry firearms.

“We’re talking about a concealed carry law,” said Winnebago County Board member John Sweeney, R-14, stressing the word “concealed.”

“I think making a list of everyone who has a permit with their name, age and address kind of defeats the purpose.”

Sweeney said that a list should be maintained and available to law enforcement authorities, but not the public at large.

“It would actually be a benefit to people who don’t have a permit because then people won’t know (who has a gun and who doesn’t),” he said. “If there’s a list, someone could just find out who doesn’t have one.”

RRStar

Interestingly over the past couple of years there have been numerous newspapers in newly minted concealed carry states that have databased the list of concealed carry permit holders and published that list. Colorado has banned the publication of the names and in Oregon the paper sued to get the list! (Link, just start at the top and work your way down this Google search.)

All in the name of public records!

What they end up doing is endangering not only average citizens but they publish the names and addresses of victims of abuse who have gotten a permit and a weapon to protect their families from a known threat!

But they didn't think about that, did they? They just wanted to make sure everyone knew where the wackos lived! After all, wackos are the only ones who would get a permit in their eyes! Abused spouses can be tossed under that anti gun bus if it means eliminating those evil guns!

I am proud of our County Board and the stand they are making! Keep it up, it is likely to get ugly as the date of the vote approaches.
DKK