We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

If you think things have been rough so far, hang on.

by Victor Davis Hanson - November 26th, 2009 - National Review

When it comes to the problems facing this country, an old slogan comes to mind: “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”

High unemployment, the recession, and a terrorist resurgence in Afghanistan are bad enough. But there are a number of problems on the horizon that could dwarf President Obama’s first-year trials.

Why the pessimism? In short, we are doing nothing to prepare for the crises to come.

The reality is that Obama lives in the dream world of leftist extremists. Never having met a payroll, he does not have a clue how to get our nation working again. Obama thinks of work as government "redistributing" wealth. Radicals like Obama think that those who cannot find good paying jobs in business have been cheated - so they give them good paying jobs on the government payroll with no clue that it is a waste of money. They do not understand that wealthy people do not have huge sums of money sitting idle in a bank somewhere. The leftist extremists destroy the business climate, then raise taxes on wealth that no longer exists. Ultimately they simply refuse to believe that if they keep kicking the golden goose, the eggs will stop coming.

This is a delusion. Here are some other delusions listed in the article. Energy prices are key to many industries which will become unprofitable as they go up. Yet we don't search for cheap energy. Printing money will always lead to inflation. We keep printing money like there is no tomorrow. Borrowing costs will sky rocket when inflation goes up. We keep right on running deficits that must be borrowed. The war by the Islamo-fascists is not one we started and must be won. We waffle in fighting risking defeat. Raising taxes in this weak economy will start a new cycle of business failure. Every bill passed is loaded with egregious new taxes.

Barack Obama does not believe any of these truths. He blathers about his concern for all of these issues but it is just talk. Like everything else about this man, it is just talk. Obama seems to feel if he says something about addressing the deficits that is just as valuable as actually doing something. He has succeeded all his life by talking. Not by acting or actually accomplishing anything. This is not going to change at this point in his life.

I share Victor Davis Hanson's belief that it is going to get much worse before it gets better.

Some Polling Indices Of Which You May Be Unfamiliar

bu C. Edmund Wright - November 25th, 2009 - American Thinker

The Empty Tent index is constructed to demonstrate the massive vote loss the McCain Campaign and other “big tent” Republicans suffered thanks to the strategy to “reach across the aisle” and not go after McCain’s “honorable opponent” and so on. We could call this the “Colin Powell Impact Index” or the “David Brooks Crease in the Pants” index, but we will stick with “Empty Tent” index for short.

This index is constructed by contrasting how the McCain Campaign performed with independents in the 2008 election – they lost them by 21 points – with how independents now view Obama since they have an understanding of who he is. According to Rasmussen today, 51% of independents strongly disapprove of Obama while only 16% strongly approve, giving Obama an index of -35% among this group of voters.

Since McCain refused to clearly define “who Obama was” during the campaign in an attempt to attract moderates, the spread of 56 percentage points is a pretty good snapshot of how many votes the “maverick” left on the table.

I am not fond of polls. Much of the problem stems from the fact that it is very hard to determine whether the polls have valid data or have scammed the results by careful selection of who is polled and how the questions are asked. However there are some very interesting ideas included in this assessment of recent polls.

John McCain did many things right in his campaign, and many things wrong. The excerpt above is one issue that I had long been frustrated with. McCain refused to point out how radical, extreme and out of the American mainstream Barack Obama was (and is). The polling suggests that McCain lost 56% of the independent voters he wanted to support him for failing to accurately define Obama.

The second issue that McCain messed up seriously was his support for the Wall Street bailout. Republican candidates really need to decide once and for all time, we are the party of freedom and free enterprise. There is NEVER a justification to fatten the wallets of Wall Street investors from the taxes of average Americans. I still cannot fathom why McCain... and a lot of other Republicans... did not understand that. Actually, from some of their comments, some of them still do not get that.

Finally, I am still flabbergasted at the black community and their rejection of McCain. As a moderate he should have gotten more black support than any Republican candidate ever received. He didn't. Barack Obama is, for reasons of his hatred of America and his extremist socialist agenda, absolutely toxic to those who oppose him. He is the most divisive and most despised Democrat in the last 100 years. His arrogance and disdain for our values grates on people. Yet well over 90% of blacks support him enthusiastically. Blacks cannot accept that the hatred for Obama has nothing to do with his race. Before he has left office, that hate will have transferred itself to the black community because they keep attacking those who oppose him with the racist label. The label is not sticking. The backlash will. Barack Obama is going to wind up being the worst thing for the black community that could ever have happened.

Thankful For Plenty

Editorial - November 24th, 2009 - Investors Business Daily

Thanksgiving, as we all learned in school, was about Native Americans and Pilgrims feasting together in friendship to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. The truth, as is often the case, is quite different.

We've all heard about how the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth after a perilous overseas trip — and how they nearly starved until Native Americans, including the English-speaking Squanto and Wampanoag Chief Massasoit, helped them to survive by teaching them about native foods and cultivation.

There's some truth to that. The Indians did help out. But a bigger reason for why they survived to give thanks — and one that gets short shrift today — can be summed up in one word: capitalism.

The socialist school teachers don't like that lesson though. A hundred years ago, that simple lesson was a key part of the story. Today, it is completely ignored. Do you have any reason to believe that children taught almost exclusively by socialists, who blur the meaning of our history, will have any love for our nation and its culture?

Why is anyone surprised that children raised on such deceit are the only generation that still supports the socialist, Barack Obama. 61% of our young still believe in socialism and Obama. Not a single older generation segment still supports him.

For those who still understand what makes our nation great, Happy Thanksgiving. For those too brain washed to get it, a little guidance. Please listen. There is nothing complicated about what made America great. The lessons are as simple as the real story of Thanksgiving.

Obama Shatters Spending Record

... For First-Year Presidents

by Staff - November 24th, 2009 - Fox News

President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents -- spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history.

Spending for the full 8 years of Bill Clinton - $13.5 Trillion.

Spending for the full 8 years of George W. Bush - $16.8 Trillion.

Projected spending for the full 8 years of Barack Obama - $28.6 Trillion.

His annual deficits nearly equal the total spending of either of his two predecessors.

Looked at another way, if cap-and-tax and health-care are passed (neither of which is included in the $28.6 Trillion shown above) he will spend more in 8 years than his two predecessors spent in 16 years. This is a record that will destroy our nation. No one can spend like this and not tear American society to shreds.

Winner Take All On Healthcare

by Jonah Goldberg - November 24th, 2009 - Los Angeles Times

I hereby forfeit my claim to a vast right-wing conspiracy decoder ring by offering two cheers for the Democrats. I congratulate them on their victory Saturday night in the Senate, and while I can't quite wish them continued success on the course they are following, I'm beginning to make peace with the possibility that they'll win.

For years, conservatives and liberals have flirted with the idea of disposing of the fool's errand of bipartisanship. Seeking compromise with partisans across the aisle is a recipe for getting nothing important done.

As much as it seems Jonah Goldberg might be right on the philosophy, it annoys me that he can take such a detached view of our nation and it's future. What true patriot can "make peace with the possibility that they'll win?" Liberals have been fighting for most of the last century to destroy the freedoms that America enjoys. They launched a culture war in our schools to eliminate Christianity and they won. They launched a welfare war against poverty to entrench a permanent underclass, and they won. Now they are moving up. They wish to eliminate free choice in health care, enslaving the middle class in our society.

As Goldberg notes in his article, "Democrats sincerely believe that nationalized healthcare, in one form or another, is the best thing for America and that if they can get it passed, voters will fall in love with it. Politically, there is a real danger they're right. Americans are loath to relinquish entitlements once they've secured them."

Actually you don't need for a majority of Americans to love some new entitlement. You just need a plurality that will vote for nothing else. As soon as a plurality can swing elections, it might as well be a majority. That is how we lose freedom. Our previous rejection of government entitlements is why no other nation ever had the level of freedom that we once enjoyed in our nation. George Washington really was the father of our country, and his desire to go home and live his life free of government became the ethic that ruled our nation until recently.

Now we are throwing away that freedom and embracing the standard of thousands of years. Totalitarian government telling people how to live their lives. Enjoy freedom while you can. It is quickly slipping away from us.

The intellectual detachment of Jonah Goldberg is not the world you live in. Nor do I. We live in the real world where losing political battles has true consequences for empowering bureaucrats to make our lives miserable.

Under the Islamic Veil

Faces Disfigured By Acid

[This is how Islam treats its women. Islam. The religion of peace.]

by Phyllis Chesler - November 23rd, 2009 - Pajamasmedia

These photos show what happens to real women who wear the Islamic Veil. The photos depict horrifying hate and the unbearable suffering it inflicts upon female innocents. The photos were taken by Emilio Morenatti of the Associated Press. The text is based on work done by Nicholas Kristof—one of the few people at the New York Times whose work I am proud to quote. You may find them HERE. (Thanks to Yehuda for calling this to my attention).

It is rare for an article to bring me to tears. Most people think I am hard hearted and indifferent to the pain of others. Yet this article brought tears to my eyes. The pain shown in these pictures is beyond belief. If you want to know why we must defeat Islamic extremism, you really have to see this. Yet I recommend you steel your heart. It is tough.

The Smoking Iceberg?

by Melanie Phillips - November 21st, 2009 - London Spectator

Data that has been hacked from the Hadley Centre’s Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University – one of the principal academic centres behind anthropogenic global warming theory – appears to reveal an international conspiracy of scientific experts to distort, falsify or suppress evidence in order to exaggerate man-made global warming, and also to vilify AGW sceptics in order to rubbish and bury their own evidence.

A magnificent set of links to many of the articles that are slamming the pseudo scientific conspiracy and the coverup of their intentional AGW hoax.

Long suspected, this is the smoking gun needed to prove the conspiracy by the global warming fraudsters.


Update - Here is another article with great links to various sources, including one that has all the emails exactly as they were hacked from the Hadley Centre.

President Obama's Trip: Style Over Substance

Lucianne.com - - The White House spin on this disastrous trip could snap your neck.

by Mike Allen - November 19th, 2009 - Politico

President Barack Obama returns from his maiden Asian swing with none of the concrete accomplishments that White Houses typically put in place before big trips, setting up a stark test for his idealistic theory that the United States should act more like a wise neighbor than a swaggering superpower.

Obama’s minimalist approach was most consequential in China, where he did not meet with Christians, dissidents or bloggers, or directly challenge his hosts for repressive tactics that are again on the rise.

The Chinese in turn rebuffed longstanding U.S. concerns – whether on human rights, Iran or currency policy – in a heavily stage-managed visit where China, not Obama, clearly sought the upper hand.

It’s an approach that carries great risk for Obama – playing straight into his critics’ accusations that his new, more multilateral style isn’t paying dividends, and worse, is making him look weak and ineffectual abroad.

I love the attempt by Politico to describe Obama's approach as minimalist, rather than what it is, left wing appeasement, or as Rodney King described it, "Can't we all just get along?" How naive.

How can Obama think that apologizing to everyone and insisting America will not use its strength any more will impress the realpolitik leaders of the dictatorial nations like Russia and China?

I absolutely love the comment about the article by one blogger, BeatleJeff, on Lucianne.com:

What I Did on My Fall Break by Barry Obama

On my fall break, I went to China and Japan. I saw the Great Wall of China and ate real Chinese food. That was cool. I met some little Chinese man. Boring! In Japan, I ate lots of sushi. Sushi is cool! I met an old Japanese man. I showed him how well I can bow. I have been practicing that real hard. I think there was some assignment I was supposed to do on the trip, but I was having so much fun, I forgot to do it. Mr Emmanuel will be mad at me for that, but who cares. I hope that the people re-elect me in three years so that I can take more fun trips like this one.

I thought seriously about posting this article as a joke on the Chowan River Patriot, but I quickly realized the mistake of going that route. If I did that, I would have to post everything about Obama as a joke, and no matter how ridiculous this arrogant little would-be tyrant is, the threat he poses to our freedom is not a joke.

Obama's Mind Game

by Robin of Berkeley - November 17th, 2009 - American Thinker

A thug bites off a finger. Sarah Palin's church is torched. Bullies intimidate voters.

Last week, an esteemed Columbia University black architecture professor punched a white female coworker in the eye for not doing more about white privilege.

He has no history of violence. So why now?

Why now? This may be the most important question of our time. Why are some people reaching the boiling point? Why do many others look vacant, like an Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The shootings at military bases, from Little Rock to Fort Hood -- why now?

It's Obama, of course.

It will be really interesting to find out who this writer is. Once again she has written a magnificent article decoding the hate that flows from the left wing elements in our society. In earlier articles she proclaimed herself to be a former leftist (like David Horowitz). It certainly infuses her writing with a feeling of accuracy about the shortcomings of these people who hate us. She also proclaimed herself embedded in a company that so embraces the left wing fanatics she could not identify herself without a certainty of losing her job and her livelihood.

That theme frightens me. It says more than anything else the degree of extremism that you find on the left. I cannot imaging a right wing company owner ever being permitted to fire a subordinate for a political disagreement. Look at the extreme political correctness that protected Nidal Hasan in the Army. No one was willing to oppose his obvious hatred for our nation because it would have been their career that would have ended, not Hasan's. How insane is that? An enemy of our nation has better protection in our poltically correct society than those who love our nation. Even in our military.

This must end. I read almost everything that Robin of Berkeley writes since she allows us to know our enemy, and learn how to defeat them. As noted in her article posted here, Barack Obama is the most insidious and divisive President our nation has ever elected to that august power. He is leading his cult to destroy us. It is time we started waking up to the consequences if we do not fight back.

Anthraxing New York

by Peter W. Huber - November 2009 (Publication dated Autumn 2009) - City Journal

On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner injects eight-year-old James Phipps with cowpox pus taken from lesions on the hand of milkmaid Sarah Nelmes, and finds that this mild infection protects Phipps from deliberate attempts to infect him with an aged and thus weakened form of the human pox. Jenner publishes his findings two years later, content to gift the most valuable pharmaceutical discovery of all time to suffering humanity. “Yours is the comfortable reflection that mankind can never forget that you have lived,” writes Thomas Jefferson in a letter sent to Jenner in 1806.

But smallpox fought back. The strain that emerged 3,000 years ago killed about 30 percent of those infected. In the late nineteenth century, a milder strain appeared, killing a mere 1 percent. A 12 percent killer emerged in 1963. The first and worst perished on Bhola Island in 1975, but wiping out its siblings took another two years. To this day, as David Koplow recounts in his 2003 book Smallpox, “no one knows for certain where, when, or how these less noxious smallpox relatives crept into existence.”

We do know, however, that the vaccine that ended up beating them all wasn’t Jenner’s. The details are forever hidden, and Koplow himself doesn’t speculate about them, but it’s easy to surmise how this vaccine came into being. Picture how the market for what began as Jenner’s vaccine operated through all but the last few decades of its two-century run. Infectious muck was scraped from scabs found on cows or milkmaids, then scraped back into human arms. It was transported on sailing ships to America by moving it from arm to arm, a human chain letter. Unwashed human hands, knives, and needles did the scraping, inevitably picking up more muck along the way, including smallpox itself. Countless unregulated purveyors of vaccine got involved, many of them careless, incompetent, or worse. Washington did its bit here, too—the national “vaccine agent” it appointed in 1813 accidentally sent real smallpox instead of vaccine to North Carolina, infecting 60 people and killing ten.

But people apparently noticed and spread the word: this shot works better than that one. Such choices, accumulating over the years, had bred better grains, dogs, and sheep, and now they set about breeding a better vaccine. And on it went, until the huge Wyeth Labs picked what it considered the best of the breed, got it licensed, and—with a little help from the Left—obliterated the greatest bioterrorist of them all.

The story of Variola major ended in 1975, but vaccinia’s didn’t end until gene sequencers set out a quarter-century later to find out what it really was. The several strains of smallpox in the wild, we now know, were all eradicated by just one virus—the same “novel, separate creature”—in all the needles. It appears to be a remix of cowpox, another cousin that poxes horses, and the human pox. It was created, as Koplow notes, by means that were “somehow inadvertent, invisible to the practitioners, and global.” Or as a biologist and an economist whose lives overlapped Jenner’s might have put it, by means of natural selection and the invisible hand.

This is one of those rare articles that changes the view of anyone intelligent who reads it. The story about small pox is an important lesson for anyone who wants to live and see the next generation better off than the last. Stupid politically correct liberals have sabotaged the free wheeling health care and pharmaceutical development industry that defeated small pox. Competition for what worked replaced all the errors of the process and ended a terrible scourge. Yet those on the left have destroyed the system that accomplished this great goal.

The incomepetence displayed in handling this year's swine flu virus and the vaccine to defeat it should be all that is needed to encourage a return to a better system. However totalitarian minded left wing fanatics will not let that happen. Our pharmaceutical industry has been collapsed into a few scared government dependent companies who see that subservience to government is their only chance for profit.

The American people are left helpless before a world of disease that was defeated once, but is now capable of wiping out innocent victims on a scale unimaginable. The people who have done this should be the ones wiped from our planet. However they run the government - so they allow no one to criticize them.

Hard Evidence

by Christopher Hitchens - November 16th, 2009 - Slate

I wrote some years ago that the three most salient characteristics of the Muslim death-squad type were self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred. Surrounded as he was by fellow shrinks who were often very distressed by his menacing manner, Maj. Hasan managed to personify all three traits—with the theocratic rhetoric openly thrown in for good measure—and yet be treated even now as if the real word for him was troubled. Prepare to keep on meeting those three symptoms again, along with official attempts to oppose them only with therapy, if that. At least the holy warriors know they are committing suicide.

Christopher Hitchens seems to be one of the few writers on the left who understand that we cannot destroy our culture and survive. The Islamo fascists are not going to institute a better world. Their sharia dominated system of tyranny will be as bad today as it was when Islam ruled the world for a short period a thousand years ago. However I sometimes wonder if Hitchens was not so dedicated to hating all religions, including Christianity, would he be as good at seeing the faults of Islam?

Obama Goes To The Mattresses

by The Prowler (Anonymous pen name for resident blogger - or bloggers) - November 16th, 2009 - American Spectator

The ugliness surrounding the pushing out of White House Counsel Gregory Craig was months in the making, but culminated on the day on which the White House announced that the Justice Department would be prosecuting Guantanamo prisoners on U.S. soil, the very project Craig was supposedly brought into the administration to bring about.

[Snip]

"[Craig's replacement Bauer] knows where all the bodies are buried, and this indicates that there is something amiss with this White House, or at least someone is nervous about what is going on," says a former Obama transition team adviser. "You don't just make these kinds of changes for the sake of rearranging the deck chairs, and not at this time with at least three legislative and policy decisions looming that the Counsel's office would have been deeply involved in."

It is truly frightening how few insiders in the Obama regime are respected outside of the inner circle. This blog documents the departure of two more Obama people, who though liberal themselves, have friends on the other side of the street. Their departure is especially interesting because of the huge opposition to the trials for some of the Islamo-fascists from Gitmo. These combatants so egregiously violated the Geneva convention they cannot be called prisoners of war, leaving them in a complex and uncommon status.

Does anyone really know what is going on with the American government and its handling of these evil people? Why are we trying them in a civil court?

They should be tried as spies in a military tribunal. They are not criminals like a local shop lifter. They are spies. The difference is obvious to anyone with even a modicum of legal experience no matter if their status is uncommon or not.

Those who hate America still want access to American courts with their protective granting of rights to the accused so that they can spew their propaganda. Why has Obama acquiesced in this idiocy?

The Coming Climate Dictatorship

Editorial - November 12th, 2009 - Investors.com

If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the "trigger" placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee.

It has become clear that Obama and his liberal regime are populated with people who can (and will) subvert our laws to their own ends. No one should forget that a principal of law embedded in our Constitution, the primacy of secured debt in bankruptcty, was thrown out in both the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies. Nothing has been done about this Obama regime subversion of justice to pay off his union campaign supporters.

Our gutless Supreme Court justices will do nothing about this since it does not give them greater power by stopping it. Our Supreme Court Justices, whether liberal or conservative, care little for the Constitution. They care about power.

With the growing power to intimidate citizens that is part and parcel of both the health care and cap-and-tax legislation, the passage of these bills could be the final levers needed for Obama to accomplish his goal of destroying free enterprise in America.

Only the average citizen who is used to living in a free society will be the loser.

A Tale Of Two Shootings

by Scott Wheeler - November 9th, 2009 - Townhall.com

Obama's remarks upon hearing that abortionist George Tiller was shot--- "I am shocked and outraged" contrasted with his statement on the news that 12 unarmed soldiers were gunned down at Ft. Hood Army Post: "I would caution against jumping to conclusions" about the motives of the gunman

Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says her Department is now working to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday's rampage by a Muslim soldier.

[Snip]

Were Obama and Napolitano concerned about backlash against pro-life advocates in the wake of Tiller being shot? It turns out that there was reason for concern, though you would not know from the mainstream media but pro-life activist James Pouillon was murdered with virtually no media attention just a short time after the massive coverage of Tiller’s murder.

Political correctness has destroyed all sanity in America. Our leaders are left wing hate mongers who despise our nation. Yet we elect them as if this is needed penance for some perceived outrageous sins.

Hillary Clinton Scrubs Ronald Reagan From History

by Nile Gardiner - November 10th, 2009 - London Telegraph

It’s bad enough that President Obama could not be bothered to attend the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even acknowledge the role played by Ronald Reagan in the Wall’s demise as well as the downfall of Communism was highly insulting towards one of the greatest figures of our time, and reeked of petty and partisan mean-spiritedness.

The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday in Berlin completely erased from history the huge contribution played not only by President Reagan but also by the United States in confronting the Soviet Empire.

Again and again Hilary Clinton has denied she is a communist. Yet she emulates communists at every stage of her life. From her adulation of Saul Alinsky during her college years, to her willingness to rewrite history based on the COMMUNIST BIG LIE during this period as Secretary of State. Her supporters continue to whitewash her record, but such contemptible speeches as this one at the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, prove what she is. Hillary may pretend to have never heard of the demand by Ronald Reagan, "Mr. Gorbachev. Tear down this wall." Those who love America, have. Writing Reagan out of the history of this moment is childish. Nile Gardiner called it mean-spirited. Whatever adjective you chose, Hillary Clinton has proved herself once again a petty vindictive little bitch.

Candidate Of The Left

Updated article orinally posted 11/4/2008

by David Horowitz - November 4th, 2009 - Front Page Magazine

For his entire adult life, Obama’s closest political allies have been pro-Soviet progressives like state senator Alice Palmer who chose Obama as the politically appropriate figure whom she chose to inherit her state senate seat; or anti-American radicals like Bill Ayers, who organized a terrorist army in the 1970s with the intention of launching a race war in America, and bringing down the “empire.” Others may be under the illusion that the Weather Underground was organized to protest the Vietnam War. But you know better. Ayers and his comrades were still bombing during the year of America’s bicentennial, 1976, and into the Jimmy Carter administration. They were still in the trenches four years after our withdrawal from Vietnam, because their agenda was a war to destroy the imperial beast, America.

I am continuously frustrated at the incompetence with which Americans have researched Barack Hussein Obama. This is not an incompetence which confines itself to either the left (Obama's supporters) or the right (Obama's enemies). For some reason neither side is willing to do the work necessary to understand Obama. On the right, Horowitz has done a better job than most. Yet I constantly run in to people on the right who insist that Horowitz is over stating the case. That as bad as Obama is, he is not THAT bad.

He is.

I cannot fathom why the soft spoken Obama continues to get away with the most egregious lies for no obvious reason other than his soft spoken demeanor. He seems to have learned an important lesson. As long as you take both sides of any issue, ramble around and confuse the issue, while expressing the issues with an appearance of moderation and intelligence, you can have almost any actual position you wish and most will be gulled into thinking you agree with them. How can such a duplicitous facade not become cause for distrust and disgust? How does he continue to get away with it? Have Americans truly lost the common sense on which our nation was built?

I am very afraid the answer is yes. After two generations of war on our culture, a very large percentage of Americans cannot think for themselves. They have become so politically correct that they are easily led. I can think of no other reason that would explain how 20% of self identified Republicans still think Obama is a good person. His polls say his intentions are good. That is 20% of Republicans! If one out of every five Republicans is so easily deceived, it scares me to even ask the question, can we survive this charlatan?

The thoughts expressed here in Victor Davis Hanson's interview with Jamie Glazov support this same theme.

Buy a $15,000 Policy Or Go To Jail

JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail

Press Release - November 10th, 2009 - Republican Ways and Means Committee Web Site

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail."

This is not America. This is the "People's Republic of Obamanation".

The Lords Of Entitlement

Editorial - November 9th, 2009 - Wall Street Journal

Perhaps the most unsurprising news in this drama [over healthcare] was the collapse of the Blue Dog "deficit hawks." Enough of them always cave in the end to give Mrs. Pelosi her way. It's nonetheless worth noting the surrender of that most vocal scourge of deficits, Tennessee's Jim Cooper, who voted aye on grounds that the bill can be improved in the Senate.

But Max Baucus's Finance Committee bill includes a similar gimmick of making the numbers look good by using 10 years of new taxes to finance only seven years of spending (six in the House). The deficits explode in the second decade and beyond in both bills.

The House also contains a new government long-term insurance program that starts collecting premiums in 2011 but doesn't starting paying benefits until 2016 and then runs out of money in 2029. North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad called it "a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of" in an interview with the Washington Post in late October. Mr. Cooper has with a single vote made his entire career irrelevant.

This bill is an ideological nightmare. Again and again people who are paying attention have insisted that Barack Obama has as his core supporters the global socialists who see capitalism and freedom as anathema to their Utopian dream of a just society. They see only the good intentions of their goals, not the unintended consequences of the tyranny that they are willing to inflict on America to accomplish their goals.

No matter how many times socialism fails, they reject the failure as the fault of the system they adore. They always come up with excuses for the failure that ignores the inherent consequence of empowering people in government with rules which allow them to make people be "good" or "behave" in desirable ways. Whatever they meant to accomplish is overwhelmed by both corruption and petty envy of the individuals who populate these positions of power. The end result is failure and tyranny. Democrats in the House have just voted to destroy freedom. It is up to those of us who love freedom to stop it in the Senate before it is too late.

We are about to see how bad it can get here in America.

Kim Munley Saved Life ...

... of Wrightsville Beach police investigator

by Claire Simms - November 6th, 2009 - WECT TV News (Wilmington)

Officials say Kim Munley saved countless lives by bringing an armed Major down at a shootout at Fort Hood, Texas.

The Civilian Police Officer is originally from Carolina Beach [Near Wilmington, NC].

This was not the first time she put herself on the line to save someone else.

Kim Munley's first job in law enforcement was in Wrightsville Beach.

One of Kim's former partners, Shaun Appler, a current investigator with the Wrightsville Beach Police Department says he owes her his life.

North Carolina has a new hero. Kim Munley. Though details are not totally clear, it appears this officer confronted the deranged Muslim who was killing people at Fort Hood, and despite being shot multiple times by him, courageously took him on and killed him. (Or not depending on whether you believe the press! It appears his reported demise was an error and he is in critical condition in the same hospital where Kim is also being cared for.) There is no doubt that she saved numerous lives by her courage and grit. No one should doubt that continuing to fight after being shot displays a toughness that few possess.

Another article in the New York Post has more details of what is known, and describes the chaos that Kim Munley faced as unarmed soldiers were mowed down by a heavily armed Islamic radical. You can read that article here.

It turns out that Kim is from Carolina Beach, NC, on a coastal island southwest of Hatteras. This posting is to express our great appreciation for Kim's courage.

Kim, everyone in North Carolina who also loves America is proud of you. God bless you and your family and friends. Get well soon.

Introspection, Not Rationalization, Needed In Wake Of Fort Hood Slaughter

Editorial - November 7th, 2009 - The Investigative Project on Terrorism

A picture of Nidal Malik Hasan is emerging from the slaughter he carried out Thursday during a ceremony at a Fort Hood readiness center, leaving 13 people dead and another 30 wounded.

Born in Virginia, sent to medical school by the U.S. Army, the psychiatrist was chastised for proselytizing to his patients about Islam. Asked his nationality, he didn't identify himself as an American but as a Palestinian. He appeared pleased by the shooting death of a Little Rock Army recruiter in June and reportedly was heard saying "maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square."

Despite the refusal by the MSM to publicize the details of these constant attacks, the American people are aware that Muslims continue to attack us right here in our own nation. Islam is not a religion of peace. Leading Islamic organizations are constantly trying to blur the reasons for these attacks, blaming America instead, to keep the American people from getting upset at Musliums. Yet they do little in the Islamic community to end the hate which drives the attacks.

This is the third such attack this year that has been planned. The gutless foreign policy of President Barack Obama is emboldening our enemies. The Islamic fascists are on the move and it will only result in more American deaths.

That Light In The Tunnel Is Still A Locomotive

by Kyle-Anne Shiver - November 6th, 2009 - American Thinker

Tuesday night, when my financially-flogged, nerve-wracked husband announced the election returns, he breathed a deep sigh of relief and beamed, "It may not be much, but I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel."

To which I replied, "Yep, but it's still a locomotive." He threw a pillow at my head and switched to the ultimate fight on SPIKE.

So, down to brass tacks on saving the Republic. Did the two GOP victories this week -- in purple Virginia and bluer-than-blue New Jersey -- signal a beam of sunshine in a tunnel gone dark with fear and gloom? Or, is that light conservatives see just the same old Obama locomotive?

Best summation of how bad things are that I have seen. Obama is a disaster in both foreign and domestic affairs. Read this if you doubt it.

Jobless Rate Jumps To 10.2% As Labor Market Still Weak

by Staff - November 6th, 2009 - Reuters

U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 190,000 jobs in October, government data showed on Friday, driving the unemployment rate to 10.2 percent, the highest in 26-1/2 years.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was the highest since April 1983. It revised job losses for August and September to show 91,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.

The article then goes on to argue that the recession is over. All these left wing news organizations are doing their best to ignore that Barack Obama promised this would not happen if we passed his nearly $1 trillion "stimulus". His repeated promise was that unemployment would not hit 8% if we passed the "stimulus". Instead it rocketed past 8% and keeps going up.

If Obama was a Republican that broken promise would be shoved in his face every single day by the press. Instead we get the "positive" review of another disastrous jobs report by the left wing Reuters.

Unemployment went up this last month by four tenths of a percent. That increase is almost 10% of the TOTAL unemployment until the Democrats took over congress in 2006. Since then we have had the highest deficit in history, passed by Democrats but blamed on Bush who was still President. Then Obama took over and he and the Democrat congress made the $400 billion deficit of Bush look paltry as Obama skyrocketed the deficit to $1.4 trillion in his first year.

That waste of money is the reason our economy continues to collapse. It would already have recovered if Obama had simply done nothing. The continuing upward trend of unemployment makes it clear. The recession is deepening, not getting better. And yet Obama does not have a clue what to do.

An idiot could tell him how to fix the problem. STOP SPENDING!

Shooter Praised God Before Fort Hood Massacre

by Sharon Jayson and Dan Reed - November 6th, 2009 - USA TODAY

An Army psychiatrist who had counseled troops and was upset about being deployed to Iraq shouted "Allahu Akbar!" and opened fire on an unarmed crowd at Fort Hood Army base Thursday afternoon, killing 13 people and wounding 30, military officials said.

There is no greater difference between Christians and Muslims than this expression "Allahu Akbar", Arabic for "God is great". I cannot think of anyone who is a Christian who would kill innocents under the pretension that God had told him to do it. He would be considered insane if he did. Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is a religion of self righteous hate of anyone who does not agree, not just with the Koran, but with the interpretation of the Koran by any specific Muslim. Fail to agree and you can be beheaded with impunity.

Already there are those who want to ignore the expression of killing in the name of Islam by Nidal Malik Hasan's use of the expression. Our left wing media is looking for the "real" reason he killed because "we can't blame the obvious". They will, before it is over, find some way to make it the fault of America. They always do.

Our clueless C in C

by Clarice Feldman - November 5th, 2009 - American Thinker

Twelve soldiers were murdered in cold blood at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirty others were wounded. Our Commander in Chief calls a press conference and begins it with a long thanks to the Department of the Interior and Native Americans who just concluded a conference and then gives a good natured "shout out" to an attendee , all with a studied nonchalance, before he even mentions the outrage on our military base.

Even within his words though, he made sure you understood what was important. Not the victims. It was how it impacted poor Obama. Who else but Barack Obama could slip the following sentence about himself into an expression of concern for others.

I want all of you to know that as Commander in Chief, that there's no greater honor, but no greater responsibility for me (emphasis his) than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for...

No President in history ever used as many "I"s and "me"s in his speeches as our Narcissist in Chief, the Magic Marxist Messiah.

You will not see the video of the whole news conference on TV, as all the MSM are editing it to make Obama look more Presidential by clipping out the Indian part and the ego part. But you can see his entire press conference by clicking on the link to the YouTube original. Don't throw anything at the tube though. Obama is not worth the cost.

Incredible.

Storming The Capitol

by Philip Klein - November 5th, 2009 - American Spectator

Thousands of protestors gathered on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol today and lined up outside House and Senate office buildings to protest Democrats' health care legislation. The crowd, chanting "Kill the Bill," "Throw Them Out," and "Hear us Now," listened to speeches by Rep. Michelle Bachman, who organized the event, as well as Reps. Tom Price, Eric Cantor, Michael Burgess, John Shaddegg, Marsha Blackburn, Joe Wilson, talk show host Mark Levin, among others.

The above article is positive coverage of the protest, which had an estimated 10 to 15 thousand show up. This is vastly larger than most liberal protests. However the event garnered only negative coverage in the MSM, as can be found in the following article, Activists bring 'tea party' to Capitol Hill by Philip Rucker from the Washington Post.

With the stage set for a historic House vote on health-care reform this weekend, an estimated 10,000 conservative activists descended on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a campaign-style rally in a last-ditch effort to defeat a bill they demonized as "Pelosi-Care."

Newly emboldened after Republican victories in Tuesday's elections, "tea party" protesters and other demonstrators from across the country converged on the Capitol's West Lawn to wave flags, ring cowbells and deliver a blunt message to lawmakers: "Kill this bill!" Later, hundreds of activists stormed congressional offices in an attempt to turn wavering Democrats against the bill.

Note the use of the words "demonized" and "stormed" in the WaPo article. Try and find such negative terms in the coverage of any liberal protest they have ever covered. The irony is that many people do not yet understand we are in a civil war, but only the left has been fighting. The left is truly upset that some conservatives and patriots are now using their same tactics in this war. The MSM is denigrating actions by the right because they are, as they have always been, aligned with the global socialists and not those who love America.

Dejection Fills Maine Ballroom After Marriage Vote

by John Curran - November 4th, 2009 - Associated Press

"I'm ready to start crying," said Burnett, a 58-year-old massage therapist, walking out of the ballroom with (her gay partner) Swanson at her side. "I don't understand what the fear is, why people are so afraid of this change.

"It hurts. It hurts personally," she said. "It's a personal rejection of us and our relationship, and I don't understand what the fear is."

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the vote in a referendum that asked Maine voters whether they wanted to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage that had passed the Legislature and was signed by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci.

"The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across the nation," said Frank Schubert, the chief organizer for Stand for Marriage Maine, which lobbied for the repeal.

For the gay rights movement, which has gained a foothold in New England, it was a stinging defeat. Gay marriage has now lost in every state — 31 in all — in which it has been put to a popular vote.

The quotes above imply what the real problem is. Gays are determined to jam their sexual preferences down everyone's throats. They want to flaunt their sodomy in the face of society and say, "You can't disapprove!" They cannot accept that opposition is not based on "fear". It is based on a complete lack of sympathy for an attraction that only a very small minority understands.

It reminds me of the attitude of vegetarians. They are not just satisfied with not eating meat. Most vegetarians think their view should be jammed down everyone else's throat by making it the law of the land. When you have a weird view of the world, only by making society adjust can the weird feel normal. That is what gay marriage is all about. Forcing others to accept as normal an act that the average person rejects as bizarre.

It is unlikely to happen. Gay marriage may become the law of the land but it will never be accepted as normal. It is, as it used to be called, a queer idea, way out of the mainstream of thought. The queer may have gotten it renamed gay, but they have never gotten it tolerated as normal... and never will.

Twenty-Five Years After The Reagan Landslide

by Bruce Walker - November 3rd, 2009 - American Thinker

Reagan got into politics with "The Speech" endorsing Barry Goldwater. Here is what Reagan said in 1964:

This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down -- [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

Reagan stayed with that theme, regardless of whether it cost him primary victories or elections.

In fact Reagan stayed with this theme even when conservatives begged him to abandon it to legislate "traditional values". Reagan always argued that the soul of conservatism was the libertarian values that emphasized freedom. We seem to have forgotten those views. They are the positive views of mankind that forged the positive view of the future of the ever optimistic Ronald Reagan.

Today, that optimism can rarely be found. We look at the victory of the would be dictator Barack Obama and we are motivated by the fear of tyranny. We see one new bureaucracy after another being created by the Democrats and feel our freedom and liberty slipping away.

How can a people who voted overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan have changed so quickly to a people who will vote for the greed and selfishness of Democrat fascism?

Houston Tea Party Rally Draws More Than 10,000

by Peggy O'Hare - November 3rd, 2009 - Houston Chronicle

“This isn't about ‘I can't stand Barack Obama' — this is about ‘I can't stand a government that will tread on me,' ” said Houston radio talk show host and TV anchor Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo to a rousing burst of applause from the audience.

“Taxes are going up because we have to pay for health care for people who are here illegally,” Pagliarulo said. “We have to pay for health care for people who don't want health care ... We've got a government that's run amok — we've got a government that doesn't care about you or me. It cares about power, it cares about control.”

It is ironic that our national press will not show up for rallies like the one in Houston. Nor will they cover it. They used to cover protests for the left where only a dozen people showed up. Yet a million people in Washington DC is reported as only 75,000, when no one with a brain could look at the crowd and honestly believe that it was that small. 10,000 show up in Houston, with turnstiles to confirm the number, and the press act like it is not an important event.

The MSM has become the enemy of the man on the street.

The Long, Dark Tea-Time Of The GOP’s Soul

by Mike Flynn - November 2nd, 2009 - Big Government

To Big Media, conservatism comes in only one flavor, social conservatism, namely anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage and a smattering of other issues that would fall flat over canapés and seltzer (liberals don’t seem to drink anymore). That Dede was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage fits the narrative perfectly for the media. End of story.

But, the media, and political leaders would be wise to dig a bit deeper into the story. Yes, Dede was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but she was also pro-government spending, pro-taxes and pro-Big Labor, to name just a few other issues. When a Republican candidate regularly seeks out the endorsement of ACORN and wins the endorsement of DailyKos, it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that large segments of the party might have some misgivings about supporting the candidate.

Conservatives are not monolithic. Social conservatives have long been the reason that "traditional values" have had a big say in Republican politics. Social conservatives think we should be legislating "traditional values". However in recent years more and more fiscal conservatives have had a hard time accepting that we should do more than resist legislation of liberal cultural values. The rejection of the idea of a conservative nanny state is at the heart and soul of the rapid deterioration of the Republican Party under the Bush-Rove "compassionate communism" philosophy. This split is seriously undermining the current war against the Obama surge to the left.

Recent polls have indicated that more than half of self identified conservatives reject the Republican Party. It is libertarians and fiscal conservatives that have abandoned the Republican Party, even as social conservatives have stayed in the Party yet failed to vote for fiscal conservative candidates.

Republican leadership bought the idea that Republicans had to become more liberal on social values because they misunderstood who was leaving the party. Yet the more they adopted liberal social values, the faster the party sunk. If you look at 2006 and 2008, there are lessons to be learned. However the actions taken in the New York District which Dede Scozzaffava has now lost, indicates that the Republicans still don't get why the TEA Party movement abandoned them.

I’m old enough to remember a time when the party had an institutional aversion to using government to ‘solve’ our problems. I remember when the party gave a lot more than lip-service to the notion that adults should be free to make their own choices, both for good and ill. I remember a time when Ronald Reagan said the heart and soul of the conservative movement was libertarianism.

Thank you for the reminder. There was a time when no one advocated a conservative nanny state. It would be nice for Republicans to return to that era which Reagan exemplified. If we keep up this war over the GOP's soul, it may destroy our last chance to stop the socialist takeover.

Mother Of All Carry Trades...

... faces an inevitable bust

by Nouriel Roubini - November 1st, 2009 - Financial Times

one day this bubble will burst, leading to the biggest co-ordinated asset bust ever: if factors lead the dollar to reverse and suddenly appreciate – as was seen in previous reversals, such as the yen-funded carry trade – the leveraged carry trade will have to be suddenly closed as investors cover their dollar shorts. A stampede will occur as closing long leveraged risky asset positions across all asset classes funded by dollar shorts triggers a co-ordinated collapse of all those risky assets – equities, commodities, emerging market asset classes and credit instruments.

Why is it that so many of America's Wall Street geniuses cannot see that trends do end. They failed to believe it in 2008. They are once again betting that they can keep beating the house and there will never be an accounting. Last time the U.S. taxpayer bailed them out. They are counting on that again. They do not seem to get that the 1.4 trillion dollar deficit, the 1.2 trillion dollar health care bill, and the 2 trillion dollar cap-and-tax are going to crush the ability of our nation to ever do bailouts again. They only talk to Geithner and Bernanke. Yet Obama has thrown people under the bus before and these two cannot be counted on. They will be the first to go when Obama needs a scapegoat. Do these "masters of the universe" not understand the fragile base of their delusions. What exactly causes these so-called geniuses to believe the delusion that it will not happen?

California vs. Texas: The Verdict Is In

by John Hinderaker - November 1, 2009 - Powerline

Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so. William Voegeli draws the sad but instructive comparison in the Los Angeles Times:

In America's federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a "package deal" that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with the high taxes needed to pay for them. Other states, such as Texas, offer packages combining modest benefits and low taxes. These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over what it means to get the size and scope of government right. ...

California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau's latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas: $10,070 per person compared with $6,858. ...

Confronted with a stark choice between government dominance and freedom, Americans are voting with their feet:

One way to assess how Americans feel about the different tax and benefit packages the states offer is by examining internal U.S. migration patterns. Between April 1, 2000, and June 30, 2007, an average of 3,247 more people moved out of California than into it every week, according to the Census Bureau. Over the same period, Texas had a net weekly population increase of 1,544 as a result of people moving in from other states. During these years, more generally, 16 of the 17 states with the lowest tax levels had positive "net internal migration," in the Census Bureau's language, while 14 of the 17 states with the highest taxes had negative net internal migration.

I have lived in both of these states, Texas and California. In fact I have lived and worked all over both states. In Texas, that includes Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio and El Paso. I have only missed Houston. In California that includes Culver City, the San Fernando Valley, Redondo Beach, Long Beach, Malibu, Cerritos and San Jose. I have only missed San Diego and Sacramento.

I can say from first hand experience. This article is correct. I had a friend in California who was in her late forties who had retired as a teacher and was making almost $60,000 in retirement. She was working full time as a realtor making even more than that while still drawing her retirement. The article didn't note that, but the early retirement provisions allow these ex government employees to go on to second careers at very early ages, while still drawing huge government pensions.

Many of our states are no longer a fair deal for our citizens. We have become as corrupt and class based as any nation on earth has ever been. The only difference is that the UPPER CLASS today is government bureaucrats.

Whiner In Chief

Obama blames Bush for every ill

by Jeffrey T. Kuhner - November 1st, 2009 - Washington Times

... Mr. Obama is the most radical president in U.S. history, whose socialist policies are fracturing the country along ideological, racial and class lines. He is a dogmatic divider. The angry town-hall meetings, the "tea party" protests and his dwindling poll numbers are not because of Mr. Bush. Rather, they are the direct result of Mr. Obama's big-government liberalism.

The president predicted that the $787 billion fiscal stimulus would save or create more than 3 million jobs. He stressed that it would keep the unemployment rate from surpassing 8 percent; it is now at 9.8 percent - and climbing. His failed stimulus package is his responsibility, not that of his predecessor.

In 2009 alone, Mr. Obama has racked up a $1.4 trillion budget deficit - the largest in U.S. history. Over the next decade, the national debt will triple, burying America under a mountain of red ink. The results will be devastating: soaring interest rates, skyrocketing inflation, a plummeting dollar and eventual bankruptcy.

"Mr. Obama is the most radical president in U.S. history."

That single quote makes this article by Jeffrey Kuhner an important article. Barack Obama was never fit to be President of the United States of America because he attended a church for twenty years that was composed of blacks who hate and despise the nation we live in. How does hating a nation make you a fit leader of that nation? How can so many people vote for a man who has clearly indicated in word and deed that he despises them? How can they ignore his radical agenda?

Every single person who expresses opposition to Obama is added to his enemies list. Republicans? Okay. TEA Party attendees? They have left the Republican Party, so why are they his enemies? Wall Street? Their management and rank and file supported Obama overwhelmingly in the last election. Who can govern effectively when they demand obsequious support - in a democracy? Only in a dictatorship can such subservient behavior be required. Is that what Obama expects? He is dictator? Or is he as Kuhner calls him, just a whiner.

The plunging popularity in the polls suggest either may be right, but it simply flabbergasts me that so many people still insist that they like and trust Obama, even when they disagree with him. I don't trust him. I don't like him. Before his Presidency is over, we are going to find out whether America can remain free or is destined for the only next stage that all democracies experience. Dictatorship. It is historically the standard result.

What is that famous old quote about remembering history?