Digging a Hole

Passing The Buck

Bumper Sticker Liberal

I drove to the hardware store yesterday -- not the big-box, just a nice neighborhood ACE.  Waiting in the checkout line in front of me was a woman buying paint who appeared to be in her 50's with bibs and paint splotched on her.   She seemed to be a pleasant, intelligent person --until we headed for the parking lot and I followed as her SUV headed for the exit.

On the back bumper was a simple sticker with two lines... each one backgrounded in a different color..the top red and the lower blue.  It read  " Red State Resident, Blue State Values."

Does she find living in Alaska so embarrasing that she must announce to the world that she is better and more moral than the conservative rednecks living around her?

Is she a political activist who finds a need to do whatever she can to bring the light of wisdom, however tiny, to the traffic morons she encounters?  

Whatever the motivation, the simple statement belies a huge difference in conservative principles and  liberal (socialist) "values".  But let's back up just a bit.

A conservative believes there are moral absolutes in the world; some things are right and others are wrong.  The circumstances notwithstanding.   We believe, for example, that it is right to protect your family, to personally help those in need and to treat people equitably.  We believe it is wrong to murder children, to steal from others or to use the legal system to punish political foes and reward friends.  Not so our liberal comrades where abortion-on-demand, massive deficit spending and Chicago-style gangland politics are given a pass in the era of the messiah, Obama.

To a liberal, the very act of declaring a value or "moral judgement" is a horrifying infringement of some "right." (see the post on Evan Sayet's speech)   Liberals have NO values, unless "living for the moment", "do what comes naturally", "do what feels good" or some other equally vapid phrase is the bumper sticker of the day guiding their lives. 

   

The Party of Git-r-done

posted in Hot Air today -- 

Not the party of 'no' as suggested by Democrats, but the party of here's-what-to-do, or as I like, git-r-done. 



... Republicans list a number of spending proposals to close the budget gap, most of which has already been introduced to the House and ignored by Nancy Pelosi.  It counters the entire narrative of the Party of No, showing that Republicans have attempted to offer ideas to reduce spending and the national debt, or at least to slow down the growth in both.  Had Democrats decided to actually produce a budget, they would have had to consider the following:

• Cancel Unused TARP Funds. Prohibit the Treasury Secretary from entering into new commitments under the Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP]. Ending TARP would prevent up to $396 billion in additional disbursements; CBO estimates savings of $16 billion. H.R. 3140 introduced by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia.
• Cancel Unspent ‘Stimulus’ Funds. Rescind all unobligated budget authority authorized under the “stimulus” bill and dedicate to deficit reduction. Saves up to $266 billion. H.R. 3140 introduced by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia.
• Cut and Cap Discretionary Spending. Return non-defense discretionary spending to pre-Obama (fiscal year 2008) baseline levels. Saves up to $925 billion. Legislation introduced by Reps. Ryan and Hensarling (H.R. 3964) and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio (H.R 3298) include caps on discretionary spending.
• Reduce Government Employment. Hire one person for every two who leaves civilian government service until the workforce is reduced to pre-Obama levels (exempting the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs). Saves an estimated $35 billion. H.R. 5348 introduced by Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.
• Freeze Government Pay. Freeze Federal civilian pay for 1 year. Saves an estimated $30 billion.
• Adopt the Legislative Line-Item Veto. Enact a constitutional line-item veto law. The President’s FY 2011 budget included terminations, reductions, and savings that would achieve $23 billion in one year. While Congress may not accept all these savings, the Line Item Veto can help reduce spending. H.R. 1294 introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
• Reform and Bring Transparency to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Reform these companies by ending conservatorship, shrinking their portfolios, establishing minimum capital standards, reducing conforming loan limits, and bringing transparency to taxpayer exposure. According to CBO, the cost to taxpayers of putting government in control of Fannie and Freddie is $373 billion through 2020. Saves an estimated $30 billion. H.R. 4889 introduced by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. H.R. 4653 introduced by Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey.
• Create a Sunset Commission. Establish a commission to conduct systematic reviews of Federal programs and agencies, and make recommendations for those that should be terminated; and provide for automatic sunset of programs unless expressly reauthorized by the Congress. H.R. 393 introduced by Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas.

The biggest gain would come from rolling back non-defense discretionary spending to FY2008 levels, which would save $925 billion over ten years.  That, by the way, was the first of the Democratic Party budgets produced by Nancy Pelosi after taking the gavel in January 2007.  It might be better to go back to FY2000 or FY2001, before Republicans and Democrats combined to add hefty increases in nondefense discretionary spending, but FY2008 is at least an improvement — and a good start.
Fannie and Freddie reform might be the most stabilizing of the proposals.  Except for the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare, Fannie/Freddie represent the greatest threat of potential future liabilities for the American taxpayer.  Instead of containing that damage, Congress allowed the Obama administration to uncap the Fannie/Freddie line of credit, making their bailouts bottomless.  Until we rid ourselves of that liability and force Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA to return to proper lending standards, we risk further collapses.
The Republicans have published their ideas on how to return to fiscal responsibility and accountability.  It may not be complete, but it’s better than anything seen from the Democrats, who seem intent on proving that they can’t even budget, let alone govern.
Republicans are also launching their America Speaking Out project, which will allow Americans to give feedback to their elected representatives about cutting spending and restoring fiscal responsibility.  I’ll talk with Rep. Michele Bachmann about that today on The Ed Morrissey Show, which starts at 3 pm ET!

Anchorage Municipal Elections 2010

Get out and vote! Or be ready to have your pockets picked.

School Board: Smith and Griffen

area 420: Trombley

Obama the Mocker in Chief

from Lloyd Grove's article in The Daily Beast this snippet

Every so often, the president takes his revenge, as Obama did on Friday, mocking skeptical reporters who have been questioning the positive impact of health-care reform. "Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm and you planted some seeds and they came out next day and they looked—Nothing’s happened! There’s no crop! We’re gonna starve! Oh, no! It’s a disaster!" Obama told a town meeting in Maine. “It’s been a week, folks. So before we find out if people like health-care reform, we should wait to see what happens when we actually put it into place. Just a thought.”

What monumental irrelevant obfuscation! How about this, Mr. Obama...

You planted some rocks in the ground that caused you to sell all you and your family own just to buy the rocks. But you were assured they would grow into a bountiful harvest of grain, not even requiring water or fertilizer.

Wait and see what happens dear reader. Just a thought.


Snowman

2010 SOTU address from the flim-flam POTUS

copied from HotAir:

AP’s ten whoppers from the SOTU speech

POSTED AT 9:30 AM ON JANUARY 28, 2010 BY ED MORRISSEY
SHARE ON FACEBOOK | PRINTER-FRIENDLY

Only ten? Maybe the Associated Press got as tired as everyone else listening to Barack Obama’s lengthy State of the Union speech last night and stopped paying attention after an hour. AP’s headline focuses on the “toothless commission” that Obama demanded, but the other nine fails on their fact-check test are just as interesting and revealing (via Geoff A):

President Barack Obama told Americans the bipartisan deficit commission he will appoint won’t just be “one of those Washington gimmicks.” Left unspoken in that assurance was the fact that the commission won’t have any teeth. …

OBAMA: “I’ve called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can’t be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans.”

THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted — a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.

Of course, even his first proposal was a rather dishonest dodge of accountability, especially for Democrats. A bipartisan commission that recommended tax hikes as a means of raising revenue would allow Democrats to shove part of the blame for raising taxes in a recession on Republicans. It would allow more of them to tell voters, “Well, we committed to doing what the commission demanded,” or “We had to accept the commission’s findings in toto based on the rules established for it,” or other such nonsense. We already have a bipartisan commission with 535 members to handle budgetary decisions — it’s called Congress.

The other whoppers:

• Spending freeze – The AP points out that it will save less than 1% of predicted deficits over the next ten years — and that Obama scoffed at such a plan when John McCain proposed it in 2008.
• Health care – Obama said the Democratic plan would allow people to keep their insurance and their doctors, but the bill doesn’t guarantee either. Their plan has massive cuts to Medicare Advantage, which would definitely affect coverage of a large portion of America’s seniors and disabled.
• Lobbyists – Obama has not “excluded” lobbyists from his administration; he’s hired over a dozen for key posts, and the AP notes seven of those waivers were for White House posts. Obama called for restrictions on lobbyist contributions, but those already exist.
• Two million jobs saved through Porkulus – The CBO puts the theoretical range between 600K and 1.6 million, but also cautions that the methodology of estimating jobs “saved or created” is “uncertain.” The last detailed numbers the White House produced totaled 650,000 — and were found to be highly inaccurate.
• Openness: “Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN “so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it’s acted upon.”

The last two are on the rate of killing al-Qaeda leadership and the status on START talks with Russia. In both cases, the AP suspects that Obama overstates his case, but also reports that it’s difficult to measure either. The US has never given body counts on fighting AQ in the Af-Pak theater, mainly because many of the operations are covert, and because enemy body counts fell out of favor with the Vietnam War and have been only reluctantly shared in other conflicts.

Let me add at least one other whopper that the AP doesn’t mention. Obama repeatedly insisted that he inherited massive budgetary problems from George Bush, but the Con Law professor may want to retake his high-school civics class. Congress passes budgets, not the President, and the last three budgets came from Democrats. In three years, they increased annual federal spending by $900 billion, while the admittedly profligate and irresponsible Republican Congresses under George Bush increased annual federal spending by $800 billion — in six years. And during the last three years before taking office as President, Obama served in the Senate that passed those bills, and he voted for every Democratic budget put in front of him.

CO2 - Can Someone Please Buy a Clue?

Reprinting a good post from Michele Malkin's blog today:
My colorizing on some points...

On July 9th, 2009 at 10:30 am, xler8bmw said:

I feel I must post this again.

CO2 has no impact on the earth’s temperature, that is just the big
lie that has been pushed for so long that unfortunately lots of
people have come to believe it.

Firstly CO2 is the RESULT of higher temperatures not the cause. The
Sunspot Cycle drives variation in climate, see this chart from NASA
and see that its about a ten to twelve year cycle. When the earth is
warmer more CO2 is released from the oceans. But CO2 does not drive
the temperature change, the sun does that. CO2 is a minority gas in
the atmosphere that only makes up far less than one percent (.038%
to be exact). CO2 is an essential gas which plant life requires in
order to grow.

Here is what scientists without economic interest in the global
warming fraud have to say about CO2

If you take CO2 as a percentage of all the gases in the atmosphere,
the oxygen, the nitrogen and argon and so on its .054% [.00054], its
an incredibly small portion and then of course you’ve got to take
that portion which supposedly humans are adding which is the focus
of all the concern and it gets even smaller.

The atmosphere is made up of a multitude of gases, a small
percentage of them we call greenhouse gases, and of that very small
percentage of greenhouse gases, 95% of it is water vapor, its the
most important greenhouse gas.

The ice core record goes to the very heart of the problem we have
here, they said, if the CO2 increases in the atmosphere as a
greenhouse gas then the temperature will go up, but the ice core
records shows exactly the opposite. So the fundamental assumption,
the most fundamental assumption of the whole theory of climate
change due to humans is shown to be wrong.

Professor Tim Ball, Dept. of Climatology University of Winnipeg
[There have been periods] in earth’s history when we had three times
as much CO2 as we do today, times when we had ten times as much CO2 as we have today, if CO2 has a large effect in climate then we
should see it in the temperature reconstruction.

Professor Nir Shawiv, Institute of Physics, University of Jerusalem
We can’t say that CO2 will drive climate, it certainty never did in
the past.

CO2 clearly cannot be causing temperature changes, its a product of
temperature, its following temperature changes.

Professor Ian Clark, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
None of the major climate changes in the last thousand years can be
explained by CO2.

Dr. Piers Corbyn, Climate Forecaster, Weather Action
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, by far the most important
greenhouse gas.

Humans produce a small fraction in the single digits, percentage
wise of the CO2 that is produced in the atmosphere.

Professor John Christy, Lead Author, IPCC, Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville
"Anyone that goes around and says that carbon dioxide is responsible
for most of the warming of the 20th century hasn’t looked at the
basic numbers."

Professor Patrick Michaels, Dept of Environmental Sciences,
University of Virginia, "CO2 began to increase exponentially in about 1940, but the temperature actually began to decrease 1940, continued until about 1975."

Professor Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Director, International Arctic Research
Center, "Also, this is the fourth time this century a climate change fraud has been attempted.
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice.asp

Why We're Angry...

A great letter to Glenn Beck... go read the whole thing

But here is a snippet, speaking to our 'dear leaders'.

"...

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back.

You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington.

Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented.

You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off.
We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will.
..."

Obama - 100 days 100 mistakes

check this link out

Tea Party II in Anchorage

from Cameron Barrows, who organized the TaxDay Tea Party in Anchorage:

"We are having another event April 28th at the Loussac library at 4:30 PM. The assembly is voting to raise property taxes and we need to show that we do not want higher taxes in Anchorage!! We are only asking people to show up with signs and, if you can be creative, a fake pitch fork! Hope to see you there!!"

Are You a Dangerous Right-Wing Extremist?

Chances are...if you have a brain and a pair of eye-balls. Here is the definition taken from the recent DHS unclassified report:
quote from page 2.

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

I guess the founding fathers would be in big trouble for their inclusion of states rights in the constitution. And lookout for those wacky volunteers at Crisis Pregnancy Centers.. shudder.

Obama's goofs, lies and poor decisions

APPOINTMENT OF GEITHNER AS PRESIDENT OF FEDERAL RESERVE OF NEW YORK - A MAN WHO COULD NOT COMPLETE HIS FEDERAL TAXES CORRECTLY EVEN USING TURBOTAX.

OBAMA PRE-APPOINTMENT OF RICHARDSON AS COMMERCE SECRETARY
On December 3, 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama designated Richardson for appointment to the cabinet-level position of Commerce Secretary.[1] On January 4, 2009, Richardson announced his decision to withdraw his nomination as a result of an investigation into improper business dealings in New Mexico.

THERE IS NO PORK IN MY STIMULUS BILL.
AT LAST COUNT THERE WERE 9,000 ITEMS OF PORK IN IT.

OBAMA'S STIMULUS BILL GIVES $165 MILLION IN TAXPAYER MONEY IN BONUSES TO AIG PEOPLE WHO WERE IN CHARGE DURING AIG FAILURE.

OBAMA PROMISED FIVE DAYS OF REVIEW OF HIS PROPOSED STIMULUS LEGISLATION.
STIMULUS BILL WAS PRESENTED ON A FRIDAY AND SIGNED THAT MONDAY.

OBAMA GIVING A 25 DVD GIFTSET TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF BRITAIN THAT WON'T EVEN PLAY ON BRITISH DVD PLAYERS

After Brown presented Obama with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk), Obama offered up ... 25 DVDs of American movie classics...
Never mind that Brown is blind in one eye and may have a hard time seeing the stars in "2001: A Space Odyssey," or that American DVDs are usually incompatible with British players.

Obama signing a bill funding abortions overseas.

Obama signing the LIly Ledbetter bill so that more people will be able to sue for pay discrimination after a longer period of time. We don't need your help Obama.. this will just cause more issues.

Obama saying that no lobbyists will be in his administration - yet waivers of course for those who are.

Obama breaking his campaign promise of no earmarks - see the non-stimulus pork package bill.

Obama saying there will be transparency and bi-partisanship in his administration - yes meetings behind closed doors to get RINOS to cave on the pork package is transparency? NOT working with ALL of Congress is bi-partisanship?

Obama picking high level cabinet members who apparently don't believe THEY have to pay taxes.

Barney Frank calling for Congress to regulate ALL CEO salaries for ALL American companies and the tax cheat Giethner agreeing.

Nationalized healthcare for kids - with loopholes so that parents can dump their kids off of their insurance and put them on the 'dole' insurance. (happened in Hawaii.. happens here...no one can sustain it or afford it).

Rep. Rush from Chicago introducing The Blair Holt gun bill in the House right now calling for the FEDERAL gov't to control gun licensing/commerce etc. AGAINST our 2nd Amendment

The Fairness Doctrine that will most likely find it's way into a bill. AGAINST our 1st Amendment. And Obama continually trying to insinuate that people shouldn't watch cable news. Why Obama? Because those are the only news stations that actually tell US the truth?

Nationalizing banks by bailing them out.

Nationalizing automotive companies by bailing them out.

Nationalizing financial services industries by bailing them out.

Obama wanting to have Emanuel supervise the INDEPENDENT Census Bureau.

Obama Closing Gitmo without any plan as to where to put terrorists.

Obama dismissing the case against the terrorist who masterminded the bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 of our navy.

Obama pushing the non-stimulus package like a drug dealer pushing deadly heroin. Using scare tactics to make citizens believe we have to act now or the sky will fall.

Obama now in bed with the CEO of GE - yes the CEO who continued to do business with Iran.. who owns NBC.. who's subsidiary GE Capital received bailout money.. yes this man will really give some good advice.

Obama refusing to acknowledge there is a 'war on terror' by not referring to it as such. A stupid pharase anyway but at least it acknowledged the activity. Sorry.. YOU may think there is no war with Islamists, but they will ALWAYS wage a war on the United States.

Obama is completely INCAPABLE of speaking without a teleprompter.

$900 million to rebuild Gaza - completely insane.

The biggest budget proposal in the HISTORY of our COUNTRY!!!!!! The CBO states that this will cause our deficit to grow to $9.3 TRILLION by 2019.

No longer calling terrorists terrorists or enemy combatants – they are ‘people who create man-made disasters’.

Billions set aside for Universal Healthcare which includes ALL of our private healthcare records to be available to the federal gov’t. His plan also calls for the FEDERAL GOV’T to tell OUR doctors what the most effective treatment would be for US.

Created the new Urban Policy Center.

How many Czars are there now??? WTF do we have Czars in the UNITED STATES???

A bill in the House that gives the equivalent of 1% of our GDP in FOREIGN AID.

Allowing ACORN to aid in the 2010 Census!!!!!!!!!

HR 1388 passed the House – mandating civilian service – against the 1st Amendment because they are not allowed to protest etc… and against the 13th Amendment for involuntary servitude. If you don’t do it you get taxed at a 5% higher rate.

Putting a hold on illegal alien raids. Nancy Pelosi calls us Un-American.

Nominating Eric Holder as the Attorney General who calls us a ‘Nation of Cowards’ when referring to racism.

Nominating a terrorist defender as Holder’s 2nd in line.

HR 1586 – aka Bonus Tax Bill that the House passed and Obama will sign if it passes the Senate. A direct VIOLATION of the Constitution.

Obama is going to talk about controlling CEO and Executive pay for Banks, Wall Street and ‘other companies’ on Monday.

A fru-fru message to Iran extending an ‘olive branch’. Their response was ‘go F yourself’.

Appearing on Jay Leno.

Appearing on Jay Leno and making a comment about the ‘Special Olympics’ and his bad bowling.

Suggesting that VETERANS pay for combat injuries with THEIR OWN PRIVATE INSURANCE.

Treats the PM of England as if his country and he himself are not important. WH aid quoted as saying England is no different than the other 190 countries in the world.

Ending the Bush tax cuts after 2010 for those making over $250,000 (supposedly).

Raising the number of people in the country who do NOT pay federal taxes from 38% to 50%.

NOT giving 95% of Americans tax cuts. And the one he gave – COMPLETE joke!!!!!!!!!

CAP & TRADE – which is going to screw ALL of us, including his most favored poor people!!!!!!

OBAMA BREAKS LAW ON TARP OVERSIGHT
The TARP bill required an oversight committee to meet at least once a month. The last recorded meeting of the committee took place on January 15. Obama has yet to hold an oversight committee meeting. The meeting minutes are posted on the treasury website. When you search for the meeting minutes the last meeting recorded was January 15:

Bowing to Saudi king as a common supplicant.

Smiling and shaking hands with narco-terrorist supporter and thug, Hugo Chavez. Only a couple of months ago he elicited different comments from the Thug-In-Chief:

In an interview airing on Venezuelan television and reported by The Washington Post Monday, Chavez said Obama has "the same stench" as Bush. The comment harkens back to September 2006, when Chavez addressed the United Nations General Assembly after Bush and said he could still smell the "sulfur" the U.S. president left behind at the podium. -- Foxnews

Now they're best buddies? Somebody is a dupe. I wonder who?

In April, he did another 180..the monstrous idea that previous administration officials should be held liable for "immoral" acts of interrogation...like water-boarding. But he won't declassify the memos that showed the interrogation techniques saved perhaps thousands, particularly in thwarting an attack in Los Angeles.

Obama's promises

from IBDeditorials.com

Few presidential candidates have made more specific promises to American voters than Barack Obama. They came so fast and furious in the latter part of the campaign, you'd be excused for not keeping up. So as a public service, we've put together a handy checklist of some of the biggest Obama promises — culled from his "Blueprint for Change," his campaign speeches and advertisements. Clip it. Save it. And see how he did in four years.

---

Taxes

• Give a tax break to 95% of Americans.

• Restore Clinton-era tax rates on top income earners.

• "If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime. Not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes. Nothing."

• Dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes.

• Give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create in the U.S.

• Eliminate capital gains taxes for small business and startup companies.

• Eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.

• Expand the child and dependent care tax credit.

• Expand the earned income tax credit.

• Create a universal mortgage credit.

• Create a small business health tax credit.

• Provide a $500 "make work pay" tax credit to small businesses.

• Provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.

Energy

• Spend $15 billion a year on renewable sources of energy.

• Eliminate oil imports from the Middle East in 10 years.

• Increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year.

• Weatherize 1 million homes annually.

• Ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.

Environment

• Create 5 million green jobs.

• Implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015.

Labor

• Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court's pay discrimination ruling.

• Sign into law an employee free choice act — aka card check — to make it easier for unions to organize.

• Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.

• Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.

National security

• Remove troops from Iraq by the summer of 2010.

• Cut spending on unproven missile defense systems.

• No more homeless veterans.

• Stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.

• Finish the fight against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorists.

Social Security

• Work in a "bipartisan way to preserve Social Security for future generations."

• Impose a Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $250,000.

• Match 50% of retirement savings up to $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000.

Education

• Demand higher standards and more accountability from our teachers.

Spending

• Go through the budget, line by line, ending programs we don't need and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.

• Slash earmarks.

Health care

• Lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.

• Let the uninsured get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.

• Stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

• Spend $10 billion over five years on health care information technology.

• Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court's pay discrimination ruling.

• Sign into law an employee free choice act — aka card check — to make it easier for unions to organize.

• Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.

• Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.

Anchorage Tea Party 4/15/2009

Wow! What a great day. When I heard about the Tea Party, I scheduled 4 hrs time off just so I would be sure to be there on a workday.

I arrived at the Federal Bldg about 10:20 to see about eight folks including Cameron Barrows and immediately thought it might be a disappointing turnout. I began to wonder if I was one of only a handful who are fed up with the profligate spending, the insults to conservative Americans and the wholesale lurching toward socialism.

More folks began to trickle in and by 11:30 there were a couple hundred. Still, not quite a crowd. But then more and more and more...we filled up all four corners of the intersection, singing and chanting. Lots of good humor and no nastiness. Eventually we had about 1200 demonstrators when I left at 1:30 to get back to work. Like Randy Neuman's song says "I hope this feelin lasts..."

Let's compare depressions

Walter Williams has a link to an incredible article describing the Great Depression's causes and parallels to today's fiscal insanity. This is a long article, and well worth the time.

snippet from end of article:

...All this raises many issues economists have long debated:
Who or what should determine a nation’s supply of money? Why do governments so regularly
mismanage it? What is the connection between fiscal and monetary policy?

Suffice it to say here that governments inflate because their appetite for revenue
exceeds their willingness to tax or their ability to borrow. British economist John Maynard Keynes was an influential charlatan in many ways, but he nailed it when he wrote, “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” ...

...Today’s slow-motion dollar depreciation, with consumer prices rising at persistent but
mere single-digit rates, is just a limited version of the same process.

Government spends, runs deficits and pays some of its bills through the inflation tax.

How long it can go on is a matter of speculation, but trillions in national debt and politicians who
make misers of drunken sailors and get elected by promising even more are not factors that
should encourage us. I nflation is very much with us but it must end someday. A currency’s
value is not bottomless. Its erosion must cease either because government stops its reckless
printing or prints until it wrecks the money.

But surely, which way it concludes will depend in large measure on whether its victims
come to understand what it is and where it comes from. Meanwhile,
our economy looks like a roller coaster because Congresses, Presidents and the agencies
they’ve empowered never cease their monetary mischief. ...

Krauthammer gets it right

From the Washington Post

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, March 13, 2009; A17

Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics.

I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated.

President Bush had restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed (as of his speech of Aug. 9, 2001). While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, President Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.

I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn. I suggested the bright line prohibiting the deliberate creation of human embryos solely for the instrumental purpose of research -- a clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end.

On this, Obama has nothing to say. He leaves it entirely to the scientists. This is more than moral abdication. It is acquiescence to the mystique of "science" and its inherent moral benevolence. How anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee and the fake (and coercive) South Korean stem cell research is hard to fathom.

That part of the ceremony, watched from the safe distance of my office, made me uneasy. The other part -- the ostentatious issuance of a memorandum on "restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making" -- would have made me walk out.

Restoring? The implication, of course, is that while Obama is guided solely by science, Bush was driven by dogma, ideology and politics.

What an outrage. Bush's nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.

Obama's address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the "false choice between sound science and moral values." Yet, exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds later he went on to declare that he would never open the door to the "use of cloning for human reproduction."

Does he not think that a cloned human would be of extraordinary scientific interest? And yet he banned it.

Is he so obtuse as not to see that he had just made a choice of ethics over science? Yet, unlike Bush, who painstakingly explained the balance of ethical and scientific goods he was trying to achieve, Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and others not.

This is not just intellectual laziness. It is the moral arrogance of a man who continuously dismisses his critics as ideological while he is guided exclusively by pragmatism (in economics, social policy, foreign policy) and science in medical ethics.

Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible. Obama's pretense that he will "restore science to its rightful place" and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand -- this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically "scientific."

Dr. James Thomson, the pioneer of embryonic stem cells, said "if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough." Obama clearly has not.

Reality check..Jews vs. Muslims

I have always been amazed at the disproportionate contributions to society by my Jewish brothers. I personally believe this is evidence that they continue to be a blessing to this earthly existence by the great I AM. He chose this people to be special messengers...He has chided them, nurtured them, punished them, loved them and I believe will protect them in spite of overwhelming odds.

But just look at this list and tell me there isn't something special here.


Copied from skepticforum.com:

Muslim vs. Jewish Contributions to the World

Muslim

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of
the world population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:

1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat: Yeah I know.
1990 - Elias James Corey
1999 - Ahmed Zewa

Economics:

**(none)**

Medicine:

1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

**************************************************************************

Jewish

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000, or about 0.02%
of the world population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:

1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:

1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloc h
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charle s Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:

1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:

1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jaco b
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis

The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims.

The Jews don’t hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics.

The Jews don’t traffic in slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world’s Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel’s part, the following two sentences really say it all:

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.

If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.

Evan Sayet on Liberal "Thought"

This comedian has a brilliantly eloquent decription of the genesis of distrous and immoral choices by modern liberals. I have spent considerable time trying to make sense of why seemingly normal, intelligent people can buy in to such obviously wrong-headed or just plain evil ideas in the name of being "progressive" or "open-minded."

Mr. Sayet provides that explaination. The occasion is his address to the Heritage Foundation. It's not short - but worth it.

Just click on the following link to go directly to the speech.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eaE98w1KZ-c

Civil and political effects of growing Muslim populations

Posted on NewEnglishReview

Friday, 21 March 2008

What Muslim Population Increase Brings

Don Morris writes at Doc's Talk (thanks to Janet Levy):

When Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone:
United States -- Muslim 1.0%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1%-2%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:
Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law.
France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- Muslim 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions (Paris -- car-burnings) . Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats (Amsterdam -- Mohammed cartoons).
Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 10-15%

After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning:
Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare:
Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:
Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:
Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%

100% will usher in the peace of "Dar-es-Salaam" -- the Islamic House of Peace -- there's supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim:
Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 99.9%

Yea, right. Yemen is in a civil war, Somalia is in a civil war, Afghanistan is in a civil war, and the Saudi's are the world's leader in understanding and cooperation with other religions.