We now see what happens when the press overdoes it on coverage of hate preachers and imams.
Korans have been burned all over the country. Not that I care too much about that, but I wonder how much of this is due to press influence and over covering this idiotic Florida preacher and his “Burn a Koran Day.”
How long will this fiasco play out overseas? How many copycats in other Western countries will take place? And how many more embassies will get burned to the ground? The uneducated Afghans are already murdering people in the streets. They can’t even READ the Koran.
I registered my disagreement with the burnings on 9/11. That isn’t the date for protests of ANY kind, even though it is the Constitutional right of every American to do so. And as I had hoped, the pastor changed his mind, but Korans got burned anyways.
And the press is dutifully reporting the incidents, which ARE isolated. But by drawing all this attention to the distortions of these fanatical religious leaders, who are NOT part of mainstream Christianity, or of Islam for that matter, the press is making matters worse by creating a bigger splash to sell news and improve their ratings.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the press WANTS a war between the West and Islam. Their reckless actions in covering these self-important preachers and imams are taking us someplace that we don’t want to be.
The press needs to handle this MUCH more responsibly.
The news media has been stirring several stories and given them more coverage than they deserve. And they need to reverse their course.
I’m speaking of the continuing coverage that they’ve given to Westboro Baptist Church, which appeared on the radar several years ago due to their anti-homosexual agenda and their protests at military funerals, which is detestable.
They gave Jerimiah Wright too much coverage, due to his connection to President Obama.
Now they’re devoting WAY too much time to the Koran-burning church in Florida and the support that Westboro Baptist Church is (sort of) giving to them. And the attempts of the Florida church pastor to tie in his ill-advised Koran burning to the mosque plans in New York City, which was never mentioned when he scheduled his Koran burning for 9/11.
And the same thing goes for the planned mosque in New York City. It does not appear that the imam in charge won’t change course, though his investors might for the right price. And now Donald Trump is throwing his two cents in, offering to buy the property to get the mosque out of the news. I think the investor is holding out for mo’ money.
And the liberal media loudly booed Trump for getting involved. Shame on them for booing Trump’s attempt to end the mosque controversy, and denying them further material to cover. That’s what they’re really demonizing Trump about.
I’m not saying that the media shouldn’t don’t cover the subjects, but don’t OVER-COVER it, which they have already done too much of. These idiots love the coverage that they are getting. The media shouldn’t interrupt their programming to cover live press conferences from these idiots, and offer detailed analysis afterwards. That’s severe overkill.
Nothing that these people are doing warrants live coverage. ENOUGH, ALREADY!
There’s been a controversy brewing in Florida, ever since a church decided that it was a good idea to burn a pile of Korans on the ninth anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks. The controversy has gone international, and may have serious repercussions for U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.
The Dove World Outreach Center says that “Islam is of the devil” and that the church is obligated to carry out the burning because the Koran is not God’s word, is “totalitarian, and….teaches idolatry, paganism, rites and rituals.” Over the last week, there have been large protests in cities across Afghanistan, and across the Muslim world.
In fact, the military brass is so concerned that General Petraus has gone to the press, expressing concern that the action might play directly into the hands of the Taliban and other groups who are fighting against the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think there is merit to what Washington and the military leaders are saying. Anything that derails efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, and the eventual withdrawal of international troops should not be tolerated.
The church does have a right to express itself, and I’m not in total disagreement with what they say, but how they express themselves makes me worry about the troops. They’re in enough danger already. And how many of our embassies in other Muslim countries will be burned to the ground if this book burning goes forward?
I would encourage the Dove World Outreach Center to cancel their current plan and come up with a way to express themselves that doesn’t cause more people to join the fighting against our forces. That’s the last thing that the troops need.
Fox News commentator Glenn Beck held his rally over the weekend at the Lincoln Memorial; an interesting conflict has broken out in between media outlets as to how many actually attended.
CBS News reported 87,000 people in attendance, with a margin of error of +/- 9,000.
MSNBC reported 500,000 people. The New York Times reported in the neighborhood of 300,000 people. NBC News’s Domenico Montanaro tweeted that he thought the number was around 325,000 people, based on what someone at the National Park Service told him.
Liberal bloggers reported 30,000. They must have been drunk or stoned.
Here’s something else that’s curious. I found this link to the rally, and an event marshal turning people away from the event, saying that the park was at capacity at the 2:00 mark of the video. The capacity of the National Mall is 2.1 million people. What gives?
Two possibilities (out of many): Beck reserved the park for 300,000 people, and the NPS decided to not allow any more to enter as they were at the 300,000 person mark. Or there were 2.1 million people there. I’m more inclined to believe the former. Even Beck said that there weren’t a million people there.
There is a possibility that the Beck rally outdrew the MLK rally of 47 years ago, which liberals are angrily in the process of denying. They’re still in a state of shock.
I don’t have a dog in this particular fight, but I’m really enjoying the bantering going on.
There’s nothing like a liberal belief being shaken to its core by an upstart conservative, especially a lunatic like Beck. The liberals can’t grapple with him; they come up short, even when Beck makes outlandish statements and is forced into minor retreats, like his statement that Obama is a racist, which he did pull back from.
And if liberals are wondering where in the world Beck came from, remember this: he worked for CNN first. Can you imagine what would have happened if he was still working for CNN and managed to pull this off? They’d be having hissy fits and calling for his head.
French and British interests often differ, and the respective navies are no different. Can you imagine the American and Russian navies sharing three aircraft carriers for the expressed purpose of saving money? It certainly wouldn’t work for us.
Does France really need an aircraft carrier? They don’t throw their military power around without the United States being involved first. They’d rather keep their military at home.
The Charles de Gaulle was put into service in 2001, but construction began on the ship in 1989. Work was stopped four times due to funding issues in the French economy. And the entire French Navy has suffered as well. French naval specialists have criticized the French government for allowing their Navy to fall into disrepair.
The British have two active carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious, with one in reserve, with two more under construction (HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth). They’re cutting government spending, and are looking for a way to save money on their carriers.
What the British ought to do is phase out the two active carriers, and the reserve carrier, and go with the two new ones, and forget about the French. They are still a maritime power and need their carriers to defend the Falklands, and other British interests around the world, which sometimes conflict with French national interests.
Seriously though, what do the French need more aircraft carriers for? For them it’s a huge waste of money, if they don’t take care of their Navy.
I was online earlier today, and came across a commentator who said that the federal government response to Hurricane Earl’s approaching the eastern seaboard of the United States is radically different than the federal response to a hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast.
Currently, it’s “gee, there’s a hurricane approaching the Gulf states. Let’s wait it out and see what’s going to happen.” Compare to the East Coast response taken from headlines today: “FULL ALERT!! MASS EVACUATIONS!! CATEGORY 5!! SIDESWIPE!!”
It should be the same response on both coasts. The federal government should be springing into action whenever a hurricane approaches our coast, and not just on the East Coast.
There are those who are saying that the government wants to be on top of this approaching storm, given their very slow response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf, to show that they’ve made improvements to their responses.
If that’s true, it’s cheap theatrics. I’m not impressed so far.
I’ve been watching this debate over whether Obama is a Christian, or a Muslim, or an agnostic, or whatever label he’s choosing to describe his religious beliefs. And I don’t think it’s helping to defeat his agenda, which is continuing to advance.
In the end, it’s his secular POLICIES that will push us into an unprecedented economic collapse. The anti-Obama religious stuff isn’t particularly helpful to dealing with all the problems that we have directly in front of us. He’s spending much more, much faster, on failed economic policies that have long been disproven.
There is WAY too much to deal with without adding “Obama is a Muslim” to the list. It’s time to drop this debate and start talking balanced budget amendment, and getting government spending under control, before we’re sold off into economic slavery to the Chinese.
That scares me more than whether Obama is a Muslim or not.
Look at it this way: our country has survived ALL the religious persuasions (or lack thereof) of all 43 Presidents prior to President Obama. We’ll survive his religious persuasion as well.
I’d rather see us focused on fixing the government and the economy instead of this debate, which is nothing but a huge distraction and plays squarely into President Obama’s hands, as he continues to push damaging legislation through.
As a country, we have gone out of our way to show that we respect Muslim sensitivities around the world, instructing our soldiers not to enter mosques in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to damage those mosques during combat operations.
Here at home, we are being told that we have to respect Muslim holidays, to not use offensive terms to describe Arabs and Muslims, and to not associate the word “terrorist” with the word Islam. In short, we are extending every courtesy to those of the Islamic faith.
We have grown to be very sensitive to Muslim sensitivities.
So why the hell don’t they realize that they’re offending AMERICAN sensitivities, by putting up a mosque and a cultural center on the very doorstep of one of the worst atrocities in American history, carried out by Islamic extremists?
Our idiot politicians aren’t doing enough to protect American interests in this matter, subordinating our interests and our sensitivities to their version of political correctness.
This is like the controversy that erupted in Poland, with the construction of a coventry near the grounds of the Auschwitz death camp. In that situation, Jewish leaders protested, and the coventry was eventually shut down.
9/11 is not in the same ballpark as the Holocaust, but the the controversies that erupted after both events aren’t entirely dissimilar.
The people pushing for the creation of this Muslim shrine in the shadow of the twin towers should either scale back their plan, or construct this religious institution in a location that isn’t as traumatized or sensitized to it.
The last thing we need is for someone to try to destroy this mosque, should it be built. We don’t need religious wars starting up here.
This is not about freedom of religion. This is about freedom of speech, and political attempts to shut down the exercise of that free speech.
Shame on us, Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Cultural Diversity himself, for raising valid viewpoints? No, no, no. Shame on Mayor Bloomberg for being a blooming idiot, for ignoring his oath of office and for trying to silence those who have a differing viewpoint than his own.
Mr. Thought Cop ought to practice what he preaches—a little MORE diversity.
I cannot believe how much attention the media is giving to drug addict and sometimes actress Lindsay Lohan.
Part of the reason she’s going into rehab is that she can’t hack being in the media spotlight. Give her some breathing room and let her do what she must to get better.
As for the media itself, aren’t there better stories out there to report on??! This celebrity obsession is extremely unhealthy.
Will someone in the Obama Administration please read the Arizona immigration law IN ITS ENTIRETY? I don’t think a single person with a “D” after their name has. Obama sure hasn’t. Nor has his incompetent Attorney General. Nor has anyone in President Obama’s cabinet. Democrats in Congress sure haven’t.
I hope that Arizona files a lawsuit against the federal government, seeking a court order to force the government to enforce ALL existing federal laws along the ENTIRE Arizona/Mexico border, and not just certain sectors.
What do they need, bodies of dead American families found in their own homes, wiped out by Mexican drug lords who are currently waging a war against the Mexican government just over the border?
Obama needs to move the army up to the border, and issue orders that any Mexican gangs who are running roughshod over the border and firing on American border patrol agents on the American side of the line should be blown straight to hell!
Engaging in a frivilous lawsuit against a law that ONLY challenges the citizenship of people who are accused of a crime…that’s all that the Arizona law says, and nothing else. This federal lawsuit should be thrown out immediately. What a waste of time and resources!
Last week, President Obama signed a measure into law that gives him the authority to protect U.S. web assets from cyber attack, by having the U.S. part of the web shut down for up to 120 days.
Sounds like a really good way to isolate people from one another, to prevent the exchange of free ideas, and to prevent the American people from learning about whatever the government is working so hard to keep from them, until it’s too late.
They should be focused on firewalling the country’s internet access, and learning how to keep the Internet up and running while waging a cyber war against an attacker.
I don’t like the idea of having to shut down the Internet to stop a cyber attack. But if the American government now considers cyber attacks a threat to national security, they need to shift gears and adapt quickly to the growing threat from cyber attacks through use of other means.
Israel created a huge brew-ha-ha on the high seas last week, when Israeli naval troops boarded several Turkish vessels and impounded the ships, cargoes and people aboard them. On one ship, the activists resisted, and a fight broke out, which left nine of the activists dead and many others—activists and Israeli commandoes—hurt.
Israel has kept Gaza under blockade and has promised to maintain the blockade, so long as Hamas clings to power and continues to launch an array of weapons across the border into Israel.
Hamas has bombarded Israeli cities with rocket fire for a long time, and Israel doesn’t want them to be rearmed by Syria and Iran, with even deadlier weapons via the sea.
Israel does have a right to search those ships for weapons, in the same way that the United States imposed a blockade on Cuba to prevent nuclear weapons on Soviet ships from reaching Cuban ports during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The world feigns outrage at the Israeli actions, but casts a blind eye on Hamas bombarding Israeli cities with sophisticated weapons from Iran and other countries. This isn’t right or fair.
The international community has no right to ask Israel to lower its defenses without presenting a viable alternative. It should be that Turkey and other naval powers take over the blockade and stop ships carrying weapons from reaching Gaza. Once they’re inspected and declared weapons-free, they should be able to set sail straight into Gaza.
Or have the cargoes inspected in their home ports before departure, by Israeli and other international inspectors, thereby making a boarding at sea unnecessary. They could sail straight into Gaza without delay.
There is a lot of room for compromise here, as I see it.
I am in agreement that the current system cannot stand, but for crying out loud, the world should offer Israel something in return. I am also of the opinion the a UN peacekeeping force should take up residence in Gaza as well.
Any talk of a UN probe is suspect, given the UN’s reputation for focusing on Israel and ignoring the Hamas actions which started Israeli action to stop whatever Hamas is doing. Nothing’s changed.
In my next-to-last post, I called certain members of Congress “traitors” for standing and applauding the hypocritical Mexican President as he railed against Arizona’s anti-border crossing measures.
I’ve gotten some feedback, with mixed results, in the last week. I’m taking it all in stride, but this subject is worth another post.
I called them “traitors” for caring more about Mexican citizens than about the American citizens who have been murdered by Mexican criminals who came across the border illegally.
I called them “traitors” for not standing up against Phoenix becoming the kidnapping capital of our country.
I called them “traitors” for failing to look at statistics: 80% of all immigration officer deaths were at the hands of illegals. 35% of the entire federal prison population is illegal immigrants, and 20% of Arizona’s prison population are illegals. Ship them home and ease the overcrowding in our own prisons!
70% of Arizona’s population support SB1070. ‘That’s pure democracy that they’re trying to overturn.
Congress needs to get with the program, and Obama needs to fire his attorney general for saying that he won’t enforce federal laws. This is pure electioneering.
The Mexicans need to get their own house in order before telling us how to run ours. They have no room to be criticizing us when their own immigration policy is even stricter than Arizona’s. And Mexico needs to get their drug lords under control.\
Time for Mexico to put up, or shut up. And Obama’s party needs to follow suit.
The state really messed up when they put Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced former Mayor of Detroit, back into prison for the next eighteen months to five years.
When he was sentenced, he also lost his $100,000 a year job in Texas. So instead of him making whatever payments he can over the next five years, they’ve chosen to get reimbursed nothing.
Did they just shoot themselves in the foot or what? Yes, he needed to be taught a lesson, but Detroit can’t afford to be foregoing any income. In this case, it would have been better to come up with a solution that allowed him to keep his job and keep making payments.
Every Democrat and Republican who stood up and cheered as Mexican President Caulderon criticized the state of Arizona over their attempts to protect their people should turn in their resignations and walk straight out the door, never to return.
We’ll definitely remember in November.
And the Mexican President has the unmitigated gall to come into OUR House of Representatives, to complain about our treatment of HIS criminals??! He needs to get HIS own house in order before telling us how to run OURS! He’s the biggest hypocrite north or south of the Rio Grande.
And the liberal Democrats who stood up and cheered should be ashamed of themselves. First they didn’t read the legislation. Then they criticized what they didn’t read. And then they cheered one of the architects of the chaos along our southern border. We don’t want Mexico’s problems in any of the border states. Mexico can fend for itself. Why hasn’t it already CRUSHED the drug gangs with its army?
I do not like it when Mexicans illegally cross our borders in the first place. And I don’t like it when they cry about not having American citizenship, then throw it back in our faces with these demonstrations, carrying Mexican flags. They can go wipe their butts with their Mexican flags. Demonstrating for American citizenship with Mexican flags…they come to us begging for what they want, then insult us. What are we to think?
The message that many of us are getting is that they want to become Americans to be Mexicans.
What’s the point of their applying for citizenship here if they have no intention of contributing to our society, to making it better? They can stay in Mexico and be Mexicans, and contribute to the betterment of Mexican society. They sure need it, and we don’t need to be giving out freebies to illegals here.
President Obama has apologized to China for Arizona’s immigrant security law, which he has labeled a “human rights violation.”
I think it’s a very sad state of affairs when a sitting U.S. President apologizes for a law that is designed to protect AMERICAN CITIZENS—including immigrants who followed the law and came here legally, and went through the naturalization process— from being MURDERED in their own homes and KIDNAPPED on their own U.S. streets by ILLEGALS. People in Arizona who live along the border live in constant fear. Is this Obama’s version of “ensuring domestic tranquility?”
Obama should have apologized to the people of Arizona for the federal government FAILING to do it’s job and ENFORCING the law, and PROTECTING the border.
But instead, he’s caught apologizing for what IS (again), and kissing Chinese tail (again).
Can we have a recall election for President Obama in November as well?
It’s been a week of high drama in the United Kingdom as they had a general election, had a hung parliament in terms of no party capturing a majority of the seats in that election, and then all the haggling between the parties to form the next British government.
In the end, David Cameron’s Conservative Party joined forces with the Liberal Democratic Party; Cameron is now the Prime Minister; the leader of the Liberal Democrats is deputy PM. The cabinet has members of both parties taking up key positions.
President Obama needs to carefully watch what the British do with their budget in the next several months. If their measures work and Britain is able to stay on an even keel while refraining from exploding their deficit, as Obama is currently doing to the U.S. debt, then perhaps we can pull back from the abyss as well, using parts of the British model.
Cutting the U.S. debt load immediately would be a smart move. April was UGLY in terms of how much debt was added on: four times higher than in April 2009, and an all-time record for budget deficits in a month.
And President Obama’s team seems to think that they have to spend massive amounts of money to keep the economy afloat. This is flawed thinking, and they have to shift gears, before it’s too late.
GM’s announcement that they had repaid their federal loan in full was done by using money from another federal loan to take care of the TARP loan that they received after going into bankruptcy.
Guess what!! GM is STILL on the hook, except now they owe even more. Way to go, GM!
DISGRACEFUL! And now, a question: since the statement was done in a commercial and played across the country on national TV, can the FCC sue for false advertising?
The only good news coming from GM right now is that they’re making money. In the end, that’s what matters, but they need to come clean with what they did to “repay” their loan “in full.”
I seem to remember a political firestorm a couple of years ago when then-President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court. And I didn’t disagree when Harriet Meyers decided to withdraw her nomination. Bush was loudly criticized for being an “idiot” for choosing an “obviously” unqualified person for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now, President Obama has nominated someone who has never even BEEN a judge, just someone who whitewashed a plagiarism scandal at Harvard University.
So if Bush was an idiot for nominating “unqualified” Meyers, what does that make Obama for nominating non-judge and even-less qualified Kagan?
Looks like it’s back to the drawing board, and pick a judge, please, Mr. President.
The administrators of this high school should resign and apologize for dishonoring their country’s flag.
This is the United States, not Mexico. And any school on U.S. territory currently flying the Mexican flag rather than the American flag should remove those Mexican flags and run the Stars and Stripes up the pole, IMMEDIATELY! And any Mexican that doesn’t like that can make a run for the border, AND STAY THERE!
Cultural sensitivity, my afterburner! Liberal ilk imposing their viewpoints on everyone else is what this is!
There has been an ongoing debate on whether President Obama is a socialist, and my view is that he is not. He’s a liberal, but not a traditional one at that, either.
A socialist would have been pushing for the complete nationalization of the financial system, from top to bottom, as Chavez of Venezuela and Castro of Cuba have done to their own countries. Obama hasn’t done that. He’s helped to create a system with a kill switch built into it; when the banks stabilize and pay back the government, they’re off the hook.
To date, the American taxpayer has been paid back $587 billion of the original $787 billion that the government loaned out to the banks.
Socialists do not want Obama’s health care plan either. Under a Socialist plan, there would be no crushing after-care bills that will still bankrupt entire families; the Socialist model calls for Cadillac-style plans for everybody.
According to Bill Wharton over at the Washington Post, Obama’s plan underinsures everybody in the name of universal health care. And there’s still the possibility of catastrophic bills that could push a family or individual into bankruptcy if an individual or family uses up their “allotment” of health care.
I am opposed to both ideas, as both are prohibitively expensive to the American taxpayer. We can no more afford the Socialist plan than we can President Obama’s.
According to the Socialist web site, the official Socialist party line is to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq immediately, to close all of our overseas bases and to “unconditionally disarm.” Obama has set a deadline in Iraq, but not one in Afghanistan. And he wants to expand our involvement in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world, and upgrade our nuclear weapons platforms. So he doesn’t match up there either, though he has called for a nuclear weapons-free world, while taking steps to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal.
At first, I thought he was a socialist, but the more I researched it, the more I realized that the dots just didn’t connect. The Socialist platform is as radical an agenda as I’ve ever seen, and even a leftist like Obama has openly rejected major parts of it.
Make no mistake, I think his agenda is very bad news. And we don’t know what is coming next, though we have a general idea.
President Obama’s brand of liberalism is darn peculiar and difficult to pin down. But this man isn’t a socialist: he belongs to a branch of liberal thought that IS far to the left of center, and is quite radical. Beyond that, the picture is still out of focus.
There is a label out there for Obama’s brand of liberalism, but “socialism” isn’t the best fit for it.
Arizona’s state government passed legislation that cracks down on illegal aliens coming across their border from Mexico. GOOD FOR THEM!
The federal government hasn’t done its job in protecting the border, and Arizona is fed up. And until the federal government starts doing its job, or provides additional funds to help the border states with securing the border with Mexico, the feds and President Obama should stay out of Arizona’s business.
Why should one group of people (the legal residents of Arizona) be made to support an illegal population that has violated our border, disregarded our laws and flooded our emergency rooms and our jails?
No, Congress and the President should do their jobs and protect Arizona and the other border states from these continued incursions. What’s it going to take, Mexico’s drug war spilling over onto our side of the border to shame President Obama and Congress into enforcing laws that have already been signed into law?
Across the country, many levels of government engaged in the practice of raiding pension funds to balance their budgets. California was particularly bad at this: they borrowed $550 billion from their state pension funds to balance their state budget. And they’ve still got a $25 billion deficit in their 2010-2011 budget.
Those IOUs are coming due, with the retirement of many of the workers whose pensions have been looted by the various governments.
If they promised a pension to their workers, they ought to make sure the things are funded properly.
A U.S. Navy submarine rammed a U.S. Navy surface vessel last month, due to a serious breakdown of military protocols aboard the submarine. The captain of the sub was relieved of his command after it was discovered that his navigator was listening to his iPod, and hazarded the ship.
A few short months after Defense Secretary Gates killed the F-22 Raptor program, the follow-up F-35 Lightining II fighter is also being criticized for being too expensive. It’s jumped from being $179 million per copy to $329 million per copy in the same amount of time.
The reason for the jump is the vertical take off/vertical landing capability, delays in the prototypes and production issues, and other research & development problems.
Defense Secretary Gates is confident that the fighter will stay on track, though the military may not be able to buy as many as they would like.
Why not build more late model F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s instead?
I saw an article in zdnet.com today, trumpeting the end of the laptop in favor of the iPad.
Not so fast.
Just because Apple comes out with a popular design, it doesn’t mean that everyone will switch over to it. Not everyone likes the Apple operating system or business model, just as not everyone likes dealing with Windows or with the various PCs.
But the end of the laptop? Not even close. The end of the Apple laptop? That’s more likely.
People are very upset about Congress and the President ramrodding their very bad health care through, and how it was done.
It’s another example of what happens when one party-rule takes hold in Washington. The Republicans blew it when they were in total control, and the Democrats are blowing it right now with their grip on power slowly bleeding away.
In the November elections, I’m hoping that the Democrats and the Republicans have majorities in one house each. Neither political party can be trusted with total control. They enact really stupid legislation, abuse the system and abuse the trust of the American people.
This is another reason to enact term limits. Total turnover in Washington would flush out the system, and restore some credibility to the federal government that has been missing since 1994. And while I cheered the results of that election and enjoyed watching the Democrats react to their massive losses, in hindsight, it would have been better if the Republicans had won a majority in one house.
But the current balance of power in Congress needs to change, to keep more of the Socialist agenda at bay. As it is, it’s going to take years to overcome the damage that Obama, Pelosi and Reed have inflicted on our national interests.
China and Google have been waging a war of words for quite some time over China’s insistence that Google censor Chinese search results. China’s government can’t take the chance that its citizens will begin to freely exchange ideas, like in a free society, as the Chinese people might criticize their own government (GASP!).
Google’s big enough that they don’t need the Chinese market.
Google’s stock might be dropping over this debate, but their stock has gone up with a lot of people. And I’m sure that Google will return to the Chinese market when their government either changes their policy, or the Chinese government itself changes.
The Chinese people ought to be able to tell their own government what to go do with itself, without fear of the police arresting them and sending them off to forced labor “re-education” camps.
The Democrats will pay a heavy price in November for their defying the majority of the American people in their vote to bankrupt our country within the next four years with their health care plan.
And the next Congress WILL repeal this bill, or we’ll fire THEM too!
Thirty-seven states have vowed to sue the government to force the federal government to follow the Constitution, with regards to powers not expressly delegated to the federal government are reserved for the states.
Bart Stupak is a darn fool. Does he really thing that pro-choice Obama will restrict abortion language in the bill, now that he has what he wants? How many unborn will be murdered by this bill?
The best outcome for the upcoming vote on the health care bill is that the bill is rejected. It’ll pare down the forecasted debt that Obama and his Congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle are forcing on us.
They can do the health bill a lot better and cheaper than the 2,300+ page health care proposal that added four hundred pages in recent weeks, since its unveiling. And the measures contained therein are as UNCONSTITUTIONAL as the day they were first revealed.
They should be making cuts now, starting with the health care bill. That’ll save a huge chunk of change and will enable the government to cut at least $1 trillion out. That’s a healthy start.
At the very least, Congress and the White House should return us to surpluses before they even BEGIN to think about such a costly endeavor that may well bankrupt our country. This talk of today’s debt of $12 trillion, with an additional $9 trillion by the end of Obama’s second term is UNACCEPTABLE.
Why not make cuts now while there is still a choice as to which programs to cut, instead of the crash cuts that will have to be made within four years at current spending levels?
Recall ALL Priuses, discontinue the entire line, and give owners cash to go buy a safer car of their choice from any manufacturer. Toyota has NO business manufacturing a dangerous vehicle that they are incapable of fixing. And they should pull all fly-by-wire electronics in the engine and transmission and replace them with industry-standard mechanical devices in all other Toyota lines, too.
Their "fix" with their floor mats and gas pedals are clearly NOT the problem.
Toyota’s incompetence in fixing this problem with their product has gotten so ridiculous that it’s unbelievable. I’m glad I’m not driving a Toyota.
“Lost Boys” fans awoke to the news that actor Corey Haim passed away early this morning at age 38. Police suspect an accidental overdose and are waiting for autopsy results to confirm what killed Corey.
He had flu-like symptoms for the last few days, and was living with his mom, who is struggling with cancer. He got out of bed, felt very weak and collapsed to his knees. His mom called 911 and paramedics rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead a while later.
His fans had been hoping that he had put his demons behind him; in fact, he was looking great the last few weeks, according to news reports. Sympathies to his mom and his family, his longtime friend Corey Feldman and his family, and all who knew him.
I’ve been reading about the runaway Toyota Prius in California, and reading some of the comments from readers who say that all a driver has to do is stick the vehicle into neutral and allow the engine to race until you slow down. With respect, they have no idea what they’re talking about.
In Toyota vehicles, you are not able to shift when you’re going like a bat out of hell. The shifter won’t move until you’re below a certain amount of RPMs and speed. If the engine is racing and the vehicle is accelerating, there’s way too much torque, and the safeties won’t allow a shift. On my stick-shift Toyota pickup that I no longer own, you could shift into neutral, but you couldn’t shift back INTO gear if you were going too fast.
In essence, Toyota drivers who are in this Prius situation are locked into one of several outcomes: a high speed crash, the accelerator disengages and they’re able to brake safely, or they bail out at 90mph and die.
In the case of the Toyota Prius in California that’s in the news, the driver made another option: call 911, and get help. The cop pulled alongside and told him to engage the parking brake as well. They were able to slow the car down, until the driver could override the safeties and shut the engine off, which isn’t possible when the car is accelerating. The police officer pulled out in front and provided his cruiser’s braking power to bring the Toyota to a halt.
This is no floor mat issue, or brake pedal issue. It’s in the electronics, which are being shorted out. I think that defective chips are the cause of this acceleration issue with Toyota.
A few weeks ago I jump-started a 2008 Toyota Tundra. The driver said that it was easy to jump-start the Tundra as it had no spark plugs. What the Sam Hill….I asked him to show me and it was an electronic chip that’s wired into an on-board computer that regulates all the functions that the spark plug is responsible for. It was the most high-tech vehicle engine that I’ve ever seen.
The transmission is also controlled by computer. The electronics is the issue, and that’s where the problem lies, in my non-expert opinion. If they can't find a physical problem, it's an electronic problem. What else could it be?
The Germans have been lording over Greece in a way that is incredibly short-sighted and arrogant, in response to the economic troubles that Greece and the Euro have been encountering lately.
Germany needs to put up or shut up.
The rhetoric coming from German media outlets has been very negative toward Greece, which sparked retaliatory comments from Greece about the Nazi German occupation of Greece during World War II, and the subsequent looting of the Greek treasury by the Nazis, which has never been returned to Greece.
It’s been a real nasty verbal battle, which will only be made worse if the Greek economy collapses under its debt load.
And I thought the French were arrogant. The Germans are acting downright ugly!
The recent spat of earthquake disasters in Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Virgin Islands, Haiti, Japan, China, Iran and elsewhere show that earthquakes can occur at any place, at any time, with little or no warning.
When New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina, it was the greatest disaster to hit an American city, up to that point. But it was only one city.
What happens if California gets hit by a 9.5 earthquake from the San Andreas fault line?
Or what happens if the New Madrid fault line suddenly goes off, and there’s a swath of primary destruction stretching across four states (Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas) and then major aftershocks from the Gulf of Mexico up to southern Michigan and southern Wisconsin, and over to eastern Iowa and Nebraska, and as far east as North Carolina and Georgia?
We don’t know when a disaster will strike, so we should be prepared at all times. And that means being prepared with disaster relief preparation, and having a balanced budget with low debt, in the event that we do need to borrow trillions to rebuild. We won’t be in any condition to do so if we already owe other nations $22 trillion, as is projected. Or if we keep paying for other nations to recover from their own natural disasters.
We need the federal government to reign in spending, and get us in better shape to weather natural disasters, which are inevitable.
The above link to the New Madrid fault line goes to a 27 minute video, which is excellent and was produced by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The search for missing actor Andrew Koenig came to an end yesterday when his body was discovered in a park near Vancouver.
His famous father, Walter Koenig, held an emotional press conference and urged those families who have family members suffering from depression to act before it’s too late.
Nothing got accomplished, the abortion language remained intact, and the illegal measures that are unconstitutional remained in place. And there were enough distortions of what will and what will not happen that it’s as clear as mud.
Time for the voters to have their say on this matter. They ought to throw this entire mess onto the ballot and let the American people vote it straight up or down.
THEN we’ll see where the American people stand on this issue.
He promised to be the 41st vote against Obama’s health care mess. But he also said that he wasn’t going to be bound by party labels.
Republicans from New England have to appear independent enough from the GOP in order to keep the support of Democratic-leaning independents, so why all the fuss now?
They got their 41st vote, but Scott Brown will not follow the party blindly. He’s a Massachusetts version of John McCain, who is notorious for wheeling and dealing and being a closet Democrat. So will Brown. They can shut down health care, but they had better not count on Brown’s support on other issues, unless they can convince him to support their stand for all the right reasons.
Get over it and get on with the business at hand: shutting down this HORRID health care bill.
Andrew Koening, son of actor Walter Koening of “Star Trek” fame, has been missing for eleven days, and the search has been growing more desperate by the hour.
He went up to Vancouver from his home in California, after dispatching a dark letter to his parents, who called the police after contact was lost. Andrew has been suffering from depression, according to the Koening family.
Andrew was a child-star on the 1980s TV show “Growing Pains” and has been an activist, writer, director and actor since “Growing Pains” ended.
Thoughts and prayers for the Koenings. I hope this situation is resolved with Andrew being found safe and sound. But it doesn’t look good.
I hope Congress is paying close attention to the still-developing crisis between debt-overloaded Greece and their partners in the European Union, because there’s a warning for the United States in between the lines.
Several European newspapers are calling the EU moves against Greece a “shocking” and “crushing loss of Greek sovereignty.” It’s apparently in a part of the EU treaty that member states can lose control of their own monetary policies if their national debts exceed the 3% limit of deficit to the country’s GDP. Greece is currently at 12% and threatening to default on its debt load, which is 113% of its GDP.
The way that Europe is lording it over Greece, a lesson is there for all to see. With the types of numbers coming out of Washington, and the depth of borrowing that the current Administration and Congress is proposing to engage in, how long can it be before China and other nations try to lord it over us? What if China starts trying to dictate our monetary policy by threatening to reject American borrowing requests from Chinese banks? What happens when they start to dictate our foreign policy?
The American government must live within it’s own means, without borrowing another red cent.
No nation on earth should hold sway over our national interests; we can make our own decisions on whether we want to welcome the Dalai Lama to our country, or whether we want to sell weapons to Taiwan to deter Red Chinese aggression.
And if we want to give our taxpayers rebates, we don’t borrow the money from China to do it. That was the height of irresponsibility from the last Administration, and a national disgrace.
If the government can’t survive on a $2 trillion budget, they can learn to do without. But enough of this financial irresponsibility. There should be NO talk of a health care plan until our financial mess is straightened out.
Feral cats may be the new targets for hunters in some municipalities around the country. And I’m enjoying the picture a great deal. Even though I know that the proposition will probably fail.
In any case, feral cats kill tens of millions of birds a year.
The rape of the criminal justice system continues unabated.
Now that they’ve introduced legislation to bar funding for trials of Guantanamo Bay inmates in civilian courts, Constitutional shredders in Congress have targeted the Christmas Day bomber as well, saying he should be tried in a military court.
Bull honkey!
The military does not have any jurisdiction as the attempted bombing took place on a civilian airliner, in civilian airspace over an American city, not on a military flight, in military-controlled airspace or over an American military base. Moreover, the arresting officers were FBI, who are also non-military law enforcement personnel.
The line between civilian law enforcement and military law enforcement clearly needs to be strengthened as the line separating the two, aka the Posse Comitatus Act, has been weakened via attempted acts of Congress and the previous Administration. It was in response to Hurricane Katrina, and authorizations of Congress for President Bush to use troops in law enforcement in and around New Orleans as civil authority had broken down there. These acts of Congress expired in 2008 and the line was tenuously re-established.
I have faith in our military, but not in our elected Constitution-shredding leaders, who don’t seem to have any issues trampling all over the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold.
The same Congress people who are yelling about the Christmas Day bomber being in civilian court should think twice before putting the military tribunals (which are considered illegal under international law) above those of the civilian criminal justice courts.
The military courts should handle military matters. The Christmas Day bombing is a civilian matter, to be decided in civilian courts. This man was not arrested on some distant battlefield under military control; he was arrested in Romulus, Michigan, home of Detroit Metro Airport, attempting to blow up a passenger jet.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and anything that threatens the integrity of the Constitution should be banned out of existence and forgotten.
We dare not blur the lines of distinction in order to use enhanced torture methods. That’s a slippery slope that has been barely kept in check to this point.
Some things became a little clearer today when the U.S. government said that it had to pressure Toyota into recalling eight models for defective foot pedals.
And Toyota experienced a 16% drop in sales in sales in January.
As a former Toyota owner, I can tell you that this problem has been around for a while. I had to get the gas pedal on my 1994 Toyota pickup fixed because it was experiencing the EXACT problem that this current recall is about. I can remember the mechanic at the Toyota dealer telling me that it was a common problem. That was twelve years ago.
I haven’t had any problems with gas pedals in my Dodge.
So, it now appears that Toyota had no intention of doing this recall, and government pressure forced them into it, which was the reason they didn’t have a fix ready to go. In my mind, it turns this from a case of simple stupidity on the part of Toyota into one of denial and evasion, particularly since nineteen deaths have been linked to the defective gas pedals. Shame on Toyota!
I couldn’t help but notice that President Obama scrapped the Constellation program over at NASA, as it was an outdated concept when they retired it forty years ago, and was even more outdated when they proposed doing an upgrade to the forty-plus year old concept to replace the retiring shuttles.
Now that he’s gotten around to cutting the budget, I have another suggestion for him on where else he can make cuts:
Scrap his health care plan. His reasons for scrapping Constellation also apply to his health plan: it can be done cheaper and far more responsibly (AND without throwing people in jail, too, I might add).
He needs to go much deeper and make a dent in the debt. Closing up shop in Iraq this year would save more money in one year than he’s currently proposing for his ENTIRE current ten-year plan.
The President’s $3.8 trillion budget is a BUST. He needs to pare it down to about $2.2 trillion, and put the savings into paying down the debt owed to foreign creditors. It’s better to replenish the well and keep it in reserve, rather than draining it completely dry, which we are currently on track to do.
Congress and the President need to pass a balanced budget.
I’ve been watching the Toyota recall and can’t help but wonder: what is Toyota doing?
They issued the recall on eight models of Toyota vehicles and stopped selling those across the country. Then it emerged that they don’t have a solution, or permission from the federal government to proceed with a fix, which are required. If they saw a problem, why on earth didn’t they develop a fix first before announcing a recall?
I remember when Dodge issued a recall six years ago how efficient it was. They announced the problem (a recall of the upper ball joint), sent out mail to all Dodge owners with the affected vehicles (2001-2003 Dodge Durangos and Dakotas) and asked them to schedule appointments so that the right part could be shipped to the dealer ahead of the appointment.
A couple of hours after dropping my truck off at the dealer, I had it back with a clean bill of health.
After going through that, and then seeing that Toyota issued a recall in the last few days without a fix, it makes me wonder…what are they DOING? They announced a recall without a fix. They didn’t even have a fix on the drawing board so that they could discuss it with the feds.
Dodge developed a fix, and permission from the appropriate federal agency to carry out the ball joint repair prior to their huge announcement. This is how most American companies take care of their problems. Toyota didn’t do things his way, they’re doing it backwards.
The problem with the Dodge ball joints was thought to have been more widespread than the reported problem with the gas pedals in these Toyota vehicles, but more information is being released, almost on an hourly basis.
The Big 3 are gleefully watching Toyota’s market share shrink, but hopefully they’re taking notes on what NOT to do.
The TARP program which was designed to prevent the collapse of the U.S. financial sector has created new and far more serious problems, according to the special inspector general of TARP.
I hope they didn’t just delay the inevitable.
Treasury needs to get its head out of its arse and put safeguards in place that will address the myriad of problems that still need to be taken care of.
These banking bigwigs need to understand that TARP was NOT universally supported, in Congress or by the public. I preferred to let the system crash so that a rebuild could have been done, and a stronger economy would have emerged. We would probably have 20% unemployment right now, but it would have been a temporary situation that would have improved over time.
Instead, the government and the banks reset the clock. That’s a decision that may come around and bite us even more than it already has.
TARP was for nothing if this attitude continues to prevail on Wall Street and at Treasury. Some people warned that this was going to happen, and THEY WERE RIGHT. Again. And now we’re facing the real possibility of the banks doing the same thing again and counting on Uncle Sam to bail them out a second time.
The cost of a catastrophic meltdown will be much worse than if TARP hadn’t happened. We MUST escape this vicious cycle, before it’s too late.
I’m no PETA puffer, but I am of the opinion that the ridiculous Groundhog Day celebrations ought to involve leaving the groundhogs alone.
If they don’t, I hope they all reach out and bite someone.
I refer to Staten Island Chuck, who bit New York Mayor Bloomberg at last year’s Groundhog Day. The woodchuck objected to being taken out of his warm wooden house that the zoo had built for him, and having his food taken away from him. DUH!
I hope he strikes again. And the same for Punxsutawney Phil. I hope they drop him after he bites someone, and he runs amok and starts biting the idiots who are standing in close proximity. That would be poetic justice. I would post the video here and sing his praises.
President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address last night, and while it was a fine speech in how he performed it, the ideas contained within the speech were another matter entirely. He tried to please everyone and the strategy didn’t work.
Instead, it was crafted to give a little bit of something to everyone. Ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” for the liberals; cutting taxes and supporting offshore drilling for the Republicans; appeasing the environmental bloc with global warming hubris; and talking to everyone else about the economy.
This feels like the campaign all over again. Say something to this group. Say the opposite to that group. Deny it. Blame someone else. The mantra of the last couple of elections won by the Democrats. And that house of cards has begun to collapse.
He CAN’T please everyone. His State of the Union suffered greatly from this strategy, and it was memorable only for the constant flip-flops and his telling us what we already knew.
I don’t think he changed any minds or did anything to open up a dialogue with his opponents. I think all he’s done is polarize his own party and energized the conservatives.
President Obama made the news for proposing a spending freeze for a few years. It’s expected to save $15 billion next year, then more the following years. I saw a number of about $157 billion in the press release.
Big fat hairy deal.
Today’s debt is over $12 trillion. And the Obama Administration is projected to add another $9 trillion to our debt by the end of the decade.
Here’s a thought: We can make due with a $2.5 trillion budget instead of a $3.5 trillion. Take the savings and pay down the debt.
NASA may have to take a hit; so should military projects that are billions over budget, and months behind schedule.
But under no circumstances should they weaken our Homeland Security defenses, nor cut the budgets for Iraq or Afghanistan until the troops are out of there. The last thing we need is for the troops to be trapped there, with ammunition and fuel running out or their paychecks cut or stopped.
I’m not too happy about the recent Supreme Court decision which allows for unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns.
There should be limits on corporate donations, to prevent a conflict of interest as a potential political candidate may be called upon to cast a vote on an issue that directly impacts a corporation that has made a huge donation. The corporation may be able to exercise undue influence on said candidate by threatening not to make a huge donation to the candidate’s next campaign.
But more importantly, the rights of the individual are sacrosanct. Under no circumstances should the free speech and voting rights of the individual be lessened by the increased donation power of the corporations. Money has a way of influencing votes of our representatives in both houses of Congress. Corporations can now influence our Congressional leaders MUCH more than the individual.
The GOP took the open Massachusetts Senate seat in one of the most dramatic turn of events in recent election memory.
Independents turned out to support Scott Brown. Democratic arrogance managed to turn a “cakewalk” to the Senate into a mandate on President Obama and his health care disaster.
People are angry about the health care bill, and unless Congress puts a stop to trying to criminalize pro-life people who oppose part of their premiums going to pay for abortion services, or people who are too poor to afford the premiums, or don’t want to kill the national budget, or want to have their own insurance, there will be similar results in other states across the country.
The Democratic plan has been exposed: pass the bill, then try to sweep it under the carpet. It won’t work. Lawsuits are being prepared across the country to stop the unconstitutional health care bill. I hope it’s tied up until late October.
If this thing does pass and somehow survives with abortion funding intact, I won’t spend a PENNY on supporting someone else’s murder of an unborn child. I may end up going to jail for not buying their insurance, but I’d rather be a prisoner of conscience than go to hell for paying into a system that murders the unborn.
I hope that choice doesn’t become a necessity. I’d rather throw some Democrats out of office and bury this plan and then wait for someone to come up with a much better alternative.
Looking forward to seeing what happens in November.
Pat Robertson started another controversy, this time with his interpretation of the Haitian rebellion against French colonial rule in the early 1800s, and the subsequent natural and man-made disasters to hit the country since its inception.
First, a little history. It started with France fighting a war against Spain, England and the Holy Roman Empire from 1688-1697 (The Nine Years War) when peace finally broke out. The island of Hispaniola was divided between France and Spain in 1697, and the French territory became a slave colony.
Wealthy Frenchmen imported slaves to work the fields, which yielded a tremendous profit for the French. As time went on, and Haiti (it was called Saint Dominigue in those days) became the richest French colony in the region, the slaves yearned for their freedom against their masters. Predictably, the French said ‘no’, and created racist “Black Codes” which kept the slaves of the colony in servitude and in the sugar, coffee and indigo fields. The Black Codes were brutal in their treatment of African slaves.
A rebellion began, and eventually slavery was banned in the colony and the restrictions against the slaves were loosened. Then the French government underwent several changes and the ban on slavery in the colonies was reversed. In 1803, Napoleon of France sent a force of 20,000 soldiers to Haiti to restore slavery and the Black Codes. The invasion failed as the French troops got sick or were defeated by the Haitians under the command of Toussaint l'Ouverture. (The French got beat by EVERYBODY)
In 1804, Haiti declared its independence.
In the time since, various emperors, warlords, Prime Ministers and Presidents have ruled over Haiti, and the country has remained in poverty ever since.
It also sits on a major fault line, which has produced major earthquakes from time to time. This same fault line extends further east and runs under Jamaica, and was responsible for the destruction and sinking of Port Royale, then the major British colony in the Caribbean, in 1620.
Fast forward to 2010: a 7.0 earthquake on the fault line devastated Haiti, destroying the capital and killing at least 20,000 people. Pat Robertson made the following observation:
A few points: the Haitians were fighting for their freedom, both from slavery and from French rule. Slavery is evil, and the French of the period were seeking to restore it. How can Pat Robertson say that the Haitians were evil for resisting evil? Is this his interpretation of historic events?
Would he be saying the same thing if he was a preacher in Haiti, where his own church had just been destroyed, and many of his followers were dead or missing? Or would he be providing aid and comfort to the survivors of his flock, as a religious leader?
Or is he going negative on Catholics again, as many Haitians (80% or more) belong to that church?
I will pray for the salvation of the Haitian people, but not because they've been lost to the devil as Robertson says; I will pray for them because they need God's saving grace (especially now), the same as all of us do.
I am not in agreement with Robertson's assessment, but I'm not surprised by them either.
It sounds to me like the Pope needs to fire some of his advisers when it comes to nature and develop a more coherent stand of where nature stands in regards to religion. Because two conflicting stands have emerged from Vatican City in the last week.
In my opinion, man-made global warming hubris has become part of the “religion” of worshipping nature. So I am a little concerned that the Vatican has bought into the hubris, and isn’t doing more to cast the global warming discussion into its proper place.
If Pope Benedict XVI wants to make the Vatican more energy efficient and make the environment cleaner, and encourage the faithful to do the same to be better stewards in preserving God’s magnificent works, then so be it. I like that idea.
But man-made global warming is a political creation, and a deeply flawed one at that too. The Vatican shouldn’t be taking a side on this politics-based “science” that is as full of hot air as Al Gore is. I would encourage the Vatican to clarify its position and to help correct the flaws in understanding what global warming truly is, and what it isn’t.
One other thing: the kind of thinking that put forth the idea of man-made global warming came from liberals who reject the teachings of the Church, and religion in general. Why, then, is the Church buying into this global warming hubris put forth by THOSE people??! Global warming hubris is a FALSE religion. And bad politics. And REALLY bad science.
More Democratic hypocrisy is on display in Washington over the racial double standard between themselves and the GOP.
Harry Reid is in hot water over his racist comments about President Obama during the 2008 elections. He was quick to rush out an apology, and the President, the Democratic Party and the Congressional Black Caucus just as quickly accepted it.
We all know what would happen if a Republican made the same remarks. There would be howls for him to resign coming in from the Democratic Party, the Congressional Black Caucus and in the media. And they wouldn’t let the story die either, until the Republican resigned.
Where is that same righteous firestorm that consumed Trent Lott when he praised Strom Thurmand at his 100th birthday party in 2002?
Where is that same righteous firestorm that has attempted to consume Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, and other conservative personalities over their remarks that got a lot of bad press?
Where is that same righteous firestorm that held Conrad Burns, Tram Hudson, and George Allen to account for their comments during the 2006 midterms?
Answer:It’s nowhere in sight. It only applies to Republicans!
Here is a partial list of Democrats who made racist comments (from the Wall Street Journal) and the result:
"I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. . . . The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union." Senator Robert Byrd (former KKK recruiter, famous for white n-word interview): Forgiven
"The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans." Senator Joe Webb : Forgiven
"Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."—Senator Hollings, 1993: Forgiven
"I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation."—Senator Dodd: Forgiven
"You cannot go into a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent."
"My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything [but] a Northeastern liberal state."
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy."
"There's less than 1% of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4% or 5% that is, are minorities. What is it in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with." Vice President Joe Biden: Forgiven
The double standard has never been more clear and more undeniable. Senator Reid SHOULD be shown the door by his own party and the SAME standards should be applied to both parties. If the Democrats are as committed to cultural understanding as they proclaim, they’ll get off their duffs and DO IT!
I’d also like to say that the Congressional Black Caucus has done more damage to their own cause than any other special interest group in Washington DC. Their quick acceptance of Reid’s apology while refusing to hold the Democrats to account for ANY racial statements that they make while holding the Republicans to strict standards on ALL racial statements coming from their party isn’t helping the perception that’s evident. The CBC’s goal of cultural harmony will never happen if they keep this up.
Congress has taken it upon itself to start shredding the Constitution that they took an oath to protect, in the name of their health care reform bill. Other things are just plain wrong.
The list as I see it:
Making the bill irreversible. They can’t do that; the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and trumps all bills. And I don’t see Congress trying to pass a Constitutional Amendment to make this happen. This is grounds for a constitutional challenge all by itself. Nothing is irreversible, by Constitutional standards.
Mandating that people who don’t buy insurance go to jail. This is not the federal government’s call, as insurance is under the direct control of the states. This federal power grab is illegal; insurance is a reserved power for the states to regulate. Refer to Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
Forcing people to pay for abortion services is morally objectionable. I have no intention of paying for someone to get an abortion. For those who say senators are imposing their religious views on everyone, that’s only half the story. Those who support abortion rights are also trying to impose their views on everyone by forcing everyone to pay part of a premium to abortion services. Intolerable! They’re going to violate the rights of pro-life people to support their own.
Congress is also preparing to exceed it’s taxation authority by imposing tax penalties on those who are not in compliance with their health care bill. The federal income tax should be dealing exclusively with taxing income. And they’re going to punish those who can least afford it too.
The negotiations that have taken place thus far, including the Nebraska payoff, amounts to bribery for votes. The last time I checked, that’s a criminal offense. See references to “Bribery of Public Officials” for clarification.
The numbers aren’t adding up. The Dems are double-counting savings throughout the bill, but with the type of numbers they’re trying to shovel under the carpet, it’ll add to the debt faster than it will pay it off. Add the sweetheart deals to Democratic senators that they’ve bought off (some $159 billion from the bribery), and you have a budget-wrecking proposal.
Why are they targeting the system that pays for medical procedures, instead of limiting the amount that can be charged for medical procedures? I think they’re going about this business backwards.
The economy is still a train wreck. We shouldn’t be going for expensive new federal programs until the economy is cleaned up and is on the move again. The current Administration needs to clean up it’s own act and quit blaming Bush. This health care bill is Obama’s baby, not Bush’s. And using Bush’s excesses is not a valid excuse for the Obama Administration to continue the trend. What Obama should have done was cut the federal budget as soon as he took office, to pay down Bush’s debt. Once that was dealt with, THEN he should have started making noise about health care reform.
More to follow. I think all the deals should be immediately rescinded to start with. And the numbers redone. And all the constitutionally objectionable stuff removed. And abortion services either banned, or made as an option that pro-life people can opt out of.
Then we’ll see how much support this health care bill actually has.
We’re seeing the broken promises of the Democrats and President Obama on full display in the health care debate. Secret meetings, with no CSPAN cameras to get them on record.
The Democrats are terrified to have this promise fulfilled, as they may go from losing a lot of seats in November to losing a lot more. By all means, throw the light of day onto these secret negotiations that are reminiscent of a Soviet Politburo.
And the Attorneys General should file their lawsuit immediately to stop the unconstitutional measures found in this 2,000 page piece of crap.
People need to use common sense when utilizing technology that gives them directions across the country. I would not go into a desert simply because my GPS unit told me to do so. I also wouldn’t jump off a bridge either, if it told me to do so. They couldn’t tell that they were on an unmaintained road? With over a foot of snow sitting on the road? And no sign of civilization or people in at least twenty miles? And all to save two minutes to get home? They should have turned around and gone back on their original course.
At this stage, I would rate GPS accuracy at around 85-90% in metro areas, and 50-60% in rural areas. It’s continually improving, but GPS units should have a label on the box that says “use with caution.” And people should READ the warnings, too.
I’m glad that the couple in question got out safely, but they’re probably not going to be the last ones either, especially when sunspot activity resumes and electromagnetic interference in the atmosphere throws the GPS system off here and there. Use with caution.
I was on a mission this year, to catch my neighbor on video firing his shotgun into the air to ring in the New Year, but it didn’t happen as they moved out of the neighborhood. I was just as happy to not get involved, but I was going to put a stop to that.
But a kid got hit by a bullet in Georgia at a midnight service and died not long after. He was four years old.
The bullet came through the roof as the midnight hour hit on January 1st, and some damn fool took his firearm outside and fired. And the person firing probably forgot that that bullet had to come down somewhere.
This practice is illegal across the country, but people do it anyways. If they find this person who's responsible for the killing of a four year old in a church, they should throw the book at/and make an example out of the person responsible, whether they were intoxicated or not.
Firing a bullet up in the air and not caring where it comes down…sheer insanity.
The space shuttle fleet is scheduled for retirement in 2010, unless they extend the program a little longer so that there isn’t as much downtime between the Discovery’s final flight and the first operational flight of the Orion space vehicle.
Here is the published schedule for the final five flights:
February 7—Space Shuttle Endeavour will “…deliver the final connecting node, Tranquility Node 3, and the Cupola, a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center that provides a 360-degree view around the International Space Station.”
March 18—Space Shuttle Discovery will “…carry a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module filled with science racks that will be transferred to laboratories of the International Space Station.”
May 14—Space Shuttle Atlantis will “…will carry an integrated cargo carrier to deliver maintenance and assembly hardware, including spare parts for space station systems. In addition, the second in a series of new pressurized components for Russia, a Mini Research Module, will be permanently attached to the bottom port of the Zarya module.” This mission will be the final flight of the Atlantis.
July 29—Space Shuttle Endeavour will “…deliver an EXPRESS Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC-3) and an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station.” This mission will be the last one for the Endeavour.
September 16th—Space Shuttle Discovery will “…deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4), a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MLPM) and critical spare components to the International Space Station.” This is the final scheduled mission for the space shuttle program.
I hope all of these missions go off without a hitch. I think it’s safe to say that if they lose another shuttle prior to the scheduled retirement of the fleet, they’ll ground the shuttles permanently and send the hardware up to the ISS by other means.
Two of the shuttles are being offered up as museum pieces; one museum has put in a request for the Endeavour that NASA is considering.
A $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the two murderers who killed a Salvation Army major in front of his three children on Christmas Eve continues to grow.
So far there have been no arrests in this horrific crime. Hopefully the police are closing in; it sounds like they’ve gotten some tips.
I hope the Democrats in Congress and in the White House are watching what the Greeks are doing and are taking some notes. It’s what we should be doing right now too.
Congress and the President aren’t cutting their spending the way that they should be, and are making our debt load even worse.
They can’t be talking about turning their attention to cutting the debt after they pass health legislation. They need to postpone their debt-exploding health care reform bill and address the debt NOW, before it’s too late.
For months they’ve been saying that the debt exploded under the Bush Administration. That’s true, but that’s no excuse for continuing this very bad practice. They came in promising to restore financial sanity to Washington; it hasn’t happened, and I have no confidence in the current Congress or Administration to fix THE biggest threat to our nation.
We will have to look to the next Congress and Administration to get us out of the mess that no current Democrat is interested in fixing, in the least. They’re competing to get as much bacon as they can. Revolting!
The Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change--or whatever the hell it is that they’re calling it—is the largest gathering of global warming alarmists on the planet, and they have no legs to stand on.
Their data has been criminally tampered with by global warming supporters in the scientific community, and then destroyed, leaving no evidence behind other than an e-mail trail that someone forgot to erase.
All it is is a gathering of neo-communists, environmental wackos, and malcontents who don’t want to see the world as it is; they’d rather waste time and resources trying to stop a naturally occurring process instead of adapting to the situation and moving things forward. And spend money on their own causes too.
A little more responsibility in planning for the future would go a lot further rather than trying to stop global warming, which is going to happen regardless of what the wackos in Copenhagen decide upon. This is like trying to stop the sun from setting. They can spend trillions of dollars trying to stop it, but it’s trillions of dollars that they could be setting aside to relocate entire cities and communities that will be flooded out in the next hundred years.
That entire conference is doing a pretty good job of blowing a lot of hot air around. But that’s all that they’re doing, as well as arguing about a bad plan that won’t work, and is based on sketchy science. I think this conference is premature, and ill-considered, given what they’re up against.
Congress is preparing to raise the debt ceiling again to avoid defaulting on the debt. No, no, NO! Congress and the Administration need to cut their budgets and use the savings to PAY DOWN the debt, not add to it.
I have little faith that this and future administrations will have the discipline to reign in spending the way that they need to, before we’re presented with a bill that we have no way of paying, without adding more debt.
We also need to be able to tell China off without fear of China saying “no” to our borrowing requests. This is a symbiotic relationship that must be changed. The current Administration seems to want to avoid talking to China about it’s human rights record because we owe the Chinese SO much money.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made some more outlandish statements about his GOP colleagues and others trying to slow down the runaway health care reform train recently. In the statement, he said that those efforts were comparable to the efforts to prevent emancipation of the slaves before, during and after the Civil War.
He left out a VERY important fact on his statement.
It was the DEMOCRATS of that era who blocked the emancipation of the slaves, and resisted the 13th Amendment. Radical REPUBLICANS pushed through those changes and ended slavery. Some progressive Democrats joined the Republicans in ending slavery.
I would like to point out that no Democrat who favored slavery back then is alive today; that was then. Not today.
For Senator Reid to say something like this is more proof that he’s in over his head, and his runaway health care train is heading for a major derailment. And WHY should the Republicans be the ones to change their minds? He can’t even get his OWN party on board his runaway train.
I’m actually enjoying watching Reid and President Obama squirm.
MSNBC has a “breaking news” item on their web site today: “Rising Ocean Levels Could Threaten Maldives.”
No duh!
This is a re-run of a story that has already been gone through by all the news organizations, and is already common knowledge. According to MSNBC, they’re running the story in advance of the Copenhagen summit on global warming.
They should be reminding the summit that the Maldives WILL be underwater and that they will need help in relocating their entire population. But no, MSNBC is dedicated to stopping the rise of the waters. MSNBC needs to get real and face the facts as they ARE, not as they want them to be. And so should the politicians and the news media who support a failed theory.
Another former WWE talent, "Umaga" Edward Fatu, passed away at age 36 on Friday at a Dallas-area hospital.
He had been battling a lot of the same demons that have claimed other professional wrestlers and was suspended by World Wrestling Entertainment in June after failing a drug test.
I still don't think that these wrestling organizations are doing enough to change the culture that says that their athletes have to have huge muscular bodies in order to be considered "successful" and that drug abuse, in any form, is bad for their employees, and bad for business. WWE has moved forward with it's Wellness Policy, but it doesn't account for the damage that many of these wrestlers had done to themselves years ago.
Look at Eddie Guerrero; the former WWE great had undergone major struggles, but conquered his demons and had been drug and alcohol free for years; but the damage had already been done and he passed away at age 38.
Road Warrior Hawk is another example. He had turned his life around too, but the damage had been done years before and it caught up to him. Hawk passed away at age 45.
These wrestler deaths seem to come in clusters. I hope this isn't the start of a new one.
The Michigan government is asking Michigan snowbirds, or residents who go south for the winter, to fill out their census forms when they get mailed out in February or March. They need to indicate that they are residents of Michigan on the forms, and not residents of Florida or Arizona, or wherever they go during the winter months.
The government estimates that 200,000 snowbirds were counted as residents of other states during the 2000 census; as a result Michigan lost a Congressional seat and about $2 billion over the last ten years.
If the estimates are correct, and we’ve lost 11% of our population, the results will be devastating, with the loss of billions in federal aid, and the proportionate loss of representation in Congress.
Accuracy in the census and the addition of the snowbirds will stem the heavy loss of workers in our struggling state.
If you’re a Michigan snowbird, please read the following from the State of Michigan:
LANSING - Lt. Governor John D. Cherry, Jr. reminds Michigan residents who leave the state for warmer climates during part of the year, commonly referred to as snowbirds, to make sure they are counted in Michigan for the upcoming Census in 2010. Every resident of the United States should be counted by the Census just once and in the correct state. "Michigan residents who spend a smaller portion of the year at a residence in another state should be sure to fill out the Census form for Michigan," said Lt. Governor Cherry. "There are dramatic financial impacts to Michigan, and we need to be sure that our residents are counted here and not in another state."
Unfortunately, Census forms that will be mailed in March do not have clear instructions for people with more than one place of residence. This runs the risk of many snowbirds being counted in the wrong state.
Michigan snowbirds should follow these guidelines:
1. Zero should be entered on the Census form received at the second residence, as the number of people residing there, and the rest of the form should remain blank. It is also a good idea to write "usual residence elsewhere" on the form so that the Census Bureau will know the reason for entering zero.
2. If other individuals are occupying the home in Michigan while permanent residents are away, those completing the Census form should include the permanent residents.
3. If no one is staying at the Michigan home, residents should wait until returning to Michigan to complete the Census form. If a form hasn't been received, Census personnel will contact residents between May and July.
For each Michigan resident who is missed by the Census or who is counted in a different state, over $1,000 in federal funds that should be allocated to Michigan each year will be spent elsewhere.
"Just missing one person in the Census means a loss of at least $10,000 in funds to Michigan over the course of a decade," added the lieutenant governor. "We can't afford to not be counted."
Michigan has more snowbirds than many other states, with an average of 2.1 percent of Michigan's residents identified as part-year residents. Most of Michigan's part-year residents have their permanent homes in Michigan and spend the smaller part of the year in another state, which means they need to be counted in Michigan.
President Obama has decided to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan to 100,000 in the next six months before beginning a staged pullout starting in mid-2011. It looks like he has a target of a U.S. troop pullout before the next U.S. presidential election.
His goals are ambitious and not without a lot of risk. There has to be progress on many fronts, including progress in stabilizing Afghanistan’s government, guaranteeing basic human rights, reducing corruption in government, controlling the drug trade, and building up their military to the point that the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda will not be able to defeat them in sustained battle. That’s the key.
I’m not sure if Congress will play ball, though. The left wants no troop buildup, the right wants no timetable. I disagree with both sides. There should be a temporary surge, and they should be talking inside the Administration about a withdrawal date. Whether that timetable should be made public is a different story.
They should let the surge go forward, with full funding, then start pulling back depending on what’s happening on the ground. And the Afghan government should be given the same deal as the Iraqi government has been given: fight your own battles. And we should be providing the tools that they need to get the job done. The Afghan Army should be the strongest military force in the country, not the Taliban and not al-Qaeda. And the same thing goes for the Iraqi Army in Iraq.
We owe it to the soldiers who have died there to make sure that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. And to make sure that we won’t be back in either country in the future, retaking the same ground AGAIN that’s already been paid for in blood.
In other words, their version of global warming is getting trashed in favor of a more accurate and reliable accounting of what global warming actually is—a naturally occurring phenomenon that has gone on MUCH longer than humanity has been around. And will still be going on until the day the sun consumes the planet.
But I’m happy to see that they’re now talking about the inevitable changes that will be coming, instead of trying to stop the changes. It’s about bloody time too. We can no more stop global warming than we can stop the sun from setting.
Now, Senator Boxer is crying about charging someone who exposed the global warming data manipulations (that we all knew was going on) with a crime to cover up her and her compatriots’ own crimes of collusion and abuse of power with regards to falsifying global warming data and trying to sell the public a boatload of crap.
And it’s also interesting to note that the manipulated data has mysteriously been destroyed. Perhaps Senator Boxer and Speaker Pelosi should investigate THAT.
