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.
Rest in Peace, Andrew.
The televised health care debate was a joke.
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.
Why are the conservatives crying about Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) voting for a Democratic jobs bill? He stated his intentions loud and clear up until now; what were they expecting? This guy’s another McCain. Who didn’t know that?
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.
Where might one get a license??!
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.
Let the creatures be.
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.
Can we hold the November vote now, please?
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.
We CAN’T keep this up.
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.
No good can come of this.
Amazing!
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:
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.
One week ago the Vatican blasted the international community for not striking a deal on a global warming, saying that it was humanity’s responsibility to care for God’s creation.
Yesterday, it blasted the James Cameron film “Avatar” for promoting worship of nature over that of religion.
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
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.
Enough of the hypocrisy, already!
