Why Not?

Not that I want the Wishy-Washy-inator to run for President, but why can't he? More specifically, why couldn't he be sworn in if he won?

It has already been determined that you do not need to produce evidence that you meet the qualifications (age, natural born citizen). No one has yet been able to force Obama mmm mmm mmm to provide evidence that he meets the qualifications and he was sworn in almost a year and a half ago. No court has found that he must do so. His word, or lack of admitting he does not qualify is enough. He has spent untold piles of cash to avoid simply making his birth certificate public - instead his defenders point us to newspaper clippings and forms that simply say he was born. Well, d'uh. What all do they put on birth certificates? Father? Mother? Weight? Time? Footprints? What part of this plethora of highly embarrassing information does Obey-Won not want us to see? Now please note that I am not claiming that Obama is not qualified (Constitutionally, that is) to be president, I am simply pointing out the undeniable truth that he has fought tooth and nail to prevent America from seeing his birth certificate.

Ah, but someone could produce evidence that Ah-nold was born in another country to non-American parents!, I hear you thinking.

To that I respond - So?

No court has agreed that any American, including competing Presidential candidates, have the standing to present an argument against Obey-Won's qualifications. So even if you have Ah-nold's birth certificate - or whatever they call it in Austria - and can produce witnesses that say they were there when he was born, no court, apparently, will let you present this evidence - you do not have standing to bring any such challenge against Ah-nold. They have essentially said that there is a part of the Constitution that cannot and will not be enforced, because there is simply no way for a court to hear a case about it.

So what's stopping Ah-nold from running? More importantly, what's stopping him from being sworn in if he were to win? According to the US court system...nothing.

About That Arizona Law

Well worth reading (and, yes, praise to the NYT for printing it):

ON Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a law — SB 1070 — that prohibits the harboring of illegal aliens and makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration crimes. It also requires police officers who, in the course of a traffic stop or other law-enforcement action, come to a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an illegal alien verify the person’s immigration status with the federal government.

Predictably, groups that favor relaxed enforcement of immigration laws, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insist the law is unconstitutional. Less predictably, President Obama declared it “misguided” and said the Justice Department would take a look.

Presumably, the government lawyers who do so will actually read the law, something its critics don’t seem to have done. The arguments we’ve heard against it either misrepresent its text or are otherwise inaccurate. As someone who helped draft the statute, I will rebut the major criticisms individually:

It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them. It is true that the Arizona law makes it a misdemeanor for an alien to fail to carry certain documents. “Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers ... you’re going to be harassed,” the president said. “That’s not the right way to go.” But since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep such registration documents with them...

“Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words...Precedents list the factors that can contribute to reasonable suspicion...

The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling. Actually, Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” in making any stops or determining immigration status...In fact, the Arizona law actually reduces the likelihood of race-based harassment by compelling police officers to contact the federal government as soon as is practicable when they suspect a person is an illegal alien, as opposed to letting them make arrests on their own assessment.

It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver’s license. Arizona’s law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver’s license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt...

State governments aren’t allowed to get involved in immigration, which is a federal matter. While it is true that Washington holds primary authority in immigration, the Supreme Court since 1976 has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law. As long as Congress hasn’t expressly forbidden the state law in question, the statute doesn’t conflict with federal law and Congress has not displaced all state laws from the field, it is permitted. That’s why Arizona’s 2007 law making it illegal to knowingly employ unauthorized aliens was sustained by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit...

Kris W. Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, was Attorney General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration law and border security from 2001 to 2003.

Per Byron York:

We are...confronted routinely by people of all stripes asking to see our driver's license. When we board an airplane, we are asked to produce a government-issued photo ID, usually a driver's license. When we make some credit- or debit-card purchases in department stores, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we enter many office buildings, both private and government, security guards often ask us to produce a driver's license. When we go to doctors' offices and hospitals, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we check into hotels, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we purchase some over-the-counter drugs, we are asked to produce a driver's license. If we go to a bar or nightclub, anyone who looks at all young is asked to produce a driver's license. And needless to say, if we have any encounter with police or other authorities, we are asked to produce a driver's license.

Some situations involve an even higher level of scrutiny. When we get a new job, we are asked to provide not a driver's license but a passport or birth certificate to prove citizenship. In other situations, too: When I renewed my District of Columbia driver's license last year, I had to produce a passport to prove citizenship, even though it was a valid, unexpired license I was renewing. And in many places, buying a gun -- a constitutionally-protected right -- involves enormous scrutiny.

--
UPDATE - how does the Times Union retort? With an editorial cartoon on Saturday comparing Arizona to Hitler. Bravo in your race to the bottom, dipsticks. Apparently it's like Nazism to require immigrants to carry their papers (just like the federal laws require) and ask to see said identification during routine stops by the police (just as when the police ask you for your driver's license when they pull you over). Yup, just like feeding Jews to ovens, Times Union. Jacka**es.

Well That Was Unexpected

Interesting. Where's the "unexpected"? Today's 1Q10 GDP reading came it at 3.2%.

But the consensus was 3.3%.

So why isn't the AP saying that the GDP figure was "unexpectedly" lower than anticipated?

Surely not to make Obey-Won look good.

Surely not.

Is NY Times Calling For Death Of Chris Christie?

Whenever a conservative (cough Sarah Palin cough) uses any sort of euphemism that can also have a militaristic, violent, or weapon-related overtone (even when not intended that way as easily determined by anyone with an IQ over 80) you can be sure the liberal media will be there claim that the conservative is calling for violence to be done unto the target of the euphemism...oops, now I've done it...see? "target". Darn.

Anywho...it seems that the NY Times is indicating that NJ schoolchildren are preparing to assassinate NJ's new, conservative governor, Chris Christie. The language choices are just at "alarming" as those used by Gov. Palin - so either the NY Times is trying to egg on those praying for Christie's death or the clearly-prompted students (the 'event' was prompted by a non-student slacker leftist wannabe community organizer that doesn't follow through on promises and can't handle criticism) themselves are now advocating violence against the governor elected by a solid majority of NJ voters:

It was a silent call to arms...

Michelle Ryan Lauto, 18, a college freshman, joined students who walked out of High Tech High School in Bergen County. It was Ms. Lauto’s Facebook message urging students to take a stand against budget cuts that led to the protests around the state. “All I did was make a Facebook page,” she said. “Anyone who has an opinion could do that and have their opinion heard.”...

The mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old aspiring actress and a college freshman, and came a week after voters rejected 58 percent of school district budgets put to a vote across the state (not all districts have a direct budget vote)...

Ms. Lauto, enrolled at Pace University, said she has always had an activist streak. In seventh grade, she tried — but failed — to organize a protest over a new dress code, and after President George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, she wrote “Going to Canada, Be Back in 4 Years” on a T-shirt and wore it to class...

Within a week, Ms. Lauto received hundreds of responses, not all of them positive. In fact, so many students insulted her and said the walkout was a stupid idea that she disabled the message function on her Facebook page...

Humanism Goes Too Far

Despite its adherents' claims to the contrary, "secular" humanism is, well, a religion. The whole thing about man being all there is and man needing to continually improve himself to an ideal...it's a religion, man. If I recall correctly the Supreme Court at one point actually concluded it met all the basic standards of a "religion".

Anyway, lately it seems like there have been a lot of, well, nutty things in the news from people that I'm forced to conclude are pretty much humanists...they believe that humans are an almighty force able to accomplish inconceivable acts not just intentionally, not just with a force of will, but simply with their opinions, political leanings, inability to buy into Algore's HotAirism, and indirectly through other, completely unrelated acts.

For example:

Humanist Sharon Stone believes that China's earthquake was caused by the poor treatment of Tibet by the Chinese people. Because they mistreated Tibet the earth itself rose up against them. Mankind is just that powerful.

A writer for the Economist, Anne Applebaum, has a British humanist friend that believes that the eruption of a volcano in Iceland was caused by "the bad things we have done to the Earth". Mankind is just that powerful.

Humanist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. believes that Hurricane Katrina was punishment for Mississippi's governor's opposition to the Kyoto Debacle. Haley Barbour is just that powerful.

Humanist Danny Glover believes that the Haiti earthquake was punishment against wealthy nations for not doing enough to combat phony-baloney anthropogenic global warming at the Copenhagen CO2 fest. Jet-setting polluting politicians are just that powerful.

-
If you feel I'm misusing the term 'humanist' feel free to suggest a better term. I think it fits: "a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially : a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason". Basically they're ignoring any supernatural and natural forces and attributing these events to being a result of intentional acts of mankind.

Credit Where Credit Isn't Due

You like how the White House is continuing it's "we did that!" credit-claiming-fest? Stability in Iraq? Obama did that. Leveling off of unemployment? Obama did that. Now on the front page we have the press lauding the White House for making Cape Wind happen.

What do these things have in common?

Obey-Won and the Debt-i Knights had nothing to do with any of them. Iraq was on the road to stability before Bush left office. There's no one left to lay off unless/until financial policies are revised to extravagantly against employers (aka 'the rich') that they basically go out of business - and the leveling off happened about a year later than it was predicted to happen before Obey-Won took America for a ride office.

And, let's be honest...Teddy "you can swim, right?" Kennedy dying had more to do with Cape Wind finally going through than Obama did. The only thing that's held it up until now was the vehement opposition of liberal elitists that didn't want their view cluttered up with wind turbines.

What Would (They To) Palin Do?

Yikes, what an awful title for a post! :)

Wolves kill cow calf, horse near Pinedale

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say wolves from the Black Butte pack killed the calf at a ranch in mid-March. Agents then killed three wolves from the pack — a radio-collared adult, a pup and a yearling...

Officials believe there are probably two wolves left in the pack and they plan to put them down.

Wolf management project leader Mike Jimenez believes the pack is the same one that killed about 37 sheep and a steer last summer. He says two-thirds of the state's packs don't cause chronic problems.

3 wolf packs in SW Montana to be eliminated

Federal trappers killed four wolves this month from an area of the Big Hole Valley that has repeatedly seen attacks on livestock.

The four wolves come on the heels of five others that have been lethally removed over the past three months from the Miner Lakes and Bender packs, as well as any wolves remaining from the Battlefield pack that was taken out last year...

The decision to wipe out the three packs signals stepped up efforts to deal with persistent attacks on livestock in the valley this winter...

State officials authorized the removal of the Miner Lakes pack, which had grown large and been estimated to contain around 15 wolves. And last year the Battlefield pack that lived west of Wisdom was authorized for elimination after repeated attacks.

Trappers killed all but one of the pack and the lone survivor was believed to have joined the Miner Lakes pack. But attacks on livestock continued west of Wisdom...

She said a higher quota is justified because even with a record number of wolves killed through control actions and an additional 72 taken by hunters, the wolf population continued to grow.

“Last year was a pretty conservative biological quota,” she said. “Clearly last year was sustainable and then some.”

So when federal employees kill wolves because they're killing livestock it's no big deal. But when Alaskans, with the approval of their governor, kill wolves because they're killing their food supply (moose, etc.) the left has an absolute bonkers flip out conniption. I don't recall them ever calling the Alaskan plans "lethal removal". Double standard much?

Typical Bias

Ho-hum liberal bias (sad that it's so prevalent that it's actually 'ho-hum' isn't it?):

ABC:

On Saturday's Good Morning America, reporter Mike Von Fremd downplayed the violence of protesters against Arizona's new immigration law. He spun, "Riot police were called in to try and control demonstrators protesting outside the capital. Most were peaceful. A handful threw bottles at police and were arrested." Yet, ABC derided March's Tea Party rallies as "very ugly," despite the fact that there were no arrests...

If Tea Party protesters had thrown bottles at members of Congress or police officers -- or anyone else, for that matter -- it seems unlikely that ABC would have described them as "mostly peaceful."

NYT:

As hundreds of demonstrators massed, mostly peacefully, at the capitol plaza, the governor, speaking at a state building a few miles away, said the law “represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.”

Achibold didn't go into why he felt obliged to include the modifier “mostly.” For that, one had to check out a local report filed Friday night that included details the Times left out:

Three people were arrested during the immigration rally at the state capitol Friday afternoon...

This local news clip is even more dramatic, showing a police officer being nailed with a water bottle, one of many hurled in the semi-chaotic "march" that the headline terms a "small riot."

It's interesting that, for all the Times' hand-wringing over how the Tea Party movement is potentially inspiring violent acts, there has evidently yet to be a single documented case of violence or arrest at any of the many Tea Party functions. Meanwhile, here are three actual arrests at a single medium-sized rally dominated by left-wingers, and the Times doesn't find the fact worth mentioning.

I believe the known acts of violence that resulted in arrests (the racially-tinged beating of Kenneth Gladney by SEIU thugs and the protester who had their finger bitten off by a MoveOn.org member) weren't at TEA Party events (I could be wrong, I thought at least one of those was a health care town hall rally) and were acts of violence by angry liberals, not the conservative protesters.

Is He A Socialist, Yet?

Dear Mr. and Ms. Liberal Media,

Obama just told an audience the following:

I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.

Coupled with his stated economic philosophy that "everyone" is better off if you take away money from someone that has earned it and give it to someone that has not ("spread the wealth around"), is is finally Ok to call Barack Hussein Obama (mmm mmm mmm) a socialist now?

If not, then what line, exactly, must the man cross?

Nationalization of private businesses? Check.

Class warfare against the successful? Check.

Stated demands for the rich to give up their earnings to those that have not earned it? Check.

Manipulate the law to allow private industries to break bankruptcy laws so that the means of production can be turned over to the workers instead of paying off debtors? Check.

Spread the wealth around? Check.

The government determining when you've made "enough money"? Check.

If not now, when?

Can You Hear Me Now?

Anybody see Andrew "Yes, I helped cause the mortgage meltdown" Cuomo talking about Espada on the news this morning?

See him yelling even though he had a microphone?

Cripes, does he always do that? That's going to be annoying.

Obama Admininistration Hid Damning Obamacare Report Before Vote

Strongly suggest you pop over to Wizbang where Michael has a roundup of some stories that are absolutely devastating to the Debt-i Knights. Not only did the Medicare Office of the Actuary produce a report showing that Obamacare would RAISE premiums, RAISE health care costs long term more than if the law hadn't passed, make it HARDER for people to find a doctor, and "face "a significant risk of failure", but the Obama administration HAD THE REPORT FOR MORE THAN A WEEK BEFORE THE VOTES AND SAT ON IT!

"The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote," says an HHS source. "Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think."

The analysis, performed by Medicare's Office of the Actuary, which in the past has been identified as a "nonpolitical" office, set off alarm bells when submitted. "We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff," says the HHS staffer, "and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted to the secretary's office. Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report."

The Gullible Gazette

Michael Lamendola over at the Daily Gazette (Coffee Party organizing as an alternative to Tea Party - Friday) shouldn't feel too bad that he was duped about the "grassroots" Coffee Party...after all, the NY Times and other liberal mass media also fell for it.

Of course the truth has since come out...quite a while ago, actually. Of course the only "research" the Gazette's "reporter" did was on CNN.com, apparently:

The Coffee Party is an alternative to the Tea Party, said organizer Heather Lewis...

The Tea Party is considered a conservative group, with smaller government as one of their core aims...

The Schenectady Coffee Party intends to function as a discussion group, "but we would like to get into political activism at some point. We would like to focus on getting people engaged in the political process," Lewis said.

The Coffee Party launched itself in April first on Facebook and then across the nation in coffee shops, according to CNN.com. The group's mission statement states that it wants to give voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government...

The Coffee Party calls itself a grassroots movement without ideology. However, Lewis said she and her co-organizers consider themselves progressives, while political observers label the Tea Party movement as populist.

So the TEA Party is conservative and the Coffee Party is...apparently not liberal. In fact that word never shows up. Media Bias 101, Mr. Lamendola.

Let's dig into this just a bit, Mr. Lamendola didn't bother to, instead relying on a quick search on CNN's website and whatever Ms. Lewis, who we will get to in a moment, told him.

First, the Coffee Party is not even close to a grassroots organization (fully linkiness at link):

It turns out that the "grassroots" organizer of the "progressive alternative" to the Tea Parties, the Coffee Party, has been exposed as an Obama political operative. If you had read the profiles of the Coffee Party founder Annabel Park in the Washington Post or New York Times you wouldn't have had a hint as to her extensive political activity in the 2008 Obama campaign. So how did William A. Jacobson of Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion discover this "deep secret" that the two major newspapers with their vast resources were unable to find? Well, it required the "tremendous effort" of tapping a few keys and a whole mouse click to find this subject matter as Jacobson explains:

In fact, a simple internet search (which the NY Times apparently is not capable of doing) reveals that Park organized the Coffee Party for the specific purpose of undermining the Tea Party movement.

Park is a former Strategy Analyst at the NY Times who was one of organizers and operators of the United for Obama video channel at YouTube:

A strategy analyst for the New York Times who was one of the organizers for United for Obama?...

As to Park herself, she was a bit more than disingenuous when she made this claim of solidarity with the Tea Party movement:

“We’re not the opposite of the Tea Party,” Ms. Park, 41, said. “We’re a different model of civic participation, but in the end we may want some of the same things.”

Unfortunately her own words on Twitter belie her phony claim:

Are we going to sit & watch the tea party take our government & media? Come on! That's inexcusable. Get off of your butt.

we must deal with reality instead of indulging the paranoid fantasies of the #teaparty. join #coffeeparty

we're not going to take this tea crap anymore. let's work for change! #coffeeparty

One might think a "reporter" would do a little research. Guess not at the Gazette. Did you catch the mimicry of Park in Lewis' words? Almost like she's reading off a script, isn't it? Here's a clue to the Gazette - when the organizer of a 'movement' is a activist player it's not grassroots - and when the local organizers mimic the words of that activist leader as if they're reading from a script - they're not a grassroots organization.

As for Ms. Lewis herself - as near as I can tell she's all up in community organizing...is she the Heather Lewis that interned with the United Way? I'm quite certain, however that she's a "Program Coordinator" for The Center For Community Justice In The Courts For the Common Good. Their mission?

The mission of The Center for Community Justice is to provide programs and services dedicated to community-based remedies in the pursuit of peaceful resolutions, accountability and justice.

Tell me that doesn't scream "community organizer". Not that there's anything wrong with that, don't get me wrong. Just don't try to tell me that that's the same as housewives bringing their kids to a TEA party rally.

Your Random Saturday

Thomas Sowell on the race-baiting left:

Has he been allied with uniters or dividers in the past? Do Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger sound like uniters?

What has his administration done-- as distinguished from what the president has said-- since taking office?

It has dropped the prosecution of black thugs caught on camera stationed outside a polling place intimidating voters.

Obama has promoted to the Supreme Court a circuit judge who dismissed a discrimination lawsuit by white firefighters, whose case the Supreme Court later accepted and ruled in their favor.

He preceded this appointment by talking about needing people on the court with "empathy." That is a pretty word but the ugly reality is that it is just another euphemism for bias. For generations, white Southern judges had all kinds of empathy for other white Southerners, which is to say, bias against blacks.

The question is whether you want equal treatment or you want payback. Cycles of revenge and counter-revenge have been at the heart of racial and ethnic strife throughout history, in countries around the world. It is a history written in blood. It is history we don't need to repeat in the United States of America.

Jonah Goldberg asks a question asked before that will be asked again - sometimes it bears repeating:

Britain, which has the most credible military in NATO after ours, has funded its butter account with its gun account. As Mark Steyn recently noted in National Review, from 1951 to 1997 the share of British government expenditure on defense fell from 24 percent to 7 percent, while the share on health and welfare increased from 22 percent to 53 percent. And that was before New Labor started rolling back Thatcherism. If America Europeanizes, who's going to protect Europe? Who's going to keep the sea lanes open? Who's going to contain Iran? China? OK, maybe. But then who's going to contain China?

But that's not the only way in which Europeans are free-riders. America invents a lot of stuff. When was the last time you used a Portuguese electronic device? How often does Europe come out with a breakthrough drug? Not often, and when they do, it's usually because companies like Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline increasingly conduct their research here. Indeed, the top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single country combined. We nearly monopolize the Nobel Prize in medicine, and we create stuff at a rate Europe hasn't seen since da Vinci was in his workshop.

Off Limits

Remember - politician's kids are OFF LIMITS...

except when you want to use them for a feel good story about Obey-Won.

GM Pays Off Bailout Loan...With Bailout Loan!

This is almost too effed up for words:

It was with great fanfare yesterday that General Motors announced that it was repaying some $4.7 billion of $6.7 billion in loans it received from the federal government. And, with even bigger fanfare, it was announced that this partial repayment was being made some five years earlier than expected.

Too good to be true? Well, it is.

What you weren’t told was that GM was able to repay the money by drawing down on a line of credit that it had from TARP! In other words, GM took funds still available to it through TARP and used those funds to repay the loan it received from the government. Of course, it now owes $4.7 billion on its line of credit with TARP, but, that doesn’t make for good news, so it wasn’t reported.

A Pack Of Filibusterers Warn Non-Filibusterers Not To Filibuster

hypocrisy: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion

It really is a strange new world that we're living in. Up is down. Day is night. Enemies are for grovelling and allies are for whipping.

In WH meeting, 'Only two of the elected officials in the room had never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee'

When Senate leaders went to the White House Wednesday morning to discuss the Supreme Court opening, the meeting was attended by President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and ranking member Patrick Leahy and Jeff Sessions, and Senate majority and minority leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell.

There has been some talk of a possible Republican filibuster of Obama's choice, although Obama hasn't yet actually made the choice. Be that as it may, Republicans well remember that there was an attempted filibuster of the last Republican Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, and 25 Democrats supported it. And among those 25 who voted to filibuster Alito were all the Democrats present at Wednesday's meeting -- Obama, Biden, Reid, and Leahy.

"It didn't go without being noticed that only two of the elected officials in the room had never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee," says one Republican Senate aide. Those two, of course, were McConnell and Sessions. So at the moment, the only lawmakers who are being criticized for even being open to the possibility of a filibuster are the ones who have never, in fact, taken part in one...

By the way, Democrats not only tried to filibuster Alito, they began threatening a filibuster before the nomination was made. "If it's going to be a nominee who is way, way out of the mainstream…there's the possibility of a filibuster," said Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer on CBS on October 30, 2005.

Ah, Chuckie. Yet another quote to demonstrate his own hypocrisy. You'll recall that Chuckie is totally in favor of litmus tests for SCOTUS nominees.

The Line They Dare Not Cross

Chalk up a third win for muslim murderers.

They intimidated Spaniards into electing a weak socialist instead of a popular conservative.

They intimidated Roland Emmerich into not blowing up, virtually, a muslim shrine.

And now they even managed to intimidate South Park. The land once known for zero taboos now apparently has one group they refuse to mock - murderous muslims.

Tell any leftwing nutjob that blathers mindlessly about how Christians or conservatives are more dangerous than muslims that they can stick this list in their pipe and smoke it.

My Wealth Now Being Spread

Well, it's happening for real. Income taxes just aren't enough for the socialists in Democrat clothing running America. I can now demonstrably add myself to the list who is having my wealth spread by Democrats to those that don't deserve it.

Up until a few days ago whenever I used my credit card I would get points that I could use to get cash back. If it's not obvious - this is how it works: The credit card companies charge businesses so that the business can accept credit cards. Whatever it is, a few percent, the business would have to pay that to the credit card company. Now that so many people are using credit cards for everyday purchases, the businesses build in that charge to their prices (just like businesses don't pay taxes, the people that use their products pay those taxes). If you're old enough, and it wasn't that long ago, gas stations used to charge more for credit card purchases over cash. Yes, what they started doing when gas shot up to $4/gal they used to do all the time. They passed that charge from the credit card company straight to the credit card user. Then they started just spreading it to everyone since so many used credit cards. So, by offering me cash back, the credit card company is basically paying me back that extra fee built into the prices I pay at the register.

Now, there's more to it than that, of course. Credit card companies aren't benevolent societies, they're businesses out to make money also. The fee they charge businesses to process credit card payments is their operating cost and profit, they can't just give that back to people with good credit that pay off their cards and stay in business. In order to let them give me back some of that extra charge they collect fees from people that take advantage of the easy credit by not paying off their bill every month or even failing to meet the terms of their agreement, not paying their bill, etc. Naturally, since I pay my bill, they're not rolling in it from me. They're rolling in it from the people that charge more than they can afford. It's not like people don't know that you have to actually pay back the credit card company for their purchases.

So anyway, you've got these two groups. I follow the rules, live within my means, and in return I don't have to pay some of the extra charge for the convenience of using a credit card. Well, I didn't. The credit card company could afford to live off of the little they made from me by living off those in the other group, those not living within their means.

But the socialists decided that "everyone" would be better off if they spread the wealth around.

Really?

Am I better off now that my credit card company (like many others) slashed rewards in response to the new credit card laws from the socialists? Am I? I certainly don't think I'm better off. I know I'm not. My cash back has been seriously slashed. The businesses aren't going to change their fees and neither are the credit card companies. Heck, they might raise them to recoup their losses. All of this gets passed along to me...my wealth is now being "spread around". Who is it benefiting? Me? Yeah, right. It's benefiting the people that didn't used to live within their means. The socialists are now forcing credit card companies to take less money from them and instead take more money from me.

My wealth, as someone that goes by the rules, pays their bills, and lives within their means is now being forced to give up wealth and have it directed to those that don't go by the rules, pay their bills, and/or live within their means.

My wealth is being spread around and the same goes for all of you like me.

Barack Hussein Obama mmm mmm mmm, Obey-Won and the Debt-i Knights say that everyone will be better off if only they spread our wealth around.

Am I better off with less money in my pocket?

Like hell.

Obama's Goldman Sachs Albatross

I still think that the Patriots agreed to throw the Super Bowl to the Giants to put their little videotaping scandal to rest once and for all. It was a tough one to swallow, an undefeated season through the SB, but I guess it was bad enough to make that sacrifice.

I know, I'm in Giants land here. Tough. You watched the game. Tell me I'm way off base. Maybe you've convinced yourself that the Giants' defensive line dominated the game and beat the Pats, but you won't convince me. I watched the Patriots reel off an undefeated regular season and waltz through the playoffs with a quick hit short passing game controlling the clock offset with deep bombs to Randy Moss with a dash of a running game. Did you watch the Super Bowl? Did you see the Pats play that offense? They did not - save for one, count 'em ONE drive. As if thumbing their nose at the league and determined to show that they could have won it if they wanted it, on exactly one drive the Pats played their regular offense dominated by short passes. On that drive they converted time and time again. By the time they got down the field the defensive line was gasping and panting and barely able to stand upright. They weren't getting close to Brady, if you can't stop a short passing game you're never going to harass the QB. But that was it. On one drive they dominated the Giants defensive line, wore them out, made them look bad. They never went back to that short passing game that got them where they were. Not once. So I don't want to hear anything about the Giants defensive line winning that game, on the one drive the Pats played their true offense they destroyed that line effortlessly.

What the hell am I talking about?

Goldman Sachs and its employees are BIG TIME Democrat donors. After Hillary got them a nice fat wad of cash after 9-11 they were her biggest contributors for her Senate run (the one where she said she wasn't going to run for president *snort*). They gave lustily for Obey-Won.

Yet they are being thrown under Obama's bus (is there still room under there?!)

I have the following questions:

Are they going along 'willingly' - being the whipping boy in order to garner later favorable status as a bit more equal than all the other animals banks in the Empire? Are they playing 'the good soldier'?

When will the mainstream press really latch onto this storyline?

While Goldman Sachs' lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman's chief executive visited the White House at least four times.

White House logs show that Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein traveled to Washington for at least two events with President Barack Obama, whose 2008 presidential campaign received $994,795 in donations from Goldman's political action committee, its employees and their relatives. He also met twice with Obama's top economic adviser, Larry Summers...

Goldman's connections to the White House and the Obama administration are raising eyebrows at a time when Washington and Wall Street are dueling over how to overhaul regulation of the financial world.

Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist, said that "almost everything that the White House has done has been haunted by the personnel and the money of Goldman . . . as well as the suspicion that the White House, particularly early on, was pulling its punches out of deference to Goldman and its war chest...

Schapiro's statement said that she's "disappointed" by Republican rhetoric suggesting that the SEC case against Goldman might have been timed to boost legislative prospects for a financial regulation overhaul bill, which Obama plans to pitch in a speech in New York Thursday...

Goldman's nearly $1 million in campaign contributions to Obama's presidential campaign were the most from any single employer except the University of California. Still, they represented only a fraction of the more than $700 million that the campaign raised...

Several former Goldman executives hold senior positions in the Obama administration, including Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Mark Patterson, a former Goldman lobbyist who is chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; and Robert Hormats, the undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs.

When will lust for Pulitzers overcome lust for Obama in the press? I mean, compared to the frenzy with which they went after Bush and Cheney (who took far less from Enron than Obama did from Goldman Sachs) for donations and the 'energy meetings' the Cheney had (that were declared legal and private in court) that were perhaps no different than the meetings GS had with Obama's White House this should be just the tip of the iceberg.

President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for Bush was worse than Whitewater for Clinton...

But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up to Obama's $1,007,370.85 (inflation adjusted) from Goldman-affiliated executives and employees. That's also not taking into account how much Goldman contributed to Obama cabinet member Hillary Clinton ($415,595.63 inflation adjusted), which was itself almost three times as much as Bush received as well.

They Still Don't Get Palin

Amazing. After all this time the far left's leaders still simply cannot grasp why Sarah Palin is popular.

And these are the people that the press tries to portray as the 'mainstream' and 'average' and 'typical'...the people that have no clue what the appeal is of someone like Sarah Palin and a movement of people like her...that generally, well...like her.

In another segment, Joy Behar asked Biden, "What is the appeal of Sarah Palin, exactly?"

Biden said: "After you meet her, she is a charming person. It's hard not to like her." The vice president paused to ponder a more detailed explanation for Palin's mass appeal — then wound up saying simply, "I don't know."

And they wonder why America isn't buying what they're selling, trust them, believe them, or follow where they're leading. When you get right down to where the rubber meets the road, the far left simply does not understand the average American and can not come up with a single reason why someone that appeals to those people has such an appeal beyond the fact that they might be 'likable'.

These are the people that want to run every aspect of your lives, people. Your health, your job, your employer, your children, your education, your retirement...the whole ball of wax.

Glad That's Over With

Thankfully, "Earth Day" has now seemingly devolved (well, in the case of "Earth Day" evolved into just another 'hey I can get free stuff!' "holiday".

Earth Day is turning 40 this year. To celebrate, many businesses are offering consumers free stuff, chances to win valuable prizes, and some good deals.

Here's a sampling of Earth Day freebies...

That's a relief.

Public Employees In UK Claim Their Work On Public Dime Is Private Property

I'm pretty sure the technical term to describe this situation is: having your cake and eating it, too.

Seems like what we have are public employees, working at a public university doing research for which the public pays them, claiming that they don't have to make the results of the research they did at a public university using public money...well...public and obey freedom of information requests, because the research they did at a public university using public money is their private property...actually, they are claiming they own the copyright to...wait for it...tree rings.

Happily, the government didn't buy it:

In a landmark ruling, the UK Information Commissioner's Office has ruled that Queen's University Belfast must hand over data obtained during 40 years of research into 7,000 years of Irish tree rings to a City banker and part-time climate analyst, Doug Keenan.

This week, the Belfast ecologist who collected most of the data, Professor Mike Baillie, described the ruling as "a staggering injustice ... We are the ones who trudged miles over bogs and fields carrying chain saws. We prepared the samples and - using quite a lot of expertise and judgment – we measured the ring patterns. Each ring pattern therefore has strong claims to be our copyright. Now, for the price of a stamp, Keenan feels he is entitled to be given all this data."...

Keenan has become notorious for pursuing a series of vitriolic disputes with British academics over climate data. Two years ago, he accused Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia of "fraud" over his analysis of data from weather stations in China. Jones recently conceded he may have to revise the paper concerned.

The latest ruling comes from Graham Smith, deputy information commissioner, who in January said information requests to CRU from climate sceptics were "not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation." In the Belfast case, as well as insisting the university hand over the data, Smith has accused the university authorities of "a number of procedural breaches."...

Over the subsequent three years, the university has claimed that it did not have to supply the data because it would be too time-consuming; because the data does not amount to environmental information; because the research is unfinished; because the data is private property, commercially confidential and of "negligible" public interest – and because Keenan would not understand them...

Keenan, who admits he has no expertise in tree-ring analysis, says that whatever the data may or may not reveal, the university has no right to keep the data secret. The deputy information commissioner agrees...

Litmus Test Not Required

Obama: No litmus tests on abortion for court pick

Of course he has no 'litmus test'. They simply must agree that there is a constitutional right to abortions, up to and occasionally after the point of birth.

Litmus test shmitmus test.

Note the headline on the story just a few hours later: "Obama seeks court nominee who backs women's rights"

See? He's against a litmus test for pro-abortion leanings, then, mere hours later, the press confirms that a nominee must pass his pro-abortion litmus test.

It a ****ing comedy, people.

Carl Strock

For the record, I'm not going to be commenting on, reading, or generally acknowledging Carl Strock columns in the Gazette for the foreseeable future. He is completely irrelevant, bigoted, childish, and out of touch at this point - a conclusion reached by one too many letters to the Gazette by people that used to at least respect his work, who now find him meeting any or all of the conditions described above.

Therefore, no more worth my time than any of the imported columnists used by the TU or Gazette. There's enough hate and ignorance in the world without reading Carl Strock's insults to our intelligence.

File Under "People That Just Don't Get It"

Sometimes you really have to wonder about people:

An atheist group is calling on President Obama to ditch the National Day of Prayer and formally recognize its own “non-theist” version called “The National Day of Reason.”

Last week, a federal judge in Madison, Wis., ruled that the law designating the first Thursday in May to be the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional because, the judge said, it negatively impacts non-believers.

Sooooo...because they're bothered by a "Day of Prayer" they feel the proper remedy is to instead have a "Day of Reason" that will bother other people.

Yup, that makes sense. While I don't think they're entitled to a "National Day of Reason" I think they should serious consider committing themselves to trying to use reason for a few hundred days per year.

“The government should not be directing citizens to pray...

It doesn't.

...In addition to being unconstitutional, it’s also especially offensive to people who don’t believe in a god and are made to feel excluded by the observance,” AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt said.

As these people and the judge will shortly find out, 'freedom from not feeling left out' is not a Constitutional right.

Abuse

Can anyone point me to any analyses, reporting, or even opinions as to why the "church sex abuse scandal" is only tarring the Catholic Church and not the homosexual community (since an overwhelming majority of the incidents appear to be homosexuals that became priests and then molested boys)?

Naturally I've not seen the mainstream press raise the issue at all. The left won't touch it. Anti-Catholics think the answer is to let priests get married (apparently they believe that homosexual pedophiles can be cured by marrying women, an odd position to take if you ask me). But I've really not seen this explored at all. Despite the obvious fact that it's politically incorrect to even notice that so much of the abuse if by homosexuals, I haven't seen much, even in proudly politically incorrect fora, touching on this issue.

Got links?

The One-Tool Toolbox

When your only experience is community organizing, all your problems start to look like a job for big government. Media and Democrat cluelessness truly reigns:

Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they can’t and say they have little faith that the massive federal bureaucracy can solve the nation’s ills, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center that shows public confidence in the federal government at one of the lowest points in a half-century.

The poll released Sunday illustrates the ominous situation facing President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall’s elections. Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

Only one way to deal with a populace the doesn't trust the government - shut them up, take away their guns, and take over more of their lives with big government intrusion (the financial appetite is next for the insatiable Obey-Won's empire).

Wait..."comfortable congressional majorities"???? I thought the only reason Obama wasn't getting everything he and the Debt-i Knights wanted was because of Republican's just saying 'No!'. What happened to that?

The Real Fear Mongerers

Given the outright dishonesty of the media and the left in continually claiming any argument a conservative makes is "fear mongering", I thought I'd take a shot at cataloging actual fear mongering and see where it comes from.

Our first example is someone that wants you to grow and make your own food (as nearly as I can tell), particularly completely unsweetened food apparently:

If you know me at all, you know that I’m an advocate for whole, unprocessed foods. However, many of us inevitably turn to packaged or processed foods when we are short on time...

Although there are some brands that I hugely advocate for, there are many more that border on outright unhealthy and “scary.” Many packaged foods that seem healthy often contain fillers, preservatives and other ingredients you don’t want in your diet.

Let me know when we can feed the world on all fresh products.

Grab The Eraser

Just need to do a little housekeeping here (US: Deaths of 2 al-Qaida in Iraq leaders big blow)...

U.S. and Iraqi forces killed the two top al-Qaida figures in the country in a nighttime rocket attack on a safe house near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, a joint operation the U.S. called a significant blow to the insurgency and a sign Iraqi security forces are strengthening...

U.S. forces commander Gen. Raymond Odierno praised the operation.

"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaida in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," he said "after the elimination of Saddam Hussein, his two sons, and a rather lengthy list of al-Qaida in Iraq leaders who were much more successful at sowing discord than these two, that is"...

U.S. military officials have been highlighting the role of Iraqi security forces in the country as a way to demonstrate their ability to take over security as American forces draw down. Under a plan mocked and derided by President Barack Obama until he decided to take credit for Bush's success, all combat forces will be out of Iraq by the end of August, leaving about 50,000 U.S. forces in the country for such roles as trainers and support personnel...

At its height, the group was able to inflame sectarian violence so intense that some in the liberal media described it as a civil war...

A revolt against al-Qaida by Sunni Arab tribes in Western Iraq in late 2006 and 2007 deprived the group of its main bases of support. Taking advantage of the vulnerability, the U.S. pummeled the group during the 2007 troop surge that was mocked and derided and predicted to be a massive failure by Obama before he took credit for the growing peace in Iraq.

There we go.

More Evidence That The Press Is Out Of Touch

Another day, another example that the press is out of touch with a majority of Americans. And, as they are generally mainstream to hardcore liberals, I'm going to go ahead and extrapolate this to say that this is more evidence that the left is generally in denial about their majority counterparts and countrymen. You just might have noticed the press and the left (I know, I know...) griping on about the "conservative" Supreme Court.

Ooops:

As President Obama prepares to nominate a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 39% of voters nationwide believe the Supreme Court is too liberal. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 25% think the high court is too conservative, and 27% feel the court’s ideological balance is about right.

At the same time, 45% believe that justices nominated by Obama will be too liberal, while 41% believe the nominees will be about right.

Let me reiterate it in case you're not paying attention - a court that rules that the government can take you home and give it to some business for the purpose of growing the government (via higher anticipated taxes they get to spend) is a LIBERAL court, not a conservative one. And since Kelo the essential ideological makeup of the court has not changed.

To be honest, I care not a whit if a justice is white, black, green, or blue. I don't care what their background is. I don't care who their parents are. I don't care if they vote party-line Democrat, Republican, or neither. I don't care if they watch FoxNews or MSNBC. I just want them to interpret the law fairly and equally with common sense. That means that the right to bear arms in order to defend yourself from the government means the right to bear arms in order to defend yourself from the government - not only in the service of the government. That means that the public use is the public use - not the public benefit. That means that free speech is for everyone, no matter how they choose to organize themselves and that there is no power of the government to pre-approve the speech of certain disfavored groups. That means that what you do on your own property for your own use has little to nothing to do with "interstate commerce". That means that if the Constitution does not grant a pretty explicit power (not some vague reference that common sense dictates has another meaning entirely) to the federal government, the federal government does not have that power. The Constitution is not that long of a document, there is no reason why justices on the Supreme Court cannot read it and follow what it says. There is no reason to evaluate emanations and penumbras. It's in black and white. The language isn't even particularly archaic. Children study it in school. There is no excuse for so distorting it that teachers are forced to tell these children that a handful of men and women have declared that what the founders wrote does not really say what they can clearly see that it says. Free speech is free speech. Interstate commerce is commerce across state lines. The national guard, an arm of the government, is not a militia conceived to defend citizens from a tyrannical government.

And, no, it is not necessary to destroy, reinvent, reinterpret, or recreate the Constitution to determine that common sense limits, such as forbidding libel or inciting riots or carrying concealed rocket launchers is not at odds with the founders' intent.

Beauty In The Strangest Of Places

The last place one might look for beauty is in the Morgul Vale of Middle Earth. Nevertheless, Tolkien here paints one of his most beautiful portraits. True, the Vale is deadly evil and more horrible than one can imagine, but the literary portrait is one of the most stunning, the most 'beautiful' that you are likely to run across:

Now, feeling the way become steep before his feet, he looked wearily up; and then he saw it, even as Gollum had said that he would: the city of the Ringwraiths. He cowered against the stony bank.

A long-tilted valley, a deep gulf of shadow, ran back far into the mountains. Upon the further side, some way within the valley's arms, high on a rocky seat upon the black knees of the Ephel Duath, stood the walls and tower of Minas Morgul. All was dark about it, earth and sky, but it was lit with light. Not the imprisoned moonlight welling through the marble walls of Minas Ithil long ago, Tower of the moon, fair and radiant in the hold of the hills. Paler indeed than the moon ailing in some slow eclipse was the light of now, wavering and blowing like a noisome exhalation of decay, a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing. In the walls and tower windows showed, like countless black holes looking inward into emptiness; but the topmost course of the tower revolved slowly, first one way and then another, a huge ghostly head leering into the night...

So they came slowly to the white bridge. Here the road, gleaming faintly, passed over a stream in the midst of the valley, and went on, winding deviously up towards the city's gate: a black mouth opening in the outer circle of the northward walls. Wide flats lay on either bank, shadowy meads filled with pale white flowers. Luminous these were too, beautiful and yet horrible of shape, like the demented forms in an uneasy dream; and they gave forth a faint sickening charnel-smell; an odour of rottenness filled the air. From meat to mead the bridge sprang. Figures stood there at its head, carven with cunning in forms human and bestial, but all corrupt and loathsome. The water flowing beneath was silent, and it steamed, but the vapour that rose from it, curling and twisting about the bridge, was deadly cold.

Way cool.

I'm With Stupid

Sometimes people really shouldn't be writing letters to the editor. What's that saying about being silent and thought dumb rather than speaking and removing all doubt? Meet Jonathan Warner of Albany (4-15-10), the remover of doubt:

Albany Common Council Member Anton Konev's proposal to begin council meetings with a prayer is as contrary to the Constitution's establishment clause as it is offensive to any religious adherent.

It smacks of the same religious endorsement that the framers found so abhorrent. But for our encompassing establishment clause jurisprudence, Americans would likely not enjoy the broad scope of civil liberties that those in other countries could not even imagine.

That jurisprudence was founded on the principle that any marriage between religion and government will ultimately diminish both. Government intrusion into religious prayer ceremonies has historically produced civil strife and derision. Religious intrusion into secular government commonly turns people against each other and promotes ill will -- results that are contrary to the benefits that religion seeks to render.

If Mr. Konev seeks to celebrate our religious diversity, he should take a good, long look at the establishment clause of the First Amendment. He would probably claim that this measure seeks to solemnize the high regard in which we as a society hold religion. Perhaps he should have enough respect to refrain from reducing our rich, precious fabric of religious institutions into the means toward a cheap political stunt.

Do I need to bother? Why not, it's fun.

1) The establishment clause prohibits the federal government from establishing an official religion. The free exercise clause allows people to exercise whatever religion, or none, they choose. The Supreme Court has consistently held that prayer before a public meeting does not violate the establishment clause, an Albany city council meeting is unlikely to result in Congress establishing a national religion. Heck, many states had official religions at the time after the founding. How's that jibe with this claim? Poorly.

2) If prayer before public meetings was so "abhorrent" to the founders - then why did they have prayers before their meetings?

3) "But for our encompassing establishment clause jurisprudence, Americans would likely not enjoy the broad scope of civil liberties that those in other countries could not even imagine." Why? Because so many of our founders were so religious that they had to limit themselves from establishing a national religion? ;)

Correction Request

I have asked a Times Union writer (well, freelancer) to correct a statement in their Thursday article about efforts to limit corporate free speech again in the wake of Citizens United v FEC:

Out of curiosity - did you actually read Citizens United before writing the article that appeared in the Times Union on Thursday? I ask because you wrote: "The bill is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Federal Election Commission v. Citizens United, which knocked down many limits on political spending by corporations."

Anyone that has actually read the decision would know that the Court struck down precisely one limit - a limit on spending by corporations in the period before elections. That's it. Frankly, this error is egregious enough to warrant a written correction. "Many" is a far cry from "one". Oh, and you also got the name of the case wrong, that should probably be corrected, too, the FEC didn't sue Citizens United.

Times Union Clarifies The Rules Of The Game

Sometimes it's good to get things out in the open, isn't it? I mean, it can be tough to play when you don't even understand the rules. In this case, you just never know what you can say, who you can oppose, etc. etc.

Well, fortunately the Times Union has decided to clear things up.

Oppose Barack Obama? It's because you're racist.

Oppose Sheldon Silver? It's because you're anti-semitic.

There. Now we know.

How's That Working Out For You

You probably recall those heady days (for liberals and socialists) when the Democrats passed a monstrous bill launching a full-fledged takeover of health care in America by the most inefficient organization in the country...the Federal government. Opposition was balanced with support even amongst the most liberal of polls. Amongst likely voters the plan was underwater and had been for almost a year.

Then Obama triumphantly signed the bill, black child at hand for the photo op, and the liberal press sternly warned the GOP that their opposition would spell their doom in November after Obama finally explained it to America between now and then and everyone decided they loved the idea. Because the first 50 speeches just didn't quite convey the full gloriosity and magnitudance of it.

Since then support for repealing this monstronsity has grown and opposition, even amongst the masses, not just likely voters, continues to grow. Indeed, the more people find out about it, the more they hate it. Even the press is catching on:

Opposition to President Barack Obama's health care law jumped after he signed it — a warning to Democrats running for re-election this fall that his victory could become their liability.

"become"? Have you not noticed the giant rallies around the country calling for the ouster of anyone that voted for it? They've only been going on for like, oh, months and months. The press really has it's finger on the pulse of America!

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds Americans oppose the health care remake 50 percent to 39 percent. Before a divided Congress finally passed the bill and Obama signed it at a jubilant White House ceremony last month, public opinion was about evenly split. Another 10 percent of Americans say they are neutral.

Disapproval for Obama's handling of health care also increased from 46 percent before the bill passed to 52 percent currently — a level not seen since last summer's angry town hall meetings.

Nonetheless, the bleak numbers may not represent a final judgment for the president and his Democratic allies in Congress. That's because only 28 percent of those polled said they understand the overhaul extremely or very well, and a big chunk of those remain neutral.

Amazing isn't it? What with Pelosi telling us to shut up and let the bill pass so we could "find out what's in it"? Wouldn't that be a good quote for this article right about now?

Nonpartisan congressional budget analysts say the law is fully paid for. Its mix of Medicare cuts and tax increases, falling mainly on upper-income earners, would actually reduce the federal deficit. And people covered by large employers may even see a dip in their premiums.

The public doesn't seem to be buying it.

Probably because they get their news from FoxNews or the internet and know that this is a load of horsespit, that the CBO said it would NOT save anything after Congress takes away the phony baloney cut to doctor reimbursements that they put in to make it look like it saved money...yeah, that really fooled a lot of people...in newsrooms.

Donna Christian of Kingsport, Tenn., is an independent leaning in favor of the law. A bad heart forced Christian, 45, to leave her job as a supervisor at a wireless phone company a few years ago. She and her 10-year-old daughter make do on a limited income, and have coverage through Medicaid.

"I think Americans are going to be better off in the long run even if they don't see that now," Christian said. "More will have coverage, and they'll be able to go to the hospital when they need to."

You mean like her? Who did it. Before this monstrosity was passed. Is that what she means?

"When you dig deeper, individual provisions of the law have enormous support," he said. Pollack believes current polls reflect public disgust with a "very lengthy and messy process."

Which is why Americans wanted Congress to follow the GOP gameplan and put in the stuff that was effective and/or popular and leave out the socialist takeover, death panels, and rationing...oh and the Medicare cuts, tax hikes, and removal of individual liberties, too.

But Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., says Democrats already lost their chance to persuade the public.

"They have had 16 months to explain this bill," Camp said. "Good luck trying to explain it in the next six."

And from Rasmussen:

Three weeks after Congress passed its new national health care plan, support for repeal of the measure has risen four points to 58%. That includes 50% of U.S. voters who strongly favor repeal.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters nationwide finds 38% still oppose repeal, including 32% who strongly oppose it.

"Funny"

Anybody else really "enjoy" the "funny" editorial cartoon in Tuesday's Times Union that accompanied the Supreme Court opinion piece? Did you particularly "enjoy" the giant "negro lips" on Justice Thomas?

Maybe I'm not enough of a leftist to "enjoy" such "humor" that seems to accompany every "editorial cartoon" of black conservatives that appear in newspapers.

First Lady Disses American Kids In Mexico?

I'm having a hard time interpreting this as anything else but a slam against American kids - but the lack of a complete quote in context makes judging it a tad hairier:

"That was beautiful, everything you did," said the first lady, whose two-day visit is her first ever to Mexico. "I loved the singing. I loved the dancing. I loved to see you all moving and exercising."

She said she loves "getting to see really smart, bright young people" when she leaves the U.S.

Either that or she was busting on all the other kids in other countries that are idiots. Neither explanation is particularly flattering.

I read it as either 'I'm glad to get out of the US so I can finally see some smart kids' or 'I'm glad to finally see some smart kids outside of the US'.

Dear Congress, Another Spot For Funding Cuts Identified

I think I found another government organization in serious need of some budget lightening, clearly they've got too much money on their hands:

The U.S. Library of Congress, which archives many forms of media for their cultural and historical significance, has announced it will keep a digital archive of every public tweet that has been broadcast on Twitter since its inception in March 2006.

What a frickin' waste of money.

Correction Submitted

A Monday opinion piece on abortion and how hard it is to get one (despite the numbers that don't reflect any such thing) contains factual errors. I have requested a written correction:

Ms. Crupi, there are several factual errors in the opinion piece entitled "Vanishing abortion rights" in Monday's paper. While I understand this is an opinion piece, I am forced to assume that the writer, and the Times Union, should still be abiding by at least some rules for presenting information factually. This piece does not do so and I am requesting written corrections in the Times Union.

Ms. Woolner states: "And the court...ignored precedent in 2005 to say for the first time that an abortion restriction can be constitutional even when it doesn't make an exception for the health of the woman."

I am forced to assume that Ms. Woolner is referring to Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. First, this opinion was delivered in 2006, not 2005. Second, the unanimous decision of the Court was the exact opposite of that claimed by Ms. Woolner. The Court ruled that the New Hampshire law in question did, in fact, violate precedent that a health exception must be included in abortion laws and for that reason they remanded the case to a lower court to re-evaluate the law. What the Court ruled is that the lack of a health exception does not automatically mean that the entire law was unconstitutional, only that the law must be reviewed and adjusted if necessary to comply with the exception requirement. You can read this decision for yourself, it's only 10 pages and easy to comprehend.

Thirdly, the very first words of the opinion are: "We do not revisit our abortion precedents today...", so claiming that the Court ignored precedent in the ruling is simply incorrect. This is further made clear with the following, which effortlessly shows that Ms. Woolner's claim requires correction: "Second, New Hampshire does not dispute, and our—————— precedents hold, that a State may not restrict access to abortions that are “ ‘necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for preservation of the life or health of the mother." As you can see, the unanimous Court explicitly states that a health provision is required while Ms. Woolner claims that the Court said a law could be Constitutional without such a provision.

The rest of Ms. Woolner's column is alarmist, but just her opinion, and therefore completely acceptable. However, the three factual errors, easily checked and corrected by reading this simple 10 page opinion, must be corrected in the Times Union.’ Readers deserve no less.

UPDATE--

Ms. Crupi responded on Wednesday, indicating the author had been contacted. The date is in fact incorrect (presumably a correction will be issued) because the author was even more wrong about the date - it was 2007 and the case was not Ayotte as I assumed (since Ayotte was argued in 2005), but supposedly is Gonzalez v Carhart. I have chosen to not to further pursue the correction, although I still find the statement to be incorrect on the other two matters, because I strongly suspect that the TU will choose to interpret the statement in the author's favor. The author claims that the court ruled a restriction on abortion could be constitutional even without a health exception. This really is a distortion of the ruling, which you can read for yourself. What the court ruled is that this particular Act is not facially unconstitutional because there are other alternatives available to doctors than the proscribed method (partial birth abortion) to perform an abortion. Therefore a health exception is not necessary. Secondly, the court acknowledges that there could be situations where the proscribed method is necessary to protect the woman's health. However, no situation was presented, the challenge was a facial challenge and not a specific challenge regarding a specific medical situation where the proscribed method would be necessary - the court specifically says such a challenge would be appropriate (and presumably would succeed). But since the plaintiff chose instead to ask that the Act be stricken down on broad grounds, the court could not agree since alternatives exist and no evidence was presented as to specific situations that would make the alternatives unsafe or the proscribed method medically necessary.

In other words, the court did NOT go against precedent, in fact they went along with it, noting that a health exception WAS required if alternatives did not exist to the proscribed method...but they do.

I've been trying to think of an analogy for this. This is a bad one, but try it on for size. Imagine an Act outlawing crutches. Previous law required that restrictions on mobility aid devices contain an exception for the health of users. In this case, though, the Act specifically targeted only wooden crutches, proscribing their use. The court then rules that, because there are alternatives, including wheelchairs and metal crutches for example, this particular law is not necessarily unconstitutional because there are alternative mobility devices available if health is a concern (for example, if someone is allergic to wheelchairs - see, bad example). The author then would claim that the court ignored precedent and found that a law restricting mobility aid devices didn't have to contain an exception for the health of users. This is incorrect because the court ruled that there are alternatives, metal crutches, that are still legal, even if wooden crutches are outlawed.

I see no reason to believe the Times Union would bother thinking about this to that degree, particularly on an emotional subject where they fall so heavily on one side of the argument.

For these reasons, I have updated the count to the right to indicate one correction requested and one correction made (of course if they don't actually print a correction about the date I'll take that one away). I do not believe it would be fair to say that 3 correction requests were made, first because they were based on my incorrect guess as to which case was the subject (because the author chose not to reveal it and got the date wrong), and also because a twisted argument can be made to justify the claims of the author on the other two matters. I believe them to be false, but can make a devil's advocate argument for them. Such a situation, in my mind, does not rise to the level of requiring a written correction in an opinion column.

For the record, I am satisfied with the effort put forth by the TU on this, but wish someone had made some effort to clarify the column before it was run. To have an author make such an inflammatory argument without even providing the case they reference is unacceptable. It does not allow editors or readers to look into the matter on their own, which I have always felt was one of the major goals of opinion pieces. At a minimum the column should have contained the case name for a reader or editor to verify the claims made by the author (which, as we see above, do not hold up under scrutiny of the actual case). Finally, I sent an email back in response thanking Ms. Crupi for following up on my request. Yes, a real, honest 'thank you'. I do, in fact, appreciate it when someone at the Times Union does their job, even if it is after the fact.

James Cameron Paints Face, Dances Around, Vows To Fight The Advance Of Mankind

This is almost too ludicrous for words:

They came from the far reaches of the Amazon, traveling in small boats and canoes for up to three days to discuss their fate. James Cameron, the Hollywood titan, stood before them with orange warrior streaks painted on his face, comparing the threats on their lands to a snake eating its prey...

As if to underscore the point, seconds later a poisonous green snake fell out of a tree, just feet from where Mr. Cameron’s wife sat on a log. Screams rang out. Villagers scattered. The snake was killed. Then indigenous leaders set off on a dance of appreciation, ending at the boat that took Mr. Cameron away. All the while, Mr. Cameron danced haltingly, shaking a spear, a chief’s feathery yellow and white headdress atop his head.

Now, Mr. Cameron said, he has been spurred to action, to speak out against the looming environmental destruction endangering indigenous groups around the world — a cause that is fueling his inner rage and inspiring his work on an “Avatar” sequel...

Mr. Cameron is so fired up, in fact, that he said he was planning to go back to the Amazon this week, this time with Sigourney Weaver and at least another member of the “Avatar” cast in tow.

The focus is the huge Belo Monte dam planned by the Brazilian government. It would be the third largest in the world, and environmentalists say it would flood hundreds of square miles of the Amazon and dry up a 60-mile stretch of the Xingu River, devastating the indigenous communities that live along it. For years the project was on the shelf, but the government now plans to hold an April 20 auction to award contracts for its construction...

The leaders then invited Mr. Cameron to participate in their meeting. He sat at a small wooden school desk as they made speeches condemning the impending dam and the Brazilian government. Mr. Cameron seemed to tear up when some leaders said they would be willing to die to stop the dam.

“It’s not like there is any pressure on me or anything,” he said, half-joking, moments before boarding the boat. “These people really are looking for me to do something about their situation. We have to try to stop this dam. Their whole way of life, their society as they know it, depends on it.”

I don't want to delve too deeply into this beyond two points.

One is the fact that this dam that he so desperately wants to stop is a hydroelectric dam that will be used to advance civilization. Just because James Cameron wants to paint his face and dance around with some indigenous people that claim that entire swathes of a country are "theirs" doesn't mean that everyone else wants to live in the jungle with poisonous snakes. Some of them want to go to movie theaters and watch high-tech 3-D movies made by...James Cameron. Which, of course, would never happen if he apparently had his way in some bizarre sort of cutting off your nose to spite your face sort of way. You may have noticed that they never said what the dam was for in the story, I had to look it up elsewhere.

The second is that I'd like to re-highlight a few items from this story:

"...a cause that is fueling his inner rage..."

"Referring to his Amazon trip, he added, “It just makes me madder.”"

"Mr. Cameron is so fired up..."

"Stopping the dam has become a fresh personal crusade for the director..."

"Mr. Cameron seemed to tear up when some leaders said they would be willing to die to stop the dam."

"“These people really are looking for me to do something about their situation. We have to try to stop this dam.”"

And then show you this:

EW: “Avatar” is the perfect eco-terrorism recruiting tool.”

JC: Good, good. I like that one. I consider that a positive review. I believe in ecoterrorism.”

Make of them what you will.

Your Random Saturday

Humberto Fontova, always good to remind America who Che Guevara really was, hence the extensive excerpt here:

“More than 200 companies have joined a boycott of (Glenn) Beck's program,” reports the Washington Post. “A handful of advertisers, such as (iPhone owner) Apple, have abandoned Fox altogether,” continues the WaPo article...

This same hyper-sensitive-to-hate-speech Apple, by the way, has just launched an iPhone application featuring Che Guevara’s quotes. Yes! “Now you can carry around Che Guevara's quotes on your IPhone!”

Alas, many of us, though not customer of this unquestionably hip product, suspect that most of Che Guevara's hippest quotes are missing from this hippest of iPhone apps. Among those we fear were overlooked by the hyper-sensitive-to-hate-speech, Apple are:

“The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and booze, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent.”...

"My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood...Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that falls in my hands! With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"...

"Hatred as the central element of our struggle!... Hatred that is intransigent.... Hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold- blooded killing machine...We reject any peaceful approach. Violence is inevitable. To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow. The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!” (Thus spaketh the icon of flower-children.)...

But then, Che’s bloodthirsty bluster (see above) always had a habit of evaporating when facing men (or boys) capable of defending themselves. His stock-in-trade was blasting their skulls apart from five feet while they were bound and gagged. (Amazingly, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro overlooked any depictions of such guaranteed drama in their recent movie.)

“Mexicans are a rabble of illiterate Indians.” (note the Che Guevara banners and T-shirts at Nation of Aztlan gatherings.)

“Bolivian campesinos are simply Animalitos" (Note Bolivian President Evo Morales’ frequent genuflections to the ghost of Che Guevara and to his puppeteer, Fidel Castro.)

“Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates. Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service. The very spirit of rebellion is reprehensible. (“Che is our fifth band member!” Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello)...

Here’s a cold-blooded murderer who executed thousands without trial, who claimed that judicial evidence was an “unnecessary bourgeois detail,” who stressed that “revolutionaries must become cold-killing machines motivated by pure hate,” who stayed up till dawn for months at a time signing death warrants for innocent and honorable men, whose office in La Cabana had a window where he could watch the executions – and today his T-shirts adorn people who oppose capital punishment!

The Far Left's Ideas Are Truly Troubling

I caught a few minutes (about 4:05 to 4:15) of Sean Hannity's radio show Thursday afternoon. He had on one of these leftwing talking heads, Juan Williams. Anyway, the stuff he was spouting was pretty typical far left stuff, he was a mainstream leftist, not some nutjob Hannity grabbed at an ANSWER march or whatever.

The most troubling, I hesitate to say 'scary' but it might be appropriate, thing that he kept saying, over and over and over, was that rich people are successful because of Republican tax cuts for the rich.

I was a bit surprised that Hannity and his tag team partner (some guy with a British accent that I think fills in as a host for him or Rush) both failed to nail him on this foolish, dangerous statement.

You sort of have to think about it for a few minutes to really grasp the horribleness of it. I want to be clear, because he said it over and over again, he was not saying 'the rich are getting richer because of the tax cuts' - because in a roundabout sort of way, that could be true. No, he was saying that their very success is owed to what he claims are favorable tax policies towards the rich. Now Sean did call him on this a bit, at least partially, by pointing out that nearly half of Americans don't pay any income taxes and also that the top 1% of earners pay 40% of the income taxes. But he should have been slammed much harder.

1. How can favorable tax policy make someone a success? Favorable tax policy didn't get Bill Gates or Warren Buffet where they are. I cannot even begin to express how foolish it is to rely on class warfare this way. It is, and I do not say this lightly, the sort of thing spouted by communist regimes during a rise to power. The rich are only rich because they are 'winners in life's lottery' or 'tax laws favor them' while utterly ignoring the fact that the reason they have money in the first place to be taxed is not because of the tax policy. What your tax rate is has NOTHING to do with your income, all it does is tell you how much you get to keep.

2. It's a cliche, but poor people aren't hiring nowadays.

3. It is beyond scary to argue, loudly, vehemently, and angrily, that a group earning 20% of the money and paying 40% of the taxes is STILL not paying their fair share and need to do more. That is communist class warfare 101. When nearly 50% pay no taxes, to say that 1% paying 40% of them isn't yet enough, you bet that some people get scared to hear it. Because when they go along with paying 40% after only earning 20% willingly (not happily, but without revolting), you have to wonder about people that froth at the mouth and scream about them being greedy and needing to do more - because even when they are paying 100% it will not be enough for them, they are already making a ludicrously unfair argument and getting away with it - when they ratchet up their cries for "more" eventually the rich will NOT go along with it - and short of finding a nice little vale hidden in the mountains where they can escape unnoticed, people like Williams will be going after the rich for "more" by any means necessary. And the left wonders why the successful are wary, yes even scared, of their plans. They pay that 40% without fighting back. How much will they take? And when they say 'no' - when they refuse to hire, when they shutter their factories, when they close up their banks - what will the left do then? Check back with Atlas Shrugged if you're curious. I'm picturing the plant that was taken over by the looters, who tried to run it themselves, failed, and let it crumble into dust...because they wanted "more". When the cries for "more" begin to be met with "no more" - what will the left do then? The question that Williams should have been forced to answer is 'how much is enough?' Just what percentage should the "rich" pay? Already anybody making ~$350,000 and up are paying 40% of all income takes.

Let me put it another way. The group of people making over about $65,000 a year - are those the rich? - are paying more than 85% of all income taxes. The people that socialists like Juan Williams, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and their Debt-i Knights want to pay "more" of their fair share, the top 25% of earners, already pay 85% of the income taxes.

Fear mongering? Maybe. But maybe it's warranted.

As for the rest of what I heard him saying, no matter what the topic was he would bring up "bailing out wall street - too big to fail" as if that was some sort of catchall answer that made everything that Obama is doing OK. Again, he should have been slapped down - and sort of was - by the British guy that pointed out that Paulson's initial $750 billion bailout (that he only wanted to use half of, by the way) stopped the bank run in its tracks and already solved that problem - he should have also pointed out that those banks paid that money all back months ago, as soon as Obama let them. I mean, how do you even debate someone that answers a question about why unemployment isn't coming down with rants about 'tax cuts for the rich' and 'why did Bush bail out banks'? And this nut is a "respected" member of the leftwing media circus, not some kid on the street or MorOn.org organizer.

And, you know what? I guarantee that Juan Williams makes more money than me. But, you know what, Juan? My "fair share" isn't in your wallet - and no one else's "fair share" is in mine - because if it's in my wallet, that's my fair share. I didn't steal it. I didn't con someone out of it. I earned it. Someone paid me for my output. That's fair. And I don't mind donating money to help people out or even paying my "fair share" of taxes to support national interests and even helping people 'get back on their feet' when they need it. But don't you people dare say that what's in my wallet is rightly someone else's, or justly someone else's, or morally someone else's. Your fair share is not in my wallet.

Newt Right On More Than One Level

Cal Thomas on a chat with Newt:

What about charges that Republicans and conservatives are engaging in overheated rhetoric that could lead to violence against public figures?

"For people who are angry, the correct response is to beat them. Take all your energy, reach out and attract everybody you can, win the argument and beat them. The greatest satisfaction should be the retirement of Pelosi, Reid and Obama. ... For the mugger to complain that people are objecting vociferously to being mugged ... is an act of chutzpah on a grand scale. For any of these people who have deliberately bullied, bribed and abused the system to impose their will against the country to now be shocked that the country is unhappy with the machine, I think, is a further act of arrogance. They would like to mug you routinely while you quiescently thank them for the privilege of being mugged."

On the obvious level, Newt is correct, people are reacting to, well, being mugged.

But if you dig a little deeper, he's even more right. Obey-Won and the rest of the Debt-i Knights do indeed think that you should just take it and then say thank you, even if you are being actually, literally mugged. These are the people that don't think that you should have the right to own a gun to defend yourself - be it from a mugger in the street of a mugger in the form of a tyrannical government. These are the people embodied in the words of Justice Breyer who said: "In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."

Let's Just Fix This Up

This headline and summary needs a bit of a tweak with a quick dose of Bias-B-Gone...

Ruling may reshape Internet service

A recent court ruling may lead to big changes in how you access services like online video.

*bzzzzz bang bang...clang bzzzt*

There.

Ruling means no reshape of Internet service

A recent court ruling prevents big changes in how you access services like online video.

Who says bias is hard to remove?

Comeback

You know what I want Republican Senators to say when Democrats try to ram through any more giant spending monstrosities this year (like financial "reform") and the GOP stops it?

You've spent enough. You've taxed enough. You've taken over enough of the economy. No more. You've spend enough.

I want them to use it on the floor of the Senate. I want them to use it in the press. I want them to use it in purpose. I want them to use it in meetings with their constituents. I want them to use it in campaigns.

Democrats, you've spent enough, you've borrowed enough, you've taxes Americans enough. Yes, we're saying 'No' to more spending and we're not going to be ashamed to do so.

No Wonder Our Children Isn't Learning

Seriously, people are just getting dumber and dumber.

Diet Coke posed a perfectly logical question on its facebook page - If you were going to make a new flavor Diet Coke, what flavor would it be?

I looked through about 250 comments. A pretty solid 35 of them (14%) replied in a fashion that made it clear that they were of the understanding that Diet Coke was going to reinvent its flavor. At least three angrily compared the mere thought to the New Coke (aka Pepsi) debacle of the '80s. While I think it's pretty smart of companies to use social networking sites for free market research, I certainly hope they realize that at least 14% of the people responding are idiots. Another 10% or so I would say are intentionally giving lousy answers. "Meat Diet Coke" seems like a rather useless suggestion.

Personally I was both intrigued, in a car crash rubbernecking sort of way, yet horrified at the person that mentioned "Gold Slogger (cinnamon snaups)". Do you have any idea how often I zip over to a website or online dictionary to check out the spelling of words or be sure I have the right definition of something? It's just what I do. It's what I was taught to do (well, not exactly, but you know what I mean) in school - yes, public school. If you're not sure, take a second to check. It shows that you both respect your own words enough to get them pretty much right (we all screw up sometimes) and also your reader enough to not insult them by saying "Wala! Try it with cinnamon snaups!" or something like that. Call me petty if you must, snobby if you will, but I think as a responsible adult I have earned the respect of not having to decipher what the hell you're talking about all the time because you can't be bothered to learn how to spell (clearly we're not talking about a learning disability here) - not even how to spell a product you clearly use quite often. I guess I should be grateful in 2010 that it wasn't "cinnabun snops". No, actually I don't think I'll be grateful for even that. We must do better or places like India and China are going to eat our lunch. America got where it is with freedom and vast swathes of natural resources put to good use. Well, the natural resources aren't quite so important nowadays to everyone, but freedom and smarts are still pretty important. And reading blogs (well, blog comments - not my blog comments ;) ) and social networks makes me shake my head in fear of the future. I'm sorry, boys and girls, but no matter how 'automated' we make life, something as basic as simple math and reading are not going away just, yet. Now I know why companies check you out online when you apply for a job, if I read the way some of these people write, there is just no way in heck I would hire them for anything other than a rote, manual task - not because they can't do something due to their background or educational opportunities, but because they clearly can perform at a high level and just choose not to do so.

I just saw something either online or on the TV - some ad that a black community group put up on a billboard about pulling up your damned pants - the text was something like 'We can do better' or 'We're better than this'.

Oh, and don't think that these are just dumb kids goofing...most of these peoples' photos clearly indicated an adult.

America, we're better than Gold Slogger snaups and "if you change my Diet Coke I'll never drink it again" as a response to being asked about thinking of a new product.

Well...

we used to be.