The Blight of Centralized Planning

Everything that ever has come under the purview of centralized planning experts has been blighted to the point of ruin by their control. Just look at the history of all the failed economic planning experiments and the misery and deprivation they caused.

Given this history, one has to wonder why the government is intent on subjecting every key component of the nation's economy to the disaster inflicters.

The greatest economic engine the world has ever seen now is winding down, being seriously encumbered by the affliction and the conceits of those who are imposing the rule of progressive experts on an expanding number of the components of America's productive capacity. The administration began with the financial sector and its major institutions and then expanded to manufacturing industries -- two of the three domestic auto companies and an acquiescent General Electric. With them under control, so too are their suppliers and distributors.

Now in the cross hairs of the collectivists are the health insurance and health care sectors, which they intend to bring within their ambit either in one fell swoop if they can pass the administration's proposals or more gradually if compromise to pass only some or watered down versions of those proposals becomes necessary. Next on the agenda is the energy industry, already laboring under burdensome restrictions and regulations.

What's going to be left of the free enterprise system that made our country and its population the most productive and prosperous people and nation in the history of the world?

Free Speech Be Damned

Here's how the FCC's diversity commiczar, who doesn't believe in free speech anyway, plans to silence those who disagree with the administration.

Loyalty and Gratitude

Americans are all upset over Britain entering into a profitable oil deal with Libya, one element of which is apparently Britain's release of a Libyan agent convicted of killing 270 people by bringing down an airliner over Scotland. He received a hero's welcome home in Libya.

Without suggesting that our outrage is unjustified, I want to look at another side of this. From Libya's point of view its actions can be ascribed to simple loyalty. Moreover, if Libya did not take such actions in loyalty to its agents, how many of them would be willing to continue killing for Libya?

Of course such loyalty and gratitude are foreign to us. Obama’s attorney general is a man who in a previous position helped release unrepentant terrorists who were serving time for murdering Americans. He is currently initiating investigations leading to prosecution of CIA officials whose questioning of terrorists resulted in America not being attacked again in the wake of 9/11. And the Obama Veteran's Administration distributes to wounded veterans a pamphlet which seeks to save money by encouraging them to commit suicide rather than receiving expensive medical care for the wounds they incurred in serving the U.S.

Would that America were as loyal and grateful as Libya to those who have served it.

. . . From a friend and colleague

Even the Moderates Are Catching On

It appears from this piece that even patrician ivy league wimps are catching on to the poseur-in-chief.

Ignoring the Founders' Wisdom

The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.

. . . Federalist No. 63

Our 'Leaders' Waste Our Troops On Wars Without End or Purpose

Here we are again . . . in Afghanistan . . . holding cheap the lives of American servicemen by sending them in force into harm's way with no clearly defined realistic objective and no commitment to achieving absolute victory as expeditiously as possible by any and all necessary means.

There isn't a spot in hell hot enough for 'leaders' who thus fecklessly squander the lives of our troops.

War requires a clear statement of purpose, of what will constitute victory, and a national commitment to achieve it with whatever it takes in the most effective and efficient possible way.

It is no wonder that not having done this since the end of World War II, we haven't been victorious in any of the wars to which we have committed -- and in which we have sacrificed -- troops since them.

Listen To This Sheriff

The Real Story of Obama's Montana Visit from a Reliable Source There

By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on.

On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his health care and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date.

On about Tuesday Bill found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport. (This is only because Bill knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar. You could not pick a more remote location, and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public.

FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!! $$$$$

During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession. $$$$$

Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday.

Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm......900 tickets just DISAPPEARED.

This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing. $$$$$ One can only imagine what else we are paying for.

On Friday Bill and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and health care had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd.

The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them.....professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs. (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area)

Those against health care/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man.

So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest.

If you are wondering about the press.....Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.

We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho . Speaking of the local media...they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head.

It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes........the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America , more like the USSR !! I was physically nauseous. Bill and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC . Scary!!

Once Upon a Time . . . . Long, Long Ago in a Virtuous Land Far, Far Away

Given what we see and hear from our rulers these days it may slip one's mind that not too long ago living simply and frugally, practicing thrift, was thought to be virtuous.

Today profligacy is the rule both in government at every level and among those who run our institutions. Members of the political class urge the rest of us also to be profligate. And they blame the continuing sorry state of the economy on those who practice thrift instead of spending lavishly and living sumptuously as the oligarchs do (at the expense, of course, of the taxpayer funded public treasury).

Popular resistance to such admonishments may indicate that ordinary citizens are returning to the wisdom and virtues of an earlier time even as perpetually ongoing and growing governmental spending sprees demonstrate the degeneracy of our institutions and those who control them.

Rationing Essential for Government Health Care . . . and They Will Encourage People to Die

Anyone who believes the politicians who claim their health insurance and care plans will not involve rationing should take a look at these economic factors that make rationing a governmental necessity.

And if the same gullible people think the bureaucrats would draw the line at encouraging patients to dies to cut the costs of caring for the patients (in addition to the costs of social security and other benefits) should take a look at how the Veterans Administration already is acting to lighten its financial burden.

Advance Look at Death Panels

Here is what government death panels are likely look like and how they'll probably go about the business of ending lives.

Obama-Care Definitions

DOCTORS: A profession that used to exist to deliver medical care for profit. But personal injury lawyers make colossal incomes (much of which they generously contribute to the Democratic Party.) As a result doctors have to pay vast sums for malpractice insurance. And under Obama bureaucrats oversee and determine the pay for doctors (but not lawyers) to save money. The expense for medical education keeps going up while doctors get more and more work for less and less pay. So lawyers become the privileged and unregulated American class and more and more all the bright people become lawyers instead of doctors.

SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND A fund that is supposed to contain the proceeds from your social security taxes, but doesn't because Congress has regularly "borrowed" vast sums from it. NOTE: This is not Obama’s fault. These thefts started before Obama was born, making a bad joke of the theory on which social security is based which is that people pay social security taxes all their lives and then get paid back at the end of their lives.

"SOCIAL SECURITY IS BROKE" A typical Obama "truth," i.e., half-truth intended to deceive. You would be broke too if someone borrowed all your money and never even paid interest, much less repaid the loan.

DEATH PANELS Regardless of what Obama calls them, this is the accurate name for the panels of bureaucrats appointed to save money for a vastly expensive system by deciding whether in each individual case medicines and services needed to keep an elderly person alive are wastefully expensive – which they always are given that the elderly pay few taxes and need expensive care.

This is, incidentally, what Obama meant in inquiring why pay to provide an old person a pacemaker when it is so much cheaper to just prescribe pain-killers (until they die).

"WAIT YOUR TURN" A system successfully pioneered under Obama-style medical care in England and Canada as a disguised alternative or supplement to Death Panels. Everyone is placed in: 1) a one year long line to see a doctor, then 2) another one year long line to see a specialist to confirm the doctor's diagnosis; and then 3) a final one year long line to get the indicated medicines and care. Result: Death Panels are generally unnecessary because the lines provide a "final solution" to the elderly problem.

Contributed by Don Kates, Esq., a rightfully esteemed attorney who specializes in protecting our right to keep and bear arms.

Dems Whining About Having the Tables Turned On Them

From the August 17 edition of the Online Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web feature:

By JAMES TARANTO

Not long ago, Barack Obama and the Democrats were invincible. Republicans not only had substantially reduced minorities in the House and Senate, but they didn't even have a leader.

Suddenly Obama seems quite vincible, with his signature project, postalizing the health-care system, in deep trouble. How could that have happened?

Andrew Breitbart, a Washington Times columnist, argues that the opposition's lack of leadership, far from being a hindrance, has been a necessary condition for its effectiveness. He notes that the tactics of the left have long been informed by Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals"--the bible of so-called community organizing--and especially this rule:

"Rule 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)"

For years, of course, the obvious target was President Bush. Since last year's campaign got under way, Bretibart notes, the left has set its sights on a series of lesser targets, with varying degrees of success: Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Rush Limbaugh, Carrie Prejean. But with the exception of Palin before her resignation, none of these people actually held political power. For the moment, the Democrats have a monopoly on power, which makes them vulnerable to Alinskyite tactics. As Breitbart writes:

A grass-roots movement of average Americans has stood up, making it extremely difficult to isolate and demonize an individual.

Mr. Alinsky noted in "Rule 12" that it is difficult to go after "institutions." And attacking "tea baggers" and "mobs" has only created more resistance and drawn attention to the left's limited playbook. Even Americans expressing their constitutionally protected right to free speech are open game.

Now that many people are Googling the Alinsky rule book and catching up with the way Chicago thugs play their political games, Mr. Obama and the Fighting Illini are going to be forced to create new rules--or double down on the old ones.

The Financial Times reports that Dick Armey, a former House Republican leader who now leads Freedom Works, a free-market community-organizing group, "draws consciously on the forms of agitation pioneered by Mr Alinsky":

Mr Alinsky believed that packing public meetings with highly vocal activists would sway their outcomes and give people a taste of the power they could exercise when they showed up in numbers.

"What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," said Mr Armey, who was one of the leaders of the "Contract with America" Republican landslide in 1994.

One lesson of the 1994 experience is that the tactics and attitudes that make an opposition movement effective are not sufficient for governing. Newt Gingrich was a lot better at the former than the latter. The same seems to be true--at least so far--of the Democrats and their leader, Barack Obama. Obama's supporters are now reduced to portraying him as a victim, as in this column by New York Daily News sportswriter Mike Lupica:

We hear that all of this is democracy in action. It's not. It's boom-box democracy, people thinking that if they somehow make enough noise on this subject, they can make Obama into a one-term President.

The most violent opposition isn't directed at his ideas about health care reform. It is directed at him. It is about him. They couldn't make enough of a majority to beat the Harvard-educated black guy out of the White House, so they will beat him on an issue where they see him as being most vulnerable.

In the process, they'll come after him on health care the way Kenneth Starr went after Bill Clinton on oral sex in the Oval Office.

With that kind of zealotry, screaming about government programs as if Medicare isn't one. It is why so many of them, all these wild-eyed red faces in the crowd, look completely certifiable, screaming about how Obama wants to kill Grandma, as if he's suddenly turned into Jack Kevorkian.

Not very persuasive, is it? Lupica whines that the most powerful man in the world is being victimized by people with "red faces." He thereby makes Obama look weak and himself look like a bigot. And this observation underscores Breitbart's point: It's a lot easier to ridicule a powerful individual than a variegated group of citizens.

Which brings us to a word of caution for those who don't want to see Obama re-elected: Inasmuch as the condition of being leaderless gives Republicans significant tactical advantages now, they will not enjoy those advantages in three years. Even if Obama's performance as president leaves much to be desired, he could win a second term if the Republicans nominate an opponent who makes an easy target for ridicule. Just ask John Kerry.

Let Me Get This Straight

Obama's health care plan is supposed to be:

* Written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it,

* Passed by a Congress whose members have not read it,

* Signed by a president who smokes,

* Funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes,

* Overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and

* Financed by a country that is nearly broke.

What possibly could go wrong?

Model Health Care System Collapsing

Canada’s socialized single-payer healthcare system is revered by American liberals as a model of reform. Politicians ought to be looking to it as a model of what not to do. According to a report from The Canadian Press, both the current and the incoming presidents of the Canadian Medical Association have diagnosed Canada’s socialized healthcare system as sick and in critical condition.

Current CMA President Dr. Robert Ouellet says that in order to make waiting lists disappear, Canada needs – GASP! – private healthcare delivery. And, rather than focusing on budgets, the system ought to be “restructured to focus on patients.” What a novel concept!

And while President Obama is declaring that America’s free-market system is “unsustainable,” the incoming president of the CMA, Dr. Anne Doig, says, “[Canadians] have to understand that the system we have right now … is not sustainable.” According to Dr. Doig, “We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Left’s model of reform.

Letter to a Fellow Veteran

Glad we connected this morning. It was great to be able to talk with you again.

It amazes me how historically ignorant much of our current population is. I get nothing but blank stares when I point out that popular fears engendered by a financial crisis brought Hitler to power. Nor are most people aware of how he began implementing his messianic promises of change by following Mussolini's earlier example -- initially making his nation's major financial institutions and then its leading industrial concerns subservient to, and allied with the regime.

As I indicated in the course of our discussion, I think we may be headed for some kind of uprising and fear that one may even become necessary. I believe that the administration is seeking to foment such a development and could well send its goons out to stimulate or simulate unrest to provide cover for the imposition of repressive and perhaps even martial rule. Of course the unrest will be portrayed as unlawful looting and rioting, and we may even witness a domestic version of the Reichstag Fire to gain popular support for what the Chicago mob's thugs would like to do.

The hopeful factor is that they are utterly devoid of any understanding of the American people and their character, and possess even less appreciation of the extent to which our military embodies, in a pure a magnified way, the best of those traits.

As the sign in my little old unit's headquarters stated: "Even paranoids have real enemies."

Teaming Up With America Haters

Take a gander at this essay for an examination of how and why the Chicago thugocracy occupying the White House is backing and teaming up with Latin America demagogues who hate the United States.

An Alaska Fisherman's Take on Sarah Palin

By Dewie Whetsell, Alaskan Fisherman
As posted in comments on Greta’s article referencing the MOVEON.org ad attacking Sarah Palin

The last 45 of my 66 years I’ve spent in a commercial fishing town in Alaska. I understand Alaska politics but never understood national politics well until this last year. Here’s the breaking point: Neither side of the Palin controversy gets it . . . . It’s not about persona, style, rhetoric, it’s about doing things. Even Palin supporters never mention the things that I’m about to mention here.

1- Democrats forget when Palin was the Darling of the Democrats, because as soon as Palin took the Governor’s office away from a fellow Republican and tough SOB, Frank Murkowski, she tore into the Republican’s “Corrupt Bastards Club” (CBC) and sent them packing. Many of them are now residing in State housing and wearing orange jump suits. The Democrats reacted by skipping around the yard, throwing confetti and singing “la la la la” (well, you know how they are). Name another governor in this country that has ever done anything similar. But while you’re thinking, I’ll continue.

2- Now with the CBC gone, there were fewer Alaskan politicians to protect the huge, giant oil companies here. So, she constructed and enacted a new system of splitting the oil profits called “ACES”. Exxon (the biggest corporation in the world) protested and Sarah told them “don’t let the door hit you in the stern on your way out.” They stayed, and Alaska residents went from being merely wealthy to being filthy rich. Of course the other huge international oil companies meekly fell in line. Again, give me the name of any other governor in the country that has done anything similar.

3- The other thing she did when she walked into the governor’s office is she got the list of State requests for federal funding for projects, known as “pork”. She went through the list, took 85% of them and placed them in the “when-hell-freezes-over” stack. She let locals know that if we need something built, we’ll pay for it ourselves. Maybe she figured she could use the money she got from selling the previous governor’s jet because it was extravagant. Maybe she could use the money she saved by dismissing the governor’s cook (remarking that she could cook for her own family), giving back the State vehicle issued to her, maintaining that she already had a car, and dismissing her State provided security force (never mentioning—I imagine—that she’s packing heat herself). I’m still waiting to hear the names of those other governors.

4- Now, even with her much-ridiculed “gosh and golly” mannerism, she also managed to put together a totally new approach to getting a natural gas pipeline built which will be the biggest private construction project in the history of North America. No one else could do it although they tried. If that doesn’t impress you, then you’re trying too hard to be unimpressed while watching her do things like this while baking up a batch of brownies with her other hand.

5- For 30 years, Exxon held a lease to do exploratory drilling at a place called Point Thompson. They made excuses the entire time why they couldn’t start drilling. In truth they were holding it like an investment. No governor for 30 years could make them get started. This summer, she told them she was revoking their lease and kicking them out. They protested and threatened court action. She shrugged and reminded them that she knew the way to the court house. Alaska won again.

6- President Obama wants the nation to be on 25% renewable resources for electricity by 2025. Sarah went to the legislature and submitted her plan for Alaska to be at 50% renewables by 2025. We are already at 25%. I can give you more specifics about things done, as opposed to style and persona . Everybody wants to be cool, sound cool, look cool. But that’s just a cover-up. I’m still waiting to hear from liberals the names of other governors who can match what mine has done in two and a half years. I won’t be holding my breath.

By the way, she was content to to return to Alaska after the national election and go to work, but the haters wouldn’t let her. Now these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda. Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off. Shoulda known better.

What Goes Around Finally Coming Around

Isn't it ironic to find Democrats claiming that those who oppose their efforts to impose on us a health care plan fashioned and adored by national socialists are resorting to "scare tactics" against their scheme?

Aren't these the same long-nosed puppets who in the runup to every election scurry between golden age enclaves warning that the Republicans are coming to take away every senior citizens' Social Security?

Texans Have It Right

Appropriate Time to Give Up and Disarm

A Dose of Demographic Reality

Hope and Change Works Out Better for Some People Than for Most of Us

If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans earning less than subsistence wages, struggling in the current economic meltdown, or worrying about the security of your retirement, prepare to scream as you realize that the benefit package for the servants of Michelle Obama are the same as for members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for her personal attendants is paid by the American taxpayer.

The current full time working staff of the “First Lady” is as follows:

1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)

2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)

3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary)

4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)

5.$???,??? Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

6. $90,000 - Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)

8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)

9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)

10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)

11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)

12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator for the First Lady)

13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)

14. Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)

15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary to the First Lady)

16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide to the First Lady)

17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)

18. Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)

19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)

21. Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)

22.. Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)

The above salaries total $ 1,256,000 in addition to the six that have been left out plus the two listed below.

There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady's social life. One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy one; Laura Bush one; and former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower paid for her social assistance from the President's own pocket.

Note: The above list does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air Force One to Europe.

K.R. Rats Himself Out To Obama Snitch Line

Here is the e-mail whereby K.R. turned himself in to the White House snitch line in response to the Obama administrations request that informants identify opponents of its efforts to impose a nationalized health care system on us:

"As an independent voter (in fact as well as by registration) and not a Republican, I have been a relatively quiet opponent of the Democrat health care proposals. However, the administration's attempts at intimidation, its resort to thuggery, its constant spinning and obvious lies are so insulting that I am becoming an activist and will be participating in future tea party and other protest events going forward. So go ahead with your Chicago style hardball politics. And there is no need to get my neighbors to snitch on me, I hereby am informing on myself to whatever brown shirt goon squad or Gestapo you are organizing."

Chalk One Up for the People

Even though the congressional ruling clique is trying to make it look as if its members saw the light on their own, it is clear that heat from the voters made the reprehensibles back down and resulted in this victory.

It is important to keep the heat on to win more some victories and to prevent our poohbahs from coming back stealthily (the way they prefer to legislate) with the same self aggrandizing proposal at some future date.

Meanwhile, many of those who still -- for popular consumption -- claim to be public servants once again are off, jetting around the globe, visiting these chic tourist destinations at our expense.

Where Our Rulers Want Us

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."

. . .Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 19, 1781

Study in Contrasts

Cop With Class, President With None

Not All Presidents Lack Class

Maxine on the Bailouts

BAIL 'EM OUT ? ? ? ?

Hell, back in 1990 the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country, our banking system, our auto industry and possibly our health plans to the same nit-wits who couldn't make money selling whiskey and running a whore house!

Connect the Gangsta Politics Dots

The link between the brutal beating by union supporters of the teleprompter-in-chief of an opponent of Obama's proposed health care takeover (as set forth in the second item below this one) and the dismissal by his Injustice Department of the voter intimidation case against his truncheon wielding black panther supporters is inescapable . . . except for the mainstream media which isn't as smart as a 10-year-old. Almost everybody else realizes this is Chicago politics going national. If we let the administration's national socialist agenda progress much further, look for the gangstas to be deputized formally as official political enforcers -- a modern domestic version of Nazi Germany's brown shirts.

What a Surprise

According to this stunning report, a committee of the United States Sty has found two fellow diners at the public trough not guilty of inappropriately piggish behavior. Just business as usual even though the committee admits what transpired doesn't look good or right.

Meanwhile, another report shows how an inquiry into possibly similar conduct by a key member of the House of Reprehensibles is being blocked by . . . guess who . . . that very same member. They truly are a bunch of members, aren't they?

Threats Against Dissent Are Real -- Not Just Empty Rhetoric

Take at look at this to see how Obama's followers brutally stifle contrary opinions.

Responding to Threats

Not being American in any meaningful sense, our teleprompter-in-chief obviously has no idea how people in the country he is trying to rule respond to the tactics to which he is resorting. Here is a copy of K.R.'s e-mail to the White House snitch line to which we are supposed to report untoward dissenters and protesters:

Date: August 7, 2009 9:25:46 AM PDT
To: flag@whitehouse.gov
Subject: Insulted

Although I am an independent voter (in fact as well as by registration) and not a Republican, I have been a relatively quiet opponent of the Democratic health care proposals. However, the administration's attempts at intimidation, its resort to thuggery, its constant spinning and obvious lies are so insulting that I am becoming an activist and will be participating in future tea party and other protest events going forward.

So go ahead with your Chicago style hardball politics. And there is no need to get my neighbors to snitch on me, I hereby am informing on myself to whatever Gestapo you are organizing.

Our Clueless Rulers Aren't Getting It At All

Times may be tough for ordinary Americans but, as this report makes clear, that doesn't deter the inhabitants of the compost pile atop Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., from living large and spending big time on luxuries for themselves . . . all, of course on the taxpayers.

Exciting Days Ahead for California

The following is from a very experienced and extraordinarily intelligent law enforcement officer:

Californians nervously brace for the onslaught:

A series of lawsuits against the State California, some dating back more than a decade, finally came to a crescendo today [Wednesday, August 5]:

A federal, three-judge panel has ruled that California must release 43,000 of its 150,000 incarcerated criminals, nearly one-third of the state's prison population! This represents the latest punch-line in the joke we call "modern government."

How all these premature releases will be accomplished is currently up in the air, but the mandate is set, and the state, though utterly bankrupt,will have to comply.

If past experience is any guide, several eventualities are beyond doubt:

1. Most discharged inmates will re-offend within weeks of release, creating a whole new generation of victims.

2. As a result, most re-offending inmates will then be re-convicted and sent right back, probably to the same prison from whence they came, resulting in the same overcrowding that generated the "problem" in the first place.

In the end, nothing will change, except that a bunch of new, innocent people will be harmed, robbed, raped, maimed, and murdered, who never would have been victimized otherwise!

As with most taxpayers, I don't like the fact that millions are spent on building, staffing, and maintaining prisons. But, it is undeniably money well spent!

Every minute these criminals are locked up, they are not out committing crimes, at least among the general public. Most are destined to die in prison, and that is probably the best than can be expected from their worthless lives. The only real purpose for prisons is to protect the public, not create a cushy life for convicts.

"Rehabilitation" is a term we've naively invented to describe a non-existent phenomenon. No such thing ever takes place, in prisons, nor anywhere else! Crime is a habit, and habitual criminals need to be locked up permanently. The instant they get out, they re-offend, without fail.

Again, neither federal judges, nor most other politicians, give a damn about public safety, insulated as they are behind an army of heavily-armed bodyguards. In fact, there is apparently no limit to the amount of our money they are willing to spend protecting/insulating themselves!

Meanwhile, we ordinary, law-abiding, taxpaying peons are on our own! We can expect nothing. We are expendable pawns in political games, every bit as much as are all these newly-released inmates!

ABC's 20/20 on Health Care

Snarlin' Arlen Hears from the Voters on Health Care

Tips to Make Travel Fun

What to do in a flight when you have an annoying passenger sitting next to you:

1. Remove your laptop from the briefcase;

2. Open the laptop slowly and carefully:

3. Turn it on, as well as the sound;

4. Make sure that the passenger next to you is looking;

5. Access the Internet;

6. Close your eyes for a few moments, open again and look up to heaven:

7. Take a deep breath and

open this site

8. Observe the facial expression of the passenger seating next to you.

Have a good trip.

Tea Party Speech Worth Hearing

Recommend also checking out the other linked videos.

Big Brother's Surveillance Cameras Coming Into Private Homes?

Don't know if this is accurate but it's truly scary and needs to be checked out.

Fuzzy Math

Let's see now, the government's cash for clunkers program that was supposed to run into the fall ran through the billion dollars that were allocated to it in just two weeks.

The program contributed $4,500 to the purchase price of each of 22,000 vehicles.

But $1 billion divided by 22,000 means that every vehicle that was sold cost the taxpayer funded public treasury more than $45,000.

Before ponying up the $2 billion more that our rulers are insisting upon tapping us for to keep the program going, somebody might want to find out what happened to the other $40,500 (plus change) that we laid out for each clunker that was replaced with a new car. Someone also might muse about how many of the clunkers would have been replaced even without the program.

No matter though -- we all should feel good about helping other folks buy shiny new cars.

Acceptable Terms for Surrendering Your Firearm

Here a Czar, There a Czar, Everywhere a Commiczar. What In Hell Is This Country Coming To?

A czar, according to the dictionary, was the ruler -- the absolute ruler -- of Russia prior to the Communist revolution.

With that in mind, how do you think the heroes who risked everything in their fight to free America from the rule of the far less despotic British crown would have reacted to the idea of having a czar? How do you think they would view today's Americans who are quiescent about having a multitude of czars, not accountable to anyone, exercising authority over a great many, and ever increasing number of aspects of the country and its citizens' individual lives?

They would despise us and rightfully so. We deserve their contempt and should be ashamed.

Is He Lying to Us Now or Was He Lying (to his friends) Then?

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

From a very distinguished colleague who is recognized and honored by his peers as one of the world's leading defensive shooting/personal responsibility, safety, and security instructors (as well as an individual I am proud to count as a friend):

In American in 2009, no good deed goes unpunished:

Last Wednesday (July 29), a teller working at a Seattle bank was confronted by a robbery suspect.

The 29-year-old suspect, a slovenly, unkempt, perpetually-unemployed "transient" (what we used to call a "vagrant") with a lengthily criminal record, and at the time under the supervision of Washington's Department of Corrections, nervously walked into the bank and demanded money from the first teller he saw.

This teller, instead of handing over a wad of cash, lunged at the startled suspect, knocking him backward. He then chased the suspect out of the bank and down the street, where he captured and held him for police. The suspect was arrested at the scene a short time later.

The bank's predictable response was to fire the heroic teller the following day! I'm sure they're petrified that the robbery suspect will sue them for "intentional infliction of emotional distress," so upside-down is our "civilization."

What caught my attention were the absurd and demeaning statements made by the local PD, as well as the FBI:

Advice from SPD:

"When confronted by a violent criminal, it is best to comply, unless you feel your personal safety is in jeopardy."

Now, when "confronted by a violent criminal," when am I supposed to think my personal safety is NOT in jeopardy?

These guys need to listen to what they themselves are saying!

From the local FBI/SAC:

"You want tellers to be proactive, but you want them to do it safely."

Now, how it is possible to be "proactive" safely? How is it possible to take any positive action safely?

Once again, this "advice" is self-contradictory nonsense!

Translated into plain English, the message is clear:

1. We want all American Citizens to think of themselves only as feeble, helpless victims. Being a "good victim" is your ultimate, civic duty.

2. When violent criminals express a desire to rape, maim, and/or murder you, always wait until it is too late to do anything to defend yourself. Never do anything that has any chance of success!

3. The use of force is the exclusive province of government and criminals. You peons exist only to serve the former, and entertain the latter.

4. Don't be a hero! We don't like heroes. We want only timid, frightened, impoverished victims who think they need us.

The real truth is:

1. You are on your own! "Protection" provided by police or the FBI, is mostly illusion.

2. Go armed. Train regularly.

3. Act at the critical moment! Use force on your own summary command and judgment, with enthusiasm, and without apology. We are Sovereign Citizens and thus entitled to unilaterally protect ourselves via any means necessary.

4. Be a hero! This civilization was built by heroes. Frightened cowards never built anything!

On the Other Hand . . .

. . . in the flyover country so disdained in the nation's coastal drawing rooms and salons there still appear to be vestiges of America . . . . A Butler, Missouri, car dealer named Mark Mueller is giving away an AK-47 with every new truck he sells. In the following video, a CNN interviewer throws every liberal cliche at him without ever fazing Mr. Mueller a bit!

Not Doing Anything and Just Standing There Can Be Beneficial . . . and Here's an Even Better Idea

Saying no and doing nothing isn't always a bad idea despite the familiar admonition to do something instead of just standing there.

Nowhere is inaction more beneficial than in our legislative bodies.

However, the politically ambitious win elections by first alarming a majority of the ever shrinking percentage of people who vote about some purported problem, and (ii) then convincing those voters that if elected they will "do something" about the problem. No matter that experience shows that the something the successful candidate will do will exacerbate and perpetuate the problem . . . and thus ensure the politician's reelection, quite possible even to higher offices.

Well, here's a better idea -- a real problem and a program to really solve it:

"We have to many laws and governmental bodies that are outdated, useless, or unreasonably interfere with the functioning of our society and/or the lives and liberties of our citizens. If elected, I pledge to strive to repeal such laws and entities. Let's get together and rid ourselves of things such as the Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, Education, etc., etc., etc. and laws mandating things like seat belts, helmets, cell phone use while driving, and other vestiges of the nanny state. Individuals and local communities once handled and still are capable of deciding and handling such matters adequately . . . far better than the levels of government that have usurped and are making a mess of them. Let's go forward to restoring the limited government we once had and to again becoming the free, independent, and self reliant people we once were . . . . We can do it if enough of you are willing to take the responsibility for doing that . . . and if we can't, at least we'll go down standing tall and fighting, rather than cowering on our knees hoping for big brother to take care of us."

The Politically Incorrect and Socially Unmentionable Truth About Obamacare

That the teleprompter-in-chief's is unwilling to commit to relying on his own health care plan for himself and his family and the fact that members of the compost pile atop Capitol Hill insist on exempting themselves from what they are striving to inflict on the rest of us should be enough to motivate all but the brain dead to do whatever is necessary to kill the monstrosity.

At best, government involvement -- irrespective of whether in health care or in health insurance -- would merely end any and all confidentiality of every citizens' private medical information. That information would be stored on government computers accessible by our political rulers and bureaucrats . . . and we know how good those folks are at keeping secrets and how reluctant they are to use anything available to them for their own purposes.

However, it gets far worse. The admitted costs are humongous . . . and they would be unknowable magnitudes greater than any current estimates. Look at the Post Office, Social Security, Medicare, the prescription drug program, etc., as examples of financially unsound government programs approaching insolvency. A current example is the "cash for clunkers'' program that was supposed to run until November but ran out of money and now needs a new infusion of taxpayer money after operating for just two weeks.

The most ominous aspect of Obama care is that it will need -- and is structured -- to ration care. It empowers government bureaucrats to determine whether the benefits of providing care exceed the costs of doing so . . . and if the recipient of any proposed care is elderly with a limited number of years to live, care will be denied as uneconomic as it is in other countries in which government is in control of the health care and/or health insurance system.

Denial of care initially will be denied by benign neglect, delaying its approval until the elderly patient obligingly shuffles off to the graveyard. The next step will be hospices that will speed up the dying process and encourage the elderly to "end their suffering" . . . and that will be followed with assisted suicides (which will be referred to as "death with dignity"). Mandatory euthanasia and death camps will not lag far behind.

Extended delays for necessary treatment and the inevitable destruction of private health insurance for all but the ruling political class and their favored oligarchs are less dramatic certain consequences of the proposals currently pending in both the House of Reprehensibles and the Sty but they certainly are among the reasons that the members of those bodies want no part of what they are fashioning for the rest of us. Also exempt will be the very rich -- people like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, George Soros -- who will be able to join members of the ruling class at elite medical centers that will be established at posh offshore locations to serve the plutocrats.

What Crap and Trap Is Going to Cost Us

As the following video makes clear, our rulers intend to compel us to pay up big time for their pet project . . . if we don't stop them from doing so:

Change and Permanency

Historic quotations demonstrate that some things change and do so very dramatically:

The house of representatives . . . can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.

. . . Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788

While others are permanent:

If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.

. . . Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

Raking It In Instead Of Spreading It Around

Here's how the big banks that were saved from collapsing into insolvency with taxpayer funded lifelines from the public treasury ARE NOT showing equal (or any) consideration for, or sharing their good fortune with struggling ordinary citizens who funded the bank bailouts, and in fact in most cases are instead adding to the financial burdens of those working Americans.

Inspirational

Here's one worth watching.