Let's see, who hasn't been touched by the notorious Obama administration 787B stimulus which is costing over a trillion dollars? All of America has been touched and some touching is inappropriate. I can't wait to see my 2010 tax liability. I think our kids and grand kids will be burdened with the accumulative debt service accrued by this generation. It seems the Obama administration doesn't have a clue how to fix our economy. They know if they lowered certain taxes and extend the Bush tax cuts would assist small business to grow and develop the confidence needed to rebuild our American exceptionalism and leadership in the world. I wish I could take as many vacations as the anointed one. I get two weeks a year vacation. Who writes the President's contract? The President? If the faltering economy was on my watch, I would not be hanging out with the elitist liberals on Martha's Vineyard's finest golf courses. Obama seems almost indifferent. He does love the fun part of being the President of the United States, however, when it comes to those pesky foreign affairs matters or solutions to fix the economy or domestic issues like immigration, he doesn't tackle these issues which are important to regular Americans. I as read the news, even left leaning news agencies, better known as "state run media," has called for the firing of Obama's financial team, especially little Timmy Geitner, (Mr. Turbotax). Three years ago, I was on my high-horse telling anyone who would listen my opinion of Obama. My analysis of him was of a typical extremely liberal, tax and spend democrat who could speak eloquently (with teleprompter) and dazzle audiences with his vocabulary. Unfortunately, what I call "useful idiots" followed Obama like the Pied Piper leading the hoards of rats. I don't think this was the change they were looking for as they, the useful idiots search frantically for employment as the bank repossesses their homes or cars. Why did Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and Bush lower taxes? Because it worked and repaired the economies of these respective Presidents. The Keynesian theory of spending your way out of a recession has never worked. Why do we not learn from Europe. What really scares me with Barry O, is he will sacrifice his second term and any democrat ally to achieve his socialistic agenda in transforming his idea of America. In my opinion, Obama has a major chip on his shoulder concerning America, simply put, he is embarrassed by America, he believes America is the problem and we should pay for this. Over the weekend, my wife and I went to the Restoring Honor Rally in DC hosted by Glenn Beck. It was so refreshing to see 300K to 400K patriotic Americans gathering on a hot Saturday to show the rest of America that we yearn to return to the traditional values of God, family and country. This rally was not political. Alveda King, (MLK's niece) spoke about family, abortion and gay issues. Reverend C.L. Wright spoke about how great this country is and the people that have make it exceptional. Sarah Palin (the liberals' nemesis), spoke of our incredible military and what it means to be a family member of a military service person. Glenn Beck spoke about all these topics. There were not any political signs, however, an abundance of American flags were proudly carried and displayed. In less than two weeks,we will attend another 912 rally in DC. That rally will be very political. Obama doesn't realize he has awoken a sleeping giant. Regular people from across our nation attends these rallies to show their disgust and opposition to the administration's policies and radical shift to the left. Mainstream America does not subscribe to the liberal/socialistic policies that Obama and the majority liberal democrats are stoving down our throats. Having said that, it all boils down to the economy and the 9.5% unemployment. This is the engine that runs America. If this administration doesn't create a economic miracle in the next month, the midterms will be even worse for democrats than previously estimated. A big factor will be the black vote. Unemployment amongst black men has been estimated from 30 to 40%. That is unacceptable. We went out to dinner the other night and our nice, young waiter mentioned he graduated from the University of Maryland a year ago and can not find any kind of professional position. He said no one is hiring, period. He refuses to accept unemployment (good for him). I have heard this from so many people. A friend who lives in Florida said he just lost his job after twenty years at the same job. Americans will be thinking about this when they go to the polls. I believe this midterm election will go down in the history books before the liberal teacher's union has a chance to change history. Please attend the 912 Rally in DC coming up. Attend a Tea Party and you will see that these are the nicest and friendliest people you will ever meet. I feel honored to be part of these patriotic events. November 2nd is coming. It's time to clean House (and Senate).
Taxman and Robber:
Superman Obama:
Charles Krauthammer: A comeuppance for liberals
The left has relied on careless accusations of bigotry instead of considering why most Americans reject it. No wonder it's in trouble.
By Charles Krauthammer
Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight. Just yesterday, it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat.
Ah, the people - the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama, in an unguarded moment, once memorably called them - clinging "to guns or religion or" - this is less remembered - "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."
That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.
Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness, and debt, as represented by the tea-party movement? Why, racist resentment of a black president.
Disgust and alarm at the U.S. government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.
Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.
Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near ground zero? Islamophobia.
Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," which was last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance. Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?
Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities - often lopsided majorities - oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage, and reject a mosque near ground zero.
What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument.
The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the tea party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless, and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president's proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry, white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.
Then came Arizona and S.B. 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of goodwill could hold that: illegal immigration should be illegal; the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty; and every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.
As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of seven million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than hatred of gays - particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?
And now the mosque. The intelligentsia is near unanimous that the only possible grounds for opposition is bigotry toward Muslims. This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration's pretense that we are at war with nothing more than "violent extremists" of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.
It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms). Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with "antipathy toward people who aren't like them" - blacks, Hispanics, gays, and Muslims - a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, "just downright mean"?
The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November - not just because the economy is ailing, and not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left, but because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.
Charles Krauthammer is a Washington
Post columnist. He can be reached at letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
Pathetic Funnies:
"The Obummer"
Government Motor's car of the year
Obama: The people at Beck’s rally are filled with anxiety
posted at 12:23 pm on August 30, 2010 by Allahpundit
I — I do think that it’s important for us to recognize that right now, the country’s going through a very difficult time, as a consequence of years of neglect in a whole range of areas. Our schools not working the way they need to, so we’ve slipped in terms of the number of college graduates, you know?
A financial system that was not, you know, operating in a way that maintained integrity and assured that the people who were investing or who were buying a home or were using a credit card weren’t getting in some way cheated. We had a health care system that was broken and that was bankrupting families and businesses. All those issues are big, tough, difficult issues. And those are just our domestic issues. That’s before we get to policy issues in two wars. And a continuing battle against terrorists who want to do us harm.
So, given all those anxieties — and given the fact that, you know, in none of these situations are you going to be fix things overnight. It’s not surprising that somebody like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of the country. That’s been true throughout our history. What I’m focused on is making sure that the decisions we’re making now are going to be be not good for the nightly news. Not good even necessarily for the next election. But are good for the next generation. And I’m very confident that those decisions are the ones that we’ve made.
He says he didn’t watch the rally so he may be under the impression that it was a three-hour “the socialists are coming!” Obama bash-fest. Not so; Weigel is closer to the mark in describing it as “the world’s largest megachurch.” I don’t know what The One was thinking, but dismissing what ended up being a big revival meeting as a byproduct of economic anxiety is not the way to ingratiate oneself with religious voters. And I’m not sure how to take the bit about America producing fewer college grads than it used to. Is he suggesting that that’s one of the things Beck’s audience is worried about? Or is he suggesting that it’s because they themselves are ill-educated that they follow Beck at all?
Update: I changed the headline to emphasize his comments about the rally instead of the Birther thing, which is actually tangential to the post.
Video of the week:
WWRRD?
Quote du Jour:
A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1792
Polls we can live by:
28% Strongly approve of the President's job performance
40% strongly disapprove
46% Somewhat approve
52% Somewhat disapprove
58% Favor the repeal the Obamacare
Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
Federalist No. 54
The Apportionment of Members Among the States
From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, February 12, 1788.
Author: Alexander Hamilton or James Madison
To the People of the State of New York:
The next view which I shall take of the House of Representatives relates to the appointment of its members to the several States which is to be determined by the same rule with that of direct taxes. It is not contended that the number of people in each State ought not to be the standard for regulating the proportion of those who are to represent the people of each State. The establishment of the same rule for the appointment of taxes, will probably be as little contested; though the rule itself in this case, is by no means founded on the same principle. In the former case, the rule is understood to refer to the personal rights of the people, with which it has a natural and universal connection.
In the latter, it has reference to the proportion of wealth, of which it is in no case a precise measure, and in ordinary cases a very unfit one. But notwithstanding the imperfection of the rule as applied to the relative wealth and contributions of the States, it is evidently the least objectionable among the practicable rules, and had too recently obtained the general sanction of America, not to have found a ready preference with the convention. All this is admitted, it will perhaps be said; but does it follow, from an admission of numbers for the measure of representation, or of slaves combined with free citizens as a ratio of taxation, that slaves ought to be included in the numerical rule of representation? Slaves are considered as property, not as persons. They ought therefore to be comprehended in estimates of taxation which are founded on property, and to be excluded from representation which is regulated by a census of persons. This is the objection, as I understand it, stated in its full force. I shall be equally candid in stating the reasoning which may be offered on the opposite side. "We subscribe to the doctrine," might one of our Southern brethren observe, "that representation relates more immediately to persons, and taxation more immediately to property, and we join in the application of this distinction to the case of our slaves. But we must deny the fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as persons, and in other respects as property. In being compelled to labor, not for himself, but for a master; in being vendible by one master to another master; and in being subject at all times to be restrained in his liberty and chastised in his body, by the capricious will of another, the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination of property. In being protected, on the other hand, in his life and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty; and in being punishable himself for all violence committed against others, the slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property. The federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixed character of persons and of property. This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied, that these are the proper criterion; because it is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place is disputed them in the computation of numbers; and it is admitted, that if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants. "This question may be placed in another light. It is agreed on all sides, that numbers are the best scale of wealth and taxation, as they are the only proper scale of representation. Would the convention have been impartial or consistent, if they had rejected the slaves from the list of inhabitants, when the shares of representation were to be calculated, and inserted them on the lists when the tariff of contributions was to be adjusted? Could it be reasonably expected, that the Southern States would concur in a system, which considered their slaves in some degree as men, when burdens were to be imposed, but refused to consider them in the same light, when advantages were to be conferred? Might not some surprise also be expressed, that those who reproach the Southern States with the barbarous policy of considering as property a part of their human brethren, should themselves contend, that the government to which all the States are to be parties, ought to consider this unfortunate race more completely in the unnatural light of property, than the very laws of which they complain? "It may be replied, perhaps, that slaves are not included in the estimate of representatives in any of the States possessing them. They neither vote themselves nor increase the votes of their masters. Upon what principle, then, ought they to be taken into the federal estimate of representation? In rejecting them altogether, the Constitution would, in this respect, have followed the very laws which have been appealed to as the proper guide. "This objection is repelled by a single observation. It is a fundamental principle of the proposed Constitution, that as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States is to be determined by a federal rule, founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants, so the right of choosing this allotted number in each State is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants as the State itself may designate. The qualifications on which the right of suffrage depend are not, perhaps, the same in any two States. In some of the States the difference is very material. In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which the federal Constitution apportions the representatives.
In this point of view the Southern States might retort the complaint, by insisting that the principle laid down by the convention required that no regard should be had to the policy of particular States towards their own inhabitants; and consequently, that the slaves, as inhabitants, should have been admitted into the census according to their full number, in like manner with other inhabitants, who, by the policy of other States, are not admitted to all the rights of citizens. A rigorous adherence, however, to this principle, is waived by those who would be gainers by it. All that they ask is that equal moderation be shown on the other side. Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one. Let the compromising expedient of the Constitution be mutually adopted, which regards them as inhabitants, but as debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the SLAVE as divested of two fifths of the MAN. "After all, may not another ground be taken on which this article of the Constitution will admit of a still more ready defense? We have hitherto proceeded on the idea that representation related to persons only, and not at all to property. But is it a just idea?
Government is instituted no less for protection of the property, than of the persons, of individuals. The one as well as the other, therefore, may be considered as represented by those who are charged with the government. Upon this principle it is, that in several of the States, and particularly in the State of New York, one branch of the government is intended more especially to be the guardian of property, and is accordingly elected by that part of the society which is most interested in this object of government. In the federal Constitution, this policy does not prevail. The rights of property are committed into the same hands with the personal rights. Some attention ought, therefore, to be paid to property in the choice of those hands. "For another reason, the votes allowed in the federal legislature to the people of each State, ought to bear some proportion to the comparative wealth of the States. States have not, like individuals, an influence over each other, arising from superior advantages of fortune. If the law allows an opulent citizen but a single vote in the choice of his representative, the respect and consequence which he derives from his fortunate situation very frequently guide the votes of others to the objects of his choice; and through this imperceptible channel the rights of property are conveyed into the public representation. A State possesses no such influence over other States. It is not probable that the richest State in the Confederacy will ever influence the choice of a single representative in any other State. Nor will the representatives of the larger and richer States possess any other advantage in the federal legislature, over the representatives of other States, than what may result from their superior number alone. As far, therefore, as their superior wealth and weight may justly entitle them to any advantage, it ought to be secured to them by a superior share of representation. The new Constitution is, in this respect, materially different from the existing Confederation, as well as from that of the United Netherlands, and other similar confederacies. In each of the latter, the efficacy of the federal resolutions depends on the subsequent and voluntary resolutions of the states composing the union. Hence the states, though possessing an equal vote in the public councils, have an unequal influence, corresponding with the unequal importance of these subsequent and voluntary resolutions. Under the proposed Constitution, the federal acts will take effect without the necessary intervention of the individual States. They will depend merely on the majority of votes in the federal legislature, and consequently each vote, whether proceeding from a larger or smaller State, or a State more or less wealthy or powerful, will have an equal weight and efficacy: in the same manner as the votes individually given in a State legislature, by the representatives of unequal counties or other districts, have each a precise equality of value and effect; or if there be any difference in the case, it proceeds from the difference in the personal character of the individual representative, rather than from any regard to the extent of the district from which he comes. "Such is the reasoning which an advocate for the Southern interests might employ on this subject; and although it may appear to be a little strained in some points, yet, on the whole, I must confess that it fully reconciles me to the scale of representation which the convention have established. In one respect, the establishment of a common measure for representation and taxation will have a very salutary effect. As the accuracy of the census to be obtained by the Congress will necessarily depend, in a considerable degree on the disposition, if not on the co-operation, of the States, it is of great importance that the States should feel as little bias as possible, to swell or to reduce the amount of their numbers. Were their share of representation alone to be governed by this rule, they would have an interest in exaggerating their inhabitants. Were the rule to decide their share of taxation alone, a contrary temptation would prevail. By extending the rule to both objects, the States will have opposite interests, which will control and balance each other, and produce the requisite impartiality.
PUBLIUS.
References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.americanspectator.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.foundingfathers.com/
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
Charles Krauthammer
Washington Post
Allahpundit
www.newsmax.com
www.rasmussenreports.com
www.jibjab.com
