Subversive Phrase of the Day

This just reeks of rightwing extremism:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Coincidence or Corruption?

We report, you decide:

More than a dozen defense contractors with business before U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the powerful House Appropriations defense subcommittee, have donated thousands of dollars to Moran’s younger brother Brian, a candidate for governor of Virginia.

Brian Moran filed a campaign finance report this week that shows he collected $80,000 during the first three months of 2009 from 18 contractors that have been longtime backers of the congressman. Seven of the firms are awaiting approval of Moran-backed earmarks totaling $14.5 million.

Where there is smoke, there is fire? Or nothing worth troubling our little heads over?

Shaking Hands With a Tyrant

Liberal Democrat, socialist Dictator – naturally, they get along:

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday greeted and shook hands with Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez during an impromptu meeting with the anti-U.S. leader at the Summit of the Americas.

Photographs released by the Venezuelan government showed Chavez, a fierce foe of former President George W. Bush, smiling and clasping hands with Obama at the start of the summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Trinidad.

I’ve seen the pictures – Obama might as well be greeting an old friend. Or, perhaps, he’s just greeting someone he wants to model himself on?

Call me disgusted…

Hillary Joins Obama in Helping GOP

They are either stupid, or just so deep in hubris that they don’t realize how bad this sort of thing will be for them – from NRO’s The Corner:

Hillary said this week that the administration might extend Temporary Protected Status to Haitian illegal aliens, an estimated 30,000 of whom are somewhere in the deportation pipeline (and many more haven’t been identified at all). Despite the claim of temporary-ness, this would be, like all past grants of such status, for all practical purposes, permanent. I’m sure with Florida’s unemployment rate at almost 10 percent, that’ll go over really well.

I’m one of the 5.7 people who backed the Bush-McCain immigration reform effort. I want a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegals who are long-term residents of the United States. But I wouldn’t touch anything which can even be remotely cast as amnesty with a 10 foot pole right now. I’ll start pushing for a guest-worker program a couple years after we’ve secured the borders, because that is what the American people – by an overwhelming majority – wants. With Obama set to revive some sort of Bush-McCain immigration reform and now Hillary holding out the prospect of amnesty for Haitian illegals, the Democrats are walking down a path which will allow the GOP to paint them – justifiably – as unserious about American national and economic security.

Have at it Dems – and hey, while you’re at it, revive the “assault weapons” ban, ok?

Governor Palin Stands for Life

It will be a long, dark four years for the Culture of Life – Obama seems determined to promote abortion and the larger culture of death relentlessly. But there still remains the light of Truth, and those who adhere to it:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaking at anti-abortion group’s dinner, criticized President Barack Obama for supporting abortion rights and challenged the idea that unplanned pregnancies are a nuisance that can be solved by abortion.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, spoke to an overflow crowd organizers said numbered 3,000 at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life banquet Thursday night.

Some in the crowd wore white “Palin 2012″ T-shirts. Earlier, GOP National Chairman Michael Steele described her as one of the party’s standard bearers, though he said it was too early to judge what her standing would be in three years.

Palin said the challenges she faced during her pregnancy with her son Trig, who was born with Down syndrome, gave her an opportunity to live out her anti-abortion beliefs. She said she prayed often during her pregnancy, especially after tests revealed that her son would be born with the condition.

“The moment he was born, I knew that moment my prayers had been answered,” Palin said. “Trig is a miracle. He is the best thing that ever happened to me and I want other women to have that opportunity.”

She challenged the notion that children must be born perfect and that unplanned pregnancies are inconvenient and can be ended by abortion. “I know for sure my son is perfect just as he is, made in the image of God,” she said.

She asked the crowd to keep working for the “culture of life” in America.

“Life is ordained, life is precious,” she said.

No matter how the supporters of abortion try to twist it, the plain facts are that abortion is both the enemy of hope, and a final solution to a temporary condition. There is not nor can there ever be a justification for an elective abortion – to seek the death of an unborn innocent is monstrous in itself, but even in purely practical terms it is a complete waste.

The loss to humanity is incalcuable each time an abortion is performed – we’ll never know the great gifts the aborted, in God’s wisdom, would have showered upon us. And not just the Einsteins we lost, but even just that kind person who would have given us a helping hand. Imagine if we randomly shot 10,000 people a week – think about what we’d lose…the doctors, teachers, ministers, mothers, fathers, friends…all cruelly ripped away from us for no reason at all. That is what abortion does.

Subversive Phrase of the Day

If you believe this, you might be a rightwing extremist:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. – 10th Amendment to the United States constitution

Comment Decorum, Part II

Ok, so there was a general upsurge in good manners yesterday – but I do want to clarify a few things.

Any obscenities rougher than “damn” and “hell” will result in banning. I used to swear like a sailor, dear people, but I find it rather offensive these days…and if its making a sailor blush, then its too much.

I’ll weed out “off topic” comments only so many times before we ban the offender.

Special note to “fr00tn00b”: You’ve been warned.

Special note to ” fmrmarine”: The serenity prayer. Also, we had a Marine honor guard at Dad’s funeral – thought you’d like to know.

The Bad Timing of the Year Award Goes To

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL):

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) blasted “tea party” protests yesterday, labeling the activities “despicable” and shameful.”

“The ‘tea parties’ being held today by groups of right-wing activists, and fueled by FOX News Channel, are an effort to mislead the public about the Obama economic plan that cuts taxes for 95 percent of Americans and creates 3.5 million jobs,” Schakowsky said in a statement.

“It’s despicable that right-wing Republicans would attempt to cheapen a significant, honorable moment of American history with a shameful political stunt,” she added. “Not a single American household or business will be taxed at a higher rate this year. Made to look like a grassroots uprising, this is an Obama bashing party promoted by corporate interests, as well as Republican lobbyists and politicians.’

But, then there’s this:

The husband of an Illinois congresswoman pleaded guilty Wednesday to tax violations and bank fraud for writing rubber checks and failing to collect withholding tax from an employee.

Robert Creamer, a political consultant married to four-term U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, could face four years in prison on the two felony counts when he is sentenced Dec. 21.

“In my heart, I know that these mistakes do not define or diminish this good man, or the good work that he has done over the last 40 years or that he will do in the future,” Schakowsky, D-Ill., said after her husband’s court hearing.

Schakowsky has not been accused of any wrongdoing

Creamer, 58, a prominent Chicago political consultant, was accused of swindling nine financial institutions of at least $2.3 million while he ran a public interest group in the 1990s.

But its the Tea Party which is despicable.

Stand for Union

Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) set off a bit of a firestorm yesterday:

When Perry addressed those gathered in Austin, he spoke as one of them and mocked the Department of Homeland Security’s warning that tea-party participants could be part of “right-wing extremist radicalization.” Said Perry: “I’m just not real sure you’re a bunch of right-wing extremists. But if you are, we’re with you.” He then told the cheering crowd: “We will not stand our pockets being picked, our children’s future being mortgaged, our rights being taken away.”

Yet as important and poignant as Perry’s words were to those gathered outside City Hall, it’s what he said to reporters afterward that set the blogosphere ablaze: “My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.” While Perry didn’t come right out and use the “s-word” (secede), you can sure bet that’s what he meant, and he made it crystal clear by adding: “Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”

I am not a secessionist – I believe as Lincoln did that a political union cannot be broken up, save by war, unless all parties to the political union agree. To secede is to defy at least part of the union – it is not to say “let us part” but, instead, to say “I’ll have no more to do with you”. The United States was, of course, founded by secessionists – we call our founding war the Revolutionary War, and it was in the sense that we changed from monarchy to republic, but what it all really amounted to is part of the British body politic exiting the union without the consent of the rest of the body. And so there was war, and war decided the validity of the assertion of independence. The South tried this again in the 1860′s and, once again, the issue was decided by war – with the result, this time, being that secession was disallowed.

What governor Perry has done, however, is quite useful – the government in Washington, and its liberal cheerleaders around the nation, need to be strongly reminded that the federal government serves the needs of the States, or the people. We did not seek a more perfect union in order that a few people in DC shall tell us what fuel economy our cars shall have, nor whether or not some allegedly endangered species trumps our property rights. Governments are instituted among men, goes our sublime Declaration of Independence, in order to secure to men the rights endowed by their Creator – what liberals want is a government instituted by liberals in order to secure what they consider a just outcome in the game of life. This is un-American – and it has gone on too long, and gone too far…and now Obama proposes to make it go longer and further.

And thus the Tea Party movement – a healthy and very American reaction, long delayed, against an overbearing government. Don’t get me wrong; plenty of Republicans participating in the creation of this devouring, political monster in DC – there is plenty of blame to go around. But we’ve gotten off the track – ’round about 100 years ago, a section of American political life got it into their heads that there was no area of life off limits to the ministrations of supposedly enlightened people who knew how to set things to right. The best way to describe the ultimate outcome of this is thus:

Imagine a man, leaving his job as a customer service rep for a global corporation, walking past a boarded up church, around the philosopher with his mouth taped shut, down by a patriot with his flag burnt in front of him where he then goes into his trendy apartment building standing on land once owned by a mechanic dispossessed of his property via eminent domain and then, finally, into a darkened room where he masturbates to internet porn and shouts out “I’m free!”.

We’ve really screwed up – and while we are the unworthy heirs of better men and women, we can still repair the damage we have done if we show the courage to confront the beast we’ve made and cut it down to its proper size. We can, once again, be the America our Founders pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor for – a nation of free men and women who rely upon God, themselves, their family and their Church; a nation which makes, mines and grows its own wealth for its own use; a nation which is, once again, that shining city on a hill.

All we have to do is show courage. Will we do? I think we shall – and then we’ll have that more perfect union we can all stand for.

Tea Party, Phase II

Ok, so we had a series of rousing successes yesterday which have, I believe, made all of us feel more hopeful about our nation’s future than we have been for a while. It is astounding that so large and widespread a event could occur with no central organization – opposition to fascism (of whatever stripe) and the ardent desire for liberty were made manifest. We can’t fool ourselves into thinking we’ve captured an electoral majority – we’ve just started a movement. A movement, to be sure, which could bring peaceful yet revolutionary change to America, but just the start – we’ve got miles to go. So, what now?

Beats me, for the moment. What I clearly envision – and have envisioned for some time – is that the ultimate way to retake control of our government is for we, the people, to show up in extraordinarily large numbers in DC and thus drown out the siren songs of the corrupt special interests. While I’m a Republican it isn’t a matter of the GOP getting a million people to DC – this, actually, might be counter-productive to both conservatism in general and the GOP in particular. What is wanted is a mass, popular movement demanding change which the GOP can pledge itself to support.

Time after time in reports from yesterday’s events I heard that local party leaders – GOP and Democrats – who tried to latch on to the events were politely but firmly told to please sit quietly and listen; this is the American people telling you, the politicians, what we want. The Republican Party is what it is – the home of conservatism, the bastion of the Culture of Life, the defender of liberty; but what the Tea Party is about is, at bottom, a demand that government cease mortgaging our future in the pursuit of temporary, partisan advantage. In other words, the people want government to understand that it exists for the people, not the people for it.

Certainly the massive spending and prospective tax burden of the Obama Administration has been the spark plug of the movement – and this, in turn, has placed a fiscal conservative/economic libertarian coloration on the movement, but anyone who wants to merely put this out as a conservative movement is missing the point. In point of fact, the movement actually tends away from conservatism in a lot of ways and heads straight for what is called today “classical liberalism” – something I’m not too enamored of (to say the least), but which is something I can ally myself with in the service of a general curbing of federal government power. And that is what this is really about – not pro-conservative nor anti-liberal; it is anti-big government. Anti-Statism. Anti-Big Brother.

What I hope to see is literal millions of average Americans continuing to meet and discuss and issue demands – with the ultimate hope being that some time early next year, as we head towards the mid-term elections, that a very large number (5 million would be ideal) descending on Washington, DC to essentially present the peoples’ demands upon government. And then let those who will – Republican and Democrat – pledge their support for these demands. In the nature of things, most GOPers will pledge their support…but so will some Democrats, while some Republicans will be vocal in their opposition. And thus the battle lines will be drawn between the corrupt status quo and the insurgent people – with, perhaps, a coalition in the House in 2011 pledged to reform and ignoring the political barnacles, Democrat and Republican, who feed off the system as it is.

We can leave Barney Frank and Arlen Specter in a corner to discuss whatever business they wish – we, the people, will take back our government and enact long overdue reforms which will get us out of debt, get us off government dependence and restore the rights of the people, and the States, as opposed to Federal power.