Joel's Rant
A Conservative Blog

Joel's Rant

4 Unlucky Marines

January 16th, 2012 . by joel

I’ve never been in a combat zone and I’ve never been in the military.  I avoided that in the 60’s when I was lucky enough, like many other men my age, to be safely ensconced in school.  Now, in my later years, I’m sorry I didn’t serve but I understand those words ring hollow today when I’m here in the present and some of my college classmates are remembered when I visit their names engraved in a wall. 

But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand war.  I certainly do, as do most thoughtful, thinking people, who similarly never served.  According to that crackpot, Ron Paul, I’d be unqualified to be the president because I didn’t serve.  Some of our greatest wartime presidents, FDR and Lincoln come to mind, didn’t serve either.  Neither did James Madison and James K. Polk, presidents during 2 of our 5 “declared” wars.  And neither did, of course, the greatest president in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan.  But Ron Paul’s an ass, so who of consequence really cares what he thinks? 

This brings me to my point.  By now you know that 4 US Marines were videotaped urinating on some dead Taliban bodies. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called it “deplorable” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she felt “total dismay” after hearing the story.  There are several investigations underway by the Navy and the Marine Corps and others to see how such a terrible thing could happen.  I suppose there’s no way such a “travesty” could take place in our armed forces, during a period of war mind you, and our political class merely looking the other way, or letting it slide.  No, that could not be possible.

Here’s my take on this story. I’m glad those 4 Marines did what they did.  I’m just sorry they didn’t set those dead barbarian freak bodies on fire or desecrate them in some other way.  I’m just sorry they didn’t cut off their freak barbarian heads and kick them around like soccer balls and then fling them into a river.  They deserved to be desecrated and defiled.  Our soldiers are warriors, sent to a foreign battlefield to kill, conquer and vanquish the enemy. And they should be allowed to do so with speed and dispatch, the same way we fought our war in WWII. War is freaking war and people die and that’s what’s supposed to happen, for crying out loud. 

And how are our warriors supposed to psychologically handle that situation, the war situation, the same one Ron Paul claims I’m not supposed to understand because I’ve never been sent to fight.  How are they supposed to react after being in battle, with their very lives in constant danger?  Our vaunted leaders like Panetta and Clinton think our warriors should go out and kill the people who are trying to kill them first, and then when they’re finished killing the bad people, to apparently just shrug that off, like they would at the Pentagon or the State Department, and go back to nation building and maybe get some coffee.  Are they serious?  How can our warriors be expected to do merely that.  It’s not what reasonable people would do.  How did our warriors of WWII handle that and how did they regard those they had to kill?  With anger?  With depravity?  With worse?  Maybe. Probably.

And that’s as it should be, no?  When you put people, like our warriors, in harm’s way, we need to not be offended when they vent their rage and anger. That venting is exactly what freaking keeps them human beings, for crying out loud.

Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman, is well known for his quote that “War is hell.”  But that’s not his best quote.  His best quote would be “War is cruelty.  There is no use trying to reform it.  The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”  Now ain’t that the truth?

Our problem is that we are, through our sanctimonious leaders and the fifth-column mainstream media, trying indeed to reform it into something not quite so bad.  We now demand no collateral damage, no innocent’s being killed, no severity, only proportionality, defenseless rules of engagement that expose our own troops to danger and on and on.  And now we’re at a point where we have to fight a weak and insignificant-in-numbers enemy for a decade or more and still we’re not done. 

I say no.  We need to fight this war, and any war, with ferocity and focus until we have slaughtered our enemies and vanquished them from the field of battle, even if that battlefield is in a village or even a hospital.  Because that’s how wars are fought.  Because the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.  And yes, there will be dead people, and maybe lots of them.

And if we’re not going to fight like that, then let’s not send our precious warriors to fight at all.

And that’s all there is to it.


Crack pot politics

June 12th, 2011 . by joel

Some weeks ago Barack Obama visited the border in Texas and gave a speech about how his administration has done everything possible, everything the Republicans demanded, to close the border and reduce the number of illegal’s streaming into our country.  In fact, he said the border is safer now than ever before.  Of course, everything Obama said was a factual and documented lie.  But a long time friend of mine of almost 50 years, a liberal from NYC, told me the reports of Barack Obama lying were just “crack pot politics”.

I mean, everything BHO said was a lie.  He said the wall was virtually completed; instead there are over 1900 miles of border and only 350 miles of fence has been built, and only about half of that was built to the correct standards.  Not even close.  BHO claimed 31% more drugs and 64% more guns were seized then before, yet the number of people crossing the border is down 40%.  Hmmm, very interesting; seizures of drugs and guns go up, yet seizures of people go down. Up or down, it matters not. Whatever the numbers, Obama vindicates himself.

He tells us that the country is creating more jobs, when it’s not. He tells us he has either “saved or created” 2 million jobs since he’s been president, but will not provide the data or formula by which those numbers were derived.  He tells us that the country is bouncing back economically or that ObamaCare is good for the citizens, when it’s not.  Everything he says is an actual lie.  But to the liberal, drawing attention to those lies is just crack pot politics.

Obama and his record should be the basis for what the 2012 presidential election is about, and the Democrats will do everything they can to not talk about the present, to not talk about the Obama record.  The truth is that the GOP nominee, no matter who that is, should have a field day beating the person who is essentially the dumbest and least capable of all the candidates running in 2012, Barack Hussein Obama.

So before we forget about the present, let’s review where we presently stand after just 2 ½ years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

  • The number of people on Food Stamps has increased by 40% to the highest number of beneficiaries in the nation’s history. 
  • The price of gasoline has increased by 75% to the highest in the nation’s history.
  • The 33% of average home equity loss in the last 2 years is higher than that of the 31% suffered during the Great Depression.  Home prices are now at 2002 levels, wiping out 10 years of increased equity and personal wealth.  In fact, home foreclosures, recently at record levels, continue at very high and unacceptable rates.
  • Two nationally recognized credit agencies are about to downgrade America’s bond rating to below triple-A  because of a $14 trillion debt that the Obama administration has done everything it can to avoid dealing with in an honest and responsible fashion and has taken absolutely no action to address other than to require higher taxes on the so-called rich.  By the way, even if taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” (who are really people grossing just $250,000 and are not millionaires or billionaires at all) are eventually taxed at the “Clinton tax levels” the additional revenue generated would amount to only $80 billion.  With a budget deficit this coming year alone of an expected $1.65 trillion, you can see the issue of taxing the “rich” to get out of our budget disaster is a complete red-herring, a canard, a lie, bullcrap.  You get the idea.
  • Manufacturing in America has slacked off to its lowest level since September 2009, no matter what Obama recently said about the 2 government auto companies, which could only be showing progress due to GM and Chrysler both being relieved of their tax burdens to the tune of $47 billion and $7 billion respectively.  Only a government and union owned company could possibly get a deal like that.
  • By a 3 to 2 vote (the 3 being Obama appointed union lawyers and hacks) the National Labor Relations Board is attempting to stop the Boeing Corporation from opening a manufacturing plant in South Carolina because that state is a “right to work” state.  Boeing’s only other alternative would be to take those 1,000 jobs overseas.
  • The official unemployment rate is presently 9.1% and the GAO now reports that, using present government economic policies, it is likely to remain at that “European level” until at least the year 2020.  And that doesn’t even factor in the “under-employment” rate, including folks either working only part-time but want to work more or who have simply dropped out of the labor market altogether, which is closer to 20%, a number last seen during the Great Depression.
  • Over 51% of the working age population pays no federal personal income tax, depending rather on the largesse provided by the remaining 49%, of which the top 1% pays 40% of the taxes and the top 10% pay over 70% of all federal personal income taxes.
  • Because of the instability in the American economy, China no longer wants to buy our debt.  They figure holding $1 trillion is clearly as high as they want to go.  In fact, they’re trying to off-load some of the debt they hold.  Instead, the biggest buyer of American debt, which is required to fuel the operation of our government to the tune of 40 cents for every dollar spent, is the Federal Reserve.  Through their “quantitative easing” policies they have bought over 70% of all US debt, which effectively means they are simply printing fiat money, backed by nothing, to flood the economy.  The approximate $1 trillion recently printed through QE1 and QE2 is apparently not even enough since talk of a QE3, to print additional hundreds of billions, is already underway in the halls of the Treasury and Federal Reserve.  What are the repercussions of a government printing paper money to borrow from itself?  Remember Weimar Germany?  How about present day Zimbabwe?
  • The Obama EPA has imposed such strong anti-coal policy that 5 coal-fired power plants in the Midwest have decided to shut down rather than make needless modifications that would cost literally billions to effectuate.  Interesting that the lifeblood of a technological society is cheap and abundant energy, which America has much of, yet the Obama administration is doing everything it can to halt production, force prices higher and make stockpiles scarce, even to the point of lending money we borrowed from China to Brazil and Columbia for them to develop their own energy resources instead of us developing ours.  Using exactly what kind of demented calculus do you use to believe that policy is good for America?

And there’s so much more.  And that doesn’t even include the destruction of liberty and subversion of the Constitution that we know of as ObamaCare.  And that doesn’t even include a foreign policy from Mars.

But isn’t there any good news?  BHO must have done something good, no?

Well, the limousine industry in America is doing well since the number of such government vehicles has effectively increased 100% since Obama has been president.  Now that says a lot, doesn’t it?

Oh, and if you’re a politically well connected crony-capitalist company or someone with friends high in the Democrat Party (for example, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid) or a public employee union, you could get a waiver from ObamaCare that will shield you from the costs and risks that the rest of the population may have to endure.  Of the over 1300 ObamaCare waivers already granted, over half the effected workers belong to public employee or other favored union even though less than 12% of the population are union members.  If that doesn’t show the corruption that will ensue if this law is either not repealed or defeated in the courts, nothing will.

This is what happens when you take the best society and culture in the world and attempt to replace it with something else, as Obama said, to “fundamentally change America.”  You know, “fundamentally change America” into something different, foreign and alien.  But why would you want to “fundamentally” change something that you love, anyway?  The answer is you don’t. 

You only “fundamentally” change something you hate.  That’s why you “fundamentally” want to change it.  That says a lot about Barack Obama, no?  And isn’t attempting to fundamentally change America into something else really the definition of “crack pot politics”?

And that’s all there is to it.


He may have been born in America, but he ain’t no American

May 6th, 2011 . by joel

Did you know that over 14,000 oil wells were drilled in the Gulf of Mexico before the Deep Water Horizon well exploded 13 months ago?  That was one spill in over 14,000, spanning a 40 year blemish-free period.  Yet the government – defined as Barack Hussein Obama and his administration (BHOAHA) – decided to shut down virtually the entire oil drilling industry.  In the gulf, this shut down was done over the objections of a federal court order. 

At about the same time, BHOAHA effectively shut down the oil drilling industry off both of America’s coasts.  It even shut down drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska, claiming the need to review the potential for environmental impact.  In the case of Alaska, over $4 billion had been recently invested and another $2.2 billion paid to the government in oil drilling leases.  Even so, the EPA shot down the drilling effort claiming “air quality issues” to the people living in that most northern of regions. 

North Dakota has one of the largest oil reserves in the world.  Nevertheless, BHOAHA’s EPA recently shut down the building of a pipeline from the North Dakota shale oil fields to Texas.  The new pipeline was to connect with an existing pipeline complex that efficiently and quickly moves oil to different areas of the country at low cost. 

BHOAHA also has actively aided and encouraged the oil drilling and exploration industries in Brazil and Columbia, and has told those countries that America will be their best customers.  This is rather than drilling and developing our own resources and having Brazil and Columbia become customers of America.  It’s all ass-backwards, no?

Is there any wonder why gasoline prices have soared in the past year, actually more than doubling in just the time Barack Obama has been president?  You still believe it’s “the speculators” that are forcing the price of gasoline to rise?

Only last month the price of gasoline first broke the dreaded $4.00 per gallon barrier in most parts of the country with nary a peep from the main-stream media and “progressive” consumer organizations.  This is the opposite of the summer of 2007, when the price last reached that level and the media outrage at the time made it seem the world was coming to an end.  Now it’s moving with speed toward $5.00 and threatens everywhere to reach $6.00 by the end of the summer driving season.  All the while, the media seems to be protecting BHOAHA. 

Clearly BHOAHA wants to proactively manipulate and interfere with the laws of supply and demand.  But why?  What’s going on? 

If you think this purposeful manipulation and inference is just crazy talk you need to listen to Obama’s Energy Secretary, Steven Chu.  As early as December 2008, before Obama was sworn in, Chu told the Wall Street Journal “somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”  That would, by the way, be in the $7.00 to $9.00 range.  He then went on to describe ways that the government could encourage people to buy more fuel efficient cars and even coax them into living closer to their work.

And what about Obama’s own words from January 2008 when he told the San Francisco Chronicle that under his administration the price of electricity “would necessarily skyrocket” and he “will bankrupt the coal industry”. 

The policies of his government, and the Democrats in general, would seem to be bringing his words and those of his lieutenants to fruition.  He meant it when he said it.  It wasn’t just rhetoric for campaign purposes.  Where exactly in the Constitution does it say the government should be considering issues like this?  How about planning policies that aim to change not only consumer behavior but social and personal behavior as well?  Where does it say in the Constitution that government should be acting to drive costs and choosing which industries are winners (“green energy”) and losers (“fossil fuels”)? 

Of course BHOAHA, like every other “class-warfare, envy-pushing, hate-the-so-called-rich Marxist”, is now trying to blame the oil companies for price gouging and making too much profit.  Like that’s the government’s business anyway? 

So let’s first put some perspective on this.  Did you know that even with the price of oil presently at over $111 per barrel, the large American oil companies make only 2 cents per gallon of gasoline in profit while local, state, and federal excise taxes amount to about 50 cents per gallon?  In other words, the government takes about 25 times per gallon what the oil companies themselves get to keep.  That’s just what the mob would do. 

Did you know that the American oil industry pays more in federal incomes taxes than the bottom 75% of all American taxpayers; in fact, the American oil industry is the second highest payer of all income taxes in America after personal incomes taxes?  Did you know that the average profit of American oil companies is less than 6%, less than drugs, computers, electronics, clothes, beverages, virtually everything manufactured and most other industries?  (Incidentally, did you know the health insurance industry runs just a 3% profit, among the lowest of all industries in America?  This is despite being labeled by BHOAHA as wealthy blood-suckers and Medicare rejecting about 7% of all claims, while private insurance rejects less than 2% of all claims.  But that’s an argument for another time.)

Did you know that no American oil company controls more than ½ of 1% of the world’s oil production volume?  It’s the state-owned companies in the Middle East and OPEC and others that set the price of a barrel of oil, not Exxon-Mobil, for crying out loud.

Did you know that the so-called $4 billion in “oil industry subsidies” BHOAHA is looking to terminate are the same exact subsidies provided to all other industries that also get to depreciate equipment and take other business related losses according to the tax code?  Not only do oil companies get nothing special, but that $4 billion will be appear at the gas pump for consumers to pay.  (Incidentally, did you know that General Motors, BHOAHA’s car company, was relieved of paying over $48 billion in future income taxes and that General Electric – BHOAHA’s favorite CEO friend – paid zero income taxes last year?  But that’s also an argument for another time).

Now I’m not crying for the oil companies, but the fossil fuels they provide, until recently at low cost, are what allows the American economy and standard of living to be the best in the world.  This applies even to our poorest people.  Even poor people in America can drive across the country and eat cheap food brought to market by cheap fuel.  But that can change and that’s just a fact. 

So why the purposeful sabotage of America’s energy industry by BHOAHA?  Why would the President of the United States purposely want to starve the country of low cost energy, thereby making virtually every product and service in America more expensive, increasing the price of food and forcing companies’ overseas and taking millions of jobs with them? 

Everything Barack Obama is doing with relation to energy is completely wrong and completely counter to free market and capitalist principles.  And he’s doing it on purpose.  But why?

The answer is because Barack Obama is a Marxist.  What Marxists do is destroy the economy so that the “Middle Class”, the one Barack Obama professes he’s trying to save, is actually destroyed.  I’m sorry to say this, but what we have is an American version of Castro or Hugo Chavez running the American government, and thereby ruining the American economy, and purposely running it into the ground.  He may have been born in Hawaii, but he ain’t no American.

By purposely increasing the price of energy, he destroys jobs.  By purposely increasing the cost of energy he increases the price of food and all other staples of life in America.  By calling for the elimination of fossil fuels in exchange for unproven and unreliable “green energy” he purposely creates chaos and rationing of energy, resulting in brown outs, black outs and the ultimate destruction of the civil society in this country.  By forcing you to live closer to where you work he destroys your freedom and mobility, and makes you easier to control.

By doing these things BHOAHA is deliberately diminishing America’s presence, standing and leadership in the world.  He is fundamentally changing our country into an alien nation. 

By doing all these things he makes everyone into a victim needing to be saved by the government.  And that makes the government, the same government BHOAHA wants to take over the health care industry, really, really, really powerful. 

And that’s all there is to it.


The truth has no agenda

January 24th, 2011 . by joel

Tomorrow the nation will be treated once again to the display of our president bringing his yearly “State of the Union” message to Congress and the American people, as required by the Constitution of the United States.  Yes, it’s actually mandatory that the president do this. 

This constitutional requirement might come as a surprise to some in our political class, like John Conyers, Democrat Congressman for 40 years, and until recently Chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, who when asked defended ObamaCare’s constitutionality by sighting the “good and welfare clause”.  Note to Congressman Conyers; there is no “good and welfare clause.”  Does Conyers even understand the Constitution?  Don’t ask long time veteran Democrat Congressman John L. Lewis, who apparently believes the Constitution justifies Obamacare’s mandate that people must buy health insurance because of the “pursuit of happiness clause”.  Note to Congressman Lewis; there is no “pursuit of happiness clause” and besides, the famous phrase “pursuit of happiness” appears in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.  This spectacle would be downright laughable if the men making complete fools of themselves weren’t so powerful and disdainful of the laws that make our country the only indispensable nation on Earth.

One may think these are merely minor misstatements, but are they?  These people are among those making decisions that affect the lives of you and your family and the security of our nation.  Do they know where their authority to govern us comes from?  Do they know that the Constitution protects individual liberty, not the public good, whatever that is?

It’s interesting that just a few weeks ago the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to begin their first session, as the majority, with a reading of the Constitution of the United States.  As you’ll recall Democrats of all stripes, liberals and progressive pundits and mainstream media sycophants called the action stupid and mindless and even implied that the most important political document ever written in the history of man had become irrelevant.   Did they forget that they took an oath to protect and defend the concepts written in this very document?  I find it pretty ironic that recently shot Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was one of those who agreed to read some of the Constitution, as the Republican caucus requested, and in fact read from the First Amendment, the one guaranteeing the right to free speech. 

No sooner had the smoke cleared than Democrats and their media minions began to promulgate a scurrilous lie, filled with wishful hate, a blood libel, that somehow rhetoric from the political right had spawned this tragic carnage.  No sooner had the smoke cleared than leftist pundits and reporters clamored for more “civility” (code word for “conservative political censorship”) from those on the right.

(You might want to click on http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/ if you want an astonishing and detestable review of the rhetoric that came from the political left over the past 10 years.  It’s really quite contemptible.)

I for one believe the vitriolic rhetoric, in fact, is not high enough.  Our voices, the voices of the conservative right, need to be heard.  Those who occupy the highest political offices in our country repeatedly lie to us, yet the president will appear tomorrow to talk about his agenda, going forward, as if the past two years had never happened; as if he became president only yesterday.  Yes, the new branding of Barack Obama is in full swing by the vampires in the mainstream media.  Yes, Barack’s a centrist, he’s concerned about the nation’s debt, he’s concerned about America being competitive, he’s very concerned.

Well, it just so happens that the truth has no agenda.  As the president gives his speech, let’s remember what he has done to our country.

Let’s remember ObamaCare.  Just for a moment, leave the issue of this law’s constitutionality aside; leave the CBO’s scoring of this law using corrupt and purposely fraudulent figures aside; leave aside the fact that ObamaCare will change forever the relationship every citizen of this country has with the government.  Did you know that come 2013, that 3.8% of the profit you realize from selling your home will go to pay for ObamaCare?  Did you know illegal immigrants are covered?  Did you know the government will have electronic access to all of your bank accounts and can transfer funds out without you even being advised?  Did you know that doctors will not be allowed to build new hospitals, even if they’re ready, willing and able to, and that hospital expansion will be prohibited?  When ObamaCare goes into full swing in 2014 all doctors will be paid the same regardless of specialty and all fees will be set by the government?  Did you know doctors will be penalized for requiring more medical tests, even if they believe they’re necessary?

What do you suppose just that very small sampling of what’s contained in that 2700 page law means to the medical care you can expect for you and your family?  Imagine what else is contained in ObamaCare’s language that has not yet seen the light of day?  You can draw your own conclusions.

How about the unelected bureaucrats of the EPA setting carbon limits that raises the costs of everything manufactured in “smoke-stack industries like autos, steel, energy and the like?  The Congress already refused to raise these limits but the president’s political appointee is doing it anyway in an end-around move to force manufacturing into a central planning Politburo situation.

How about the Dodd-Frank financial industries law that raises the cost of capital, does nothing to halt the potential for bailing out institutions deemed too-big-too-fail, never mentions to words Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac even one single time, and in fact leaves all the details of this law to the completely subjective discretion of nameless and unelected bureaucrats.  How about the government taking over GM and Chrysler and effectively giving those companies over to the United Auto Workers union and refusing to uphold previous and lawful contracts with primary lenders?

How about official 10% unemployment, climbing to almost 20% unofficial unemployment when part-time workers and those who’ve dropped out of the labor market are counted?  How about record foreclosures continuing without end?  How about more people living in poverty than ever before?  How about 50 million people using Food Stamps?  How about America borrowing 40 cents of every dollar spent by the government, amounting to over $1 Trillion in additional debt each year for the next 10 years?  How can the economy be improving when more net jobs are lost each and every month than those that are gained?

This all happened over the past two years and is continuing.

How about Obama literally changing the mission of NASA from developing technology and creating miracles to teaching Muslim nations that they should be proud of inventing algebra (which, by the way, the Chinese did, not the Muslims)?  How about the Justice Department attacking Arizona?  How about the Justice Department dropping the voter intimidation prosecution of the New Black Panther party? 

How about Barack Obama’s FCC Chairman attempting to gain control over the internet with this new Net Neutrality regulation plan?  How about the government pulling the plug on all Gulf oil drilling, costing 20,000 gulf-area jobs, devastating local economies and driving the cost of gasoline to over $3.20 with no end in cost escalation in sight?

I can go on and on.  It’s unending what’s happened in just two years.  And none of that even includes anything beyond the shores of our country.  There’s Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia, missile defense, new START, cancelling the F-22 fighter, Venezuela, China, Hezbollah and more.  And how about the new policy to allow romance and sexual tension onto the battlefield over the objections of battlefield commanders?

Barack Obama and his minions truly believe the people of this country are idiots, and unfortunately many people are.  But not all of us, not you and me.  We know what’s been going on.  This guy has a two year record, for crying out loud.

And then, out of nowhere, last week the Democrat governor of Hawaii inexplicably raises the issue of Barack Obama’s birth and citizenship.  He comes out in public and purposely states that he’s going to release Barack Obama’s long sought after “long-form” birth certificate so that this “Birther” issue can finally be put to rest.  Had he consulted with the White House before making this statement?  Who knows?

Here’s what we do know.  There ain’t no “long-form” birth certificate.  He inexplicably can’t find it.  What a goof this guy Neil Abercrombie is.  What he does have are some notes, whatever that means.

So here’s the truth, as I see it, and I’m not embarrassed by saying this.  Barack Obama was born in Kenya, to a very unstable and troubled woman.  This woman’s parents, while practicing Communists themselves, and realizing their daughter might be a nut, were not themselves idiots, and quickly realized that their newly born grandson would have a better chance at life and survival if he were an American citizen rather than a Kenyan.  So they trotted down to the local Hawaii BVS and made a statement that their grandson had been born in Hawaii.  They even gave their address as Barack’s address.  According to the regulations at the time, no proof of that statement needed to be offered.  That’s why the document the White House long ago produced was a “Certificate of Live Birth” (COLB), not a birth certificate.  The Hawaii authorities presently state that the COLB is not proof of birth in Hawaii.  They say that now!

So the grandparents get their COLB, and for good measure, they place a notice of birth in the local newspaper.  Remember, they’re not idiots; in fact they’re only trying to protect their grandson. That notice probably cost them maybe $5 in 1961 money.  Maybe it even cost them less than that.

And that’s why there’s no “long-form” birth certificate.  And that’s why Barack Obama is not a citizen of the United States.  But it doesn’t matter because not enough people really care about this, or because they’re afraid of being called irrational, when in fact to think he’s not a citizen is extremely rational.

 And that’s all here is to it.


Liberal’s, Conservative’s and the Tea Party

September 19th, 2010 . by joel

Just before the polls had closed on Tuesday, the great and wise Charles Krauthammer and the ideologically liberal Juan Williams appeared together in a panel on Fox News to discuss the potential for a Christine O’Donnell victory in Delaware.  This was a full 2 hours before Karl Rove appeared on Hannity to pronounce Christine O’Donnell a personality failure of suspect character.  During that panel Krauthammer essentially indicated that the “weak and dubious” O’Donnell had no business taking a certain Republican Senatorial victory away from the liberal Mike Castle, while Williams replied that the excitement generated by the Tea Party is what has introduced new and fresh candidates, bringing an unapologetic conservative ideology to the attention of the voters. 

 I never thought this could happen, but I take Juan Williams over Charles Krauthammer on this one.  Go figure!

 But without getting too deep in the weeds, let’s all focus on what’s important here for a moment.  If O’Donnell had already been in the Senate she would have voted against Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.  She would have voted against ObamaCare, cap & trade, stimulus spending, government takeovers of GM, student loans and AIG.  She would have voted against bailouts and the latest finance bill and would definitely vote against future Card Check, the Disclosure Law and VAT tax legislation which are sure to be introduced by the Democrats if they maintain control in Congress.  She definitely would vote FOR extending the Bush tax cuts and possibly for eliminating the Departments of Education, Commerce and maybe even Energy, all of which essentially serve no purpose. 

 The fact that she may have suffered a foreclosure means nothing; so have a lot of people.  The fact that she may have defaulted on a loan is immaterial; so have lots of people in this economy.  O’Donnell claims both of those issues are mischaracterizations and explains them both away on her campaign website, which also provides IRS and mortgage bank documents online to support her replies (http://christine2010.com/christine-counters/) for those interested in drawing their own conclusions.

The important point, for those looking for a new direction in this country, is that both Mike Castle and her Democrat opponent Chris Coons would have voted the exact opposite of O’Donnell on the issues that count. 

 A review of Mike Castle’s voting record over the past several years includes the following:

Voted YES on TARP
Voted YES on Cap and Trade
Voted YES on Cash for Clunkers
Voted YES on the auto bailout
Voted YES on bailing out Fannie and Freddie
Voted YES on SCHIP (along with its companion tax increase)
Voted YES to increase taxes on oil and gas companies
Voted YES to increase the minimum wage
Voted YES on the pork-infested 2005 Highway bill
Voted YES to increase funding for PBS
Voted YES on the Medicare drug benefit
Voted YES on No Child Left Behind
Voted YES on McCain-Feingold
Voted NO to end milk subsidies
Voted NO on waiving Davis-Bacon labor rules

Voted NO on Iraqi troop surge

Voted NO to open up ANWR

Voted NO to restrict eminent domain abuse

It doesn’t get more liberal than that.  Mike Castle is a liberal and would have continued voting liberal along with every liberal Democrat in Congress and along with Barack Obama.

This brings us to the issue of liberalism and what they believe and where they want to take the country. 

It was just announced last week that poverty in this country has hit a record high as the rate jumped from 13.2% to 14.3%, translating into 43.6 million people living below the poverty line.  And that doesn’t include those millions living just above the poverty line but are one bad break away from entering that netherworld of despair.  That’s the most people in the history of the nation.  In addition, over 60 million people receive Food Stamps and 50 million people are already on Medicaid.  Once ObamaCare kicks in, that number will jump to 80 million people on Medicaid; that’s fully 25% of the entire nation on medical assistance specifically meant for poor people and those living below the poverty line. 

Those are numbers not seen since at least the 1960’s and reflects the failure of liberal poverty spending programs that have taken over $20 trillion out of the private, job creating, economy since 1964’s so-called “War on Poverty”.  Think of the state of our nation today had that $20 Trillion been invested, by the free market and private enterprise, in general research & development, transportation, medical and pharmaceutical development, bio-engineering, energy assets and development, communications and all the other ventures that have produced the most successful society and highest standard of living for all its citizens in the history or the Earth. 

Just think what the poverty population in this country would be had that $20 Trillion been used to create jobs instead of creating victims and handouts and placing people on lifetime assistance.  We’re already seeing 4th generation welfare recipients in this country.

And what’s the liberal response to these facts?  More spending and blaming George W. Bush for the federal deficit.  Yes, of course, all of this was caused by the Bush tax cuts.  Really?  Let’s cut to the chase and dispel the myth that the Bush tax cuts caused the deficit. 

Actually, in 2002, tax revenues were $1.85 trillion.  In 2007, after the tax cuts had gone into effect, revenues had grown to $2.57 trillion, a 39% increase.  Unfortunately, spending by a Republican Congress outpaced treasury revenues and so the deficit grew.  But never, not even one time during the Bush administration, did any Democrat in Congress state that the budget being passed was too high.   Never did any Democrat call for reducing spending during the Bush years, unless, of course, the spending was for the Defense Department.  Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and all the rest voted every single time for increased spending and complained only when spending wasn’t higher.  And those are the facts.

Barack Obama and his minions somehow believe that “the well off” or “the well connected” people in this country have explicitly conspired to shaft the “middle class”.  Their philosophy of class warfare is right out of the Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and begs the question of where exactly on the income scale does Barack Obama divide the country between “us” and “them”? 

In 2007, the top 1% of income earners were those making $410,000 or more per year, and they paid 40% of all income taxes.  The top 5% were those making over $160,000 per year, and they paid 60% of the income taxes.

Doesn’t the real antidote to poverty lie in getting this top 5% or so to create the jobs to hire the millions presently receiving assistance?  Isn’t that the only way?  The Reagan years tax cuts saw over 21 million new jobs created.  The Bush years (yes, the George W. Bush years) tax cuts saw 8 million new jobs created.  And those numbers are real and don’t include any accounting gimmicks like “jobs saved.” 

Isn’t Conservatism the antidote to Liberalism? 

The lines being drawn in this country could not be clearer and those lines are being highlighted by the Tea Party movement and those that understand what’s at stake.  As the great Mark Levin has stated, those differences are stark and grim and separate the views of Conservative’s from the views of Liberal’s and include the following:

We believe in the Founders, they believe in Karl Marx,

We believe in liberating the individual, they believe in controlling the individual,

We believe in being able to keep what you earn, they believe in stealing what you earn,

We believe in American citizenship, they believe in Global citizenship,

We believe in American greatness, they believe in American arrogance,

We believe in representative government, they believe in big government,

We believe in liberating and protecting victims, they believe we’re colonialists and imperialists,

We believe in limited government, they believe in unfettered government,

We believe in putting people in control, they believe in controlling the people.

We believe in liberty, they believe in tyranny.

And that’s all there is to it.


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