Hope and Chains

In one of his first acts in office as President, Barack Obama turned over the future of America to one of the least effective House Speakers in U.S. history. He allowed her compatriots to compile a wish list of pet projects under the guise of stimulating the economy, which she and her counterparts in the Senate then rammed through Congress without any of them knowing fully what was inside.

After a three-day vacation less than one month into the job, Barack Obama signed this bill, the largest spending bill in world history, into law. . . without reading it.

Then President Obama placed Joe Biden in charge of this massive spending plan. This he did, even though his Senate peers thought so little of Biden's skills over the course of his 33-year Senate career that he was never given a leadership role not mandated by seniority.

Our new President taxes and spends, and the more taxing and spending he proposes, the more the economy nosedives.

Mr. Obama has now issued the first budget he has ever proposed at any level of government. This budget is nothing more than another deficit-spending spree one so vast, so expansive, that its kind has been unseen since the Second World War when we were bankrolling a fight for our way of life. . . a way of life our young President seems eager to reshape.

Obama and his allies in Congress plan to continue raising taxes and increasing both government growth and power, during a time that both history and economics tells us government should be slashing expenses, lowering taxes, and removing obstacles that keep businesses from creating more jobs.

It is horrific and painful to comtemplate, but barely a month in office, Barack Obama has made decisions that have rippled down to cause more damage to the U.S. and global economies than the terror attacks of 9/11.

Yes, I readily admit that sounds melodramatic, extremist, and shrill. And that is why, with somber hearts, we must fall silent in sad contemplation at the unquestioned, factual truth of the damage our new President has wrought thus far.

Our young and charismatic President, in his fresh and glowing glory, is trying to spend his way out of debt with one massive spending plan after another; an act as mad as drilling holes in the bottom of the ship in hopes of letting out the icy dark sea underneath.

We threaten to go under, and he still drills more holes, chaining our wailing children to the deck under the weigh of future debt he piles upon them.

I understand that our President sincerely wants to do what he thinks is best for our country.

But you can't make a nation's economy grow by taxing it into ruin, or spending it into oblivion, and it is madness to think otherwise.

". . . these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang."
--Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Is Eric Holder Too Ignorant to Be Attorney General?

Sadly, competence is not a requirement for the position of Attorney General, as Obama Attorney General Eric Holder proved beyond the shadow of a doubt:

"I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller," Holder said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller, which asserted the Second Amendment as an individual's right to own a weapon.

That someone can be so uninformed and hold the position he does boggles the mind.

The "gun show loophole" is myth. It simply doesn't exist.

According to ignorant people—and sadly, this includes our neophyte President and AG Holder—people can walk into a gun show and face an entirely different set of rules than they would elsewhere.

This is a bald-faced lie.

Whether at his storefront location or at a gun show, a gun dealer must follow the exact same federal laws, which include filling out a form 4473, checking for valid ID, and running a FBI background check.

Private sellers, whether in their homes or at a gun show, do not have to fill out paperwork of any sort or complete a background check.

As for "cop killer" bullets, perhaps the ignoramus in charge of Justice should learn to read. Such bullets have been banned for 21 years. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised as all if these left wing gun confiscation fans in the Obama White House and Pelosi/Reid Congress try to redefine what constitutes "armor-piercing" so that most rifle and pistol bullets fall into that category.

As for assault weapons...

If one was, say, a Constitutional law professor—or even marginally literate—one would note that when the founders created the Bill of Rights and wrote the Second Amendment, they were concerned with making sure that citizens had the right to bear arms suitable for use in the militia. The Second Amendment was not about hunting, nor target shooting, except that those pursuits enhanced the militia's ability to field qualified riflemen for militia service.

Further, what the media and other anti-gun organizations have dubbed "assault weapons" are not actually assault weapons; true AWs are intermediate-caliber, selective-fire weapons, meaning they are capable of automatic fire or single-shots by the manipulation of a selector switch. Contrary to popular belief, automatic weapons, including real assault rifles, have never been illegal in the United States.

There are roughly 240,000 machine guns in civilian hands. Roughly half of those belong to law enforcement agencies, and the other half belong to civilians just like you and me. Just two have ever been used in crime, and one of those was by a corrupt police officer using a department-issued submachine gun to kill an informant.

The firearms Barack Obama and Eric Holder and their anti-Constitutional friends would like to ban are semi-automatic firearms that look identical to commonly-issued military assault rifles, use the same magazines, and fire the same cartridges. The big difference is that these firearms can only fire one shot per trigger pull, just like every other firearm in America.

Being nearly identical to the M14 battle rifle, M16 assault rifle, and M4 carbines issued to our front-line troops, civilian "assault rifles" are precisely the kind of firearms best suited for militia duty. As such, it is only logical that our Founding Fathers would recognize these firearms as precisely those weapons they sought to protect by their function and utility.

The Second Amendment was not written to protect your right to hunt doves or deer. It was not written to protect your right to shoot at paper targets.

The Second Amendment was written so that the militia—codified as all able-bodied men between 17-45—would have ready access to arms suitable for military duty. No firearm in America today fits the definition the Founders intended as well as what Eric Holder and Barack Obama would seek to make illegal.

I suspect, sadly, that they are well aware of this, and they will not let a little thing like the Constitution stand in the way of whatever it is that they desire.

What's The Matter with Illinois?

And why do they keep freedom-hating urban Democrats?

Obama Administration Supports Hamas Rebuilding, While Shorting Anti-Terrorism Funding in Pakistan

We're still fighting a war against radical Islamic terrorism, and it already appears that our inept President has forgotten which side he's supposed to be on.

The Department of Defense's Security Development Plan for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, like the administration's $900 million Gaza aid plan, is directed at the heart of a terrorist haven. But the DoD initiative is directed at curtailing and/or cutting off terrorists from narcotics funding and undermining their stranglehold on and, to the degree that it exists, popular support of the local populations there. An alternative.

The Administration's Gaza reconstruction gift contains none of these counterterrorism dynamics. Not a one. There is but one ultimate distributor in Gaza: Hamas. The Obama administration can claim that "the aid would not go to Hamas but that it would be funneled through nongovernmental organizations," but the fact of the matter remains that the Hamas terrorist organization that dominates Gaza stands to gain from every penny. It most certainly will not be hindered. That equation is nowhere in the calculus.

Another Unforced Error

President Barack Obama, fresh off the most expensive first month as POTUS in American history, has now tapped Joe Biden to oversee the implementation of the stimulus package.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same Joe Biden that was viewed as being so incompetent that his own Democratic leadership never put him in a single leadership role in a 33-year Senate career that wasn't mandated by seniority?

And now you want him in charge of the most expensive spending plan in history?

Brilliant move, Mr. President.

Let's hope it turns out better than it did the last time.

Brownshirts and Violent Felons You Can Believe In

A bit more on the Obama-trained ACORN thugs that are breaking into homes for people who can't be bothered to be responsible for their own actions, starting with their poster child, convicted felon Donna Hanks.

From CY reader Sherry, who did a public records search that ACORN apparently wouldn't do, and posted her results in the comments of Obama's Brownshirts Begin Breaking into Homes as "Civil Disobedience."

Thought you might be interested in some REAL information related to this foreclosure; Donna Hanks initially purchased her home (315 South Ellwood, Baltimore, MD 21224) on 7/06/2001 for $87,000. At some date between 2001 and 2006 she re-financed the original mortgage for the amount of $270,000 with a mortgage payment of $1,662.00. The FIRST foreclosure on this home was filed 5/31/2006. Donna Hanks filed for bankruptcy 6/16/06 during which a payment plan was approved for the $10,500 she was behind in her payments. This action stopped the original foreclosure. When she did not meet the terms of the bankruptcy re-payment, a second foreclosure action was started in January 2008. At the time she had not made her mortgage payments since September 2007. It should be noted that her salary per the bankruptcy paperwork was $1625 per month and she was working a 2nd and 3rd job (supposedly giving her an additional $1,275 in monthly income - the employers were not listed). Over extended? Also, during 2007 she was renting our her basement illegally (she was taken to court) and receiving rent while she was not making her mortgage payments. The mortgage company "raised" her payment $300 a month - right? Well, not exactly it was $340. The amount that she had agreed to pay back in arrears. Not exactly truthful, but what I would expect from a person with her criminal record (theft and assault 2nd degree and possession of a dangerous weapon with intent to injure). Oh and there is the small matter of breaking and entering. The house at 315 South Ellwood had already been sold at auction on 6/26/08 for $192,000. It just took them until September 2008 to get her out. Nothing like public information - it seems Acorn could have found this same information before they helped this "poor" victimized woman...

Who will ACORN try to steal a home for next... Tawana Brawley?

Michele Malkin has more.

Obama's Brownshirts Begin Breaking into Homes as "Civil Disobedience"

Hope. Change. Home Invasions.

A community organization breaks into a foreclosed home in what they are calling an act of civil disobedience.

The group wants to train homeowners facing eviction on peaceful ways they can remain in their homes.

Derek Valcourt reports their actions are not without controversy.

Near Patterson Park, the padlock on the door and the sign in the window tell part of Donna Hanks foreclosure story.

"The mortgage went up $300 in one month," said Hanks, former homeowner.

She says the bank refused to modify her loan and foreclosed, kicking her out of the house in September.

The community group ACORN calls Hanks a victim of predatory lending.

"This is our house now," said Louis Beverly, ACORN.

And on Thursday afternoon, they literally broke the foreclosure padlock right off the front door and then broke into the house, letting Hanks back in for the first time in months.

What a nice little protection racket they've got running. First they bully and cajole lawmakers into rewriting the law so that people can buy homes they can't afford, and when—surprise!—the "victims" are foreclosed upon, ACORN then teaches them to break back in and claim the homes as their own.

I know this is a radical thought, perhaps from a bygone age, but if you can't afford to pay for property, it isn't yours.

These people are at best ignorant and foolish for attempting to buy homes they could never legitimately expect to afford. Now, they seem intent on adding property invasion and squatting to their resumes.

There was evidence of remodeling at the home in this story, suggesting that the home was being made ready for market or was already sold, but thankfully no one was home at the time.

Who is going to take responsibility when ACORN-trained goons go too far, and start "reclaiming" homes that belong to people who have legally purchased a foreclosed home? What happens when ACORN-trained thugs make a mistake, and break into an occupied dwelling and someone gets hurt?

As Rick Moran notes The American Thinker notes, the Obama-trained Marxists goons at ACORN feel such a strong sense of entitlement that they feel justified breaking into someone else's home and taking over someone else's property to "right a wrong" they specifically helped create.

When a group begins to feel they are justified in simply taking what they haven't earned, a society's freedoms become imperiled. This is your handiwork, Mr. President, from a group you promoted, helped finance, and trained.

Somehow, I can't help but wonder if this is precisely what the most famous disciple of Saul Alinsky had in mind.

The 11 Most Expensive Catastrophes in History

I received this via email this morning. I apologize in advance for not knowing who the author is, or knowing if it is particularly accurate, or who has the rights to the images, but found it interesting that it was circulating, and thought I'd share.

# 11. Titanic - $150 Million

The sinking of the Titanic is possibly the most famous accident in the world. But it barely makes our list of top 10 most expensive. On April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage and was considered to be the most luxurious ocean liner ever built. Over 1,500 people lost their lives when the ship ran into an iceberg and sunk in frigid waters. The ship cost $7 million to build ($150 million in today ' s dollars).

# 10. Tanker Truck vs Bridge - $358 Million

On August 26, 2004, a car collided with a tanker truck containing 32,000 liters of fuel on the Wiehltal Bridge in Germany . The tanker crashed through the guardrail and fell 90 feet off the A4 Autobahn resulting in a huge explosion and fire which destroyed the load-bearing ability of the bridge. Temporary repairs cost $40 million and the cost to replace the bridge is estimated at $318 Million.

# 9. MetroLink Crash - $500 Million

On September 12, 2008, in what was one of the worst train crashes in California history, 25 people were killed when a Metrolink commuter train crashed head-on into a Union Pacific freight train in Los Angeles . It is thought that the Metrolink train may have run through a red signal while the conductor was busy text messaging.. Wrongful death lawsuits are expected to cause $500 million in losses for Metrolink.

# 8. B-2 Bomber Crash - $1.4 Billion

Here we have our first billion dollar accident (and we ' re only #7 on the list). This B-2 stealth bomber crashed shortly after taking off from an air base in Guam on February 23, 2008. Investigators blamed distorted data in the flight control computers caused by moisture in the system. This resulted in the aircraft making a sudden nose-up move which made the B-2 stall and crash. This was 1 of only 21 ever built and was the most expensive aviation accident in history. Both pilots were able to eject to safety.

# 7. Exxon Valdez - $2.5 Billion

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was not a large one in relation to the world ' s biggest oil spills, but it was a costly one due to the remote location of Prince William Sound (accessible only by helicopter and boat). On March 24, 1989, 10.8 million gallons of oil was spilled when the ship ' s master, Joseph Hazelwood, left the controls and the ship crashed into a Reef. The cleanup cost Exxon $2.5 billion.

# 6. Piper Alpha Oil Rig - $3.4 Billion

The world ' s worst off-shore oil disaster. At one time, it was the world ' s single largest oil producer, spewing out 317,000 barrels of oil per day. On July 6, 1988, as part of routine maintenance, technicians removed and checked safety valves which were essential in preventing dangerous build-up of liquid gas. There were 100 identical safety valves which were checked. Unfortunately, the technicians made a mistake and forgot to replace one of them. At 10 PM that same night, a technician pressed a start button for the liquid gas pumps and the world ' s most expensive oil rig accident was set in motion.

Within 2 hours, the 300 foot platform was engulfed in flames. It eventually collapsed, killing 167 workers and resulting in $3.4 Billion in damages.

# 5. Challenger Explosion - $5.5 Billion

The Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds after takeoff due on January 28, 1986 due to a faulty O-ring. It failed to seal one of the joints, allowing pressurized gas to reach the outside. This in turn caused the external tank to dump its payload of liquid hydrogen causing a massive explosion. The cost of replacing the Space Shuttle was $2 billion in 1986 ($4.5 billion in today ' s dollars). The cost of investigation, problem correction, and replacement of lost equipment cost $450 million from 1986-1987 ($1 Billion in today ' s dollars).

# 4. Prestige Oil Spill - $12 Billion

On November 13, 2002, the Prestige oil tanker was carrying 77,000 tons of heavy fuel oil when one of its twelve tanks burst during a storm off Galicia , Spain . Fearing that the ship would sink, the captain called for help from Spanish rescue workers, expecting them to take the ship into harbour. However, pressure from local authorities forced the captain to steer the ship away from the coast. The captain tried to get help from the French and Portuguese authorities, but they too ordered the ship away from their shores. The storm eventually took its toll on the ship resulting in the tanker splitting in half and releasing 20 million gallons oil into the sea.

According to a report by the Pontevedra Economist Board, the total cleanup cost $12 billion.

# 3. Space Shuttle Columbia - $13 Billion

The Space Shuttle Columbia was the first space worthy shuttle in NASA ' s orbital fleet. It was destroyed during re-entry over Texas on February 1, 2003 after a hole was punctured in one of the wings during launch 16 days earlier. The original cost of the shuttle was $2 Billion in 1978. That comes out to $6.3 Billion in today ' s dollars. $500 million was spent on the investigation, making it the costliest aircraft accident investigation in history. The search and recovery of debris cost $300 million.

In the end, the total cost of the accident (not including replacement of the shuttle) came out to $13 Billion according to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics..

# 2. Chernobyl - $200 Billion

On April 26, 1986, the world witnessed the costliest accident in history. The Chernobyl disaster has been called the biggest socio-economic catastrophe in peacetime history. 50% of the area of Ukraine is in some way contaminated. Over 200,000 people had to be evacuated and resettled while 1.7 million people were directly affected by the disaster. The death toll attributed to Chernobyl , including people who died from cancer years later, is estimated at 125,000. The total costs including cleanup, resettlement, and compensation to victims has been estimated to be roughly $200 Billion. The cost of a new steel shelter for the Chernobyl nuclear plant will cost $2 billion alone. The accident was officially attributed to power plant operators who violated plant procedures and were ignorant of the safety requirements needed.

# 1. 2008 Presidential Election- $800 Billion in the first two months………..

That was, of course, an incredible lie, and I responded thus in response to the others who had also received this email:

I must protest the inaccuracy of this email in the strongest possible terms.

Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009. I received this email on February 20, 2009. He signed the Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act of 2009--AKA, the stimulus package--into law 4 days ago.

Barack Obama became the most costly disaster in world history in 50% of the time allowed in this forwarded email.

I'd like to find out who the pro-Obama shill is that seeks to minimize the harm that this two-legged trainweck has caused IN JUST 28 DAYS. Somehow, I suspect his terrorist buddy, Bill Ayers.

Respectfully,

Bob Owens
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/

Racist and Stupid is No Way To Govern... Or Maybe It Is

It appears that the manufactured controversy surrounding the Sean Delonas editorial cartoon that used the tabloidesque incident of a chimpanzee mauling a woman in Connecticut as a jumping off point for criticizing the nearly $800 billion Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act—AKA the "stimulus"—has now entered its second day, with New York’s blind governor David Patterson chiming in with an opinion about an image he had described to him, but which he cannot see.

Paterson, who had the cartoon described to him during a news conference in Manhattan, said it is incumbent upon Post editors to explain "what the cartoon was intended to portray."

Images of black people portrayed as primates, Paterson said, "do feed a kind of negative and stereotypical way that some people think."

And indeed, if the point of the editorial cartoon was to portray African-Americans as primates, it should be viewed as racist.

But the simple fact of the matter is, as even leftist bomb-thrower Jonathan Chait noted, is that sometimes a monkey is just a monkey.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock during the past week, one of the biggest news stories in the United States today is the horrid real-life tale of Travis the Chimp, a powerful 200-lb. adult male chimpanzee that went berserk in Connecticut, severely mauling his owner's friend before being shot and killed as he attacked police officers responding to desperate cries for help.

The animal shredded the victim's arms—some early accounts claimed he bit off her hands—before biting and ripping off large portions of her face. The owner stabbed the chimpanzee with a butcher knife in an attempt to save her friend, at which point the wounded animal finally broke off his attack.

After the police arrived, the rampaging, blood-soaked primate pinned one officer in his vehicle, and after ripping off the side-view mirror of the police cruiser with his hands, the chimp opened the door to attack the officer. The officer fired on the chimp in self-defense at point-blank range, killing the enraged animal and ending one of the most bizarre and tragic news stories in recent memory.

The vividly imagined aftermath of the attack is the physical event cartoonist Delonas portrayed in his cartoon. In and of itself, the art of the cartoon portrays nothing but a current event, as it shown with this modified version of the image, which shows the cartoon, sans text.

Clearly, there is no way a rational person can intelligently ascribe a racial component to the artist's depiction of an actual current event. The police officers represent police officers, the dead chimpanzee represents an actual, dead, and publicly known chimpanzee.

Nor was the text of the cartoon itself in any way racist.

It read, simply:

"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

The text, of course, refers to the largest single spending bill ever rammed down the throats of American taxpayers under the guise of "stimulating" a U.S. economy languishing in a recession.

The legislation was the handiwork of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a rich white woman and stereotypical San Francisco limousine liberal who encouraged a team of Democratic Representatives and lobbyists to cobble together a wish list of liberal spending and handouts to loyal contributors and special interest groups—pure, unadulterated "pork." The legislation was thrown together so quickly that few if any, of the Democrats that pushed it through the House of Representatives under Pelosi's leadership read the bill the voted for, nor did any of the Democrats that rejected the bill, which was so poorly written, and so filled with overt graft, patronage, and corruption that it could not attract a single Republican vote.

In the Senate, the House legislation was lightly modified to provide pork-barrel spending that bought the votes of the two Republican Senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter, the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. The legislation passed in the Senate with only the purchased votes of this Republican Senators and without any dissent from Democrats.

The differences between the massive House and Senate bills were hammered between Democrats selected by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader. Not one single Republican from the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate was allowed to participate in the lobbyist-inspired alchemy that resulted in the final conference bill, which was then rammed through so quickly—and in direct violation of pledges from Democratic leaders—that not one single legislator had a chance to read the Frankenstein's monster of a $787-billion, 1,073-page bill before voting on it in its final form. Unread, and still not entirely understood, it was sent to the President to be signed into law, which he did so Tuesday, also without reading it.

When the art and the text are in its proper context, there is no way any rational person can misconstrue the intent of the cartoon for anything other than what it was; a scathing critique of a stimulus bill so horribly crafted by Congress that it appears it was written by a crazed chimpanzee, a chimpanzee that is now deceased.

Of course, I'm talking about rational people with a reasonable grasp of current events and without a political axe to grind, and not those who are part of a finely-tuned grievance industry in need of a bailout, where everything and anything is "racist," no matter how absurd.

Political Cartoons and Race-Baiting Goons

When your standards are this low to start with, the lying comes easy.

Mindless Conformists Suddenly Decide Comparing President to Hitler is a Bad Thing

I don't know who should take the blame for first comparing an American President to the 20th Century's most infamous genocidal fascist, but there is no doubt at all that the odious comparison was perfected by the drones of the far left during George Bush's Presidency, and nowhere was that on display moreso than in the leftist blogosphere.

It is with a great deal of amusement, then, that I see these same angry children up in arms because Michelle Malkin recently took a picture with a guy holding an Obama sign with a swastika in the middle of the "O."

Just. Grow. Up.

"He hit me back!" isn't a valid defense.

If you're going to spend the better part of eight years calling the President a fascist, don't get all up in arms because someone turns your own symbology against you.

Stimulus Guns

The Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act of 2009 passed in the House of Representatives Friday without a single Republican vote and the loss of seven Democrats, sending the bill to the Senate, where just three turncoats—Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter—could be fooled into voting for a massive spending program no Senator or Congressman has read.

The unexamined legislation forced through Congress with little oversight or review is expected to threaten the nation's credit rating, potentially devalue the dollar, and lead to a spike in inflation not seen since Jimmy Carter's abortive Presidency.

Neophyte President Barack Obama, less than a month into the first professional executive position of his life (the failed chairmanship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge that wasted tens of millions of educational dollars in attempting Marxist indoctrination was a volunteer position), is poised to sign the Bill on Monday Tuesday (because one simply must have a three-day weekend his third week on the job), adding years to the recession, and increasing violent crime and property crime to levels not seen in decades outside of Chicago public schools.

In light of these bold, decisive, and reckless series of decisions of Congressmen and women more intent on catching their vacation flights than helping theri constituents, many Americans have decided that now is a great time to put money back into certain segments of the economy, spurring a run on shelf-stable foods, water purifiers, subterranean concrete construction, and of course, firearms.

While I don't have the necessary background to help people determine the best brand of freeze-dried ice cream or powdered milk, and my knowledge of the right cement mix to use in do-it-yourself bunkers is very limited, I have spent a considerable amount of my recreational time over the years around firearms and ammunition, including a stint selling guns and ammo for a major sporting goods retailer that rhymes with "Pricks."

Without further ado, here are some select choices, broken down by political affiliation

Guns for Liberals
For the hardcore hope-and-changer, nothing says I HEART OBAMA more than the 10 Exciting Power Squirt, just the kind of item New York Times editorialists gush over when they're gushing about the Great Big O. This Indonesian import is colorful, and is guaranteed to leave you soaked. And while it can't really defend you from anyone or anything, gosh-darn it, it sure looks fun!

For fans of San Fran Nan and her all important junket to Italy, we offer the 8mm Beretta CX4. Made of the same space-age polymers and rigid plastics as our Speaker of the House, this ultra-fabulous design looks capable, but when it goes off, the joke's on you.

And last but not least, the perfect Harry Reid gun is obvious, if lacking spark.

Guns For Obamacons
Not quite liberal, but certainly not conservative, Obamacons want a little power in their hands, even if they don't know what to do with it. Nothing could be more fitting for an Obamacon than the powerful new Taurus revolver, the Judge. A pistol designed to fire a .410 shotgun shell, the Judge is a favorite of Obamacons everywhere. We recommend Obamacons use the Judge with 12-gauge shells. True, that doesn't fit, but they can always try to force it and see how that works out.

For Conservatives, both Democrat and Republican
How many are you willing to sell, and at what profit margin?

Collins, Snowe, Specter, and Steele

With Judd Gregg back in the Senate and Ted Kennedy back in Florida, the only way the Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act can pass is on the vote of the three turncoat Republicans in the Senate: Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter.

Michael Steele has just taken the reins of the Republican National Committee and must play a simple, direct role in attempting to stop this economy-crippling spending bill. Steele must tell Collins, Snowe, and Specter that if they vote for the stimulus bill, then they will not be supported by the Republican Party in their Senate reelection bids.

Let them provide their own stimulus.

Gregg Dumps Obama Over Stimulus, Census

Barack Obama's choice for Commerce Secretary, Judd Gregg, just withdrew his name from consideration citing "irresolvable conflicts" with the the $789 Billion Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act being pushed by a highly partisan Democratic Congress and supported by the President, along with Obama's naked power grab in attempting to take control of the census:

"Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy," he said. "Obviously the president requires a team that is fully supportive of all his initiatives."

In referencing the stimulus, Gregg, known as a fiscal conservative, made clear his distaste for the package that his fellow Republicans say is filled with wasteful spending.

Only three Republican senators have supported the spending and tax-cut plan. They were the lone members of their party who pushed a compromise bill expected to cost $789 billion and be on the president's desk in a matter of days.

Gregg was also apparently objecting to the Obama administration's plans for the U.S. Census Bureau director to report to White House senior staff as well as the Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau.

Republicans charged that such a move could politicize the once-in-a-decade event.

The outcome of the census has deep political implications, since congressional districts are drawn based on population. Many federal funds are distributed on the basis of population, as well.

Barack Obama has tried to steamroll the American people by using fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in an attempt to bully a liberal spending bill upon the American people only thinly disguised as a economic plan, and is also attempting to grab control of the Census, which critics cynically suggest Obama will use to redistrict Congressional districts favorably for the Democratic Party, a thuggish stunt that may see the Adminstration sued as a result.

I cannot recall a President showing the level of unbridled arrogance and incompetence we've seen from this President not even one month in office. If he doesn't learn to control his ego, and learn to act as a leader and not a campaigner this current recession may one day be regarded as the high point of one of the most laughably incompetent administrations in history.

History, New Retail Spending Figures Suggest Recession May Be Over, Democrats Attempt to Ram Through Multi-Generational Financial Rape Anyway

It was never about helping the American people, folks. Never.

If Democrats had wanted a true stimulus to help the economy, they could have easily crafted a bill that both parties would have supported fully for just over $100 billion dollars. Instead, the House and Senate Conference bill is a 1,434 page bloated spending spree costing $798 billion, with even more massive spending in the wings as Democrats will attempt to spend at least that much again on more government bailouts of the financial sector.

While our Easter bunny continues to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in an attempt to bully the American people into accepting the solution offered by Democrats, the American people are increasing rejecting the pork-filled corruption that is this "stimulus" bill. Further, it is a bill, that like most government intervention, appears to be too little, too late to matter.

History suggests that the worst of the recession may be over, and a rise in retail spending seems to support that possibility. Corporations that have been hard hit are still reporting a curious increase in sales to new customers, and the CBO itself said that without any intervention at all, the economy would correct itself in 2009.

So what does the Democratic Party, firmly in control of the House, Senate, and Presidency, attempt to do? They attempt to rob you blind, paying off left-wing special interest groups with your tax dollars.

No wonder Obama supporters are spending their own money to campaign against this boondoggle.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are expanding welfare, folks, with with a very clear intention of putting you on it. People dependent on government, embrace government, and Democrats hope if they make enough of you dependent upon them, they'll be in power for decades to come.

Perhaps you'll let them win, and fundamentally change this country into a socialist state, a greater Sweden or France. These are not horrible countries, but they are not the United States.

Americans love their freedom and their independence, and the risk and opportunity that independence brings.

So I have a simple question for you: are you looking to accept this nightmare and become a socialist, or are you still enthralled with the core beliefs of our founding fathers, and not so easily led to slaughter?

Joe Biden to Attend Special Olympics

Admit it. Your lip twitched into a smile when you read that.

I Get the Feeling...

...that Barack Obama won't be happy until he does to our economy what Chris Brown did to Rihanna.

As if Carter II wasn't causing enough mayhem on his own by spreading FUD about the economy, his Treasury Secretary—that genius who couldn't figure out how to pay his own taxes—just caused the stock market to tumble with a bailout plan investors found woefully inadequate. All the while, a stumbling bumbling, helicopter-head-smacking 44 travels the country, seeking support for a "stimulus" that may cause more long term damage to the economy (and extend the recession) more than doing nothing at all.

It is getting quite farcical, the disjointed cluelessness of our shiny new POTUS. I could almost bring myself to be amused as he implodes his undeserved cult status, but the sad fact remains that he's hell-bent on ill-fitting solutions that are almost certain to wreck the hopes and dreams of the present generation, while saddling the next with undeserved debt.

Yes, many of those who will be hardest hit voted for him. Yes, many of those voted for him did so for the most superficial of reasons. Yes, they do, in some respects, deserve the change they elected.

But nobody should be forced into misery because our last President was a fiscal train-wreck that the new one seems intent on topping in economic ineptitude in his first month in office.

What a sad, sad disaster to watch unfold.

Bu-wawk-Bawk!

After listening to yet another doom-and-gloom speech from Barack Obama, I'm starting to think of him as the Easter Bunny President.

Barack Obama: Smooth on the outside, full of stale air on the inside, with no backbone, and a 90% probability of a meltdown under the slightest bit of heat and pressure.

As King Pyrrhus Crows

The Multi-Generational Financial Rape Act of 2009, AKA the "stimulus, bill," has passed in the U.S. Senate.

Congratulations, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid. You deserve all the credit for this bill passing, and I mean that will all sincerity. You own this bill, lock, stock and barrel. All the blame that will thunder down upon you in years to come. All the anger, distrust, and blind hatred that will result from your short-sightness and political greed. You've earned it all.

To their credit, not a single Republican voted for the House version of this toxic pork-laden spending bill, the stench of which was so bad than even 11 conscientious House Democrats could not vote for it

In the Senate, the opportunistic partisanship was equally strong, without a single Democratic Senator having the moral courage to vote against a bill destined to cause long-term economic harm.

As for Hollow Man... well, the bloom came off his proverbial rose far faster than any of us could have anticipated. In just two remarkably bitter weeks, "hope" and "change" was completely abandoned for the cheap theatrical politics of terrorizing the public with threats of impending doom.

President Obama cried of a financial catastrophe if he did not get the special interest pork he desired, irresponsibly undermining consumer confidence as he railed about a second Great Depression that would occur if he did not get his way.

Enjoy your temporary victory while you can Mr. President, for once the true cost is known you will be loved no more.

CBO Report: Stimulus Bill Unnecessary; Economy Will Right in Second Half of 2009

According to a report from non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the recession is going to end this year, without the costly, pork-laden stimulus:

CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II.

This recession, however, may not result in the highest unemployment rate. That rate, in CBO's forecast, rises to 9.2 percent by early 2010 (up from a low of 4.4 percent at the end of 2006) but is still below the 10.8 percent rate seen near the end of the 1981–1982 recession.

In preparing its economic forecast, CBO assumes that current laws and policies governing federal spending and taxes do not change. This forecast, therefore, does not include the effects of a possible fiscal stimulus package.

On that basis, CBO anticipates that real GDP will drop by 2.2 percent in calendar year 2009, a steep decline.

CBO expects the economy to begin a slow recovery in the second half of 2009 and to grow by a modest 1.5 percent in 2010.

The very liberal leaders of the Democratic Congress and our neophyte President have attempted to ram a wish-list of left-wing "progressive" spending programs—costing hundreds of billions of dollars—down our throats, sold to us with threats on a platform of fear.

If you are a responsible moderate, Democrat, or Republican that wants to stop the doubling of our national debt because these corrupt and opportunistic politicians want to use economic fear to feather their political nests, start by calling the three Republican Senators below, and demand they withdraw their support from this unnecessary stimulus bill.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (202) 224-5344

Sen. Susan Collins (202) 224-2523

Sen. Arlen Specter (202) 224-4254

If these three won't back the stimulus, it will not pass and we will not saddle the next generation with unnecessary debt.

While you're at it, call your own Senators and Congressmen and give them a piece of your mind as well:

Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121

House switchboard: 202-225-3121

Kill the stimulus.

It's time to remind these leeches that they work for us.

Fencing Pigs

I got this parable via email from my father, and it certainly seems to describe what our government is trying to do to Americans today.

A professor in a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The multi-generational financial rape that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and so many members of our Congress are trying to force down our throats—under increasing threats and ever-louder fear-mongering—is a betrayal of the core ideals of our Founding Fathers.

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin... they did not want a large and powerful government. They went to war against such a monstrosity, one that had strangled them with punitive taxation and oppressive government. The fought tooth and nail for to establish a free republic where Americans could enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Our socialist President and his Democratic Party acolytes are not breaking any laws in trying to ram this $1 trillion dollar of waste down our throats... and wouldn't hold themselves accountable if they were.

As with many tyrannical governments of the past, they're sincere in their belief that encroaching further into our lives—taking a little more liberty, putting up one more fence post at a time—is for our own good.

But power only makes governments hungry for more power, and a point is eventually reached when that strangling power, that encroaching fence, must be put asunder before to envelops those who love liberty and turns them into slaves.

We face a very simple choice here, in early February of 2009, my fellow Americans.

We stop the fencing today.

We stop our government, Republican and Democrat alike, and declare that they will not have their bloated stimulus, this financial rape of our children's future, that dwarfs the costs of the entire Iraq War and Afghan War combined.

We will shout out NO MORE.

Or in the not too distant future, we will face a far darker decision, that of surrendering what little of our freedom that remains to the all powerful government, or sharpening our tusks, and going to war yet again against tyranny. Hopefully, you will act to day and not allow yourself to be led dumbly into that pen. You will stop it, now, before it can successfully be constructed.

There are pig farmers in the White House and Congress that would see you led in captivity so that they may dine on your fatted flesh.

Will you be led to slaughter.

Or will you be free?

Rider On a Pale Horse

In a profoundly dispiriting missive to the Washington Post, Beelzobama, Lord of the Flying Excuse, has issued forth one of the most negative, doom-proclaiming pronouncements ever issued forth from the Oval Office ,The Actions Americans Need.

It is a ledge-walking lament of a false Prophet attempting to extort America into supporting his pursuit of a nakedly partisan ideological agenda.

Barack Obama has put radical orthodoxy over country, and chosen opportunism over leadership. It is, in short, an editorial that deserves to be read and understood so that a trainwreck of a President may be properly mocked and scorned.

The dishonesty begins with the first proverbial stroke of the pen:

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

While we are indeed in the midst of a recession, Obama has purposefully and vastly overstated our nation's present economic condition. We find ourselves in what is indeed a financial downturn, one hastened and exacerbated by if not created by politicians, but a downturn nevertheless far less dire than the Crier in Chief suggests.

As Don Surber notes, Beelz inherited from Bush an inflation rate of 3.85% and an unemployment rate of 5.76%, both far lower than rates inherited by Ford (11% and 5.64%), Carter (5.75% and 7.05%), or Reagan, who inherited 13.58% inflation and 7.18% inflation from James Earl Carter—the failed President many critics find Obama to be most like.

Despite the demonstrable lies of the guileless fearmonger in the Oval Office, we are not approaching anything like the dark days of the Great Depression our neophyte President suggests.

If anything, there are some suggestions of improvement in the economy. Many of the best public companies, and some private companies, continue to hire employees and report growth.

From this profoundly depressed state our young President, in his first ever executive position, attempts to convince us that to get out of this recession, we should place our faith and our children's futures in the hands of the incompetents, tax cheats, business failures, and agenda-driven blowhards that helped lead us into this mess, otherwise known as Congress.

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

Obama refuses to listen to even his own rhetoric of the past several years. Fresh off winning an election based in part upon laments that the prior administration was guilty of rushed decision making, he is furiously attempting to railroad through Congress that costs more than the total costs of the Iraq War and Afghan War combined, in less than two weeks, so rapidly that it is said that not so much as a single Congressman or Senator had a chance to read the bill in it's entirety, much less examine it critically.

There is a good reason for Obama's bum rush: the Congressional Budget Office has declared that this bloated trainwreck of a bill is more harmful to the nation's future than the government ignoring the issue entirely:

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

Worse. Than. Nothing.

Hell of a job, Barry.

Hell of a job.

Four Million

Ironically, both the number of people who will vote for Barack Obama if this stimulus bill passes, and the number of people who have now visited this blog.

And guess who Mr. Four Million was?

I'm also pretty sure he was a significant number of those other 3,999,999, but hey, who's counting?

Messiah Thinks He Has More Money Than Jesus

Or something like that.

Twice today, CNN has done short segments on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's declaration that

To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, "if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion."

Both times they said the claim checked out, the second time with a famous mathmetician (although I think they just needed a calculator).

Christ's birth in year zero one, times 365, times 2009, gets you 733,285,000,000, or a bit over $733 billion. (Yes, I'm leaving out leap years.) You're not even three-quarters of the way there...

King Urkel the First is disappointing a lot of people, especially those that have the mathematical sense to understand that the "stimulus" bill he and the far left are trying to force down our throats is little more than a trillion dollar wishlist of pork, handouts, and political graft that may not save or create so much as a single American job.

I was listening to the local AM talk station on my way home this evening and they mentioned that there has never been a significant economic recession in any country ever helped by government intervention. He cited the financial trainwreck FDR created during his attempt to alleviate the Great Depression that we are still paying for, and the mess the Japanese government made to their economy under similar circumstances, which again, they have not recovered from.

And such big government programs fail for a very simple reason: you cannot spend your way out of debt.

If Barack Obama was truly serious about helping the economy, he would push across-the-board cuts for all federal agencies not directly involved basic safety and security, impose a government hiring freeze so that the size of the government would shrink through natural attrition, and lower various taxes so that companies would be encouraged to grow their businesses. Such a plan isn't too far off from what I've heard some conservative Democrats and Republicans are promoting.

But I don't think Barack Obama really cares all that much about getting America out of this recession. He seems far more interested in using the economy as a weapon of fear to impose an ideological agenda.

I hope he enjoys the euphoria of his brief popularity while it lasts. It is melting rapidly, and unlikely to last the coming spring thaw.

Associated Press Goes After "Hope" Artist For More Than Change

I was emailed a link to this story from AP's Media Relations office tonight.

It seems that the wire service wants credit and compensation from an artist by the name of Shepard Fairey for his Barack Obama "Hope" image that was admittedly based on the work of an Associated Press photographer, Manny Garcia.

Now it has been a long, long time—circa 1991—that I was in college learning the basics of media law in a journalism class, but my initial reaction was that derivative art was protected under fair use laws.

And upon further review, it's a good thing that I'm not a lawyer.

Fairey has apparently admitted his work came from Garcia's photo. It seems to me that the only real question here is whether or not Fairey settles our of court, or if he presses for a trial that he seems destined to lose.

Runaways

As Kentucky's "Katrina on Ice" continues with Mississippi line crews confirming that damage to the Kentucky power grid was worse than what they saw on the Gulf Coast, and thousands faced another icy day and night without power, Michelle and Barack Obama fled an even more horrifying scene.

With little notice, the president and first lady Michelle Obama bolted the gated compound of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in their tank of a limousine on Tuesday. They ended up at a Washington public school, greeted by children who could not care less about the collapse of a Cabinet secretary nomination.

"We were just tired of being in the White House," the president candidly told the gleeful second-graders at Capital City Public Charter School.

"We got out! They let us out!" Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed.

The stress of $100/lb steaks and cocktail parties simply must have been too much to bear.

We're just lucky that in these tough times, we're graced with tougher leadership.

Second Amendment Demonstration In Raleigh Tomorrow

Mike at Cold Fury pinged me to let me know that Bubba is organizing a demonstration in front of the North Carolina State Legislature tomorrow to remind them that our rights Shall Not Be Infringed:

February 4, 2009
2:00 till 6:00pm.
Raleigh, North Carolina
W. Jones St, from Salisbury St to Wilmington St, facing the State Legislature.

Join with hundreds of fellow Americans, peaceably assembled to seek a redress of grievances from government officials who are not respecting our Constitutional Civil Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

As American citizens , We have a responsibility to protect and preserve ALL of the rights, freedoms and protections guaranteed ALL Americans by the Bill of Rights and the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments. These are our Constitutional civil rights and liberties, they are a birth right of ALL Americans extended to all naturalized citizens.

Call them Constitutional Rights, Civil Rights or Civil Liberties they are one and the same and mean as much to tens of millions of gun owners, conservatives and Constitutionalists as do other Civil Rights to other groups of people.

No more gun bigotry, No more infringement.

In addition to the gun bans currently being advocated by the Obama White House and some members of Congress, there are some moves afoot here in North Carolina (and in other states) where MoveOn.Org-affiliated groups and individuals are pushing for gun registration, ammunition licensing, and other pre-confiscatory schemes.

If you can make it, be there. If you aren't nearby, perhaps you might be able to find or organize a similar event near you.

Μολὼν λάβε

Obama's Stimulus too Socialist for ... France?

Oui:

Paris rejects 'Obama-style' stimulus program

Prime Minister François Fillon on Monday rejected demands that the French government seek to stimulate consumer spending, rather than follow his plan to stimulate corporate and infrastructure investment, to lift France out of its economic slump.

"It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country's indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end," Fillon said in a speech in Lyon.

Sacré bleu! You mean you can't spend your way out of debt?

What kind of crazy talk is that?

Obama's "Katrina on Ice"

More than 700,000 homes are still without power in Kentucky due to a massive ice storm that struck the state six days ago, forcing Gov. Steve Beshear to mobilize his entire state's Army and Air National Guard, a total of 4,600 men and the largest call-out in Kentucky's history.

FEMA has apparently been a no-show.

Our Hawaiian-borne President, basking in the glow of an overheated Oval Office and dining on $100/lb steak, has been utterly disinterested, indulging himself in vodka martinis at cocktail parties, as he continues to talk up the need for the $1.1 trillion dollar "stimulus" while simultaneously trying to lower expectations of its impact, knowing how little it will actually accomplish for the economy even as it furthers his political agenda.

So please pardon some of my friends if they engage in a little hyperbole as they notice that our Freshman Senator cum President is a bit too giddy with his newfound power and the D.C. cocktail circuit to notice that as many as 1.5 million Americans are in dire straits at this moment.

After all, Barack Obama probably doesn't hate white people no matter what 20-years in the pews of a racial separatist church suggests. It's just far harder to see a bunch of white people against ice and snow.

And Caleb, while I don't doubt that the sage of hopenchange has a distinct preference for the refined metropolitan areas of the nation over areas those that bitterly cling to the Bibles, guns, and snowshovels, I'm pretty sure even he doesn't consider Kentucky "southern", even on his 57-state map.