One of the most disturbing things about Barack Obama is not Obama himself, but rather some of the people around him, including several people he has put into positions of authority. I've already detailed the radical nature of a couple Obama administration personnel, Science Czar John Holdren and FCC Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd. Holdren has a number of crazy beliefs, among them being the idea that the U.S. Constitution doesn't entitle people to have children. Holdren declared “neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce" in his 1977 book, Ecoscience. Evidently, Holdren missed the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence – "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." In Holdren's defense, he only attended MIT and Stanford. Maybe they don't teach the basics at those elite schools. I don't know. I could only afford to go to Podunk University in Backwater, USA (so I am oppressed and demand reparations ! Just kidding. My inner whiny liberal took over for a second there). Yet, somehow I know the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution better than Holdren does. I must have read about it on a bathroom wall somewhere, or maybe at a gun show.

Mark Lloyd is another elite. He was a professor at Georgetown and a visiting lecturer at MIT prior to becoming a Hugo Chavez-loving Nazi hell-bent on destroying free speech on America's airwaves. Here's a quote from the well-educated Professor Lloyd:

“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. . . . This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. . . . At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”

Yes, Mr. Lloyd, it certainly IS clear that your focus is not free speech. That's why you should take the Che poster down from the wall of your office, clean out your desk, and go peddle your commie crap someplace like Cuba or Venezuela, but not here. Not in this country. We still call this the land of the free, not the land of government diktat.

Another Communist in the Obama administration is the eminent Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar. Mr. Jones went to Yale, so he's a real smart fellow, just like the other radical nutjobs I've mentioned. Jones claims to have been radicalized by the Rodney King verdict. By his own words, that drove him to embrace Marxism. I can't say I follow Mr. Jones' logic there, but like I said, I'm not one of the elite. To me, embracing communism because of a perceived American civil rights injustice is like jumping out of an airplane in flight because you don't like your seat. It's a hysterical and moronic overreaction. Maybe Jones doesn't realize that, under Communism, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CIVIL RIGHTS to begin with. What a boob, er, I mean, deep thinker. Liberal groups have been claiming that Jones radical Communist days are behind him, but here's Van Jones in April, 2009:

"This [green] movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don't stop there! Don't stop there! We're gonna change the whole system! We're gonna change the whole thing. We're not gonna put a new battery in a broken system. We want a new system. We want a new system!…And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn't want, where it was all hot and windy. Well, guess what? Renewable energy? Guess what, solar industry? Guess what wind industry? They now own and control 80 percent of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth! Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt…What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about people who come here from all around the world who we're willing to have out in the field, with poison being sprayed on them, poison being sprayed on them because we have the wrong agricultural system. And we're willing to poison them and poison the earth to put food on our table, but we don't want to give them rights and we don't want to give them dignity and we don't want to give them respect?…We're really entering a third wave of environmentalism in the United States. The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities."

Sounds to me like Jones is still a radical, and a race-baiter to boot. Whitey is poisoning people of color ????? We need to change the whole system ? Into what, Mr. Marxist ? Glenn Beck has been on a tirade against Van Jones for awhile now, and a group Van Jones founded, Color Of Change, has been trying to get Beck kicked off the air (which kinda proves Jones is a Communist. That's what Communists do, silence the opposition. They aren't about the free and open exchange of ideas, in case anyone hasn't figured that out yet).

The next commie-loving race-baiter on the radical hit parade isn't a member of Obama's administration, but her stupidity merits recognition. Her name is Diane Watson, Democratic Congresswoman from California. This woman LOVES her some Fidel Castro, and is so lost in identity politics that she can't even think straight. Dig it:

"You might have heard their philosophical leader. I think his name is Rush Limbaugh. And he said early on, “I hope that he fails.”…And remember: They are spreading fear and they are trying to see that the first president that looks likes me fails [Watson is black]…. just want you to know: People look at the United States as a country that has changed its way and has elected someone from Kenya and Kansas, I’ll put it like that. And they’re saying, “We thought you would never do that.” So we don’t want to have this young man, and he just turned 48 — we want him to succeed, because when he succeeds, we regain our status. We regain our status….

It was just mentioned to me by our esteemed speaker, “Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?”

And lemme tell ya, before you say “Oh, it’s a commu–”, you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]

And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found…well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro…"

First of all, Ms. Watson, we are allowed to oppose Obama's policies, even though he looks like you. His skin color is completely irrelevant, except to those like yourself who are too blind to see anything else. These race-based comments are really just attempts at thought suppression. There's no other way to view them.

About Cuba, yes, please, let's "go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place." I believe the generally accepted term for it is OPPRESSION, along with a health dose of POVERTY, as happens with all Communist states. Cuba is a police state. Fortunately, the Democratic primary challenger for Watson's congressional seat doesn't share Watson's myopic view of Cuban health care. Let's vote him into office.

The final person on today's list is Cass Sunstein, Obama's Regulatory Czar. This guy is an intellectual heavyweight. He's a former Harvard Law Professor, and an expert in constitutional law, environmental law, and behavioral economics. I'm not certain how radical he is, because he's a complex man, but he has at least some very confused ideas. Here are a few of his elite ramblings:

“Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust ‘government intervention’ and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions"

This is quite the straw man argument. I don't know of a single person who doesn't think the government has a legitimate role to play. Government is uniquely qualified for certain roles, and those were laid out in the very beginning by the Constitution. What I distrust is GOVERNMENT INTRUDING INTO EVERY ASPECT OF SOCIETY, as it has been doing by gradual degree for my entire lifetime. And Mr. Sunstein, individualism is not "pernicious." Railing against it is.

"A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government"

This is Sunstein endorsing the Fairness Doctrine in order to control political speech. Looks like we have another nut who doesn't believe in free speech.

I just LOVE this next Sunstein quote. Love it.

“In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?… Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day …”

Did we earn our own money ? Um, YES.
Did we earn it by our own efforts ? YES.
Could we have inherited it without probate courts ? YES.
Could we save it without bank regulators ? YES. (We could even save it without banks).
Could we spend it without public officials ? YES.

Sunstein sounds like the typical government drone, who thinks absolutely everything is derived from government. Wrong.

"Without taxes there would be no liberty," says Sunstein. To an extent, this is true, because taxation supports the government, which exists to secure our liberties. As George Washington said, "Freedom is not free." I think everyone agrees with that much. But should we "celebrate tax day" when our resources are stripped from us to pay for everything under the sun that the government can dream up, waaay beyond securing our liberty ? I think not. Should we celebrate pork barrel spending, special interest handouts, bailouts of the big corporations, the ripoff of our own Social Security system, private jets for congresspersons, trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities ? That would be NO. "Celebrate tax day," indeed. I'd almost as soon celebrate the day burglars broke into my home and stole my television, stereo, and my wife's jewelry. I never once thanked those burglars for helping to redistribute my wealth, nor will I thank the government for stealing my paycheck for unconstitutional purposes. Government exists to secure our liberties, not to rip them away.

- One nice thing about Bill Clinton's presidency was that you could oppose his policies without being called a racist (mostly).

- People who think Bush went into Iraq to enrich Halliburton have no right to complain about the Birthers.

- When you go looking for "code words" for racism, aren't you just making stuff up ?

- When I talk about Obama's huge first year deficit ($1.8 trillion) on this blog, why do liberals always bring up Bush's deficits to excuse Obama's ? (Note to libs – By doing that, you aren't countering my argument. You are only making the argument that Obama is worse than Bush).

- Obama can offer health insurance to 30-45 million more people with health care reform, or he can reduce health care costs, but he can't do both at the same time.

- Obama's health care reform offers less choice, not more choice.

- Only Democrats think Rush Limbaugh is the head of the Republican party.

- Why is it that when liberals call conservatives racists nearly non-stop, nothing ever happens to those liberals, but when Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist one time, 20 advertisers are pressured into dropping their ads from Beck's show ?

- The only point being made by those people who are carrying guns outside events at which the President is speaking is that the gun carriers are oblivious morons.

- Is there any doubt at all that House Democrats are seeking the financial records of health insurance companies in order to demonize those companies ?

- Why is it okay for Congress to buy private jets with taxpayer dollars, but it's not okay for CEO's to fly private jets to Washington D.C. after being bailed out with taxpayer dollars ?

- Why would we want the federal government, an organization that is nearly $12 trillion in debt (and counting), to run our health care system, which represents 17% of our economy ?

- The "Obama is Hitler" signs must stop, because Obama is not like Hitler – he's much more like a combination of Saul Alinsky and P.T. Barnum. (Note to liberal media – that Obama-Hitler "I've Changed" sign you idiots at MSNBC, NBC, and CNN keep attributing to right wingers came from a Lyndon Larouche group, a communist group. Is even a tiny bit of journalistic integrity too much to ask ?)

- Speaking of Saul Alinsky, doesn't Obama's playbook seem awfully close to Alinsky's Rules For Radicals (pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it) ?

- MSNBC is such a biased organization that they actually edited out the fact that it was a black man who was carrying the AR-15 outside an Obama event, so MSNBC could peddle it's racist angle to the story.

- In the interesting political poll of the week, Gallup polling showed that conservatives outnumber liberals almost two to one when it comes to political ideology, yet Democrats have a sizeable lead over Republicans in party affiliation. (In other words, conservative doesn't always equate to Republican. I can identify with that).

- If you want to know why the health care public option was in, then it was out, then it was back in again….it's because up to 100 House Democrats said it better be back in again.

In the last nine months, our federal government has bailed out big business left and right. Wall Street, banks, insurance companies, car companies. The federal government serves as a backstop for big business. Big business also happens to be the ones with the deep pockets, lobbyists, and campaign cash to help get the politicians re-elected. It's a cozy little quid pro quo of the nation's power brokers. The elite taking care of their own. The government has also bailed itself out by sending huge chunks of cash to state governments via Obama's stimulus bill. Those government jobs were "saved," even as us schlubs in the private sector lost our jobs. It seems ALL the big boys in our country are "too big to fail," and the enormous bailout price tag is put on the national credit card for some future taxpayer schlubs to worry about. That's a sweet deal for the big boys in and out of government. Their risk is alleviated. Their past sins, which led to these dire financial straits in the first place, are absolved. The taxpayers serve as the sin-eaters and the pain-eaters. Btw, the federal employees health care plan is top-notch. Thank you very much, schlubs.

But with all this bailing out of the big boys, something critical has been forgotten.

70% of the jobs created in this country come from small business. How are we treating our small businesses, the ones who create the lion's share of employment opportunities ???? Let's take a look.

The liberal solution to every conceivable financial woe comes down to basically three words – "tax the rich." Then the liberals spew out inanities about how the top income tax rates used to be MUCH higher, like 70% or 90% (as if that's a good thing). What they don't tell you is that small businesses are scooped up along with the wealthy as liberals cast their tax nets, trolling for rich people. The reason for this is because 75% of small businesses are sub-chapter S corporations, who file their business taxes under the individual income tax code. When the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, causing the top tax rate to increase by 4.6% to 39.6%, small businesses (the job creators) have to pay those increased taxes too. That leaves less money available to successful small businesses for investment, growth, wage increases for it's employees, and/or new job creation.

Reversing the Bush tax cuts is far from the only anti-small business measure being proposed. As part of the ObamaCare reform, the House Committee has propsed a surcharge tax for anyone making over $1 million per year, raising the top income tax rate to 45%. Last month, freshman Democrats in the House (who apparently have a lot more economic sense than many veteran Democrats in the House), sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) objecting to the measures, which they say will hurt small businesses. Here is a portion of that letter:

While the Ways and Means Committee states that the proposed surcharge in H.R. 3200 will only impact 4.1 percent of small businesses, we are concerned that this does not paint a complete picture. According to the Internal Revenue Service's 2002 Statistics of Income, 64 percent of households filing income tax forms with AGI above $250,000 filed as an S corporation or a partnership or filed a Schedule C sole proprietorship tax form. Further, of all small businesses, 75% are S-Corporations where the business income is passed through to the business owners' individual tax return, increasing the chances that it will be impacted by the proposed surcharge.

So, the Ways and Means Committees' 4.1% number of small businesses being affected is an outright lie. No surprise there. I'm only surprised when they don't lie. The letter goes on:

The proposed surcharge will also have a direct negative impact on manufacturers, another industry essential for our recovery. As manufacturers are capital intensive businesses, their taxable income is often higher (nearly 70 percent of the manufacturers that pay at the individual rate have an average taxable income of $570,000). Manufacturing machinery can cost of $1 million and many owners have to save for years to expand and buy new equipment. Yet those profits saved each year would be hit by the new surcharge, which could lead to reduced investment.

Especially in a recession, we need to make sure not to kill the goose that will lay the golden eggs of our recovery…Combined with state taxes, many successful small businesses — the very kind of business that should lead in creating new jobs and help us emerge from this recession — will be taxed at over 50 percent.

A 50% tax rate on job creators……Dumb-da-da-dumb-dumb. Small business can't thrive in such an environment.

The freshmen House Democrats go on to explain how, at a 50% tax rate, small businesses would also be at a huge disadvantage to the big corporations and multinationals, who would still be paying the lower 35% business tax rate. What an unbelievable coincidence. The big boys, after being bailed out and immunized from failure at the taxpayer's expense, and after all their lobbying and campaign contributions, get FAVORABLE TREATMENT FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over the biggest job creators in the country, small business.

Btw, the letter also mentioned that $21 billion of the stimulus package funds are going to small businesses, the biggest job creators in the country. That comes out to about TWO PERCENT of the $787 billion Obama stimulus total. Do any of you STILL think that was a stimulus package ???? It wasn't. It was mostly just an extraordinarily large appropriations spending package, aka, pork. That's why it hasn't and won't work.

Let's also not forget that cap-and-trade is looming on the horizon, so Obama can "skyrocket" those energy costs for small businesses too. Then, if Card Check passes, the Big O can just drive a lot of small businesses out of business via unionization and it's unaffordable wages and mandates on business. Peachy.

Back to health care reform. The President is trying to sell the health care plan as being pro-small business, but a proposal in the House calls for employers with a total payroll above $250,000 to offer health insurance to their workers or face a surtax of as much as 8 percent. A Senate committee version would require all businesses, except those with fewer than 25 employees, to provide health coverage or pay a $750 fine per year for each worker. I've heard there will be a tax credit for businesses to provide health care (that doesn't help struggling businesses, which are many these days), but if these plans are pro-small business, I'd sure hate to see what anti-small business would look like.

That's why the business community, with the exception of those big and favored few who will prosper under Obama's plans (like Big Pharma or GE) is scared to death of Barack Obama, and is fighting back. I can't blame them. Anti-business craziness abounds.

I guess my only remaining question would be – is Obama trying to destroy this country on purpose, or is he just too stupid to know any better ?

Barney Frank (D-VT) wants the federal government to decide how much Wall Street executives (and all other executives of private companies) are paid. Barney also wants the government to decide how they are paid. Legislation to ban incentive-based pay for private corporations has been approved by the House Financial Services Committee.

I don't know where in the U.S. Constitution the federal government thinks it obtains the authority to do this, but, hey, we don't use that musty old Constitution thingy anymore anyway. The notion of limiting centralized governmental power (federalism) envisioned by the founding fathers is as outdated as bell bottomed jeans. These days, we seem to be climbing all over ourselves to give the federal government all the power it wants (totalitarianism). The statists are on the march, making all the same false promises the statists always make, the false promises that never quite seem to materialize (FYI – health care reform = forcing all Americans to buy health care insurance and then having the government determine what medical procedures you are allowed to have, in case you haven't figured that out yet).

Here is Barney's rationale for limiting executive pay:

"The problem with executive compensation is essentially, from the systemic standpoint, that it gives perverse incentives," said Frank, a Democrat. Without penalties for bad bets, the system means "heads you win, tails you break even," he said.

Perverse incentives. That means people shouldn't be rewarded for driving their companies into the ground. They should be held accountable instead. I think we can all agree with that, if not with the idea that the federal government should dictate people's salaries. That is so……Soviet.

Let's continue with these ideas of accountability and perverse incentives. As of July 31st, 2009, the federal debt stood at $11,617,400,889,464.57. That's over $11.6 trillion. As soon as I write these words, they are outdated, because the national debt is now higher. The debt has increased by $3.89 billion PER DAY since September 2007. In addition, the federal government is projected to run nearly a $2 trillion deficit in 2009. We paid $451 billion in interest on the federal debt in 2008. This year it will be much higher. The interest on the debt is money flushed down the toilet (or sent to a foreign government, like China) that could easily pay for any imaginable health care reform we could dream up. Instead, our federal government has burdened every American citizen with roughly $38,000 in debt. The federal government is the poster child for incompetence.

This means the federal government, if viewed as a corporation (FedCorp), would be the worst run corporation in the entire history of the world (with the possible exception of those defunct Soviets we're trying to emulate). So, how are we holding FedCorp accountable ? Why, we're about to hand the entire health care system over to them !!! We're going to reward the worst company ever, FedCorp, by handing it control over 16% more of our economy. Talk about perverse incentives. This is equivalent to handing the entire energy sector over to Enron. FedCorp has shown NO ability to be responsible managers of taxpayer dollars, so, naturally, let's keep giving them ever more and more. That's the ticket. And never mind that the part of health care FedCorp already controls, Medicare/Medicaid, has such massive unfunded liabilities that it is threatening to destroy our economy down the road. If not addressed, the unfunded entitlement liabilities will hit our economy with such an economic tidal wave that the current recession will look like a ripple in a pond by comparison.

While we're on the subject of salaries, FedCorp is holding itself accountable for it's putrid mismanagement by…..giving all FedCorp's civilian employees a 2.9% pay raise in 2010. This is after Congress voted itself a 2.8% pay raise in January 2009, with the country in the depths of the recession. Apparently, accountability and perverse incentives don't apply to FedCorp, only to that horribly greedy entity known as the private sector (the sector that produces all our goods and services). FedCorp is spitting directly in your faces, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. YOU tighten your belts. THEY get raises.

There are so many examples of the federal government throwing away taxpayer dollars that I could never list them all. This post would be a thousand pages long if I tried. Go to the website YouDontKnowJack to see some examples of how just one Congressman, Jack Murtha (D-PA), aka, the King Of Pork, throws YOUR money around to his cronies and special interests. It's disgusting.

And it wasn't that much better when the Republicans were in charge. During the Bush years, with Republicans controlling Congress, government spending STILL skyrocketed. Federal spending went from $2 trillion to $3 trillion per year during Bush's tenure (and those guys were supposed to be conservatives ??? I don't think so). The only way the Bushies were conservative is if you compare them to Obama and the Democrats, who are trying to match Bush's 8-year federal spending increase total ($1 trillion) in their FIRST YEAR. If Bush was the frying pan, Obama is the fire. I find myself longing for the return of Bill Clinton and his Republican Congress. At least those guys realized the economy was EVERYTHING. Those guys look like geniuses compared to Bush and Barry, and even Clinton ran net deficits and added $1.5 trillion to the debt. Things have been so bad since then that Clinton and his GOP'ers seem like the good old days.

Our federal government is so far out of control that I barely know where to start. This post is only a drop in the bucket in trying to describe it. FedCorp is like a bunch of crack addicts with our money. They can never get enough. With an addict, there's only one cure. You have to MAKE them stop. WE have to make them stop. WE have to get rid of the whole bunch of them. WE have to vote them all out of office and start over. That's the only way WE can make a difference, the only way WE can make the federal crackheads stop. Barring that, WE are screwed. Barring that, America, the land of the free, will very soon be OVER. There is only so much money that FedCorp can spend. There are only so much taxes that FedCorp can take from us. We're on the express train to poverty as long as this continues. Wake up, America. Your country is disappearing before your very eyes.

President Obama is a fiscal hawk. I know that might sound strange to some of you (the sane ones), seeing as how Obama passed an $800 billion stimulus package, a record breaking, pork-laden $410 billion Omnibus bill, and a record breaking $3.55 trillion budget during the worst recession in 70 years. Yes, Obama will have a $1.8 trillion deficit his first year in office and is projected to run up more deficits than every other President in history COMBINED. Yes, we have committed up to $24 trillion to fight the recession, and Obama is trying to spend an additional $200 billion per year or so on health care reform, and he's only been in office for SIX MONTHS, for chrissakes….

But Obama is a fiscal hawk. Check it out. He has made good on his promise to trim $102 million from the federal budget. That's right. $102 Million with an 'M', as in, a drop in the ocean when Obama is spending trillions at the same time.

Yes We Can !

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag actually had the nerve to say the following words about Obama's pathetic budget cuts, "These savings reflect the president's belief that even small savings can add up."

Too bad we don't use firing squads anymore.
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Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) takes his job very seriously. He would never shirk his sworn duty to the American people. Here's Conyers at the National Press Club, talking about reading bills:

"What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?"

That's right, Conyers. How can they expect an important man like yourself to actually read and comprehend the legislation you are about to pass into law ? It's not like that's your job or anything…..wait a minute. It IS your job, you arrogant chunk of cow flop. That's why you're in Congress, and here you are, brazenly spitting directly in the faces of the people who elected you.

Why don't we use firing squads anymore ?
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Ohio Senator George Voinovich (he's still in office ? Who knew ?) is unhappy that the southerners are taking over the GOP:

“We got too many Jim DeMints (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburns (R-Ok.). It’s the southerners. They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr.’ People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?’”

Yes, it's too bad that Ohio doesn't have, like, a Republican Senator to whom Ohioans can relate. Ohio only has Voinovich.

What's wrong with southerners, anyway ? The Civil War is WAAAAAY over.
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Republicrat Arlen Specter (D-PA) is another man of conviction on Capitol Hill, and his voting record proves it. The last time Specter was up for re-election, in 2003-4, he was a Republican. Specter voted with Republicans 85% of the time back then. Now it's 2009-10, and Specter is up for re-election again. Back in April, Specter found himself hopelessly behind in the Republican primary polls, so, being a man of honor and conviction, Specter switched parties and became a Democrat. Congressional Quarterly did a study and found that since he switched parties, Specter now votes with the Democrats 85% of the time. Presto-change-o. Will the real Arlen Specter please stand up ? Then again, how about Arlen Specter, whoever he is, sits down ? It seems the only conviction Specter has is the conviction that he should be re-elected to office at all costs.
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On the health care reform front, the CBO has scored a TKO on the House health reform bill. President Obama said he would not sign a health care reform bill that added to the deficit (thank God. It's bad enough to implement tax increases in the middle of the worst recession in 70 years), and the CBO has shown that the House bill doesn't cut the mustard. Keith Hennessey has put the numbers into graphic form:

Looks like it's back to the drawing board for the House, unless John Conyers is too busy to drive to work, of course.

The Senate formally apologized for slavery yesterday, one hundred and forty four years too late, one hundred and forty four years after slavery was abolished.

Do we all feel better now ? A bunch of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery have apologized for it. Now we know that America doesn't condone slavery (and here I thought the Civil War settled that issue). Thank goodness. All those American pro-slavery groups can go pound salt. If there are any, that is, which there aren't (I hope).

But even the Senate's unaminous and meaningless kumbayah vote to apologize for slavery isn't without controversy here in grievance-based America, where it seems everyone feels slighted over something. The Senate's slavery apology contained a disclaimer which stated the apology didn't authorize any reparations claim for the descendants of slaves.

Cue the outrage. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus objected to the reparations disclaimer.

Sigh.

To be clear, I believe reparations for slavery were in order, but they were in order 144 YEARS AGO, not now. They were in order for people who actually WERE slaves. There are no reparations in order for people who are six or seven generations removed from slavery, for people who have the same civil rights as everyone else, for people who even have MORE civil rights than everyone else (affirmative action). I agree with President Obama, who said the best reparations are "good schools in the inner city." Obama embodies the lunacy of the reparations argument. Should we pay reparations to Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, just because his skin contains the required amount of melanin ? I don't think so.

As I'm writing this, there are some teevee talking heads arguing about whether or not the coverage of Michael Jackson's death is motivated by race. One talking head is saying it is, that the media is talking about all Jackson's drug use because he is black.

Sigh.

That talking head must not remember the teevee coverage of the deaths of Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, or Elvis Presley. The media wallowed in all the minutiae of each one's drug use, ad nauseum. It's about celebrity, not race.

Speaking of race-based issues, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court ruling in the Ricci case, and ruled that New Haven discriminated against 19 firefighters (18 white and 1 hispanic) when they threw out the results of a promotion test because no blacks scored high enough to be promoted. New Haven officials were afraid of protests by civil rights groups if no blacks were promoted, so they discriminated against the 19 firefighters and denied them the promotions they earned. As with so many of these types of cases, the Supreme Court vote was split. The 5-4 majority decision was resisted by the Court's four liberal members (who think discrimination is fine and dandy as long as it's done against white people). Of note is the fact that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was one of those overturned by the Supremes. As one of the appellate court judges, Sotomayor thought discrimination against white people was hunky-dory in the Ricci case too.

Your going to hears lots of grievance-mongering and spin about the Ricci case, but there is no reason for any of it. This country was founded on the notion that all men are created equal, and equal protection under the law is mandated in our Constitution. We have a Civil Rights Act that says you may not discriminate against people based upon race. That goes for ALL races. That's why slavery and Jim Crow laws were wrong. All we should do in this country is give everyone the same opportunity (as in, all the New Haven firefighters had the SAME opportunity for promotion, regardless of race. They all took the same test. That's equality). When we go beyond that to dictate outcomes based solely upon race, we violate our own principles and make a mockery of them.

It's time to get beyond race, as well as all the other false constructs that divide us. I've watched the civil rights movement go from one of righteousness in the 60's to the "gimme" entitlement mindset of today. No. You aren't entitled to anything in this country, except the equal opportunity to achieve or fail. After that, it's up to you, no matter who you are.

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.” – Thomas Jefferson

Allow me to construct a hypothetical set of circumstances. Let's say our country was in the midst of a severe recession, that unemployment was rising rapidly as millions of jobs were being lost, that average people were having an increasingly difficult time getting by, that our industries were having a difficult time competing, that the value of the dollar was dropping, that we were up to our ears in debt……

Okay, that isn't hypothetical at all. That's what is actually happening.

Now, in response to this not-so-hypothetical set of crisis circumstances, what would you think of our government if it passed legislation that would bring about massive tax increases, that would make it even more difficult for our industries to compete, that would cause more job losses, that would raise energy costs dramatically, that would increase the price of practically every product consumers purchase, that would put the average person much further in the hole, and that wouldn't even provide the desired benefit of said legislation ???? (link)

I'd call that government destructive to the ends of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'd want that government replaced for working against the interests of the American people. That's what I'm thinking today after the House of Representatives passed Cap-And-Trade legislation by a narrow vote of 219-212.

The Cap-and-Trade bill, also known as Waxman-Markey, also known as The American Clean Energy And Security Act, also known as the Let Them Eat Cake Act, is a 1,200 page monstrosity that nobody in the House had time to read, because the final version of the bill wasn't posted until the night before friday's vote, and a 300 page amendment was added at 3:00am on the day of the vote. I seem to remember President Obama saying something about having the most transparent administration EVAH !…….I guess Congress didn't get the memo on that, because they are operating like cat burglars in the dead of night.

Here's a quick rundown of the bad guys and the good guys in the House. The bad guys voting FOR the destruction of America included 211 Democrats and 8 Republicans. The good guys voting AGAINST destruction included 44 Democrats and 168 Republicans. You can find a complete vote tally here. I'd like to single out Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) for praise for standing against this bill. I've maligned Mr. Kucinich in the past, but I'm beginning to think I was wrong about him. He seems to be one of the few in the House who actually stands on his principles. That's noteworthy to me, even if I often disagree with him. The fact that 44 Democrats voted against this bill shows us that the Dems know Cap-And-Trade is a really bad idea, but lots of Democrats caved to pressure from the White House. El Presidente badly wants more control over all aspects of America, and this bill puts him in the express lane toward acquiring that control (but he believe in free markets ! lol).

"We've seen the example in Spain, it's a colossal mistake there, a political and an economic error. This could be the most colossal mistake ever made in the history of the United State Congress." – Congressman Steve King (R-IOWA).

I picked the above quote not only because a guy named King must be right, but because he mentioned Spain. What happened in Spain ?

Spain already implemented cap-and-trade, and has the most far-reaching renewable energy agenda in the European Union. The result ? Unemployment is at 18% in Spain (double the EU average), and there have been 2.2 jobs lost for every green job created. In addition, tons of subsidies are required for green energy initiatives to be competitive. The wind industry jobs created in Spain have come at a cost of $1.4 million PER JOB. (link)

Gee, who wouldn't want to emulate such "success" ???

But my favorite comment on the cap-and-trade legislation came from Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who when asked why he spent an hour reading portions of the bill aloud on the House floor, said, "Hey, people deserve to know what's in this pile of s–t." (link)

Even those who are in favor of restricting carbon emissions know that this cap-and-trade bill is, um, crap. Here's one such person, billionaire Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway:

"I think if you get into the way it was written, it's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. And it's a fairly regressive tax. If we buy permits, essentially, at our utilities, that goes right into the bills of the utility customers, and an awful lot of people in Iowa, in Oregon, and Utah, and places where we are, very poor people are going to pay a lot more money for electricity. So I think that can be improved." (link)

Speaking of restricting carbon emissions, which is the stated purpose of cap-and-trade (all it's negative and destructive effects are just icing on the cake), exactly how much of an effect on global warming will this cap-and-trade bill have ? (for the sake of brevity, I'm assuming here that man-made carbon emissions are a significant cause of global warming, an assumption that is itself a source of controversy).

Washington Post writer Martin Feldstein lays it out in an article called Cap-And-Trade: All Cost, No Benefit.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction — slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target — would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year. Some expert studies estimate that the cost to households could be substantially higher. The future cost to the typical household would rise significantly as the government reduces the total allowable amount of CO2.

Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States.

Waxman-Markey will have NO EFFECT on global warming, but it will have the "benefit" of further destroying our country.

In spite of all this, there are many American corporations ready to jump on the green bandwagon and profit from the carbon credit trading frenzy that El Presidente is trying to unleash on us. You're even familiar with some of these corporations – AIG, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, General Electric…you know, the GOOD corporations that we've all come to know and love so much during the recession. They are ready to jump on the manufactured energy bubble and rake in the big bucks. That these same companies are all recipients of government bailouts is just a big old coincidence, I'm sure. Too bad Enron isn't around any longer. Those guys knew how to run an energy bubble. I bet most of you didn't even know that General Electric got a bailout. Somehow, that hasn't been mentioned by the mainstream media very much. Not only did GE get a bailout, they got a $139 billion bailout, second in size to AIG's bailout. Yet somehow, the enormous GE bailout hasn't been mentioned or condemned by major television networks like……NBC, nor by NBC's retarded cable stepchildren over at MSNBC (aka, The Obama Channel). I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that General Electric OWNS NBC, or the fact that GE is deeply in bed with the Obama administration. I'm sure that can't be it. Everyone knows MSNBC is a group of highly dedicated professional journalists who would never compromise their integrity or ideals for…….LOL. Oh, man. I can't finish this sentence. Sometime I even crack myself up.

But make sure you contact GE for all your carbon credit trading needs. They are primed and ready for all their cap-and-trade lobbying to start paying dividends.

As for you, America, I hope you like cake, because if you don't rise up and stop this Cap-And-Trade disaster in the Senate, cake is all you'll have left. And maybe some government cheese to go with it, if you're lucky.

The biggest reason Nancy Pelosi's lies matter is – she's third in line to be the President of the United States. If President Obama were to become unable to serve, Vice President and Gaffemaster General Joe Biden would succeed him. After Biden, the job falls to the Speaker of the House, and that's Pelosi. After Pelosi, it goes to the President pro tempore of the Senate, 91-year old former Klansman Robert Byrd. Following Byrd is the Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Yikes. Biden, Pelosi, Byrd. What a cast of miscreants.

(Note to self – Contact Congressional representatives and urge them to introduce legislation to make the Secretary of State second in line to the presidency, asap.)

I have no idea how someone of Nancy Pelosi's caliber rose to such dizzying heights of power (though the 'dizzy' part fits), but I'm now a firm believer in the Peter Principle. Exhibit A – Pelosi's press conference from two days ago, where she attempts to rehab all her previous contradictory statements about waterboarding into one big contradictory statement, and also accuses the CIA of misleading Congress about enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT's):

Let's review Nancy Pelosi's many different positions on waterboarding, in chronological order:

1) She was never briefed on waterboarding.
2) She was briefed about it, but was told it wasn't being used.
3) After being confronted with information that she was briefed about the waterboarding being used against Abu Zubaydah, Pelosi said she was told the methods were legal.
4) She was told it was being used, and was against it, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Those were her positions before the above press conference. Now we can add:

5) The CIA misled her about waterboarding.

And after CIA chief Leon Panetta contradicted Pelosi by saying the CIA didn't mislead Congress and the briefers were truthful, Pelosi added:

6) She respects the CIA. It was the Bush administration that misled Congress.

And this is the same woman who wants to convene a "Truth Commission" about EIT's. How can someone as highly partisan and dishonest as Pelosi, who wouldn't know the truth if it bit her in the butt, who even threw in "we're creating jobs" in the middle of a press conference about waterboarding, call for a TRUTH commission ? In the same breath Pelosi calls for a Truth Commission, she states that the CIA was lying and the Bush Administration was lying. This reveals there is another name for what Pelosi wants. It's not a Truth Commission at all. It's commonly referred to as a Witch Hunt.

In addition to Pelosi, let's look at some of the other Democrats calling for a "Truth Commission." I couldn't make this up if I wanted to. Leading the charge for a Truth Commission on the Senate side are: Pat Leahy, the treasonous Senator from Vermont, and Diane Feinstein, the corrupt Senator from California.

Wonderful. A Truth Commission By Known Treasonous Corrupt Liars.

What's next ? Maybe a discussion of fiscal responsibility by the President who is running up federal deficits and debt faster than any other administration in history ??? Oh, wait, I almost forgot. That was my last post.

"Liberals are always proposing perfectly insane ideas, laws that will make everybody happy, laws that will make everything right, make us live forever, and all be rich. Conservatives are never that stupid." – P. J. O'Rourke

I don't know about the last sentence in the above quote, but the first sentence sounds right. To illustrate Mr. O'Rourke's theory, the Senate is now taking up the perfectly insane issue of hate crime legislation, proposed, it goes without saying, by Democrats. The Dems want to add gay and transgendered people to the current list of hate crime victims. H.R. 1913, which has been named after Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was robbed and murdered in 1998, defines a hate crime as follows:

[A crime of violence that] is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, or is a violation of the State, local, or tribal hate crime laws.

The colossally stupid thing about hate crime legislation is that every single hate crime is already a crime without hate crime legislation. The murderers of the aforementioned Mr. Shepard are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Murder was already illegal. It's not like adding a 'hate crime' tag to their heinous acts changes anything. Hate crime legislation is completely superfluous.

Hate crime legislation doesn't serve as a deterrent to crime either. It's not like the murderers of Matthew Shepard would be willing to commit murder, but then would have said to themselves, 'hey, wait a minute, we don't want to get a murder rap AND a hate crime charge too. We better reconsider.'

Here are a couple perfectly insane quotes from leading Democrats about the current hate crime legislation being debated in Congress:

"I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance." – Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)

"No person should live in fear of violence because of who they are." – Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)

Needless to say, passing hate crime legislation won't protect anyone from violence, nor will it stop people from living in fear because of who they are. What hate crime legislation is really about is granting special victim status to certain favored groups of people so that Democrats can say 'look what good people we Democrats are. We care about you. You should vote for us.' There is NO other purpose.

To show how inane and political hate crime legislation is, consider the case of James Byrd Jr., a black man from Texas who was brutally murdered in 1998 by three white men. They cut Byrd's throat and then chained him to the back of their truck and dragged him. This act was about as foul as it gets, and was racially motivated. The two men primarily responsible for murdering Byrd were sentenced to death. The third was given a life sentence. The Governor of Texas in 1998 was George W. Bush, who supported the death penalty for the two murderers.

Now we go to the year 2000, when George W. Bush was running for President. Many liberal groups, most notably the NAACP, made an issue of the Byrd case, and accused Bush of being a racist for not supporting hate crime legislation previously. Think about how insane that is. Here's Bush supporting the death penalty for Byrd's murderers, and the NAACP is calling Bush a racist at the same time. I mean, how much more harsh of a sentence could Bush have supported ? None. Maybe the NAACP wanted Byrd's murderers to be waterboarded before being executed, I don't know. As Dubya said at the time, "we don't need tougher laws." Bush was right. In Texas, the highest penalty for premeditated murder is death, with or without any hate crime legislation.

There are also constitutional issues with hate crime legislation, such as equal protection under the law. If I'm walking down the street and someone hits me in the head with a baseball bat, should there be a different sentence for the perpetrator based upon his race ? There shouldn't be. The person should be punished for the criminal act, not for his motivation, but hate crime legislation says yes, it matters whether your attacker is white or black. It matters what his motivation was. It doesn't, not really. I'd take it as a given that anyone who would hit me in the head with a baseball bat has some level of hatred in him, but it's the act that should be punished, and it should be punished equally, without consideration of race, religion, sexual orientation, hair color, sex, gender, how many tattoos he has, or whether or not he's has a health club membership. If the defendant's motivation is important, it can be considered at trial. We don't have to legislate it. When we start down the road of 'this victim deserves more consideration that that victim, and this perp deserves more of a sentence than that perp for the exact same crime,' we are losing our way. We are in fact discriminating against people when we do that, assigning them different levels of worth.

To further illustrate the silliness that starts when hate crime legislation is proposed, Republicans offered two amendments to H.R. 1913. The first was to exclude pedophiles from being protected under the "sexual orientation" part of the legislation. Democrats rejected that amendment UNANIMOUSLY. I guess pedophiles are a protected class now. The second amendment was to include veterans, the elderly, and Church pastors in the legislation. Democrats rejected that one too. That makes it 1) pedophiles protected, and 2) veterans not protected. Let's stop this nutty thought crime nonsense, please.

If Democrats really want to be the party of unity, as President Obama suggested, they could start by not constantly dividing everyone into competing special interest groups. They could start by uniting us all into one group, Americans, and then pass legislation accordingly.

Following are some news stories our esteemed mainstream media just can't manage to find time for, at least not when such pressing issues as whether or not Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has had a boob job are still under investigation. Prejean, the 21-year old liberal hate media target of the week, also had some racy Victoria's Secret modeling photos taken of her when she was 17, so it's perfectly understandable why the media missed the following stories. I imagine they are too busy working up a full-scale profile on the hypocrisy of the entire Christian movement after Miss California had the audacity to politely say she thought marriage should be between a man and a woman. Prejean is obviously worse than Hitler, and must be destroyed, along with that Sarah woman from Alaska. Those b's (or are they c's ?) better zip it, and go bake some cookies. This is the hope and change era, dammit. We can't have these dames going around offering their pretty little opinions, even when asked for them at a Miss USA pageant or a national Vice Presidential debate. It's not like they didn't know what they were SUPPOSED to say. If we don't put these gals in their place, before you know it, women will be running around giving all kinds of opinions about stuff, and not the always the RIGHT ones either. Who wants THAT kind of country ?

On to the news the media can't use.
—
The Obama administration has decided not to release the photos from the Scare Force One New York flyover that terrified the residents of lower Manhattan. This sets an interesting standard of what constitutes classified or privileged information to the Obamans. The Bush "torture" memos – NO. The Iraq prisoner abuse photos – NO. Photos that might embarass the President – YES. It appears "the most open administration in history" is only open about OTHER administrations, not it's own.
—
Multiple Chrysler creditors are saying the Obama administration engaged in political threats and intimidation to get the creditors to surrender their contractual rights as the Obama administration wants. From Business Insider:

Conversations with administration officials left them [Chrysler creditors] expecting that they would be politically targeted, two participants in the negotiations said.

Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions.

The audacity of hope. The politics of fear. This is why the government shouldn't run businesses, and why government should be limited, as the Constitution intended. It looks like Obama's Chicago political machine training is coming in handy. Make 'em an offer they can't refuse. One creditor, who voted for Obama, called him "the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet – and I knew Kissinger."
—
Recent polling suggests Americans don't believe in man-made global warming, despite the finest scare tactics the left and the media could muster up. A recent Rasmussen poll found that only 34% of Americans believe man is causing global warming. A Pew Research poll found that out of twenty important issues facing the country, global warming ranked dead last, the least important. I'd say maybe Al Gore should make another movie to protect his green investments, but Democrats are pressing forward with climate change legislation anyway. House Democrats say they'll have a bill ready by Memorial Day, and intend to pass it by year end.
—
In the $3.5 trillion budget approved by Congress, President Obama's much hyped "tax cuts for 95% of Americans" end after NEXT YEAR. Y'all really didn't believe the hype, did you ? Notably, Bush's tax cuts for the lower and middle classes will be kept (I thought those were "tax cuts for the rich"). Also, the budget stops Republicans from blocking Obama's health care plans (but I'm sure they are blocking the GOP in a "bipartisan" and "inclusive" fashion).
—
But I want to be fair to our media. Here is a great story MSNBC broke about Obama and Biden going to a burger joint in Virginia. It seems our Telemprompter-In-Chief and his Gaffemaster VP walked right up to the counter, ordered their own burgers, and waited until the burgers were done. End of story. Do I smelll a Pulitzer in the air for MSNBC ?????

After 34 years as a Republican politician, Sen. Arlen Specter (?-PA), at 79 years of age, has finally figured it out….he's a Democrat.

Here's Specter's statement about making the switch:

Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.

As you can see, Arlen Specter is making his decision based upon his own deeply held personal convictions.

The fact that Specter's Pennsylvania Republican primary opponent, Pat Toomey, was leading Specter by 21 points in the polls was just a convenient coincidence, I guess. And as for Specter's contention that the Republican party has "moved far to the right," I seem to recall the GOP's last presidential candidate was John McCain, a moderate Republican, hardly a conservative ideologue. I also remember ex-President Bush as not being much of a limited government proponent either. Neither Bush nor McCain was an actual conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan, who became President the same year Arlen Specter entered the Senate so proudly under "Reagan's Big Tent."

If I didn't know better, I'd think Arlen Specter was nothing more than a conviction-free political opportunist. But whatever Specter's convictions are now, he held far different convictions way, way, way back in March 2009, ONE MONTH AGO. Here's Specter in an interview with The Hill:

I am staying a Republican because I think I have an important role, a more important role, to play there. The United States very desperately needs a two-party system. That's the basis of politics in America. I'm afraid we are becoming a one-party system, with Republicans becoming just a regional party with so little representation of the northeast or in the middle atlantic. I think as a governmental matter, it is very important to have a check and balance. That's a very important principle in the operation of our government. In the constitution on Separation of powers.

Looks like those principles iterated by Specter, such as checks and balances, separation of power, and the importance of the two-party system, all run a distant second to Specter's overarching principle, which is….Arlen Specter comes first.

I just love politicians more and more by the day, don't you ? Their beliefs are malleable, their principles are negotiable, and they lie all the live long day. How could our country ever go wrong with such distinguished leadership ? And some people wonder why I beat my limited government drum over and over. This is why. We're governed by a bunch of narcissistic, power-hungry con-men (and women).

The Democrats, who've been trying to coax Specter over to their side for some time, are "thrilled to have [him]," as President Barockstar Obama said to Specter. Obama also told Specter, “You have my full support," whatever that is supposed to mean. What's Obama going to say, "no, you can't join my party" ??? The Dems don't care who is on their side. They only care that they ARE on their side.

The Dems see Specter as the possible 60th Senate seat, which would give the Dems their coveted filibuster-proof majority, especially if the comedian Al Franken makes an even bigger joke out of the Senate than it already is by becoming the Saturday Night Live Senator from Minnesota.

My personal opinion is that I could care less which party the spine-free Specter represents. In fact, I wish more GOP'ers would defect along with Specter. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins come readily to mind. I could be interested in the Republican party again if they cut loose all the phonies and Democrat-lite impostors, and if the Republicans ever did actually become the conservative party of freedom and limited government they like to say they are. When the inevitable backlash comes against the insane tax and spend policies of the Obamanation, it would be quite nice if the alternative to the Democrats was REALLY A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE, and not an alternative full of jellyfish like Arlen Specter. It would be nice if the lines of distinction were clearly drawn when Obama crashes and burns.

My favorite quote regarding Specter's defection came from Sen. Jim Demint (R-SC), who said, "I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.” I'll second that. Nothing is gained by abandoning principles, and the only way to ultimate political success is to adhere to your principles and then convince the electorate you're right.

The standard Democratic version of what caused the financial crisis is – a lack of regulation from the Bush administration, you know, all those "failed policies." That's a convenient story for the Democrats, but let's briefly review again what happened with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who together bundle and securitize 60% of the mortgage loans in the country. Remember, it was the mortgage industry meltdown that started the financial domino effect. Here's a video you've never seen on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, or any of the rest of of the "unbiased" mainstream media.

Now ask yourself why, seven months AFTER the financial meltdown, there still haven't been any regulatory changes at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The only change has been to bring the bankrupted former Government Sponsored Enterprises under full government control, thus formally making the American taxpayers fully responsible for them. Also ask yourself why, seven months AFTER the financial meltdown, has the government still not implemented any mortgage loan standards for the financial industry ? The banks are largely implementing mortgage loan standards on themselves, but the government is actually trying to get the banks to loan money as indiscriminately as before, in order to "get credit moving again." Banks are even being criticized by the government for not making loans that the banks deem too risky.

Finally, ask yourself why, seven months AFTER the financial meltdown, is Barney Frank (D-MA) STILL the head of the House Financial Services Committee ?

In related news, read about how President Obama's first 100 days come out to a cost to taxpayers of $65 billion PER DAY (and that's a conservative estimate). Of course, there's no possibility that could EVER be a problem. Heck no. Obama's cool, and with all his vast management/economic education and experience (NONE before now), what could possibly go wrong ?

And to think, liberals keep asking what all the Tea Party protests are about. They don't understand. They're baffled. Un-be-liev-able.

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was the ranking House Democrat on the Intelligence Committee in 2002-2003, when the enhanced interrogation techniques were used on high-level Al Qaeda detainees, says……she didn't know nuthin' 'bout no waterboardin'.

Bull. Crap.

From the New York Times:

As was common with the most secret programs, the C.I.A. chose not to brief the entire committees about the interrogation methods but only the so-called Gang of Four — the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate and House committees.

Nancy Pelosi was one of the Gang of Four. Here's what another of those Four, ranking Republican Porter Goss (R-FL), who would later become head of the CIA, said of those briefings:

“We were briefed, and we certainly understood what C.I.A. was doing,” Mr. Goss said in an interview. “Not only was there no objection, there was actually concern about whether the agency was doing enough.”

Goss' statement is corroborated. In September 2002, Nancy Pelosi was one of four who was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites, which included a description of the harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. From a Washington Post article called 'Hill Briefed On Waterboarding In 2002':

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Perhaps not many in Congress knew about the waterboarding technique being used, but Nancy Pelosi was certainly one who did. Now she is lying about it and insulting the intelligence of the American people.

We've seen this phony passion play before from top Democrats. Remember how so many Dems wailed about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction for years, throughout the 90's and again in 2002 when the Iraq war was being considered. Then later, when no wmd were found and the public opinion polls shifted against the war, the Democrats pretended that everything they said before didn't exist, that it was all due to "Bush's lies" (which were also "Clinton's lies," btw). Nancy Pelosi was one of the big liars about the wmd issue as well. It's deja vu all over again.

Last fall, when I kept hearing that the Obama presidential campaign would accept fraudulent campaign donations, I decided to test it out for myself. I tried to donate $15 to the Obama campaign using my credit card and a phony name. The name I used even signaled my fraudulent intentions. It was 'Campy Aignfraud,' (as in 'Campaign Fraud'). Not only did the Obama campaign accept my donation, but six months later, they haven't returned the money, and 'Campy' still receives e-mails and literature from them. Here's an e-mail I (Campy) received this morning from Obama's activist arm, which is called Organizing For America:

Campy –

It makes you wonder whether they see the same thing we do.
Advocates for the status quo are calling for President Obama to fail while millions of families struggle. They're playing the same old political games and offering the same failed policies at a time of crisis.

In the coming days, opponents will do everything they can to destroy the President's proposed budget, a bold plan to help fix our broken economy and healthcare system and finally make energy and education the priority we all know they must be.

Americans…deserve better than the kind of divisive politics we've seen year after year. They deserve a truthful debate about real issues and a budget that will turn this economy around so that they can turn their lives around.

The e-mail went on to ask for a donation of $25 or more.

I'd like to say this in response to Obama's e-mail – No, I DON'T see things the same way you do, Mr. President, and I object to you "playing the same old political games" even as you complain about others doing the same. Just because I disagree with your enormous unfunded spending plans that will skyrocket the deficits and debt, it doesn't make me an "advocate for the status quo." In fact, those calling for fiscal responsibility from their government are the real advocates for change, not you, Mr. Obama. I also think it's pretty pathetic that you keep lumping everyone who disagrees with you in with radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, by saying your critics are "calling for President Obama to fail while millions of families struggle." If that isn't "playing political games," I don't know what is.

First, Obama said that if his enormous and unprecedented stimulus package didn't pass, it would be "catastrophic" for America, that we'd plunge into another Great Depression. Then, Obama said the same thing about his bloated, pork-filled Omnibus spending bill, the largest in history. Now, he's playing the exact same tune about his budget, the largest budget in the history of the country, about $500 billion larger than any other budget. Obama beats the fear drum over and over, and at the same time he has the nerve to talk about ending "divisive politics," and calls for a "truthful debate about real issues." Give me a break already. The government spending our country into third world status and printing trillions of dollars out of thin air IS a real issue. It's the ultimate real issue. It would be nice if our President would engage in a "truthful debate" about it. But he won't. Instead, he demonizes his dissenters. Post-partisan, my butt. Obama's vauge buzzwords and phrases have become very tired. His talk about the "failed policies of the past" about makes me want to throw up. The biggest failed policy of the past I can think of is the endless red ink our government runs up, and Obama is DOUBLING the rate of the red ink. Obama embodies the failed policieis of the past, but this time on steriods.

I did a little checking about where the donations for Obama's Organizing For America group go. It turns out they go directly to the Democratic National Committee. As the Washington Post reports:

The [Organization For America] brought Obama's massive campaign e-mail and address list under the umbrella of the DNC, which is run by Obama's handpicked chairman, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine…DNC financial filings give little indication of the contours of OFA, since the project's expenditures are not separated from the committee's overall operations.

So, in essence, the Organization For America IS the Democratic National Committee, yet the Obamans make the OFA appear to be an independent grassroots movement. There's your hope and change, folks. It's the same old cynical partisan politics as ever.

And did any of you notice that in his April 12th e-mail to 'Campy', Obama is calling for donations to HELP PASS HIS BUDGET, when that budget has ALREADY PASSED IN BOTH THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE ???? All that's left is for the two chambers of Congress to reconcile the two versions. Obama doesn't need any money to help pass a budget that has already been passed. That's just misdirection on Obama's part, more smoke and mirrors. He's just trying to raise money for the DNC. The budget has nothing to do with it. Obama is being dishonest and playing political games to fool the rubes.

As for Obama's call for "truthful debate about real issues," the Republicans offered an alternative to Obama's budget that would have resulted in $4.8 trillion LESS in spending over the next 10 years. It was voted down in the House along party lines. While Obama was quick to point out a few weeks ago that the Republicans didn't have an alternative budget, did you ever hear him mention it again once the Republicans proposed one ? No, you didn't.
Obama disproves his own rhetoric time after time. Obama didn't want to consider any alternative budget. Obama just wanted to play partisan politics during his endless campaign.

P.S. – Speaking of Obama's budget, it will be interesting to see how Obama's "tax cuts for 95% of all Americans" fares. In the House version, those tax cuts EXPIRE IN 2010. Yes, that's right. They expire NEXT YEAR. They'd be ONE YEAR tax cuts. What a great help to the middle class, a one time $400 tax cut. Suckers. In the Senate version, they expire in 2012. I guarantee you that none of Obama's spending and tax increases will expire.

Wake up, America. You're being played.

The GOP took to the steps of Capitol Hill on wednesday to announce their alternative to Obama's budget, and this time, the GOP budget included some numbers (sorta), or at least things that can be extrapolated into numbers. Yippee ! The GOP is starting to catch on to what comprises a budget. Here's GOP Representative Paul Ryan, first describing Obama's budget:

Under the president's plan, spending will top $4 trillion this year alone, and consume 28.5% of our nation's economy. His plan would mean a $1 trillion increase to the already unsustainable spending growth of our nation's entitlement programs — including a "down payment" toward government-controlled health care and education; a $1.5 trillion tax increase to further shackle the small businesses and investors we rely on to create jobs; a massive increase in energy costs for families via cap and trade. Moreover, the Obama plan would result in an exploding deficit, a doubling of the nation's debt in five years, and an increase of that debt to more than 82% of our nation's GDP by the last year of the budget.

I'm with you, Rep. Ryan, though that last sentence about the debt reaching 82% of GDP….that's only theoretical, and won't happen until 2080. It's absurd to be laying that at Obama's feet. Obama would be 118 years old then. Something tells me the successive 10-20 presidential administrations might have more to say about what happens by 2080 (but by 2150, we're REALLY in trouble). Obama is, however, heading us in the wrong fiscal direction faster than any previous administration. No doubts there.

Here's Ryan's general description of the GOP alternative:

Instead of doubling the debt in five years, and tripling it in 10, the Republican budget curbs the explosion in spending called for by the president and his party. Our plan halts the borrow-and-spend philosophy that brought about today's economic problems, and puts a stop to heaping ever-growing debt on future generations — and it does so by controlling spending, not by raising taxes. The greatest difference lies in the size of government our budgets achieve over time (see chart).

While our approach ensures a sturdy safety net for those facing chronic or temporary difficulties, it understands that the reliability of this protection and the other functions of government depend on a vibrant, free and growing private sector to generate the resources necessary for it.

Sounds better than what the Obama Spendocrats are offering. What are the details ?

- Deficits/Debt. The Republican budget achieves lower deficits than the Democratic plan in every year, and by 2019 yields half the deficit proposed by the president. By doing so, we control government debt: Under our plan, debt held by the public is $3.6 trillion less during the budget period.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. The GOP's aim is to half Obama's ginormous freaking deficits by 2019 ? Um, doesn't that still leave us with deficits ? We need surpluses to pay down the debt, not endless deficits and growing debt. What I just heard the GOP say is "we're bad, just not as bad as the other guys." Not very inspiring. I wonder if the Libertarians have come up with an alternative budget.

The GOP continues:

Spending. Our budget gives priority to national defense and veterans' health care. We freeze all other discretionary spending for five years, allowing it to grow modestly after that. We also place all spending under a statutory spending cap backed up by tough budget enforcement.

So, the GOP says "let's increase defense related spending and freeze everything else". No sale there either. We need to cut federal spending, not freeze it, and defense is as up for legitimate cuts as every other area. I mean, do we really need those 450 military bases in 150 countries all over the world ? Do we really need troops in Germany and Japan 65 years after WWII ? I don't think so.

Next, energy:

Energy. Our budget lays a firm foundation to position the U.S. to meet three important strategic energy goals: reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, deploying more clean and renewable energy sources free of greenhouse gas, and supporting economic growth. We do these things by rejecting the president's cap-and-trade scheme, by opening exploration on our nation's oil and gas fields, and by investing the proceeds in a new clean energy trust fund, infrastructure and further deficit reduction.

I like this. Far preferable to Obama's onerous and regressive tax strategies. Score one for the GOP.

Medicare entitlements:

…We preserve the existing Medicare program for all those 55 or older; and then, to make the program sustainable and dependable, those 54 and younger will enter a Medicare program reformed to work like the health plan members of Congress and federal employees now enjoy. Starting in 2021, seniors would receive a premium support payment equal to 100% of the Medicare benefit on average. This would be income related, so low-income seniors receive extra support, and high-income seniors receive support relative to their incomes — along the same lines as the president's Medicare Part D proposal.

This is an interesting idea, but what's with the "starting in 2021" stuff ? I hate it when politicians propose things they won't be around to implement.

On taxation:

Tax Reform. Our budget does not raise taxes, and makes permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. In fact, we cut taxes and reform the tax system. Individuals can choose to pay their federal taxes under the existing code, or move to a highly simplified system that fits on a post card, with few deductions and two rates. Specifically, couples pay 10% on their first $100,000 in income (singles on $50,000) and 25% above that. Capital gains and dividends are taxed at 15%, and the death tax is repealed. The proposal includes generous standard and personal exemptions such that a family of four earning $39,000 would not pay tax on that amount. In an effort to revive peoples' lost savings, and to create an incentive for risk-taking and investment, the budget repeals the capital gains tax through 2010 for all taxpayers.

On the business side, the budget permanently cuts the uncompetitive corporate income tax rate — currently the second highest in the industrialized world — to 25%.

In theory, great. In reality, lousy. The GOP said it would freeze spending, but it is cutting taxes, and even cutting taxes for the wealthy. I'm for all that in principle, but the country is in MASSIVE DEBT right now. We have to pay it down. And with all due respect to the GOP, y'all didn't hold spending down very well for the first 6 years of the Bush administration, did you ? Granted, Obama and the Dems are far worse, but bad isn't a great alternative to terrible.

But I'm all for the business and capital gains tax cuts to help us out of the recession.
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Overall – not good enough, GOP. You have to do better.

An increasing number of banks and Wall Street firms that took bailout funds from the government under the TARP program want to give the money bank. One problem – the government won't let them. I'm not kidding.

"It should be called 'TRAP,' not TARP," said Brian Garrett, chief executive of Bank of the Bay in San Francisco, who is trying to return bailout funding. "Giving it back is harder than getting it."

Question – If the companies want to give the money back, did they really need the money in the first place ???

These companies say the burdens government is imposing on them harm their capacity for growth, and also sends their top financial talent to firms that aren't suffering under the government's TARP restrictions. In other words, the non-TARP receivers can still operate under the rules of the free market. TARP babies cannot.

In related news, House Financial Services Committee head Barney Frank (D-MA) has approved the introduction of the Pay For Performance Act Of 2009, that will allow the government to control the pay of ALL employees of companies that receive government assistance. As you may remember, back in february, the liar extraordinaire Frank, one of the prime enablers of the financial crisis, was longing to restrict the compensation of all financial companies, not just TARP receipients.

Fedzilla marches on, at warp speed.

The following chart illustrates what percentage of CO2 greenhouse gases are attributable to man:

The rest of the greenhouse gases consist mostly of water vapor (95%). Read the Global Warming Primer for more information. Also keep in mind that the proposed cap-and-trade system of taxation being proposed by Obama, which would cost trillions of dollars, aims to decrease that tiny dot of man-made CO2 in the above chart by only 15%. Color me skeptical as to the positive effects of cap-and-trade.
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Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) has introduced the Save The Liberal Media Act, er, I mean, the Newspaper Revitalization Act, which he says could help save the ailing newspaper industry. Cardin's press release stated, "The Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as non-profits, if they choose, under 501(c)(3) status for educational purposes, similar to public broadcasting. Under this arrangement, newspapers would not be allowed to make political endorsements, but they would be allowed to freely report on all issues, including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt and contributions to support coverage or operations could be tax deductible."

As most of you already know, the vast majority of newspapers and other mainstream media outlets lean left. The Dems don't want to lose their propaganda advantage.
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From the Here's Why The GOP Is Braindead files: Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) may soon have both houses of Congress taking up an issue of vital national security – the NCAA football championship system (BCS). The legislation would prohibit the NCAA from naming a national champion unless it follows whatever playoff system Congress dictates. Unbelievable. I don't know where Congress gets the idea it has the authority to regulate this, and I have even less idea why Congress thinks this deserves their attention. Maybe Hatch is mad that undefeated Utah didn't make the championship game last year. Whatever. This is just one more small sign that Capitol Hill is WAY out of control.
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The Big Lie: "…in this budget, we have to make the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term, even under the most pessimistic estimates. At the end of the day, the best way to bring our deficit down in the long run is not with a budget that continues the very same policies that have led us to a narrow prosperity and massive debt. It's with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest." –President Barack Obama, who is moving America into the most massive crushing debt in history, faster than any presidential administration in history.

And, of course, when Obama says "invest," he means tax, borrow, and spend.
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Joke of the day: On a Saturday afternoon, in Washington, D.C., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's aide visited the Cardinal of the Catholic cathedral. He told the Cardinal that Nancy Pelosi would be attending the next day's sermon, and he asked if the Cardinal would kindly point out Pelosi to the congregation and say a few words that would include calling Pelosi a saint. The Cardinal replied, "No. I don't really like the woman, and there are issues of conflict with the Catholic Church over certain of Pelosi's views." Pelosi's aide then said, "Look. I'll write a check here and now for a donation of $100,000 to your church if you'll just tell the congregation you see Pelosi as a saint."
The Cardinal thought about it and said, "Well, the church can use the money, so I'll work your request into tomorrow's sermon."
As Pelosi's aide promised, House Speaker Pelosi appeared for the Sunday sermon and seated herself prominently at the edge of the main aisle. And, during the sermon, as promised, the Cardinal pointed out that House Speaker Pelosi was present. Then the Cardinal went on to explain to the congregation — "While Speaker Pelosi's presence is probably an honor to some, she is not my favorite person. Some of her views are contrary to those of the church, and she tends to flip-flop on many other views. Nancy Pelosi is a petty, self-absorbed hypocrite, a thumb sucker, and a nit-wit. Nancy Pelosi is also a serial liar, a cheat, and a thief. Nancy Pelosi is the worst example of a Catholic I have ever personally witnessed. She married for money and is using it to lie to the American people. She also has a reputation for shirking her Representative obligations both in Washington, and in California. She simply is not to be trusted."
The Cardinal completed his view of Pelosi with, "But, when compared to Senators Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, and John Kerry, House Speaker Pelosi is a saint."

Most times I look at the GOP and Democrats as a case of Dumb and Dumber. The argument over the federal budget is a perfect example.

On the Democrat side, President Obama has unveiled a budget that leads the country on a path to bankruptcy, and then has the audacity (of hope?) to say his critics (Republicans) don't have any alternative to Obama's budget from hell. Now, I don't know why the Republicans would even bother to formulate a budget of their own, since it would be a purely academic exercise. A Republican budget would have no chance of being implemented. As the minority party, it's enough to try to stop whatever part of the majority's agenda you find objectionable, in addition to pushing for what little you can get implemented yourself. With Obama leading the country to hell in a handbasket, being the 'party of no' is actually a good thing.

But I guess the GOP wanted to show that Obama a thing or two. They wanted to show him that they DID have an alternative budget, so they gathered the press corp together to unveil the REPUBLICAN BUDGET ALTERNATIVE.

I knew the GOP was in trouble from the get-go, when House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said "here's your alternative budget, Mr. President," and starting waving around what appeared to be little more than a pamphlet. Uh-oh.

It was actually a whopping 19 page "budget" called the Republican Road To Recovery. I have a suggestion here for the GOP. When you announce a "budget," it really helps if the "budget" contains, like, budgetary numbers, revenue and spending totals, deficit projections, and stuff like that. That's why they call it a BUDGET. The GOP's release contained NONE of that, therefore it wasn't a budget at all. Instead, it was a list of policy ideas. The Republicans said the budget details will come out next week (so why didn't you wait until next week to announce your "budget," GOP ?? Why didn't you wait until you actually HAD a budget before you announced it's release ?) In the battle between Dumb and Dumber, today the GOP won the DUMBER title.

Most of the Republican Road To Recovery consisted of criticizing Obama's big spending, big taxing ways. There's lots to criticize there, but I have another suggestion for the GOP. While the Democrats solution to every problem is spend more, tax more, and make government bigger (wrong, wrong, and wrong), the GOP has to come up with more ideas than just tax cuts. Not every GOP idea in it's imaginary budget amounted to tax cuts, but a lot of them did. The short version of the GOP's plan could be stated as 'cut taxes, stop the bailouts, reign in spending, and drill for oil.' Those are all worthwhile, but you have to spell it out.

I hope you do better next week, Republicans, because this week was a bust. The GOP's imaginary budget was basically John McCain's campaign platform, and guess what, that LOST. Go back to the drawing board and come up with something better than Obama's budgetary disaster. It shouldn't be that difficult to come up with something better than bankrupting the country, which is what Obama is proposing. Now that the GOP has taken Obama's bait about producing their own budget, they have to put up or shut up.

Here's one final piece of advice for you, GOP. It isn't a real great idea right now, with the country up to it's ears in debt, to be pushing for MORE tax cuts for the wealthy (the GOP wants to cut the top income tax rate from 35% to 25%). The Democrat's pet media will shout 'TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH' from the rooftops and you will be demonized all over again in the Dems ongoing class warfare battle. Just how dumb are you GOP'ers anyway ? It seems you haven't learned a thing. Instead of cutting personal income tax rates, cut taxes for business and investment, you dorks, so businesses can HIRE more people in this country and we can get the economy moving again.

Congress gets very upset when TARP bailout money goes to corporate employee bonuses, corporate jet rides, and corporate golf tournaments.

What Congress doesn't get so very upset about is when TARP bailout money goes to Congress, in the form of campaign contributions.

In recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee for Bank of America (which got $15 billion in bailout money) sent out $24,500 in the first two months of 2009, including $1,500 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and another $15,000 to members of the House and Senate banking panels. Citigroup ($25 billion) dished out $29,620, including $2,500 to House GOPWhip Eric Cantor, who also got $10,000 from UBS which, while not a TARP recipient, got $5 billion in bailout funds as an AIG "counterparty." "This certainly appears to be a case of TARP funds being recycled into campaign contributions," says Brett Kappell, a D.C. lawyer who tracks donations. (A spokesman for Cantor did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Hoyer said it's his "policy to accept legal contributions.")

In addition, TARP fund recipients paid $114 million in political contributions and lobbying efforts in 2008.

Some of the top recipients of contributions from companies receiving TARP money are the same members of Congress who chair committees charged with regulating the financial sector and overseeing the effectiveness of this unprecedented government program. They include Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (he received $854,200 from the companies in the 2008 election cycle, including money to his presidential campaign) and Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chair of the Senate Finance Committee (he received $279,000). In total, members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Senate Finance Committee and House Financial Services Committee received $5.2 million from TARP recipients in the 2007-2008 election cycle. President Obama collected at least $4.3 million from employees at these companies for his presidential campaign.

The companies making the biggest political donations just so happened to be the same companies that received the largest TARP bailouts. What a coincidence.

The companies giving the most to fund lawmakers' campaigns and spending the most on lobbying efforts were also those that received the most TARP money to help them stay afloat. This includes General Motors, which spent $15 million between campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures and got $10.4 billion (more than all other companies), Bank of America (and the investment company it bought last year, Merrill Lynch), which spent $14.5 million to play politics and received $45 billion from the bailout bill; and American International Group (AIG), which spent $10.6 million and was paid out $40 billion. Citigroup was also one of the largest spenders to see a big result: between lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions, the company spent $12.5 million and got $50 billion.

For a complete list of TARP recipients that spent money on campaign contributions and lobbying, see the above link.

While I'm sure all our congressional members have the very highest ethical standards (LOL. Sometimes I crack myself up), this information makes it look like taxpayer dollars were for sale to the highest bidder.

Just like always.

Maybe the campaign contributions made these companies too big to fail.

FYI – Bank of America, receiver of $45 billion in TARP funds, MADE A PROFIT in 2008. So did Goldman Sachs. So did Morgan Stanley. Hmmm. Citigroup lost a lot of money in 2008, but over the last five years, has made a five year net profit of about $39 billion. All these companies made a bundle if you look back beyond the fourth quarter of 2008. They all made HUGE profits for years prior.

Get the picture ? These companies are not only to big to fail, they're too big to suffer even a one quarter loss before the government takes money from us peons to prop up the earnings statements of the big boys.

THEY are too big for the government to let fail. WE are too small for the government to give a damn about.

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) says allowing AIG executives to keep their $165 million in bonuses is "rewarding failure." Barney is right. It is rewarding failure. What Barney doesn't say is, it was Barney Frank and company (the federal government, under both Bush and Obama) who enabled the bonuses to be paid in the first place, by giving AIG over $170 billion in bailout money. That was rewarding failure too, Mr. Frank, and on a far bigger scale. And while we're on the subject of failure, I'm wondering why we are paying Congress a salary at all, since the country is up to it's ears in red ink. Isn't THAT rewarding failure too ? I'm also wondering how any Congressperson has the cojones to complain about $165 million in AIG bonuses a few days after Congress passed the largest Omnibus spending bill in history, which contained $7.7 billion in unnecessary and wasteful pork spending. The hypocrisy is deafening.

Doesn't it seem odd that nobody in our federal government knew about the AIG bonuses until right around the time they were being paid out (they were paid last friday) ? The government owns 80% of AIG. AIG made the contractual obligations to pay the bonuses about a year ago, according to the information I've read. And the $165 million is only part of AIG's bonus payments. The total 2009 bonus payment schedule for AIG comes to $450 million. Treasury Secretary Tim "Turbo Tax" Geithner is said to be the one who negotiated the initial AIG bailout last fall, yet Turbo Tim acted like he knew nothing about these bonuses until LAST WEEK. Did Treasury even ask AIG about it's operating procedures before giving AIG all that bailout money ? Is Geithner merely incompetent, or is he lying ? When DID the government know about the bonuses ? Inquiring minds want to know.

Two weeks ago, Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs (who almost manages to make ex-Bushie Scott McClellan look smart by comparison, no easy feat) said the government knew how the AIG bailout money was being spent. We can probably discard Gibbs' comments, because it's not like he's telling the truth about much of anything anyway. He's just there for spin. Let's move on to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). Last month, Dodd inserted an amendment into the stimulus bill that restricted executive compensation for companies being bailed out. The amendment provided an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.” The Dodd amendment insured that the AIG bonuses would be paid, though now Dodd laughably claims he doesn't know how the DODD AMENDMENT got into the stimulus bill. Really. He's actually saying that. Read the link. I'm setting aside the larger issue here, which is, the Dodd amendment was superfluous to begin with, because contractual obligations don't have to be validated by Chris Dodd or anyone else. They are already valid. THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO LEGAL BASIS TO NULLIFY EXISTING CONTRACTS, even if the government wants to. I know our legislative branch doesn't pay much attention to outmoded concepts like contracts and such (that's the old way of doing business), but I think the notion used to be known as "the rule of law." Now that the uproar over the AIG bonuses is in full swing, Dodd and others want to get back the bonuses that Dodd explicitly authorized, by taxing the bonus recipients at nearly 100%. That too, of course, would be unconstitutional. There is another outmoded idea from the past called "equal protection under the law" that would prevent Congress from singling out a few AIG employees and confiscating all their money. Imagine the precedent it would set if the federal government could just nullify legal contracts and confiscate a person's wealth because they felt like it. Totalitarian change we can believe in. Even our current liberal administration realizes it can't go THAT far, or at least some of them do. Obama, who has a background in Constitutional Law, realizes he can't go that far, though many in Congress think they're entitled to do anything they damn well please. They WON, after all. Here's Sen. Chucky Schumer (Communist-NY):

"If they [AIG employees] don't [return the bonuses] we plan to tax virtually all of it."

Here's what was in a letter Harry Reid (D-NV) and nine other Democrats wrote to AIG CEO Edward Liddy:

"We expect that you will report back to Congress on your efforts to recoup these payments in short order."

CEO Liddy is to testify before the House Unamerican Activities Committee, er, I mean, Congress, on wednesday.

Hey, here's a simple idea. Obama is going to give AIG $30 billion more in bailout funds next month. Just deduct the $165 million from that amount. I doubt AIG would even miss such a paltry sum. Here's an even better idea. Don't give AIG any more taxpayer money. If we don't reward failure, then failure can't blow our money on huge bonuses, Las Vegas trips, private jets, or whatever. Failure will be bankrupt, as failure should be. That would leave only success standing. Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure there's a concept for punishing failure and rewarding success already in place. What do they call that ? Darn, I can't remember anymore, it's another of those outmoded ideas. What was it ? Oh yeah, now I remember, it's called "capitalism." In capitalism (which is little more than a theory at this point), when your company loses all it's money by acting foolishly, the company is bankrupt, and then there is no more company. Darwin called this "survival of the fittest." We've replaced the Darwinian idea with a new idea – "too big to fail." Do you think massive incompetence may be the result of this change ?

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) also made a suggestion for the AIG executives. He said they should take the Japanese route for dealing with shameful business practices and either resign or commit suicide. That may be taking things a bit far, but at least it exhibits some personal responsibility. I have an old set of Ginsu knives I'll donate to the cause.

Parting thought – Why are we upset that $165 million of the AIG bailout funds went for bonuses, but we AREN'T upset that $58 billion of the bailout funds went to FOREIGN BANKS ????? That's American taxpayer money being used to bailout France, Germany, etc. Shouldn't THAT be the headline news ?

I've seen incompetence before, but I have never witnessed anything like this. The inmates ARE running the asylum. The AIG follies are proof positive.

Every American presidential administration comes up with a plan to balance the federal budget. The plan is almost always the same. It is a long range plan that will take many years to accomplish, usually ending after the administration proposing it is out of office. Then, when the balanced budget plan fails, the administration can say "hey, we had a plan in place," but the new administration (usually of the opposite party) ruined it."

I've been listening to this song and dance for decades, and only one administration ever achieved a balanced budget, Bill Clinton's. It took him six years to accomplish it, and even Clinton left a huge net federal debt, in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion.

Thus, I think it's fair to say our leaders are nothing but a bunch of irresponsible, phoney-baloney, lying blowhards. The verdict of the last 75 years is in.

Now, Barack Obama has announced his 4-year plan, not to balance the budget, but to reduce it to ONLY $533 trillion. Obama's budget for this year projects a deficit of $1.75 trillion, with federal spending soaring to $4 trillion in 2010, increasing government spending as much in two years as Bush did in 8 years. Some change. Then Obama acts like he's concerned with fiscal responsibility. I can't listen to this nonsense any longer. Enough is enough. Running these endless deficits already has us blowing nearly $500 billion annually on debt interest that benefits nobody (except maybe China). We are following our so-called leaders into the seventh circle of economic hell.

So here's one plan (not necessarily the best plan) to balance the federal budget RIGHT NOW. I wouldn't be proposing some of these steps unless the situation was dire, but it IS dire:

1. Repeal Obama's stimulus package. It's a combination of tiny tax cuts that won't make much difference in people's lives, coupled with tons of unneeded spending. Savings – $787 billion.

2. Stop Obama's foreclosure and toxic asset bailout. We've given the banks enough already, and I'm sick of rewarding corporations and individuals for their bad behavior. Let's start rewarding responsibility instead, as it should be. Savings – $275 billion.

3. Eliminate the federal Department of Education. Washington D.C. doesn't teach kids, your local teachers do. The Department of Education is little more than a bunch of bureaucrats. The test scores of America's children have DECLINED since the Department of Education was created by the Carter administration. Savings – $63 billion

4. Cut Department of Defense spending by 10%. Savings – $54 billion
Note – this does not affect funding for the wars, which is a separate appropriation. We should save another $150 billion or so as the Iraq war draws down.

5. Reverse Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. This is not the end-all-be-all panacea it is painted to be by the left-wing spinmeisters. According to the Tax and Policy Center, reversing the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000, as Obama proposes, would generate an additional $350 billion in revenue over 10 years. Nevertheless, every little bit helps. Extra yearly revenue generated – $35 billion

6. Freeze the Omnibus spending bill for march through september at the level of last year's bill. Savings – $32 billion

Let me get out the calculator and see how much I've saved so far. 787+275+63+54+35+32 = $1.246 trillion. We're getting there, but we have a little ways to go. What else can we do ?

7. Raise the Social Security payroll tax ceiling to $190,000. I know this is immoral, and I'd only do it as a stopgap measure until I fixed the Social Security Ponzi scheme, but it will bring in some revenue and push back the day of SS reckoning (sorta). Yearly revenue generated – $ 58 billion

8. Eliminate home mortgage interest tax deduction. Also painful, but everyone has some "skin in this game," as Obama says. This also primarily affects higher level income persons. Extra revenue generated – $75 billion

9. End agricultural price supports. Savings – $20 billion

10. Cut Obama's proposed budget from $3.5 trillion to $3.4 trillion, a 2% cut. Savings – $100 billion

I think that just about gets us to a balanced budget, and if we add in the savings from ending the Iraq war, we are in budgetary surplus. Everybody will hate some of this, and I hate a lot of it, but anything is better than spending ourselves into oblivion. It took me about an hour of research to come up with this. I'm sure I could develop a far better plan if I had more time and energy to devote to it. I'm sure I could get us to a major budgetary surplus and start paying down that enormous debt if it was my full time job. So, why can't Congress and the President do this ? After all, it IS their full time job. They are not serving the interests of the American people in any way. Why do we let them get away with it ???? I'll never understand. All Republicans can talk about is tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, and all Democrats can talk about is spend, spend, spend. A pox on both their houses. I'm all in favor of lower taxes and limited government, there's no doubt about that. That's a founding principle of liberty that should never be forsaken. But I'm even more in favor of not seeing my country go down the tubes, so lets jump off this partisan ship of fools to save our country. Time is running out. Balancing the budget is not some unattainable dream that might or might not happen 10 years from now. It's something that can be accomplished almost immediately. All it takes is the political will to do it, and therein lies the problem.

During tuesday's speech to Congress, President Barack Obama spoke of the need for fiscal responsibility, eliminating wasteful government spending, and cutting the deficit in half, among other things. Republicans and Democrats alike cheered. Sitting directly behind Obama was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who appeared positively ecstatic with our new President (was I the only one creeped out by Pelosi's cult-like rapture ?) In particular, the Republican side of the aisle cheered (derisively ?) when Obama made a pledge to reduce spending. We'll get back to that in a minute.

But tuesday was tuesday. Let's call it Fiscal Responsibility Tuesday (ladies drink free), because what a difference a day makes. On wednesday, when the whole country wasn't watching the dog and pony show on teevee, Pelosi's House of Representatives passed a huge $410 billion Omnibus spending bill, with 8,570 porky earmarks attached. The price tag for the spending bill was $32 billion more than last year. Clearly, there's no recession on Capitol Hill, and there darned sure isn't any fiscal responsibility. The vote on the bill was largely along party lines. It passed 245-178, with 159 Republicans and 20 Democrats opposed.

I would have thought all the pet pork projects were used up in Obama's stimulus bill, but apparently, there is no end to the ways Congress can dream up to spend our hard-earned tax dollars. Here's just a taste of the pork – $200,000 for a tattoo removal violence outreach program, a dozen earmarks for a lobbying group currently under federal investigation for corruption (PMA Group, linked to Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and others), $1.7 million for a honey bee laboratory, $346,000 for research on apple fire blight, $1.5 million for work on grapes and grape products, $1.8 million to conduct research on swine odor and manure management (pork spent on actual pork !), $173,000 for research on asparagus production, $206,000 for wool research, $209,000 for efforts to improve blueberry production, $208,000 to control a weed known as cogongrass, $1.2 million to control cormorants, $1 million to control Mormon crickets in Utah, $162,000 to control rodents in Hawaii, $17.5 million for Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential library, $22 million for John F. Kennedy's presidential library, $2 million for Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential library (what, no money for Republican presidents ?), and on and on and on.

While I'm glad the Republicans voted against the bill, it must be noted that 40% of the earmarks WERE INSERTED BY REPUBLICANS. What in the heck is wrong with the GOP ? They are supposedly trying to rehab their image from the Bush days, and then they do this. If they want to be taken seriously, they have to walk the walk, but it looks like they only talk the talk. What a bunch of hypocritical morons.

If that's not enough "fiscal responsibility" for you, the Congressional Budget Office released a report analyzing Obama's stimulus monstrosity, and determined the permanent increase in the size of government resulting from the bill could cost $3.27 trillion.

Then there's the $634 billion health care reserve fund in Obama's budget, to help pay for his health care reforms.

The hits just keep on coming.

There is no fiscal responsibility in Washington D.C. There is no leadership coming from Obama on this subject. There is no leadership coming from Congress. It's just spend, spend, spend, the taxpayer be damned. The soaring rhetorical fluorishes from our President are little more than misdirection, meant to fool the rubes. Our government is growing to a place it's never been before, and if any of you really think "the rich" are going to pay for it all, while the rest of us suffer no consequences, you're living in a dream world. We will ALL pay in the end, one way or another. That lunch still isn't free, and it never will be.

Campaign promise:

"sunlight is the best disinfectant…and when there's a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you, the public, will have five days to look online and find out what's in it, before I sign it." – Barack Obama

Reality:

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – wasn't put online.
The SCHIP expansion – signed before the five day waiting period.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – passed late friday night, will be signed on tuesday, less than five days (granted, America will vaporize if Obama waits).

But Obama's promise sure sounded good to his blind and adoring followers, just like the one he broke before he even took office about not having any lobbyists on his team.

Here's what Obama said about lobbyists on the campaign trail:

"I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."

Statements like these drew great applause from Obama's naive and adoring fans, but they were always hogwash. When is somebody in the media going to realize that Obama For America is itself nothing but an army of people attempting to influence legislative actions (lobbying) ? Community organizers, like Obama used to be, also mobilize people for legislative change. They are lobbyists too. So, let's stop playing political pretend about lobbyists. ALL politicians and those associated with them are LOBBYISTS, attempting to implement their political agenda for their own ends. The Democratic and Republican parties are nothing but huge, well-funded lobbying groups. Attempts to ban lobbyists are essentially an attempt to remove politics from politics. Impossible. If it's the influence of lobbyist's money that we are trying to prevent, we must agree to the public funding of political campaigns, like John McCain did, and Barack Obama DIDN'T (breaking his word again). Change We Can Believe In.
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It looks like the man appointed to take Obama's Senate seat, Roland Burris (D-IL), perjured himself during the Blagojevich pay-to-play investigation. In a sworn statement to the Illinois House panel investigating Blagojevich, Burris said he had no contacts at all with the impeached governor before his appointment in late December. But it seems Burris left out one itty bitty little detail – Blagojevich’s brother solicited $10,000 in campaign cash from Burris before Blago named Burris to Obama's seat. Oops. That sounds like contact with Blago to me, and there's no way this solicitation could have slipped Burris' mind when it was the very subject of the Blagojevich investigation.

I can hardly wait for the forthcoming "it was an innocent mistake and I'm deeply sorry for the oversight" claim from Burris.
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Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) opened her fat yap and exposed some key counterterrorism information. Feinstein revealed that unmanned CIA Predator drones monitoring terrorists are run out of an airbase inside Pakistan. It was always assumed previously that the drones came from U.S. airbases. This hints at a much deeper cooperation between the Pakistan and U.S. governments than was thought before, and causes credibility problems between the Pakistan government and it's own anti-american citizenry, complicating the fight against terrorism. Feinstein is the chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, though maybe the word "Intelligence" doesn't apply here. Pakistan possesses 100 nuclear weapons, and if you were to pick a world government most likely to be overthrown and placed under Taliban/Al Qaeda/Islamic rule, Pakistan would be it. Thanks, Diane.
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The Honorable Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) will stay on as chairman of the House Ways And Means Committee. Rangel, a tax cheat, is in charge of writing the tax code (How did Obama miss this guy for a cabinet position ?). Rangel's past is littered with one scandal after another, yet he always manages to avoid any real consequences (It's good to be a Democrat !).

Rangel's number one excuse for not paying his taxes is…are you ready for this ?…he didn't understand the tax code (that Rangel himself is in charge of writing). You couldn't make this up. Nobody would believe it.

I seem to remember something about a "culture of corruption." Wasn't it Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who coined that phrase ? Of course, she was talking about Republicans (Abramoff, Cunningham, Delay), but these days it seems a week can't go by without hearing about some new scandal involving Democrats. Daschle, Geithner, Richardson, Jefferson, Blagojevich, Kilpatrick, Murtha, Rangel, Jefferson, Spitzer, Dodd, Conrad, Mollohan, Solis…

Sure glad we restored ethics to government.

America narrowly avoided disaster yesterday, but three patriotic Republicans in the Senate broke with the failed ideas of the past to join Democrats in saving our country. The $787 billion American Recovery And Reinvestment Act (stimulus bill) made it through Congress and will be signed into law by President Obama soon.

Whew. That was a close one.

In order to avoid catastrophe, it was imperative that the stimulus bill be passed quickly. That was the message from President Obama. Congress heeded the dire, urgent tone set by the President, and voted on the 1,071 page stimulus bill the day after it emerged from committee in it's final form. Displaying a great sense of unity, and showing how seriously it's members take their oaths of office, Congress passed the stimulus bill without even reading it. There just wasn't time, not with America hanging in the balance. Congratulations to Congress on a job well done. The fine points of the stimulus bill can be discussed later, after it's been implemented. That's how you get things done on Capitol Hill.

By the way, the stimulus bill contains a provision to nationalize all American real estate. You don't own your houses anymore, Americans (not that you ever really did). The government owns your homes now. The eminent domain clause in the Constitution probably gives government that authority, plus, it's for your own good. We have an economic crisis to deal with, the worst since the Great Depression. It's worse than Hitler too.

I'm just kidding. There's no provision like that in the stimulus bill.

Or is there ? We'll find out later, after somebody reads it.

Some (non-patriots) were concerned about spending $787 billion that we don't have, adding much more to our already astronomical debt. Not to worry, we're going to borrow the money from the Arab oil states, China, Russia, and people like that. Nothing could possibly go wrong there. At worst, we'll have to change the name of our country to The United States Of America, A Division Of Saudi Arabia. As they say, what's in a name ? Beside, I hear the Saudis have a wahabbist school system that really kicks ass. Their students learn, unlike the students in our failing public schools.

But I digress. We do know some of the big picture elements in the stimulus bill. 1/3rd of the bill goes to tax cuts, and 2/3rds goes to the unions spending.

The tax cuts will provide $400 to single people, and $800 to couples. This should turn the economy around every bit as well as George W. Bush's stimulus package did last fall. You remember how that staved off the crisis, don't you ?

On the spending side, President Obama says the stimulus bill will create (or save) 3 million jobs. I don't know how you measure a "saved" job, but for America's sake, I sure hope 3 million new jobs are created. With over $500 billion allocated for spending in the stimulus bill, that comes out to approximately $167,000 spent for every job created, and the lion's share of those jobs will be temporary jobs. Our government is very efficient.

If I was one of those divisive types, like the failed twerps in the GOP, I might say "Hey Mr. President. If you give ME $167,000, I'll create THREE jobs, not one."

But I don't want to interfere with the heady stimulus celebration. Instead, here's Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on MSNBC:

[The stimulus bill is] "the most vetted bill in history," and "the most transparent piece of legislation in history."

And it will be even more "vetted" and "transparent" after somebody reads it.

President Obama signaled that the best was yet to come:

"This historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but rather the beginning. The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread, and our response must be equal to the task."

That response will consist of an estimated $1.5 trillion more in borrowed debt to implement future TARP programs. Treasury secretary Tim Geithner has been explaining how that will work, except for the actual details of the programs. He's very transparent also. Apparently, Geithner plans to buy up all the "toxic assets" from the banks and make the American taxpayers responsible for them. I'll use a car metaphor to illustrate how this will work – The banks get to keep all their shiny new Mercedes Benz automobiles, and the American taxpayers will get all the rusted out 1972 Pintos up on blocks in the front yard.

We'll call this the Ownership Society II. What a deal.

Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) wants to launch an investigation into all the Bush administration's unseemly activities, such as – firing 8 U.S. attorneys, wiretapping without warrants, and misleading the public about those weapons of mass destruction. Leahy would call his investigation a "Truth Commission."

Leahy said "a person or group" of "fair-minded" individuals could be authorized to "find the truth." Leahy suggested the process could involve subpoena powers and the authority to obtain immunity from prosecutors. "Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened," he said.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the group of "fair-minded" individuals conducting the investigation would consist of far more Democrats than Republicans. Maybe I'm just overly cynical when it comes to political motivations. And maybe I'm not.

But it sounds cool to me. I'm all for the truth. I only have one real caveat…I'm for the WHOLE truth, not the narrower version of the truth Pat Leahy would like to pursue.

If Leahy is going to investigate the Bush administration for these activities, it would only be logical and "fair-minded" to investigate the prior Clinton administration as well. After all, Bush fired 8 U.S. attorneys. Bill Clinton fired 93 U.S. attorneys, including some who were investigating Clintonistas and zeroing in on the Whitewater investigation. Bush wiretapped suspected international terrorists without warrants following 9/11 in an attempt to fend off any future attacks. Clinton monitored ALL electronic communications without warrants (Project Echelon). Bush said Saddam had WMD. Clinton said Saddam had WMD. Bush used the CIA rendition program. Clinton STARTED the CIA rendition program. Bush went to war in Iraq. Clinton launched attacks against Iraq, and also made the policy of the USA toward Iraq one of regime change with the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act.

I wonder if Leahy and his Truth Commission are interested in THAT much truth. I have a sneaking suspicion they aren't.

As a matter of fact, Leahy himself "misled" the American public about those Iraqi WMD's back in 1998, and again in 2002, when he said:

"The Iraqi regime has already invaded Iran and Kuwait, gassed members of its own population, and repeatedly flouted international conventions against armed aggression. It is clear that Iraq has tried to develop a range of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, with which Iraq might threaten the entire Gulf region."

Will Leahy investigate himself ? Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm also wondering if Pat Leahy is the right man to head up the Truth Commission. I mean, after all, he did commit treason several times during the 1980's. When Leahy was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, he leaked classified information on several occasions, earning himself the nickname "Leaky Leahy." He was forced to resign from the Intelligence Committee over it. Leahy's lucky he wasn't a Republican, or he'd probably have been prosecuted, like Scooter Libby was. Here's a summary of Leaky Leahy's activities:

Senator Pat Leahy was annoyed with the Reagan administration's war on terrorism in the 1980s. At the time he was vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

- "Leaky Leahy," allegedly threatened to sabotage classified strategies he didn't like.

- Leahy ‘inadvertently' disclosed a top-secret communications intercept during a 1985 television interview. The intercept … made possible the capture of the Arab terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered American citizens. Leahy's report is thought to have cost the life of at least one Egyptian operative involved in the operation.

- In July 1987, it was reported that Leahy leaked secret information about a 1986 covert operation planned by the Reagan administration to topple Libya's Moammar Gaddhafi. U.S. intelligence officials said Leahy, along with the Republican panel chairman, sent a written threat to expose the operation directly to then-CIA Director William Casey. Weeks later, news of the secret plan turned up in the Washington Post, causing it to be aborted.

- A year later, as the Senate was preparing to hold hearings on the Iran-Contra scandal, Leahy had to resign his Intelligence Committee post after he was caught leaking secret information to a reporter.

He should have been indicted, tried and sentenced.

Leahy's Iran-Contra leak was considered to be one of the most serious breaches of secrecy in the Intelligence Committee's 10-year history.

Maybe we can find a better arbiter of truth than Pat Leahy, the traitor who leaked classified information and undermined his country because he didn't like President Reagan's pursuit of terrorism.

Maybe we can find someone a little MORE "fair-minded." Someone who actually cares about the truth ahead of partisan politics. Pat Leahy is not that guy.