Crème de la Conservative

The legal history of "anchor babies"

2010-08-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

From the indefatigable Ann Coulter:

"The drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers, back in those days, people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)

Inasmuch as America was not the massive welfare state operating as a magnet for malingerers, frauds and cheats that it is today, it's amazing the drafters even considered the amendment's effect on the children of aliens.

But they did.

The very author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, expressly said: 'This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.'

In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians -- because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction, not U.S. jurisdiction.

For a hundred years, that was how it stood, with only one case adding the caveat that children born to LEGAL permanent residents of the U.S., gainfully employed, and who were not employed by a foreign government would also be deemed citizens under the 14th Amendment. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898.)

And then, out of the blue in 1982, Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, asserting that 'no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.' (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)

Brennan's authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes, THE Clement L. Bouve -- the one you've heard so much about over the years.) Bouve was not a senator, not an elected official, certainly not a judge -- just some guy who wrote a book.

So on one hand we have the history, the objective, the author's intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment, which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children born to illegal immigrants.

On the other hand, we have a random outburst by some guy named Clement -- who, I'm guessing, was too cheap to hire an American housekeeper."

'Nuff said.

More global "warming" due to "adjustments"

2010-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

There are so many examples of warmists "adjusting" temperature records to show warming that official temperature trend data has lost all credibility. Here's another example.

You've no doubt heard that glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating due to global warming. Look at the chart above to see where the warming is coming from - hint - it's not from CO2.

Another study confirms government pay double private sector

2010-08-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

"At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.

Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.

The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year."

Democrats doing what they do best - pretending to take care of the poor while they take care of themselves.

The NOAA heatwave

2010-07-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

Recently the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report claiming that 2010 was the hottest year on record so far. As you probably know, their temperature sensors are supposed to be free of surrounding heat sources, such as paved parking lots.

The warmers are projecting a rise in temperature of a couple of degrees in a hundred years. With temperature sensors like this one, it's surprising that they aren't projecting temperatures hot enough to fry eggs.

Poor whites need not apply

2010-07-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

A recent study has concluded that Ivy League schools actively discriminate against poor, Christian, white applicants.

"Though elite schools give points to applicants for extracurricular activities, especially for leadership roles and honors...if you played a lead role in Future Farmers of America, the 4-H Clubs or junior ROTC, leave it off your resume or you may just be blackballed. 'Excelling in these activities is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds on admissions.' ...

For these schools are not interested in a diversity that would include 'born-again Christians from the Bible belt, students from Appalachia and other rural and small-town areas, people who have served in the U.S. military, those who have grown up on farms or ranches, Mormons, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, lower- and middle-class Catholics, working class white ethnics, social and political conservatives, wheelchair users, married students, married students with children or older students just starting into college and raising children.'

'Students in these categories,...are often very rare at the most competitive colleges, especially the Ivy League.'

'Lower-class whites prove to be all-around losers' at the elite schools. They are rarely accepted. Lower-class Hispanics and blacks are eight to 10 times more likely to get in with the same scores...

Many of these elite public and private colleges and universities benefit from U.S. tax dollars through student loans and direct grants. The future flow of those tax dollars should be made contingent on Harvard and Yale ending racial practices that went out at Little Rock Central High in 1957."

"Displaced foreign travelers" - latest official euphemism for criminal illegal aliens

2010-07-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

When the US Forest Service recently busted an illegal alien growing pot on the US side of the border, that's what they called him in a press release. Perhaps their previous term, "undocumented worker" is starting to have too many bad connotations in people's minds, sort of like the word "liberal".

Written proof that MSM reporters conspired to help Obama

2010-07-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

If any proof was needed, that is. Liberal reporters and their political and academic friends used a listserv called Journolist, a place where a group of people could post comments to one another, during the 2008 election and until recently.

The Daily Caller obtained some or all of the backfiles, which show an active conspiracy among MSM journalists from a variety of publications discussing how to help Obama escape the Rev. Wright scandal.

While Republicans have known for decades that the MSM works to help Democratic candidates, this is the first evidence I’m aware of where this conspiracy is documented in writing. Among the tactics suggested by MSM “reporters” was to call senior Republicans “racist”.

This should be a huge scandal, but since it involves the MSM, unless Fox, talk radio, and the blogs pick this up and push it, the MSM will do everything in its power to bury it.

If you ever wondered whether the MSM actively coordinated its pro-Democratic coverage, or just happened to agree, this is the smoking gun.

Beautiful music

2010-07-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

With all the negative political developments these days, it's hard to keep a positive outlook. However, there is also beauty all around us. I've been cataloging music from Youtube in my favorites lists, and this song, Time to Say Goodbye, by two of my all time favorite singers, Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli, should be enough to make anyone smile.

Six months to go until the largest tax hikes in history

2010-07-16T08:24:00.001-07:00

Those who think the way to improve our ailing economy is to raise taxes are about to see what really happens when the Bush tax cuts expire. This will amount to the largest tax increases in history.

According to the Americans for Tax Reform,

"Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family. The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.

The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no death tax. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013."

Unfortunately, there's more. Read the article for the rest of the story. Have fun being crushed by higher taxes.

Unemployment under Republicans and Democrats

2010-07-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

Democrats claim to be for the "little guy" - see just how helpful they are.

From Michelle Malkin.

Fabricating Global Warming

2010-07-15T12:31:00.001-07:00

From the blog Greenie Watch - click to enlarge. Most people don't know that global warming data used to justify the warmers' theories is not the actual data, but "adjusted" data, and that the organizations that maintain these databases "adjust" it retroactively all the time without disclosing the reasons for their adjustments. See anything fishy here?

Obama's Amnesty for Millions of Illegals

2010-07-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago it was rumored that the Obama administration was going to provide amnesty to illegals through some sort of executive action without trying to pass legislation. A public announcement of this sort of action would ignite a firestorm of protest which would nullify any political advantage Obama could gain from Hispanic voters.

Now, however, it appears that a partial amnesty has been imposed through an apparently innocuous internal document at ICE. So far, this appears to have flown under the media radar. There has been limited reporting on the memo, but not on its implications. Once this first pass at amnesty has been successfully digested, it won't be long until other illegal categories will be granted amnesty through the same mechanism. Executive branch amnesty is here.

According to this article, "the Assistant Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- known as ICE -- circulated an internal memo ordering officers not to arrest a broad range of illegal aliens he deems immune from 'mandatory detention,' according to watchdog public-interest group Judicial Watch...

'Field office directors 'should not expend detention resources on aliens who are known to be suffering from serious physical or mental illness, or who are disabled, elderly, pregnant, or nursing, or demonstrate that they are primary caretakers of children or an infirm person, or whose detention is otherwise not in the public interest,' according to a memorandum issued by ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton."

By using this approach, illegals won't be required to do anything to stay in this country. They're simply given a free pass. This first group includes all the illegals who need medical care, so the American taxpayer is now responsible for providing free medical care to anyone who can get across the border from anywhere else. Everyone should wake up to what's happening here.

Obama's support among non-black voters cratering

2010-06-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

"The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll this week shows Barack Obama with a negative 45%-48% job rating. But as the Wall Street Journal story notes, Obama’s job rating among black voters is 91% positive. A lttle back of the envelope arithmetic suggests that Obama’s job rating among the 88% or 89% of non-black respondents is about 39% positive and 54% negative.

That’s pretty weak — a whole lot more negative than the numbers you usually see for all voters. This is hugely relevant to the 2010 elections. Most of the states with seriously contested Senate races or Democratic seats that seem almost certain to go Republican have below-national-average black percentages."

Read the rest of the article here.

Wall Street Journal on the (hopeful) end of Keynesian "stimulus"

2010-06-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Such is the case with Keynesian economic theory. Named for the famous 1930's British economist, this holds that government can end recessions, or in his time, depressions by engaging in massive deficit spending. This is really a crackpot theory, but it has been a great excuse for governments to do what they want to do anyway - spend lots of your money.

The mere fact that it has never worked anywhere in the world, and has made things worse time after time, was no reason for the Obama administration not to try it again. Apparently using a new word, "stimulus," was supposed to make everyone forget Keynesian-ism's sorry history. What is unfortunately not surprising is that the media, with its utter ignorance of basic economics, has led the cheer-leading squad for this tired old fraud.

Now, however, according to this Wall Street Journal article, Obama is likely to have a hard time at the G-20 summit selling Europe on recovering from its massive Keynesian hangover by drinking from the same bottle.

As the above chart shows, when comparing tax cuts versus increasing spending to improve the economy, there really is no doubt which is the correct strategy.

British wind farms paid not to produce electricity

2010-06-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought the wind energy madness couldn't get any nuttier, it does.

In Britain, "Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing...

The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households...

Whereas coal and gas power stations often pay the National Grid £15 to £20 per megawatt hour they do not supply, Scottish Power was paid £180 per megawatt hour.

It raises the prospect of hugely profitable electricity suppliers receiving large sums of money from the National Grid just for switching off wind turbines...

Earlier this year, The Sunday Telegraph revealed that electricity customers are paying more than £1 billion a year to subsidize wind farms and other forms of renewable energy...

Professor Michael Laughton, emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the University of London, said: 'People will find it very hard to understand that an electricity company is getting paid the market rate plus a subsidy for doing nothing. It is essentially a waste of consumers' money.'"

Britain is ahead, if you can call it that, of us in forcing wind power on its already overburdened citizens. It probably won't be long before utilities here are paid for not producing wind power. When it becomes a large enough source of power to matter, its inherent unreliability means it will not be producing power when we need it, and producing too much power when we don't need it.

If you were planning a new industrial facility, would you pick a country that is going to increase electricity costs by 300% to 500% using unreliable wind and solar power, or a country like China that is building reliable new low-cost coal fired plants at the rate of one a week?

Is Obama our own Hugo Chavez?

2010-06-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration is reportedly looking into ways to "legalize" the millions of illegals in this country by some sort of executive action, according to a former Bush administration official who has talked to several people involved in the discussions.

"The former official said it's unclear what specific avenues the administration is considering, but that one potentially feasible option would be to use either deferred action or parole to legalize at once the millions of immigrants who have overstayed their visas -- not necessarily those who crossed the border illegally.

Deferred action and parole would give illegal immigrants the ability to seek a work permit and temporary legal status.

Those two tools are usually used on a case-by-case basis. The former official said any move to broaden that authority and use it on a mass basis would be 'woefully inappropriate'"...

It was obvious from the first moment Obama appeared on the scene that he was a radical leftist, who was unfortunately able to bamboozle millions of Americans into believing he was some sort of moderate. But it wasn't obvious that he would be willing to go this far.

This is Hugo Chavez territory. Some commentators have termed his administration to be a "gangster government", and this would put him firmly in that category.

We can only cross our fingers and hope he really doesn't intend to go that far. Based on his track record, it may be a forlorn hope. If he does pull that trigger, the issue for the next election should be whether to impeach him.

The next step in the Mexican invasion

2010-06-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

Obama has made it clear he is much more concerned about Arizona's efforts to defend itself than he is about the massive invasion from Mexico. Now the assault has moved to its next phase -

"Mexican drug cartels have set up shop on American soil, maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona from which their scouts can monitor every move made by law enforcement officials, federal agents tell Fox News.

The scouts are supplied by drivers who bring them food, water, batteries for radios -- all the items they need to stay in the wilderness for a long time.

'To say that this area is out of control is an understatement,' said an agent who patrols the area and asked not to be named. 'We (federal border agents), as well as the Pima County Sheriff Office and the Bureau of Land Management, can attest to that...'

In these areas, which are south and west of Tucson, sources said there are 'cartel scouts galore' watching the movements of federal, state and local law enforcement, from the border all the way up to Interstate 8.

'Every night we’re getting beaten like a pinata at a birthday party by drug, alien smugglers,' a second federal agent told Fox News by e-mail. 'The danger is out there, with all the weapons being found coming northbound…. someone needs to know about this!'...

multiple agents told Fox that the situation is more dangerous for them than ever now that the cartels have such a strong position on the American side of the border.

They say morale is down among many who patrol the desolate area, and they worry that the situation won't change until an agent gets killed."

Insurance companies starting to get out of healthcare due to Obamacare

2010-06-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

Remember how The Anointed One promised, promised that under Obamacare no one would lose their existing insurance coverage? Anyone who believed that - or any other Obama commitment - was probably a Democrat. Now, however, insurance companies are starting to cancel policies that don't comply with Obamacare mandates. Here is an actual cancellation notice sent by a national insurance company telling clients that it is getting out of the business, so their policies won't be renewed. So much for "If you like your insurance, you can keep it."

US Debt Clock

2010-06-21T15:53:00.001-07:00

For those of you who haven't already seen this, or who want to bookmark it for future (depressing) reference, here is the real time US debt clock. Look at it and weep.

Making the same mistakes in Afghanistan as in Vietnam

2010-06-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the biggest lesson of the Vietnam war is that we can't win if we tie both hands behind our back. Political meddling in Vietnam put our troops in an impossible situation. It's happening again in Afghanistan.

According to George Will, "[This is from] a recent e-mail from a noncommissioned officer (NCO) serving in Afghanistan. He explains why the rules of engagement for U.S. troops are 'too prohibitive for coalition forces to achieve sustained tactical successes.'

Receiving mortar fire during an overnight mission, his unit called for a 155mm howitzer illumination round to be fired to reveal the enemy's location. The request was rejected 'on the grounds that it may cause collateral damage.' The NCO says that the only thing that comes down from an illumination round is a canister, and the likelihood of it hitting someone or something was akin to that of being struck by lightning.

Returning from a mission, his unit took casualties from an improvised explosive device that the unit knew had been placed no more than an hour earlier. 'There were villagers laughing at the U.S. casualties' and 'two suspicious individuals were seen fleeing the scene and entering a home.' U.S. forces "are no longer allowed to search homes without Afghan National Security Forces personnel present." But when his unit asked Afghan police to search the house, the police refused on the grounds that the people in the house 'are good people.'

On another mission, some Afghan adults ran off with their children immediately before the NCO's unit came under heavy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and the unit asked for artillery fire on the enemy position. The response was a question: Where is the nearest civilian structure? 'Judging distances,' the NCO writes dryly, 'can be difficult when bullets and RPGs are flying over your head.'

When the artillery support was denied because of fear of collateral damage, the unit asked for a 'smoke mission' -- like an illumination round; only the canister falls to earth -- 'to conceal our movement as we planned to flank and destroy the enemy.' This request was granted -- but because of fear of collateral damage, the round was deliberately fired one kilometer off the requested site, making 'the smoke mission useless and leaving us to fend for ourselves.'"

It's a miracle that our troops are willing to fight under rules like this. They are expected to risk death themselves in order to prevent enemy combatants from being killed. This is insanity, but perfectly understandable given Obama's military experience as a community organizer. If these rules continue, we will lose the Afghan war.

Obama won't enforce border security until Congress passes amnesty

2010-06-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

Arizona Senator John Kyl says that Obama told him that he won't enforce border security until amnesty is passed. Here is the video of Kyl's remarks.

From Hot Air blog,

"Of course The One won’t do anything about the border until he gets ... amnesty; his party wants to build a heavy Democratic majority among Latinos long-term and he’s not going to mess that up. What’s stunning is simply the fact that he’d be so candid, to a member of the opposition no less, in admitting his dereliction of duty. Sure, he could fulfill his constitutional responsibility and try to enforce federal law — but what good will that do him politically?... And you thought the BP deal was a 'shakedown.'”

Does anyone actually believe that Obama will enforce border security after an amnesty bill passes?

Obamacare will outlaw health plans for over a million people this fall

2010-06-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

Obamacare will outlaw certain types of low cost plans, which will dramatically raise the cost of premiums and force most employers to terminate these plans in September - just before the November elections.

Mark Steyn is at it again

2010-06-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn is one of my heroes - a writer who can take a subject thousands have written about and do a column that is original and an absolute pleasure to read. Here's another one - titled "We're too broke to be this stupid."

"You know how it is when you’re at the mall and someone rattles a collection box under your nose and you’re not sure where it’s going but it’s probably for Darfur or Rwanda or Hoogivsastan. Whatever. You’re dropping a buck or two in the tin for the privilege of not having to think about it. For the more ideologically committed, there’s always the awareness-raising rock concert: it’s something to do with Bono and debt forgiveness, whatever that means, but let’s face it, going to the park for eight hours of celebrity caterwauling beats having to wrap your head around Afro-Marxist economics.

The modern welfare state operates on the same principle: since the Second World War, the hard-working middle classes have transferred historically unprecedented amounts of money to the unproductive sector in order not to have to think about it. But so what? We were rich enough that we could afford to be stupid.

That works for a while. In the economic expansion of the late 20th century, citizens of Western democracies paid more in taxes but lived better than their parents and grandparents. They weren’t exactly rich, but they got richer. They also got more stupid. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want.” Sir William and his colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic succeeded beyond their wildest dreams: to be “poor” in the 21st-century West is not to be hungry and emaciated but to be obese, with your kids suffering from childhood diabetes. When Michelle Obama turned up to serve food at a soup kitchen, its poverty-stricken clientele snapped pictures of her with their cellphones.

In one-sixth of British households, not a single family member works. They are not so much without employment as without need of it. At a certain level, your hard-working bourgeois understands that the bulk of his contribution to the treasury is entirely wasted. It’s one of the basic rules of life: if you reward bad behaviour, you get more of it. But, in good and good-ish times, who cares?

By the way, where does the government get the money to fund all these immensely useful programs? According to a Fox News poll earlier this year, 65 per cent of Americans understand that the government gets its money from taxpayers, but 24 per cent think the government has 'plenty of its own money without using taxpayer dollars.'"

Read it all.

'Nuff said

2010-06-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

Surprise - the left flunks economics 101

2010-06-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

As one who has studied economics for many years, it has been obvious to me that the left is defined by its determined ignorance of basic economic principles. Here's a study confirming that obvious fact.

"How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26...

On every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect."

The continuing ignorance of a large fraction of the population about economics is one of the wonders of our age. A majority of politicians today don't know as much about the subject as economic thinkers of 150-200 years ago. The result of that ignorance is the imposition of destructive policies that make almost everyone poorer.

Chris Christie - a new political hero

2010-06-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't seen it, here is another video of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie telling it like it is, no matter what the political cost. This time he takes on the teachers' union. If you haven't already, you really should see it. This guy is awesome!

Speliothem records show the polar bears are probably safe

2010-06-04T13:05:00.001-07:00

You all know what a speliothem is, don't you? Just in case you weren't listening when that word was explained in class, "Speleothems are secondary mineral deposits formed in caves. Stalactites and stalagmites are speleothems, and they come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes...

The speleothems give us a record of what is called the 'delta oxygen 18' (∂18O) value. This value is related to the temperature... What can we learn from the speleothems?...

As is shown in the Greenland ice core records, we are currently at the cold end of the Holocene (the current interglacial).

• Recent phenomena (Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, Current Warm Period) are scarcely visible at this scale. So much for the 'uprecedented' nature of the recent rise.

• The polar bears are not in any danger from the recent rise.

• What’s up with the big jump and drop about 12000 years ago?...this is almost certainly the 'Younger Dryas' event...The Younger Dryas stadial, also referred to as the Big Freeze, was a geologically brief (1,300 ± 70 years) cold climate period between approximately 12,800 and 11,500 years ago (between 10,800 and 9,500 BCE)."

The unconstitutional census

2010-06-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

"It is no secret that there are between twelve and thirty million people illegally in the United States at present. These people were neither born in the United States, nor have they gone through the naturalization process prescribed by our laws. As a result, they are not citizens of the United States and they are beyond the reach of constitutional provisions intended to apply to citizens of the United States. One of those provisions is Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution.

Under Section 2 of Article I, the United States House of Representatives must be composed of House members chosen every two years. The number of Representatives apportioned to each state of the Union is determined by an 'enumeration' (i.e., a census) taken every ten years of the people living in each state who are legally eligible to vote in statewide elections. While different states at different times have allowed non-citizens to vote in statewide elections, by 1926 every state in the Union had legally abolished that practice. Thus, to be eligible to vote for a member of the House of Representatives today, you must in fact be a citizen of the United States of America.

So, why is it that the United States Census Bureau doesn't even inquire whether the people being counted in the current census are American citizens? Is it that the Constitution of the United States doesn't mean anything to federal officials anymore?"

We know why the Census Bureau doesn't ask about citizenship. It creates over-representation of Democratic districts. Besides, many illegals vote, and this makes sure there won't be more votes than citizens.

Playing the media like a violin

2010-06-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

The MSM reaction to Israel's stopping of "relief" ships headed for Gaza, and the resulting violent confrontation, is exactly what the Hamas supporters, or according to the MSM, "peace activists," had planned. They have become expert musicians playing any tune they want on the MSM violin.

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent piece on this charade. His conclusion:

"The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense.

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, six million — that number again — hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists — Iranian in particular — openly prepare a more final solution."

James O'Keefe strikes again

2010-06-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

Mr. O'Keefe, the journalist who exposed ACORN's support for underage prostitution rings, has done it again. This time he went undercover at the Census Bureau in New Jersey, and immediately discovered massive corruption.

"With a hidden camera, I caught four Census supervisors encouraging enumerators to falsify information on their time sheets. Over the course of two days of training, I was paid for four hours of work I never did. I was told to take a 70 minute lunch break, was given an hour of travel time to drive 10 minutes, and was told to leave work at 3:30pm. I resigned prior to doing any data collection but confronted Census supervisors who assured me, 'no one is going to be auditing that that level,' and 'nobody is going to be questioning it except for you.'"

This is the kind of performance one would expect from our overpaid Federal bureaucracy (see below.) What's perhaps more interesting is that the independent Mr. O'Keefe is able to document one example of corruption after another while the mandarins of the MSM apparently can't uncover government fraud right under their noses.

Of course, the MSM assiduously avoids looking under government rocks precisely because it might find something, which would undermine its leftist, pro-government narrative.

The Federal Aristocracy

2010-06-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

Dems love to bleat about "the gap between the rich and the poor," which is the central element of their economic con job justifying high taxes on those who produce wealth to buy votes from their political supporters.

The real scandal is shown in the chart above. Federal workers, with the help of their unions, are conducting a massive rip-off of the rest of us. These coddled denizens of the Federal Goliath now make twice what private sector workers make, and this for working fewer hours, getting more time off, having lower performance standards, with no risk of layoffs and little risk of being fired for poor performance.

We really do live in a two tiered society - Federal workers on top, and the rest of us down below staggering to pay for them. Welcome to the new aristocracy.

Off for a few days

2010-05-29T07:48:00.001-07:00

Your humble correspondent will be away for several days, returning next Wednesday. Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Will the cover up be successful?

2010-05-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

The latest Obama White House assertion that former President Bill Clinton offered Rep. Sestak an unpaid advisory post in return for dropping out of the Senate race is about as plausible as Bill Clinton's assertion that he didn't have sex with Monica Lewinski.

Let's remember that Sestak originally said he "was offered a job" in return for dropping out of the race. Would anyone call an unpaid, occasional advisory role a "job?" When asked whether the job was Navy Secretary, Sestak refused to answer. If that wasn't the case, why didn't he just say "no?" Sestak also originally said the offer was made by "someone in the White House." Could the ex-President reasonably be described as "someone in the White House?"

It's really quite remarkable that Obama would turn to famous liar Clinton to try to cover his tracks with such a lame concoction. Does anyone really believe that Obama would employ a former President to make such a minuscule, meaningless offer? Sestak also originally said that he had multiple conversations over a period of 1-2 months. The White House announcement also said that there had been contacts over a 2 month period. Then, once Clinton was brought into the picture, Sestak said he had only talked to Clinton once about a position for less than a minute. Is this not a blatant contradiction?

The fact that Obama and Clinton had lunch before the announcement, and that Sestak's brother was called by the White House is likely evidence that Obama's people were making sure everyone had their stories straight before issuing this howler.

The fact that the White House has gone to such lengths to create an obviously implausible story can only mean they believe they have something serious to hide. The question now is whether a compliant MSM will conspire with the White House to bury this scandal before it gets out of hand.

There is almost certainly a serious cover up going on, but unless media pressure forces the Administration to appoint a special prosecutor, the cover up will be successful. The chances of the Obama lapdogs in the MSM doing that are somewhere between slim and none.

Illegal aliens driving Americans out of their homes near the border

2010-05-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

"They spent ten winters hunting quail in the sun. But those halcyon days ended last week for Terrie and Glen Stoller. Smugglers -- armed, numerous, and brazen -- have frightened them off their southeast Arizona property.

The couple is selling their home, 45 miles north of the Mexican border in the notorious Chiricahua Corridor.

'Last winter,' says Terrie, 'as we walked the hills looking for quail with our dogs, I kept thinking, ‘What if we come upon a drug encampment? What's going to happen to us?' I carry a camera, my husband carries a 12-gauge for quail, and we have four hunting dogs. It'd be the end of us. It'd be no contest against drug runners carrying rifles and big weapons.'

Glen likens the family to frontier homesteaders loading a wagon and returning home. 'Cochise has won,' he says, referring to the Apache chief who made the Chiricahua Mountains his homeland. 'The Indians are running us off'...

The couple, both 71, made a party of their last hours in Arizona. Terrie had lunch ready for dear friends who came to help pack. Others drove to the barbed wire fence around the property, threw their arms wide and said, 'Let's have a goodbye hug.'

It was a sad day, made more so by events in Washington.

At the precise moment Americans citizens were saying a wrenching farewell to their friends and property, President Obama stood on the White House lawn and listened as Mexican President Felipe Calderón criticized SB 1070, Arizona's own effort to deal with a state under siege...

The border is a 'combat zone,' says T.J. Bonner, head of the Border patrol agents' union, too dangerous even for Border Patrol. You read that correctly. Without armored vehicles to protect them, Bonner opposes putting Border Patrol agents on the border itself...

The landscape here is among the Southwest's most beautiful, big beyond imagining, with waving grasses, dirt roads that never end, and hidden canyons that twist through the Chiricahuas and their sister mountains, the Peloncillos, on the New Mexico side.

But smugglers of both people and drugs now control those ranges, and these dangerous men have transformed life here. Some residents carry weapons inside their houses. Others grab a firearm to step out to the garage or the storage shed, or to go to the market...

The Stollers themselves were broken into in May last year and again in June, and in January, a retired couple living a mile north suffered a home invasion by two illegals, one carrying a machete. 'It all built up,' says Terrie. 'The Apache School was being totally ruined and trashed and everything taken out of it. Then Rob Krentz was killed March 27, and he was just down the road...'

In one respect, the Stollers are fortunate. They've found a likely buyer, a fellow who grew up here and wants to return to the valley in retirement. Selling the place through a real estate agent to someone just coming in, without local ties, would've been impossible.

'Nobody in their right mind would even look at it, knowing what's going on here,' says Terrie.

Property values are plunging across the borderlands. I got an e-mail last week from retired Cochise County judge Rich Winkler, 71, who always dreamed of owning a cattle ranch. He lives outside Rodeo, six miles from the Stollers and fifty miles north of the Mexican line.

His ranch is in the Peloncillos. Here is what he wrote:

Mary and I have worked all our life to pay for this place, and now they tell me it is worth nothing because no one will buy it. I don't blame them. Helen Snyder sells real estate in the area and she said that since Rob's death, the market is dead in the water. I can't believe my country would leave me high and dry like this.

If the heartbreak Winkler feels doesn't leap from those words, read them again. Heartbreak is everywhere here, every day."

Yet Obama doesn't spend ten seconds thinking about the citizens he is supposed to protect in Arizona. Instead, he joins with the Mexican President to demean his own countrymen as they struggle against the very real Mexican invasion. Disgusting.

New research by the Harvard Business School proves that "stimulus" actually depresses private economic activity

2010-05-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

From the National Review,

"New research from Harvard Business School shows that federal spending in states causes local businesses to cut back rather than grow. In other words, when government spending grows the private sector shrinks. Key findings in the study:

The average state experiences a 40 to 50 percent increase in earmark spending if its senator becomes chair of one of the top-three congressional committees. In the House, the average is around 20 percent.

For broader measures of spending, such as discretionary state-level federal transfers, the increase from being represented by a powerful senator is around 10 percent.

In the year that follows a congressman's ascendancy, the average firm in his state cuts back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent.

There is some evidence that firms scale back their employment and experience a decline in sales growth.

While these results are very interesting, the most intriguing part of this study is the admission by the authors — Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy — that they were stunned by these results. Check out this Harvard Business School interview:

Recent research at Harvard Business School began with the premise that as a state's congressional delegation grew in stature and power in Washington, D.C., local businesses would benefit from the increased federal spending sure to come their way.

It turned out quite the opposite. In fact, professors Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy discovered to their surprise that companies experienced lower sales and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D, and other expenses. Indeed, in the years that followed a congressman's ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper, "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?"

'It was an enormous surprise, at least to us, to learn that the average firm in the chairman's state did not benefit at all from the unanticipated increase in spending,' Coval reports."
So now we have more detailed evidence that Keynesian "stimulus" depresses, rather than stimulates economic growth. There has been consistent, overwhelming evidence that "stimulus" spending has failed on a national level around the world. Japan tried that approach over and over again in the 1980's and '90's without success, and the US has just seen unemployement rise substantially after the 2009 "stimulus."
Now the same phenomenon has been observed on a state level. But evidence doesn't count for much. As long as the MSM remains determinedly ignorant of basic economics, and thinks its role is to support Democrats, the public will keep hearing that we need more "stimulus," AKA government spending, to cure what ails us.

Money supply shrinking due to regulation -more economic woes on the way

2010-05-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

While the economic illiterate believed that the Great Depression was caused by "the business cycle" or a "failure of capitalism", it has been known for years that the Depression was largely caused by Federal Reserve blunders which caused the money supply to plummet, combined with the Fed's failure to support banks which were hit by runs by nervous depositors.

The current downturn was initiated by the failures of government sponsored entities (GSEs) Fannie May and Freddie Mac due to mandated programs to provide mortgage loans to people who couldn't afford them. When the value of their mortgage backed securities, which were one of the foundations of the financial system, were found to be crumbling, they took down a number of major banks and other financial institutions such as AIG with them.

Now, according to an article in the London Telegraph, "The stock of money fell from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the three months to April, amounting to an annual rate of contraction of 9.6pc. The assets of insitutional money market funds fell at a 37pc rate, the sharpest drop ever.

'It’s frightening,' said Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research. 'The plunge in M3 has no precedent since the Great Depression. The dominant reason for this is that regulators across the world are pressing banks to raise capital asset ratios and to shrink their risk assets. This is why the US is not recovering properly,' he said."

Not surprisingly, the Administration is not letting this crisis go to waste, but is proposing more Keynesian "stimulus" AKA spending, in spite of the fact that the last huge spending blowout didn't prevent unemployment from rising. The fact that fiscal "stimulus" has never worked anywhere is no reason not to keep using it as an excuse to do what the Dems want to do anyway - increase the government share of the economy.

"Mr Congdon said the Obama policy risks repeating the strategic errors of Japan, which pushed debt to dangerously high levels with one fiscal boost after another during its Lost Decade, instead of resorting to full-blown 'Friedmanite' monetary stimulus.

'Fiscal policy does not work. The US has just tried the biggest fiscal experiment in history and it has failed. What matters is the quantity of money and in extremis that can be increased easily by quantititave easing. If the Fed doesn’t act, a double-dip recession is a virtual certainty,' he said.

Mr Congdon said the dominant voices in US policy-making - Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz, as well as Mr Summers and Fed chair Ben Bernanke - are all Keynesians of different stripes who 'despise traditional monetary theory and have a religious aversion to any mention of the quantity of money'. The great opus by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz - The Monetary History of the United States - has been left to gather dust.

Mr Bernanke no longer pays attention to the M3 data. The bank stopped publishing the data five years ago, deeming it too erratic to be of much use.

This may have been a serious error since double-digit growth of M3 during the US housing bubble gave clear warnings that the boom was out of control. The sudden slowdown in M3 in early to mid-2008 - just as the Fed raised rates - gave a second warning that the economy was about to go into a nosedive."

So it appears we have yet another example of government claiming it needs to regulate capitalism to avoid economic chaos, and using regulation to produce economic chaos instead. Is anyone surprised?

Neat video of stars over a mountain

2010-05-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a cool video of the night sky in a time lapse video.

While Tea Party rallies worry the MSM, intimidation by union thugs OK

2010-05-26T10:09:00.001-07:00

"Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.

Waving signs denouncing bank 'greed,' hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. 'When are they going to leave?' Jack pleaded when I called to check on him...

Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might 'incite' these trespassers...

There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny."

According to the MSM, peaceful Tea Party rallies - dangerous - union thugs surrounding a private home to intimidate a family - not worth mentioning. Is there any wonder the MSM has no credibility?

"Just another act of deadly treason"

2010-05-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

"Yesterday, The New York Times published another front-page article based on a leaked classified document. This time, it was an order signed by Gen. David Petraeus authorizing black operations against adversaries and such dubious friends as Iran, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Gee, thanks. We really needed to know that. The world's a better place now...

This not only increases the virulent paranoia in the region's police states, but poses a mortal danger to agents, special operators and the innocent.

Our bravest men and women will face heightened risks and difficulties in executing their missions -- and businessmen, tourists and (did the Times think this through?) journalists will also come under greater suspicion. Innocent people and regime opponents will be executed as spies. And does anyone think that publicizing this program will help those three hikers held for a year in Iran?

In fact, there's a far greater risk of harm to blundering bystanders than to skilled operatives. The Tehran regime, especially, will use the revelation of this document as an excuse to imprison more democracy advocates -- or kill them.

Think the jerk who leaked this order considered any of these consequences? ... But nobody's going to be punished. High-ranking officials can get away with manslaughter, if not murder. An Army captain would go to prison. A political appointee can expect a promotion...

A journalist got a front-page byline. A political hack believes that he or she made President Obama look manlier in dealing with Iran. So what if our agents and special operators were betrayed?

People will die or be jailed and tortured because of this leak. And nobody on this end will be punished. Because nobody in Washington gives a damn."

Socialism, the modern form of feudalism

2010-05-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

"The left should study history and the rhetoric of a distant political system called Feudalism. Many people have a misconception that the early socialist thinkers like Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels were original thinkers, writing ideas about collectivism and equal sharing of property. But one only has to look back a few centuries to see they were simply recycling old failed ideas with some new jive attached...

The Feudal system was nothing more than creating a ruling class who owned all the land and wealth and provided security and safety to all the serfs; in turn the serfs provided work and servitude to their master. But many people do not realize the collective aspect of how serfs lived together.

After the ruling class reaped the finest of the crops and livestock for themselves, the serfs were to distribute all the yield of their labor amongst everyone equally. They had no rights to any crops or land for themselves, all belonged to the community, which was bestowed upon them by their feudal lords. They also shared in utilities. Most peasant societies had a communal oven that was also shared to save on resources...

This is exactly the type of rhetoric we hear from the left all the time. With their ideas of the redistribution of wealth, and a central controlling nanny state, we're told things such as: ‘You should listen to those who know better. You should care more about the community over your own desires; conservatives are just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies clinging to old ideas and must be forced into a better and more ordered society.'

In actuality, the left is leading us right back into feudalism, where men are enslaved to lords, knowledge is left to the ruling class, and freedom and ingenuity are hindered to prevent man from reaching his full potential. This is exactly why our founders pulled us away from the ideas of Europe and gave us every right and freedom the feudalists said were wrong to have."

Massachusetts shows what will happen under ObamaCare

2010-05-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

"The future of US medicine under ObamaCare is already on display in Massachusetts. The top four health insurers there just posted first-quarter losses of more than $150 million. Most of them blamed the state's decision to keep premiums at last year's levels for individual and small-business policies, when they'd proposed double-digit hikes to match the soaring costs they've seen under the state's universal-coverage law.

The companies have gone to court to challenge the state's action -- it apparently had no basis for its ruling beyond the political needs of Gov. Deval Patrick. If they win, Bay State health premiums will continue their rapid rise; if they lose, they'll eventually have to stop doing business in Massachusetts -- and the state will be that much closer to a 'single payer' system of socialized medicine...

A Boston Globe story from earlier in the dispute over rate hikes says it all: 'Two of the state's big health insurers face stiff fines after they submitted to the state revised premium rates for individuals and small businesses that differed from what regulators ordered...'

'I don't know how much clearer we could have been with them,' complained Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner Jack Murphy. He told the Globe: 'We communicated four times what rates we expected. We're considering all options. At minimum, both will face significant fines and potentially other penalties.'

When insurers then complained that they'd post losses, the Patrick administration lambasted them as 'outrageous,' 'uninterested in alleviating escalating health-care costs' and 'in love with the status quo...'

In Massachusetts, one doctor in two is not accepting new patients. Waits for treatment in Boston are the highest in the nation.

And Medicare's chief actuary predicts the same fate under ObamaCare. 'It is reasonable to expect that a significant portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would be difficult to meet,' Richard Foster wrote in a recent report.

Get ready, America: If nothing else, ObamaCare will put the patience back in being a patient."

More carnage caused by illegal aliens

2010-05-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

While Obama jokes about the failure of the federal government to secure the borders, across America this is happening all the time:

In Seattle, "Jose Lopez Madrigal, an illegal alien was arrested last Sunday and accused of raping a woman near Edmonds Supermarket...

Madrigal's arrest and immigration record includes a staggering number of contacts with law enforcement since 1989. That's the year he was convicted of theft using a firearm in California.

He was deported a couple of times after that. Then in 1999, he was arrested for drug sales in both San Diego and San Francisco. Records show that he was deported three times that year between April and August.

He was arrested for drugs again in Stockton, Calif. in 2000. In 2002, he pleaded to third degree sexual assault in Denver. Later that year, he was deported again. And in 2003, records show he was deported three more times."

Gotta love that secure border. Meanwhile an illegal alien was recently convicted for this horrendous crime in Newark:

"In 2007, a gang of MS-13-tied illegal aliens ambushed a group of young college students in Newark and murdered them execution-style in a schoolyard...

The four students were hanging out behind Mount Vernon School on Aug. 4, 2007, when they were confronted by their attackers with a handgun and a machete. Three of the victims — Terrance Aeriel, 18, Dashon Harvey, 20, and Iofemi Hightower, 20 — were killed when they were lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head. Terrance’s sister, Natasha Aeriel, survived after being shot in the face and left for dead.

All of the victims were robbed, and Aeriel and the group’s other female, Iofemi Hightower, were sexually molested and cut with machetes and knives...

Yesterday, a family member of one of the slain victims, Iofemi Hightower, described the level of savagery of the attack. He said the thugs used a machete to hack their victims.

'They cut my niece’s face off,' said John McClain, who is Hightower’s great-uncle, and the chaplain of the Newark Police Department. “They cut her from cheek to cheek. They left her head hanging.”

McClain said the mortician told him he had to work for three days to put his grand-niece’s face back together...

Rodolfo Antonio Godinez Gomez entered the U.S. from Nicaragua on Oct. 24, 1992. He was ordered deported on May 5, 1993, but it isn’t clear if he ever left the country, according to Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontura...

He...obtained permanent legal residency in 2001.

He had eluded cops for four years after becoming a fugitive on July 7, 2003, when he ditched a Superior Court hearing on charges that he robbed and attacked three people in Irvington a year earlier."

And Obama thinks the real problem is Arizona's efforts to defend its citizens.

Yet another "stimulus" spending bill

2010-05-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Some people use crack cocaine. Democrats in Congress get high by spending trillions of dollars of everyone else's money. The next big high is being readied. From the Wall Street Journal:

"President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill are publicly fretting about the dangers of spending and debt, which can mean only one thing: Another big spending 'stimulus' bill is in the works. And sure enough, the House plans to vote this week on $190 billion in new spending, $134 billion of which it won't even pretend to pay for.

Sander Levin, the new Ways and Means Chairman, calls this exercise the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. Mr. Levin has waited 28 years to ascend to this throne and this is the best he can do? 'Jobs' were also the justification in February 2009 for the $862 billion stimulus that has managed to hold the jobless rate down to a mere 9.9%. Maybe Mr. Levin's spending can hold it down to even greater heights.

The nearby table gives a flavor of what's in this grab bag of political payoffs, corporate welfare and transfer payments. There's $24 billion to help states pay the exploding tab for Medicaid, the same program that ObamaCare expands by some 16 million new recipients. The bill also offers $1 billion for summer jobs for teens, whose jobless rate is 25.4%. Congress could do far more to create teen jobs if it merely suspended last year's minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour, which priced millions of young workers out of the labor market. But that would be too rational...

The $47 billion to extend unemployment insurance to nearly two full years will bring the total spent on this program to $137 billion during this recession—five times more than in either of the prior two recessions. That's nearly as much as the federal corporate income raised in 2009.

The sages in Congress continue to claim that these payments for not working will lead to more work. Representative Jim McDermott recently declared on the House floor that jobless payments are "one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus" because "every unemployment dollar spent returns $1.64 of economic benefits." So let's lay off everybody, pay them for not working, and watch the economy really boom. Where do they teach this stuff?"

There's much more nasty detail in this piece. Please read it all.

Massive new tax record keeping requirements in Obamacare

2010-05-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

You might have thought Obamacare was just about reducing the quality of healthcare, but there was another hidden benefit in this monstrosity:

"The massive expansion of requirements for businesses to file 1099 tax forms that was hidden in the 2,409-page health reform bill took many by surprise when it came to light last month. But it's just one piece of a years-long legislative stealth campaign to create ways for the federal government to track down unreported income.

The result: A blizzard of new tax forms that the Internal Revenue Service will begin rolling out next year...

In essence, the 1099-Misc is having its role changed from a form for tracking off-payroll employment to one that must accompany virtually any sizeable business transaction.

'Just with business travel it would include hotels, rental cars,' Henschke says. 'Phone service: 1099. Computer service: 1099. Whoever does your postage meter: 1099. You do a little advertising, Yellow Pages: 1099. Your landlord: 1099. You might as well just keep them in your pocket and hand them out as you go around every day.'"

Remember when Nancy Pelosi said "Pass the bill so you can find out what's in it"? Just another step on the road to monster government.

Another good campaign ad

2010-05-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Check this one out.

Image of the sun

2010-05-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

From NASA's astronomy picture of the day,

"Suspended by magnetic fields above a solar active region this dark filament stretches over 40 earth-diameters. The ominous structure appears to be frozen in time near the Sun's edge, but solar filaments are unstable and often erupt. The detailed scene was captured on May 18 in extreme ultraviolet light by cameras on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

While the cooler plasma of the filament looks dark, hotter, brighter plasma below traces magnetic field lines emerging from the active region. When seen arcing above the edge of the Sun, filaments actually look bright against the dark background of space and are called prominences."

Amazing photo!

Ultra radical Israeli judge is Elena Kagan's "hero"

2010-05-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

In Powerline blog:

"From the Harvard Law Record, via Ed Whelan, we learn that Elena Kagan considers Israeli supreme court justice Aharon Barak her 'judicial hero.' According to Kagan, Barak 'is the judge who has best advanced democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and justice.'

However, it would appear that Kagan's judicial hero actually has very little regard for the rule of law and, indeed, is the antithesis of what a judge should be...

Israel does not have a constitution. It has 'BasicLaws' passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament, which Barak has equated to a constitution by holding that the Knesset cannot repeal them. That is an amazing idea: could our Congress pass a law...and the Supreme Court declare that the law could never be repealed? And only one-quarter of the Knesset's members voted for those laws!...

What Barak created out of whole cloth was a degree of judicial power undreamed of even by our most aggressive Supreme Court justices.

Among the rules of law that Barak's judicial opinions have been instrumental in creating that have no counterpart in American law are that judges cannot be removed by the legislature, but only by other judges;...that any government action that is "unreasonable" is illegal ("put simply, the executive must act reasonably, for an unreasonable act is an unlawful act"); ...that in the name of "human dignity" a court can compel the government to alleviate homelessness and poverty; and that a court can countermand military orders...

If Barak really is Kagan's judicial hero, and I think we should take Kagan at her word, then she is manifestly outside the legal mainstream (in 'completely different juristic universe,' to borrow the phrase Posner applies to Barak), and should not serve on the U.S. Supreme Court."

Surprise - California already has immigration law similar to Arizona's

2010-05-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Not only does the Arizona immigration law parallel Federal law, apparently it is also almost identical to provisions of a law on the books in California for years. One wonders whether the Obama administration will "go after" that law as well as the one they haven't read in Arizona.

Will California jurisdictions boycotting Arizona now boycott California as well?

The Greenland ice sheet is melting!

2010-05-23T18:09:00.001-07:00

A pair of NASA satellites which fly in formation studying slight variations in the earth's gravity have the ability to detect the amount of ice being lost in Greenland due to global warming. A recent article in an environmentalist blog opened this way:

"Scott Luthcke weighs Greenland — every 10 days. And the island has been losing weight, an average of 183 gigatons (or 200 cubic kilometers) — in ice — annually during the past six years. That’s one third the volume of water in Lake Erie every year. Greenland’s shrinking ice sheet offers some of the most powerful evidence of global warming...

The good news for Luthcke is that a separate team using an entirely different method has come up with measurements of Greenland’s melting ice that, he says, are almost identical to his GRACE data. The bad news, of course, is that both sets of measurements make it all the more certain that Greenland’s ice is melting faster than anyone expected."

Are you really scared yet? Are you ready to start climbing the nearest mountain to escape the rising waters?

The problem with this analysis is that it doesn't relate the amount of ice lost to the total amount of ice in Greenland. In other words, what percentage of Greenland's ice is being lost each year?

According to Willis Eschenbach, writing in the environmental blog Watts Up With That,

"Greenland is losing about 0.007% of its total mass every year … seven thousandths of one percent lost annually...

And if that terrifying rate of loss continues unabated, of course, it will all be gone in a mere 15,000 years."

If past cycles of glaciation continue into the future, in 15,000 years, the planet will be well into the next ice age, so we can rest easy knowing that Greenland will be covered with lots more ice, and so will Seattle and Chicago and New York City, not to mention Europe and Asia.

Global warming red alert

2010-05-22T01:34:00.000-07:00

“The arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot. Reports all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the arctic zone. Expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.”

- US Weather Bureau - 1922

Some things apparently never change.

Greece - and us - by Mark Steyn

2010-05-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

One reviewer of Mark Steyn's book "America Alone" said he had the oddest feeling of chuckling while contemplating doom.

There have been enough articles about the Greek meltdown to sink a supertanker, but Mark Steyn still manages to produce an analysis that is a sad pleasure to read. The same facts are there, but Mr. Steyn is able to put the facts together like no one else.

"From the Times of London: 'The President of Greece warned last night that his country stood on the brink of the abyss after three people were killed when an anti-government mob set ﬁre to the Athens bank where they worked.'

Almost right. They were not an 'anti-government' mob, but a government mob, a mob comprised largely of civil servants. That they are highly uncivil and disinclined to serve should come as no surprise: they’re paid more and they retire earlier, and that’s how they want to keep it. So they’re objecting to austerity measures that would end, for example, the tradition of 14 monthly paycheques per annum.

You read that right: the Greek public sector cannot be bound by anything so humdrum as temporal reality. So, when it was mooted that the 'workers' might henceforth receive a mere 12 monthly paycheques per annum, they rioted. Their hapless victims—a man and two women—were a trio of clerks trapped in a bank when the mob set it alight and then obstructed emergency crews attempting to rescue them...

To prop up unsustainable welfare states, most of the Western world isn’t 'printing money' but instead printing credit cards and pre-approving our unborn grandchildren. That would be a dodgy proposition at the best of times.

But in the Mediterranean those grandchildren are never going to be born...Greece has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet—1.3 children per couple, which places it in the “lowest-low” demographic category from which no society has recovered...In practical terms, it means 100 grandparents have 42 grandkids...

Last year, President Sarkozy said that the G20 summit provided 'a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give capitalism a conscience.' European capitalism may have a conscience. It’s not clear it has a pulse. And, actually, when you’re burning Greek bank clerks to death in defence of your benefits, your 'conscience' isn’t much in evidence, either."

Vintage Steyn.

How New York City transit watches its pennies

2010-05-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here's how a public monopoly saves money compared to its profit making predecessors.

"The MTA Bus Company was created in 2004 to absorb seven private companies operating under franchises from the New York City Department of Transportation...

A new audit claims that New York City Transit and the MTA Bus Company spent millions of dollars on jet fuel to power busses instead of cheaper, lower grade fuel that would power the vehicles...

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says the MTA Bus Company’s records showed unexplained discrepancies in fuel delivery, quality and usage."

Let government run an enterprise and watch expenses and corruption really take off.

Goodbye, Blanche

2010-05-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

Rasmussen's latest poll shows Repblican John Boozeman absolutely crushing either of his potential Democratic opponents for the Arkansas Senate seat currently held by Blanche Lincoln. How's that Obamacare vote working out for you, Blanche?

Even the New York Times is reporting on lavish government pensions

2010-05-21T14:40:00.001-07:00

You know the whistle has been blown on a liberal government abuse when even the New York Times reports on it. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of articles on this practice in the past several years, so I guess the Times couldn't avoid it any more.

"Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year. It’s what the system promised, said Mr. Tassone, now 47, adding that he did nothing wrong by adding lots of overtime to his base pay shortly before retiring...

According to pension data collected by The New York Times from the city and state, about 3,700 retired public workers in New York are now getting pensions of more than $100,000 a year, exempt from state and local taxes...Thirteen New York City police officers recently retired at age 40 with pensions above $100,000 a year; nine did so in their 30s."

And the left wants to increase your taxes to pay for this.

Krauthammer on the "Fruits of Weakness"

2010-05-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here's an analysis by Dr. Krauthammer of the reasons why Turkey and Brazil, ostensible American allies, did a deal with Iran to undercut American efforts to obtain new sanctions on Iran.

"The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

That picture -- a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam -- is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there's no cost in lining up with America's enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement."

Of course, it really doesn't make any difference that new sanctions were made more difficult, as they have never had any chance of working anyway. That has never been their real purpose. The whole reason for sanctions is to disguise the real policy of doing nothing.

Sanctions are meant to make doing nothing appear to be doing something. Brazil and Turkey realize the sanctions effort is just posturing, and they believe it is safer for them to ingratiate themselves with the strong horse rather than the weak horse.

This administration, like the last one, doesn't have the stomach for military intervention, which is the only thing which would stop Iran from acquiring nukes. It is engaging in this endless theater about sanctions so that it has plausible deniability about its policy of doing nothing to stop Iran from acquiring them.

How Obamacare will cause employers to dump health insurance

2010-05-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

This article in the WSJ provides an interesting analysis of the financial incentives under the new law for employers to dump coverage, which is just what Obama had in mind to convert to government run healthcare.

A sample:

"AT&T, for example, paid $2.4 billion last year to cover medical costs for its 283,000 active employees. If the company dropped its health plan and paid an annual penalty for each uninsured worker, the fines would total almost $600 million. But that would leave AT&T with a tidy profit of $1.8 billion."

Arizona governor on Obama's lack of border enforcement

2010-05-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

In this interview the Arizona governor says the Obama administration has never responded to a single letter from her asking for help securing the border and dealing with illegals in the state. She bluntly suggests that Obama "do his job."

Apparently Obama and his minions don't have time to actually do anything about border security because they're so busy criticizing Arizona's efforts to cope with their failures. His love fest with the Mexican President bashing his own country was par for the course. Disgusting.

Sign in Marshall, Texas

2010-05-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

Book recommendation

2010-05-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing unusual to report on the political/economic/environmental fronts today. Just the same old stuff over again. So I thought I'd recommend a book once in awhile. I read non-fiction almost exclusively because it can be just as exciting and entertaining as fiction, while also being educational.

History is one of my favorite genres, and the Civil War is one of the most interesting periods in American history. I used to live between Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields, so started reading Civil War stuff, starting with Bruce Catton. Eventually, I decided the most interesting character of the war was General and later President Grant.

He was undoubtedly one of the greatest generals in US history - I think he deserves the #1 ranking. He directed more battles than just about anyone in our history, and only lost his first skirmish to overwhelming enemy forces. For the last 18 months or so he not only managed America's principal army directly in battle, but also managed all of our other forces as General in Chief. It was like combining a Patton, Eisenhower, and George Marshall into one job. He had an amazing career path - in 3 years he went from being a store clerk to the head of all US armed forces during our toughest war.

Later, he was, I think, a far better President than most historians give him credit for. One Grant biographer I read from 1895 thought he was the third greatest American after Washington and Lincoln. He had two reasons: first, he said Lincoln wanted to win the Civil War, but Grant was the man who actually won it. Without Grant, the North would almost certainly have lost the war, and the US would have become two countries. Reason enough perhaps.

Point two was that he thought Grant was the only President who could successfully put the country back together again after the war. Grant had the military respect of the South - he was the one who had beaten them, but he also had the personal respect of the Southern population by following Lincoln's policy of leniency toward leaders of the rebellion. When Grant entered office, the country was still divided, and the South was an open wound. By the time he left office, we were one country again. He was also the most active civil rights President between the Civil War and the 1960's.

One of the best books I've read on him is called simply "Grant" by Jean Edward Smith. It's not a new book, but is a classic on the subject. If you'd like to fill in the picture on arguably the most underrated American hero, this is an excellent read.

Boeing B17 with a new 787

2010-05-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

Prior to World War 2, the B17 was one of largest planes ever built. Today, the 787 is considered a mid size widebody. How times have changed.

From Flightblogger

Obama sinking, according to Rasmussen

2010-05-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

Rasmussen has historically been among the most reliable polls on elections because they sample likely voters and don't oversample Democrats. They publish a daily tracking poll on Presidential approval, and it's not looking good for Obama right now.

"25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19. Today’s rating is the lowest earned by the president since the passage of his health care proposal two months ago."

According to Rasmussen, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has seen his advantage over Republican hopefuls shrink dramatically following a New York Times accusation that he exaggerated his Vietnam military service. Against Linda McMahon, Blumenthal’s lead is down to just three points.

Will another Icelandic volcano cause global cooling?

2010-05-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

Most people know that the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull (try to pronounce that) has been erupting for a month now, and that its ash cloud has caused major flight disruptions in Europe. It is not so widely known that, historically, a nearby volcano called Katla has also consistently erupted on a ten times larger scale following its neighbor. The 3 eruptions at Eyjafjallajokull in the past 1,000 years have all been followed by eruptions of Katla.

Small earthquakes have recently been detected at Katla, which can be the precursor to an eruption. If this volcano erupts as it has in the past, not only will European air travel and climatic conditions be severely impacted, the world could see another "year without a summer" as happened when a volcanic eruption in 1815 caused crops to fail around the world in 1816.

Katla is overdue for another eruption based on past cycles. A major eruption now could be very dangerous for more than just Iceland.

DOJ trial attorney resigns in protest of Holder decision not to prosecute Philadelphia Black Panthers

2010-05-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

This development could shed some very interesting light on the political shenanigans behind the Holder Justice Department's otherwise inexplicable decision not to prosecute Black Panthers caught on video intimidating voters at a polling booth in Philadelphia. If the attorney talks, things could get very hot for Holder and his staff. Here's hoping.

The right of local police to detain illegal immigrants is official Justice Department policy

2010-05-18T16:28:00.001-07:00

Criticism of the new Arizona illegal immigration law by the top Justice Department officials, who haven't read it, was dealt a setback when it was disclosed that the right of local police to detain illegals has been the Department's official position since 2002. Just when you thought the haplessness and incompetence of Holder and his associates couldn't get any more pathetic, it does.

A good video on the lack of border security

2010-05-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

This video by an Atlanta TV station shows conditions along the Mexico-Arizona border. In particular it highlights the number of potential terrorists that slip through every year. The government used to publish a list of people other than Mexicans who have been caught on the border each year, but that list is no longer being published, though it was obtained by the station from a Congressional staff insider.

Apparently under the Obama administration the best way to solve a problem is simply not to disclose that it exists.

What have we learned?

2010-05-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

From a reader:

What have we learned after 2,065 years?

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

- Cicero - 55 BC

So, evidently nothing.

Another Democratic Senatorial candidate caught lying about Vietnam service

2010-05-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

The mere fact that Connecticut Senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal has been caught lying about his Vietnam service - by the New York Times no less - may not prevent him from winning the seat, if the example of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is a precedent.

Kerry told numerous lies about his Vietnam days and has remained safely ensconced in his Senate seat nonetheless. Democratic politicians believe that mere lies, or as they like to call them, "misstatements", are no reason to question a Democratic candidate's qualifications for office - remember Bill Clinton? It will be interesting to see whether Connecticut voters agree this time.

Surprise - wind energy costs even more than previously thought

2010-05-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

From the EU Referendum blog:

"According to the independent business intelligence service Wind Energy Update, wind turbine operation and maintenance (O&M) costs are increasing sharply, rising to two or three times more than first projected and causing a 21 percent decrease in returns on investments.

O&M costs were found to be especially high in the United States, now the world's largest wind power market, but the even the average world costs are coming out at 27 US cents per kilowatt hour, compared with the 20 cents earned in the US through production credits.

The report says that while close to 80 percent of the world's wind turbines are still under warranty, "this is about to change." R&D is focusing especially on gearbox reliability. Many gearboxes, designed for a 20-year life, are failing after six to eight years of operation, the report finds."

Don't forget, O&M costs are just to run the wind generators - the construction costs are on top of that.

So instead of the inexpensive, reliable power we've enjoyed in the past, politicians are making sure that in the future we'll have the benefit of expensive, unreliable power. Just what one would expect.

The WSJ on the Kerry, Lieberman cap and trade bill

2010-05-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

"Despite the most creative rhetoric this side of ObamaCare, voters have figured out that 'cap and trade' involves artificial carbon rationing and vast new energy taxes. So the main goal of John Kerry and Joe Lieberman has been attempting to disguise these truths in the climate bill they released to much fanfare last week."

This WSJ article provides a good introduction to the Kerry Lieberman attempt to get a carbon tax before the Dems suffer their November wipe out.

Religion of Peace is at it again

2010-05-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

Another Danish cartoonist is in hiding after an attempted arson attack against his home.

"Earlier in the week, Vilks was attacked by a man as he gave a lecture at a university in central Sweden...The artist has faced numerous threats over his 2007 sketch. Earlier this year, U.S. investigators said Vilks was the target of an alleged murder plot involving Colleen LaRose, an American woman who dubbed herself "Jihad Jane," and who now faces life in prison."

Another day of threats and attacks by members of The Religion of Peace, but according to Eric Holder, it's unfair to hold Islam responsible for the acts of its followers, especially when they're encouraged to conduct these attacks by Islamic religious leaders.

One wonders whether the West will ever wake up. According to people like Holder, you should just pop another sleeping pill and snooze away.

Update: Mark Steyn, as usual, has a great column on the West's progressive submission to Islam:

"But along with the big headline victories go smaller ones. These days, Islam doesn't even have to show up. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has quietly pulled representations of Muhammad from its Islamic collection. With the Danish cartoons, violent mobs actually had to kill large numbers of people before Kurt Westegaard was sent into involuntary "retirement." Even with "South Park," the thugs still had to threaten murder. But the Metropolitan Museum caved pre-emptively - no murders, no threats, but best to crawl into a fetal position, anyway.

Last week, the American Association of Pediatricians (AAP) noted that certain, ahem, "immigrant communities" were shipping their daughters overseas to undergo female genital mutilation FGM). So, in a spirit of multicultural compromise, they decided to amend their previous opposition to the practice: They're not (for the moment) advocating full-scale clitoridectomies, but they are suggesting federal and state laws be changed to permit them to give a "ritual nick" to young girls.

A few years back, I thought even fainthearted western liberals might draw the line at FGM. After all, it's a key pillar of institutional misogyny in Islam: Its entire purpose is to deny women sexual pleasure. True, many of us hapless western men find we deny women sexual pleasure without even trying, but we don't demand genital mutilation to guarantee it. On such slender distinctions does civilization rest."

Civilization isn't resting too comfortably these days.

A great political ad

2010-05-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

Via Hot Air, this is the kind of political ad that makes you smile. For Alabama Agricultural Commissioner, no less.

Arctic ice cover trend

2010-05-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

You'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard the hysteria in the press, regurgitating global warming movement press releases about the supposed loss of arctic ice. Unfortunately for the AGW movement, arctic ice levels are running close to long term averages so far this year. The chart here, from the Danish Meteorological Institute via the blog Watts Up With That, will give you an idea of just how serious the supposed problem is.

Cinco to midnight

2010-05-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

This article talks about the consequences of continued massive immigration from Mexico.

"Question: If we imported millions of Scandinavians -- who have created the most liberal governments on Earth -- would we expect them to magically change their ideology upon seeing American terra firma? If not, why would we expect otherwise with south-of-the-border socialists? If they choose Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales types below the Rio Grande, why wouldn't they above it? Geography doesn't change ideology.

Despite this, many Republicans claim they can "reach out" to Hispanic voters and woo them. This is fantasy. Today's immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, vote Democrat approximately 70 to 80 percent of the time (Bush did better, but, surprise, surprise, he favored amnesty for illegals), and this won't change. Oh, there is one way woo them: Adopt Democrat policies across-the-board (you can remain pro-life and against faux marriage) -- favoring socialist measures and big government.

This is, of course, why leftist politicians love unfettered immigration so much: They are importing their voters -- socialist voters....

As pundit Dr. Jack Wheeler points out here, Mexico's rulers engender hatred toward the U.S. by, among other things, placing an enormous map depicting Greater Mexico -- which includes much of our land -- near the entrance of Mexico City's Museum of National History. Wheeler writes, "Every class of students on a field trip from their school to the museum is made to sit down and gaze up at the huge map, while the teacher explains how so much of Los Estados Unidos was stolen from Mexico and really belongs to them." The rationale is that all the land treaties the U.S. made with European powers, such as the Louisiana Purchase, were illegal and that the regions thus obtained rightfully belong to Mexico. States Wheeler, "Every Mexican national legally or illegally in the US is told by the Mexican government his or her allegiance is to Mexico -- not America."

If we can't control the massive influx of illegal immigrants from south of the border, Barack Obama in the White House will in the future morph into a Hugo Chavez.

You gotta love this guy

2010-05-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a must see video of New Jersey governor Chris Christie taking apart a reporter for calling him "confrontational". This is one of the best clips I've seen of any politician. Awesome!

Obama wants to lock up more land

2010-05-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Secret plans are afoot to turn up to 13 million more acres of the western US into "National Monuments", thereby eliminating any uses except limited tourism. Huge areas of the West are already under federal control, including including 84.5 percent of Nevada and 57.4 percent of Utah. Somehow, government ownership of 85% of a state seems a lot more like communism than capitalism, which is exactly how the Obamabots like it.

With the new "monument" designation, they can ensure that when Democratic Manhattan lawyers take a once in a lifetime 2 week vacation in Utah, they won't be bothered by the presence of the "little people" who used to live there.

At a time when the economy is struggling to overcome all the other depressing effects of the Obama program, this new effort will be another nail in the coffin of our economy.

Arizona targets ethnic studies programs

2010-05-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

Amid all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Arizona illegal immigration law, the state has taken another bold move to quash ethnic studies programs that promote racism.

"The law, which takes effect Dec. 31, would prohibit courses that promote resentment toward one race; that are designed for students of one race; that promote ethnic solidarity "instead of treating students as individuals;" and that encourage "the overthrow of the United States government.""

For years the left has used the charge of "racism" to smear opponents of their political agenda. The fact is that the left itself has been the real promoter of racism for decades, partly through the use of "ethnic studies" programs to indoctrinate students that all non-white groups are victims of the white majority, as well as to encourage Mexican American students to view themselves as Mexicans first, last and always.

This is really an under-appreciated phenomenon among conservatives, so it is good to see Arizona taking the lead to suppress this form of racist education. Whether the goals of the new law will be met remains to be seen. The educational establishment has a long history of doing what it wants, regardless of legislative attempts to rein in its worst excesses.

Canceling human space flight one of Obama's accomplishments

2010-05-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

In possibly the most stunning reversal in the history of space exploration, the Obama administration has canceled the next generation US manned space launch program as the current shuttle system is retired. For the first time in the 50 years since the dawn of spaceflight, the US will lack the capability to send humans into space, except by buying rides on Russian spacecraft.

The administration says that it will encourage small American companies to provide space transportation, but they are far from having that capability, and no one knows when they will. Obama has decided instead to put more money into "advanced technologies" for re-developing a space capability at some unknown future date.

Many in the aging group of Apollo astronauts, who are normally adverse to public statements, have harshly criticized this move. Lunar explorer Eugene Cernan said, the Obama plan is “a blueprint for a mission to nowhere.” Neil Armstrong said in testimony before the US Senate, “If the leadership we have acquired through our investment is allowed simply to fade away, other nations will surely step in where we have faltered.”

This is especially ironic because the last couple of shuttle flights will finish the building of the International Space Station, into which we have poured tens of billions of dollars. Now we won't have a way to get there, except by depending on the good will of our Russian friends.

We are not only losing the ability to put humans into orbit, we will lose most of the technical infrastructure, the people skills, necessary to build the large, reliable rockets necessary to propel people into space, as well as the considerable skills of the astronaut corps which have been developed over the past 50 years. Now our astronauts will simply be passengers on Russian spacecraft. Already the first of thousands of technicians at NASA and its support companies are being laid off. Most will never return.

When another administration reverses this policy, much of our capability will have to be re-built from scratch. That will take years. We are now probably decades away from having the capability we have had for the past half century.

Of all the boneheaded decisions by this administration, this ranks right up there with the worst.

Karl Rove on the 2010 elections

2010-05-13T08:27:00.001-07:00

Since his departure from the Bush administration, Mr. Rove has emerged as one of the most articulate analysts in the Republican party. In this piece, he compares some of the relevant poll numbers today versus past elections.

Chris Christie is the real deal

2010-05-13T08:09:00.001-07:00

As this article p0ints out, there is at last one politician who is doing what it takes to rein in out of control government spending. Chris Christie seemed like an unlikely hero when he defeated New Jersey's incumbent Democratic governor last year, but his actions are speaking louder than the words of just about every other political leader in the country.

"Christie is tackling the nation’s worst state deficit — $10.7 billion of a $29.3 billion budget. In doing so, Christie has become the politician so many Americans crave, one willing to lose his job. Indeed, Christie is doing something unheard of: governing as a Republican in a blue state, just as he campaigned, making good on promises, acting like his last election is behind him.

Upon taking office Christie declared a state of emergency, signing an executive order that froze spending, and then, in eight weeks, cutting $13 billion in spending. In March he presented to the Legislature his first budget, which cuts 9 percent of spending, including more than $800 million in education funding; seeks to privatize numerous government functions; projects 1,300 layoffs; and caps tax increases."

If Christie can transition to the national stage, we may have found a politician we can believe in.

Interesting IBD article on Obamacare

2010-05-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

There has been a mountain of commentary on Obamacare, but this article in Investor's Business Daily has some really ugly facts I haven't seen before. For example:

"The law requires businesses to file a so-called "1099" tax form for any purchase from an individual or business that totals more than $600 a year. It's a new effort to catch tax cheats.

In the past, companies were required to file these forms to individuals such as unincorporated consultants. Under the new legislation, however, they must file a report for every purchase over $600. Just imagine: Companies will now have to send tax forms to Staples for a year's worth of office supplies, or to airlines when they buy tickets!"

I guess this is just one of the ways Democratic politicians have found to improve our healthcare.

British Conservative leader Cameron leads his party to failure

2010-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

For those who follow British politics, certainly a depressing exercise, the rise of David Cameron to the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2005 has been an unmitigated disaster. Cameron's strategy is to abandon or water down virtually all of the traditional positions of conservatism and replace them with policies much closer to his rivals on the left. Apparently he believes that real conservatism is too old fashioned to succeed in today's world.

In addition to the 3 main political parties, there are two other conservative parties that the mainstream British press almost refuses to mention, the British National Party and the UK Independence Party. These two fall outside the "acceptable" leftist consensus of the British media, which therefore treats them with silent contempt.

The EU Referendum is one of the best British blogs, and this piece shows that votes for these two parties siphoned away enough support for Cameron to cost him a majority in this election. He has therefore had to form a coalition with the very left Liberal Democratic Party, which will require acceptance of LibDem platform elements far from traditional Conservative positions. This sort of coalition is very rare in British politics - the last one was in World War II, and it is not likely to last.

Conservatives are naturally frustrated that Cameron's party has abandoned them and are reaching for alternatives. Cameron, who bet that a move toward the center-left would bring in more voters has apparently lost his bet. One can only hope that the Conservative Party finds a better leader at some point in the not-too-distant future.

An example of people preferring unemployment benefits to working

2010-05-11T09:09:00.001-07:00

It's obvious to anyone with even a slight grasp of economics that unemployment benefits dissuade people from looking for work and thus increase the unemployment rate. Here's one example of the phenomenon in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

An interesting take on the Greek meltdown - and its lessons for us

2010-05-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot written about the Greek debt crisis, but this piece in the excellent American Thinker blog has some interesting facts and new angles on the path the developed democracies are on following the Greek example.

Kagan plagiarism whitewash

2010-05-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

While the MSM is focusing on her political views and scant resume, there is one disturbing little detail in her past that hasn't received much attention. During her tenure at Harvard, Ms. Kagan apparently worked to protect two top Harvard professors from censure or dismissal following revelations that they plagiarized other works in some of their publications.

Harvard has had a very strict policy of suspending or dismissing students who have engaged in plagiarism, but applied a very different standard in this case to top professors shown to have engaged in the same practice during Ms. Kagan's time as dean of the Law School.

Apparently she was willing to bend the rules for the powerful, which is not a good quality in a judge, particularly a Supreme Court justice.

New shale gas technology dramatically expands US energy reserves

2010-05-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't followed the development of the new energy technology called shale gas, this is a good introduction. Energy companies have long known that vast amounts of natural gas exist in shale formations throughout the United States, but the technology to extract it did not exist until recently. New drilling methods are now allowing the development of these reserves.

According to some estimates, this could more than double the amount of gas reserves we have, and allow a shift from oil and coal to gas for electricity generation and other applications, thereby reducing demand for foreign oil. Naturally, the Obama administration is working to suppress shale gas development by claiming - you guessed it - possible environmental damage.

If the energy industry can avoid the clutches of the EPA and Department of Energy, we have a vast new energy resource, compared to which all the "renewable" sources the government is lavishing tax dollars on, are expensive fantasies.

Professor argues that men are more intelligent than women

2010-05-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

Professor Richard Lynn is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster. He has spent his career studying intelligence in men and women. According to Prof. Lynn, "one of the main reasons why there are not more female science professors or chief executives or Cabinet ministers is that, on average, men are more intelligent than women...

For not only is the average man more intelligent than the average woman but also a clear and rather startling imbalance emerges between the sexes at the high levels of intelligence that the most demanding jobs require.

For instance, at the near-genius level (an IQ of 145), brilliant men outnumber brilliant women by 8 to one. That's statistics, not sexism...as a psychologist who has dedicated his career to the study of intelligence - and, in particular, to how it differs between the sexes - I can tell you that in my academic circles these IQ figures are barely disputed."

An interesting article.

Mark Steyn's greatest hits of 2009

2010-05-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

There are a number of excellent conservative commentators, but for sheer word-smithing, arguably Mark is unsurpassed. Here's a collection of some of his best stuff from last year, along with a link to the full articles. Enjoy!

Arizona governor's response to BO's joke about the new Arizona immigration law

2010-05-08T10:06:00.001-07:00

This is a good short video produced on behalf of Arizona's governor Jan Brewer responding to The Anointed One's joke about Arizona's new immigration law.

A good description of how the "liberal arts" curriculum has been taken over by leftists

2010-05-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is a good description of what the "liberal arts" used to be, and how leftists have transformed it into the opposite of its original meaning.

How the Mexican American border has changed

2010-05-08T09:44:00.001-07:00

This article has a good description of the enormous changes which have taken place on our southern border over the past 50 years by someone who lived there. It's sad but important reading. Arizona is struggling to cope with the consequences of the complete abdication of responsibility by the Federal Government.

Another look at the future with Obamacare

2010-05-05T09:51:00.001-07:00

As Obamacare moves us toward European style government run healthcare, yet another article in the British press shows the inevitable impact of this change on our future. The latest radiation therapy technology, which is widely available here, has been denied to victims of the British healthcare monopoly because it is "too expensive". For the time being, doctors still make these decisions here, while healthcare bureaucrats and accountants decide who gets to die in Britain.

You might even call them "death panels."

Surprise - top hedge fund managers donate almost exclusively to Democrats

2010-05-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

As this article points out, the top ten hedge fund managers in America donated $33 million to Democrats in 2009, and only $600 thousand to Republicans. As these people aren't dumb enough to believe Democratic policies are better for the country, the only reasonable explanation is that they're buying "protection", and according to the article, it's apparently working. Is there some difference between the Democratic Party and the Mob, other than scale?

Incredibly selective media outrage about Tea Party demonstrations

2010-05-05T09:05:00.001-07:00

After fulminating for months about how those nasty Tea Party grannies, kids, and middle class housewives were encouraging deadly attacks somewhere, when the open borders crowd actually does commit attacks against property and people who disagree with them, the MSM yawns and looks away.

Arizona's immigration law explained - in The New York Times!

2010-05-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't already heard the answers to the wild claims of those opposed to immigration enforcement in Arizona, here are the facts in a column in the New York Times, of all places.

Obama's "successful" investigation of the Times Square attempted bombing

2010-05-05T08:41:00.001-07:00

It's not surprising that the Obama publicity machine, oops, I mean the MSM, has reported the capture of the Times Square bomber as a big success, but it is surprising that more of the conservative media outlets haven't pointed out the obvious - that he wasn't stopped before the attack.

The attempted Times Square bombing was at least the fourth effort by Jihadists to kill Americans in America since the Obama administration took office. One was successful - the Fort Hood shootings - and three were botched. The common factor is that under the Obama security team, none of these were caught in advance. The only reason many more have not died is the incompetence of the attackers, not the success of investigators. It is only a matter of time until we are not so lucky.

Another interesting angle is reported by Michelle Malkin, who points out that many Jihadist attackers have used marriage, sham or not, to obtain US citizenship so they could plot from inside the country.

The Religion of Peace is at it again

2009-08-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

Peaceful Muslims indiscriminately attacked and killed Christians in Pakistan after a false report that some Christians had defiled a copy of the Koran.

"The mob opened fire indiscriminately, threw petrol bombs and looted houses as thousands of frightened Christians ran for safety. 'They were shouting anti-Christian slogans and attacked our houses,' Rafiq Masih, a resident of the predominantly Christian colony, said. Residents said that police stood aside while the mob went on the rampage. 'We kept begging for protection, but police did not take action,' Mr Masih said."

Eight members of one Christian family were burned to death and dozens of others were feared killed in a town with 50,000 Christians in eastern Pakistan.

Another day, another example of peaceful Muslims going about their business - killing infidels.

Evidence that Obama is lying about his healthcare plan

2009-08-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Anyone who doubts that Obama is lying about not using a "government option" to gradually squeeze out private insurance and create a government run single payer system should watch this video. Here is the man himself saying that is what he wants to do, before he says it isn't what he wants to do. Hope and change is evidently about changing your story and hoping people won't remember what you said.

De-capitalizing America

2009-08-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

The reason rich countries are rich is that they've managed to accumulate more capital than poor countries. All rich countries have relatively free market economies because that is by far the best way to accumulate capital. Governments in these countries tend to destroy less capital than governments of poor countries.

However, formerly rich countries can destroy enough capital to impoverish themselves. Obvious examples are Zimbabwe, which was among the richest countries in Africa until Marxist Robert Mugabe took over, and, on a longer time scale, Argentina, which was one of the richest countries in the world in 1900, before a succession of populist rulers depleted its capital.

The US government under Obama has recently engaged in an orgy of capital destruction using borrowed capital to fund myriad wasteful liberal causes and special interest groups, and by propping up failing businesses. The latest, and perhaps clearest example is the so-called "Cash for Clunkers" program.

Here the government is paying dealers to destroy cars traded in for new ones which get a whopping 4 miles per gallon better gas mileage. The market value of the used cars is effectively the residual capital value of those cars, so destroying them wipes out that much capital, in addition to raising the cost of used cars for poor people.

Programs like these are precisely how formerly rich countries become poor, as they de-capitalize their economies. Examples like Zimbabwe and Argentina show what happens as this process continues. The governments of both countries have ignored basic economic science to "help the poor", with the result that the poor are now poorer than ever.

The liberal agenda results in the mindless destruction of vast amounts of American capital, with the result that the American poor will be poorer than they would have been. If you doubt that, ask yourself if you would like to live in Zimbabwe.

One reason medical care costs go up - successful treatment

2009-07-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

It's long been known that dead people have very low health care costs. This is probably one of the main cost cutting strategies of Obamacare, along with the fact that poor health care, which leads to an earlier death, costs less than good health care. But he doesn't want to confuse you with those details now.

This article shows how rising survival rates from heart attacks have gone hand in hand with the more expensive interventions needed to secure better results.

"In the 1960s, the chance of dying in the days immediately after a heart attack was 30 to 40 percent. In 1975, it was 27 percent. In 1984, it was 19 percent. In 1994, it was about 10 percent. Today, it's about 6 percent."

Just think, if our survival rates were the same today as they were 40 years ago, we could not only have saved the extra money for more sophisticated and successful heart attack therapy, but all those dead people wouldn't have cost a dime in additional health care all the extra years they didn't live.

"Organic" food no healthier than regular food

2009-07-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

One of the many cons perpetrated by the environmental movement over the past 40 years is that so-called "organic" food is healthier than other food. Scientifically illiterate people by the millions have bought into this nonsense, needlessly paying higher prices, often out of constrained budgets, for vegees fertilized with cow poop instead of "chemical fertilizers", as if manure, and everything else, isn't composed of chemicals.

Finally there is a definitive study.

"Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits...

A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.

'A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance,' said Alan Dangour, one of the report's authors.

'Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.'

The results of research, which was commissioned by the British government's Food Standards Agency, were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition."

The environmental movement has always used junk science to advance its agenda by preying on the fears of ignorant people. One wonders how long they'll be able to keep the "organic foods" movement going after studies like this one.

Pass this article along to your "organic" friends. Unfortunately, since environmentalism is a religion, rather than a science, many people will continue to worship their environmental gods regardless of the evidence.