"He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world." Benjamin Franklin
Michael Ramirez gets it! The mission may have been accomplished (even though we would never have known if we depended on the lap dog media for our news) but the situation in Iraq is tenuous, at best because of the leftist leadership in Washington. They will continue to cater to our enemies and crap on our allies.
(CNN) -- Billy Mays, the man with the booming voice famous for fronting products such as Oxiclean and Orange Glo in TV commercials, has died.Whenever he came on TV, I always yelled to my wife, "Why is he yelling?"
Tampa police say Mays' wife Deborah found him unresponsive at his Tampa-area home Sunday morning. Tampa Fire Rescue pronounced him deceased at 7:45 a.m.
The cause of death is unknown. Police say there were no signs of forced entry to the residence and there is no suspected foul play.
The eight who voted for cap and trade are:More information on them is found at Michelle Malkin's website as well as the 44 Dems who had the guts to vote against this preposterous tax bill.
Bono Mack (CA) 202-225-5330
Castle (DE) 202-225-4165
Kirk (IL) 202-225-4835
Lance (NJ) 202-225-5361
Lobiondo (NJ) 202-225-6572
McHugh (NY) 202-225-4611
Reichart (WA) 202-225-7761
Chris Smith (NJ) 202-225-3765
Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa.You can't NOT Read the rest of this revelatory piece.
Like many educated intellectuals in postcolonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western ideology, Marxism. I call such frustrated and angry modern Africans who embrace various foreign "isms", instead of looking homeward for repair of societies that are broken, African Colonials. They are Africans who serve foreign ideas.
The tropes of America's racial history as a way of understanding all things black are useless in understanding the man who got his dreams from his father, a Kenyan exemplar of the African Colonial.
Before I continue, I need to say this: I am a first generation born West African-American woman whose parents emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970's from the country now called Nigeria. I travel to Nigeria frequently. I see myself as both a proud American and as a proud Igbo (the tribe that we come from -- also sometimes spelled Ibo). Politically, I have always been conservative (though it took this past election for me to commit to this once and for all!); my conservative values come from my Igbo heritage and my place of birth. Of course, none of this qualifies me to say what I am about to -- but at the same time it does.
My friends, despite what CNN and the rest are telling you, Barack Obama is nothing more than an old school African Colonial who is on his way to turning this country into one of the developing nations that you learn about on the National Geographic Channel. Many conservative (East, West, South, North) African-Americans like myself -- those of us who know our history -- have seen this movie before. Here are two main reasons why many Americans allowed Obama to slip through the cracks despite all of his glaring inconsistencies:
People who treat bad people good, treat good people bad.Need an example? Look how Obama treats thuggish dictators and look how he treats our closest allies.
"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."That statement was made by: Norman Thomas (1884-1968) six-time U.S. Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. He is the grandfather of Newsweek's Evan Thomas.
"You’re an 19 year old kid. You’re critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8–1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the Medi-Vac helicopters to stop coming in.God bless the memory of Ed Freeman and his surviving family members. God bless others like him who give and give and give without the expectation of notoriety.
You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you’re not getting out. Your family is half way around the world—12,000 miles away—and you’ll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.
Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it. Ed Freeman is coming for you. He’s not Medi-Vac, so it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He’s coming anyway.
And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the doctors and nurses. And, he kept coming back…13 more times…and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.
Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at the age of 80, in Boise, ID…May God rest his soul."
June 17, 2009 - 10:36 ET
I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.
Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal health care. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.
Does anybody know that Obama is planning on creating a "supervisory college" to oversee financial firms worldwide?
Did you know he plans on seizing companies which might be a financial risk?
Did you know that the statist mainstream media plans on camping out in the White House to promote Obama's catastrophic health care plan?
Did you know Obama is trying to push through this plan with unprecedented speed before anybody has a chance to oppose it, just like he did with the bailouts?
Did you know The One wants to push through again, with unprecedented speed, the confirmation of an activist judge?
Did you know the debt of every man woman and child, thanks to Obama's spending, is an astounding $250k?
Did you know Chairman teleprompter plans on bulldozing cities?
Did you know his justice department let go the thugs who perpetrated blatant election fraud?
Did you know the bastion of objectivism, The New York Times, dropped a story during the election that tied Obama to the masters of election fraud, Acorn?
The best and the brightest on the left go into politics. The best on the right run their own businesses. So it is no surprise that the left is far more adept, even expert at the art of hardball politics. And they are telling us something profound.Read the whole thing. It makes perfect sense.
The left is telling us something many feel, many find as a hunch, that Sarah Palin is the most dangerous threat to the Obama administration with no close second. The left is telling us this by their "over the top" attacks. Not just the Letterman assaults, but the constant barrage of grievances filed against her in Alaska. The attacks every day on Palin for no apparent reason -- except that the left seems to see her quite differently from any Republican candidate. A difference of kind, not of degree.
They would never do this to Romney, Huckabee or Newt, at least not to this level. There is a clear reason -- these guys couldn't fill up a high school stadium unless they were giving out free beer.
What is the Sarah difference? Well, it's not the issues, at least that is not all of it. It is the charisma factor. Charisma is not learned, it is innate. One is born with it and no amount of training can inject it. Jack Kennedy had it. So did Reagan. Now Obama. Out of the thousands of politicians who have come and gone over the last generation, not one other person has shown "it."
They’re rioting in Iran over a probably fraudulent election and the use of violence to suppress dissent — part of the “robust” debate that President Obama just welcomed. Meanwhile, the “optional” and orphaned war in Iraq, which led to real democracy, is now, after January 20, mysteriously once again a sign of the “winds of change.”
It used to be that a South Korean leader, worried about a cowboy America, would visit Washington to lecture an American president about grating U.S. bases while talking grandly about a “Korean solution” and the growing “sunshine policy.” Now it is more likely that a worried Korean president will have to persuade his skeptical American counterpart to keep imperialist U.S. troops on the DMZ to order to deter a nuclear Armageddon.
There is some value to the present irony. Erstwhile U.S. allies can begin to fathom the wages of their much-desired “post-American world.” It appears that it wasn’t George W. Bush’s Manicheanism that “played into the hands” of Mr. Ahmadinejad, who now has a fresh lease on power, despite the U.S. charm offensive of the last six months.
The truth is that the United States now gives more attention and concern to former enemies than it does to present allies. We now believe that provocative acts arise from misunderstanding, not planned aggression. Possible military action against aggressors hinges on U.N. approval and global consensus. We have leapfrogged Europe and are now quite to left of it on matters of foreign policy. It is assumed that disputes involve 50/50 culpability and do not arise from the greater bad-faith efforts of one party. This is the world our allies largely wanted, and it is fascinating to see it play out about them.
On January 1, 1776, the Continental Army was reorganized in accordance with a Congressional resolution which placed American forces under George Washington's control. On that New Year's Day the Continental Army was laying siege to Boston which had been taken over by the British Army. Washington ordered the Grand Union flag hoisted above his base at Prospect Hill. It had 13 alternate red and white stripes and the British Union Jack in the upper left-hand corner (the canton).Be sure to click on the link and explore the USA Flag site. Lots of neat stuff up there.
In May of 1776, Betsy Ross reported that she sewed the first American flag.
On June 14, 1777, in order to establish an official flag for the new nation, the Continental Congress passed the first Flag Act: "Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation."
Between 1777 and 1960, Congress passed several acts that changed the shape, design and arrangement of the flag and allowed for additional stars and stripes to be added to reflect the admission of each new state.
Act of January 13, 1794 - provided for 15 stripes and 15 stars after May 1795.
Act of April 4, 1818 - provided for 13 stripes and one star for each state, to be added to the flag on the 4th of July following the admission of each new state, signed by President Monroe.
Executive Order of President Taft dated June 24, 1912 - established proportions of the flag and provided for arrangement of the stars in six horizontal rows of eight each, a single point of each star to be upward.
Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated January 3, 1959 - provided for the arrangement of the stars in seven rows of seven stars each, staggered horizontally and vertically.
Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated August 21, 1959 - provided for the arrangement of the stars in nine rows of stars staggered horizontally and eleven rows of stars staggered vertically.
Today the flag consists of thirteen horizontal stripes, seven red alternating with 6 white. The stripes represent the original 13 colonies, the stars represent the 50 states of the Union. The colors of the flag are symbolic as well: Red symbolizes Hardiness and Valor, White symbolizes Purity and Innocence and Blue represents Vigilance, Perseverance and Justice.
Hard to believe the Duke has been dead for 30 years. Who but his most ardent fans would have remembered this date. Thanks to FReeper Canteen for reminding us that the Big Guy died 30 years ago today. Be sure to visit both of the aforementioned links; there's some terrific stuff up there.
LOSER: –noun
1. a person, team, nation, etc., that loses: The visiting team was the loser in the series.
2. Informal. a. a person who has been convicted of a misdemeanor or, esp., a felony: a two-time loser.
b. a person who has failed at a particular activity: a loser at marriage.
c. someone or something that is marked by consistently or thoroughly bad quality, performance, etc.: Don't bother to see that film, it's a real loser.
3. Slang. a misfit, esp. someone who has never or seldom been successful at a job, personal relationship, etc.
Sarah Palin has begun to get on the nerves of Republican senators who say the former GOP vice presidential nominee is taking her own White House aspirations entirely too seriously.The sad fact that republicans are uncomfortable when true conservatives come around is very, very telling about the present day republican party.
But those same senators may have their eye on a 2012 White House run or be friends with senators with presidential ambitions. And Palin, who does not have a lot of Washington connections, energized the party’s grass roots in 2008 while bucking the D.C. establishment, leaving much of the party’s elite grumbling about her appeal to the conservative base.
Several GOP senators offered searing criticism of the Alaska governor when asked in recent interviews whether she could pose a credible challenge to President Obama in 2012.
“She has to hunker down and govern and show she’s not a joke,” said a GOP lawmaker who represents one of the southern battlegrounds of the 2012 election. (ed. note: talk about arrogance! Maybe the existing clowns on Capital Hill should be required to prove they're not graduates of Barnum & Bailey's Clown School!)
Palin re-emerged in the national political spotlight this week, attending fundraisers in New York and sitting down for an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity.
But her high-profile foray to the East Coast has not been without its stumbles — and a scheduling spat with the Senate and House Republican fundraising committees threatens to raise more questions about her viability as a national party leader.
After being invited — for a second time — to speak to the annual joint fundraiser for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Palin was told abruptly Saturday night that she would not be allowed to address the thousands of Republicans there after all.Then again, maybe it was carefully crafted to intentionally smear Sarah Palin. Would someone really do that? Say it ain't so POLITICO!
U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was in a froth, and his audience loved it.Way to go, Rep. Rohrabacher! Stay on it, sir!
The California Republican was talking about global warming and could barely contain his disgust.
"Al Gore has been wrong all along!" Rohrabacher yelled into the microphone. "This is outrageous! All of this is wrong! The people who have stifled this debate have an agenda that is just frightening!"
"A row between the fast food giant Burger King and one of its major franchise owners has erupted over roadside signs proclaiming "global warming is baloney".Be sure to read the entire piece. I hope MIC has the courage and customer support to keep these signs up there. In fact I wish more businesses would do the same thing for all manner of errant policies the left is foisting on society.
The franchisee, a Memphis-based company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has described Burger King as acting "kinda like cockroaches" over the controversy. MIC says it does not believe Burger King has the authority to make it take the signs down.
The dispute began to sizzle last week, when a local newspaper reporter in Memphis, Tennessee, noticed the signs outside two restaurants in the city and contacted the corporation to establish if the message represented its official viewpoint. Burger King's headquarters in Miami said it did not, adding that it had ordered MIC to take the signs down."
Members of the graduating class of 2009 at Florida's Pace High School have expressed their objections to ACLU restrictions on statements of religious faith at their school by rising up en masse at their ceremony and reciting the Lord's Prayer.Don't you just love it when people stand up for their God given rights? Be sure to read the entire piece; it's inspiring!
The incident happened just days ago, but has been virtually ignored by media outlets throughout the region, according to officials with Liberty Counsel, a legal team representing Principal Frank Lay and teacher Michelle Winkler in their battle with the ACLU, which had complained that faculty and teachers were talking about their beliefs.
Nearly 400 graduating seniors at Pace, a Santa Rosa County school, stood up at their graduation, according to Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel.
Parents, family and friends joined in the recitation, and applauded the students when they were finished, Staver told WND.
"Many of the students also painted crosses on their graduation caps to make a statement of faith," the organization reported.
"Neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate," said Staver, who also is dean of Liberty University School of Law. "The students at Pace High School refused to remain silent and were not about to be bullied by the ACLU.
