Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts

Saturday, July 02, 2011

'Just what you need to make sure you do not get ANY work done'

Bumped: That's how Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion's William Jacobson describes the conservative news site TrendingRight.com.

The idea behind it is simple: what if you could monitor social networks for the hottest stories among center-right and conservative news sites? TR combines a "real-time" dashboard (so you can see what stories are rising and falling) along with the most popular stories for the last 24 hours, seven days and 30 days.

Check it out!


Tuesday, June 28, 2011

All Americans Shoulds Receive ObamaCare Waivers [Michele Bachmann]

By Michele Bachmann

Since its passage last year, over 1,300 ObamaCare waivers have been rewarded, exempting nearly 3.1 million Americans out of the monstrous health care overhaul. With several hundred more waivers pending, the Obama Administration has decided it will no longer accept waiver applications after September 22nd of this year. These waivers are extremely telling; if ObamaCare was truly the reform our healthcare system needs, why is the Administration allowing so many to opt out of the program?

It comes as no surprise that hundreds of companies are applying for waivers from ObamaCare. Business owners across the country continue to voice concern over how to implement the new ObamaCare rules without paying fines, laying off workers or even going bankrupt. As the book Why ObamaCare is Wrong for America points out, “ObamaCare will lead to slower wage growth, fewer job opportunities, and more businesses going under.”

Yet, the waiver-granting process became increasingly questionable as companies applied for exemptions. It seemed that ObamaCare regulators were passing out waivers mostly to friends of the Administration. For instance, of the 204 waivers granted by the Administration in April, nearly twenty percent went to some of the finest restaurants and businesses within House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district. Even more jaw-dropping, of those 3.1 million individuals exempted from ObamaCare through waivers, over half – 1.55 million – are union members.

President Obama’s health care reform grows the size of government and increases its impact on our lives. According to Why ObamaCare is Wrong for America, ObamaCare sets in motion a massive federal bureaucracy with at least 159 new federal agencies, creates more than $500 billion in new taxes and will take $575 billion away from Medicare. In my view, it is time that every American, regardless of their relationship with the Administration, receives a permanent waiver from ObamaCare. I remain committed to working towards the complete repeal of this legislation.

You can support Michele Bachmann for President by clicking here.


Saturday, June 25, 2011

In pictures: the 'devastating ad' that calls out Obama's jobs failures

I think this is as good a 30-second overview of Obama's economic record as you'll find.






Help out here.


Thursday, June 23, 2011

Slow-blogging the President's Afghanistan speech: We will not relent in the war on Al Qaeda, at least not until right before the election

Gee, I'd question the timing but, then again, everyone is. In short, the President's speech last night was a masterpiece of cynicism, duplicity, ego and pandering.


Point: ...we have put al Qaeda on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done...

Counterpoint: ...starting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer...


Point: In the days that followed [9/11] ... we struck at al Qaeda and routed the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then, our focus shifted. A second war was launched in Iraq, and we spent enormous blood and treasure to support a new government there...

Counterpoint: When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own. Instead, we must rally international action, which we’re doing in Libya... protecting the Libyan people and giving them the chance to determine their own destiny.


Point: ...Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times...

Counterpoint: ...Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource –- our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industries, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy...


In effect, after spending trillions in borrowed money in just a couple of years -- which was supposed to rebuild infrastructure and create "clean sources of energy" -- the President is lobbying for still more borrowing to prop up his public sector union supporters.

The good news is there is no money and no one other than Ben Bernanke's printing presses will buy our debt at the current interest rates.

Worse still, America's top military commander has branded Obama's drawdown plans as hasty and creating "more risk" than necessary.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, used prepared testimony before the House Armed Services Committee to reveal a significant breach between Mr Obama and the senior officers he charged with defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The remarks came as General David Petraeus, Nato commander in Afghanistan, was preparing to testify before a Senate committee after it was confirmed that he opposed Mr Obama's plan, which drew heavily on advice from Joe Biden, the vice president.

"The president's decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept," Adml Mullen told a House of Representatives committee hearing... Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, said: "Petraeus loses, Biden wins."

In fact, "Obama rejected the advice of his generals in choosing a quicker path to winding down the war in Afghanistan."

What would you expect? After all, Obama needs to regain the support of his hard left base just before the 2012 elections. Military strategy and protecting our troops have nothing at all to do with this president's plans.


Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The new civility: Rolling Stone slanders Michele Bachmann as 'bats*** crazy', with 'testicles swinging under her skirt', a 'political psychopath'

The Left's 80-year war on the Constitution continues apace, its latest chapter written by a progressive nut named Matt Taibbi -- if that is his real name. His profile of Michele Bachmann in Rolling Stone is rife with the usual leftist tripe: childish name-calling and a half-baked, biased history. And it is even more devoid of facts, logic and reason than usual.

Furthermore, when it comes to Jon Huntsman's civility pledge yesterday, apparently Taibbi didn't get the memo. Among the unserious insults hurled Bachmann's way:

• She is a 'goofball'

• Her Tea Party backers are 'dimwitted'

• She 'is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions'

• She 'looks like the T2 skeleton posing for a passport photo'

• Bachmann is 'completely bats*** crazy'

• She's 'living completely inside her own mind'

• Her record is one 'of lies and embellishments and contradictions'

• She is a 'political psychopath, equal parts crazed Divine Wind kamikaze-for-Jesus and calculating, six-faced Machiavellian prevaricator'

• Her 'greatest quality [is] the gigantic set of burnished titanium Terminator-testicles swinging under her skirt'

• She is 'a threat to do or say something insane at any time'

Someone who strikes this much fear into the far left kooks at Rolling Stone must be a damn fine conservative candidate.

Which is why the professional left wants the GOP to nominate the ludicrous Jon Hussein Huntsman.

Net net: Bachmann is now leading in the GOP polls.

Tremble, Taibbi. The Tea Party is coming for you and the rest of the Marxist left in 2012. And we are going to turn you America-haters out.


Related: Support Michele Bachmann for President

Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

An Open Letter to Janet Napolitano [Papa B]

Papa B:

Dear Janet,

Would it be too much to ask that you hire someone smarter than a lemur to run TSA at the airports?

Because if the objective is to provide air safety, you are instead helping to destroy the airline industry, you are creating massive amounts of stress, and you are wasting billions of our tax dollars. But if the objective is to destroy the airline business, create stress and angst for travelers, and provide employment to thousands of marginally competent people, you are doing a superb job!

I am 75 years old, I have a defibrillator implant, and some of my more vital statistics include: (a) an American Express card holder since 1960; (b) a Delta Medallion member for over 20 years; and (c) have owned my home (my primary residence) for 15 years.

These facts are easily available from any of the credit reporting agencies. Let me also assert that it is extremely unlikely that any would-be terrorist would possess these attributes or metrics.

Nevertheless, since I cannot go through a scanner, I am routinely subjected to a 25-minute fondling at LaGuardia airport. Behind me and "stacked up" during this time are severely handicapped individuals in wheelchairs, elderly people with canes or walkers and, of course, the ever-dangerous group of small children.

At the very least, could you not locate a few smart people to do some basic studies of travelers that would separate, say, non-terrorists from possible terrorists by dint of measurable and meaningful characteristics? And please note: there's not a hint of racial profiling in what I suggest.

Nothing would do more to encourage air travel; nothing would do more to reduce stress; and nothing would save more money at TSA.

I feel certain that for all of these reasons, you will ignore this and other logical suggestions because of your bizarre ideological bent, the fact that you are a political hack, that you are a radical leftist, and that you are a Democrat.

But I repeat myself.

Sincerely, Papa B.


Related: Good news: Photos capture TSA repelling toddler terrorist threat with intrusive grope-downs of 6-year olds.

Friday, June 17, 2011

The most important link you will click on this year

No kidding. I'll be blunt: I don't trust the feckless House leadership. They're already talking about a $2 trillion budget cut deal with Democrats in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.

Translation: those "cuts" will occur over ten (10) years... and the GOP will "meet in the middle" with $1 trillion in cuts. And those will be mostly bogus, like the pathetic budget deal John Boehner agreed to a few months ago. When fully reviewed, we found that it actually added to the deficit!

The only leverage Republicans have is the debt ceiling. And that debt ceiling must. Not. Be. Lifted without serious reforms like those Jim DeMint (R-SC) has proposed.

Despite our nation’s staggering $14.4 trillion debt, the Obama Administration and the Democratic leadership in the Congress want to raise our nation’s debt limit without any spending cuts or reforms.


We believe that this is a fiscally irresponsible position that would place America on the Road to Ruin. At the same time, we believe that the current debate over raising the debt limit provides a historic opportunity to focus public attention, and then public policy, on a path to a balanced budget and paying down our debt.

We believe the Republican Study Committee’s “Cut, Cap, Balance” plan for substantial spending cuts in FY 2012, a statutory spending cap, and the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution is the minimum necessary precondition to raising the debt limit. The ultimate goal is to get us back to a point where increases in the debt limit are no longer necessary.

If you agree, take the Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge!

Please join me: sign the pledge.

Failure to raise the debt ceiling will not mean financial catastrophe, despite the bizarre claims of our tax-troubled Treasury Secretary and our utterly feckless Fed Chairman. It will simply mean that President Obama and his budget-less Democrats will have to reorder spending. Furlough the bloated bureaucracy. And other steps that should have been taken decades ago.


Thursday, June 16, 2011

Holy freaking crap! Rasmussen: Michele Bachmann surges to second place, Herman Cain to third in GOP primary

As Allahpundit might have put it: "Oh, my."

In the race for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney still leads, but Michelle Bachmann has surged to second place. Herman Cain is the only other candidate in double digits...

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney continues to lead the race for the Republican nomination, but Michele Bachmann has surged into second place following her Monday night entry into the campaign.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary Voters, taken following the candidates’ Monday night debate, shows Romney earning 33% support, with Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a surprise second at 19%. Georgia businessman Herman Cain is in third place with 10% of the vote...

Just 27% now believe the U.S. is generally heading in the right direction.

Say, I've been out of town for a while.

How are those Stimulus, HAMP, Cash-for-Clunkers, Weatherization, Green Jobs, Obamacare, "Banking Reform", drilling moratorium, First-Time Home-Buyer Credit, auto company takeovers and QE2 programs working out?

For you drones out there, that's a rhetorical question. As for you patriots, my beloved readers: would you like to support a true Constitutional conservative for President? Then support Michele Bachmann for President.


Image adapted from: Wintery Knight.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Tyrrell: Michele Bachmann steals the show

Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. lays down a straight riff.

...Explaining how she voted for Paul Ryan’s budget, she said she did so “with an asterisk” because the “asterisk is that we’ve got a huge messaging problem [on Medicare]. It needs to be called the 55-and-Under Plan. I can’t tell you the number of 78-year-old women who think we’re going to pull the rug out from under them.”

Mrs. Bachmann has faced up to the Democrats’ gaudy lie that people, aged 56 and over, are facing Medicare cuts with the Ryan Plan. They are not, not with the Ryan budget. Though with the Obamacare Plan we are all facing the eclipse of Medicare. Medicare will be slashed for everyone very soon, and that is written into the President’s policy...

In her interview with the Journal Mrs. Bachmann explained that she is versed in the economists: Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman. You cannot get much better than that, and I saved Friedman for last. He is the modern master in understanding the modern economy.

...The Liberals have, like a vast shoal of squid, spread an inky cloud over the financial meltdown. Mrs. Bachmann dispels the darkness regarding its origins. Says she, “There were a lot of bad actors involved, but it started with the Community Reinvestment Act under Jimmy Carter and then the enhanced amendments that Bill Clinton made to force, in effect, banks to make loans to people who lacked creditworthiness. If you want to come down to a bottom line of ‘How did we get in this mess?’ I think it was a reduction in standards.” Whereupon she goes on to say, “Being of the Financial Services Committee, I can assure you, all roads lead to Freddie and Fannie,” the mortgage lenders; and off she goes talking about Constitutional limits. She has a Tea Partyer’s proper concern for the Constitution.

The other night it is said that no one really stood out. I disagree. The pulchritudinous Michele Bachmann stole the show. She was charismatic and eloquent. She got the most attention and she had only been in the race a few minutes. Give her a few more debates, and we shall see just how ready she is for a national run.

Of the declared candidates, my top three are Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum. Any one of them would crush Barack Obama in a debate. Any. One. Of. Them.


Hat tip: Dan. You can donate to Michele here.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

GOP Beltway Insiders Charles Krauthammer and George Will Describe the Substantive Reasons Sarah Palin Can't Win

Charles Krauthammer's substantive reasons that Sarah Palin can't win in 2012:

I think it would make no sense for her to run. I think her chances of winning the nomination are small. The chances of winning the general election are probably nil. I think, for the same reasons you articulated, 60 percent negatives. That's almost impossible to overcome. And it isn't as if that is forever. Hillary Clinton had very high negatives at many points in her career. But over time, they tend to soften.

...The problem with her, I think, is that she is not schooled. I don't mean she didn't go to the right schools... But when it comes to policies, she's had two and a half years to school herself, and she hasn't. And that's a problem. You want a president who will be able to not have to learn on the job. We've already had that... ...with President Obama and with others... It's the lack of effort to school herself and the lack of insight to see that she needs it...

...I think if you're going to master policy, especially world affairs, you've got to know history. As you said, you have to know how things evolved, and she is weak on that. It's not as if she can't learn. The fact is it doesn't appear as if she wants to sort of sit down, spend some months schooling herself, as many people have done in preparing for the presidency. If you're a governor of any state, you face a narrow range of issues, and you don't have to deal with the world. It's incumbent on you to actually learn about it.

So, just to recap, Sarah Palin can't win against Barack Obama because she has high negatives, she hasn't "school[ed] herself", and she's weak on history. But an incompetent community agitator with no executive experience, no private sector experience and who is an acolyte of Alinsky is qualified because he has a beautiful, cultured speaking voice.

George Will's substantive reasons that Sarah Palin can't win in 2012:

The independent voters have made up their minds about her, and it is a negative judgment they’ve made... After the 2008 campaign she had two things she had to do: she had to go home to Alaska and study, and she had to govern Alaska well. Instead she quit halfway through her first term and shows up in the audience of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and other distinctly non-presidential venues...

Just to recap: independent voters have a negative opinion of Palin. And the fact that Democrat operatives had filed 18 frivolous lawsuits -- all later dismissed -- against her (source: Associated Press), which were bankrupting her family, had nothing at all to do with it. That, plus appearing in the audience of Dancing with the Stars, disqualifies her.

Is this really what passes for informed commentary inside the Beltway?

Remember: Krauthammer worked for Walter-Freaking-Mondale in 1980. George Will endorsed Howard Baker in 1980. Both of these guys completely missed the Reagan revolution.

Krauthammer and Will are certainly smart dudes, but their political instincts appear to be for s***.

Palin can win. Bachmann can win. Cain can win. Ryan can win. Santorum can win. Obama is a sitting duck if confronted with a true, articulate Constitutional conservative. He's a walking, talking disaster as President. And everyone knows it.


Hat tips: Mark Levin and Gateway Pundit.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Rep. Dan Landry (R-LA) rips invitation to Obama White House into tiny pieces, lights the pieces on fire, then urinates all over them

Well, metaphorically speaking, that is.

A freshman GOP lawmaker rejected an invitation to the White House on Wednesday, saying he didn't want to be “lectured” by President Obama... Rep. Jeff Landry (La.) said ... “I don’t intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt.”

Landry said he would not sit down with Obama to negotiate on a deficit reduction compromise until Obama produces his own budget plan... “Until the president produces a responsible deficit reduction plan, I’m not going to the White House to negotiate with myself. Our conference has put out for months where we would start the process..."

...Landry also criticized Obama for neglecting to meet with the Louisiana delegation about a drilling moratorium off the Gulf of Mexico... “The President has done nothing, just like he has for the people of the Gulf Coast... For months, the Louisiana delegation has sent the president numerous requests to meet with him or his chief of staff concerning the de facto moratorium issued in the Gulf of Mexico, a de facto moratorium that has driven gas prices up and now threatens to derail economic recovery; the president hasn’t even had the courtesy to write us a note back... [this meeting is just] political grandstanding” on Obama’s part.

“I refuse to partake in his political grandstanding that will ultimately do nothing for debt reduction and job creation,” Landry said.

As Darren 'Wall Street' Bettencourt said of 'The Transporter', "Hmmm, I like him."

This is one GOP freshman with stones and, for that, we salute you, Congressman. That is what you call speaking truth to power.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.com

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Steny Hoyer Just Slapped Down Obama's 1967 Borders Statement #aipac

Watching the live feed from AIPAC, Steny Hoyer just slapped down Barack Obama's assertion that Israel should return to its 1967 borders:

Israel's borders must be defensible and must reflect reality on the ground!...

...the reconciliation of Hamas and Fatah puts the future in doubt ... let us make this clear: peace can only be achieved by a return to the negotating table without pre-conditions...

I believe in Palestinian statehood, but I oppose [an outside force imposing it]... peace cannot be imposed, it must be negotiated ...

We will not compromise or temporize, we will not ... fund a government that does not recognize ... Israel's right to exist...

Sounds like Hoyer has completely repudiated the "Obama Doctrine".


Saturday, May 21, 2011

Good news: former speech-writer for Walter Mondale says Herman Cain's candidacy is "just entertainment"

Herman Cain announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination earlier today.

And Charles Krauthammer, a former speechwriter for Walter Mondale, says that Cain's campaign is "just entertainment."

I like the guy, but his candidacy is just entertainment. He might drain some "new guy on the block" votes from, say, Michele Bachmann...

...I don't think the guy's going to have a big impact on the race.

It's worth remembering that in 1980, George Will and Charles Krauthammer supported Howard Baker and Walter Mondale, respectively.

Obviously that year Ronald Reagan won a landslide election against the hapless James Earl Carter.

This pair of professional analysts -- while certainly quite bright -- has a tin ear when it comes to understanding what America, not the Beltway, wants.

Which is probably very good news for Herman Cain.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Michele Bachmann Has a Question for You

And the question is:

Unfortunately, there was no Hellz, no answer, so I just voted No.

I support Michele Bachmann, a true Constitutional conservative. Let her know where you stand.


Saturday, May 14, 2011

One Less RINO to Worry About: Huckabee Bails on 2012 Bid

Well, that's one less RINO we need to worry about.

In the end, Huckabee decided that he didn't want to abandon the media empire that he has built since his failed presidential bid four years ago. In addition to his TV show, Huckabee hosts a nationally syndicated radio program, gives paid speeches around the country and has even launched a series of animated videos for children on American history.

The talk show is the centerpiece of Huckabee's enterprises, which have made the one-time Baptist preacher from Hope, Ark., and 10-year governor a wealthy man with a $2.2 million beachfront home under construction in Florida. Huckabee, 55, and his wife moved their residency and voter registration to the state last year.

Mike Huckabee helped give us the feckless candidacy of John McCain in 2008 by sabotaging Mitt Romney.

The true GOP front-runners are Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum. Having Huckabee out of the race is a promising development.


Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Super: Speaker Boehner Wants to Nominate Another Maverick

As if you needed more proof that we need a new House Speaker, the barely coherent John Boehner has endorsed the John McCain-like RINOs Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie.

House Speaker John Boehner didn’t watch last week’s Republican presidential debate, but he knows whom he wants to see in the next one: Govs. Chris Christie and Mitch Daniels...

...without prompting, Boehner brought up the Indiana governor, who has been slightly warmer to a candidacy than Christie. “I think Mitch Daniels is looking at this seriously … [a] person with a track record of reform in his state, the kind of reforms we need in Washington, D.C.”

I can't stress this enough: we don't need a proxy for the pathetic Dick Lugar (Mitch Daniels), nor a pro-global warming, pro-amnesty "maverick" (Chris Christie).

We need high fidelity to our highest law. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty are the only candidates I see that qualify as constitutional conservatives (Marco Rubio and Allen West would definitely make the list if they ever throw their hats in the ring).

We have the right playbook. It's called the Constitution. Now we need a leader who embraces it -- 100% of the time. Mavericks need not apply.

Oh, and before I forget: we need a new Speaker of the House. Perhaps Allen West would consider that job.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.

Will Obama Upstage Netanyahu? [Dan from New York]

Dan from New York:

Obama may preempt PM's Congress speech with his own plan (Reuters)


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak to Congress at the invitation of (Republican) Speaker Boehner. He will make his address on May 24. Netanyahu was expected to present new Israeli proposals to get the “peace process” back on track, but that was before the terrorist organization Hamas remarried the “moderate” group Fatah. Now the pressure is off and Israeli political sources say Netanyahu sees no need “to outline any far-reaching peace proposals.”

Where does that leave Obama? The White House signaled that Obama would deliver a major address on Middle East policy "fairly soon." According to a senior administration official, Obama will meet the Israeli Prime Minister at (the front door of?...) the White House on May 22 and is considering giving his speech before he leaves on a trip to Europe early in the week of May 22.

You do the scheduling. Is Obama so obsessed with backing Israel into a corner that he’ll buck both protocol and political prudence to publicly contradict a head of state, an ally and a guest of Congress just two days before Netanyahu’s remarks? This should be interesting, and we’ll soon find out.


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

What's Old is New Again: A Time For Choosing

How brilliant, how timeless, how relevant was this 1964 speech by Ronald Reagan?

...Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don't own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we've just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.

...Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.

This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down—[up] man's old—old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."

Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

...The President tells us he's now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we've only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they've taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we've sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan.

...We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer—and they've had almost 30 years of it—shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?

But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.

Now—so now we declare "war on poverty"... do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have—and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs—do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic?

...Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things—we're never "for" anything.

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

Now—we're for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we've accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.

But we're against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They've called it "insurance" to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they're doing just that.

A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary—his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he's 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can't put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they're due—that the cupboard isn't bare?

...can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we're for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we're against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road.

...I think we're for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we're against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we're against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.

I think we're for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments' programs, once launched, never disappear.

Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.

Federal employees—federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work.

...But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died—because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England.

Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the—or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men—that we're to choose just between two personalities.

...Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.

Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this—this is the meaning in the phrase ... "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits—not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

Absolutely brilliant.

Absolutely timeless.

And proof positive that the Democrats really haven't changed much in the last half-century.


Monday, May 09, 2011

Democrats Continue to Strengthen the Family Unit: Navy Authorizes Chaplains to Perform Same-Sex 'Marriages' in Naval Chapels

Having destroyed the two-parent family in the inner city, Democrats have now set their sights on undermining the basic family unit in the military as well.

Anticipating the elimination of the military ban on homosexuality, the Office of the Chief of Navy Chaplains has decided that same-sex couples in the Navy will be able to get married in Navy chapels, and that Navy chaplains will be allowed to perform the ceremonies -- if homosexual marriage is legal in the state where the unions are to be performed.

The advisory came in the form of an April 13 memo issued to all chaplains, in which the Chief of Navy Chaplains, Admiral Michael Tidd, said the Chaplain Corps was revising its Tier I training manuals, which had previously indicated that same-sex marriages are not authorized on federal property.

Instead, Tidd called for chaplains to comply with service-wide efforts underway to be more accepting of homosexuality and same-sex marriage as the end of the military policy on homosexuality nears.

Citing "additional legal review" by Navy attorneys, the admiral said the Navy "has concluded that, generally speaking, base facility use is sexual orientation neutral... If the base is located in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, then the base facilities may be used to celebrate the marriage..."

The admiral’s memo also gives chaplains permission to "marry" homosexual couples – but would not force them to perform ceremonies.

...Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, is concerned that, in its haste to “hustle-in homosexuality,” the Navy may be violating federal law – the Defense of Marriage Act... “Offering up federal facilities and federal employees for same-sex marriage violates DOMA, which is still the law of the land and is bound to the duties of our military, including chaplains,” Steve Taylor, communications director for Akin, told CNSNews.com.

Like most conservatives, I could care less what kind of relationships people engage in. That's their business. But keep the military out of it.

The military is about protecting America: it's not about gay rights, nor about affirmative action, nor about gender equality.

This kind of idiocy will -- guaran-damn-teed -- get people killed.


Hat tip: TrendingRight. Linked by: Memeorandum. Thanks!