Why Liberals Nuked the Senate

Liberals used to love the filibuster when they were in the minority.  You should ask Judge Miguel Estrada about Liberal filibusters.  Oh sorry, the Democrats filibustered him so he isn't on the DC Court of Appeals.  This is all about Liberals having to stack the deck to win.  They see a wipe out coming in the next election.  The only way to mitigate or even prevent the rollback of the entitlement state is to have Liberal judges legislate from the bench in the DC Court of Appeals.  Elections have consequences only when Liberals win.  When they lose, they use judicial means to get their way. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/364539/senate-republicans-fearful-post-nuclear-senate-jonathan-strong

Empathy from the Chief, Not!

Our Dear Leader is so far above ordinary people in brilliance, he has trouble empathizing with them.  It is hard for the One We All Were Waiting For to understand the frustration inherent in the Web Site We All Are (Still) Waiting For.  The Smartest President Ever is trying to explain that he knows what's best for ordinary people of more limited intelligence than himself, even though he can't really empathize with them because of the difference in mental capability.  If only the complainers were smart enough to see the superiority of the carefully crafted Obamacare law and regulations!  Then they would see that their false impression that they could keep their plan was just a failure on their part to comprehend the nuances of the promises he made. 

http://www.suntimes.com/23607315-761/sweet-obama-tries-to-empathize-over-health-insurance-cancellations-but-is-that-the-best-hes.html

Iran: False Equivalence

Liberals like to ask why Israel is allowed nukes but Iran is not.   Countries need to sign treaties to be bound by them.  Israel never signed the Non-Proliferation treaty.  Iran did.  Also, Israel does not have government orchestrated demonstrations organized around the slogans "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."  Iran does.  Israel is not the world's leading sponsor of terrorism.  Iran is.  Israel is no threat to the United States.  Iran is.  I could go on at length, but willful ignorance is hard to break through.  However Liberals, answer me this.  Where would you rather be a citizen, Israel or Iran?  Have you ever been to either one or even talked to anyone who lived in either place? 

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/363497/how-bad-deal-it-ask-bibi-elliott-abrams

Global Cooling, The Big Climate Threat of the 70's

I'm old enough to remember Global Cooling being touted as a big threat in the 1970's. The cooling was supposed to occur due to man made changes in the upper atmosphere.  (Check wikipedia. I am not making this up.) Now popular reports of weather science have switched to Global Warming, the latest fad in weather. However, most of the current models do not predict into the future with any accuracy. I think the sun's energy output has much more to do with climate than atmospheric conditions. When I visited Exit Glacier, near Seward, Alaska, I noticed that the glacier has been receding since 1815. Park Service personnel recently discovered evidence of a buried forest dating back to at least 1170 AD near the current glacier’s edge.  I don't think the cooling of the Little Ice Age between 1300 and 1870 had much to do with a switch to renewable energy.  Basing predictions of weather trends over geologic time scales using the last 150 years of data is statistically ridiculous.  Imposing costs on society based on Global Warming hysteria will only harm the poor, who benefit most from cheap energy. 

http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/why-obama-can-t-fix-climate-change-20131111

http://www.nps.gov/kefj/naturescience/upload/The%20Retreat%20of%20Exit%20Glacier.pdf

http://www.eh-resources.org/timeline/timeline_lia.html   Little Ice Age Article

Obamacare Hearings: Government by Anecdote

There is an unintentionally funny article today by Dana Milbank which complains about “Government by Anecdote.”  His specifics have to do with letters from complaining constituents that Republicans read during the Obamacare Congressional hearings.  Democrats have been governing by anecdote since the New Deal 1930's, with great political success for their programs.  Now that the Republicans are using government by anecdote to bash Democrats, Mr. Milbank wants Republicans to stop doing it.  If Republicans have learned anything from Obama, it's to fight as dirty as possible and use the entire Democrat playbook against them.  Since Obamacare was built on lies and anecdotes, it really seems like poetic justice to attack it with truth and anecdotes. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-at-obamacare-hearings-governing-by-anecdote/2013/11/06/691bdc98-4734-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html

Brietbart.com quotes Harry Reid’s comments on the Senate Obamacare hearings.  “My Republican colleagues, why don’t they just – let’s number their 1 through 50 criticisms and giving all these speeches, just give us a number, and we would all – because we’ve heard these things so many times – we would immediately laugh because they’re jokes, too.  With this comment, Harry Reid seems to have admitted that there are at least 50 complaints that can be made against Obamacare. However, since Mr. Reid usually underestimates the cost of government programs, it's likely he underestimated the number of possible complaints as well. It seems to this ignorant red neck in fly over country that Mr. Reid is himself the biggest joke of all. Further, I am really enjoying the consequences, for Mr. Reid and his party, of the Obamacare” joke” he perpetrated on all of us. It seems to have backfired.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/07/Reid-Republican-criticisms-joke

Some Obamacare critics say our Dear Leader and friends messed up on an easy web site.  I don’t think this project was easy, even though The Smartest President Ever seems to have thought so.  I've been a professional programmer for over 40 years and this is a very difficult, complicated application. In order to verify eligibility, the web site has to retrieve information from a lot of different databases, each with its own format and access methods. The sources of information include 36 states and several federal departments. Worse, the web site has to do all of this while the customer is waiting. Each piece of information retrieved introduces another chance of delay or failure. As hard as all of this is, HHS made it even harder by hiring 55 contractor firms to do various pieces of the project with no general contractor to manage integration and end-to-end testing. With HHS serving as its own general contractor, a Pearl Harbor style disaster was locked in. I don't see any way this thing is going to be ready by November 1, 2014, let alone the end of November this year.

Some Liberal commenters say that the number of insured will justify Obamacare by 2020.  What happened to the fierce urgency of now?  This argument reminds me of the famous economist John M. Keynes’ saying, “In the long run, we’re all dead.”  With any luck, Obamacare won't make it to 2020.  Given my comments above, it's not clear that the Obamacare web site will be up by November 1, 2014.  As a result, Obamacare will be lucky to survive until the end of 2017.  To the commenter’s point, it's not entirely clear that the net increase in people covered will exceed the number of people dropped from the existing plans that they liked better.   While other administration scandals can be covered up, many, many people will have first-hand experience with the effects of Obamacare.  No amount of spin from the Pravda Press is going to convince people that they are better off now than they were before Obamacare.  

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/obamacare-shouldn-t-have-been-managed-like-a-campaign.html

A liberal author’s article comments got erased earlier today.  In response to suspicious Conservative commenters,the author promises the technical glitch will be fixed.  And I believe his promise is just as likely to happen as our Dear Leader's promise of better healthcare.  Liberal promises always boil down to, "Trust us to do the right thing for all of you."  What this really means is "Trust us and we'll do the right thing for us to expand our power."  Helping the downtrodden is such a Liberal desire, they want to create more downtrodden.  Obamacare has succeeded in taking relatively self-sufficient people and making them dependent on and subservient to the Liberals.  If we don't vote Liberal, there will be consequences to our healthcare.  That's the Chicago way. 

http://thehill.com/opinion/brent-budowsky/189479-obama%E2%80%99s-healthcare-katrina

3 AM Phone Call Unaswered

Liberals are fond of recalling how presidential our Smartest President Ever was during the Bin Laden raid.  Bin Laden was a photo op for an operation we planned and scheduled ourselves.  The Community Organizer in Chief knew exactly when it was going to happen so he could have a photographer in the situation room.  Benghazi was an attack on us, which Al Qaeda scheduled on the anniversary of 9/11, that we were not prepared for. Since this unscheduled event conflicted with resting up for a very important campaign fund raiser in Las Vegas, our Dear Leader slept through it.  When he got the 3 AM phone call the campaign ads were talking about, our Dear Leader didn't even take the call. 

ID Requirement to Enter Congressional Gym Is Racist

You might think it’s reasonable to require ID before you vote.  In Chicago, this requirement would tend to keep ghosts from voting as much as they do now.  However, as smart Liberals say, it's racist to require ID to vote.  Using their superior reasoning, this ignorant red neck thinks it's also racist to require ID for food stamps, plane rides, cashing checks or entering government buildings.  Everyone should be able to use the Congressional gym without ID.  Anything less is racist.  (Liberals, this may sound attractive to you, but it's sarcasm.) 

Government Power Corrupts Government

 The article linked below expresses puzzlement about why Conservatives think Liberals are Socialists or worse.  My answer is that Liberal politicians are in it for the power.  The more control the Federal Government has the better for Liberals.  Liberals never explain the limits that should be imposed on government because they don't believe that there is any problem government can't solve.  For Liberals, government should be unlimited, so it can help people whenever and wherever needed.  Conservatives see this Liberal position as threatening tyranny.  Totalitarian governments have unlimited power to help people, but lack the motivation to do so.  Tyrants have more than enough power to maintain the government without the consent of the governed.  Power corrupts.  The greater the government's power, the more corrupt it is.  IRS harassment of Tea Party groups is what Conservatives expect of an over powerful government.  Conservatives believe that "helping people" is just a cover story for seeking more power.  The only reason the Conservative position baffles Liberals is that they believe the cover story, that the government needs to expand to help people.  Liberals are blind to the downside of expanding government power.  Liberals failed to see any risk in Obamacare.  Millions of canceled health insurance policies are the result of this Liberal blindness.  

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/how-the-alger-hiss-case-explains-the-tea-party.html

Treat Iranians Like Republicans

I would feel more confident about the Smartest President Ever if he treated the Russians, Syrians and Iranians as if they were Tea Party Republicans. Unfortunately, The One seems to believe that John Boehner is a bigger threat to our Republic than the Iranian Ayatollahs. 

Liberals ask, "What's our interest in supporting a dictator that oppresses women and religious minorities?" They ask a very good question. I have no idea why the One supported Morsi in Egypt on his quest to become a dictator, with Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood buddies burning down a number of Christian churches in the process. I also don't understand why our Maximum Leader did not do anything to encourage the 2009 Iranian protest against their theocratic and dictatorial government, whose slogan is, "Death to America." Perhaps The One We Were Waiting For, having been groomed by the Chicago Machine, believes that fixed elections are nothing to get upset about?  Clearly our Dear Leader favors the Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood because their policies towards women and gays are so enlightened, in contrast to Congressional Republicans. 

Shutdown Pain Was Intentional

Since Obamacare is going so well, Democrats want to talk about the government shutdown instead.  The link below leads to an article about the hypocrisy of the Congressional Republicans who are not rushing to compensate individuals who suffered loss during the shutdown.  If we are talking hypocrisy, don't you think our Dear Leader spent more time making the shutdown hurt than he did testing his healthcare web site?  He turned the National Park Service into the paramilitary wing of the Democratic Party.  NPS shut down numerous private facilities because they operated on National Park land.  NPS held a busload of foreign tourists hostage in Yellowstone and patrolled to make sure no tourists were able to sneak out of their hotel to watch Old Faithful.  NPS shut down a parking lot on public land used by a private foundation for a private land attraction.  The One We Were Waiting For even shut down the WWII memorial just because it was on public land, even though it was built with private funds and is usually unmanned, uh I mean un-personned.  The shutdown hurt the red states most BY DESIGN, not by accident.  Remember the Chicago Way of politics:  reward your friends and punish your enemies.  Seeing hypocrisy in the Republicans while lauding the Democrats is like straining at gnats and swallowing camels (your choice of the animal or the cigarette).

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/28/opinion/carroll-gop-obamacare-hypocrisy/index.html

Ballot Box Retribution Is Technically Locked In

As a programmer with over 40 years of professional experience, I'd say the Obamacare roll out is what happens when you eyes are bigger than your stomach.  With the typical liberal arrogance, our Dear Leader assumed that all the hard work was done once the law passed.  Now the Democrats are on record preferring a government shutdown to postponing Obamacare for a year.  Because of the administration's efforts to turn the National Park Service into the paramilitary wing of the Democratic party, the Best and Brightest have emphasized how sure they were that Obamacare would work.  This shows their judgment is atrocious.  Personally, I never though anybody as brilliant as The Smartest Man in the Room would ever think he could run a sixth of the US economy with a law that we had to pass to see what was in it.  I also believe that anyone who thinks 7 or 8 months is enough for a programming project of this magnitude and complexity has never done much more than open a spreadsheet to see what's in it.  The whiplash of voters losing their insurance because of Obamacare regulations and not being able to replace it on the promised exchanges will really anger the voters.  I expect the retribution at the ballot box will be awesome.  Looking forward to it. 

Obama Debt Limit Wisdom 2006

I am truly amazed at the wisdom of Barack Obama:

Senate Record 16 Mar 2006 page S2237

Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem. The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is ‘‘trillion’’ with a ‘‘T.’’ That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

Only problem is, he was just posturing. Under his administration the debt has increased to $16.7 trillion. And he wants to increase it even more, now that he's president.

Sell Off Federal Land

The recent shutdown has demonstrated the government's abuse of  power.  While we're noticing the Feds have too much power, let's also notice they own too much land.  We should sell off a lot of National Forest land.  The Feds do not need to own over half of any state, like they do in Arkansas, Utah or Nevada.  Besides, we're broke and we need the money.  Finally, when Henry VIII closed all the monasteries, England had explosive economic growth because the land was used more efficiently.  I wonder what privatization of a lot of land out west could do for the economy. 

Has Boehner no shame?

Has Boehner no shame?  He is trying to stop Obamacare, the web site we've all been, and
still are, waiting for.  He wants to fund the government one piece at a time.   Everybody 
knows that Congress only passes gigantic bills that no one can possible have read before
 the vote.  So individual appropriations for child cancer research and the National Parks 
are obviously beyond the pale.   Boehner actually thinks Congress should try to trim the 
taxing and deficit spending.  What a ridiculous idea!  The Federal Reserve under Yellen 
will electronically print whatever money we need to keep our spending at acceptable levels.
Our president is really smart not to negotiate with the Republican barbarians.  The 
Smartest Man in the Room can negotiate with Russia, Syria, Iran and even the Taliban, but 
not Republicans.  Republicans are obviously much worse than the Taliban.  Just look at 
their war on women.   Until the Republicans are destroyed for their arrogance, Non passera!
(sarcasm)

Renewable Energy and the Poor

Green Democrats are always demanding that we break our fossil fuel habit.  They are firm in their belief that the US can never be energy independent.  I guess the huge increase in natural gas and oil output from fracking is irrelevant here. The greens don't like it and will punish the people who are doing the fracking. Among other things, they will not get an Obamacare waiver. I do think that Canada is a wee bit more friendly than for example Venezuela. I also think oil delivered by pipeline is a lot less likely to spill than oil delivered by ship. Remember the Exon Valdez! But rich liberals only talk a good game about poor people. The Democrats are the party of the poor, so naturally they want more poor people. The best way to get more poor people is to raise energy prices. So forget about oil.

Obamacare: Good Intentions, Hellish Outcome

Liberals feel that since the bill is a law, Republicans have to fund it.  Liberals are less fond of discussing how Obamacare became law.  First the Democrats lose Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in an election fought specifically on Obamacare. So Obamcare is passed with the big lie that it will save money in a reconcilement bill, thus requiring only 51 Senate votes. Then, when it turns out that it is really very expensive, Republicans should be compelled to vote to pay whatever it costs. Further, the Former Constitutional Lecturer in Chief decides that since it's too complicated to collect 11 billion dollars in employer mandate taxes, he'll waive the employer mandate for a year. How is this taking care to see that the laws are faithfully executed, as the president is Constitutionally required to do? However this is OK because the Democrats have good intentions. Did nobody tell Democrats and the Pravda Press that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Welcome to Obamacare hell.

McCarthy is Seriously Dead since 1957

Liberals are fond of calling Republicans they don’t like the latest  reincarnation of the spirit of Joe McCarthy.  This week Ted Cruz is the new Joe McCarthy.  Note to liberals: Joe McCarthy died in 1957.  Further, the Verona intercepts show that at least a few of the people he initially complained about were communist spies in communication with the Soviet Union.  Where Joe went way too far was in accusing a lot of people individually by name with no proof whatsoever.  He slandered hundreds, maybe thousands.  These people got fired from their jobs and many could not work under their own names for years afterwards.  Who has Ted Cruz accused of being a communist?  Is being accused of being a spendthrift the same as being accused of being a communist?  I think nobody should mention Joe McCarthy unless they were alive when he died.  I was 7 years old when he died.  Were you even born yet?

Obamacare a Fraud from the Start

Obamacare was passed as a budget reconciliation bill, a bill that saves money.  The fiction that the bill saves money is blown out of the water by now.  So, in legal terms, this was fraud in the inducement for the bill.  Our Dear Leader has exempted Employers from their mandate, but has preserved the Individual Mandate.  If George Bush had done that, there would be Occupy Everything protests and riots across the country.  The Pravda Press would be screaming.  Since The One We Were Waiting For did it, it's fine with everybody except the Tea Party crazies who actually read the Constitution.  The Constitution says all spending bills must originate in the House.  There is no Constitutional Mandate that Congress must fund any bill that was previously passed, particularly if the budget estimates were off as badly as Obamacare's were.  It also says the President "must take care that the laws are faithfully executed."  So no matter how smart The Smartest Guy in the Oval Office Ever happens to be, he is not allowed to suspend the collection of taxes on business because his administration is not ready to do what the law requires.  He should have to ask Congress to change the law.  For obvious reasons, this was inconvenient for the former Constitutional Lecturer who made the decision.  Has anyone noticed that the number of people who have successfully used the Federal website for Obamacare to get coverage is not something normally talkative "senior administration officials" want to talk about?  They blame it all on the unexpected hordes of citizens who need insurance from the exchanges.  I guess they really believed their own propaganda that "If you like your insurance, you can keep it."  Since that was a lie, too many people tried to register?  Or perhaps the whole thing is one big government overreach?

No Ignorance on the Left?

I guess that a corollary of no enemies on the left is, axiomatically, no ignorance on the left.   If George W. Bush "flubs it," it's evidence of his ignorance.  If "The One" flubs it, it's evidence of his absent mindedness.   The Dear Leader is, by definition, brilliant.  Republicans are, by definition, ignorant, stupid and often malevolent.  When BHO acts like a Stuart King of England, ruling by decree, it is by definition not comparable.  That the Constitution was framed with the behavior of Stuart Kings in mind, is ignored or unknown to Liberals (Progressives?).  This is convenient, because they can claim they are just trying to preserve the spirit of the Constitution by flouting the letter of it.  Liberals who want to buy a clue should Google "Charles I, of England" and look at the Wikipedia entry, particularly the "Personal Rule" section.  

  

Liberals may accuse me of borrowing vocabulary from George Will.  Sorry. I guess my conservative ignorance is so great that my Mathematics MS degree did not include axiomatic assumptions. Since I graduated in 1972, and had never heard of George Will at that time, I guess we can assume I read George Will for vocabulary words so that I can sound erudite while speaking to Liberals. Sorry, big word. I'll correct it to smart. Does that dumb it down enough for "liberal" education?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/355786/dont-know-much-about-geography-victor-davis-hanson

Racist History of Democrats

Democrats regularly pat themselves on the back for their liberal positions on race.  They then turn around and say all Republicans are racist.  This certainly forgets history. 

George Wallace and Lester Maddox were both Democrats.  In the 1950's and 60's, the Republicans were more Northern and progressive on race.  The Democrats were more Southern and much more segregationist than Republicans.  This alignment held from about 1855 to about 1968.  The Democrats bought black votes with the welfare part of the "Great Society" program.  They also successfully demonized Barry Goldwater in 1964.  Wikipedia says, "In 1964, Goldwater ran a conservative campaign that emphasized states' rights.  Goldwater's 1964 campaign was a magnet for conservatives since he opposed interference by the federal government in state affairs.  Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation and had supported the original senate version of the bill, Goldwater made the decision to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  His stance was based on his view that the act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do or not do business with whomever they chose." So he had a radically Libertarian position on Federal government interference with states and individuals.  Democrats successfully portrayed his record as racist, and traded white Southern votes for black Northern ones.  I lived through this as a child and young man.  My family was all Republican, but we were unpopular in Montana because we paid Native Americans white wages.    It was Republican President Eisenhower who ordered the National Guard into Little Rock in 1957 to force desegregation on Central High School there.  While I'm not saying there was and is absolutely no racism in the Republican Party, Democrat descriptions of the comparative positions of the two parties are now, and have been since 1964, wildly exaggerated in order to force black voters away for the Republican Party which was their political home for over a century. 

Liberals also like to say that blacks were uniquely victimized by discrimination.  This is also both self- serving and false.  Chinese and Japanese immigrants were systematically excluded, were not eligible for citizenship and in some cases were forbidden to own or lease land.  See for example the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or the California Alien Land Law of 1913.  For a general survey, Google "History of Us Immigration Law." Also, look into what happened to Japanese residents of the Continental US during World War II.  (Hint: They we "interned,") 

“Progressives” like to disown the old Democrat party by saying the historical Democrats were not progressive.  As a "Progressive" or "Liberal," you are of course always right.  Us ignorant Conservatives defer to your superior wisdom.  Of course, they just say that they were not "Progressive" so they're not your problem as a "Progressive Democrat." ("Liberal" is so passe.) The fact that they were Democrats doesn't count unless they were "Progressive." Since Progressives  can define any historical Democrat as not "Progressive," let's try someone who defines himself as "Progressive" currently.  Let’s consider Al Sharpton, who supported an anti Jewish riot in Crown Heights where the mob stabbed and killed Yankel Rosenbaum.  He has his own TV show on MSNBC and calls himself "Progressive." I guess he's not anybody's problem (except maybe Yankel Rosenbaum's friends and family) because his heart is pure? And he can't be an anti semitic bigot, can he, because he's black.

The fact that inner city blacks do not have the opportunities of suburban whites is whose problem exactly?  For example, the schools are unionized, so charter schools and vouchers are not allowed.   By definition, stop and frisk is racist, so crime is rampant.   Families are subsidized to break up, so they do.   People who create jobs are taxed out of the inner city.   And who supports all of these oppressive policies?  Liberal Democrats.   

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356776/poignant-anniversary-thomas-sowell

Kerry Advocates War? LOL

In Vietnam, the Democrat Congress cut off all funding for ammunition for the South Vietnamese Army in 1974. The subsequent result was thousands executed by Ho Chi Min and friends. Over 500,000 Vietnamese fled Vietnam in leaky boats to escape the slaughter. John Kerry testified before Congress in April, 1971, that American war crimes were frequent in Vietnam. There was lots of coverage. I got spit at for wearing an Air Force uniform as a result of his testimony. Coverage for the communist slaughter after overrunning South Vietnam was negligible. It was the same level of coverage for the executions and mass graves that were discovered after the failure of the Communist Tet Offensive in 1968. Maybe Communists killing people was a "dog bites man" story? As a result, how should we view John Kerry's advocating Syrian intervention? Since we know he's a political opportunist and liar from his Vietnam escapades, he has no credibility now. Now some liberal commentators want to talk about Vietnam? Ludicrous.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358013/syria-and-specter-iraq-michael-barone

Student Body Doesn't Have a Brain

I recently read an article about the loud protests that greeted General David Petraeus when
he showed up on the campus of the The City University Of New York to teach a class.  I went  to college from 1968 to 1972.  It looks like things have not changed a bit since then.  Free speech in a typical university setting, both then and now, is permitted only for those whose leftist political orthodoxy is unquestioned.  Certainly the students are supposed to question only those things that are insufficiently left wing.  Students are graded on their politics, not their knowledge or critical thinking.  The student body, like the Scarecrow in the 
Wizard of Oz, doesn't have a brain.  Which brings up an interesting point.  How scientific 
can socialism be if it won't consider real world results and can't tolerate any dissent? 
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358394/without-honors-editors

Cut My Entitlements, Please!

Liberals always assume people don’t want their own entitlements cut.  I’m here to say I want my entitlements cut.  I'll be 63 this November. It would be OK with me if my retirement age was raised immediately to 67 from 66 for Social Security and 65 for Medicare. It would be fine if the retirement age was indexed for life expectancy. In addition, if benefits were adjusted for changes in Social Security tax receipts instead of inflation, that would be OK too. Further, as a Viet Nam era vet, it would be OK if my VA medical benefits were cut. Just so you know, I refuse to join AARP because I think their politics, their position that senior's entitlements can't be cut, will lead to federal government bankruptcy. Federal government bankruptcy will lead to chaos and death that will make folks wish they hadn't believed reactionary liberal promises such as "if you like your insurance, you can keep it." The Fall of Rome was at least partially due to the financial exhaustion caused by too much bread and circuses, now known as "entitlements." Rome's demise lead to several hundred years of Dark Age destruction and death in Western Europe. Life was brutish and very short. Why would we want to repeat the experience?

Muni Bankruptcy: Who's Next?

When liberals try to say that only Detroit is a mess, I have to laugh.  I have lived in and around Chicago for most of my life. Both the city, Cook County and the State of Illinois are on the one party road to ruin. The pension liabilities of these entities dwarf their ability to pay. The Democrat "Reform" Governor can't get the Democrat legislature to agree to even micro steps toward fixing the pension problems because the public employee unions own the legislature and refuse to see the state pension liabilities reduced in any way. Raising taxes has been the only politically correct answer so far. The corruption is legendary, and jokes about it are common. For example, Illinois governors get 3 terms: 2 in office and one in jail. The last Democrat Governor is in jail, as is the previous Republican Governor. The difference is that when the last Republican Governor went to jail, the Illinois Republican party was almost completely destroyed in the following election. When Democrat Rod Blagojevich followed Republican George Ryan into prison, the next election brought minimal to no electoral or policy changes. Some of the Democrat office holders were replaced by other Democrats. A Cook County sales tax increase was repealed. That's it. The State of Illinois no longer pays its bills on time. Getting further and further behind is the only way the state can borrow more money because its credit rating is lower than California's. I think that the public employee unions are counting on native son "The One" to save them with a big bailout. Since the states created the federal government, federal bankruptcy laws do not cover states, just municipalities. When Illinois defaults, nobody really knows what is going to happen. Maybe they'll just keep raising taxes until everybody moves to Indiana or Wisconsin.

The Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) received the nickname "Hell Upon Detroit" for reasons that are now evident. For some reason, reactionary liberalism doesn't do very well in practice no matter how good it looks in theory.

Articles on Detroit:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353862/detroit-goes-down-kevin-d-williamson

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/354461/steins-law-charles-krauthammer

Chutzpah from a Terrorist's Family

A recent article Nasser al-Awlaki shows a lot of chutzpah, asking why a drone killed his 16 year old grandson.  Drone strikes are much more targeted than flying airliners into buildings, or bombing subways and busses full of civilians.  Even so, sometimes innocent people are going to get hurt.  That said, the author says nothing about who else was in the restaurant with his grandson.  Why should we assume the grandson and all the other patrons of the restaurant were innocent?  The restaurant was in the middle of an area in South Yemen under the control of Al Qaeda.  It was not a sidewalk cafe in Manhattan.  By the way, if it was a sidewalk cafe in Manhattan, Al Qaeda would have considered it a good target for a bombing.

 The senior al-Alwlaki also glosses over the fact that his son, Anwar al-Awlaki, was the main English speaking recruiter for Al Qaeda on the internet.  One of al-Awlaki's recruits, Major Nidal Hasan, shot and killed 13 unarmed people in the Fort Hood shooting.  Hasan wounded over 30 more in this one incident.  Another al-Awlaki recruit was the underwear bomber.  Anwar al Awlaki was justifiably targeted in a drone strike.  As a result, he is no longer around to find more suicidal jihadis to commit acts of terror. 

Nasser al-Awlaki doesn't seem to see the most likely reason for the death of the grandson.  Is it possible that Anwar al-Awlaki may have influenced his son to take up jihad like his daddy?  The fact is that Islamist terrorists have declared war on the United States, the entity they refer to as the "Great Satan."  They kill without regard to the combatant status of their victims, even unarmed women and children.  They are also known to use civilians as human shields in an effort to deter drone strikes.  Since this is a war, at least according to Anwar al-Awlaki, the author's son, it is ludicrous for the author to expect that all the protections of the civilian criminal courts will be followed before the US counterattacks.  After Pearl Harbor, nobody thought we needed a civilian court's permission to counterattack the Japanese.  I fail to see why unlawful combatants who are at least technically war criminals because they wear no uniforms, hide in the civilian population and kill indiscriminately, deserve any civilian court protections.  In order to understand this, the author should consider how Al Qaeda would have treated his grandson if he was Jewish or Christian or Hindu.  His grandson might have been beheaded after begging for his life, like Daniel Pearl.  The author, and all Muslims involved with Al Qaeda, should understand that when Al Qaeda attacks us, we are going to fight back until we put them out of business permanently.

I can't sympathize with the senior al-Awlaki at all. In order to understand why, the author should consider how Al Qaeda would have treated his grandson if he was Jewish or Christian or Hindu. His grandson might have been beheaded after begging for his life, like Daniel Pearl.   Al Qaeda has no mercy at all for anyone, including Muslims who differ in their beliefs from Al Qaeda.   People who associate with Al Qaeda should not expect more than ordinary care from us when it comes to retaliatory drone strikes.   They're lucky we are not quite as uncivilized or uncaring as Al Qaeda.  If we were, we would be carpet bombing Al Qaeda areas in Yemen, not sending in very targeted drone strikes.

According to liberals, drone strikes merely antagonize Islamists and make more terrorists.  For liberals, the solution to Al Qaeda terrorism is to permit indiscriminate slaughter of innocents to avoid antagonizing the terrorists further.   Perhaps we should have tolerated Hitler's atrocities in order to avoid offending the Nazis?   Sounds like a great plan.   Liberals should please visit South Yemen as soon as possible to explain it to Al Qaeda.   They would love to hear from you in person.

Original Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Obama Administration Alzheimer's

So many scandals, so little time.  I think we should blame Bush or global warming for all of this mess.  Take your pick.  The Obama Administration seems to have CRS.  They can't remember stuff.  Holder and Obama didn't know that the Justice Department had taken the AP phone records, but they knew that this was a very serious leak that put Americans at risk.  Obama has never said what he was doing during the Benghazi attack.  He only remembers that he had to fly to Las Vegas for a fund raiser the next day.  Panetta said he had no further contact with Obama after receiving his initial instructions on Benghazi.  Nobody seems to have been talking to Hillary Clinton during the attack.  The IRS targeted at least 500 conservative organizations and individuals for special harassment, but nobody outside the IRS Cincinnati office can remember hearing about it before the 2012 election.  And the only thing the Pravda Press (MSM) seems to care about is that the AP telephone records were taken without warning.  Welcome to the real world of too big to control government. 

IRS Bad Customer Service

We have our choice of buzz words here.  If we want to follow the Founders, we can choose "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."  If we want to talk to liberals in their own language we can use Disparate Impact or Voter Suppression.  Liberals want to call it just bad customer service.  If this had been done by Nixon or Bush to liberal groups, liberals would call it fascist, racist, sexist and a threat to our democracy.  It's interesting how fast the Pravda Press (MSM) jumped to the conclusion that Sarah Palin ads caused the Gabby Giffords shooting, but they have no idea why the IRS would target conservative groups.  To me, it brings back English history.  "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"  When King Henry II of England said that in 1170, some of the king's men murdered Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.  This benefited the king, who was in a political struggle for control of England with Becket.   Luckily, Obama's incitement didn't get that violent.  However, "The One" did benefit by causing the Tea Party to be so much less of a factor in 2012 than in 2010 that liberal pundits were celebrating the change.  

Benghazi: People Died, Obama Lied

People died.  Obama lied.  Liberals want to talk about anything but the basic facts.  However, neither George Bush nor global warming was involved.  Anything liberals bring up about Benghazi is a deliberate red herring.  For example, liberals say there is no scandal.  It’s just partisan politics.  This is a classic case of projection, assuming conservative will carry water for their cause no matter what the truth is.  Liberals usually carry water for their cause without regard to the facts, so they assume conservatives are doing the same.  So if questioning Benghazi is partisan hackery, why won't the president reveal that he went to bed while the attack was in progress.  He needed to be well rested for his fundraiser in Las Vegas on September 12.  Panetta testified that the president and Secretary of State not involved in the decisions he made during the attack.  Journalists were like baying hounds when two US Navy aircraft shot down two Libyan aircraft over the Gulf of Sidra in 1981.  They demanded to know why President Reagan was not awakened to be told of the incident.  He famously replied that if the Libyan planes had shot down our aircraft, his staff would have gotten him up.  They didn't need him if our aircraft shot down theirs.  Point is, no Pravda Press MSM journalist has even bothered to ask what Obama was doing during the attack.    There is a similar lack of interest in the activities of president in waiting Hillary Clinton. 

In her congressional testimony, Hillary Clinton said, "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk last night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."  Even in this testimony, Clinton is trying to maintain the spontaneous protest narrative.  So how can we tell what happened while all of this Obama administration obfuscation is flying around?  Why haven't the survivors who were on the ground in Benghazi testified?  Why hasn't Patrick F. Kennedy, the man responsible for the security cuts in Libya, testified about why he approved the cuts?  The Democrats are trying to blame Republican budget cuts for the security cuts in Libya, which sounds to me a lot like furloughing air traffic controllers due to sequestration.  Why hasn't General Carter Ham, Commander of GOC Africa Command (Africom) on 9/11/12, been allowed to testify?  

A comment on one of the Benghazi articles (link below), speculated that maybe there was some reason the Administration wanted Ambassador Stevens dead.  It wouldn't be the first time someone was put at the front of battle and conveniently killed.  This comment really threw me back to Sunday school and Uriah the Hittite.  King David put him in a position to get killed in a battle, then withdrew support.  The motive was probably different for Obama.  David was sleeping with Uriah's wife.  But this post really started me thinking about why Stevens was hung out to dry.  One other thing I noticed, since I live in Chicago.  Both of Obama's rivals for the Senate in 2004 were forced out of the race or defeated by leaks about their divorces.  General Petraeus got treatment similar to Jack Ryan and Blair Hull, at a time convenient to Obama.  I have always thought that Petraeus’ forced resignation fit the pattern of rivals to Obama being eliminated by a scandal in their marriage.

My father, a lawyer, used to say that if you didn't have the law or the facts on your side, then pound the table. Liberals are pounding the table with talk of “near-pathological" Republicans who are trying to "invalidate the Obama presidency." What do you think this means?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347608/benghazi-do-i-say-or-i-do

Difference Between Reagan Success, Obama Failure

Fact is we were in worse shape in 1981 when Reagan took over than we were in 2009 for Obama.  Reagan lowered tax rates and reduced regulation.  Reagan also encouraged the Federal Reserve to tighten the money supply.  Obama increased spending by 800 billion dollars in "stimulus."  Obama increased tax rates on "the rich."  Obama increased regulation by hundreds of thousands of pages.  The Obama era Federal Reserve has been through God knows how many quantitative easings.  In short Obama did the exact opposite of Reagan in every way possible.  Reagan boosted the economy from disaster and took unemployment from 7.6 percent to 5.5 percent.  Obama kept the economy in the doldrums and took unemployment from 7.8 to 7.5 percent, with a detour in the middle to 10 percent.  As far as the banks "ripping off kids," I thought Obama nationalized the student loan program, and that liberal professors failed to teach anything valuable for graduates in the marketplace.  The housing bubble was caused by government requirements to make loans by race instead of by credit ratings.  So instead of disparate impact due to making solid loans, we had disparate impact in defaults and bankruptcies by loaning money to people who couldn't pay it back.   In general, the liberal solution to any problem is more government, especially if the government caused the problem in the first place.  In effect, more cow bell.

WMDs in Iraq: Liberal Ignorance

Liberals are fond of saying there were no WMDs in Iraq.  They think this is the perfect argument for not doing anything militarily based on intelligence. This premise is ludicrous.  It ignores the basic facts of Iraq’s WMD history.  There WERE weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Saddam used all of his WMDs killing his own people before we got there.  In a way, we just lost count.  Saddam killed 3,200 to 5,000 Kurdish civilians in one poison gas attack alone, on Halabja, Iraq, on March 16, 1988.  He injured 7,000 to 10,000 more.  Intelligence analysts knew this history, even if liberals today forget or ignore it.  Bush knew it too when he made the decision to invade.  Congress did too when both houses voted to authorize the attack.  The One had no congressional vote on his Libyan attacks. Bush had bipartisan authorization for Iraq.  Liberals' ignorance never fails to impress this redneck.

Illegal Because Legal Immigration Too Hard

As the Gang of Eight's massive immigration bill is in the spotlight, I have a sense of deja vu.  It's just like Obamacare all over again.  Again, we have to pass it to see what's in it? 867 pages? Please stop playing the liberal game of "comprehensive" solutions with hundreds or thousands of pages, developed by small groups and passed in the dead of night. I think a lot of the illegal immigration problem is that legal immigration is an extremely difficult obstacle course. We need 2 simple bills. 

First, provide expanded H1B visas for professionals with jobs who want to work here and pay taxes. Right now, the H1B program sells out in a few days for an entire year's allotment of visas. It's run as a lottery. Raise the price to companies and increase the numbers from 65,000 to 300,000 to 400,000. Make it easier for H1B holders to visit home and to get green cards. Eliminate any national origin limits. In my job I work with a lot of programmers who would like to stay here and work, if they could get a visa for longer than 6 months at a time. We need a lot of younger folks like these guys who will pay for my social security. 

Second, we need a new guest worker program, so low skill workers and their families can come here and stay as long as they are not on welfare, food stamps, medicaid or any other government assistance. We had a guest worker program, the Bracero Program, from 1942 to 1964. During this time illegal immigration was minimal. Workers came for the harvest and went home. In 1964 the AFL-CIO had it killed because guest workers are hard to organize. We could expand the program from the previous program to include agricultural factory work like meat processing and service jobs like janitorial work. For both of these programs there should be provisions to allow illegal residents as well as those outside the US to apply. The House could pass both bills, then let the Democrats explain why they won't vote for either. It would be good, rational legislation that would solve GOP political problems without giving away the store.

Article on Immigration:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347282/what-immigration-polls-show

Bracero Program Information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program

Prevent Mega Bank Bailouts

I had a really strong reaction to an article about mega banks that are too big to fail.  The only way to make sure there are no more mega bank bailouts is to make sure that mega banks are sufficiently capitalized that they can absorb massive losses and that their management has mega incentives to be careful.  The 12 mega banks ought to have 8 to 10 percent of assets in equity capital or convertible bonds that can be turned into equity when needed to absorb losses.   If stock and convertible bond holders are on the hook for a really big chunk of losses, they will force management to be much more careful.  Also, mega bank management compensation above that of the president of the United States and all of the outside directors' compensation should be reclaimable back 3-5 years in the event that a bailout is needed for any mega bank that's too big to fail.  Requirements like this will reduce the number of mega banks, or at least make sure their managements and stock and convertible bond holders have a LOT of skin in the game.  Bottom line is make moral hazard a lot more painful for all involved.

Original Article on the Mega Banks:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/04/30/too-many-too-big-to-fail-banks/

Unexamined Academic Assumptions

Thomas Sowell had a great article this week on unexamined academic assumptions.  It really spoke to me.  The reason I have a BS in Math and MS in Statistics is because I wouldn't buy into the liberal mindset in Economics class.  I avoided soft subjects, like History, because I would not use Hegel's Dialectic to analyze historical events.  Also, when I was in college during the Viet Nam War, professors taught war was by definition futile.  I thought the professors were nuts to think that "war never solved anything."  It sure solved Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, not to mention Rome's Carthage problems.  I read history for fun now, but knowing too much makes me uncomfortable listening to people who believe the government is more efficient than private enterprise in running things like health care.  If I object that historically governments are usually very bad at running almost everything, the resulting argument provides a lot more heat than light.  Leftism in higher education is at least partially the result of draft deferments granted to the baby boomers who stayed in college to avoid Viet Nam.  I find the liberals who look down on my education generally have never had any of their assumptions questioned.  They think everybody knows liberals are the good guys, and folks like me are ignorant rednecks.  This attitude does not make for informed dialogue.  So I think Dr. Sowell's article matches my general experience with average "liberally" educated citizens. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347003/academias-unexamined-assumptions

Liberals Want Return to Middle Ages

Liberalism wants to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, the Middle Ages.  Of course, as the wisest people around, liberals get to be the lords of the manor and the rest of us get to be serfs.  We need to serve the liberal leviathan state with ever increasing taxes.  Regulation serves as the forced labor serfs owe their betters, forcing uncompensated expense on serfs to benefit the liberal state.  And the liberal aristocracy has to look out for their poor serfs, who wouldn't know how to take care of themselves without guidance from their lords and masters.  The liberals and their allies in the guilds, aka unions, will decide what prices are fair.  The serfs can use pre-industrial energy technology in order to keep the environment clean for their liberal overlords.   

Taking the analogy further, environmental regulation is a modern version of the medieval forest laws of England. Serfs were not allowed to hunt game or take wood in the forest or clear the land to cultivate it or graze domestic animals in it. The forest was reserved strictly for the king and the nobles he allowed to use it. It was considered part of the Norman Yoke imposed on the people after 1066. Penalties for forest law violations were severe. For example, poachers either had their hands cut off or were blinded. Today, liberals just confiscate your land or imprison you for environmental violations.

Read the book.  It's called the "Road to Serfdom," by F. A. Hayek.

Recent Article on this topic:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360583/medieval-liberals-victor-davis-hanson

Information on Royal Forrest Laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_forest

Liberals Buy Votes, Not Defense

Liberals almost always under fund all aspects of national defense.  They also do everything possible to argue that defense spending is wasted.  The reason for this is that liberals always need more money to fund their "investment" in domestic spending.  They don't want defense spending to crowd out domestic spending.  The efficacy of the domestic spending is not an issue for them.   Liberals need ever larger domestic spending simply because that's how they buy their votes.  

US Air Traffic Control:: Total Managerial Incompetence

I want to privatize US air traffic control.  That would be truly less government.  The Canadians have privatized air traffic control.  You know how liberals love to talk about how Canada does things.  The air traffic control fiasco is just another example of total managerial incompetence in government.  This incompetence is a direct result of the incentives that face government employees who make managerial decisions.  The bigger the government, the more secure your job is.  When faced with cuts, the government typically cuts the most visible services in order to get their budget restored.  This strategy is so common it has its own Wikipedia entry.  However, the FAA has a long history of such managerial incompetence.  In a recent example, the FAA did not managed to modernize US air traffic control, while wasting billions of dollars trying.  Government employees want to maximize their budget, so cost overruns are good for them. This administration's political reaction to budget cuts should make everyone think twice about allowing big government to run anything economically important, especially air traffic control.  

Description of Canadian Air Traffic Control

http://www.navcanada.ca/NavCanada.asp?Language=en&Content=ContentDefinitionFiles%5CNewsroom%5CBackgrounders%5Cairtrafficservices.xml

Article on FAA History of Waste

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346688/extravagance-faa

Cuts Politically Motivated

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/the-faa-fiasco-90603.html

Wikipedia Entry for Washington Monument Syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome

Arms Race: Missile Defenses v Rogue State Nukes

The Iranians are threatening Israel with annihilation, not the other way around.  Iranian demonstrators have been encouraged by their government for years to chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”  ever since 1979.  The ayatollahs say they will wipe Israel off the map.   My guess, based on the Israeli view of the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust, is that Israel will use their nukes if they have to, especially when the Iranians explicitly threaten them.  The fact is that Israel has nuclear capable ballistic missiles that can reach Iran.  My guess, based on their view of the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust, is that Israel will use their nukes if they have to.   Israel also has a formidable air force.  However, it's likely that only the US, and not Israel, has the capability to significantly damage Iran's nuclear program with conventional weapons.  If the US does not take care of the Iran threat, then we may force the Israelis to use their missiles with nuclear warheads to preclude an Iranian nuclear breakout.  The only thing that could stop Israel from attacking is a significant missile defense capability.  So as it stands now, it’s a race between Israeli missile defense and Iranian nuclear weapon development.  The president says that all options are on the table.  However, he seems to be signaling, with all of his diplomacy, that the US will sit this one out militarily.  Does that seem like a smart thing to do?  

The US needs robust missile defenses as well.  Missile defenses make a small number of ICBM's less valuable.  They would tend to discourage North Korea from trying to build enough ICBM's to be effective as a credible threat to the US, because the cost would be prohibitive for them.  The argument that US missile defenses might offend the Russians and Chinese is appeasement pure and simple.  The liberal line on these issues is always in favor of spending less on defending ourselves, so we can spend more on domestic "investment," like Solyndra and Fisker.  It's how liberals buy their votes, but  it is not a rational approach to defending ourselves.

Article on need for missile defenses

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346579/our-much-needed-missile-defense

Description of Israeli Ballistic Missile Capability

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ICBMs

Immigration: 840 Pages of Unreviewable Discretion.

Marco Rubio was quoted in National Review Online saying the Senate immigration bill is only 840 pages. There is no way I want the government to be able to hide its arbitrary actions behind a screen of 840 pages of poorly and hastily drafted law, exceptions and regulatory guidelines.  The bill gives the Executive branch the ability to waive many of the key provisions of the law, according to another National Review article.  Worse, the bill says that these waivers are “unreviewable discretion.”  Remember our current president already thinks he can pick which laws he enforces and which laws he can ignore.  The House should reject this mess and pass a simple bill.  It should greatly expand H1B Visas and create a guest worker program.  People should be able to qualify for either, whether they are in the US or outside.   If they qualify, then their immediate family should get residency permits.  Shirt tail kin should not be allowed to piggy back on this status.  Extended stays on public assistance should be prohibited.  The bill should be 50 pages tops.  The Democrats should have to explain to Hispanics and Asians why the Senate won't vote on it because unions don't like it.  Conservatives would be able to show that we are pro immigration as long as it's legal.  The "Comprehensive Solution" on any issue is always a mirage.  Liberals promise such a solution for two reasons.  If they get it passed, government gets bigger and more complex.  If they fail to get it passed, Liberals can blame conservative obstruction for the failure to achieve the mirage. 

Rubio quote:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346362/marco-rubio%E2%80%99s-radio-row

Ability to Waive provisions:  

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346345/immigration-power-grab

Birthers Have it Backwards

Liberals feel strongly that questioning where the President was born is racist.  They argue that nobody asked about McCain’s birth because he’s white.  For liberals questioning McCain’s birth see the New York Times headline, Feb 28, 2008: "McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out."  As far as the President's birth, I think he was born in Hawaii.  However, I think the reason he won't release his college transcripts is because he probably claimed to be Kenyan in order to have an easier time getting admitted.  Further, in the bio he supplied to his publisher in 1991, he claimed to have been born in Kenya.  (See the link below.)  So like Elizabeth Warren, with her claim to American Indian minority status, I think Obama claimed to be Kenyan when he was not in order to game the system.  

NYT on McCain’s birthplace

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html?_r=0

Obama book jacket

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/24/reminder-before-obama-ran-for-president-he-falsely-claimed-to-have-been-born-in-kenya/
Obama's Columbia ID Card
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202467252549549&set=a.1523751900695.2070445.1441543769&type=1&theater

Voter ID and Gun ID

Why ask for a voter's ID?  Is asking for ID racist?  I have lived in Chicago for years.  The Democrats' motto here is "Vote early. Vote often."  The legend goes that Harold Washington was elected mayor by a lot of voters from Indiana. The jokes are that people want to be buried in Chicago so they can stay active in politics after death.  The only reason liberals have for fighting ID laws is because they benefit from fraud.   Anti voter ID suits have a hard time finding plaintiffs that don't have an ID.  As far as ID is concerned, I think you need ID for most of the things you do in life, like cashing a check.  Liberals want ID and background checks for gun buyers.  Is that racist? 

Thoughts of John Locke on Holocaust Day

Recent articles on Holocaust Day have drawn comments that religion is a big contributor to violence and even genocide.  I think the problem is not religion itself, but rather the claim that what any individual believes to be the word of God should be held superior to other views by secular authority and forced on those who disagree.  I got this opinion while reading books by John Locke, starting in philosophy class in college.  The professor didn't think he was much of a philosopher, but I thought he was great.  Locke argued that government derives its power and legitimacy from the consent of the governed.  His views were extremely influential in the formulation of the government the US has today.  Please take a look at the wikipedia entry for John Locke, and in particular his views on religious toleration.   He was a very religious man who argued that human judges could not dependably evaluate competing versions of the word of God.  According to Locke, “No private person has any right to encroach in any way on another person’s civil goods because he declares his allegiance to another church or religion. Anything that a man has as a matter of human rights or civil rights is to remain inviolably his.”  Locke’s argument for toleration lead to the First Amendment provisions for freedom of religion.

Original article on Holocaust Day:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345043/lessons-holocaust-day-dennis-prager?pg=3

Wikipedia entry for John Locke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke

Source of Locke Quotation

http://www.egs.edu/library/john-locke/quotes/

Control Guns or the Mentally Ill?

I was taught in high school debate class years ago that to win the debate you had to prove that the solution proposed actually would fix the problem.  Most liberals seem to have skipped that lesson.  At least the comments to Kathleen Parker’s article on gun control seemed to skip that step.  The common element in most of the recent mass shootings was mental illness.  The Columbine shooters were mentally ill according to the FBI.  The Aurora movie theater shooter's psychiatrist reported warned the police that he was homicidal.  The Virginia Tech shooter had a history of mental illness.  Tucson police knew the Gabby Giffords shooter Jared Loughner was delusional.  Newtown shooter Adam Lanza feared his mother was going to commit him.  At least a partial solution to the problem would be to make involuntary commitment easier.  However, easier involuntary commitment would really upset the ACLU, so we must avoid talking about that.  Conservatives have noticed that the gun control solutions liberals propose do not address the problem.  This makes them suspect that the real purpose of these laws is different from what liberals say it is.  I have noticed that whatever the problem under discussion, the liberal solution is more government power.  Liberals have the hammer of big government imposed solutions, so the whole world gets treated like a nail. 

Columbine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2004/04/the_depressive_and_the_psychopath.html

Aurora:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/james-holmes-mental-health-colorado_n_1820450.html
Virginia Tech:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/seung-hui-chos-mental-health-records-released/story?id=8278195#.UWWK3TfcYYQ

Gabby Giffords:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57576492/jared-lee-loughner-grew-delusional-in-months-before-tucson-rampage-police-reports-show/

Newtown:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/adam-lanza-motive_n_2329508.html

Original Article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-an-impotent-gun-control-solution/2013/04/09/cb6a6770-a153-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html?hpid=z3