Oh No, You Didn't!

Catching up with some dated news, the day after the State of the Union speech, the chief actuary of Medicare testified before Congress that Obamacare won't save money, and won't allow people to keep their coverage. Whoops!

DOWN GOES FRAZIER! DOWN GOES FRAZIER!

Two federal judges have already upheld the monstrosity that is Obamacare and one judge has ruled it unconstitutional to impose the individual mandate, but upheld the remainder of the law.

Florida federal district court Judge Roger Vinson brought the whole thing down, ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and so intrinsic to the law that it could not be severed out. Judge Vinson hoisted President Obama on his own petard, noting that during his 2008 campaign, then candidate Obama said "if a mandate was a solution, we can try to solve homelessness by mandating that everyone buy a house." I'm told HUD is working on that provision now.

Judge Vinson noted that, in the administration's legal reasoning, the government could force everyone to eat broccoli. Unfortunately, I suspect it may be taken less as chiding and more as a good idea by this group of progressive/liberals.

The Nanny state may have just taken a step back, now let's see if the tide can shift in the other direction.

What Does the Chaos in Egypt Mean?

In case you've been living in a cave on Mars with your fingers in your ears and your hands over your eyes, the Middle East is showing indications of a possible mass revolt against the established leaders. The Tunisian government fell and there are indications that it will move towards a more democratic form of government. Lebanon's government collapsed and has been taken over by the militant terrorist group Hezbollah, which is backed by the anti-American regimes of Syria and Iran. There are indications of unrest in other pockets of the Middle East and the Egyptian government, a pro-American de facto dictatorship, looks as if it is about to fall after days of violence and protests. The problem with revolt in the Middle East is twofold. First, it drives speculation in oil and drives up the price of gas because our President won't allow anyone to drill anywhere where there is oil in the United States, though, admittedly, he's not the first. Second, and probably more important in the long term, where there is a vacuum in power, it is often the organized group that takes the place of the old government. A bunch of kids rioting in the streets don't form the next government (unless it's Barack Obama and friends). There is already speculation that the Muslim brotherhood, a pro-Al Qaeda group, has been behind the Egyptian rioting and plans to step in and take power. The Jordanian branch has already stated that all pro-American regimes in the Middle East will fall. There have been protests in Jordan, Albania and Yemen already. We face the possibility of either a Middle East which moves towards democracy or, unfortunately, the more likely possibility that the region becomes even more militant and anti-American. The times, they are a changin'.

State of Disunion

I've been watching the unrest in Egypt of late and haven't gotten around to posting my thoughts on President Obama's State of the Union address, until now, so apologies for the tardiness. I'm going to kind of bullet point some thoughts.

* President Obama wants to cut $400 billion over ten years from the budget. For those of you who are math challenged, like he apparently is, that's $40 billion per year (assuming all projections hold true). That's the equivalent of promising to make sure you get the change from you're $0.99 meal. The projected deficit for 2011? $1.27 trillion. The $40 billion proposed cut doesn't make it to the decimal points used to express the deficit.

* President Obama wants to freeze spending levels for five years at their current level. Problem is, he's freezing a massive increase which took place over the last two years (see this Wall Street Journal article for details of increased spending).

* At some point during the speech, reality became stretched thinner than at the event horizon of a black hole and President Obama, while talking about cutting the budget deficit, started talking about "investing" in education and green energy technology so that the government can foster innovation. If you haven't noticed, "investment" means spending. Apparently, the reputed move to the center is no more than a move to talk to the center, while feinting back left. His crossover dribble from all that basketball must be awesome if it's anything close to his ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth.

* But my favorite was that apparently, President Obama believes that "the responsibility to govern is now yours, as well", referring to Republicans. I guess he finally acknowledged that he didn't think they were supposed to participate before the 2010 elections swept the Democrat majority from the House.

The President's State of the Union speech merely highlighted his disunion from reality, truth and the will of the American people.

The Difference Between...

TIME Magazine, apparently supporting the Mexican drug war by taking tons of drugs, has led off its next edition with a cover depicting former President Ronald Reagan with his arm around President Barack Obama, with President Obama publishing an editorial supposedly praising President Reagan in USA Today. My guess is President Reagan is spinning so fast in his grave he would make an adequate lathe as a result of this.

I tend to prefer this tongue-in-cheek Washington Times editorial comparing the two. You can break it down pretty simply though. President Reagan once told the joke: what are the nine scariest words in the English language? I'm from the government and I'm here to help. President Obama is the punchline.

Coming Tomorrow!

I've been marinating in the State of the Union, various analyses of it and the responses by both the Republicans and the Tea Party Caucus. Tomorrow it's time to give my own take on what went on.

I'm Not Saying it Will Signal the Apocalypse, but It Could Be a Sign

Supporters of left-wing, bomb throwing, fact-ignoring, purported commentator Keith Olbermann, formerly of MSNBC, apparently are urging him to run for the Senate seat which will be vacated by Joe Lieberman (I. Conn.). If for some reason he runs and is elected, I'm changing my views on universal health care and encouraging the distribution of free cyanide capsules.

I Don't Beleive for a Second the President is Moving to the Center

President Obama has apparently talked a good enough game to convince many pundits and conservatives believe he is making a Clintonesque move to the center. I disagree. Today a report surfaced that a move is being made once again to give the President a kill switch to shut down private computer systems in the case of a cyber attack without the possibility of court review. While the President has recently spoken regarding the reduction of onerous and ineffective regulations, asking regulatory agencies to review and eliminate them. Funny that the huge regulatory nightmare that is Obamacare (see this chart) hasn't been mentioned as part of this drive to reduce burdensome regulations. He still is seeking to use federal regulatory agencies to bypass the Congress and enact his policies. There's no move to the center, just the President writing an editorial praising Ronald Reagan, who he likely despised (and what the hell does he mean Reagan saw we are all patriots?).

Today's Recommended Reading II

The Epoch Times is a newspaper published by anti-communist Chinese government members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement headquartered in New York. This article details that, as President Obama went on his first date with Chinese President Hu Jintao, they danced in the candlelight (please note, most of this sentence is sarcasm, the indefinite articles are dead serious) and as President Obama planted his lips firmly on the Chinese President's ass, a beautiful piano tune played. The tune, played by Chinese pianist Lang Lang (whose name indicates there is such a thing as a Chinese hillbilly), in the White House, was an anti-American propaganda tune from the days of the Korean War (which is technically still going). The Chinese are delighted and laughing at our President, whose foreign policy of preemptive surrender and voluntary humiliation of the United States continues to mark him as the worst President since at least the Woodrow Wilson administration, if not ever.

Today's Recommended Reading

Normally I link to a particularly good or informative article here but today, I'm recommending a book. The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness, by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D. I have admittedly not read the book myself yet, but the following quote makes it a must read for me:

"So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as a disorder of the psyche."

I couldn't have said it better myself. How else to explain the failure of a person to ignore facts and logic in favor of emotion to end up harming the very people they claim to be protecting? How else can you explain anything that has ever come out of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D. CA) mouth?

Apparently There is Another Constitution Out There That I Haven't Read

Yesterday was the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, one of the most ignorant decisions ever issued by the United States Supreme Court. Why we celebrate the anniversary of a decision that allows the prophylactic ending of a life because the person carrying it was irresponsible (yes, I'm aware of health, rape and incest issues, but it is most often used as a form of birth control, only 1.5% of abortions are atributable to rape and incest according to that bastion of conservatism TIME magazine) is not beyond me, but it is disturbing at best. President Obama released a statement supporting the "constitutional right" to terminate an "unintended pregnancy" (whoops, excuse me ma'am, but I seem to have fallen on you and my penis slipped in and ejaculated, I feel so clumsy) which basically affirms that he's cool with using abortion as birth control despite the fact that during his campaign he refused to comment on the issue, saying it was "above my pay grade." I note that Jane Roe, plaintiff, born Norma McCovey, is now an anti-abortion activist.

In a feat of irony only sustainable by a liar, President Obama also noted that Roe v. Wade affirmed a "fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on family matters." Apparently, then, he's in favor of repealing the health care bill.

So if you didn't kill a child yesterday in celebration of Roe v. Wade, you'll have to wait until next year, at least if it made it out of someone's womb already (it's not that hard to connect President Obama to Peter Singer, who feels killing a newborn isn't like killing a real person). Funny, I don't remember people celebrating the anniversary of women getting the right to vote or the granting of citizenship to former slaves and their children. I've read the Constitution numerous times and, as an attorney, am pretty familiar with the law having succesfully argued at the Federal 5th Circuit (shameless plug), and I don't remember ever seeing a right to an abortion. At best, that decision should have been left to the states (which it had been) and the Supreme Court should have vacated lower decisions.

Luckily, we have such upstanding individuals as President Obama so that women can be left sterile and nearly dead in squallid conditions (wait, wasn't that the argument for legalizing abortion, i.e. no more coathangers and alleys?), their babies "aborted" post-delivery and doing just fine until the facility took a pair of scissors to their spines and stored their feet in jars for kicks, according to prosecutors. So happy Roe v. Wade Day, everyone!

United We Stand, Divided We Recall

Pima County, Arizona voters are showing their distaste for the true political vitriol. An effort has begun to recall Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, the "law enforcement" officer who decided to create a defense for a multiple homicide suspect by calling him mentally ill and blaming the population of his state, the Tea Party, and right wing radio for the shootings. Good for them.

The Collapse of the Media Left?

Keith Olbermann's multiple mental problems once again reared their ugly head as he unexpectedly quit his MSNBC "Countdown" show last night. Amazingly, the story by the Associated Press, acknowledges the left leaning bent of the network and how Olbermann led them down that little primrose path. If we're all lucky, Captain Psycho will resurface as a sarcastic sports news commentator, which is what he was best at to begin with.

The Unholy Alliance

I've written before about what I believe to be an unethical ties between this administration and General Electric. Well, it seem President Obama has abandoned all pretense of the coy dating relationship and has slipped on the wedding band. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt has been appointed to an official position (he was already an economic advisor) with the administration as chairman of the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (Dear Irony, today...). Because what I'm looking for in someone to work on economic growth is a guy whose company received the second largest bailout from the administration that is appointing him to do so. Luckily, MSNBC, the media branch of GE that just merged with Comcast under the approval of the administration, is pretty fair and balanced...oh, wait.

Shocking News!!!

Experts have determined there are serious flaws in a climate change study. Seriously! They still do climate change studies.

Don't Go Away Mad, Just Go Away

This is an interesting article about an ongoing debate in Switzerland about suicide tourists, people who come to the country for assisted suicide, you know, like O.J. Simpson if Nicole had just been still. The part that caught my attention, or parts I suppose, are two fold: first, though actually later in the article, was that 73% of the Swiss people favor assisted suicide even if the person IS NOT TERMINALLY ILL...let that sink in, the second was the denigration of Christianity embodied in this rather barbaric statement:

"Those Swiss politicians who want to change the rules on assisted suicide behave like moral apostles," said Margaret Weibel, president of Zurich-based suicide organization Ex International. "They are backward-looking people, entangled in the Christian belief that humans don't have the right to make decisions on when to end their lives."

Let's 1) focus on the idea that assisted suicide is apparently perfectly acceptable in Switzerland (and, having had the cuisine there, I was tempted) in the case of a non-terminally ill patient; and 2) that it's a backward Christian idea that maybe people shouldn't be offing themselves at their most vulnerable moments.

Let's also throw out one more idea. If you're a suicide bomber, planning on taking a gun to school or a rally and shooting folks, or generally feel the need to hurt other people or animals, skip the assisted suicide process and pass immediately to go away. Take the gun, dynamite or other instrument of destruction, jam it directly up your ass, and pull the trigger or detonate the object. I'll be along shortly to thank you for short circuiting the process and with a prayer.

But to address the two prior issues, isn't the view more barbaric that if a person who is not terminally ill wishes to die that they should simply proceed than that this is an issue for psychology and not Dr. Kevorkian and the big red "easy" button? Isn't it far more modern to think, hmm, this may not be the act of a rational being? Silly Christianity and it's respect for life that it shares with modern medicine and psychology.

Finally, I can only hope that a pro-suicide activist organization would practice what they preach.

On a more serious note, do some research on this. Japanese teenagers are killing themselves at alarming rates. Suicide rates are up around the world. Attitudes about the value of life (and I apologize but I have no empirical data on this) strike me as being connected to the general development of societies and we are regressing.

This is How Terrorism Might Win

The good news is that the screening will go forward. The bad news is that the Canadian National Archives initially cancelled the screening of "Iranium", a film critical of the Iranian nuclear program, and went so far as to close the entire building after receiving numerous threats of violence. If we allow violence to silence criticism, we have sacrificed liberty out of fear and when that occurs, free societies will no longer stand.

If a Crackpot Calls You a Nazi in the Woods and No One is Around...

Representative Steve Cohen (D. TN) has apparently embraced the new "civility" in Washington, D.C., by apparently deciding to make his comments on the floor to no one while no reporters are present. Rep. Cohen took the opportunity late last night to compare Republicans to Nazis and to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propogandist, comparing the vote on the repeal of Obamacare to the Holocaust. I suppose he won't want to be sitting amongst the Republican's during the State of the Union speech. I encourage vigorous debate, not idiocy.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

It is always scariest for a liar when someone decides to fact check the lie. Virginia lawmakers are attempting to stop an investigation of a former University of Virginia climate change professor to determine whether or not he manipulated data to show an increase in temperatures that does not reflect reality. Considering the scrutiny that much of the academic community has come under recently regarding the alleged falsification of data to support climate change and the near absolute corruption of the process the UN underwent in producing the IPCC report on climate change, maybe an independent investigation is warranted outside of the academic community.

Dear Irony....

As I detailed yesterday, there are some on the left politicizing the Arizona shootings. In an example of extreme irony, it appears the people talking about how the Tea Party caused the shootings (falsely and with no evidence) convinced someone to threaten violence against a member of the Tea Party. NBC News was having a town hall meeting regarding the aftermath of the shootings when the man shouted "you're dead" at a spokesman for the Tea Party who was suggesting that discussions about gun control should wait until the emotions died down from the shooting. In fairness, the man was shot at the Giffords rally and I imagine he is dealing with a lot of issues. He is where he belongs, under psychological observation. But why did he think the Tea Party had something to do with the shootings when there is no evidence to suggest it did? Hmmm. He's in my prayers, and I hope yours as well. I will always encourage debate, but debate without evidence is propaganda.

Red Storm Rising

I've written before about my thoughts on Russia sliding back toward despotism and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's role in the regression. Two news items, one not really new, have my thoughts turned towards Russia again. The first is that a Russian government run oil firm is taking a major stake (5%) in British Petroleum. The second, and this is not new, is that Russia reserves the right to withdraw from the START nuclear arms treaty if it feels "threatened" by the West. Russia already convinced our preemptive surrender President to give up any effective missile defense shield in exchange for the START treaty, which actually only requires that the US downsize its own nuclear missile stockpile, as the terms of the START treaty apparently would actually allow an increase in the Russian stockpile. President Obama abandoned allies in the Czech Republic and Poland as his first act of preemptive surrender to Russia on the missile shield issue earlier in his administration.

President Obama's domestic disasters are only exceeded by his foreign policy idiocy.

Props to My Mother for Getting This to Me

Yet More "Damn the Evidence", I'll Slander My Father

Ron Reagan, the uber liberal son of President Ronald Reagan, doesn't care that the evidence doesn't back him up. He's decided to slander his father to sell some books. Junior claims his father had Alzheimer's as far back as 1984, despite the fact the the four White House physicians who examined the President all deny that any symptoms were evident during the course of his presidency. He also claims his father had a surgery that never occurred at a hospital he never went to. I knew Junior was an aethiest, but I had no idea aethism included not believing in truth, or for that matter, dignity.

Giffords Shooting Victory for the Browns! (Not Cleveland, they Still Can't Win)

The idiocy and cynicism of the left knows neither depths nor bounds. A reporter for National Public Radio (judging from the ratings, you're more likely to recognize NPR as a line item in the federal budget than having listened to it) expressed her relief that, upon hearing of the shootings in Arizona that claimed the lives of a federal judge and a nine year old girl, amongst others, and placed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D. AZ) in the hospital with a hole in her brain, it wasn't a hispanic who had committed the crime. She termed her relief as "brown relief" (please read the link, it's a good article). Call me a racist if you will, but I thought brown relief was something I do after a big meal. In fact, she said it was a "collective sigh of brown relief" (Montezuma's revenge, perhaps?). I won't presume to speak for the collective browns, which I presume means hispanics, but I'm guessing most were, like me, more worried about the victims.

The reporter also frequently referred to the shooter as a "gringo", a term for white people noted as "usually disparaging" by most references that I could find. Funny, NPR fired Juan Williams for far less. She was afraid that the right would have used an illegal immigrant shooting the Representative as an issue. Funny, I think that would have been a legitimate issue, unlike the spittle being spewed on the country from the idiot left right now.

It wasn't long before Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County decided that the shooting was the fault of the entire population of Arizona and, more specifically, the vitriol of Rush Limbaugh, though he admittedly had no evidence of to back up such a claim. Apparently Sheriff Dupnik is auditioning for a role as defense counsel by providing excuses for the crime.

In the meantime, New York Times reporter Pual Krugman (I'd detail his idiocy properly but I'm not sure there's enough storage space on the google servers for that kind of post) blamed the right and Tea Party activists for the shootings. Luckily, Jane Fonda, that bastion of sanity that so actively rooted for the Communist North Vietnamese to kill American troops that she earned the nickname Hanoi Jane (I went with the least critical link I could find in Wikipedia, I suggest you read up on it more yourself if interested), decided to drop her two cents in and blame the shootings on Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. These people are not unique in their opinions and are not out of the mainstream left, they are just examples of the irrationality of the blame game. But the plot runs a bit deeper than this. Amongst others named as instigating the shooting are Mark Levin (author of Libert and Tyranny, a great book) and Michael Savage (who I personally think takes things way too far, but is not responsible for what happened). Luckily, they were blamed by Chris Matthews at MSNBC, so the odds are slim that no more than twenty people heard the accusation.

Representative Jim Clyburn (D. S.C.) along with Representative Louise Slaughter (D. N.Y.) have called for the reinstatement of the "fairness doctrine" as a result of the Arizona shootings. If you aren't familiar, the "fairness doctrine" requires broadcasters to carry viewpoints to balance out the views of their radio programs by providing equal time to the opposition and requires the radio station to bear the cost. For example, Rush Limbaugh is on for three hours a day. Every radio station that carries the syndicated Limbaugh broadcast would be required to provide free air time to a liberal viewpoint for three hours to balance out the Limbaugh broadcast. Most radio stations, especially those in small markets, can't afford to provide three free hours of airtime, especially to a liberal, since almost no one listens to liberals on talk radio (see, e.g., Air America bankruptcy, Al Franken (shudder)).

There have been calls from both sides of the aisle to have all the members of Congress to sit intermixed rather than the traditionally separated parties at the next State of the Union. It sounds nice and all, but frankly, I prefer being able to tell what the parties agree and disagree upon during the speech by seeing when everyone stands and when only one side does. Not to mention, now that the Democrats have lost control of the House, it seems suspiciously like they are calling for everyone to get along since they can't shove things down everyone's throat anymore. The Republicans going along with the idea are just misguided though with good intentions (at least I think). I also believe legitimate debate is what the country needs, not symbolic bullshit that has nothing to do with anything.

It has gone so far that the governor of Rhode Island (a state with a population barely as large as Chris Matthews' audience) Lincoln Chafee (I., former R.) has banned public officials in his office from appearing on "for profit" talk radio programs. Apparently they can still appear on those non-inflammatory, non-profit radio programs like NPR. As long as they aren't a gringo, I guess.

All of this because of the obvious political motivation for the shooting and its source, right wing hate speech, right? Damned if the facts don't get in the way of that theory (not that the facts have ever stopped any left wing theory).

Jared Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic. Don't take my word for it, a Harvard-trained M.D. A psychiatrist who was once Chief Resident in Psychiatry at Massachucetts General Hospital. I give you, Charles Krauthammer's analysis of the shooter.

There is not one shred of evidence that Loughner was motivated by anything other than misfiring neurons and chemical imbalances. Loughner reportedly didn't like watching the news and never listened to talk radio. He produced a rambling video tape about his "genocide school" and took photos posing in a red g-string with his handgun. Among his favorite books were Hitler's Mein Kampf and Marx' Communist Manifesto according to his own MySpace page. I submit to you that these are not conservative texts.

So, despite all evidence to the contrary, we suddenly have a climate calling for civility in the political discourse because of the shootings, despite the fact that political discourse had nothing to do with the shootings. Maybe the Pima County Sheriff needed to blame conservatives because Loughner had a pretty extensive history with his own office. The fairness doctrine push has been around since before President Obama took office. That liberals would use this occasion to push it to the forefront is despicable. That the left would use this as an opportunity to try and silence criticism, even in the seemingly benign form of abandoning a seating chart, is disgusting.

I invite your debate, your disagreement, and even your vitriol if you disagree, and I'll be happy to return it in kind. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had some pretty rough exchanges, too.

Please Don't Feed the Animals

In yet another example that government regulation does more harm than good, Houston shut down a couple that had been feeding homeless people hot meals for over a year because they didn't have the proper permit. So, in order to preserve the safety of the homeless from the danger of poorly prepared food, the city has decided they should go back to dumpster diving for scraps. It's no wonder Sheila Jackson Lee keeps getting reelected.

Happy New Year!!!

Unlike Congress, I'm almost sure most people don't want to hear my gripes over the holidays. Well, they're over, so I guess tomorrow we start again. The theme for 2011? Sadly, I believe it's going to be the Republicans don't get it and the people never understood what they were asking for in the first place. Details to follow. I encourage anyone who reads this to comment, as otherwise, this is really just a diary. My love and best wishes to all in the New Year. God bless you all.