It's been a while, but the more things change, the worse they get.
Non-Voting Felon
It ain't my fault. I'm a non-voting felon, thank you.
Friday, October 18, 2024
Trump or Harris? Don't Blame Me, I'm a non-voting felon, thank you.
Friday, July 28, 2017
POS John McCain Does It Again
Saturday, October 15, 2016
For Those Who Have Forgotten
From a David Limbaugh April 4, 2000, review of the Peggy Noonan book, “The Case Against Hillary Clinton” --
What is Clintonism? It is not a political ideology, but “the ethos, style, and character of the Clinton administration.” It is about “maximum and uninterrupted power for the Clintons.” Note that it is not about only Bill or only Hillary. Noonan does a masterful job of demonstrating the symbiotic relationship between the two. They are mutually dependent and enabling. They are partners in power.
Clintonism sees America as “the platform for the Clintons’ ambitions, not the focus of them.” They are the kind of people who pursue greatness for the sake of attaining fame and acquiring the label of greatness, instead of quietly achieving greatness by doing great things.
For the Clintons, any ends justify the means of advancing their careers. As a result, deception, abuse of power, scandal, smearing opponents and ruining perceived political enemies is their joint legacy. In standing for Clintonism, the Clintons “have made the American political landscape a lower and lesser thing.”
A longtime friend of Hillary’s, a political ally who “had been inclined to like Hillary,” but ultimately “couldn’t” . . . depicted Hillary and Bill as joint narcissists. “They have done a particular kind of mind-meld.” The lady described the Clintons as being empty and miserable apart from their power — as people who derived their sense of self-worth from public adoration. That’s the key to understanding why they won’t just go away and leave us alone. They are hooked on adulation. “He cannot live a genuinely private life. Neither can she. So they must be in ours. ... Which makes their private plight our public problem.” . . .
Together [the Clintons] have used the office and power of the presidency to destroy innocence and idealism and institutionalize cynicism. Instead of using their position and circumstances to do wonderful things, they have degraded everything around us and have further debased our culture.
From the Washington Times, November 3, 2000 --
What is Clintonism? It is less a political philosophy than a power philosophy. Reduced to a bumper sticker, it reads, "The Ends Justify the Means." As a practical policy, it expresses itself in blatant lies and stonewalling, threats and character assassination, Internal Revenue Service audits of opponents and the menacing of inconvenient women. In its ill-concealed contempt for congressional subpoenas and court orders, it betrays a disturbing executive disregard for the legislative and judicial branches of government, whose powers, of course, are essential to our system of checks and balances. As a guiding national ethos, its corrosive impact on society hasn't yet been fully reckoned, but its success to date is what makes this election so crucial.
Is Clintonism America's future? Considering how comfortably well-off most Americans are, the question may fall on indifferent ears. Maybe the question should be: Can Clintonism hurt America? There are many ways to answer this affirmatively. We can look at the rise of cheating among school children who seem to have learned from Mr. Clinton and his loyal-to-a-fault vice president that crime does pay; or we can consider, painfully, the numbing sexual practices of teen-agers whom Mr. Clinton, through his grotesque indiscretions, has robbed of their innocence (not to mention the rest of us). But are there more palpable, perhaps more immediate threats to the nation that may also be put down to the amoral roots of Clintonism? . . .
What about the law? What about checks and balances on the executive branch? What about the Constitution? These, alas, are just some of the casualties of Clintonism.
Friday, October 14, 2016
The Evil of Clintonism Must be Stopped
My dear Democratic friends, please do your country, your world, and your party a favor by driving as many wooden stakes as possible into Hillary's heart. You must be the ones to do it. With Republicans being forced to try to do it, voting for a guy few people really want, once again you are feeling the obligation to support her, thus endangering your own souls.
Hillary's idea of "change" is to turn back the clock. That's not change, that's only ensuring more of the same. More of the same duplicity, more of the same disingenuousness, more of the same viciousness. Please Dems, get rid of her now! Effect real change. End Clintonism Now!
I made this exact same plea, in these exact same words which I cut and pasted from comments originally made January 2, 2008, remembering what it was like 1992-2000. I still remember. Let's not take our country backwards to those nightmarish days.
That election season, I even voted for Obama in the primary in order to rid this world of the Clinton plague. Why?
On January 29, 2008, I wrote -- Hate and bile and indignation and anger and resentment for perceived wrongs are the number one characteristics of the Clintons lo these many years. And they are corrosive -- they corrode not only the intended targets, but the users as well. More and more we read in places like The Nation and Daily Kos and other left organizations that Dems have always known the Clintons to be malicious liars and demonizers, but that they looked the other way when the targets were Republicans, and now they no longer want to associate themselves with such Clinton slime.
Even if Hillary gets the nomination, no one will enthusiastically vote "for" her, and even if she wins, no one will authentically and sincerely cheer. Even Dems know that, if she is elected, they will feel nauseous at the prospect of four or more years of Clintonism.
As for me, the enemy of my enemy is (when appropriate) my friend. The greatest issues this country is facing are (1) the continued inhuman barbarity of legal abortion, (2) the threat to Western Civilization from radical Islam, and (3) the continuing corrosiveness and division resulting from Bill and Hillary Clinton's ascension to national prominence in 1991.
This is why I was so disgusted with the nomination of that unmitigated disaster John "Maverick" McCain.
Hillary has not improved with age. The Clintons are just as toxic as they have ever been. If you think that Hillary is preferable to the boorish, obnoxious Republican nominee, well you should realize that he is merely a fruit of Clintonism. Hillary is a primary architect of today's politics.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
What I Said Eight Years Ago -- Which Was Proven Right -- Needs to be Repeated
Put Not Your Trust in Man
So, while the State of Washington votes for a ballot measure for physician-assisted suicide, America has voted for politician-assisted suicide.
Wow, dude — you really think it that dire?
Yeah, I do. The storm clouds are nearly upon us. The tsunami tidal wave is just over the horizon. We’ve been talking about the slippery slope for many years now — well, eventually you’ve gone so far as to slip off the slope and into the abyss. When things as fundamental as truth have been, not only relativized, but turned into something that can be applied or not applied, or wholly manufactured out of whole cloth, at the will of those having power — government, politicians, media, academia — when truth no longer exists as truth, then we are past even a dictatorship.
Perhaps the problem is that we have been guilty of the same error as the “progressives,” who think that we can and should create a utopian paradise here on earth. We conservatives have long held to the idea that America is a “shining city on a hill,” that we are a beacon of hope and liberty to the world. If that was ever true, then it surely has been the rarest of exceptions in the history of mankind. We have had it really good in this “land of liberty” for a long time, and we perhaps have allowed ourselves to falsely believe that this is the way it has always been and always will be, here and everywhere. In our zeal for natural rights, we have perhaps failed to see the world as it really is in practice. If we take a truthful look, we must see that freedom has been the exception in the world, and that, more often than not, the bad beats the good. (That will not be the case in the end, but it has been the case in the meantime.)
In short, perhaps we must come out of our dream and realize that being in the oppressed minority is the (worldly) usual state of things. And that our trying to create a conservative utopia, a conservative Kingdom of God on earth, is as much a folly as is a progressive utopia and Kingdom.
Perhaps we must realize that, although we may be in the world, we are not of the world. We are strangers in a foreign land. We are merely sojourners passing through the shadow of the valley of death. We pass our days on earth, but are citizens of heaven. Perhaps it is time to remember that. All of this — America included — will inevitably turn to dust. So we should place our trust and hope in those persons and things which do not decay or decline, we should place our trust and hope in those persons and things which are eternal and incorruptible. Trust Him and only Him.
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Sunday, May 1, 2016
Saturday, June 14, 2014
It's getting hotter all the time
Let us start by going backward, to something I wrote more than a year ago regarding future prospects, electoral and otherwise. Looking at things today, what with the lightweight that is Barack Obama and the utter disaster that is John McCain, I cannot say that I was that far off --
Originally Posted May 15th, 2007
I wish it were not so, but it appears that politically and socially things will get worse -- much worse -- before they get better, if they get better.
Not only in this country, but throughout the world, we have one side who has rejected truth and another side that is too afraid to stand up for the truth. One side caught up in the dictatorship of relativism, with all its attendant horrors, and the other side is full of little more than self-interested cowardly fools -- at least on the political level.
I know that George W. and Dick Cheney both have a pair, but it is astounding that the rest of the organized Republican Party still has the ability to reproduce without a single testicle between them all. But I suppose it is even more astounding and miraculous that they are even able to live without any spine or intestines. I don't know, perhaps they are all human-worm hybrids, the product of some fantastic heretofore unreported breakthrough on the genetic front.
Now, on the other side, we have a party that clearly has the fortitude to fight, at least when the fight is not against the real enemies of the country or society, but they have abandoned any desire for truth, preferring to create their own truth to fit their objectives. They are a side that has abandoned even the truth of their own name, opening rejecting the democratic system in favor of eternal dissent when the majority vote does not go their way, advancing the cause of Marxist anarchism, or absolute rule by judges on high, destroying all concept of self-government. Everywhere you look, every traditional institution and thought is under attack. For examples, do we really need to go any further than their exultation of the slaughter of the most innocent and vulnerable among us?? For them to advance the death of one of these innocents is bad enough, but 45 million in this country alone? Is it really any wonder that their willful and knowing rejection of the truth of the life and humanity of these innocents would lead to their attack on the truth of other components of the most fundamental institution of society, namely the family?
But, previously, even that state of affairs did not prevent us all from coming together in common cause on occasion. However, since the advent of Clintonism, where truth is relative, especially with regard to language, and even "is" has different meanings, together with their "Move-on" comrades, destruction of their human-worm-hybrid opponents, and the tradition that they stand for, if they had spines to be able to stand, has been their number one objective. They are not deterred from this objective even by the fact that a very real and long-standing enemy (1,400 years) is ready and waiting to put half of them in a burka, while smiting the necks of a good proportion of the rest.
Hot, yes, but it will get a lot hotter before it gets better. After a lifetime of dissent and attack, regardless of the outcomes of democratic elections, does anyone really think that the Dems will lay down their weapons and join hands with the Republicans if the Republicans win in '08? And if the Dems win, does anyone really think that the Republicans, even being the worms that they are, will be in the mood to forgive and forget and get down on their knees and satisfy the Dems (RINOs aside)?
Things will get worse before they get better. And it would be bad enough if it was just us fighting amongst ourselves. But there is an external enemy reveling in this. People think that the war front is in Iraq. They think that the civil war is in Iraq. The problem with that way of thinking is that, for the enemy, Iraq is only a side show, a diversion. The most advantageous front for the enemy is right here in D.C., and that aspect of the war is being fought without the enemy having to engage a single suicide bomber -- our disunity and political and societal civil war right here at home has encouraged and emboldened the enemy enough to give him a generation of sustenance. And within a generation, even those anti-technology cave-dwellers will have been able to obtain at least one piece of certain highly sophisticated technology and then things will be really, really hot.
It was inevitable
Friday, August 19, 2011
I'm still here, again, a year later
Don't tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about.
And where have I been? Blogging at my non-politics sites, which are much better for the state of my soul.
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Monday, August 23, 2010
Philadelphia Blogger Tax
So I'm sure that even folks in Philadelphia are able to read this blog. And if they can read it in Philadelphia, I would suppose that constitutes doing business in Philadelphia.
Apparently, that city of "brotherly love" has instituted a blogger tax or, more specifically, the bloodsuckers of Philadelphia city government are demanding that bloggers get a business privilege license at the cost of $300.
Demanding that you get a license?? And that you cough up three hundred dollars for the privilege??
Well, you know what Philly? Here's my payment:
BITE ME. You and your POS tax collectors can go eat @#%*.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Told you so
And what I said before about Obama has all come to pass.
And so, it will continue.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Obama Does Not Have the Will to Win the War
"I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what's necessary to win it. His heart's not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.
"Our enemies are now emboldened and our friends are discouraged. We cannot prevail if the American people are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for an extended effort. The case has not been made to them to justify this effort. The case can only be made by the president. This president is unable or unwilling to make that case," Thompson said.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Quote of the Age in the Age of Obama
Only by Obama failing can America, once again, be in a position of success.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Choice: Time to Choose a New RNC Chairman
GQ: How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your Catholic faith but by the fact that you were adopted?
Steele: Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that—I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it… Uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.
GQ: Explain that.
Steele: The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.
GQ: Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Steele: Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.
GQ: You do?
Steele: Yeah. Absolutely.
This is not the first time that Steele has exhibited fairly pro-choice leanings, all the while making a complete mash (at best) of exactly what his position is. From Meet the Press, October 30, 2006:
MR. RUSSERT: Would, would you encourage — would you hope the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade?And by now, if he wants to be the head of the RNC, and if he wants to be the number one face and voice of the Party, as is evident from him being on way too many TV shows, and now giving way too many interviews, then he should know by now how to give clear and coherent answers.
LT. GOV. STEELE: I think that that’s a matter that’s going to rightly belong to the courts to decide ultimately whether or not that, that issue should be addressed. The, the Court has taken a position, which I agree, stare decisis, which means that the law is as it is and, and so this is a matter that’s ultimately going to be adjudicated at the states. We’re seeing that. The states are beginning to decide for themselves on, on this and a host of other issues. And the Supreme Court would ultimately decide that.
MR. RUSSERT: But you hope that the Court keeps Roe v. Wade in place?
LT. GOV. STEELE: I think the Court will evaluate the law as society progresses, as the Court is supposed to do.
MR. RUSSERT: But what’s your position? Do you want them to sustain it or overturn it?
LT. GOV. STEELE: Well, I think, I think, I think Roe vs. Wade, Roe vs. Wade is a, is a matter that should’ve been left to the states to decide, ultimately. But it, it is where it is today, and the courts will ultimately decide whether or not this, this gets addressed by the states, goes back to the states in some form or they overturn it outright.
MR. RUSSERT: Is is your desire to keep it in place?
LT. GOV. STEELE: My desire is that we follow what stare decisis is at this point, yes.
As it is, at best, his position can be characterized as something along the lines of: personally opposed but . . .
What the pro-life movement does not need is someone who is Cuomo-lite, some super-big tenter who tries to be all things to all people without any bedrock principles. That is hardly the model of an effective advocate (for the pro-life cause). Looking to Lee Atwater as your model, saying that “Lee Atwater said it best: We are a big-tent party” — said it best!, not Atwater had a point, not Atwater had an interesting approach, but Atwater said it BEST — is the exact reason that the Republican Party no longer firmly stands for anything and, consequently, has sunk into the abyss.
I can understand a position of “it’s a woman’s personal choice,” but as a philosophical/theological matter, not as a public policy one. I can understand a “leave it to the states” position, but only as a compromise, not as a principle in and of itself. Indeed, being in a multi-state federalist system, where different states can do different things on various issues, that is probably the best that the pro-life movement can get as a practical matter, but only by recognizing that, in protecting life in some places, it is left attacked in other places.
But isn't he simply saying with his "choice" language that we need to convert people? that we need to change hearts and minds? And isn't he right?
Yes, the battle for life absolutely is a hearts and minds battle. We must convert hearts. And, indeed, I have long and repeatedly said that current pro-lifers will not win the fight, that today’s pro-choicers will win the fight - for the pro-life side. That is, today’s pro-choicers will be tomorrow’s pro-lifers and they will win the war.
But you do not convert folks, you do not win hearts and minds, by mish-mash confusion and comments that can be best interpreted as saying that abortion is an individual choice. I know that some of the Obama crowd is pushing this “pro-choice is pro-life” argument, but that is nonsense. And it is doubly nonsense when it is coming from our own. Maybe that is not what Steele meant, but that is the clear interpretation. Whether he meant it that way, or whether he is nothing but a sower of confusion, either way, that is not the way to convert the other side. So, it now looks like it is time for a more effective advocate to replace him.
And it is hardly “rushing” to show Steele the door when I have long (several years) been a supporter of his, an enthusiastic supporter. He has said a LOT of right things, but he is increasingly saying a lot of the wrong things, and apparently coming from a wrong philosophy. And eventually, there is that last straw, and this is it, especially when one adds in his multiple other “gaffes” in recent weeks (e.g. remaining silent and thereby giving implicit agreement with the characterization of Republicans as Nazis).
As for the GQ interview, I wasn’t too thrilled with several other statements: (a) his indictment of the Republican Party as offering non-white Americans “nothing” and giving the impression that “we don’t give a damn about them,” (b) his indictment of the Republican Party as being composed of nothing but closet racists who “don’t see the chairman of the Republican Party, they see a black man just walked into the room,” (c) his apparent endorsement of Eric Holder’s indictment that we don’t talk about race, (d) his total and abject confusion (for an ex-seminarian no less!) on the nature of marriage, that male-female marriage is just a matter of opinion (”that’s just [his] view”), not sociological, much less theological/moral truth, and hence, a matter for state reinvention, (e) his slam at a couple of commentators as “bomb-throwers,” (f) his disingenuous claimed inability to remember who his first presidential vote was for, Ford or Carter (it is not the least bit believable that a person does not remember his first presidential vote, unless he is purposely trying to forget who it was for, whom I suspect was Carter), and (g) his disturbing swooning for Academy Award red carpet fashions.
Again, these are hardly the comments of an advocate, much less a faithful and zealous believer. Rather, they give the enemy bucketfuls of ammunition to use against the Party and conservatives in general. There is too much bad mixed in with the good that he says.
At the “end of the day,” Steele no longer inspires me; he is not doing the things and saying the things that lead me to want to follow him. And THAT IS HIS JOB, to rally people in a positive direction in advance of the Party. He is a poor advocate, notwithstanding his years of experience in public commentary. If he is failing to rally people and, indeed, is alienating his own people, perhaps he is not the right person for the job after all.
As for the "big tent" -- we do not need, and I am not at all interested in, a bunch of pro-choicers and pro-aborts coming into the Republican Tent. What we do need, is for those pro-choicers and pro-aborts to come into the Pro-Life Tent. We want these people to come into the Republican Tent, but with a conversion of heart and mind, so that they are no longer pro-choice and pro-abort, but authentically pro-life. The same can be said of moderates and RINOs -- we do not need them coming into the Big Republican Tent, that is, not if they are coming into the Tent and remaining as moderates and RINOs. We need moderates and RINOs to come into the Conservative Tent.
The Republican Tent is not an end in and of itself. It is merely a means by which to advance pro-life and conservative principles. To have a policy or desire of filling the Big Republican Tent with pro-choicers, pro-aborts, moderates, RINOs, etc. is to miss the point, to miss the entire reason for the tent, altogether.
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Monday, March 9, 2009
Comrade Obama
The Anchoress asks:
When you voted for Obama - if you did - did you think you were voting for socialism? When Obama talked to you about “remaking America” was socialism and “not wasting a good crisis” what you had in mind? Do you really think the US Constitution is fundamentally flawed, and not a bit of genius?
Obama constantly engages in class warfare:
"The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles."
Obama attacks and demonizes the "wealthy" and "investors," blaming them for causing the economic crisis:
"Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."
Obama's call for "change":
"Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. . . . Law, morality, religion, are to [the proletarian] so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. . . . Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. . . . the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. . . . Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society."
Obama the "community organizer":
"In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. . . . The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."
Obama's master plan of centralizing power:
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
"These measures will of course be different in different countries.
"Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. . . .
"2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. (we have this in the U.S.)
"3. Abolition of all right of inheritance (while inheritance has not been abolished, estate taxes in the U.S. do confiscate substantial portions of decedents' estates) . . . .
"5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. (we increasingly have this in the U.S., especially following the various bank "bailout" programs)
"6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. (we increasingly have this in the U.S. with (a) the Democrat-mainstream media partnership, government ownership of the airwaves, and heavy government regulation of the telephone industry, and (b) anti-car "green" initiatives to force people into public transportation)
"7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State (we increasingly have this in the U.S., especially following the various non-bank "bailout" programs). . .
"10. Free education for all children in public schools. (we have this in the U.S., thereby ensuring state control of what children are taught)"
Looking at Obama's history and past associations, his public comments, and his current actions, it is pretty apparent that his guiding ideology is fairly in line with the above excerpts from the Communist Manifesto, and that, in implementing such ideology, he is part of the vanguard of the proletariat, the intelligensia and professional activists whose vocation is to overthrow the existing order and impose a new ruling regime. If not a socialist, then quite possibly a Bolshevik and communist.
Of course, it is possible that President Teleprompter is not, himself, such a revolutionary ideologue, but it is clear that the people around him and behind him are.
Meanwhile, the Dow is down another 80 points today. Da svidaniya, America!
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Friday, February 27, 2009
Obama's Workers' Paradise Will be a Cesspool
As a result, (1) it is only "fair" to disgorge them of their ill-gotten gains, or (2) it causes them no harm since they can simply go print whatever money needs to be paid in taxes (or in additional minimum wages or regulatory costs). I don't know how many times you need to go up to them and knock them on the head saying, "Hello? McFly?" before they begin to understand that businesses, employers, and "the rich" actually have to get their money from somewhere, and if they have to pay it to the government or have extra costs imposed by government, then that leaves less money to hire employees, and less money to invest in companies that hire people, and less money to buy things from businesses that employ people.
Obama's bullet train to Marxism will cost jobs.
Moreover, the Dems, libs, leftists, Marxists, Obamaists, etc. seem to think that businesses, employers, and "the rich" are as brain dead as their entitlement-mentality constituency is, and that they will simply bend over and take it. Actually, what is going to happen is that government will take in far less than the numbers quoted as a result of these tax rate hikes. The affected people will simply work less and produce less, resulting in less tax revenues, not more.
For example, in my own business, I have worked less and less over the last couple of years because, over a certain amount (a measly $32,550), I have to pay about half of what I earn to the government. Every dollar over that amount is subject to 25 percent federal income tax, plus 15.3 self-employment tax (Social Security, etc.), plus about 5 percent state income tax equals an over-45 percent tax rate. Then, if I actually spend that dollar, add in sales taxes of 5 to 10 percent. So, for every extra dollar I earn, I have to give 50-55 percent to the government.
Stated another way, I am forced to labor nearly an hour for the government for every hour I am allowed to work for myself. Screw that! It ain't worth it. I live a simple life. Extra money is nice, but I don't need it (at present), so why the hell should I put in all that extra work only to give half to the government? My time is worth more to me than the money. As a result, I have reduced my workload, thus reducing the taxes actually received by the government.
Millions of others have figured it out as well, and they will do the same thing -- they will simply work less and the expected revenues will not be seen.
I repeat my prediction from a few days ago -- we could very well see the economy naturally pick up by the end of the year. But then, when the Obama spend-a-thon really kicks in, it will strangle the infant recovery in the crib. We will see a little uptick, only to be followed by crash and burn.
Then we will see what Osama, Al Qaeda, Ahmadinejad, Putin, Chavez, et al. have in store for us.
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Saturday, February 21, 2009
Obama to America: "You Got My Money? I Want My Money! Where's My Fucking Money, Man? Give Me My Money!"
Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan
President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said. . . . Obama expressed determination to "get exploding deficits under control" and described his budget request as "sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't, and restoring fiscal discipline.". . . Obama also proposes "a fairly aggressive effort on tax enforcement" . . .
Now the country has got to come up with Barry's money every week, no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. You had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lighting? Fuck you, pay me. Also, Barry could do anything. Especially run up bills on the joint's credit. Why not? Nobody from his crew is gonna pay for it anyway.
Don't cry about it. Don't whine about it. Just bend over and pay the man! You're his bitch now.
Go clean yourself up. You're disgusting, bitch.
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Friday, February 13, 2009
How a Spendulus Bill Becomes Law
What? Sign what? What is this?
Just sign it.
Well, what does my signature mean?
It means you agree. SIGN IT.
But . . . what does it say? What's in this?
How many times to I have to say it? SIGN THE DAMN THING! You don't need to read it. You don't need to know what's in it. JUST AGREE, DAMN IT!
Oh, OK.
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Idiot Growth, Urban Hell-Holes
This is part of the neo-Stalinist “Smart Growth” agenda, which aims to make us all live in high-rise, concrete hell-holes, packed in, one on top of the other in hyper-density “urban villages,” where it is so crowded that it is impossible to use an automobile and you must, instead, either walk everywhere or use public transportation, where you can only go where the government allows you to go, and only when they allow you to go there, if they provide you the service at all. In short, forcing everyone to live in inner-city ghettos.
They will justify it on things like the environment, but to them, grey concrete is the new green, tall buildings blocking the sun is the new open sky, the sound of your neighbor’s activities is the new bird song, and being a slave to public transportation is the new freedom of movement. They saw the hyper population denisty in Soylent Green and they thought they were seeing paradise.
This is EXACTLY what the neo-Stalinist left is doing to Arlington and other parts of Northern Virginia, which are increasingly coming under one-party dictatorial rule. They have allowed developers to cause an explosion of growth in some very small areas. Of course, all of this insane growth is making the cost of living actually more expensive, not more affordable. Many of Arlington’s roads have become a parking lot so that, while they are on the one hand demanding that the auto companies produce a 50-mpg fleet, their “green” transportation policies are resulting in people actually getting about 10 mpg in cars that were made to get 25-30 in the city, due to all the idling while stopped and stop-and-go traffic.
If I wanted to live in the damn city, I would have moved there in the first place, don’t ya think??? But I moved to Arlington precisely to have that small-town atomosphere combined with the nearness of the city if one chose to go there. Much of that small-town aspect is gone, replaced by the “let’s turn this into New York City” mindset of the leftists who have moved here from the North, who have the lockstep support of those who moved here from “south of the border.”
How about Leftist Sprawl Stops Now?? Can we try that?
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Sunday, February 8, 2009
The Seventh Century Redux
2 Afghans face death over translation of Quran
KABUL (AP) — No one knows who brought the book to the mosque, or at least no one dares say.
The pocket-size translation of the Quran has already landed six men in prison in Afghanistan and left two of them begging judges to spare their lives. They're accused of modifying the Quran and their fate could be decided Sunday in court.
The trial illustrates what critics call the undue influence of hardline clerics in Afghanistan, a major hurdle as the country tries to establish a lawful society amid war and militant violence.
The book appeared among gifts left for the cleric at a major Kabul mosque after Friday prayers in September 2007. It was a translation of the Quran into one of Afghanistan's languages, with a note giving permission to reprint the text as long as it was distributed for free.
Some of the men of the mosque said the book would be useful to Afghans who didn't know Arabic, so they took up a collection for printing. The mosque's cleric asked Ahmad Ghaws Zalmai, a longtime friend, to get the books printed. But as some of the 1,000 copies made their way to conservative Muslim clerics in Kabul, whispers began, then an outcry.
Many clerics rejected the book because it did not include the original Arabic verses alongside the translation. It's a particularly sensitive detail for Muslims, who regard the Arabic Quran as words given directly by God. A translation is not considered a Quran itself, and a mistranslation could warp God's word.
The clerics said Zalmai, a stocky 54-year-old spokesman for the attorney general, was trying to anoint himself as a prophet. They said his book was trying to replace the Quran, not offer a simple translation. Translated editions of the Quran abound in Kabul markets, but they include Arabic verses.
The country's powerful Islamic council issued an edict condemning the book. "In all the mosques in Afghanistan, all the mullahs said, 'Zalmai is an infidel. He should be killed,'" Zalmai recounted as he sat outside the chief judge's chambers waiting for a recent hearing.
Zalmai lost friends quickly. He was condemned by colleagues and even by others involved in the book's printing. A mob stoned his house one night, said his brother, Mahmood Ghaws.
Police arrested Zalmai as he was fleeing to Pakistan, along with three other men the government says were trying to help him escape. The publisher and the mosque's cleric, who signed a letter endorsing the book, were also jailed.
There is no law in Afghanistan prohibiting the translation of the Quran. But Zalmai is accused of violating Islamic Shariah law by modifying the Quran. The courts in Afghanistan, an Islamic state, are empowered to apply Shariah law when there are no applicable existing statutes.
And Afghanistan's court system appears to be stacked against those accused of religious crimes. Judges don't want to seem soft on potential heretics and lawyers don't want to be seen defending them, said Afzal Shurmach Nooristani, whose Afghan Legal Aid group is defending Zalmai.
The prosecutor wants the death penalty for Zalmai and the cleric, who have now spent more than a year in prison.
Sentences on religious infractions can be harsh. In January 2008, a court sentenced a journalism student to death for blasphemy for asking questions about women's rights under Islam. An appeals court reduced the sentence to 20 years in prison. His lawyers appealed again and the case is pending.
In 2006, an Afghan man was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. He was later ruled insane and was given asylum in Italy. Islamic leaders and the parliament accused President Hamid Karzai of being a puppet for the West for letting him live.
Nooristani, who is also defending the journalism student, said he and his colleagues have received death threats. "The mullahs in the mosques have said whoever defends an infidel is an infidel," Nooristani said.
The legal aid organization, which usually represents impoverished defendants, is defending Zalmai because no one else would take the case. "We went to all the lawyers and they said, 'We can't help you because all the mullahs are against you. If we defend you, the mullahs will say that we should be killed.' We went six months without a lawyer," Zalmai said outside the judge's chambers.
The publisher was originally sentenced to five years in prison. Zalmai and the cleric were sentenced to 20, and now the prosecutor is demanding the death penalty for the two as a judge hears appeals. . . .
Zalmai pleaded for forgiveness before a January hearing, saying he had assumed a stand-alone translation wasn't a problem. "You can find these types of translations in Turkey, in Russia, in France, in Italy," he said. . . .
Saturday, February 7, 2009
"My vas pokhoronim!" (We will bury you)
Without even waiting to hear how President Barack Obama intends to conduct his relations with Moscow – something that Joe Biden, his vice-president, may well address on Saturday at the annual Munich Security Conference – the Russian leaders have thrown down the gauntlet.
First, they leaked details of naval and air bases to be established on the shores of the Black Sea in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia, whose independence is recognised by Moscow alone. Then they signed an air defence treaty with the former Soviet republic of Belarus, apparently paving the way for an anti-missile defence system to counter one planned by the previous US administration across the border in Poland. Moscow appears to have persuaded the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan to oust the US from its air base at Manas, outside Bishkek. . . .
Oksana Antonenko, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, believes all the actions are part of a pattern, intended to provoke a US reaction, and give Russia more bargaining chips in negotiating a new relationship with Washington. “In Russia there has never been any euphoria about Obama as there has been in the rest of Europe,” she says. “Russia is still very mistrustful of the US, and Putin profoundly so.
“But there is an overwhelming view in Moscow now that the Americans are in decline and will be forced to negotiate with Russia from a position of weakness. They seem to expect all the concessions to come from Obama."
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
President Obama Just Tired of Being in the White House, Including the Oval Office
With little notice, the president and first lady Michelle Obama bolted the gated compound of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in their tank of a limousine on Tuesday. They ended up at a Washington public school, greeted by children who could not care less about the collapse of a Cabinet secretary nomination.
"We were just tired of being in the White House," the president candidly told the gleeful second-graders at Capital City Public Charter School.
"We got out! They let us out!" Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed.
MATTHEWS: Brian, you‘ve been in the room with other presidents going back several years, now, in different capacities as a news person. Did you have any sort of reading on the atmospherics? It‘s warmer in there, literally warmer in that Oval Office now.
WILLIAMS: It is incredibly warm there. HVAC must be working extra hard on it. Because it was a real complaint he had coming in. Then we had lights on, today. It was like a terrarium in there. Number two, Chris, you‘ve been in there a lot as well. The detritus of the presidency is not there. I actually wrote on my blog today if I had to guess, looks like he‘s not using the Oval, certainly not for day to day work yet. No tchockes, no family photos. Nothing on the credenza. He hasn‘t picked out all his artwork yet. Those dishes still in the cabinets. He said on the record he‘s not a dish guy. Remember, he also hasn‘t used Marine One, Air Force One or Camp David yet. He just discovered the bowling alley a few nights back. They have -— Say what you will about the quality of the work and the policies but they have devoted as many waking hours to just working without settling in as arguably any modern presidency apparently.
MATTHEWS: Feng shui presidency. Thank you Brian Williams.
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Saturday, January 31, 2009
Dissent will Not be Tolerated. Silence will Not be Tolerated. Your Active Support is Demanded.
Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish.
An interesting thing happened after the House passed the Obama-Pelosi "stimulus bill" -- instead of celebrating and rejoicing at their win, Dems got angry and attacked Republicans for not joining in. You see, it is not enough that they get their way. It is not enough that you refrain from obstructing them. It is not even enough that you remain silent and refrain from dissent. If you do not openly and affirmatively join them and voice your support, if you do not bow down before them, you will be attacked. Anyone who does not sing the praises of our Dear Leader will be vilified and destroyed.
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Iran Thugs to Obama -- Kneel, Dhimmi
Iran says Obama's offer to talk shows US failure
US President Barack Obama's offer to talk to Iran shows that America's policy of "domination" has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday.
"This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed," Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
"Negotiation is secondary, the main issue is that there is no way but for (the United States) to change," he added.
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Thursday, January 29, 2009
President Obama to the People of Iran -- Screw You
Officials of Barack Obama's administration have drafted a letter to Iran from the president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks, the Guardian has learned. . . ..
It would be intended to allay the suspicions of Iran's leaders and pave the way for Obama to engage them directly, a break with past policy.
State department officials have composed at least three drafts of the letter, which gives assurances that Washington does not want to overthrow the Islamic regime, but merely seeks a change in its behaviour. The letter would be addressed to the Iranian people and sent directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or released as an open letter.