Surrender Is Not an Option
Threesurethingsoflifetalks about the left’s brazenness in destroying the U.S. Constitution, rule of law and economy in this post, “Surrender Is Not an Option.” Here’s a sample:
The cabal of CHANGE! has stepped to the podium, and is determined to enshrine its destructive ideals and policies by simply overwhelming the opposition. As Professor Klavan so astutely warned, “SHUT UP!” is now considered a valid response by the left to any criticism. This coup would not be possible without a willing press, and decades of declining educational standards, revisionist history, and an educational doctrine that embraces moral relativism and a deep seated “Hate America First” philosophy. It has proved to be a powerful concoction.
Read the whole thing here.
Not All Hispanic Jurists Are the Same
Byron York takes a trip down memory lane in a Washington Examiner column detailing the way Senate Democrats attacked Pres. George Bush’s federal court nominee Miguel Estrada.
The Dems are all lovey-dovey with The Obama’s bigoted “wise Latina” Sonia Sotomayor, and are calling on Republicans to weigh her “compelling life story” in consideration for her Supreme Court ascension.
But the jackasses weren’t so impressed with Estrada’s story, a much more compelling one than Sotomayor’s.
According to York:
Born in Honduras, Estrada came to the United States at 17, not knowing a word of English. He learned the language almost instantly, and within a few years was graduating with honors from Columbia University and heading off to Harvard Law School. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, was a prosecutor in New York, and worked at the Justice Department in Washington before entering private practice.
Estrada’s nomination for a federal judgeship set off alarm bells among Democrats. There is a group of left-leaning organizations — People for the American Way, NARAL, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP, and others — that work closely with Senate Democrats to promote Democratic judicial nominations and kill Republican ones. They were particularly concerned about Estrada.
In November, 2001, representatives of those groups met with Democratic Senate staff. One of those staffers then wrote a memo to Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin, informing Durbin that the groups wanted to stall Bush nominees, particularly three they had identified as good targets. “They also identified Miguel Estrada as especially dangerous,” the staffer added, “because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible.”
It was precisely the fact that Estrada was Hispanic that made Democrats and their activist allies want to kill his nomination. They were determined to deny a Republican White House credit, political and otherwise, for putting a first-rate Hispanic nominee on the bench.
Unable to find a smoking gun to derail Estrada’s nomination, the Democrats simply stonewalled the nomination for two years until he gave up and withdrew his name from consideration.
And that was how Democrats treated the last high-level Hispanic court nominee. Think about that when you watch their lovefest with Sonia Sotomayor.
There will be a strong push to get Republicans in the Senate to defer to the president in this Supreme Court nomination. After all, that’s historically what the Senate has done. But, The Democrats threw that all away during the Bush presidency by applying ideological standards to court picks and blocking those they disagreed with.
We’ll likely hear from weak-kneed moderate Republicans that the nomination should go forward, but as the folks over at Powerlineblog point out, those days are over.
But the days of deference are over and Republicans would be fools to even think about reinstating them during the presidency of Barack Obama.
And, it’s not just a matter of political tit for tat, although I don’t have a problem with that.
If you believe that The Obama’s policies are destructive and evil, then the right thing to do, even the moral thing to do, is for Senate Republicans to use every trick in the book to prevent him from installing a fellow traveler on the nation’s top court where her influence will long out live his term of office.
Pravda on America’s Descent into Marxism
Pravda was a Soviet propaganda newspaper shut down in 1991 by Boris Yeltsin. The paper’s employees restarted the publication as a tabloid-style newspaper. The word Pravda means truth in Russian.
The English language version carried a column by Russian blogger named Stanislav Mishin, “American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper,” gloating over America’s “decent into Marxism.”
Pretty stunning:
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
Vote Obama, Suckas!
Acorn stole votes for The Obama last year and now gets millions in federal stimulus money. On top of that, Acorn will be in charge of the U.S. Census.
And on top of that, the Black Panther thugs, who stood outside a polling place last November with weapons in hand, get off Scott free as The Obama’s political operatives at the Department of Justice reign in career prosecutors bringing charges of voter intimidation against the three thugs.
From The Washington Times:
Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.
The incident – which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube – had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.
Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.
Vote Obama, Suckas!
The lawyers also had ascertained that one of the three men had gained access to the polling place by securing a credential as a Democratic poll watcher, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Times.
The career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse course, according to interviews and documents. The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.
Not to worry, The Obama will protect his hinchmen. Maybe they’ll all be wearing brown shirts at the next election.
The U.S. as a Banana Republic
When politicians and federal bureaucrats run the economy, including calling the shots big corporations, of course they pick the winners and losers. And, the losers will always be their political or ideological opponents.
So it’s no surprise to me that the list of Chrysler dealerships to be closed is comprised of owners who donated campaign cash to Republicans. Why is this a surprise?
Here’s the reader’s digest version.
We’re becoming a banana republic.
Ethics Complaints Against Gov. Palin Dismissed
Ever since she hit the national stage, well actually even before, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been a target of bogus ethics complaints from her political enemies in Alaska.
Yesterday the state’s ethics board dismissed 13 of the complaints against her filed by a nut named Andree McLeod. According to Conservatives4Palin, the governor herself said:
It’s official: 13 ethics complaints against me & my office have now been dismissed by personnel board!
The charges were as follows:
1. The press release announcing Gov. Palin’s VP selection was an improper use of state resources and time.
2. The governor’s press office improperly issued a clarification about her attendance at the National Republican Congressional Dinner.
3. State resources (press releases) were being used on SarahPAC.
4. The governor’s website collaborated with SarahPAC.
5. The governor’s attendance at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life event violated the ethics law by using state resources and time.
6. Gifts from the Vanderburgh County Right to Life organizers were an improper “enticement” or coordination with SarahPAC.
7. Gov. Palin improperly used state resources when Bill McAllister stated that Gov. Palin would not be attending the White House Correspondents Dinner.
8. State resources were used in setting up Bristol Palin’s job as ambassador for the Candies Foundation (because according to the New York Times’ op-ed that McLeod emailed as “proof,” the Candies Foundation contacted Gov. Palin’s office in order to get in touch with Bristol.)
As the website points out, the prosecutor only needed one complaint to be valid to get the national headline: “Sarah Palin in Violation of State Ethics Law.”
But all the charges where dismissed.
One can’t help but sympathize with Geraghty. His report is precise and constrained, but you get the impression that he’s just dying to write, “This is the stupidest f%tiny_mce_markeramp;ing thing I have ever been asked to investigate in my entire #%@* life! What kind of a &#@% idiot submitted this?” It’s as if he’s been asked to write a precise and detailed explanation of why a square peg cannot fit into a round hole.
Look for the page one stories in WaPo and NYT.
Right.
Seven Thorns and One Wilted Rose
If this is the best the GOP can do, we’re doomed come 2012.
Check out the 2012 Republican Power Rankings.
In addition to these clowns, who…
Look Unlikely To Run And/Or Don’t Make The Top 8: Haley Barbour, Dick Cheney, Charlie Crist, Mitch Daniels, Jon Huntsman, Bobby Jindal, John McCain, David Petraeus, John Thune
I’d add Ron Paul, anyone named Bush, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
That leaves four of the eight “power” Republicans left, with only Sarah Palin having the slightest interest for me. She’d need to do some major image rehabilitation and get out raising tons of money for other Republicans. Plus as the writer of the article says, she needs to fire up her base of supporters.
Right now, though the field is mighty weak.
Good Thing He Switched Parties
Former Republican turd in the punch bowl, Sen. Arlen Specter (R D-Pa.), thinks The Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer is just grand.
“I applaud the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her confirmation would add needed diversity in two ways: the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the high court. While her record suggests excellent educational and professional qualifications, now it is up to the Senate to discharge its constitutional duty for a full and fair confirmation process.”
Glad he ain’t a Republican anymore, not that he ever was.
Sotomayer and Property Rights
The right to hold property and use it as one wishes is a fundamental human right, upon which all other rights are built.
The Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Judge Sonia Sotomayer, thinks courts should advance social justice, but when presented with an opportunity to defend a landowner’s fundamental property rights, she sided with a local government’s land grab on behalf of a developer.
From The Agitator:
In the April 2007 print edition of Reason, I wrote about a particularly egregious abuse of eminent domain in Port Chester, New York:
In 2003 Bart Didden set out to build a CVS drugstore on property he owned in Port Chester, New York. Unfortunately, a developer hired by the town had other plans for Didden’s land. The developer wanted to put up a Walgreens drugstore on the same property, so he demanded that Didden either pay $800,000 to “make him go away” or pony up a 50 percent stake in the CVS. Didden refused.
Just a day later, the Village of Port Chester condemned Didden’s land, which it planned to hand over to the developer. Didden sued, but last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled the condemnation was consistent with Kelo.
“It took me years of hard work to buy that property, pay off my mortgages and really feel like I own it,” Didden said in a December press release issued by his attorneys at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that frequently handles eminent domain cases.
“Kelo did spark a massive public backlash,” says Institute for Justice attorney Dana Berliner, “but at the same time it emboldened local governments to further abuse of eminent domain for private purposes. And it emboldened courts to approve these abuses.”
Over at Forbes.com, Richard Epstein notes that Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was on the Second Circuit panel that upheld the condemnation. The panel’s entire analysis: “We agree with the district court that [Wasser's] voluntary attempt to resolve appellants’ demands was neither an unconstitutional exaction in the form of extortion nor an equal protection violation.”
“[V]oluntary attempt to resolve appellants’ demands” is one way of putting it. “State-sanctioned extortion” is another.
The Obama’s 1st Judicial Nominee: Disastrous
The Obama made his first disastrous judicial nomination today, naming Judge Sania Sotomayer to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
As with everything else the guy does, this nominee is, well, I’m at a loss for words, disastrous. She does not believe in the rule of law. Rather, she believes the court should be an agent of change, throwing aside law to promote “positive rights” in an effort to bring about social justice.
She’s also a bigot.
”I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.
Show me where in the world, throughout human history, a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience” has made a better conclusion than a white male. Show me where a government run by hispanics has produced a just and free society.
For that matter, show me where in the world, throughout human history a people of African descent has produced a just and free society.
Frankly, I’d rather have a court packed with old white guys, from solid reformed Christian backgrounds, even a Calvinist, who understand the fall of man, the totality of evil that resides in man’s heart, and the necessity for limits on governments run by fallible men or women, even Latinas.
The old dead white guys who founded our country created the most just, fair, free and prosperous nation the world has ever known.
I’m Not Lovin’ It
Speaking of incompetence.
I don’t why I do it, but I keep going back to the McDonald’s in Opal, Va. It’s a busy one usually, because it sits at an intersection where tons of beach traffic from Quebec, New York and Pennsylvania makes its way to I-95.
The place has to be one of the worst run McD’s in the nation.
Last week one day, I went through the drive through, ordered a number nine, which was a double quarter pounder with cheese, small fry and a drink. My daughter wanted a small fry to I had them add that to the order.
Drove up, paid, got my order and on the way out of the parking lot I noticed that I only had one package of fries. Looked at the receipt. Yep. Paid for two fries.
So into the restaurant with receipt and bag in hand. Told them I ordered to small fries and only got one. They took the bag and then returned it a moment later. I looked in the bag and instead of having two fries I now had three.
Ok fine.
So back in the car, pulling out, I retrieve my sandwich. Only it wasn’t a double quarter pounder, only a single. Back around the drive through again. To ask for my double, which they gave me. While I was awaiting the burder, another guy in a big pickup truck pulls next to me and starts to hollar at the drive through window. They had apparently royally screwed up his order.
A few days later, I’m back in the drive through lane, this time seeking a single quarter pounder. Got my bag of food, pulled out only to discover I had a Big Mac. Shheesh.
Why do I bother?
I mean really, how hard can it be to put a sandwich and a package of french fries in a bag? The order filler is not the order taker or the sandwich assembler. All that individual has to do is read a computer screen with big type on it and stuff food in bags.
But the Opal McDonald’s just can’t manage to handle that complex procedure.
And, I suspect they don’t care whether I’m or anyone else is pissed about it. There’s plenty of vacationing northerners coming through who don’t take the time to check their orders and don’t want to fool with turning around and demanding that the store give them what they asked and paid for.
So while the restaurant is run by idiots, I guess I’m the bigger idiot for continually returning for more.
Health Care Going Postal
Grouchy Old Cripple makes a great point.
As the Secretary of the Sommelier Guild of Atlanta, I am responsible for the monthly mailings. After the latest rate increase, I was left with seventy four 42 cent stamps. So, I went to the Post Office today to buy seventy Four 2 cent stamps (as well as some 44 cent stamps). So I got to the counter and requested seventy four 2 cent stamps. Guess what? They didn’t have any. All they had were 1 cent stamps.
Think about this. The Post Office raises the price of a first class stamp by 2 cents. Now wouldn’t ya think that they would furnish all of their branches with a shitload of 2 cent stamps to sell to all of the folks who had leftover 42 cent stamps? Yeah. Me too.
Yeah. Yeah. This is a little thing. But think a little more. These are the people that we want to put in charge of our health care system. These are also gonna be the people running GM and Chrysler.
We’re doomed!
Still in Business
White Collar Blues
Christian Science Monitor has an article today about white collar workers who’ve lost their jobs during this depression taking blue collar jobs to make ends meet.
As many educated and formerly well-paid workers become restless living on unemployment benefits and frustrated over fruitless job searches, some are opting for lower skilled jobs that pay less but will help cover monthly bills or simply keep them busy.
Well, I certainly can relate. I’ve been a white collar worker, at one time making twice what I’m making now. I’ve been working at a big box retailer for the past six months. I can’t find a job doing what I’ve done for the past 20 years for anything in the world.
So, I’m making $12/hour and barely surviving.
Read the whole thing here.
Needs…
Collective Soul: Needs
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