Saturday, July 17, 2010

Obama in Wonderland

Obama's Vision of NASA: Improving relations with the Muslim world.
"Silly me. I thought America's unparalleled space program (before the present administration began dismantling it) was a triumph of American ingenuity, technology, vision and boldness. Instead, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says its 'foremost mission' is not returning to the moon, or completing a mission to Mars; rather it is improving relations with the Muslim world. Bolden says President Obama told him he also wants NASA to encourage children to study science and math, but isn't that best done by applying science and math to a robust space program?

"Obama is boldly going where no president has gone before. It is a continuation of the president's subjugation of himself (bowing to foreign leaders) and the country he is charged with leading by obsequiously kowtowing to a people for whom advancement to the Middle Ages would be a step up."
Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist.

Federal Spending and National Debt
"In one of President Obama’s many prissy little sermonettes, complete with finger-wagging, he has declared: 'Next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits step up. Because I’m calling their bluff.'

"There is already a bipartisan commission set to provide political cover for the Democrats’ wild spending, which has increased the national debt from 63 percent of the country’s GDP in 2004 to 83 percent in 2009— and official estimates of more than 90 percent this year, with more increases in sight.

"Why Republicans join such transparent attempts to rescue the Democrats from the political consequences of their own actions is one of the many unsolved mysteries of human nature in general and the Republican party in particular."
Thomas Sowell, Syndicated columnist

Read more at Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF).

Thursday, July 15, 2010

“He uses clear language, he doesn’t mince words, he’s funny, and he says what he thinks.”

So said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute describing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and reported in The New York Times. He has been relentless, ruthless and a welcome type of politician that is honest and does what needs to be done to get the budget balanced and live within their means. Hopefully he will continue to be the man he is today: honest, courageous, and blunt.

“The most important thing in public life, in a job like governor, is for the people you’re representing to know exactly where you stand,” Mr. Christie said in an interview on Friday. “People who disagree with me on things at least have a sense of comfort in knowing where I’m coming from.”

In a mostly blue state where Democrats control the Legislature, Mr. Christie, a Republican, won election last year mostly because of the deep unpopularity of his opponent, Gov. Jon S. Corzine. Mr. Christie, a former federal prosecutor known for aggression rather than deal-making, took office to predictions that his hard-charging style would not work in the labyrinth of Trenton, where factions of party, region and interest group would slow him down.

Instead, he confronted the powerful public employees’ unions and won, cutting future pensions and benefits, and persuaded voters to defeat hundreds of local school budgets. He got nearly everything he wanted in the state budget, making the deepest cuts in generations. And the Assembly is expected this week to give final passage to one of his cherished goals: a cap on local property taxes.

The governor has repeatedly used his powers more confrontationally than his predecessors, wading into school budget fights, freezing the actions of semiautonomous public authorities and breaking with tradition by refusing to reappoint a State Supreme Court justice.

“I think we all underestimated his political skill coming in,” said Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University. “You can’t deny that he’s been a tour de force in Trenton. He has managed to control the legislative agenda more than other governors, despite having a Legislature controlled by the opposite party".


"New Jersey Governor Defies Political Expectations" By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA; Published: July 11, 2010

Monday, July 05, 2010

"In Questions of Powers...Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the changes of the Constitution"

Thomas Jefferson

Tracincski at TIADaily.com and The Intellectual Activist has done a marvellous job putting together Thomas Jefferson's thoughts a writings regarding how HE WAS very adamant about the limited powers of the central government and the liberties of the citizenry. For the Left to say today that our Fathers were not specific as to the limited powers that politicians and government have is an outright lie.

A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.1 What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?2

Our grievances we have [set forth] with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art.3

Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid.4

Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. The idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right.5

If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater [degree] are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose a man has less right in himself than one of his neighbors or all of them put together. This would be slavery and not that liberty which the Bill of Rights has made inviolable and for the preservation of which our government has been changed.6

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers.7

It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice, [our representatives], to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism—free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.8
I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.9

When we consider that this government is charged with the external and mutual relations only of these states, we may well doubt whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices or officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily. Considering the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies, and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents itself for taking off the surcharge; that it may never be seen here that, after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it can subsist, government shall itself consume the residue of what it was instituted to guard.10

[In short,] we [must] prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them.11

The earth belongs to each generation during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and encumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. [Thus], no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.12

We are overdone with banking institutions which have banished the precious metals and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium.13 Paper is poverty. It is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.14

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.15

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned—this is the sum of good government.16
A little patience, and we shall see the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.17 Here will be preserved a model of government, securing to man his rights and the fruits of his labor, by an organization constantly subject to his own will.18

The kind invitation to be present at [your] celebration of the anniversary of American Independence is most flattering. In the bold and doubtful election we [made] between submission or the sword, [it is] a consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be—to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all—the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that that mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.19

The flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.20

For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.21

1. Letter to James Madison, 1787, 2. Letter to William Stephens Smith, 1787, 3. A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774, 4. Letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1816, 5. Letter to Francis W. Gilmer, 1816, 6. Letter to James Monroe, 1782, 7. Opinion on Creating a National Bank, 1791, 8. Kentucky Resolution, 1798, 9. Letter to William Ludlow, 1824, 10. First Annual Message to Congress, 1801, 11. Letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802, 12. Letter to James Madison, 1789, 13. Letter to Abbe Salimankis, 1810, 14. Letter to Edward Carrington, 1788, 15. Letter to John Taylor, 1798, 16. First Inaugural Address, 1801, 17. Letter to John Taylor, 1798, 18. Letter to William Plumer, 1815, 19. Letter to Roger C. Weightman, 1826, 20. Letter to John Adams, 1821, 21. Letter to Roger C. Weightman, 1826.

For the sake of readability, ellipses are not marked where cuts have been made in the original quotation, but additions made for the sake of flow and comprehension have been marked with square brackets. VISIT ROB TRACINSKI'S "THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVIST' AND TIADaily.com

Saturday, July 03, 2010

Kagan Could Endanger Our Beloved Constitution

Another liberal like Kagan on the Supreme Court is a danger to the Founding Principles of America. You should be afraid --very afraid.

Barack Obama revealed his goal for the Supreme Court when he complained on Chicago radio station WBEZ-FM in 2001 that the Earl Warren Court wasn't "radical" enough because "it didn't break free from the essential constraints placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution" in order to allow "redistribution of wealth."

Now that Obama is president, he has the power to nominate Supreme Court justices who will "break free" from the Constitution and join him in "fundamentally transforming" America. That's the essence of his choice of Elena Kagan as his second Supreme Court nominee. She never was a judge, and her paper trail is short. But it's long enough to prove that she is a clear and present danger to the Constitution.

When Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, she presented a guest speaker who is known as the most activist judge in the world: Judge Aharon Barak, formerly president of the Israeli Supreme Court.

The polar opposite of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "all legislative powers" are vested in the elected legislative body, Barak has written that a judge should "make" and "create" law, assume "a role in the legislative process" and give statutes "new meaning that suits new social needs
." READ "Constituion is Endangered if Kagan OK'd" at IBS.

"The Destruction of Capitalism in the Very Country that Created it."

Don't know much about Perdie, but it seems he's walking across America to find out for himself what makes America tick. He started this to bring attention to governments massive deficit spending and its massive expansion of power. I take my hat off to this courageous young man. Support him by watching his videos on YOUTUBE and leaving comments and. I'm not sure if he's asking for donations?



Do You Mean It When You Say "The Pledge of Allegiance"?


Friday, July 02, 2010

Words, Words and Words...Obama Is the Master of Uttering the Wrong Words and Giving the Wrong Signal to our Enemies

If you think that words don't matter in politics and the world stage you should read this essay by Victor Hanson "(Even a Few) Words Matter to Bad Actors" at IBD. In this article Mr. Hanson lists some of the remarks, comments and quips that have been made in history and the signals these utterances give to those who are threats to our liberty. History is filled with the consequences of the wrong words at the wrong time. Obama and his minions seem not to be aware (or are doing it on purpose) that what comes out of their mouths is interpreted with great care. And if the thugs of the world see that Obama and his administration will not carry a stick then they will have their their way.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was ecstatic after the Munich Conference of 1938. He bragged that he had coaxed Adolf Hitler into stopping further aggression after the Nazis gobbled up much of Czechoslovakia.

Arriving home, Chamberlain proudly displayed Hitler's signature on the Munich Agreement, exclaiming to adoring crowds, "I believe it is peace for our time. ... And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds."

But after listening to Chamberlain's nice nonsense, Hitler remarked to his generals about a week later, "Our enemies are little worms, I saw them at Munich." War followed in about a year.

Sometimes deterrence against aggression is lost with just a few unfortunate words or a relatively minor gesture.

Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a comprehensive address to the National Press Club in early 1950. Either intentionally or by accident, he mentioned that South Korea was beyond the American defense perimeter. Communist North Korea, and later China, agreed. War broke out six months later.

Well before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and sent aid to communist rebels in Central America, President Jimmy Carter announced that America had lost its "inordinate fear of communism."

In 1981, Britain, as a goodwill gesture in the growing Falkland Islands dispute, promised to withdraw a tiny warship from the islands. But to the Argentine dictatorship, that reset-button diplomacy was seen as appeasement. It convinced them that the United Kingdom was no longer the nation of Admiral Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Winston Churchill. So Argentina invaded the Falklands...
(READ at IBD) Read what Obama has said so far to make this world a more dangerous world by what comes out of his mouth.

"I will Make No Pledges This Week Other Than This One" bla bla bla

"I will make no pledges this week other than this one," Kagan said, "that if confirmed, I will remember and abide by all these lessons: I will listen hard, to every party before the court and to each of my colleagues. I will work hard. And I will do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly, with commitment to principle, and in accordance with law."

Rob Tracinski at TIADaily.com has a very good analysis - the congress basically rolls over and plays dead. Let's be sure not to put anyone on the Supreme Court who would defend our Constitution and what America stands for - let's pack the court with leftists so that we can foist one over the people as we wish.

Vapid? A repetition of platitudes?

To the extent that Kagan is saying anything, we also seem to be seeing a case of what some commentators have named "confirmation conversion," in which a Supreme Court nominee suddenly discovers the merits of, say, sticking to the original meaning of the Constitution, and holds to that view for the duration of the hearings—and not a moment longer.

For example, take Justice Sotomayor's confirmation conversion on the Second Amendment, in which she seemed to affirm an individual right to gun ownership—only to join, in the most recent gun rights case, a dissenting opinion which flatly denied such a right.
Or consider Kagan's failure to answer a question intended to get her to commit on the idea that there are some limits—any limits—to the powers that can be claimed by Congress under the Interstate Commerce Clause.

If this pattern sounds familiar, it is because Obama has basically nominated a less telegenic version of himself to the Supreme Court. All of the characteristic are there: a glib talker with an ingratiating manner; a thin resume that features plenty of stints at prestigious institutions, but few actual accomplishments and no "paper trail" of specific positions taken on controversial issues; a maddening vagueness, even in response to direct questions, about where she actually stands.

Add to this another crucial ingredient: a press that confuses glibness for "brilliance" and limits itself to soft-focus scrutiny because they think that the nominee will advance their own political agenda.

Oh, yes, and we will soon see one other hallmark of Obama-era politics—not the politics of his campaign, but the politics by which he has governed. The Democrats will ram through Kagan's confirmation by the raw power of a congressional majority, without even a pretense at persuading opponents or the American people of her merits

Thursday, July 01, 2010

"Our Disarmer In Chief" Guess Who...

The Leader of the free world is no leader of the free world. He is making it a more dangerous place for freedom loving people to live in. It is difficult to grasp that we elected a man that has so much antipathy for America and her allies....and it's terrifying in a world of nukes.

National Security: The administration is ready to sign a treaty stripping us of our ability to defend ourselves against enemy nuclear missiles, including Iran's and North Korea's. In space, no one can hear you surrender.

On Monday, the ground-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, part of the U.S. missile defense shield, successfully shot down a ballistic missile launched from a ship's deck off Kauai, Hawaii. The test simulated an Iranian SCUD launched from the deck of a ship off the U.S. coast, which, if armed with a nuke, could devastate the American heartland.

The simulated Scud was launched from the deck of the decommissioned 603-foot amphibious assault ship Tripoli. U.S. Army soldiers of the 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade from Fort Bliss, Texas, successfully intercepted it with a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor.

Missile defense, the dream of President Reagan, is a successful reality. With a layered system of ground-based, long-range interceptors, the sea-based Aegis system and theater systems such as the Patriot and THAAD, we can defend against — rather than just avenge — a ballistic missile attack.

Yet our disarmer in chief, President Obama, stands ready to strip us naked before our enemies by signing a treaty designed to demilitarize space. Since interceptors such as THAAD are designed to hit their targets on the edge of space and can be modified to kill satellites, such a treaty would effectively ban their use.

Almost simultaneously on Monday, the Obama administration unveiled a new space policy that reverses the Bush administration policy of unrestricted access to and operations in space. The Bush policy, released in August 2006, said it "rejects any limitations on the fundamental right of the United States to operate in and acquire data from space." We had a right to defend ourselves.

That right will be surrendered unilaterally by a new space policy under which the U.S. will "consider proposals and concepts for arms control measures if they are equitable, effectively verifiable and enhance the national security of the United States and its allies."

Such fairness is in the eyes of the beholder, and this administration does not have a good track record of enhancing the national security of the United States. For example, it has cut the number of ground-based interceptors planned for Alaska and Hawaii, both within range of North Korea's Taepodong-2.

It has also betrayed our Polish and Czech allies by scrapping plans for a similar system in Europe. And it has scrapped tested and ready systems like the Air Force's Airborne Laser (ABL), a modified Boeing 747-F that can be deployed anywhere in the world, loitering off an enemy's coast to destroy its missiles in their vulnerable boost phase. And it's reusable ...READ

"Dropping the Shield" at IBD.