Barack Obama Hearts ACORN

Oh boy. Barack Obama grew up in ACORN, and is a kindred spirit with ACORN. He was noticeably silent when ACORN was busted on camera multiple times helping set up an international under-aged sex slave ring. ACORN became so radioactive for a short time that both the House and the Senate voted to de-fund them.

Unfortunately, that was merely a political stunt that lasted for a month.

Now, the Obama administration has officially put ACORN back into its good (financially speaking) graces. Gateway Pundit reminds us of the history here, and reports on the current situation:

ACORN is the largest radical leftist group in America today.
This radical group worked closely with the Obama camp during the election. But, the community organizing group was not open about this. The photo below was scrubbed from the ACORN website before the election:

One of Barack Obama’s first big “community organizer” jobs involved ACORN in 1992. He has been working along side ACORN since before he became an elected official. Obama also trained ACORN employees. He represented ACORN in court. Obama worked with and protested with ACORN. His campaign donated $800,000 to ACORN in 2008 for voter registration efforts.
And, ACORN even canvassed for Obama last year.

Earlier this year Obama promoted a top ACORN operative, Patrick Gaspard, who’s oranization was fined $775,000 for election violations, to a top post in the White House. Gespard is helping shape domestic policy.

Obama’s ACORN group was banned from receiving federal funds in September after the group was busted on tape promoting the child sex slave trade.

But, today it was announced that ACORN will be paid with taxpayer funds after all.
The New York Times reported:

The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing funds to the group.

The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.

Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing various services related to affordable housing.

But the group has become a prime target for conservative critics, and on Oct. 1, President Obama signed into law a spending bill that included a provision that said no taxpayer funds — including funds authorized by previous legislation — could be “provided to” the group or its affiliates.

Obviously, considering Obama’s history with ACORN, this latest news surprises no one.

And that is the most unfortunate thing of all. The truth is that Barack Obama is ACORN, and that should be profoundly disturbing to all patriotic, law-abiding Americans.

There's my two cents.

How's That Tough Talk Working Out?

Remember how all that tough talk from the Obama administration really shaped up Iran by threatening even tougher talk? Here's how well that worked:

Iran's government will build 10 new sites to enrich uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday, a dramatic expansion of the country's nuclear program and one that is bound to fuel fears that it is attempting to produce a nuclear weapon.

Ahmadinejad told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that construction of at least five nuclear facilities is to begin within two months.

The surprise announcement came two days after a censure of Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency over the Islamic republic's refusal to stop enriching uranium, a key demand of Western powers. The 35-member board of the agency also criticized Iran's construction of a second enrichment plant in Qom, southwest of Tehran.

Nice job. That tough talk is really working, huh?

There's my two cents.

ClimateGate

If you pay attention to the new media or blogs, you've probably heard about this already (initially posted on 2Cents here), but I wanted to give a much more comprehensive picture of how the 'climate change' hoax/fraud has developed and exploded.

The nutshell is this:

1. The data were manipulated to hide a decline in recent temperatures, meaning that we cannot be sure that the paleoclimatological record shows that the recent warming was in any way unusual. This is separate from the issue of whether or not it has been warming or cooling, which is a distraction from what Climategate tells us.

2. There was a concerted effort to subvert the peer-review process of journals that might publish "skeptical" articles (and thereby undermine the "consensus" argument).

3. There was an organized attempt to circumvent or obstruct the legal requirements of the UK's Freedom of Information Act 2000, which appears on its face to rise to the level of criminality.

Now, for the details.

The main group of 'scientists' who supplied the U.N.'s climate change panel with their 'evidence' for global warming have been utterly demolished as reputable sources of reliable information.  Hundreds of e-mails and documents were leaked that reveal a blatant attempt to conceal and cherry pick data to support the theory that global warming is caused by humanity for purely political reasons.

One example is a study of tree rings on the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia.  Apparently, 252 core samples were taken, but the outcome of the study only used 12 of them, the only ones that supported the global warming crock of crap.  But, based on these cherry picked findings, the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia and numerous peer-reviewed studies passed this off as proof of global warming, and the IPCC panel at the U.N. relied heavily on this data in its recent statements about the need for vast and sweeping global climate change legislation.  By preventing the release of the raw research data, the CRU was able to push their cherry picked data without any reasonable fact checking, thus the idea of a 'consensus' was deliberately and fraudulently propagated.  Now that the heat is really on, the CRU admits that they actually threw out much of that data for fear that they would be forced to reveal it.

There were some who complained that the leaked e-mails and documents were not proof of anything other than legitimate discussion, but take a look for yourself at a couple of them:

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

And...

… Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. …

And...

Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two [climate skeptics] MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.

We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who'll say we must adhere to it !

I don't know about you, but the context appears pretty clear to me.  That lame defense was simply an empty and desperate grasp at nothing.  Also causing problems for the context defense is the fact that the climate models that were used for these studies had hard-coded evidence of the fraud:

This May Be the Nail in the Coffin to Global Warming Junk Science—
Renowned statistician and software engineer Eric S. Raymond (ESR) says the global warming "hockey stick" graph data was "hard-coded" or purposefully "fudged."

Dr. Michael Mann, who co-authored the famous graph of temperature trends dubbed the "hockey stick graph," was implicated in Climategate this week. Mann's controversial work has been challenged in the past.

Today, Reboot Congress reported this stunning news- that the "hockey stick" was fudged.
On his blog Eric Raymond (ESR) comments:

krygny Says: Wait just a second. Explain this to me like I'm 12. They didn't even bother to fudge the data? They hard-coded a hockey stick carrier right into the program?!!

ESR says: Yes. Yes, that's exactly what they did… Of course, they now claim that crucial primary datasets were "accidentally" deleted… After reading some of the emails about evading FOIA2000 requests… accidentally, my ass.

Read some of this programmer's comments here.  It's a real trip, especially considering how many politicians are making global policy based on this fraud.

So, not only has the CRU been thoroughly discredited, but the entire peer-review process itself is now suspect, and legitimate scientists -- not political hacks like the CRU, but real scientists -- are finally demanding answers.

Another aspect of this scandal is the illegal outright refusal to release documents after Freedom of Information Act requests were properly made.  One of the guilty parties now being sued: NASA.

Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies' refusal – for nearly three years – to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding "ClimateGate" scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer codes and other data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK's East Anglia University.

So, how does this all link in with America?  Well, let's start at the top - Barack Obama's so-called 'science czar' -- a guy who endorses forced abortions and sterilizations to achieve population control, and who sounded the alarm bell about global cooling before sounding the alarm bell about global warming -- is apparently personally involved in the fraud.

This whole thing is rotten to the core, and it goes to the highest levels around the world.

Despite all this, Barack Obama still plans to attend the Copenhagen climate change conference, push for global climate change legislation -- which really means the rape of wealthy nations and the redistribution of their wealth to poor nations -- and sign the U.S. up for whatever punitive taxation the world will cook up for us.  Remember the first rule of politics: follow the money.  There's a boatload of money to be taken from U.S. taxpayers, and this fraud was one of the biggest and most effective ways to get it.  Unfortunately for us, Barack Obama is on the side of the global America-haters who want to take us down a notch by destroying our economy to prop up the rest of the world.

Now that the truth is out, the war is on, and some believe that this is an issue that can potentially (finally!) drive a wedge between the mainstream media and the American public because of the borderline criminal negligence the MSM showed in helping hide the truth (another link here).  I sincerely hope so.  The destruction or discrediting of the old mainstream media would be one of the best things that could happen to this country because it would mean real, reliable organizations would rise up to provide the actual news, actual reporting, and actual truth that the media now refuses to do.  Ignorance is one of the most expensive weaknesses in this country right now, and the media's perpetuation of ignorance on climate change is very close to costing America untold billions of dollars in the form of global climate change legislation.  Let's hope the American people have awakened just in time to stop it.

This is one of the biggest scandals in history, partly because there are so many who are actively involved and trying to hide it.  The bottom line is that the fundamental premise of man-caused climate change has now been proven as the hoax/fraud that conservatives have been suggesting for years.  There are two major takeaways from this, I think.  First, that anyone and everyone involved with this should be named, discredited, humiliated, and banned from their respective fields, and criminally prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  The world has never seen a bigger case of fraud, and it rises to the highest levels of global government.  As such, it will only happen if the people DEMAND justice.  If you're as cynical and practical as I am, you'll settle for the naming and humiliation of those involved.  The second takeaway is perhaps more important: the American people should now demand an immediate halt on anything and everything that encroaches on freedom in the name of being 'green'.  There is no reason for it now, especially if it increases taxes or regulation.  While global justice is an unrealistic goal, I think we can certainly kill the so-called 'green' movement, at least in large part, but it will take action - phone calls, e-mails, and boldness to point out this fraud on the national, state, and local levels.

I'll pass along more details and commentary as developments warrant.

There's my two cents.



Related Reading:
Bill Clinton: Global warming could make some places cooler
Global warming scandal spreads to Middle Earth

Pelosi Admits The Truth...And Still Proves Herself To Be Brainless

This is such a disjointed path of non-logic that it's really pretty hard to believe. But, no one ever accused a liberal of making sense:

FOX News reported, via Ace:

Building the case for a brand new jobs-creation bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says most Americans would not mind inflating the already-gaping deficit in exchange for more jobs.

The California Democrat said on a conference call Tuesday that Americans could “absorb” the hit to the federal budget, and she argued that their biggest complaint is not that the deficit is big — it’s that they’re not seeing any benefit in return for increasing the U.S. debt load.

That's right, folks: she admits that she knows Americans are royally pi$ed about getting zero benefit from the massive government 'stimulus'. But...instead of finding her way to the logical -- and correct -- conclusion that the government needs to STOP WHAT THEY ARE DOING, she runs in the direction of another 'stimulus':

Despite the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February, unemployment climbed to 10.2 percent in October. While critics cite the jobless rate as a sign that the stimulus has failed, Pelosi argues that the federal government is just not trying hard enough.

“We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we’d be labeled not sensitive to the deficit,” Pelosi said, in a recording posted by Think Progress.

“The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it.”

So, you know, naturally, we should do another stimulus just like the first one. Except maybe bigger, because the first one 'didn't do enough'.

Gateway Pundit helpfully reminds us of the situation that the first stimulus has helped put America in:

These people are flippin' geniuses, aren't they?

There's my two cents.

Obama Throws U.S. Troops Under The Bus

Stand by vulgarity alert:

Unreal. Team Obama may allow US soldiers to be tried in the Hague for war crimes.
The Wall Street Journal reported, via Jihad Watch:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed “great regret” in August that the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This has fueled speculation that the Obama administration may reverse another Bush policy and sign up for what could lead to the trial of Americans for war crimes in The Hague.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, though, has no intention of waiting for Washington to submit to the court’s authority. Luis Moreno Ocampo says he already has jurisdiction—at least with respect to Afghanistan.

Because Kabul in 2003 ratified the Rome Statute—the ICC’s founding treaty—all soldiers on Afghan territory, even those from nontreaty countries, fall under the ICC’s oversight, Mr. Ocampo told me. And the chief prosecutor says he is already conducting a “preliminary examination” into whether NATO troops, including American soldiers, fighting the Taliban may have to be put in the dock.

“We have to check if crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide have been committed in Afghanistan,” Mr. Ocampo told me. “There are serious allegations against the Taliban and al Qaeda and serious allegations about warlords, even against some who are connected with members of the government.” Taking up his inquiry of Allied soldiers, he added, “there are different reports about problems with bombings and there are also allegations about torture.”

It was clear who the targets of these particular inquiries are but the chief prosecutor shied away from spelling it out.

Asked repeatedly whether the examination of bombings and torture allegations refers to NATO and U.S. soldiers, Mr. Ocampo finally stated that “we are investigating whoever commits war crimes, including the group you mentioned.”

Filthy. Disgusting. Traitor.

There's my two cents.

Monday Morning Humor

It always sucks to hit the grind again after a long weekend, so just to get things off to an amusing start (h/t various friends and Patriot Post)...

Have a great week!

Link Roundup

Here's the latest link roundup:

We Still Hold These Truths
Determined to Decline
Ryan Gets it Right on Entitlement Reform
Big Labor = Big Government (officially now)
Say what you mean
[ACORN's] Constitutional right to your tax dollars
Who's watching Fannie and Freddie (while Obama fires the independent investigator)?
Obama sells out yet another U.S. ally
Barack Obama's America-Effacing Presidency
Transparency apparently runs in the Obama bloodlines
Transparent administration transparently stonewalls Congress
The right of conscience in the age of Obama
The man who despises America
Obama takes bold steps on Afghanistan's...environment
Obama fired IG investigating one of his buddies for illegal activities, then scrambles to justify it
Living the liberal crack-up
Super Bipartisanship Man! Convicted felon invited to Obama's state dinner, but no GOP leadership


Coming up in the next few days:
- More Raaaaaacism!
- The KSM show trial
- ClimateGate
- Obama's Crazy Aides

Stay tuned!

More Thanksgiving Messages

Here are two more outstanding Thanksgiving messages from two of our most notable presidents...

...George Washington:

And Abraham Lincoln...

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As is tradition here at 2Cents, I wanted to post the real truth of Thanksgiving. Most classes and textbooks tell the story of how the Pilgrims were about to starve in the New World until the Indians came and showed them how to plant and survive here, thus prompting the Pilgrims' thanks toward the Indians.

That's not exactly true.

The truth is much less...well, let's say politically correct. Rush Limbaugh explains:

The story of the Pilgrims begins in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Church of England under King James I was persecuting anyone and everyone who did not recognize its absolute civil and spiritual authority. Those who challenged ecclesiastical authority and those who believed strongly in freedom of worship were hunted down, imprisoned, and sometimes executed for their beliefs. A group of separatists first fled to Holland and established a community.

"After eleven years, about forty of them agreed to make a perilous journey to the New World, where they would certainly face hardships, but could live and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example.

"And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work. But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford's own wife – died of either starvation, sickness or exposure. When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats.

"Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well.

"Nobody owned anything. They just had a share in it. It was a commune, folks. It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in the '60s and '70s out in California – and it was complete with organic vegetables, by the way. Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. That's right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work!"

"It never has worked! "What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future. 'The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,' Bradford wrote.

"'For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense ... that was thought injustice.' Why should you work for other people when you can't work for yourself? What's the point? Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property.

"Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, 'for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.' Bradford doesn't sound like much of a Clintonite" I wrote then "does he? Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? Yes. Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Following Joseph's suggestion (Gen 41:34), Pharaoh reduced the tax on Egyptians to 20% during the 'seven years of plenty' and the 'Earth brought forth in heaps.' (Gen. 41:47) In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves.

Excellent stuff! Socialism is not new, but it has ALWAYS failed to make people prosperous and well. 2009 is no different than in 1620.

It is also important to note that faith was an integral part of America from the beginning:

As a whole, America’s Founders were strongly religious. Thanksgiving proclamations, as official statements of the American president, underscore the Founders’ faith. Some were more traditional, such as John Jay and John Witherspoon. Some were more skeptical of religious institutions and doctrines, such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson.

But the vast majority of the Founders were firmly in the mainstream of religious belief. They understood God as having created man with an immortal soul, as actively involved in human affairs and as “the Supreme Judge of the world”—in the words of the Declaration of Independence.

The day after approving the First Amendment to the Constitution and its protections of religious liberty, Congress called upon the president to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God.”

President George Washington responded by proclaiming Nov. 26, 1789 the first official Thanksgiving. He noted:

It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore his protection and favor.”

Even the deists among the Founders—and it is by no means the case that they were mostly deists, as some have claimed—held that God created the world and determined the rules of human action.

Wrote Payne:

It is a fool only, and not the philosopher, nor even the prudent man, that will live as if there were no God.”

In 1620, more than 150 years before Washington’s first Thanksgiving proclamation, a small group of pilgrims granted land by King James arrived in what is now New England. They wrote out the Mayflower Compact creating their own political community “for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country.” This was, in essence, a social contract to form a body politic for the sake of survival.

And yet...today we have the Left re-writing the history books to remove all mentions of the failed experiment of socialism, and how God and capitalism saved the Pilgrims. In fact, the Left has gone so far overboard that they have actually published an official cheat sheet of how to argue with any potential Republicans that you might be so unfortunate as to associate with at your Thanksgiving dinner.

That's why it's up to you and I to preserve the truth. This country's economic success was formed on pure capitalism. It was only when the freedom to work hard and excel -- and the responsibility was on the individual -- that the first Americans flourished. Even more importantly, America was founded on the blessings of (and faith in) God.

We need to get back to those things. Without them, this nation will fail, but with them, we can once again rise above our adversity and succeed, leading the way to a better tomorrow for the entire world.

I sincerely hope you enjoy time with loved ones today, and that you reflect upon all of the blessings you have. A thankful heart is a happy and contented heart, and we could all use a bit more of that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's All About Freedom

Most of these big, contentious issues that we're currently debating revolve around one core principle: freedom.

Who makes your health care choices?  Do you have the freedom to buy insurance or not, depending on what's best for you?  Do you have the freedom to choose the health plan that best fits your needs?  Do you have the freedom to choose your own doctor?  Do you have the freedom to pay out of pocket for medical services?

Who determines your energy consumption?  Do you have the freedom to buy the light bulbs that you like most, are the safest, and the cheapest?  Do you have the freedom to buy a large (safe) car or SUV if that's what you want to drive?  Do you have the freedom to have your thermostat on whatever temperature you want?  Do you have the freedom to buy whatever size of TV you want?

How much of your money does the government take every month?  With more disposable income, you have the freedom to buy whatever you want (or need), but as taxes go up your paycheck goes down, thus affecting your ability to buy the activities and products you want or need.  How much economic freedom does the government leave you?

It's all about freedom.

The Left is moving fast and hard while they've got big majorities in Congress to curtail freedom wherever possible.  The Left believes that you don't deserve freedom because you aren't as educated or intelligent as they are, that you really don't have a clue, and thus that you should do what they tell you to do.  You can't possible complain about this, either, because it's for your own good.

The Right stands for the most freedom possible without descending into a state of anarchy.  The Right believes that YOU are the one who knows what health care plan is best for you and your family, even if that means no health insurance.  The Right believes that YOU are the best judge of what car meets your needs and desires.  The Right believes that YOU are the one who knows best how to spend YOUR money.

I believe this is the primary ideological struggle we are dealing with in America right now.  If the Left succeeds, freedom as we now know it will be a thing of the past, and the government will control vast amounts of your life, even micromanaging some of the most basic decisions you make on a daily basis.  If the Right can stand on core principles to effectively overcome the big Leftist push currently going on, I think the Left's ideas will be so thoroughly discredited that we will see relative peace, freedom, and prosperity for years to come.  Case in point: Ronald Reagan.

Reagan took on the entire Leftist establishment -- and this was before there was a 'new media' or the Internet -- and won by clearly communicating the basic principles of conservatism to attract a massive following.  It's your money, so you should keep more of it.  The government isn't the solution, it's the problem.  Peace through strength.  These are the things that are bred into the American spirit, and they resonated with the American people.  By bringing them along with his agenda, the Leftist establishment was helpless to resist, and America saw two decades of unrivaled prosperity and military supremacy.  It is only now, after years of Democrat (and squishy Republican) 'leadership' that we are seeing the fall-off of the things Reagan put into place.  The differences are stark, as Veronique de Rugy at NRO illustrates:

Cato Institute's VP David Boaz has this interesting post comparing Obama's and Reagan's definitions of freedom. The analysis — based on President Obama's speech to Chinese college students on Monday and Pres. Ronald Reagan's speech to Moscow State University students in 1988 — reveals some striking differences. 

Obama, Boaz writes, gave an eloquent defense of freedom, and in particular "freedoms of expression and worship — of access to information and political participation," which he identifies as core American and universal values. Yet the president leaves out "freedom of enterprise, property rights, and limited government as American values. Those are not only the necessary conditions for growth and prosperity, they are the necessary foundation for civil liberties."

In other words, he doesn't truly get what freedom is about.

Now let's look at Reagan. The president starts with democracy, justice, and openess and then:

He came back to the basic purpose of democracy in the American context, not a plebiscitary system but a way to ensure that the governors don't exceed the consent of the governed: "Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive; a system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith."

He tied all of these freedoms to the American commitment to economic freedom as well. Throughout the speech he tried to enlighten students who had grown up under communism about the meaning of free enterprise.

The whole post is way worth reading. Plus, Reagan's speech is very uplifting.

By the way, the same can be said about the way Obama uses words like competition, accountability, or fiscal responsibility. Obviously, the president doesn't understand the full or true meaning of these words, either.

I believe that we are fast approaching a tipping point which will determine the direction of the country for the foreseeable future, and the bottom line is freedom.  Will we retain it, or will we give it up to a soulless, incompetent, and impersonal government that is interested only in its own well-being?

The answer that we -- right now, in 2009 and 2010 -- provide to that question will guide America into the 21st century, and dictate what kind of future world our children and grandchildren inherit from us.  The stakes couldn't be higher.

There's my two cents.

Contract = Good, Checklist = Bad

There's now some talk from the RNC about a 'purity test' of sorts for conservative candidates in the 2010 election. Here's the nutshell:

Ten Republican National Committee members are distributing a plan to impose a purity test – calling for money to be withheld from anyone who disagrees with conservative principles on more than two of 10 core issues.

While this may sound like a good idea, something like what the GOP did so successfully in 1994, in practice it's really a bad, bad idea. Erick Erickson explains:

Rome long ago stopped selling indulgences, but conservatives keep right on selling them. Look, for example, at NY-23. The moment Dede Scozzafava signed ATR’s no new tax pledge, she was absolved of all her sins, including voting for 198 tax increases in the New York legislature.

Therein lies the inherent problem with candidates signing off on well meaning pablum — there are no teeth and the party will not serve as its own enforcer.

While I applaud the desire of conservative RNC members to try to put the train back on the tracks, I am afraid this will do what the ATR pledge did in Scozzafava’s case — give a lot of candidates cover to pretend to be conservative. People are naturally inclined to short circuit educational processes. People will look at this list to see if a candidate signed off on the issues. If the candidate did, well by God they must be conservative — never mind their voting record or prior statements. After all, only a week before Scozzafava signed the ATR pledge she was bashing Hoffman for having signed it. Never mind though, all was forgiven once Scozzafava signed it too.

Conservatives in the RNC, however well meaning they may be, risk giving liberal candidates easy opportunities to get conservative endorsements simply by checking the box without ever meaning it.

Compare this to the Contract With America in 1994. That document had ten items that were substantive policy positions heavily poll tested and vetted to make sure something like 70% of the American public agreed with each one. Each statement was popular and therefore did not put candidates in awkward positions with voters, as some of the presently suggested issues do. And while there was no enforcement mechanism there either, there did not have to be — every issue was poll tested, mother approved, and voter supported.

Not so with this. And because this, unlike the Contract With America, might affect funding and seals of approval in the primary process, this becomes far more troublesome.

Put more simply, Philip Klein says this:

Practically, many of the principles are too subjective. For instance, one principle is "Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants" ... How would [this] be judged? Even most Democrats would say they oppose amnesty, but the devil is in the details. Some people would say that making illegal immigrants legal is not amnesty if there are enough fines and hoops to jump through to become legalized, while others believe that anything short of deportation is amnesty.

But beyond the practical aspect, this sort of thing is exactly the wrong message for conservatives to send to possible candidates. Candidates who merely regurgitate a set of pre-selected ideas to conform with the diktats of the national party will not do anything to advance conservatism. What conservatism needs is more thoughtful candidates who have a grounding in policy, are competent, have genuine accomplishments, and are able to persuade undecided voters that conservative ideas are superior. The RNC doesn't need to support more trained seals who can talk a big game to conservative audiences and check all the right boxes, without having the ability to deliver the goods even if they managed to get elected.

I'm with these guys. While the heart of this idea is in the right place, this is a counterproductive idea. We need real results, not just big talk about real results.

There's my two cents.

For The Record...

Quin Hillyer talks about that rare breed of Muslims that is actually on our side, and proves it. Since he and I seem to be in the same camp about the subject, I'll just post his thoughts and call it good:

We all are familiar with Islamic groups (prominent ones of which shall remain nameless) that only pretend to be dedicated to constructive action in these United states, and of course it is no mere coincidence that the terms "jihadist" and "terrorist" are virtually synonymous, with millions of Muslims worldwide in the thrall of virulently and often violently anti-Western, anti-Christian, doctrines that actually celebrate the wanton murder of those they see as infidels. We all know that the existence of that strain of Islam is an incontrovertible fact. Meanwhile, as an avid supporter of the state of Israel, I myself am not in the least bit sympathetic to those peoples, mostly Islamic, who refuse to accept Israel's right to exist and who rain rockets and terror onto Israeli lands and people.

For the second time in the past month, though, I am moved to remind people that not all Muslims feel and act this way. Some, like Salam al-Maryati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who was one of about nine people on a visit to Guantanamo that I made in 2007, are patriotic Americans. Salam had an excellent essay the other day at the Huffington Post. I don't agree with every word or every sentiment, certainly, but the overall tone is admirable, obviously heartfelt, and constructive. Do read it. Here's an excerpt:

"America is our home, and it is our country to defend. It is in our hands to define who we are....Unless we clearly define who we are to the rest of America, the pre-existing vacuum will be filled with the only image available to the public: a Muslim American member of the U.S. military gunning down other soldiers on American soil...The loss was our loss. Those Americans who were killed at Fort Hood dedicated their lives to defend our democracy." And this: "We have only one option available to deal with ideologically motivated violence: the Islamic theology of life must overcome the cult of death."

Voices like Salam's need to be heard more loudly and more regularly. They are welcomed, and should be made to feel welcome. And they surely are far more numerous than we ordinarily may recognize. Whatever political differences we may (or may not) have with Salam, we should tip our hat to him for such an essay. May peace be with us all.

Obama Takes Action On Afghanistan

Actually, he plays some more golf.  But he's going to decide on Afghanistan next week.

Barack Obama has now played more golf than George W. Bush did in two terms as president.

But he's still dithering on whether or not to support the US troops in Afghanistan.
The Wall Street Journal reported:

Barack Obama has now played 25 rounds of golf, a sport he picked up about a decade ago when he was an Illinois state senator. That's more golf than former President George W. Bush played in two terms, according to CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who tracks presidential trivia.

It's been over 3 months since the top general in Afghanistan requested more troops.
Obama has still not made his decision on whether to support the US soldiers and marines in Afghanistan.

Late last night Obama and the White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag sat down with other officials to debate the Afghanistan/Pakistan policy going forward. The administration is suddenly concerned about the cost of the war. This is something new for a White House that just tripled the US national deficit last year and is planning on adding to that with a nationalized health care plan.

Must be more of that good judgment he promised us.

There's my two cents.

I'm Meltiiiiiiiinnnnngggg....!

Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15. This is the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for President Obama.

Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. That matches the lowest level of total approval yet measured for this president.

That's bad enough, but look at the 'passion' comparison:

Fifty-two percent (52%) of Democrats Strongly Approve while 68% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, just 16% Strongly Approve and 51% Strongly Disapprove.

Remember, it's the passion that wins elections.  When you only pull the strong approval of slightly more than half of your own party, you suck.  Obama truly is taking a risk of becoming a lame duck halfway through his first time in office.

On a related note, more and more Americans are saying they've had enough economic 'help' from the government:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 53% of voters worry that the federal government will do too much when it comes to reacting to the nation's financial problems. This marks a five-point increase from last month and is seven points higher than the week after President Obama took office.

That's probably because more people are seeing the government screws up everything it does!  Speaking of which, isn't it great to see how wonderfully in touch with The People our government is?

Some in the Obama administration and Congress are already talking about the need for a second economic stimulus plan in the face of rising unemployment even as 51% of voters say more jobs would be created if the remaining spending planned in the first economic stimulus plan was cancelled right away.

Here are some other interesting tidbits:

Voters continues to say that President Obama's top budget priority shold be cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. But they see it as the goal the president is least likely to achieve.

Even as Senate Democrats move forward with a health care reform plan, 68% of voters say passage of the legislation is likely to create larger deficits.

A one-term presidency is looking more and more likely.  The question remains whether or not we'll be able to recover from that one term.

But it's not just limited to Obama:

Republican candidates have extended their lead over Democrats to seven points, their biggest lead since early September, in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

...
Voters not affiliated with either party continue to heavily favor Republicans, 44% to 20%.

24 points?!  I guess people are over the hope-n-change, huh?

There's my two cents.

Who Needs An Act Of Congress?

The EPA can do a heckuva lot of damage to this nation all by themselves:

Tired of having to drive safe, affordable vehicles? Can’t make a decision at the car lot and want the government to narrow down the decisions for you? Well then you’re in luck. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a great new regulation in store for you.

The agency is intending to use the Clean Air Act to improve the fuel efficiency to 35.5 miles per gallon fleetwide by 2016 - four years ahead of schedule when President Bush signed into law the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

Sounds like a good deal. Most everyone wants his or her vehicle to get more miles to the gallon. It’s one of the things people first inquire about when buying a car. But there are many other reasons people choose certain vehicles: safety, reliability, horsepower, style, price, comfort, handling, and environmental impact. For instance, Americans use larger vehicles for practical reasons: to take their kids to practice, to tow their boat to the shore, or on small farms to haul equipment or produce. Of course, to meet these new standards, cars and trucks will need to be lighter, making them less safe. The National Academy of Sciences study pegs the cost of downsizing at 1,300 to 2,600 lives per year.

But we’re saving the planet, right? Touted as a measure to curb global warming, fuel efficiency standards have very little environmental impact. Newer vehicles with better efficiency standards may emit less carbon dioxide per mile, but increased fuel efficiency often leads to more driving and new cars “constitute a miniscule source of overall carbon dioxide emissions.” Our friends at the Institute for Energy Research note that “the rule will lead to global mean temperature being 16 thousandths of a degree Celsius lower (0.016°C) in 2100.”

But we’ll save money, right? The initial price of the vehicle may be more expensive but over time better gas mileage will negate the increase in sticker price and eventually save money. That’s what President Obama says. George Mason economist Don Boudreuax has some reservations:

We Americans are lucky. President Obama, although having zero experience as an entrepreneur or in the automotive industry, has designed fuel-efficiency standards that (he assures us) will save the average car buyer $2,800 over the life of his or her vehicle. What a deal!

No one in Detroit, in the U.K., in Japan, in Germany, in Korea, in Sweden, in Italy, in France - no one anywhere, not even persons with decades of experience producing and selling automobiles - has figured out how to devise vehicles that are so obviously attractive to American consumers — and, therefore, so rich in profit-earning potential for manufacturers — as are the ones now promised to us by the Obama administration. And we can admire not only Mr. Obama’s industrial and commercial genius, but also his magnanimity in offering to the public, free of charge, his money-saving idea. He could have earned billions of dollars in profit by putting his idea to the test in the market. But no: by simply forcing us to use his idea and charging us nothing for it, he’ll forego this profit. We Americans are lucky indeed.”

Make your voice heard. And IER has done the leg work for you. Visit their site and submit a comment today. The deadline is November 27th. Tell the Obama Administration that America needs affordable transportation to get the economy going again—not more job-killing regulations.

Now that the entire premise of the climate change movement has been debunked, the Left is going to move fast to get their agenda enacted before this news becomes widely known. The EPA is but one front in this ideological battle, but it is a front that can do an immense amount of damage because it already has the power to make changes like this. Contact them and throw in your two cents; there's no underestimating the power of millions of single voices.

There's my two cents.

Gross Offense

Gateway Pundit reports on this disgusting, offensive travesty:

Unbelievable. Three navy seal heroes face court-martial after capturing the Al-Qaeda leader who murdered four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004.
The Al-Qaeda leader had a bloody lip when he was arrested.

The USA Blackwater guards were burned, beaten, dragged through the streets of Fallujah and their decapitated bodies hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River on March 31, 2004.

FOX News reported, via Report on Arrakis:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

As if it wasn't bad enough that the terrorists who proudly admitted planning and conducting terrorists attacks that killed or would have killed Americans get rights and a platform they do not deserve, now we have honorable American soldiers doing their jobs and bringing in terrorist leaders being charged with a crime?!

This is true, literal insanity.

For all the libs out there who find nothing offensive about this, let me ask you one question: if American forces were to capture Osama bin Laden, but in the process of him struggling to get free he got a broken nose, who goes on trial?

Your answer says a lot about you.

There's my two cents.

Why Won't Al Gore Debate?

This is too good:

I sent my pledge e-mail...I'm pretty sure it's $1 I'll never have to spend. Too bad; I'd pay a whole lot more than $1 to watch this debate!

Also of interest is this reminder that Al Gore's on a countdown to the full melting of the polar ice caps due to global warming in 2013:

The clock is ticking, Mr. Gore...why aren't you debating and doing everything possible to get your message out?

Uh-oh...maybe it's because you're full of crap!

There's my two cents.

Another Step Closer To The End...?

As America declines and the EU rises, are we moving one step closer to the end of the world? Joel Rosenberg:

On Thursday, I was sitting in a hotel room in Turkey watching the live press conference in which the European Union made an “historic” decision to create a “President of Europe.” They chose Belgium Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy over Britain’s Tony Blair. If you’re thinking, “van who?”, don’t worry — you’re not alone. In one of the most undemocratic developments in recent history, the new leader of a half-billion Europeans is a name only 12% of them have even heard of. He was chosen unanimously by a council of other EU leaders, not by popular vote, and will take office January 1, 2010. Now that I’m home, I’m contemplating how quickly an unknown can rise to a position of great power. All this comes quickly on the heels of the historic passage of the EU “Lisbon Treaty” earlier this month. Noted the New York Times: “A landmark agreement aimed at giving the European Union a global stature on par with major powers like the United States and China cleared its last major hurdle on Tuesday….The treaty’s supporters contended that it was vital because the union’s rulebook was drawn up before the bloc began to expand, taking in 12 new nations since 2004. Its critics, however, contend that the document encroaches on national sovereignty and threatens to turn the European Union into a monolithic superstate.” We are watching the emergence of an increasingly unified and powerful Roman empire continue unabated, just as Bible prophesy tells us to expect in the “last days.”

Immediate implication of the move: van Rompuy’s “election/selection” will accelerate Turkey’s dramatic shift from NATO ally to ally of Iran, Syria and Russia. Why? Van Rompuy is an avowed opponent of Turkish entrance into the EU and the Turks are furious.

Some U.S. and European analysts are horrified by the selection of van Rompuy, ridiculing him as a bland dolt and claiming EU bureaucrats missed a great opportunity to select Blair and make the new presidential post truly a global game-changer. Such analysts are missing the point. EU leaders didn’t bumble into this appointment. They are determined to create an unrivaled superpower. They are determined to create the world’s most powerful political position in the presidency. But they want an EU-fanatic, not a British lone ranger. I’d never heard of van Rompuy until Thursday, but I have no doubt the EU leaders who chose him unanimously knew exactly what they were doing. I expect this guy to be a problem for the U.S., for freedom, and for Israel. Time will tell for certain.

Worth noting are some early press analyses of van Rompuy — not exactly favorable:

• The London Telegraph says, “Herman Van Rompuy’s quirky exterior conceals a ruthless political operator who will stop at nothing to get his way as president of the European Union.” Excerpts: “The ‘ideal candidate,’ said Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, for bring “consensus and cohesion” to a fractious EU of 27 member states. In reality, and behind his harmless, eccentric and literary persona, Mr Van Rompuy, 62, is a sharp political operator who is not above using dirty tricks to stymie his opponents. Europe’s leaders may find to their cost that the man they chose to chair their EU summits possesses dark arts that will be turned against anyone, such as an incoming Conservative prime minister, who challenges the Brussels consensus. Last year, six months before becoming prime minister, he abused his position as speaker of the Belgian parliament to cancel a politically inconvenient debate. To make doubly sure that MPs would be silenced, he had the locks on the plenary chamber’s doors changed so deputies could not get into their own parliament. The tactic was described by opposition MPs as a ‘coup d’etat.’ On another occasion, Mr Van Rompuy did not turn up in his office for a week to avoid opening a letter from opposition MPs demanding a debate. His skill as camouflaging himself as essentially harmless disarmed Gordon Brown who dropped British concerns over his federalist politics to allow him into the EU President post. Mr Van Rompuy is a supporter of the creation of an EU federal state, with its own anthem, flag and with powers to collect taxes on car fuel or financial transactions from Europe’s citizens.”
• The U.K. Independent quotes a colleague of van Rompuy who says, “He… operates in the shadows.”
• Time magazine calls van Rompuy’s rise to power a case of “the bland leading the bland,” notes that 11 months ago, even few in Belgium knew who he was
• But the European Voice notes he is a “shrewd political operator” who outfoxed Tony Blair for the top post
• Sky News: Blair loses out to Rompuy as EU president
• Lady Ashton to Replace Solana as EU foreign policy chief
  

On a related note, Russia is violating treaties, running war simulations of a nuclear attack on Poland, and boasting about how they have a right to nuke anyone for any reason...pre-emptively, of course. And not only is Russia cozying up to Iran, but so is China. If things keep up, Iran won't have to build their own nuclear weapons to attack Israel and the U.S. - they'll just get them from their friends!

And while the unrest in Iran continues, Obama continues to flounder and flop around, showing incredible weakness and selling out those who are fighting for freedom.

Things are getting scary close to the scenarios depicted by Joel Rosenberg and Dr. David Jeremiah. Pay attention...

There's my two cents.