America the Beautiful

Obama’s Oscar

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:30:46 +0000

By Chuck Norris0
3/09/2010

I am no pinnacle of humility, and I’ve learned my fair share of hard lessons from the camps of conceit. But I’m not sure the former Chicago politician occupying the White House ever has been schooled with a primer on the perils of pride.

It’s one thing (though still distasteful) to be boastful in a sports or fighting ring; it’s quite another in the Oval Office. We were promised change, but it seems to me this White House’s smug swagger and strut rival the great taunts and bluster of Muhammad Ali in his heyday. In fact, if I were handing out awards, President Barack Obama would win hands down the Oscar for overconfidence and arrogance.Here are a few examples of his Oscar-worthy political performances:

Who can forget the State of the Union address back in January, when the president utterly disregarded and disrespected our military commanders and the U.S. Supreme Court? President Obama rebutted the entire Supreme Court in the justices’ presence and before the whole nation, with a premeditated and prepared accusation (later proved incorrect). “The Supreme Court,” he said, “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.”

And what about the looks on the faces of the military commanders during the State of the Union? My view on gays in the military aside, the president’s smug demeanor in pushing the issue and the military leaders’ stoic response prompted me to ask, “Is the State of the Union really the place for a commander in chief to cast in-your-face politics before his leading military personnel with all of America watching?”

Consider even the recent so-called health care summit. It might sound simple to some, but I believe it is symptomatic when members of Congress address the president as “Mr. President” and he calls on them only by their first names. The president went the entire six hours or so in this room full of Washington politicians and various notables addressing them by their first names rather than by the socially accepted and proper forms of address for senators and representatives. “John,” “Paul,” “Louise,” “Marsha,” etc. — one may argue that these are examples of familiarity, but I believe they are of contempt.

In addition, to Sen. John McCain’s genuine concern for ramming a pork-ridden health care bill through Congress by politics as usual, President Obama replied, “We’re not campaigning anymore. The election is over.”

And to Rep. Eric Cantor’s polite opening greeting, President Obama sarcastically commented about the high stack of pages in front of Cantor by saying: “Let me just guess; that’s the 2,400-page health care bill. Is that right?”

As for other Americans who oppose his far-left agenda, the president jeered at them before a live audience a few months back, when he condescendingly declared: “Those folks who are trying to stand in the way of progress, let me tell you: I’m just getting started! I don’t quit. I’m not tired. … It is important for those folks to understand I’m just ready to go. We’re just going to keep on going.”

The president demonizes any opposition and even tried socially to quarantine No. 1 Fox News as an illegitimate news organization because some commentators disagree with him. His actions remind me of these words of Fulton J. Sheen’s: “Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals.”

Lou Pritchett — a former vice president of Procter & Gamble — who retired in 1989 after working at the company for 36 years, hit the nail on the head when he wrote his renowned “open letter to President Obama”: “You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me. … You scare me because you lack humility and ‘class’, always blaming others.”

The president lords himself over not only broadcast agencies, other politicians, his opponents and the American people but also our most precious founding documents. As I noted in last week’s column, President Obama described the Constitution as “an imperfect document … a document that reflects some deep flaws … (and) an enormous blind spot.” He also said, “The Framers had that same blind spot.”

In possibly his gravest error, Obama haughtily placed himself above Judeo-Christian Scriptures when speaking at a church in June 2006 as a senator. In that message, he denigrated biblical books, including Leviticus and Deuteronomy, ridiculed the issue of the Bible’s inerrancy, called the Sermon on the Mount a radically inapplicable passage of Scripture, and declared that basing public policies upon the Bible “would be a dangerous thing.” He arrogantly concluded that “folks haven’t been reading their Bible,” setting himself above not only most others’ understanding of Scripture but also all of us who read it. In olden days, such sacred contempt would have been regarded as an abominable desecration — a man standing in the house of God claiming to be like a god, above others and even Scripture itself.

President Obama, I don’t know whether you’ve spent a day in a Sunday school class, so here’s a verse that might help you. Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Kill This Bill

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:02:47 +0000

By Bob L.

Straight up, LETS just call it what it is, it is nothing more then an HMO on steroids, big Government big profits, and poor America. ROUND and ROUND it go s, where it stops only Government knows.

Like the old saying, DEATH and TAXES, WHO, has the final say if this bill PASSES.
____________________________________________________________
By Newt Gingrich

Dear Readers,

It has been over a year since President Obama announced his plans for comprehensive health reform.

Since the announcement, as Americans learned more and more about the Democrats’ health care bill, opposition to the left’s plans for big government health care have grown and grown.

It started with the explosion of outrage at town hall meetings over the bill’s cuts to Medicare to pay for new bureaucracies and programs.

It gained steam when Americans realized the frightening potential for “death panels” when you give government the power to deny care based on budgetary concerns.And it reached critical mass when the corrupt manner in which the bill was being shoved through Congress was exposed to the American people.

However, despite all the polls showing that Americans want Congress to scrap the current bill and start over, it is now clear that Democratic leaders are bound and determined to ignore the will of the people.

President Obama has called for the House of Representatives to pass by March 18 the same bill the Senate passed in December.

We must stop this bill from passing.

We DO Need Real Reform, but NOT This Travesty of a Bill

To be clear, I passionately believe America’s health care system is badly in need of reform.

I founded the Center for Health Transformation seven years ago as a unique collaboration of doctors, hospitals, and industry leaders dedicated to developing a 21st century, personalized, intelligent health care system.

In this column, and in op-eds and books, I have written repeatedly about common sense, market-oriented solutions that would save lives and save money.

I have always put the focus on solutions when it came to health care because when it comes to an issue that means so much to so many Americans, I believe solving problems must rise above political posturing.

I have even taken heat from fellow conservatives for cooperating with leading Democrats to achieve health reforms we agree on, like greater use of health information technology. In fact, there are even some specific elements of the bill — like payment reform to reward quality care — with which I agree.

However, as someone who has dedicated the last decade of his life to fixing what’s broken in America’s health care system, and has reached across party lines to do so, I regrettably have to say that this bill will do vastly more harm than good.

It will raise the cost of health care for everyone through crushing new taxes.

It will reduce benefits for millions of senior citizens without fixing the underlying structural problems of Medicare that are leading the program towards bankruptcy.

It will put government bureaucrats at the center of our health care system, not doctors and patients.

Furthermore, as Mark Steyn and others have noted, if this bill becomes law there may be no going back from a more statist, more bureaucratic, more left-of-center political culture that would mean the demise of America as a unique civilization.

Don’t Let Speaker Pelosi Be the Only Voice Your Congressman Hears

So it all comes down to one final vote.

If Speaker Pelosi succeeds in twisting enough arms and making enough promises to get the votes she needs, President Obama could sign the left’s big government, big bureaucracy health bill into law the next day.

Right now, Speaker Pelosi has the ear of skeptical members of her caucus.

She’s trying to make your member of Congress forget about the unpopularity of the bill in their districts.

She’s distracting him or her with the siren song of Washington fundraisers and other big party politics.

Speaker Pelosi would have your representative listen to Washington insiders rather than you.

We need to break through the Washington bubble and remind Congress who is in charge.

Call your Member of Congress today.

Tell him or her to vote against the left’s big government health care bill. Then call all your friends and family and ask them to do the same.

Together we can kill this bill once and for all.

Google bosses convicted in Italy

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:34:24 +0000

By Bob L.

We should send Rahm Emanuel to Italy and see if they will convict him on his comment about f—ing retards.
____________________________________________________________

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

An Italian court has convicted three Google executives in a trial over a video showing a teenager with Down’s Syndrome being bullied.

The Google employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video to be posted online.

Judge Oscar Magi absolved the three of defamation but convicted them of privacy violations.

The UK’s former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a “bad name”.

The three employees, Peter Fleischer, David Drummond and George De Los Reyes, received suspended six-month sentences, while a fourth defendant, product manager Arvind Desikan, was acquitted.

David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google and one of those convicted, said he was “outraged” by the decision.

ANALYSIS

Jane Wakefield, BBC News technology reporterThe guilty verdict has left Google outraged and much of the net community concerned about the ramifications

If firms can be held liable for every piece of content on their site they would face a nigh-on impossible job of policing and vetting everything before publication.

Many question how the Italian prosecutors decided which employees to target and most agree the four it settled on were random choice with none living in Italy or having direct responsibility for the video in question. George De Los Reyes was Google’s chief financial officer but no longer even works for the firm.

Google says it has no plans to pull out of Italy and that it will vigorously appeal the case.

At the moment there is no indication that a similar case could or would be brought in any other European country.

Italy does seem determined to pursue such cases though and similar ones are ongoing against other net giants, such as eBay, Yahoo and Facebook. Its motives in pursuing such cases are less clear.

‘Ridiculous case’

“I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent,” he said.

“If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability,” he added.

Peter Fleischer, privacy counsel at Google, questioned how many internet platforms would be able to continue if the decision held.

“I realise I am just a pawn in a large battle of forces, but I remain confident that today’s ruling will be over-turned on appeal,” he said.

Richard Thomas, the UK’s former information commissioner and consultant to privacy law firm Hunton & Williams, said the case was “ridiculous”.

“It is like prosecuting the post office for hate mail that is sent in the post,” he told BBC News.

“I can’t imagine anything similar happening in this country. The case wasn’t brought by the Italian equivalent of the information commissioner but by criminal prosecutors and we don’t know their motives.

“I find it worrying that the chief privacy officer who had nothing to do with the video has been found guilty. It is unrealistic to expect firms to monitor everything that goes online.”

Seeking consent

The verdict is likely to have ramifications for content providers around the globe.

Google said at the trial that pre-screening all YouTube content was impossible.

The video at the centre of the case was posted on Google Video in 2006 shortly before the firm acquired YouTube.

Prosecutors argued that Google broke Italian privacy law by not seeking the consent of all the parties involved before allowing it to go online.

Google’s lawyers said that the video was removed as soon as it was brought to its attention and that the firm also provided information on who posted it.

As a result four students were expelled from their school in Turin, northern Italy.

Where does the money go

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:01:32 +0000

By Bob L.
02/21/2010
Lets sweep these high pressure people out and get back to a Country that is not run by SPECIAL INTEREST, and LOBBIES T, one that is run by the people for the people.

Lets gets back to the late 40s to the early 60s when you could buy some thing before the greed started. At least people could afford to live on what they made.

Lets get this Country back to prosperity where it used to be, so you have lower wages but you also have lower taxes, then maybe more people will be put back to work. If people work money comes in, people don’t work no money comes in, so which do you want jobs with big wages and high taxes, or lower wages with lower taxes. And lower wages mean lower prices, it is time to stop being greedy, this gos for CEO, put that money back into the company, prices will come down and people will be able to afford to buy your products, this covers every thing like, homes, cars, insurance, food and so forth.That gos for the Government, live with what you have and nothing more.

Insert [By Sen. Jon Kyl] [At this time of economic uncertainty and global tension, it’s worth recalling the challenges Reagan faced when he took office and what he did to conquer them.
When Reagan came into office, the country was suffering from stagflation, the simultaneous occurrence of high unemployment and soaring inflation. He championed tax cuts, spending discipline, deregulation, free trade, and sound money as the foundation of an economic recovery.

In 1980, the highest marginal income-tax rate was 70 percent. In 1981, Reagan insisted on slashing it to 50 percent, and successfully pushed lowered tax rates across the board. In 1986, he got Congress to trim marginal income-tax rates again, bringing the highest rate down to 28 percent.

Here’s how economics writer Steve Moore has described the impact of Reagan’s policies: “After Reagan’s tax-rate cuts, real median family incomes, which had fallen sharply during the stagflationary period from 1977-82, rose by nearly 10 percent. From 1981 to 1989, every income quintile — from the richest to the poorest — gained income, according to the Census Bureau economic data. When Reagan left office the market had more than tripled in value…. The economy grew by more than one third.”

Reagan understood that marginal tax-rate reductions serve as a catalyst for economic growth. Such tax cuts are broad-based and lower rates for as many taxpayers as possible. They provide incentives to work, invest, save, and take entrepreneurial risks.

That’s what differentiates Reagan’s tax strategy from President Obama’s. Rather than marginal tax-rate reductions, the current administration favors tax credits to reward actions of which it approves, such as buying a hybrid car or weatherizing your home. It proposes to pay for these tax credits by raising tax rates on other Americans.

A better way to bolster the economy is to follow President Reagan’s example of pro-growth across the board tax cuts.]

Does any one know why these businesses are going bankrupt, they are taking money off the top and not putting it back into the company, they think that they can run a business on for every DOLLAR I recive I get SEVENTY FIVE CENTS the rest gos to every one else,( I my self have worked for companies that went under for just that reason, GREED).

If a person can’t live on a million dollars a year, then they should have to live on what their employees live on, these wages are the reason prices and taxes are so high, and it is not all the working class that make it that way, it is these people at the top that want all these fancy programs so they don’t have to pay for them their self, like for eample take Seattle they tore down a dome to build to build three stadiums and so on, now why do you think taxes and prices are so high, GREED, the welthy did not want to pay for them, if they did they would go to a city that would build them.

It is time to stop spending money like it grows on trees, stop health care, cap & tax and start getting people back to work and lower all taxes to get COMPANIES to start hiring and and come back not be afraid that taxes will go through the roof after they hirer or come back, the more businesses you get, means the more tax money comes in, then work on health care, better known if you don’t have the money you can not buy it, PERIOD! Like you tell the American people live with in your budget, don’t spend more then you make.

Here is a good example of why you have high taxes, Government hires to many people to do a job that fewer people can do, then they hirer consulting firms to do what is suppose to be done by the people in these Government jobs that you the tax payer is paying for, then you have to pay for their PENSIONS and HEALTH INSURANCE also. A good example, a private company sends out FOUR workers, to where the Government sends out EIGHT to TEN workers to do the same job, now why are taxes so high, (when some are making $45.00 dollars an hour or more.) Who pays for all these WAGES, PENSIONS and HEALTH INSURANCE benefits? YOU, and JUST THINK you pay for them and don’t get and don’t get any of there benefits.

Buy America when ever possible, look at it this way you buy America, business buys from other businesses and the world works. If we don’t work we don’t buy from around the world. Its like the law of nature, what gos up will come crashing down, like 1929 to 1939, if they keep doing what they are doing today we will see another depression worst then great depression.

If its not giving them selves special money to get Democrats to pass their programs that people don’t want, now they are bribing the Republicans to get on board so they can make it look bad for the them. Obama and the Democrats will do any thing to get this garbage passed knowing that it is going to raise the deficit more, it just shows that they don’t care what happens to this Country.

Does any of this sound like they went in to office to protect this Country and the CONSTITUTION, NO, it sounds like I am a DEMOCRAT and you are a REPUBLICAN and vice versa, once they are elected they should be one body not TWO not THREE, but ONE, and ONE body ONLY.

They were not elected to their party they were elected to serve and keep this country FREE, it is not their Country, it belongs to every legal American Citizen and any one who becomes legal to stay in this Country, LEGALLY.

Research Ties Diabetes Drug to Heart Woes

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:32:58 +0000

By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: February 19, 2010

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

The reports, obtained by The New York Times, say that if every diabetic now taking Avandia were instead given a similar pill named Actos, about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month because Avandia can hurt the heart. Avandia, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes, is known as rosiglitazone and was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009.

“Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market,” one report, by Dr. David Graham and Dr. Kate Gelperin of the Food and Drug Administration, concludes. Both authors recommended that Avandia be withdrawn.

The internal F.D.A. reports are part of a fierce debate within the agency over what to do about Avandia, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Some agency officials want the drug withdrawn because they believe there is a safer alternative; others insist that studies of the drug provide contradictory information and that Avandia should continue to be an option for doctors and patients. GlaxoSmithKline said that it had studied Avandia extensively and that “scientific evidence simply does not establish that Avandia increases” the risk of heart attacks.

The battle has been brewing for years but has been brought to a head by disagreement over a new clinical trial and a Senate investigation that concluded that GlaxoSmithKline should have warned patients earlier of the drug’s potential risks.

Avandia was once one of the biggest-selling drugs in the world. Driven in part by a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, sales were $3.2 billion in 2006. But a 2007 study by a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist suggesting that the drug harmed the heart prompted the F.D.A. to issue a warning, and sales plunged. A committee of independent experts found in 2007 that Avandia might increase the risk of heart attack but recommended that it remain on the market, and an F.D.A. oversight board voted 8 to 7 to accept that advice.

Hundreds of thousands still take the medicine, although some top endocrinologists say they have sworn off the drug.

Since 2007, more studies have been done. In a December 2009 internal memorandum, Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the F.D.A.’s drug center, wrote that “there are multiple conflicting opinions” about Avandia within the agency, and she ordered officials to assemble another advisory committee, expected this summer, to reconsider whether the drug should be sold.

“I await the recommendations of the advisory committee,” the agency’s commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, said Friday night. “Meanwhile, I am reviewing the inquiry made by Senators Baucus and Grassley and I am reaching out to ensure that I have a complete understanding and awareness of all of the data and issues involved.”

The bipartisan multiyear Senate investigation — whose results are expected to be released publicly on Monday but which were also obtained by The Times — sharply criticizes GlaxoSmithKline, saying it failed to warn patients years earlier that Avandia was potentially deadly.

“Instead, G.S.K. executives attempted to intimidate independent physicians, focused on strategies to minimize or misrepresent findings that Avandia may increase cardiovascular risk, and sought ways to downplay findings that a competing drug might reduce cardiovascular risk,” concludes the report, which was overseen by Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

Mr. Baucus said of the report, “Patients trust drug companies with their health and their lives, and GlaxoSmithKline abused that trust.”

In response, GlaxoSmithKline said that it disagreed with the Senate investigation’s conclusions. The company said that it could not comment on internal F.D.A. documents but that “the official ruling from F.D.A. is that Avandia remain on the market.”

In the wake of the controversy, agency officials ordered GlaxoSmithKline to undertake a study comparing how many heart attacks, strokes and heart-related deaths occur among patients given either Avandia, Actos or a placebo. Studies suggest that Actos, made by Takeda, lowers blood sugar as well as Avandia but without hurting the heart as much.

But Dr. Graham and Dr. Gelperin, working in the F.D.A.’s office of surveillance and epidemiology, argued in two separate internal reports that the new GlaxoSmithKline study, called TIDE, is “unethical and exploitative” because patients given Avandia face far greater risks than those given Actos, with no promise of any additional benefit. The trial may include patients who have had heart attacks or chest pains even though some foreign drug authorities have warned against Avandia’s use by precisely such patients, the reports note.

“Although the proposed TIDE trial is motivated by a desire for definitive answers regarding the cardiovascular safety of the drug rosiglitazone, the safety of the study itself cannot be assured and is not acceptable,” one of the reports concludes.

These concerns, in internal reports dated October 2008 but not made public until now, were later overruled by other agency officials, and GlaxoSmithKline is currently enrolling patients in the TIDE trial. The trial is not expected to be completed until 2020, although the company is hoping to report some results to the F.D.A. by 2014. The company’s patent on Avandia expires in 2012, and generic versions will probably swallow most remaining profits.

In a letter sent Thursday to Dr. Hamburg, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley asked “what steps the F.D.A. has taken to protect patients in the TIDE trial” and said the trial’s patients had never been told about the concerns raised by the agency’s own safety officers.

Mr. Grassley said the internal agency battle showed that the agency needed to be restructured to give more power to safety officials like Dr. Graham and Dr. Gelperin over their counterparts who approve medicines and deal more directly with drug makers.

“It doesn’t make any sense to have these experts who study drugs after they have been on the market for several years under the thumb of the officials who approved the drug in the first place and have a natural interest in defending that decision,” Mr. Grassley said. “The Avandia case may be the most alarming example of the problem with this setup.”

The question of when and how to communicate possible drug risks has long bedeviled drug makers and regulators. Hints are common that drugs may cause injuries; thousands of drug injury reports pour into the Food and Drug Administration every week. For example, Avandia ranked first among all prescribed drugs in the number of serious, disabling and fatal problems — including 304 deaths — reported to the agency in the third quarter of 2009, according to an analysis done by the Institute for Safe Medication Practice, a drug safety oversight group.

But companies say that such reports do not offer proof of a problem and that highlighting them can scare patients away from needed treatment, so they often argue that more certainty is needed before alarms are raised. GlaxoSmithKline said a “vast majority” of the recent reports regarding Avandia was related to litigation.

The Senate investigation — the result of years of digging through more than 250,000 internal company documents — concludes that GlaxoSmithKline and by extension the F.D.A. delayed far too long in this process.

In November 2003, for instance, the company completed a study in which diabetics given Avandia had far more heart problems than those given placebos. Two months later, the World Health Organization sent the company an alert linking Avandia to heart ailments. In a June 2004 meeting, the company’s Global Safety Board said a hard look should be taken at all Avandia clinical trials for more signs of heart problems, documents show.

European regulators had earlier ordered GlaxoSmithKline to conduct a study — called the Record trial — to examine Avandia’s heart risks because hints of these problems appeared in the company’s earliest trials.. But the Senate report shows that by at least 2004, company executives were aware that the Record trial was going so poorly that it would never answer the heart question with any kind of certainty.

So company executives gathered dozens of Avandia studies and sifted their combined data. Called a meta-analysis, this combined look found first in 2005 and in an updated look in 2006 that Avandia increased the risks of serious heart problems by nearly a third, the Senate investigation shows. Because two-thirds of diabetics die of heart problems, this was hugely worrying.

In 2005, executives revealed the results of their meta-analysis to the F.D.A., and in 2006 they provided the agency with the underlying data.

Two large company-sponsored trials — called Dream and Adopt — were published near the end of 2006, and each provided more hints that Avandia hurts the heart, the documents show. In a March 2007 meeting of the company’s Diabetes Franchise Cardiology Advisory Board, advisers called the safety worries found in these many studies “disquieting.” Negotiations with agency officials about how and whether to alert the public continued.

Meanwhile, the company continued to market and advertise Avandia aggressively. The Senate inquiry concludes that the company threatened doctors who suggested in public that Avandia might have serious risks.

In 1999, for instance, Dr. John Buse, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, gave presentations at scientific meetings suggesting that Avandia had heart risks. GlaxoSmithKline executives complained to his supervisor and hinted of legal action against him, according to the Senate inquiry. Dr. Buse eventually signed a document provided by GlaxoSmithKline agreeing not to discuss his worries about Avandia publicly. The report cites a separate episode of intimidation of investigators at the University of Pennsylvania.

GlaxoSmithKline said that it “does not condone any effort to silence” scientific debate, and that it disagrees with allegations that it tried to silence Dr. Buse. Still, it said the situation “could have been handled differently.”

The Top-10 Budget-Deficit Time Bombs

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:00:21 +0000

By Bob L.

Like the song says “Our Day Will Come”! And our day is coming sooner then you think.

___________________________________________________________
By Terry Easton
02/18/2010

If you’ve read the press releases being put out by Washington these days, you’d be convinced that the big bad Bush-caused recession of 2008-2009 is now safely beyond us.

Tain’t so.

If fact, the hoary mess which began under the last days of Bush & Democrats guarantees that Obama & Democrats will continue to take us down the rat-hole of national bankruptcy.

Here’s why.

The problem dates back a long way – to the “New Deal” days of Franklin Roosevelt and the “Great Society” days of Lyndon Johnson. Big spenders both: of your money.

In 1933-1936 FDR created his big wave of so-called “progressive” legislation. The Agricultural Adjustment Act became law in May, 1933. The AAA paid farmers to not grow food. It still does.

In 1935, the Social Security Act created Washington’s Ponzi scheme, misrepresented to the voters as an insurance retirement program. It promised to invest worker payments in safe securities to pay for their future retirement.

Instead, SS payments – really taxes – are paid into the Federal Treasury and spent that year. The Government then issues Treasury Notes (IOU’s) to a mythical Social Security “Trust Fund”. In other words, the Government’s left pocket pays its right pocket with IOU’s from your pocket. In 1945, there were 42 workers for each SS beneficiary. By 2010, only 3 workers are left to support each beneficiary. By 2035 only two will be left. Let’s hope Tom and Dick will continue to pay Harry.

Whadda you think?

You and I now owe $14 trillion to pay for future retirees entitled to receive Social Security.

FDR did one good thing: his progressive neo-socialist administration and his Democrat Congress repealed the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) created by prior progressive “do-gooders” in Congress. Prohibition made it illegal to sell – and drink – wine, beer, and hard alcohol.

It also created the Mafia.

Bad (stupid?) laws that run counter to people’s wishes always force the market to go underground. A black market springs up to serve the demand. In this case the booze was supplied by the mob. Who’s serving the black market marijuana in the USA today? Columbia and Mexican mafias.

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson created an even bigger Ponzi scheme, Medicare,

Like the Social Security cancer, Medicare seemed to be a “good idea” at the time – at least if you were a socialist. The idea was similar. Tax people during their working years to pay for 80% of their medical expenses after they turn 65. Like Social Security, the money is actually spent in the year it is collected.

So, we’re really taxing Peter to pay for Paul.

You and I now owe $74 trillion for future medical bills of people 65 and older.

Lyndon Johnson didn’t stop with Medicare. He also created the 1965 Higher Education Act which writes taxpayers’ checks to pay for college educations. Then there was the National Endowment for the Arts which writes taxpayers’ checks to sponsor “art”, and the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act which writes taxpayers’ checks to support PBS and NPR.

Next, the progressive LBJ created the Transportation Department, which writes taxpayers’ checks to support unwanted rail projects. Then came the boondoggle of using taxpayer checks to fund,and control local schools, ending a political taboo of nearly 2 centuries.

Finally, Johnson & Co. created the so-called “War on Poverty” which has spent hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to eradicate poverty in the US. Over the next 5 decades, poverty has risen nicely. One might reasonably ask at this point whose side of this “war” is the federal government on?

In Jimmy Carter’s presidency, he and his Democrat Congress created the Department of Energy to eliminate being dominated by our enemies, including the Middle East. Several hundred billions of dollars later, we’re energy independent. Right?

Along the way, Carter also brokered the famous Middle East peace deal between Israel and Egypt which solved all the Middle East’s problems. Or not.

Over 75 years, spendthrift Congresses have enacted law upon law to create more debt to pay for more “entitlements”.

The result? The national debt, run up by Washington but paid for out of IOU’s, now exceeds $14 trillion. “Off-the-books” unfunded liabilities, like Social Security, Medicare and the Bush gift to baby boomers: the Medicare prescription drug program, now total nearly $108 trillion. .

Since the US GDP is about $15 trillion, it would take over 8 years of consuming the output of every business and every American to pay off the national debt.

Even then the Congress-created Federal Debt Cancer would still be growing beyond control. For Congress, in their nefarious scheming has created not one but dozens of budget/deficit time bombs.

Here are the Top-10 time bombs now faithfully ticking away:

1. Federal Budget Deficit Bomb. The government is spending over $1.5 trillion more than it takes in each year.

2. US Foreign Trade Bomb. The US imports more than $400 billion than it exports. We’ve shipped our industrial manufacturing overseas and won’t allow our natural energy companies to tap into our own mainland fuel sources.

3. Destruction of the US Dollar as the World’s Foreign Reserve. Once the US dollar is no longer kept as reserve by foreign nations, GDP will fall by 1%. This will cost us over $150 billion a year.

4. Cheap Money Bomb. By pushing down the interest rates to near-zero to “stimulate” the economy, the FED lowered the cost of government borrowing to 1%. As interest rates rise, this cost shoots up. When rates reach the normal range of 4-6%, 25% of the federal budget will be sucked up. Washington will have to borrow even more just to keep even. Meanwhile the treadmill is speeding up.

5. Global Real Estate Bomb. US commercial real estate is in trouble. It makes problems in the housing market look tiny. $1.7 trillion in IOU’s are held by the banks, and defaults are now beginning. As real estate prices fall, people sink “under water” in equity. They can hold their breath for only so long. Then the banks take back unwanted property which they can’t easily sell. Over 30% of houses in default are not even being put up for sale by the bank. They are being left empty to decay.

6. Consumer Debt Bomb. Americans owe $16.7 trillion, mostly for home loans and credit cards. But people are now saving more and that debt is falling. That’s good, right? Wrong. Start saving more and spending drops. That’s bad. Washington has encouraged multinational firms to move manufacturing overseas; US plants are closing left and right. But 70% of our economy is driven by the consumer. The solution is simple: make more stuff here. Including energy. Until then, Bush and Obama both recommend that you spend, spend, spend.

7. State & Local Government Budget Bomb. In 2010 the states are running budget deficits of over $110 billion. By law, state budgets must be balanced. The national government has a monopoly on the dollar. States don’t have the “luxury” of printing money to pay their bills. State budget deficits could hit $200 billion next year. Then add their unfunded pension funds of $500 billion. Where does this money come from? Either raise taxes, which is political suicide, or borrow more. But bond rating agencies have already slashed many states’ credit ratings, raising the interest rates they have to pay. The alternative, cutting the bloated state union payrolls and entitlements, appears unthinkable.

8. Unfunded Corporate Pension Bomb. In 2007, corporate pension funds had a $55+ billion surplus. Now they’re short over $400 billion. Who will make that up? When the airlines went bankrupt, the Federal Government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation bailed them out. Ditto GM. Who backs up PBGC? The US Government and more taxpayers’ money. Add another trillion.

9. Social Security, Medicare & Obama Health Care programs. Nuclear bombs with hair triggers. Social Security & Medicare, are already sucking the lifeblood out of the economy. The latest idea from the Democratic Congress is to cover those medically uninsured by forcing their bills on existing workers and the taxpayer. There ain’t enough money to go around, folks. Warns Paul Farrell at MarketWatch : “a new meltdown is coming. The Great Depression II” You’re right, Paul, the countdown has started and we’re approaching zero-hour.

10. Government Political Bomb(s). We have a Dysfunctional 2-Party System which has been infiltrated by progressives on both sides. There hasn’t been a socialist born who understands real-world economics. They continue to believe that money grows on trees in their fantasyland utopias. Then add the insatiable Washington Lobbyist Machine of special interests/unions/big banks, the Homeland Insecurity Bomb including military spending (Iraq & Afghanistan at $3 trillion), and the Coming Populist Tax Revolt Bomb

But the godzilla bomb is lurking: The Plutonium Shadow Banking Derivative Bomb.

In 2008, the Fed freaked out over a paltry $100 billion in debts that were sloshing around the Wall Street “investment banking” gambling houses. Lehman Brothers popped first, followed by a dozen more. Then AIG went poof trying to pay off a little bitty $150 billion in banking derivative “guarantees”. The Treasury quickly poured in money to seal the leaking dam, slowing the flow to a trickle.

But now global banking derivatives have expanded to over $670 trillion. Since the entire world’s GDP is only $50 trillion, when this bubble pops, it will consume 13 years of the all money everywhere..

It isn’t going to happen. We’ll reboot the entire system before that. There will be winners (people who owe money and own gold) and losers (people who keep their assets in the bank and stock market). Instant millionaires will be made overnight; old millionaires will be made penniless. Which group will you be in?

BP, Conoco, Caterpillar Quit Climate Action Group

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:00:41 +0000

By Connie Hair
02/18/2010

As Climategate scandals continue to expose widespread fraud in the global warming “scientific” community, three major companies this week announced their withdrawal from the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobbying group of businesses and radical environmentalists that “have come together to call on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”

BP America, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar were the largest companies to withdraw from the group this week revealing a refreshing new boldness from companies once browbeaten by radical environmentalists into supporting “global warming” legislation.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said he wasn’t surprised by this turn of events.

“With cap-and-trade virtually dead this year and the credibility of the UN’s global warming science collapsing, it is no surprise that companies are questioning whether job-killing global warming legislation — no matter how beneficial to their own bottom lines — is really a sound policy after all,” Inhofe told HUMAN EVENTS. “They apparently now see that it’s not. The American people support alternative energy — but not with policies such as cap-and-trade that tax the energy they use now. The best option, the one that Republicans support, is to use all of our domestic energy resources in a way that creates jobs, strengthens energy security, and keeps energy affordable and reliable.”

“House climate legislation and Senate proposals to date have disadvantaged the transportation sector and its consumers, left domestic refineries unfairly penalized versus international competition, and ignored the critical role that natural gas can play in reducing GHG emissions,” ConocoPhillips Chief Executive James Mulva said in a written statement.

“The climate change conversation is shifting to discussion of more detailed specific policy proposals and we think that we can be a more effective advocate for a bill if we participate as BP and not as part of a larger organization,” BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell said. “We can be more effective if we show up in the discussion as BP.”

“We are withdrawing our participation of USCAP, not our efforts to enact environmentally sound, economically sustainable climate and energy policies that do not place the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage to others,” Caterpillar spokesman Kate Kenny said.

Climategate is wreaking havoc on the racket that is global warming. The falling dominoes are accelerating.

Reid’s Stimulus II Falters

The Hill newspaper is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) lacks the votes to bring his new $15 billion “stimulus” bill to the floor to begin debate when the Senate returns from its week-long President’s Day recess on Monday.

The trimmed-down bill is a partisan effort that would, among other things, extend unemployment benefits yet again, allocate more funding to infrastructure spending (less than one third of the first “stimulus” bill has been spent) and resurrect the inept Jimmy Carter-style employer tax credit for hiring that is more of a one-year wage subsidy than an actual tax cut.

A bi-partisan bill offered by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mt.) and top Republican on the committee Chuck Grassley (D-Iowa) had a price tag of $85 billion that extended some specific business-friendly provisions such as tax credits for research and development tax credit and “green collar” biodiesel. The larger tax credit extender bill was shot down by Reid.

Conservatives Sign Mount Vernon Statement

Over 80 conservative leaders met yesterday in the Collingwood Library and Museum in Alexandria, Va., part of the original Mount Vernon estate owned by George Washington, to sign a document they call the “Mount Vernon Statement” http://www.themountvernonstatement.com/ outlining a set of principles articulating the embrace of constitutional conservatism. (In 1960 a similar document called the “Sharon Statement,” was signed by conservative leaders at the Sharon, Conn. home of National Review Editor William F. Buckley, Jr., at the ceremony founding the Young Americans for Freedom group).

Attendees at the Mount Vernon signing ceremony included former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese, Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, and nephew of William F. Buckley, Jr., Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy; Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator; David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union; David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness, Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America and many others including representatives of the Tea Party groups.

House Republican Caucus Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) have voiced their support for the Mount Vernon Statement.

“For those of us striving hard every day to defend our nation’s freedoms from liberalism’s belief that an ever-increasing government is the cure for every care, the Mount Vernon Statement is a breath of fresh air that reminds us that constitutional conservatism need not be reinvented or poll-tested in each new election cycle,” Pence said. “It merely needs to be restated and practiced, as its principles are timeless. I am therefore honored to be included as a signer of this proclamation.”

“America became the world’s greatest nation because of the freedom of our people to take risks and succeed without the heavy hand of government dragging them down,” DeMint said. “This didn’t happen by accident, our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to limit our federal government’s ability to interfere with our lives. Unfortunately, many of our elected leaders have forgotten this. They see no limits and create new government programs to address every problem. This has led to crushing debt and crippling taxes that threaten to pass on to our children and grandchildren a nation that is weaker than the one we inherited. We must act boldly if we’re going to save freedom.”

“I fully support the Mount Vernon Statement as a vital recommitment to our Constitution and the liberty it was written to protect,” DeMint added. “If our leaders cannot agree to these fundamental American principles, they are part of the problem and should be replaced.”

Romney at CPAC: Obama Going Downhill Faster Than Lindsey Vonn

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:00:22 +0000

By Human Events
02/18/2010

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday afternoon:

Thank you to Jay and to Scott for those generous introductions. Both these men have made real contributions to our nation. It’s good to be back at CPAC. I can’t think of an audience I’d rather be addressing today.

I spent the weekend in Vancouver. As always, the Olympic Games were inspiring. But in case you didn’t hear the late-breaking news, the gold medal in the downhill was taken away from American Lindsey Vonn. It was determined that President Obama is going downhill faster than she is.

I’m not telling you something you don’t know when I say that our conservative movement took a real hit in the 2008 elections. The victors were not exactly gracious in their big win: Media legs were tingling. Time Magazine’s cover pictured the Republican elephant and declared it an endangered species. The new president himself promised change of biblical proportion. And given his filibuster-proof Senate and lopsided House, he had everything he needed to deliver it.

They won, we lost. But you know, you learn a lot about people when you see how they react to losing. We didn’t serve up excuses or blame our fellow citizens. Instead, we listened to the American people, we sharpened our thinking and our arguments, we spoke with greater persuasiveness, we took our message to more journals and airwaves, and in the American tradition, some even brought attention to our cause with rallies and Tea parties.

I know that most of you have watched intently as the conservative comeback began in Virginia and exploded onto the scene in New Jersey. But as a Massachusetts man, who, like my fellow Bay-staters, has over the years, been understandably regarded somewhat suspiciously in gatherings like this, let me take just a moment to exalt in a Scott Brown victory!

For that victory that stopped Obamacare and turned back the Reid-Pelosi liberal tide, we have something to that you’d never think you’d hear at CPAC, “Thank you Massachusetts!”

2009 was the President’s turn to suffer losses, and not just at the ballot box, but also in bill after bill in Congress, and most importantly, in his failure to reignite the economy. In how he has responded to these defeats, too, we have learned a great about him and about his team.

He began by claiming that he had not failed at all. Remember the B+ grade he gave himself for his first year? Tell that to the 4 million Americans who lost their jobs last year, and to the millions more who stopped looking. Explain that to the world’s financial markets who gaped at trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. Square that with the absence of any meaningful sanctions against Iran even as it funds terror and races to become a nuclear nation. President Obama’s self-proclaimed B+ will go down in history as the biggest exaggeration since Al Gore’s invention of the internet!

Unable to convince us that his failure was a success, he turned to the second dodge of losing teams: try to pin the blame on someone else. Did you see his State of the Union address? First, he took on the one group in the room that was restrained from responding — the Supreme Court. The President found it inexplicable that the first amendment right of free speech should be guaranteed not just to labor union corporations and media corporations, but equally to all corporations, big and small. When it was all over, I think most Americans felt as I did: his noisy critique and bombast did not register as clear and convincingly as Justice Alito’s silent lips forming these words: “Not true!”

Next he blamed the Republicans in the room, condescending to lecture them on the workings of the budget process, a process many of them had in fact mastered while he was still at Harvard Law School. He blamed Republicans for the gridlock that has blocked his favorite legislation; but he knows as well as we do that he did not need one single solitary Republican vote in either house to pass his legislation. It was Democrats who blocked him, Democrats who said “no” to his liberal agenda after they had been home to their districts and heard from the American people. As Everett Dirksen used to say, “When they felt the heat, they saw the light.” God bless every American who said no!

Of course, the President accuses us of being the party of “no.” It’s as if he thinks that saying “no” is by definition a bad thing. In fact, it is right and praiseworthy to say no to bad things. It is right to say no to cap and trade, no to card check, no to government healthcare, and no to higher taxes. My party should never be a rubber stamp for rubber check spending.

But before we move away from this “no” epithet the Democrats are fond of applying to us, let’s ask the Obama folks why they say “no”– no to a balanced budget, no to reforming entitlements, no to malpractice reform, no to missile defense In Eastern Europe, no to prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal, and no to tax cuts that create new jobs. You see, we conservatives don’t have a corner on saying no; we’re just the ones who say it when that’s the right thing to do!

And that leads us to who he has most recently charged with culpability for his failures: the American people. It seems that we have failed to understand his wise plans for us. If he just slows down, he reasons, and makes a concerted effort to explain Obamacare in a way even we can understand, if we just listen better, then we will get it.

Actually, Americans have been listening quite attentively. And they have been watching. When he barred CSPAN from covering the healthcare deliberations, they saw President Obama break his promise of transparency. When the Democrat leadership was empowered to bribe Nebraska’s Senator Nelson, they saw President Obama break his promise of a new kind of politics in Washington. And when he cut a special and certainly unconstitutional healthcare deal with the unions, they saw him not just break his promise, they saw the most blatant and reprehensible manifestation of political payoff in modern memory. No, Mr. President, the American people didn’t hear and see too little, they saw too much!

Here again, with all due respect, President Obama fails to understand America. He said: “With all the lobbying and horse-trading, the process left most Americans wondering, ‘What’s in it for me?’” That’s not at all what they were asking. They were asking: “What’s in it for America?”

America will not endure government run health care, a new and expansive entitlement, an inexplicable and surely vanishing cut in Medicare and an even greater burden of taxes. Americans said no because Obamacare is bad care for America!

When it comes to shifting responsibility for failure, however, no one is a more frequent object of President Obama’s reproach than President Bush. It’s wearing so thin that even the late night shows make fun of it. I am convinced that history will judge President Bush far more kindly — he pulled us from a deepening recession following the attack of 9-11, he overcame teachers unions to test school children and evaluate schools, he took down the Taliban, waged a war against the jihadists and was not afraid to call it what it is — a war, and he kept us safe. I respect his silence even in the face of the assaults on his record that come from this administration. But at the same time, I also respect the loyalty and indefatigable defense of truth that comes from our “I don’t give a damn” Vice President Dick Cheney!

I’m afraid that after all the finger pointing is finished, it has become clear who is responsible for President Obama’s lost year, the 10% unemployment year — President Obama and his fellow Democrats. So when it comes to pinning blame, pin the tail on the donkeys.

There’s a good deal of conjecture about the cause of President Obama’s failures. As he frequently reminds us, he assumed the presidency at a difficult time. That’s the reason we argued during the campaign that these were not the times for on the job training. Had he or his advisors spent even a few years in the real economy, they would have learned that the number one cause of failure in the private sector is lack of focus, and that the first rule of turning around any troubled enterprise is focus, focus, focus. And so, when he assumed the presidency, his energy should have been focused on fixing the economy and creating jobs, and to succeeding in our fight against radical violent jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, he applied his time and political capital to his ill-conceived health care takeover and to building his personal popularity in foreign countries. He failed to focus, and so he failed.

But there was an even bigger problem than lack of focus. Ronald Reagan used to say this about liberals: “It’s not that they’re ignorant, it’s that what they know is wrong.” Too often, when it came to what President Obama knew, he was wrong.

He correctly acknowledged that the government doesn’t create jobs, that only the private sector can do that. He said that the government can create the conditions, the environment, which leads the private sector to add employment. But consider not what he said, but what he did last year, and ask whether it helped or hurt the environment for investment, growth, and new jobs.

Announcing 2011 tax increases for individuals and businesses and for capital gains, hurt.

Passing cap and trade, hurt.

Giving trial lawyers a free pass, hurt.

Proposing card check to eliminate secret ballots in union elections, hurt.

Holding on to GM stock and insisting on calling the shots there, hurt.

Making a grab for health care, almost 1/5th of our economy, hurt.

Budgeting government deficits in the trillions, hurt.

And scapegoating and demonizing businesspeople, hurt.

President Obama instituted the most anti-growth, anti-investment, anti-jobs measures we’ve seen in our lifetimes. He called his agenda ambitious. I call it reckless. He scared employers, so jobs were scarce. His nearly trillion dollar stimulus created not one net new job in the private sector, but it saved and grew jobs in the government sector– the one place we should have shed jobs. And even today, because he has been unwilling or unable to define the road ahead, uncertainty and lack of predictability permeate the private economy, and prolongs its stall. America is not better off than it was 1.8 trillion dollars ago.

Will the economy and unemployment recover? Of course. Thanks to a vibrant and innovative citizenry, they always do. But this president will not deserve the credit he will undoubtedly claim. He has prolonged the recession, expanded the pain of unemployment, and added to the burden of debt we will leave future generations. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their team have failed the American people, and that is why their majority will be out the door. Isn’t it fitting that so many of those who have contempt for the private sector will soon find themselves back in it?

The people of America are looking to conservatives for leadership, and we must not fail them.

Conservatism has had from its inception a vigorously positive, intellectually rigorous agenda. That agenda should have three pillars: strengthen the economy, strengthen our security, and strengthen our families.

We will strengthen the economy by simplifying and lowering taxes, by replacing outmoded regulation with modern, dynamic regulation, by opening markets to American goods, by strengthening our currency and our capital markets, and by investing in research and basic science. Instead of leading the world in how much we borrow, we will make sure that we lead the world in how much we build and create and invest.

We will strengthen our security by building missile defense, restoring our military might, and standing-by and strengthening our intelligence officers. And conservatives believe in providing constitutional rights to our citizens, not to enemy combatants like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed!

On our watch, the conversation with a would-be suicide bomber will not begin with the words, “You have the right to remain silent!”

Our conservative agenda strengthens our families in part by putting our schools on track to be the best in the world. Because great schools start with great teachers, we will insist on hiring teachers from the top third of college graduates, and we will give better teachers better pay. School accountability, school choice and cyber schools will be priorities. We will put parents and teachers back in charge of education, not the fat cat CEO’s of the teachers unions!

Strong families will have excellent health care. Getting health care coverage for the uninsured should be accomplished at the state level, not a one-size-fits all Pelosi plan. The right way to rein-in health care cost is not by making it more like the Post Office, it’s by making it more like a consumer-driven market. The answer for health care is market incentives not health care by a Godzilla-size government bureaucracy!

When it comes to our role in the world, our conservative agenda hews to the principles that have defined our nation’s foreign policy for over six decades: we will promote and defend the American ideals of political freedom, free enterprise, and human rights. We will stand with our allies, and confront those who threaten peace and destroy liberty.

There’s much more on our positive, intellectually rigorous conservative agenda. Not all of it is popular. But the American people have shown that they are ready for truth to trump hope. The truth is that government is not the solution to all our problems.

This year, I have taken the time to write a book that tells the truth about the challenges our nation faces, and about the conservative solutions needed to overcome them. I have titled it: No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. I’ve set up a booth outside so that you can buy a few hundred copies each. Well, maybe one or two.

Sometimes I wonder whether Washington’s liberal politicians understand the greatness of America. Let me explain why I say that.

At Christmas-time, I was in Wal-Mart to buy some toys for my grandkids. As I waited in the check-out line, I took a good look around the store. I thought to myself of the impact Sam Walton had on his company. Sam Walton was all about good value on everything the customer might want. And so is Wal-Mart: rock bottom prices and tens of thousands of items.

The impact that founders like Sam Walton have on their enterprises is actually quite remarkable. In many ways, Microsoft is a reflection of Bill Gates, just as Apple is of Steve Jobs. Disneyland is a permanent tribute to Walt Disney himself — imaginative and whimsical. Virgin Airlines is as irreverent and edgy as its founder. As you look around you, you see that people shape enterprises, sometimes for many years even after they are gone.

People shape businesses.

People shape countries.

America reflects the values of the people who first landed here, those who founded the nation, those who won our freedom, and those who made America the leader of the world.

America was discovered and settled by pioneers.

Later, the founders launched an entirely new concept of nation, one where the people would be sovereign, not the king, not the state. And this would apply not just to government, but also to the American economy: the individual would pursue his or her happiness in freedom, independent from government dictate. Every American was free to be an inventor, an innovator, a founder. America became the land of opportunity and a nation of pioneers.

We attracted people of pioneering spirit from around the world. They came here for freedom and opportunity, knowing that the cost was incredibly high: leaving behind family and the familiar, learning a new language, often living at first in poverty, sometimes facing prejudice, working long and hard hours.

All of these pioneers built a nation of incomparable prosperity and unrivaled security.

After its founding, our national economy grew thanks to more pioneers — people like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, William Procter and Robert Wood Johnson, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard and Thomas Watson. These are names we know — but the less well known are just as vital American innovators, and they number in the millions.
That American pioneering spirit is what propelled us to master the industrial age just as today we marshal the information age.

This course for America, chosen by the founders, has been settled for over 200 years. Ours is the creed of the pioneers, the innovators, the strivers who expect no guarantee of success, but ask only to live and work in freedom. This creed is under assault in Washington today. Liberals are convinced that government knows better than the people how to run our businesses, how to choose winning technologies, how to manage health care, how to grow an economy, and how to order our very lives. They want to gain through government takeover what they could never achieve in the competitive economy — power and control over the people of America. If these liberal neo-monarchists succeed, they will kill the very spirit that has built the nation — the innovating, inventing, creating, independent current that runs from coast to coast.

This is the liberal agenda for government. It does not encourage pioneers, inventors and investors — it suffocates them.

In a world where others have lost their liberty by trading it away for the false promises of the state, we choose to hold to our founding principles. We will stop these power-seekers where they stand. We will keep America, America, by retaining its character as the land of opportunity. We welcome the entrepreneur, the inventor, the innovator. We will insist on greatness from every one of our citizens, and rather than apologizing for who we are or for what we have accomplished, we will celebrate our nation’s strength and goodness. American patriots have defeated tyrants, liberated the oppressed, and rescued the afflicted. America’s model of innovation, capitalism and free enterprise has lifted literally billions of the world’s people out of poverty. America has been a force for good like no other in this world, and for that we make no apology.

Senator Jim DeMint’s Speech at CPAC

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:00:03 +0000

By Sen. Jim DeMint
02/18/2010

Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) spoke at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) 2010 Conference. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery

Thank you David and thanks to the American Conservative Union for organizing this critical mass of conservative hope and change.

I am excited about the prospects for conservative Republicans.

Three years of a Democrat majority and just one year of President Obama have awakened Americans and led millions to become more passionate advocates for freedom.

This has created a wave of new Republicans who are embracing the energy and passion of the American people.

The Democrats’ arrogance and audacious power grabs have made Americans stand up and say, “Enough is enough.”

We now see all too clearly that the hope and change the Democrats had in mind was nothing more than a retread of the failed and discredited socialist policies that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world.

And now that the Democrat’s goals are glaringly obvious, the battle is between the American people and the Democrats … and I like those odds!

Americans have been stunned by the fact that in the world’s greatest bastion of freedom, our government now owns the largest auto companies, the largest mortgage company, and the largest insurance company.

It controls our schools and is trying to take over our healthcare system.

The federal government is assaulting almost every sector of our free market economy.

At a time when I fear America is teetering towards tyranny, I was thrilled to hear that CPAC adopted the theme of saving freedom for this year’s meeting.

Saving freedom is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I published a book last year and titled it “Saving Freedom” because the danger of losing freedom is no longer theoretical … it is very real.

I wanted to remind people that our country has been the most prosperous nation in history and exceptional in so many ways because our economy, culture and government were built on principles of freedom that were unique in the entire world.

An understanding of America’s history will confirm that good government policy is always based on proven principles, and proven principles are derived from constructive values, and constructive values are founded on Judeo/Christian convictions.

If we remove the foundation for our principles and policies, America will fall.

Those principles were written into a contract with the American people that promised to limit the federal government’s power.

We call that contract the Constitution and, when it was signed, it didn’t even allow a federal income tax — that sounds like a good way to limit the size of the federal government to me.

Every congressman, senator, President and Supreme Court justice takes an oath to protect and defend that constitution. And I think it’s time they started honoring that oath!

The principles of freedom require limited government and a vibrant private sector. Freedom cannot exist without free markets, individual freedom and personal responsibility.

Real freedom includes the right to succeed, to build a large business and to make lots of money.

It also includes the freedom for mismanaged and insolvent institutions to fail.

Despite the clarion call for freedom from the American people, there is still a struggle within the Republican Party about who we are and what we stand for.

It’s a fight between those who take their Constitutional oath seriously and those who don’t.

We all swear an oath to protect and defend a Constitution that specifies a very limited federal government.

It’s hard for me to believe that Congressman and Senators who continue their addiction to parochial earmarks and their support for almost every new spending program have read the same Constitution I have.

That’s why I, along with several other Republican Senators, introduced a budget reform proposal a few weeks ago. This proposal would put a one-year moratorium on earmarks and require Congress to balance the federal budget.

All Republicans should support these two commonsense bills. There are currently 12 Republican Senators who have co-sponsored this budget reform proposal and no Democrats.

My website Senateconservatives.com lists the names and phone numbers of those who have and haven’t signed on as co-sponsors.

Please use those phone numbers to encourage Senators who are not cosponsoring these proposals to join us.

Folks – with our country drowning in debt – if we can’t give up pork for one year and won’t even try to balance the budget now, there’s no reason to think we will do it tomorrow.

We can’t continue to trust budgets that call for more spending, borrowing and debt today with vague promises to cut spending sometime in the future.

We should all take caution from the biblical admonition from Proverbs “the borrower is slave to the lender”… a truth that becomes more apparent for our country every day.

We’re piling up trillions of dollars of debt for our children to pay. Well … I refuse to commit my children and grandchildren to a lifetime of debt slavery because people in Washington are too willing to trade freedom for earmarks and kickbacks!

I’ve been criticized by some of my Republican colleagues for saying I’d rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who believe in the principles of freedom than 60 who don’t believe in anything.

Let me make myself even clearer: I’d rather have 30 Marco Rubios in the Senate than 60 Arlen Specters.

But, if that were the case I wouldn’t have to settle for 30, because strong conservatives who believe in a constitutional limited government like Marco Rubio will pave the way to a new Republican majority that will keep our promises to the American people!

The best way to re-earn the trust of the American people and to reclaim a Republican majority is to find and support more candidates who believe in the Principles of Freedom.

That’s why I founded the Senate Conservatives Fund. That’s Senateconservatives.com for those of you who are taking notes.

I’m afraid we’re causing a little trouble for the establishment.

You see, I believe in holding incumbent Republican Senators accountable to the principles that we all say we believe in.

When Republican senators don’t do the things they say they believe, voters should have a choice of a new Republican … a real Republican.

So we endorsed Pat Toomey over Arlen Specter in the Republican primary in Pennsylvania. And that seemed to encourage Arlen Specter to follow his liberal roots back home to the Democratic Party.

We caused some more trouble when we endorsed Marco Rubio in Florida after the Republican Senate Committee endorsed Charlie Crist.

Then we endorsed another true conservative, Chuck DeVore, in California, over the favorite of the Republican establishment. Chuck is here at CPAC so please give him a hero’s welcome.

We’ve also endorsed Michael Williams in Texas to replace Senator Hutchinson who has announced she will retire from the Senate after her primary for governor in March. Michael is here and I can’t wait for you to hear him speak.

Now let’s talk a minute about the Presidential race in 2012. I hope Americans will expect more from their next president than a great speech.

You can’t govern from a teleprompter.

Just because you are good on TV doesn’t mean you can sell socialism to freedom-loving Americans.

We need a leader who will remind Americans how we became the greatest nation in history and what we need to do to make sure we’re still the greatest nation in the future.

This will require telling Americans the cold, hard truth … which is … if America is going to survive and thrive in the future, the federal government must do less, not more.

No more false hope and empty promises based on more failed government solutions.

We need to get back to the basics.

That means no more bailouts.

That means we will not spend money we don’t have.

It means we won’t throw out the faith of our Founding Fathers.

And it definitely means we won’t give away our precious Constitutional rights to foreign terrorists who want to destroy us!

America’s future will be brighter than our past if politicians have the courage to stop using other people’s money to impose their good intentions on others…

… and if they have the courage to restrict the federal government to only those things that it has to do — like defend our nation, create a predictable, low-tax business environment, and keep our promises to seniors and veterans.

Then — for those things that don’t have to be done at the federal level – we should return power and money to the people and the states.

Reducing the size and scope of the federal government is the only way to cut spending, to save freedom and to save America.

We need leaders who are willing to tell the American people this truth.

Please continue to help supporting, promoting and believing in those leaders.

In closing, I want to thank each of you personally for your support and encouragement. You regularly recharge my batteries.

I didn’t come to Washington to make friends and I haven’t been disappointed so far.

I have taken many positions that have offended the President, the Democrat leadership, the union bosses, the plaintiff’s bar, Move On.Org, the liberal media and even some of my Republican colleagues.

Frankly, sometimes I feel like I’m trying to hold back the tide, and the constant fighting can be tiresome.

If I couldn’t come here every year and plug into the CPAC renewable energy source, I wouldn’t have the strength to even show up at Waterloo, much less win the battle. Thank you!

Don’t Change ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:00:57 +0000

By Bob L. We need change and to have an honest Government the is open to the people and not hide behind closed doors.

If there were more people like Ted Nugent, Chuck Norris, just a few of many who believe in this Country, would step forward and get people off their butts, then this and past administrations would not get away with what they are doing.

We need to get the yuppies, and the chicken little’s who think the world is ending to stop listening to the whiners who are complaining, and trying to make every one think that the world will end if you don’t listen to them, and believe every thing they say.
___________________________________________________________
By Ted Nugent
02/18/2010

I just returned home from another U.S military function where it was my honor and privilege to be among the finest people in America. Nothing is more satisfying and rewarding than spending time with our warriors and their families.

Our military is a discriminatory institution. It discriminates based upon age, weight, eye-sight, physical disabilities, and the overall essentiality of a warrior spirit. The military discriminates because it knows that killing the enemy in the most expeditious manner and winning wars is its mission, and that discriminating against certain people is the absolute best policy to ensure complete and total victory. Who could possibly believe that’s a bad idea?

Not everyone can be a member of our military. Americans have no constitutional right to join the military. I was denied enlisting in the Marines a couple of years ago even though I offered to supply the Marines with all their ammunition requirements for a year if they would allow me to join. No luck for the MotorCity gimpy guitarslinger.

From what I have learned by spending time with military men and women serving our great nation and by spending time with many more veterans, our military is a well-oiled machine that is fueled by good order, discipline, morale and unit cohesion. Unlike our broken public school system and criminal justice system, our military is not a social experiment. Excellence is still the battle cry of warriors. Thank God.

Enter the debate over allowing homosexuals to openly serve in our military. What this issue boils down to is what may or may not happen to the military’s good order, discipline, morale, and unit cohesion if they are allowed to openly serve. Until someone can convince me that by allowing gays to openly serve in our military will improve our ability to wage and win wars, we should continue the 1993 law that does not permit gays to openly serve.

Over 1,000 retired generals hand-signed a letter to the White House, Pentagon and members of Congress opposing allowing homosexuals to openly serve in the military. Good source for direction. In determining whether or not to allow gays to openly serve, our military and congress should strongly consider the thoughts of these 1,000 retired officers. They know a thing or two about unit cohesion, good order, discipline, morale and combat readiness.

Another issue that is rarely discussed is how homosexual marriage plays into the equation of allowing homosexuals to openly serve. For example, let’s say a state allows two gays to marry and then one of the spouses decides to join the military. How
will this impact our military? Will our military have to recognize gay marriages, provide separate living quarters, provide health care for the homosexual’s spouse, and more?

Should our military deny recognizing such marriages, this would open the legal floodgates because homosexuals would surely challenge our military in federal court on the grounds of being denied their civil rights. This is the pink elephant in the room that is rarely discussed and could potentially force the federal government to recognize gay marriage. Just a thought.

We would also be naive to believe that homosexuals are not currently proudly and bravely serving in our military. The facts are that a few have been pushed out of the military unless they openly flaunted their sexuality, which is violation of the 1993 law.

President Obama, former Vice President Cheney, Admiral Mullen and others now claim it is time to rethink the military’s position on allowing gays in the military. I respect their opinions. Let’s hope they respect the opinions of the 1,000 retired generals who oppose allowing gays to openly serve.

I have gay friends. We get along just fine. Live it up. However, when it comes to defending the nation there are other far more important standards to consider.

May God bless all our warriors and their loved ones.