Pastor Stephen Broden: On The Current Crisis of Leadership

If the current march to tyranny continues unabated, if the government of Marxists and Fabian Socialists continues to manufacture crises and use them to justify unconstitutional power grabs, nationalizations, economically destabilizing debt and the printing of vast amounts of money, the sustained appointment of unaccountable "czars" and the organized thuggery to suppress dissent then we are in growing danger of losing our representative republic, our res publica, our freedom and our way of life. Resistance must take a constitutional form within the rule of law until it becomes clear whether this government is truly one of the people or not. Pastor Stephen Broden is an eloquent voice worth listening to. Tyranny Rising!

I Love Michele Bachmann ...

A courageous Congressman! I love Michele Backmann. She is standing up to the Obama thugs in her own district and defending all the citizens of the United States. SEE HERE AND HERE Keep going Michele and we'll have'em on the run at some point.

The evil that men do lives after them ...

... the good is oft interred with their bones ... Kennedy will be long remembered by those who knew his many exploits. SEE HERE AND HERE I entrust him to the mercy of the Lord whom he so thoroughly failed to serve. Requiescat in pace.

Good Science Would Have Nothing to Fear From a Trial

Global Warming Fear Mongers Evading U.S. Chamber of Commerce call for a Trial of AGW

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Perhaps at long last the phony baloney science behind AGW is coming a cropper. Sure the globe is warming. It's been doing that since the end of the last ice age. You know, it gets colder and we have an ice age, and then it gets warmer and the ice melts and this is on a cycle of thousands of years. Ice core data shows that CO2 increases come after the warming. Let's see, hmmm... cause and effect says that causes come before effects, not after. And of course there is a lot lot more that somehow the climate modelers don't take into account. They've been so systematically wrong that it's really surprising anyone agrees with them. Oh year, I forgot, there's money to be made in them thar hills.

Does Anyone Remember Valerie Plame?

The ACLU is outing CIA operatives right and left SEE HERE— so where are all the investigative journalists crying "foul"? The double standard in journalism is chilling. If Fox news didn't exist we'd have nothing but an Obama cheering section as the republic was disassembled.

Weep for the death of the republic. When I was in school I read the classic Latin texts. My generation may have been one of the last to have four years of Latin reading Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil and acquiring an appreciation for the Roman Republic and a sense of the sheer sweep of tyranny represented by the rise of the Empire as Emperor followed Emperor often based on how much they could promise the Roman legions.

Our Founding Fathers understood this but we no longer do because the Western Tradition has been eradicated from our schools. "Ho Ho Ho, Western Civ has got to go" chanted the mindless undergraduates of the 1960s as they advanced Maoist ideas and agitated in response to encouragement by those who favored the eradication of the infant Vietnamese democracy.

We were implicated in the assassination of Diem and it seemed odd to me, and still does, that that assassination came only shortly before John Kennedy was assassinated. But that's another time and another tyranny. The one we are seeing today is the assault on the American republic from within. It is a highly organized and orchestrated assault. That is apparent because it is so focused and intense. I do not know if it will be successful, but it seems certain that it is underway.

The picture is by Picasso of a weeping woman. I don't know the history of the picture. It dates apparently from 1937 when the Nazis were already securely in power. Perhaps it is weeping over the Spanish Civil War. I put it up because I think it is symbolic of sorrow. If we lose this republic of ours — the res publica (the public thing) in the Latin, then the great Darkness will be beginning once again.

The Darkness always falls when tyranny stalks the land. I suppose I sound like a very gloomy person, but in fact I am an obsessively cheerful person always rising with a smile on my face and full of good cheer, hearty fellow well met I suppose. So I am not motivated by a gloomy drearyness or a tendency to depression, instead it is a particular historical awareness of the fall of the ancient Roman res publica and the rise of Fascism and National Socialism in the aftermath of the Great War. Communism rose out of that same war. All were motivated by a Utopian fever. It would be ironic if the richest and most hopeful nation in the world were brought down by those who were still seeking those false Gods. But it is hard not to think in light of current events that that might well be exactly what we are watching.

Crisis Mongering and Crony Corruption

While the smooth talker in chief is going around repeating his talking points about a Health Care program that would destroy the health care system of the United State, the most effective health care system in the world as measured by outcomes against severe diseases, as he "saves the economy" with huge stimulus packages that were an emergency but which can't seem to be spent but which include billions, yes billions, of dollars earmarked for his political cronies, ACORN, big labor, while at the same time he cuts money for defense, goes around the globe apologizing for America, claiming we are not a Christian nation, now he has the CIA in his sights CHECK RUSH OUT ON THIS ONE and is attacking them for scaring terrorists "Oooo How Mean!" This man is anti-American, he is intentionally undermining the nation economically.

Fidel Castro went on record praising Obama which is frankly a troubling fact. But oddly he is cited as saying that Obama doesn't have the desire or the ability to fundamentally change the capitalist system. SEE HERE (I think I agree about the ability — the more I watch him the more I wonder who's running him?)

So what's going on? He's praised by Castro for his health care initiative and his environmental initiatives — programs which will arguably bankrupt the nation, but don't worry he's not out to fundamentally change the capitalist system. Hmmm... how reassuring. One of the questions that has to be asked is how is it possible that all of these things could happen in the some eight months that Obama has been president? Multiple thousand page bills with hundreds of provisions to distribute money to labor, community organizers, and on and on ... firing the executives of major corporations, firing existing appointees who actually try to investigate irregularities, putting in place almost three dozen "czars" who are free of oversight and many of whom have checkered pasts ranging from communism, radical advocacy for extreme medical control of the population, green extremism, forced unionism, ... It is hard not to be significantly concerned that this is a highly orchestrated plan to destroy the nation economically and politically. This is a strategy which seems calculated to bring on chaos and a rationale for seizing total power to save us from the catastrophes induced by the irrational and wild policies. Sieg Heil! Tyranny Rising! The big question is: Can he be stopped or has it already gone too far?

The Liar In Chief: On The Record

How can anyone take this guy seriously anymore? He lies and lies and lies and then he smiles at you and lies some more. You can keep your doctor. You can keep your insurance company. The doctor will take your tonsils out just to make more money when you have a sore throat. Your doctor will let your feet go bad if you're a diabetic so he can make a fortune cutting them off. Those cops in Cambridge were just stupid. I never supported a single payer system. Oh yeah, I told my supporters that I did support a single payer system a couple of years ago. I'm all we weed up ... Well no wonder ... I knew something was wrong with you.

The Age of the Machine and the Commodification of Life

James Lewis wrote a piece in the American Thinker on August 19, 2009 which caught my eye because it took a hard look at this issue that Sarah Palin has labeled "Death Panels." As I was sitting in church today something clicked and I remembered some ideas taken from C.S. Lewis's inaugural address at Cambridge, de descriptione temporum. Lewis talked about the metaphor of the Machine. I'm not sure he used exactly those words, but the idea he was discussing is the idea, or really myth, that progress is inevitable. Lewis called this chronological snobbery, but it is one of the defining diseases of our time. He talked about the fact that we live in a machine-age and because of that, the idea of progress seems relatively obvious because we have seen progress in the development of machines in our own times.
It is not a very great leap from this idea of machines and progress to linking human beings more directly into the myth. Modern materialism makes this easy. Evolution and materialism linked together suggest after all that we are only a sort of cosmic accident. We are a mindless assemblage of atoms, become molecules, that happened through some freak to become aware. We can't really account for that. But like those machines we've been getting better, at least if you trace us from amoebas or something, single celled things that became multi-celled things and so on for a very very long time. This is a kind of myth itself in the popular mind and Lewis talks about that elsewhere.
But let's look at the other side of the coin, the traditional view of human beings as created in the image and likeness of God, only a little less than the angels and of incalculable worth. If you are an immortal spirit and matter amalgam, an intrinsic joining of essence with matter to be like unto God than regardless of your degree of health, you are worth preserving.
Ah but remember that machine. Machines wear out. Machines get less and less valuable as they become older because they are only good so long as they are fully functional and their value is proportional to their functional life. You can see where this goes. On the machine metaphor, people become less worthy and more worthless as they wear out. The old are simply beyond repair and not worth painting or fixing up, might as well send them to the shredder they're just not worth much anymore.
I think that is exactly the cusp we are on, the tipping point of shifting from the high view of man all down the ages at least in the West, to this cold machine-like functional and utilitarian view that bears the mark of cold calculation like an assembly line and recognizes in man just another animal, maybe a bit more complex, but just a meat-machine, almost like a computer only slower, more prone to failure, just an accidental machine.
In the final analysis, I think it is this emerging view of man that must be rejected and with it the values that have the sulfurous smell of Hades about them. Screwtape, to use the name of Lewis's fictional devil, quite clearly has a hand in all of this and delights in Tyranny Rising!

More From Celente: The Next Step Is War

This guy is pretty scary. He is seriously predicting some pretty extreme things ranging from the emergence of a real third party to the total breakdown of our current political system. That's a wide range of alternatives of course and it seems quite extreme. I'd feel pretty comfortable except that I'm seeing things that I never imagined I'd see going on in Washington. Just the incredible financial irresponsibility going on in Washington is enough to give some credence to Celente.

If you think Celente is onto something then check out this somewhat longer series of audios. PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4

The Real Face of Islam: See It or Die as a Culture

We as a culture must reach a point very soon where the multiculturalist position of ignorance and active anti-knowledge is rejected and condemned everywhere. There must come a time soon when anyone making such a self-destructive and baseless argument is heaped with shame and derision for their lack of scholarship, embrace of anti-knowledge, and their defense of the enemy whom they know literally nothing about. Such a day must come quickly if we are to survive as a nation.
These words are drawn from the SIOA (Stop Islamization Of America)site and an article by D.L. Adams titled: Applied Doctrine of Islam: Why the Lockerbie Mass Murderer Received a Hero’s Welcome The problem is that what we think we know about Islam is bunk. Most of you reading this are the kafir (the unbelievers)and not Muslims. You have no idea about what Islam teaches and that means that you are likely to believe those who say: "Islam is a peaceful religion." It's true to some small degree. Islam is peaceful as long as they are seriously outnumbered. But read the history of Islam more closely and you discover not a peaceful religion, but a religion that was spread by the sword, that murders those who try to leave the religion, and which is in a perpetual state of jihad. So if you were surprised when Mr. Megrahi got a hero’s welcome in Libya then you simply have been drinking too much of the koolaid labeledl:"Islam is a peaceful religion." It's not. It never has been, and until we are all safely in the embrace of Sharia Law the only peace we will have is the peace of the grave.

Obamageddon 2012: Nothing Left to Lose

Trends Research Gerald Celente follows the data and exposes the lies. But this is incredibly scary stuff. He is predicting an economic collapse without precedent if we don't stop the gravy train.

Sweet Land of Liberty: They Don't Know This Country Any More

A poignant song for a Sunday reflection on where liberty is going. If Government is the answer, what was the question? If you're a liberal the question seems to be anything at all since for liberals, government in the universal answer. Just belly up to the bar and say "We have a problem and the government should solve it." But the liberty of free men is not having others solve our problems for us and that's especially true when the so-called problem solvers are faceless bureaucrats miles and miles away who could care less about us. We're just a pay check and a daily burden. So have a listen and ask yourself if you really want a super-nannystate dictating to everyone? There's a big Tea Party in Washington on September 12th, the day after 9/11 and I think the date is significant as a symbol of Americans coming together to defend liberty. We have to resist Tyranny Rising!

The Beginning of the Great Stupidity

It is fairly clear that the stimulus has been a failure except to incredibly increase the deficit. The Obama administration shows more signs of trying to sink the economy than save it. Not only don't we see signs of stimulus, but there are signs that things may well get worse. And could someone please explain why giving away billions of cars that you then shred makes any sense at all? It reminds me of the mindless destruction of war production after World War II in the name of improving post war production. Intentional destruction of wealth is something only a Democrat can think is a good idea. Good luck America —Tyranny Rising!

Freedom From Religion? Isn't it Freedom Of Religion?

This is a rather old story (July 7, 2009), but I think it is emblematic of the Obama administration's typical schizophrenia or perhaps more accurately hypocrisy. Obama is always posturing as a man of faith, someone who supports the military, and is open to a range of commitments when in fact he is an agenda driven ideologue who is hostile to religion in the public square, largely anti-military, and has an Alinsky inspired goal to destroy the existing system.

Death Panels ... Don't be Coy ... It's Not Counseling

Just in case you wondered about "end of life counseling" it's a way of covering over denial of care or encouraging the patient (read victim) to do the right thing and get out'a Dodge. Who's kidding whom? (my mother always made me use 'whom' which is what happens when you grow up with an English major for a mom) So what's this all about? It's about cost shifting. You can't pay for Obamacare without either breaking the bank or stealing from the most needy, i.e. the elderly and infirm. Don't kid yourself. This is pure accounting 101 and that's the best government can do. The private sector by contrast can be incentivized to do better, become more efficient, more productive. It is particularly telling that when the talking heads say "more efficient" they really mean rationing. When the private sector says more efficient they mean more productive for the same input. Big difference!! Andrew McCarthy in the National Review On-Line yesterday pointed out how important it was to focus on the real issue. SEE HERE for a great article on why "Death Panels" is the right characterization, even if it isn't euphemistic. To really understand you have to look at the views of those peddling Obamacare in the administration. These are care rationers and euthanasia buffs. Don't drink the koolaid.

The Koolaid Metaphor

I've found myself using the metaphor of "drinking the koolaid" a lot these days and I suppose that requires a little explanation, especially for those who are younger. In 1978 something like 912 followers of Rev. Jim Jones committed suicide by drinking a concoction characterized by the news media as "koolaid" laced with cyanide and tranquillizers and other stuff. WIKIPEDIA ON JONESTOWN
When I use the phrase "drinking the koolaid" I mean that people are letting others do their thinking for them. They are buying into the spin which is always agenda driven. Any story that advances the agenda is operative and any story that doesn't is forbidden. We see this in the coverage of the black man who brought a gun to an Obama rally. Much of the news media made much of this event but a lot of them cropped the pictures to conceal the fact that the bearer of the gun was a black man. That fact didn't fit the script. It didn't match the agenda.
Reality trumps spin. When we embrace agenda driven strategies we truncate thought and we make the goal more important than the journey and more important than truth itself. That's wrong. Goals are only legitimate if they are motivated by reality. Truth is another name for reality.
I can hear the snide response: "Well that may be your truth but it's not mine." Because truth is reality this is an incoherent remark except insofar as it means: "You're mistaken because my truth is the real truth." OK — that's fair. So let's see which "truth" actually stands up to the reality and which is just "koolaid" drinking.
Truth is distinguished by being able to stand deep and determined investigation. So when you see folks backing away from investigation what they're implicitly saying is either they had not done their homework, or, of more concern, that they know that their position won't stand investigation. These latter ones are the true "koolaid drinkers" but the ones that act in doubt are "koolaid drinkers in training." When truth stops mattering and is sacrificed to the agenda, then we have arrived at tyranny. So when we see koolaid drinking going on, we know we are seeing Tyranny Rising!
* In case you're unconvinced you might want to CHECK OUT THIS an egregious example of the koolaid swilling media bias.

The Ghouls of Health Care

I keep hearing from the koolaid drinkers that we just don't understand how really great government health care will be. We're being sold a bill of goods by __ fill in the blank (insurance companies, right-wingers, conservatives, agitators, mindless rich people, greedy doctors, or any one of the usual suspects that the koolaid drinkers think are the reason people with real neurons do things) — of course the reality is that koolaid drinkers are motivated by the agenda. They are agenda-driven. Some of us are interested in self-determination, independence, and freedom. Our agenda is our own and not someone elses'. We think we should decide our fate without a lot of government pressure or help.

If you want to know where government health care goes you might want to check out THIS
The point is that most of the health care dollars are spent by the very ill, who are also by and large the elderly. So when you want to trim costs the expedient way, and government only knows one way to trim costs and it is never to increase efficiency, as I said the expedient way is to cut back on services. There are two pretty simple ways to do that, direct denial of services is the straight-forward way and that is done by profiling. "You're too old to receive that expensive procedure, take a pain pill." The other approach is to raise obstacles which cause delay of delivery of service and that's easy enough to do especially for bureaucrats. The example given of the "Death Book" which has been reinstated by the Obama administration's Veteran's Administration. Death Panels may be a somewhat unfair characterization of government counsels in so far as their stated purpose which is "bang for the buck" and you can't get any bang from the elderly and the very sick. Bring on the koolaid.

Money: You Mean that Paper Stuff

I've always been fascinated by money. I don't mean that I'm greedy or that I want a whole lot of money, although heaven knows that would be handy. What I mean is that money, especially 'fiat money' (the kind of money that has no intrinsic value) is quite fascinating in its own right.

We all agree to work hard if you give us nice green paper, or even more intangible a number bump in our bank account which translates into sort of just an imaginary number hanging in the air. We all go for it. But we only do that because of trust. We trust that everyone is going to go for it. As long as people are trustworthy that system works. Now, think about it, that's a pretty big reach isn't it. "As long as everyone is trustworthy." How many trustworthy folks do you know? How much of your money would you trust them to watch for you while you went away for a month?

How about ACORN and Obama? How much of your money would you trust them with? If you're not too sure about trust, you have to recognize that it's what the whole system is built on. It wasn't always that way. In fact the shift to fiat money only goes back to FDR and even then we were on a modified real money system when I was a kid. I used to go to the bank and swap my paperboy proceeds for real silver dollars.

The advantage of money that has intrinsic value is that it can't suffer hyper-inflation. Why do I bring that up? Well we've been doing some pretty irresponsible things lately with our money. There is a serious risk of major inflation brewing. Some folks even think hyper-inflation may result. (Now that is seriously scary.)

The rest of the world is watching and today there was a news story that I thought should be at least mentioned. SEE HERE U.S. currency is right now the standard for international exchange. We used to exchange gold, but pretty much no-one is doing that anymore. Now everyone exchanges dollars. But you only do that if dollars are worth something and stable. Well pretty much everyone is starting to wonder if that will continue to be true. I sure hope so since my retirement and pretty much everything is tied up in those U.S. dollars.

I got to thinking a bit more about it when I watched Tom Woods (I have his book "Meltdown" but have not yet had a chance to read it.) Tom is a libertarian type and a supporter of Ron Paul and he's one of those that questions whether we should be on a fiat money system. If you're interested in spending a few minutes (something like half an hour if you watch all four parts) you'll have a better appreciation for what's at stake. Here are links for Tom Wood's talk earlier this month in Galveston, Texas. PART-1 PART-2 PART-3 PART-4

ACORN: How Do You Tell These Guys From Racketeers? Oh, you don't!

ACORN operates what amounts to a confidence protection scam. It's probably no coincidence that Chicago was where the mob operated most successfully. "It's political protection clear and simple." Hmmm... and these guys are scattered all through the Obama administration. No wonder that Michelle Malkin titles her book: "Culture of Corruption."

I Love Ann Coulter: She Analyzes the Latest Nonsense

The sheer manic spin coming out of Washington ought to make us all realize that letting these folks run almost anything is just crazy. The government is currently out of control because the loonies have all the votes. This is a good example of why we need things like term limits and amateur politicians not professional ones who have never earned a real salary for doing something, well, actually productive.

We Know It Doesn't Work: Why don't We Get It?

Socialism is a failure everywhere it has been tried. It may well be the worst form of government if we measure success by how well the people live. This isn't a conclusion that it takes a rocket scientist to discover. All you have to do is look at a little history and read a few statistics. Some years ago I looked at the per-capita income of every nation in the world (the Internet actually makes that rather easy, but it was easy even before the internet with these all-in-one encyclopedias) my conclusion was that the most obvious explanation for relative poverty was the form of government. It stood out like a sore thumb when you plotted the data in two dimensions: form of government vs. per-capita income.

A column in IBD today makes the same point relative to the Soviet Union. It's well worth a read. SEE HERE Here's a brief excerpt from an excellent column:

Socialism has bankrupted and failed every society, while capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system.

There is no perfect society. There are no perfect people. Critics say that greed is the driving force of capitalism. My answer is that envy is the driving force of socialism. Change to socialism is not an improvement on the imperfections of the current system. ...

When I came to America in 1980 and experienced life in this country, I thought it was fortunate that those living in the USSR did not know how unfortunate they were.

Now in 2009, I realize how unfortunate it is that many Americans do not understand how fortunate they are. They vote to give government more and more power without understanding the consequences.

I think this is pretty compelling and that raises the question: What do people think they are doing flirting with socialism? It's a failed system and every move towards it is a move towards the universalization of poverty and destruction of hope and opportunity, just the oppostite of Hope and Change. Can it be anything but Tyranny Rising!?

Dick Morris Cuts to the Core of Obamacare: Abandon the Elderly to Get the Funds

(CLICK ON IMAGE OR HERE TO VIEW VIDEO)The bottom line is that Obamacare is seeking to fund millions of people currently unfunded by reducing the funds available for the elderly and using those instead to pay for health care for illegal aliens and people currently uncovered, many because they chose to be. Not factored into this equation is where the health professionals are going to come from in a system that allegedly is hugely extending care. The result can only be shortages and rationing and deteriorated care, especially for those who are most in need of care. This is a cynical power grab by government with a motive of buying votes to extend power. When those who are entitled to benefits which they don't have to pay for exceed 50% the republic is doomed. Tyranny Rising!

"A Typical Kneejerk Liberal Reaction" Is that a surprise?

So much corruption is so little time. You have to be really good at corruption to do it so quickly. Axelrod, an accomplised "Astroturf campaigner" — Millions for corruption, you get the change. I really like both Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter — the reason Authenticity— they really care about the truth and strive to advance it. Ann is a little more flamboyant than Michelle who is doggedly determined to make her points while Ann loves to lampoon the liberals by turning their own tactics against them. They're both a hoot. We need more like them. TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: I bought Michelle's book, but I've not read it yet except for the introduction. Just finished Glenn Beck's Common Sense and I'm just about finished Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny. In the mean time I have to finish reading two books for the book clubs I'm a member of: 1) Remembering C.S. Lewis, and 2) Why is that in Tradition? Never a dull moment, and school starts soon so back to the grindstone.

"Cut and Paste for Effect": Bushwacking Michelle Malkin

Here's a typical move by the left-wing koolaid drinkers. What you do is pretend you're having a serious interview with an author like Michelle Malkin and then you cut and past in effects to create a bogus effect. It's a fundamentally dishonest technique, so is it any surprise that it is practiced by leftists? Not really, and certainly I've seen examples of the same sort of thing on the right, often looping something silly that a leftist said. That's actually more honest since after all they said it. What this shows is cutting in material that lampoons both the person being interviewed and the target without really engaging the issue. It reminds me of the technique which C.S. Lewis lampooned naming it "Bulverism" after a fictitious character who always dismissed his interlocutor by assigning them a motive and using that as the basis for dismissal. "Oh you only say that because you work for a tobacco company." — Liberals use it all the time and actually think it is relevant. Logic is wasted on a Liberal.

The Hell With Representing the People

"Nuclear Option" ... "Splitting the Bill" ... we know what is best for you and the hell with what you want. We won't listen and we don't care. That's the message from Washington Democrats. We have the presidency. We have majorities in both houses. We are partnered with God for your own good. Yup — Obama said that:

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is decided "who shall live and who shall die." SEE HERE

This is getting way beyond Koolaid to something stronger — Jack, Jim, and Johnny* with maybe a little hashish on the side. But it's probably just plain old hubris which the Greeks condemned and modern man is all too prone to. The direction we're going is Tyranny Rising!

*Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Johnny Walker

Credibility: Just Turn Over a Rock

In case you were wondering if the administration was being treated unfairly when governor Palin characterized the counseling of aged and terminal patients as "Death Panels" maybe you should check out the Veterans Administration. After the Bush administration left Washington the cadre of Hope and Change moved in and immediately began to reverse pro-life and other moral policies that had been put in place by George W. Bush. They were not improvements. The Koolaid drinkers want to help the human race off the planet — fewer are better and especially those old ones that are past their productive prime.

Jack Towey wrote an insightful column which exposed the same kind of thinking that Sarah Palin was complaining about. SEE HERE An excerpt:
Government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care. ... Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." ... Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.
I think there is a pattern here that is easy to discern unless of course you're one of those actually drinking the Koolaid.

Where Are Those Political Brambles?

The Good Lord only made days with 24 hours and Jessica was just telling me that some of my loyal Political Brambles fans have been complaining to her about lack of content. I had not posted in five, FIVE days. Horrors! I must be sick!

That's certainly true. The news has been full of the Political Kabuki Theater that has replaced sensible governance in the lunatic asylum called Washington that's only about two hours drive from here. It's likely contagious too. My Bramble Time has been eaten up a little lately since I've been helping out the Shenandoah Tea Party folks CHECK IT OUT HERE

If you bookmark it, even if there's no Bramble to get you all stickery you can waltz over to the Tea Party and see what's keeping me busy. All those posts on the Home page are hunted up by the minions of Tea Party analysts who fire them off to my email address and then I loyally post them except for the rare ones that are urban legends or such.

The Briar Patch is certainly full of thorns and thistles these days, so I'll have not problem finding more content. Meanwhile, thanks for caring! The Brambles will keep on coming.

Liberals Never Learn: Only Two Neurons

The more things Change the more they stay the same. Here's a 1934 cartoon: "Spend! Spend! Spend! Under the Guise of Recovery — Bust the Government — Blame the Capitalists for the Failure ... Doesn't this sound familiar? I think they haven't changed the playbook. We should be smart enough to figure it out.

The Beat Goes On: The More He Talks The Better I Feel

Can we get lower? ... a lot lower! Every time this guy opens his mouth I hear the lilting tones of someone over simplifying, over promising, over obligating, using made up on the spot examples about things he clearly doesn't understand, like health care, economics, integrity, telling the truth ... He's a con man and the more he talks the more it shows. Keep talking!

Abortion Kills Mothers Too! Lots of Them

We've been told by all the fans of baby killing (you know, the "Pro-Choicers") that it makes abortion safe for the mother so they don't have to do it in the back alley. Somehow the fact that it's never safe for the baby doesn't faze anyone. Scarier though is that it also increases the numbers of mothers dying. SEE HERE
I don't see why that would be surprising. The back alley abortion deterred a lot of mothers from trying abortions, but now that it's "SAFE" (sure it is honey) many more are doing it and dying or suffering from other complications. 50% plus of the people involved in an abortion die. Oh, I forgot, we're not supposed to count the baby. I keep forgetting that. In some sense 100% of the people involved in abortion die. The mother will never be a real mother again knowing she killed her child. The spiritual death is a death too.

We Let Our Deterrent Degrade While Others Modernize

Nuclear weapons are among the most useless of all military ordnance. They are extraordinarily destructive and produce long term radiation fallout which makes them a serious environmental problem. But because they exist (anyone with enough money and enough physics can make them) they are an ideal terror weapon which can hold millions of people hostage in the face of threats to use them. Historically, only Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD, what an appropriate acronym) has seemed to stabilize the world, a sort of mad agreement to terrorize each other. But as some of the most irresponsible nations, proponents of hate, acquire nuclear weapons, we have been proposing to throttle back on missile defense and the necessary modernization of our own nuclear arsenal. That really is madness. SEE HERE

AARP Meeting on August 4, 2009

I'm not quite sure what to make of this video. It comes across to me as "picking up your marbles and going home" as we used to say when I was a kid, when things don't go your way. The AARP folks running the meeting don't appear to have been treated badly or harshly, just not agreed with so they went off in a pique. Now I've always known that AARP was a liberal front organization. I quit them some time back. I don't care if they do get me a 10% discount at motels sometime. They're always in favor of "on-the-take" program and I just don't think that is honorable. These kind of videos can get tiresome rather rapidly. I've posted a few of Congressmen and Senators pretty much ignoring their constituents (subjects?) and now here's the AARP ignoring their members. What part of "representation" is it that they don't understand?

Tyranny Rising!

Tyranny Rising!
Source: http://politicalabacus.blogspot.com/2009/08/video-dont-tread-on-me-angry-mob.html pass it on!

Tyranny Rising: Democrats Support Union Rent-a-Mobs

Apparently the idea that people might actually come to their Town Hall Meetings and disagree with them is downright un-American. How dare they? This isn't representative government, it is rising tyranny as the out-of-control nanny state decides to control health care and restrict treatment to those who are deserving. I remember a very similar program. It involved the Master Race, the pure Arians. This bunch is pushing something that when the reality is looked straight in the face is just health-care rationing with bureaucrats deciding if you are worth treating. And of course, the mandarins bringing you this program don't think it is good enough for them.
SEE HERE
Just a short quote:
Thugs at Rep. Russ Carnahan's St. Louis town hall meeting last week beat and knocked down a black man, Kenneth Gladney. One called him the N-word, according to Gladney — all because he was distributing "Don't Tread On Me" flags.
These are the Astro-Turf Rent-a-Mobs mobilized by the Democrats to suppress the real dissent of the voters. CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO
Tyranny Rising!

Finally: Honduras Makes Its Point

It's been a while now since little Honduras replaced its president who was acting unconstitutionally in a legal action which removed him from office. In the meantime the OAS and the UN and even the United States which should have known better have tried to force them to put this totalitarian power seeking president who had run roughshod over their constitution back in power. Well according to the IBD (Investor's Business Daily) that is no longer the case. SEE HERE Score one for little Honduras and for free men and women everywhere.

National Security a Low Priority with this Administration

Little noted in the media was a successful missile defense test which downed a simulated North Korean missile, something we have a realistic expectation of having to do in the possibly not so far off future. SEE HERE But the Obama administration is showing every sign of being actively disinterested in a strong national defense and they throttle back on everything they can. Starting with the lame story about the F-22 (which single handedly will put a lot of aerospace people out of work) to lots more cut backs in defense related items, this administration is looking more and more like the Jimmy Carter #2 presidency. Stagflation and gutting of the military, here we come. Tyranny Rising!

Listen to the People? Not If You Can Conjure Up a Whipping Boy

This kind of thing just makes me angry as hell. Dick Durbin is claiming that people really do support the president's crazy health care take over and anybody speaking up at townhall meetings is a plant of the insurance companies. These guys are nuts and in total denial. They need to hear from the folks big time that we don't want to be turned into little cooperative slaves of the state. They should all be voted out of office. Then they would have to have the same kind of health care as the rest of us. Too bad we can't repeal their fat pensions.

Check Out the Tea Party Express

If we don't stop them, they are going to sell us all down the river. Support the Tea Party Express and fight the Obamanation. Tyranny Rising!

Exaggeration Amplifier: 47/8 similar to lying!

The president is running around saying there are 47 million uninsured but that's a distortion and exaggeration according to an analysis provided by David Limbaugh. SEE HERE
What's the reality?
A large part of the number is made up of folks that have not had health insurance for only a couple of months. 38% (18 million) is made up of folks making over $50,000 per year, 10 million of whom are making more than $75,000 — they don't have insurance by choice because they're young and they have made the decision that they don't need health insurance. So "naughty, naughty" we're going to fix that and make them! Yeah, that's the ticket!
Another 14 million of the "uninsured" are eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP but they have not enrolled. How is that uninsured?
And it goes that way. Read it. The bottom line is that the number of chronically uninsured is about eight million. So what's the distortion ratio? Five hundred and eighty-seven percent — and the question is how large does it have to be before "lying" is the proper characterization? I think maybe 200% to 250% is about the right number for inadvertent exaggeration. Numbers bigger than that are contrived. They're lying! Tyranny Rising!

Getting Tired of the Lies

Here's the reality — Wait until you die!

American Health Care: The Real Story

I've been listening to the left talking points about how terrible the health care crisis is and how awful our medical access is and all the other made up nonsense that they can invent to advance their agenda and it's just about enough to make you gag. These are lies and if you think about your own health care, the doctors that you know, the health care you've received and you know it is a lie. It doesn't mean that there are not health care failures, but the fact of the matter is that our health care is the best in the world. The Hoover Institute has done of the favor of documenting that fact. SO CLICK HERE and read the truth.

Not only do we have better medical results than anywhere else in the world, but we have been responsible for the vast majority of the new medical technology. Gee ... isn't that surprising coming from this terrible failed system. It is a bunch of lies folks. LIES! That's what it is when people intentionally tell untruths for reasons other than the ones they claim. These people want power and control. They don't care a fig for you. And to advance their agenda they simply manufacture stories and if you track it you can see it. One day it is one thing and the next day it is another. That is the footprint of lying manipulators. They want to control the economic resources that go into health care. They want to control people. It's a phony issue.

The Crucial Word is not "Care" but "CONTROL"

Thomas Sowell is one of my heros. I admit it. I first heard him on William F. Buckley's Firing Line and he was a steady and wise voice. I bought one of his books and then I bought more of his books. I regularly read his columns. He is wise and thoughtful man.

If you want to know why we shouldn't even consider this frightful health control program that the administration is trying to jam through without giving us a chance to read it or an opportunity to ponder and consider, weight and analyze it, you'd do well to read Thomas Sowell's take on it. SEE HERE

This isn't a move because the government is so concerned with your health. It's a move to take over an eighth of the entire economy. It isn't new either. It's been creeping up on us my whole life and now it's reached the tipping point. Sowell points out something fundamental:

Right now, medications or treatments that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration are medications or treatments that you are not allowed to buy with your own money, no matter how desperate your medical condition, and no matter how many years these medications or treatments may have been used without dire effects in other countries.

It's important to understand what is at stake. The United States is the primary source of new health care technology in the world. That will cease when the government takes over and we will sink into the mire of inefficiency and mediocrity because that is what bureaucracy brings.

Sowell sums up his assessment with the insight:

The crucial word is not "care" but "control."

Tyranny Rising!

Keep Your Hands Off My Health Care

People come to the listening session. Listen to the commentator who says "Not much listening was going on!" Now that's an interesting comment. I don't know if the commentator realized that he was implying that the reason for a listening session was for the people to listen to the legislator, but it seems to me that in a free society the point of a listening session is for the representative of the people to listen to the people he is supposed to be representing. So I hope the commentator just got it dead wrong.

Spending In Perspective: Free Fall to ... Disaster

Unsustainable irresponsible and disastrous spending — harbinger of collapse, intentional? Tyranny Rising!

Michelle Malkin on The View: On Her New Book

Seven minutes of serious commentary punctuated by airheads!

Health Care that Isn't About Care

From the folks that bring you "Cash for Clunkers" comes a Health Bill from hell, or maybe from ACORN. The government can't do anything but spend and spend. When they are through there won't be anything left to care about. Here's a townhall meeting with Spector and Sebelius where they heard from people that are not too happy. Some people are complaining about the rudeness, but one has to wonder at legislators who can't read the bills and are in such an all fired hurry. What's the emergency? Oh yeah — you want to pass it before anyone reads the bills. Yeah, that's the ticket.

The Pledge: No More Birth Certificate Posts ...

I'm going to take the pledge not to cover this birth certificate issue any more. It is just too weird. Here's a link to a page on the previously cited site that includes a claim that the latest and greatest Kenyan birth certificate is fabricated from this Australian birth certificate. SEE HERE

Way too weird for me. I'm going to try to ignore all this insanity unless something ever so much more insane emerges that makes me crazy enough to go back on my pledge. BTW I compared the two certificates closely and the folds are not in the same places which is weird. There are many similarities to the Australian certificate as well as many dissimilarities. The obvious question is which one is fake? and how do you know? Like I said, it gets weirder and weirder and tracking it makes you crazy too. Here's the coverage on The O'Reilly Factor tonight. (See video below)

If you are interested in this issue you might want to check out the Birther site (well that's what they call it) SEE HERE http://www.birthers.org/ They spin some long versions of the whole story as seen from their perspective. I'm not sure where the counter-Birther's site is unless it's the one I gave earlier in this post.

Can it get any weirder? Well here's a link claiming that Hawaii refuses to verify the birth certificate the Obama has out there. SEE HERE Just what is that about?

"Birthers" cutsey name like "deniers"

It is still a little baffling to me how the birth certificate story gets any traction at all. Today the IBD ran a story SEE HERE which continues the left's characterization of the story as something only nutjobs can believe. I'd probably be OK with that except that that's standard left-demonization tactics.

"Oh you don't believe in global warming" you're a "denier." Now that's a scientific issue which honest scientists can disagree about. There are a great many who do disagree despite the phoney baloney that there is a consensus. There isn't a consensus, and what consensus there was is breaking down.

But the "Birther" story is not a scientific issue, it's an issue of documentation. That means it's really more straightforward. If you have a birth certificate, produce it. There is an interesting web site that is tracking the birth certificate issue and it had a link to a copy of a Wall Street Journal article which is applicable and very helpful on the issue. SEE HERE

Whatever the thing Obama has produced it isn't what most people would consider a birth certificate. I'm not expert on any of this kind of nonsense, but my birth certificate (BTW except for the pesky Japanese, I'd have been born in Hawaii myself), has the hospital of my birth with other information like the attending physician. This thing that is being touted as Obama's birth certificate isn't a birth certificate at all. (Well in the light of the WSJ article I have to alter that to something more like: it's certainly not a conventional birth certificate.) It isn't apparently even called a birth certificate. But what's the big deal? And perhaps more disturbingly to me, why isn't there some sort of certification that goes back to the beginning of the presidential campaign that attests that the candidates have been vetted and are citizens? This whole thing is pretty weird and it only gets weirder as it continues to be an issue.

It seems far too facile to me to just dismiss people who have these concerns as nutjobs. I agree with those who think that it would be a pretty tall tale to imagine that Obama was not born in Hawaii when his announcement was published there. But then my wife pointed out that people do that all the time, announce the birth of their children in places where their relatives live. So it's not completely farfetched. What makes is really weird is that I have to supply my birth certificate to be elegible for the military, for social security, for a concealed carry permit, for damn near anything. But apparently I don't have to supply it to be president. What gives there? It should be necessary just to prove you're over 35, but also to prove you're a citizen. So I can't join the chorus ridiculing these folks, because I'm baffled why it seems to be an issue for the president to provide a real birth certificate.

Jihad: America's Home Grown Terrorists

In case you didn't know, the terrorists are already here and working to get you. You can thank the FBI that so far they've stopped them. But you can't bat 100% forever. SEE HERE

How Long Do You Want to be Lied To?

Just in case you wondered. The way to tell the president is lying is that his lips are moving. You can't believe a word he says. It is all hidden agenda driven.

Weirder and Weirder: No No Not Again!

The Obama birth certificate challenge continues getting weirder and weirder. Today I got notified that Orly Taitz, the attorney that seems to have made Obama's birth certificate and non-citizenship her mission on earth filed evidence of a Kenyan birth certificate. Is it real? Who knows. You make the call SEE HERE

Here's some reaction from the blogosphere. Essentially a lot of points are made that dismiss the document as a fake. GO HERE
It does look pretty good though. take a look see ... (likely a fake according to some bloggers and credited with possibly being authentic by others — Who knows? The beat goes on!) If it is a fake then I wonder if that means that some sort of charges could be brought against Orly Taitz. I suppose that depends on her story about how she obtained the document.


That's the top of it and the bottom is here. (see below)


Is it authentic? Someone who knows more about documents and Kenya will have to determine that. It's certainly interesting that this dance goes on. The attorney is certainly tenacious and committed to this crusade. Everyone keeps saying it's nonsense and that it's all koolaid. Whether it is or not it makes great political kabuki (which I take to mean showmanship that advances a particular agenda regardless of whether it is correct or not). Our system seems to have generated more and more of that of late.

TEA Party Commercial: An Oldie But Goodie!!

This is a terrific video a teenager helped his mom produce for the April 15th Tea Party. Worth remembering. Americans are a free people and we want to stay that way!

The Secretive President: What Does He Have To Hide?

Newsmax, a conservative news magazine, today called for Obama to release his birth certificate and not just his Certification of Live Birth. They applaud CNN's Lou Dobbs who has stayed on the issue. There is little doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii, but his secretiveness is a mystery and makes him uniquely opaque which is odd coming from someone who has made a point of criticizing others for being secretive.

The Newsmax story lists the following items that others have released but that Obama has refused to release:
Health records
Official papers as a state legislator in Illinois
Client list as an attorney or his billing records
School Records from Occidental College, Columbia, and Harvard Law School
His application to the Illinois State Bar
Donor Lists (1/3 of 750 Million is unaccounted for)

These are troubling, especially since many of the requests have been tied to ambiguities and likely falsehoods in Obama's description of his activities. He's got a host of lawyers protecting his privacy or perhaps his record of being fast and loose with the truth.

Tell Me Again: Suckers!

Tell me again why we thought GWB was so stupid:

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of
inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon
Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically
significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod
containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought
this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would
you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the
non-existent "Austrian language," would you have
brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisors
with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income
taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to
refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican
ambassador when it was the fourth of May (Cuatro de Mayo),
and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have
winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you
have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and
potatoe as "proof" of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to
go plant a single tree on "Earth Day," would you
have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's
administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over
millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown
Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered
whether they actually "get" what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a
teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press
conference, would you have laughed and said this is more
proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really
controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had failed to send aid to
flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people
killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want
it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of
racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major
corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority
to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the
national debt --which had taken more than two centuries to
accumulate -- in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the
debt again within 10 years, would you
have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's
holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority
stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have
approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that
makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of
anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 6
months -- so you'll have three years and six months to
come up with an answer.

Hyperinflation: The Potential for Economic Collapse

Check it out! Long term— disaster!

Enough Stupid Government

Click on Sign to See the Source
Cash for clunkers is about as stupid an idea as one could imagine. Is your money being handled wisely by the government? A billion here and a billion there simply thrown away, rapidly grows to a trillion here and a trillion there. I was amused today when someone said to me "Don't anyone tell Obama what comes after a trillion!" Scary thought?

We need to tell the government "Enough already!" Enough waste. Enough fraud. Enough abuse. Enough taxes. Enough bureaucracy. Enough paperwork. Enough bailouts. Enough stupidity. Enough bills that are passed without being read (What is that but massive irresponsibility?).

I'm going to try to keep track of the ten or so most stupid ideas that the government has come up with.

DUMB IDEA #1 CASH FOR CLUNKERS
I think number one has to be cash for clunkers. A useless giveaway program that is badly managed and just a hemorrhage of money with more likely to be thrown after the first.

DUMB IDEA #2 ENERGY TAX THAT ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING
Cap and trade has to be even worse since it amounts to a massive tax on energy justified by the stupid idea that CO2 is a pollutant. Let's just put a respirator on everyone, ah yes CO2. When plants grow they convert CO2 to oxygen and that's how carbon gets into the plants and that's an essential plant nutrient. The idea that CO2 causes global warming is vastly overrated. It does and if it were not for global warming the world would be much less habitable. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is way over the saturation knee so multiple doublings of CO2 will have only minor effects on the atmosphere. This is fear mongering in the service of a huge energy tax.

DUMB IDEA #3 GOVERNMENT RUNNING HEALTH CARE
Have you noticed how Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable and filled with fraud and abuse? We want to give more health care responsibility to a government that is totally botching what it is already running. When the government screws up (and they will) you will have no recourse. This is going to be a disaster if it passes.

More as we focus in on the Obama led demise of the United States as we know it. Tyranny Rising!

Freedom Isn't Free

Visit the Tea Party site SEE HERE If you wonder what is going on in Washington, you might consider paying your government a visit. They'll really appreciate it right? They're your servants, right? Oh, I forgot, they think they're your masters. Maybe you should remind them of those stirring words of the Founders:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness....
The Federal government is supposed to be limited to enumerated powers. It's time we demand that the continuing power grab be limited and rolled back to specific limited and enumerated powers. Draw a line in the sand and demand that the Federal government back off.