Harry Reid: Clueless in the Senate

Well, ol' Whiney Harry has done it again.... revealed exactly how out of touch he is with his home state and just how big of a worthless Washingtonian he's become.

Seems a local Vegas reporter asked him a question... not a real tough, hardball-type question, but a relative softball that even someone with the lax principles of the Senate Majority Whiner should have been able to answer easily.

'Cept he couldn't.

When a reporter from KLAS-TV in Las Vegas told Reid a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center report found 17 percent of the nation’s construction workers were undocumented, the Nevada Democrat replied: “That may be some place, but it’s not here in Nevada.”

Whiney Harry's comments downplayed the number of illegal immigrants working construction jobs in Nevada, even though a recent study found that his home state had the largest percentage of undocumented workers in the country.

Not that Ol Harry would know... or care.

Reid was also asked why he blocked an amendment introduced last year by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that would have required all construction firms working on economic stimulus projects to use E-Verify, the federal online system that allows employers to check whether someone is eligible to work in the country.

“That’s the reason we need to do comprehensive immigration reform,” Reid said. “We cannot do it piecemeal.”

Whiney Harry's office has since said that he supports E-Verify and has worked to ensure the program does not expire.

But Reid believes the current system is flawed because it sometimes penalizes American workers and can be susceptible to identity fraud.

He'd rather do nothing than do something that might not be perfect, especially when Dems appear to believe that all illegals vote as a bloc without any independent thought.

"Improving our employment verification system is only a partial solution, however, to the exploitation of illegal labor and the undercutting of American wages,” Reid said in a statement.

“Our broken immigration system can be fixed only through comprehensive immigration reform.”

Well, if that's what you want to be on record as saying, Harry, that's fine with me.

Because it shows you for what you really are: A Washington insider who puts party politics ahead of the interests of his own state, his own constituents, and his own state's regional security and economic viability.

And, it shows just how out of touch you've become... or maybe always were.

After all, Searchlight isn't exactly a mecca of mainstream thinking even within the state.

Nope.

If Whiney Harry had bothered to check with his electorate, he would know that if there are no illegals working construction in Nevada, it's because there isn't anyone working construction in Nevada thanks to the O-man's tragically flawed economic recovery plan and the mess that is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, courtesy of the Democrat Congress.

If it wouldn't be so bad for the country, it would almost be worth it for Nevadans to re-elect Ol Harry, just to keep him the hell out of our state.

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” ---- Martin Luther King, Jr.


“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked” ---- Voltaire

Birthdays

Today, Ringo Starr, he of Beatles fame, turned 70.

I didn't.

In other news, thousands of daredevils dashed through Pamplona, Spain's historic old quarter Wednesday to participate in the infamous "running of the bulls".

I didn't do that either.

Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative. ---- Maurice Chevalier

Getting old ain't for sissies. ---- Bette Davis

Only Two People Ever Laid Down Their Lives For You....

Jesus Christ, who died for your sins, and the American Soldier, who died for your liberty.

Honor

“The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.”  ---- Socrates

Adjustments.....

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” ---- Ralph Waldo Emerson

And so the world keeps turning.

Things change, whether we want them to or not.

Some things we change, some things change us.

But there is no neutral, no pause button.

Change is constant, some moving us forward, some moving us back, but never letting us remain inert.

With change comes collateral damage and collateral benefits.

Rarely are the details of either known in advance.

In my life I've chosen to enthusiastically embrace whatever change is offered, with little but positive results.

Not all can, depending on their risk tolerance and acceptance.

But most wish they could.

Even with the collateral damage it can cause.

I've rarely been disappointed.

"Most people live lives of quiet desperation in prisons of their own making." ---- Rob Kelch

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” ---- Anatole France

Thought for the day.... every day.

“He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.”
--- William James

BP - "Barack's Problem"

Ask almost anyone in the United States today what BP stands for, and they'll quickly answer "the folks who created the oil spill in the Gulf".

That's certainly the high profile, media driven answer.

And BP in that sense certainly deserves the notoriety for their inept handling of the entire catastrophe.

But there is another BP that's equally important right now, and that's the Bully Pulpit.

That special place that goes with the Presidency where a capable leader can influence public policy, public opinion, and public confidence.

A place where a true leader can show real leadership without resorting to memos, directives, decrees, and other subterfuges that are only marginally effective out of the public eye.

The O-man has no Bully Pulpit.

Certainly the office still has the potential, but the man has no capability in that environment.

He's so detached from the overall feeling in the country, so ideologically distant from the center of the nation's psyche, that he can't use the Bully Pulpit because no one believes what he says when it comes to issues facing them in their daily lives.

You don't get Bully Pulpit credibility on being angry about the oil spill when you admit you have never spoken to the CEO of the company that did the spill.

You don't get Bully Pulpit credibility on feeling outraged about fishermen and shrimpers being cost their livelihoods by placing a moratorium on new drilling operations and putting thousands in the petroleum industry in the same markets out of work.

The Bully Pulpit can be highly effective in moving a country through crisis, in motivating people to take real action, in uplifting the national attitude.

John Kennedy used it well during the Cuban missle crisis.

Winston Churchill used it effectively in Britain during World War II.

Lyndon Johnson used it effectively during the civil rights struggle.

And Ronald Reagan used it often and well during the cold war, effectively using it to bring down the Berlin wall, and with it, the Soviet Union.

But without credibility, without empathy with the American people, without some kind of common touch, don't expect much from the O-man.

Because BP, the oil company, is only one of his BP problems.

Toilet-Discrimination Bill Gets House Hearing, While Immigration and Jobs Wait In Line

A bill providing “restroom gender parity” in federal buildings--mandating that the number of toilets for women would need to equal or exceed the number of toilets for men--is getting serious, bipartisan consideration in Congress.

This at a time when, by the O-man's own admission, there is no shortage of crises and when many Americans are pressing Congress to do something about jobs, immigration, and other pressing matters.

The Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act received a full committee hearing on May 12, complete with introductory remarks by lawmakers and testimony from witnesses.

I wish I was kidding.

Rep. Darryl Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, noted the importance of the hearing process – not to mention the potty parity bill itself:

“As people seldom realize, in Congress, in order to move a piece of legislation, we hold hearings."

"In order to understand the final and best form of that legislation, we hold hearings."

"I think this is no exception,” said Issa, who described the bill as laudable and essential.

The bill’s sponsor, Committee Chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), outlined both the problem and his proposed solution:

“This is not a minor issue,” Towns said. “Women are often forced to wait in long lines to use public restrooms or walk further to find a restroom while men rarely have the same problem.”
 
“Throughout history, public restrooms have been the site of institutional discrimination by race, physical (disability) and gender,” Towns said.
 
"While there have been great strides in dealing with race and physical disability, public restroom facilities for women still lag behind those of men," he said.


“Today women still lack equal access to restrooms in many places of employment,” Towns said.

“The fact that many federal buildings do no provide as many restrooms facilities for woman as they do for men is simply unfair. It is time for that to change,” Rep. Towns said.

The bill requires all new federal buildings and newly renovated federal buildings to have at least the same number of toilets for women as are provided for men.

According to the language of H.R. 4869, “the number of toilets in women’s restrooms will equal or exceed the number of toilets (including urinals) in men’s restrooms.”



When it was introduced in March, H.R. 4869 generated questions in some quarters about Congress spending time on toilets instead of addressing more pressing issues of the day.

The OldTimer thinks Congress better get their collective heads out of their asses and start addressing the real problems facing our country before nobody has a pot to piss in, men or women.

Simple.

Everyone is responsible for the child they bring into this world.

It doesn’t matter if was planned, unplanned, or even a child through adoption.

Every child has a right to be raised in a safe environment, and to be provided basic necessities including financial support, even if one of the parents are not around.

Today, approximately 30 million children in the USA are owed more than $41 billion in unpaid child support, according to estimates by the Association for the Enforcement of Child Support (ACES).

Unpaid child support is one of the largest debts in this country.

While millions in tax dollars goes to help support children and provide medical care, a parent is still ultimately responsible, not the government.

Just because one parent has decided to move on and leave a child either before or after birth doesn't get them a free pass on their responsibilities.

Granted, some child support assessments can be unfair.

But the remedy for that is not to stop paying, but rather use the court process to have the numbers adjusted.

So here's my plan: pay up, or face mandatory castration.

If you've got the balls to bail on your kid, you should have them cut off.

Period.

BP's Oil Spill Isn't....

As America suffers it's most damaging ecological disaster yet, most are calling it BP's oil spill.

It's not.

It doesn't belong to any one company, any one government, any one nation.

It's a global disaster with global impacts.

Ocean currents will eventually mean that some part of this disaster will be spread to every coastline worldwide.

Depending on time, those impacts may or may not be severe.

Exxon spent years and billions of dollars cleaning up after the Valdez.

They had booms and skimmers and mats.

They hired whole armies of people to steam clean rocks and wash birds.

They rented any boat that would float, hired everyone who applied, threw money around like crazy.

They recovered 14% of the oil.

14%.

Later, they privately admitted that much of their work was pointless and was only designed to keep money flowing into the pockets of those most affected, trying to gain a little respect and provide some compassion.

The only cure for an oil spill is time.

Oil is organic and eventually, it will break down.

Microbes will eat some of it, some will evaporate, the rest will dissipate.

Over the next few years, fisherman will be paid not to fish, billions will be handed out.

Gradually, things will get better.

Every five years or so, some news team will go to the Gulf and turn over rocks, looking for oil.

They'll find some.

Things will get better but there isn't a hell of a lot more that can be done.
 
Only time.
 
But first, we have to stop the flow.
 
When the world faces natural or ecological disasters, the USA is usually first on the scene, passing out money, technology, manpower.
 
Where is the rest of the world now?
 
I'm sure they will be there when some of this oil washes up on their shores, demanding money from the USA.
 
 
“Public calamity is a mighty leveler.”  ---- Edmund Burke

So.......

With AlGore and Tipper getting a divorce, who gets custody of the Internet?

All Gave Some, Some Gave All. Never Forget.

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

World Center of Speed

Not a One in a Million Shot

To listen to the media and the politicians, you would think the BP oil platform that is leaking oil is the only rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Not true.

Not by a long shot.

Check it out:

The big thing to remember here is that these platforms have been there for years, mostly with no mishaps.

And, that each one of these platforms seeps just a very small amount of oil as part of the normal drilling process.

But what's more important is that the earth itself has thousand of natural fissures and cracks in its mantle that routinely spill extremely large quantities of oil, and that it's a natural phenomenon in those cases.

Which is why we should be allowing drilling where it is somewhat less environmentally risky, here on land.

And, why we should be pursuing the development of oil extraction from oil shale, opil sand, and existing land based wells that could uses steam extraction.

But, our politicians have known that for years.

Note: The Oldtimer is off to the world center of speed for a few days, so posts will be intermittent until his return.

The President Authorizes the Murder of Americans

That headline is NOT hyperbole.

It's a reality that most Americans could never believe would ever occur.

But occur it has, and it's getting precious little discussion, outrage, or even coverage by the major media outlets.

The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes most legal authorities deeply uneasy.

And it should make every American outraged.

Because as noted above, there is absolutely no due process, and no accountability for the precedent it sets.

It doesn't matter who the person is, or what crimes they may have committed, the America I know and love follows the law, follows the Constitution, and guarantees its citizens rights.

If not, then bring all our soldiers, sailors, and airmen home, because there is nothing worth fighting for.

The person in question is the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is hiding in Yemen.

Clearly, not a nice person, but one who has American citizenship nonetheless.

To even eavesdrop on this terrorism suspect,  intelligence agencies would have to get a court warrant.

To do that, they would have to follow the law, follow the Constitution, and proceed through due process.

That's what warrants are for --- to insure our rights are protected.

But that's inconvenient, intrusive, and too much of a bother for the O-man's administration.

So instead, they trageted him for death and authorized his killing --- with no due process.

Designating him for death, as C.I.A. officials did early this year with the National Security Council’s approval, requires no judicial review.

No pesky preservation of rights.

Administration officials take the view that no legal or constitutional rights can protect Mr. Awlaki, a charismatic preacher who has said it is a religious duty to attack the United States and who the C.I.A. believes is actively plotting violence.

The attempted bombing of Times Square on May 1 is the latest of more than a dozen terrorist plots in the West that investigators believe were inspired in part by Mr. Awlaki’s rhetoric.

Believe, but haven't proven.


President Obama, who campaigned for the presidency against George W. Bush-era interrogation and detention practices, has implicitly invited moral and legal scrutiny of his own policies.

But like the debate over torture during the Bush administration, public discussion of what officials call targeted killing has been limited by the secrecy of the C.I.A. drone program.

Representative John F. Tierney, who on April 28 held the first Congressional hearing focused on the lawfulness of targeted killing, said he was determined to air the contentious questions publicly and possibly seek legislation to govern such operations.

The reported targeting of Mr. Awlaki “certainly raises the question of what rights a citizen has and what steps must be taken before he’s put on the list,” said Mr. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of a House subcommittee on national security.

But not everyone is so concerned.

“American citizenship doesn’t give you carte blanche to wage war against your own country,” said a counterterrorism official who discussed the classified program on condition of anonymity. “If you cast your lot with its enemies, you may well share their fate.”

Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser, said in a March 24 speech the drone strikes against Al Qaeda and its allies were lawful as part of the military action authorized by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as well as under the general principle of self-defense.
 
By those rules, he said, such targeted killing was not assassination, which is banned by executive order.


But the disclosure last month by news organizations that Mr. Awlaki, 39, had been added to the C.I.A. kill list shifted the terms of the legal debate in several ways.

He is located far from hostilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the perpetrators of 9/11 are believed to be hiding.

He is alleged to be affiliated with a Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda.

Intelligence analysts believe that only recently he began to help plot strikes, including the failed attempt to bomb an airliner on Dec. 25.

Most significantly, he is an American, born in New Mexico, arguably protected by the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee not to be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

In a traditional war, anyone allied with the enemy, regardless of citizenship, is a legitimate target; German-Americans who fought with the Nazis in World War II were given no special treatment.

But this administration, and those before it, have refused to classify the war on terror as a traditional war, or even make an official declaration of war, so those provisions are not in effect.

“Congress has protected Awlaki’s cellphone calls,” said Vicki Divoll, a former C.I.A. lawyer who now teaches at the United States Naval Academy. “But it has not provided any protections for his life."

"That makes no sense.”

"Some judicial process should be required before the government kills an American away from a traditional battlefield." she said.

It's amazing that the media is all up in arms about the Arizona immigration bil because some illegal might have his rights infringed upon and be sent homw to Mexico, but here we have a total stripping of rights with no due process, and a targeted assination, and nobody cares.

What if a member of the press becomes a target?

Do you think they might be outraged then?

Do you think maybe just a little judicial review and due process might be a reasonable expectation?

Apparently not.

A former C.I.A. lawyer, John Radsan, said prior judicial review of additions to the target list might be unconstitutional. “That sort of review goes to the core of presidential power,” he said.

Actually, it goes a bit deeper than that.

It goes directly to the protection guaranteed American citizens by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

And the last I checked, Presidential powers don't include shredding that document.


The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting. ---- Justice William J. Brennan, 1982

No man is above the law and no man below it. ~Theodore Roosevelt


 
PORK OF THE DAY:
$380,000 by Senate appropriator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) for construction of a recreation and fairgrounds area in Kotzebue. That works out to $123.30 for each of Kotzebue’s 3,082 residents. Perhaps the town should have used the approximately $350,000 it spent on lobbying since 2000 for the fairgrounds, saving federal taxpayers a bundle. Even the Anchorage Daily News was outraged by the project: “The federal dollar that the stimulus might have spent on recreation projects is no different from the federal dollar spent on recreation in the pending appropriations bill. It all comes from the same pot of borrowed money.”

Eric Holder's Credibility Gap

Everybody's talking about the recently passed (and modified) Arizona immigration law.

Media talking heads, local politicians, members of various civic groups, and yes, even the Attorney General of the United States.

And just what has Attorney General Eric Holder had to say about the Arizona law?

"I think that [Arizona's] law is an unfortunate one," he said.

"We are considering all of our options. One possibility is filing a lawsuit," Holder told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Possible grounds for the lawsuit would be whether the Arizona law could lead to civil rights violations.

"I'm very concerned about the wedge it could draw between communities that law enforcement is supposed to serve and those of us in law enforcement," Holder said.  

Holder told ABC's "This Week" program that one concern about the Arizona law is that "you'll end up in a situation where people are racially profiled, and that could lead to a wedge drawn between certain communities and law enforcement, which leads to the problem of people in those communities not willing to interact with people in law enforcement, not willing to share information, not willing to be witnesses where law enforcement needs them."

Holder appeared on ABC's "This Week" and stated that he "understands the frustration that led to the law being passed, but we could potentially get on a slippery slope where people will be picked on because of how they look as opposed to what they have done."

Holder has been quoted in the past as stating that "America is a nation of cowards because it has refused to honestly confront the issue of race."

When asked if he still holds that view, Holder stated that "I think it's changed a bit. I still don't think we're at a place where we need to be. I think that we need to talk to each other more about race and the racial things that divide us especially when one looks at the demographic changes that this nation is about to undergo."

Holder clearly has strong opinions about the Arizona law, and its implications on American society.

And, quite frankly, that's exactly what a U.S. Attorney General should have --- strong opinions, particularly about things regarding legislation.

That's his job --- his primary area of responsibility.

But, the Washington Post reported today that:

"Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has been critical of Arizona's new immigration law, said Thursday he hasn't yet read the law and is going by what he's read in newspapers or seen on television."

"Mr. Holder is conducting a review of the law, at President Obama's request, to see if the federal government should challenge it in court."

"He said he expects he will read the law by the time his staff briefs him on their conclusions."

"I've just expressed concerns on the basis of what I've heard about the law."

"But I'm not in a position to say at this point, not having read the law, not having had the chance to interact with people are doing the review, exactly what my position is," Mr. Holder told the House Judiciary Committee.

Excuse me?

You haven't read the freaking law?

You haven't managed to find time to read the ten whole pages of the revised Arizona law before you went on national television and shot your mouth off?

Everything you've been spouting to the media is based solely on "what he's read in newspapers or seen on television." ?

You're kidding, right?

You're "not in a position to say at this point exactly what my position is" ?

Isn't that exactly what you've been doing, to everybody who will listen?

You're out making public comments as the U.S, Atorney General on a law that is going to be a focal point of future immigration policy  and States Rights issues in the country, and you haven't even read the law?

Let me go back to what I said before:

"that's exactly what a U.S. Attorney General should have --- strong opinions, particularly about things regarding legislation. That's his job --- his primary area of responsibility."

Holder's got some legal chops, some good credentials.

But he just lost all his credibility.

Rep. Ted Poe, who had questioned Mr. Holder about the law, wondered how he could have those opinions if he hadn't yet read the legislation.

"It's hard for me to understand how you would have concerns about something being unconstitutional if you haven't even read the law," the Texas Republican told the attorney general.

You're not alone, Congressman.... you're not alone.

So, in the future, Mr. Holder, until you've actually read the legislation you're commenting on, STFU.

"Well, you know, the evidence develops, and I think we have to always try to be careful to make sure that the statements that we make are consistent with the evidence that we have developed." ----- Eric Holder

"The demographic changes we're about to undergo can, I think, be a real source of pride, real source of strength for this nation if we handle that change in the correct way. If we don't, it can be a very divisive thing. I think this is, I think, I think a teaching possibility that we have here, to talk about why people think this law is good, why other people think this law is bad, and then to unpack that and go underneath what those arguments are all about and have a very frank dialogue about what we really think about ourselves as individuals, as members of different ethnic groups. I think we need to have that courage and, and have those kinds of conversations." ---- Eric Holder

PORK OF THE DAY:

$3,500,000 for the Glatfelter Tree Farm - Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). I would guess they are growing money trees.

Good Ol' Boys Solution to the Oil Spill

Ya know, every once in a while, something comes across your desk that makes so much damned sense that you go "Why the hell aren't they already using this?"

Such is the case with this simple, but effective means of dealing with the Gulf Coast oil spill.

Check out this video: http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/

Leave it to a couple of Good Ol' Boys to come up with a simple and effective solution.

A couple of guys who aren't from the government, but who live in the real world and have the ability to tell the difference between good fresh hay and the hay that's already been through the cow.

And notice, they're entrepreneurs... they say right in the video that if somebody chooses to use this solution, they want to do the work.

I've got one other comment on this.

If hay would work, I'm betting wood chips would work as well, and the midwest and southeast have a lot of branches and logs on the ground right now from tornadoes and floods that could be chipped out and applied to the spill.

That would provide additional absorbency materials, while at the same time putting some much needed money back into those economies where natural disasters have cost so much.

The real, working people of this country don't need a lot of government red tape to solve America's problems.

They've been doing it quietly and effectively for generations.

Which is why the phrase "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" strikes fear in the hearts of so many Americans.

As it should.


“Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.” ---- Niccolo Machiavelli

“Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.” ---- Victor Kiam


PORK OF THE DAY:
$150,000 for salaries and expenses for the United States Senate-China Interparliamentary Group. According to Title 22, Chapter 7, Section 276n of the U.S. Code, “There is authorized within the contingent fund of the Senate under the appropriation account ‘miscellaneous items’ $75,000 for fiscal year 2004 to assist in meeting the official expenses of the United States Senate-China Interparliamentary Group including conference room expenses, hospitality expenses, and food and food-related expenses.” This project smells like moo shu pork.

Medusa or simply USA?

Medusa, USA, what's the difference?

“A man in debt is so far a slave.” ---- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which shall enslave us” ---- George Washington

PORK OF THE DAY:
$4,850,000 for 13 projects by Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), including: $500,000 for the Mississippi Forest Legacy Program; $350,000 for Hawkins Field in Jackson; and $100,000 for the West Point Historic Post Office. The Mississippi Forest Legacy Program seems like nothing more than an effort to prevent progress and development. According to the Mississippi Forestry Commission, 80 percent of Mississippi forests are owned by private, non-industry landowners and are “potentially threatened by conversion from urban and suburban growth or other threats.” Therefore, the commission recommends that these areas “be designated as Forest Legacy Areas so that willing landowners may nominate their property as a possible Forest Legacy Tract.”

Hyphenated Americans

With all the discussion and debate surrounding the illegal immigration issues, one thing stands out: the continued use of hyphenated-American as a descriptor of the people who may be affected by these laws.

When this country's first immigration policies were established, one of the provisions was that immigrants assimilate themselves into the American culture.

In fact, as early as 1906 a requirement to speak English as the language of America was enacted, and has yet to be rescinded.

And, in that early immigration legislation, it was established that the final comment in the citizenship ceremony would be: "Congratulations, you are now Americans."

Not Jewish-Americans, Polish- Americans, or German-Americans.

Just "Americans".

In 1917, illiterates (those unable to read or write English) were added to the list of excluded immigrants, a requirement thta is still on the books today.

In the fifties and sixties, additional immigration reforms were enacted, but the common theme among immigrants continued to be wanting to become Americans.

Not an Hispanic-American, Irish-American, Black-American, or Japanese-American.

Just an American.

America was built on immigrants.

They are the fundamental component of the blended fabric that has made America a strong, unified, nation.

Immigrants who followed the path to legal immigration, meeting the criteria, complying with the laws of this country.

Those immigrants rapidly assimilated into American society, mostly becoming productive, patriotic supporters of their new, beloved, adopted country.

It was a two way process: America adopted them as citizens, and they adopted America as their country.
But now, large numbers of illegal immigrants want recognition as Mexican-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, even though they are here illegally, and are not, in fact, Americans at all.

They want full benefits of being American without making the full commitment to be Americans.

In short, they want the protection without the effort, the social benefits without the contribution.

Being American requires assimilation.

That means speaking English.

Saluting our flag, not the Mexican flag.

Observing our holidays with the same enthusiasm as theirs.

Playing by our rules, not theirs.

In short, being an American requires becoming an American, not just talking the talk.

The sad thing about the illegal immigration problem is that many of these illegals want only to be a Mexican in America, not to be an American in all that they do.

And there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who want to immigrate here from other countries who are willing and able to enthusiastically and fully assimilate into American culture.

They want to become Americans, not some type of hyphenated American.

So here's a tip to the illegals: If you want to be an American, you better be prepared to do the whole course, and become an American, not just a pseudo, hyphenated American.

Because when it comes to immigration, you're either an American or you're not, you're either legal or you're not.

And if you're not, your time is becoming more limited every day.

America is historically a tolerant, benevolent country.

But that benevolence requires constructive actions on your part as well.

Do not mistake tolerance for weakness, acceptance for apathy.


“From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.”  ---- Friedrich August Hayek


“As long as I have any choice, I will stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule.” ---- Albert Einstein


PORK OF THE DAY:
$11,000,000 for the East-West Center in Hawaii. In a moment of rare candor, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) admitted in 2007, after receiving an award from the East-West Center, that there were no congressional hearings before it was created in 1960. The State Department, which was given the responsibility and funding for establishing the East-West Center, knew nothing about it, the senator said, and for years tried to kill it by putting no funding for the center into its budget.

If Not Us......

Well, as we expected, there's been a huge bruhaha about the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

And to be sure, it is a pretty major spill.

One that is likely to impact fisheries in that area for quite a while.

A bunch of polticians now want to put a moratorium on all offshore drilling in our waters.

Now disregarding what that is likely to do to our continued dependence on foreign oil, and disregarding what it will do to the price at the pump, and disregarding the fact that we really have nothing else operationally viable as alternative power as yet....

There's another thing that these politicians haven't figured out.

Something far more logical and far more impactful than what they've come up with so far.

It's that we're not the only country in the world.

There are other countries all around the Guld of Mexico, the Carribbean, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the other parts of the world.

And they all want oil.

Cuba, merely 90 miles off the coast of Florida, is already licensing drilling rights to China, Russia, and Eastern European countries.

Venezuela, at the southern end of the Gulf, is licensing drilling rights to its own buddies as well.

And, China is also working to gain drilling rights off the coast of Baja California in Mexico.

So, merely curtailing US drilling offshore isn't going to do diidly squat to prevent another oil spill there.

In fact, it might actually increase the odds of one occurring.

Foreign drilling is not subject to the same regulations, checks, inspections, and protective measures we require in the United States.

Which means that foreign drill rigs are inherently more dangerous, and more likely to cause a spill.

So, by preventing US offshore drilling, not only do we not reduce the likelihood of spills, but we concede all the oil in those areas to countries who can sell it back to us, worsening our trade deficit, and increasing our dependence on foreign oil.

The United States consumes nearly one-fourth of the world's oil but produces only about 10%.

Its 1.76 billion-acre Outer Continental Shelf, which extends from about 3 to 200 miles offshore, is prime oil hunting ground.

In 2006, a consortium led by Chevron proved that oil could be produced from a geological area about 175 miles from Louisiana that's estimated to hold 3 billion to 15 billion barrels of oil.

By most estimates, at least 18 billion barrels of oil can be produced from areas that these politicians are saying should be put off-limits, on top of 68 billion barrels in other areas where drilling is likely to still be allowed.

Louisiana has had offshore drilling since 1947.

About 172 active rigs dot the Gulf of Mexico waters off the coast, producing about 79% of the oil and 72% of the natural gas that comes from drilling off the nation's coastlines.

The state gets about $1.5 billion annually in oil and gas revenue, a figure that will grow when it starts receiving part of oil companies' royalty payments in 2017 under federal law.

California was home to the first U.S. offshore oil production in 1896.

There are 26 oil and gas drilling platforms off the southern California coast and 1,500 active wells.

Those in federal waters have produced more than 1 billion barrels of oil and 1.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas since the 1960s.

Now even with all that coastal oil production, since the 1969 spill until this most recent BP spill,  they've spilled only 852 barrels of oil in California and Louisiana, the result of better technology and regulatory vigilance.

When viewed in terms of the millions of barrels of oil these operations have produced safely, that's an infintesimally small percentage, less than one one thousandth of a percent.

Coast Guard reports show that the amount of oil spilled from all sources in U.S. waters dropped from 3.6 million barrels in the 1970s to less than 500,000 in the 1990s.

A report by the National Research Council found that offshore oil and gas drilling was responsible for just 2% of the petroleum in North America's oceans, compared with 63% from natural seepage and 22% from municipal and industrial waste.

Read that again.

63% of the oil spilled into the oceans off America's coasts come from natural seepage.

Yep... 63% of the spilled oil occurs because.... the earth leaks.

Only 2% comes from offshore drilling spills, and that's throughout North America, including Canada and Alaska.

The BP spill is terrible, no question.

But it's also the first major US offshore spill in over 25 years.

As usual, our politicians are more concerned with regulating risk out of every human endeavor in America than addressing the true problem.

But when you legislate to eliminate all risk, you also eliminate all initiative to be better, all endeavors to improve, all incentive to excellence.

And in this case, all you succeed in doing is to let other, higher risk entities do the drilling.

So they can sell the oil back to us.


“There will be those who strongly disagree with this decision, including those who say we should not open any new areas to drilling, But what I want to emphasize is that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy. And the only way this transition will succeed is if it strengthens our economy in the short term and long term. To fail to recognize this reality would be a mistake.” ---- Barack Obama, March 2010

“We import 70 percent of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year ... I have been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. If we create a renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.” ---- T. Boone Pickens


PORK OF THE DAY:
$167,000 by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), House appropriator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Reps. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) and Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) for exhibits at the Autry National Center for the American West in Los Angeles. Rep. Schiff, with his Gun Owners of America rating of F minus, may want to know the museum recently showcased an exhibit called “Pistols: Dazzling Firearms.”

Cinco de Mayo? .... Hell No, It's May 5th

On any other day at high school in Morgan Hill, California, no student would even be noticed for wearing a T-shirt adorned with a graphic of the American flag.

But apparently May 5th is not any typical day on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Four students were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out.

When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office.

Neither bandanas nor T-shirts are against the dress code in that school, so what could the problem be?

The American flag, that's what.

"They said we could wear it on any other day, but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today." said one of the boys.

The administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" and said that they would lead to fights on campus.

"They said if we tried to go back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended."

The boys really had no choice, and chose to go home to avoid suspension.
 
They say they're angry they were not allowed to express their American pride, regardless what day it is.
 
Their parents are just as upset, calling what happened to their children, "total nonsense."

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous," Julie Fagerstrom, one's mom, said. "All they were doing was displaying their patriotic nature. They're expressing their individuality. This is still America"

But to many Mexican-American students at Live Oak, this was a big deal.

They say they were offended by the five boys and others for wearing American colors on a Mexican holiday.

"I think they should apologize because it is our Mexican Heritage Day," Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. "This is our country, and we don't deserve to be get disrespected like that."
"I'm not going to apologize. I did nothing wrong," Galli said. "I went along with my normal day. I might have worn an American flag, but I'm an American and I'm proud to be an American. I didn't try to stop them from wearing their Mexican flags for Cinco de Mayo. They shouldn't stop me from wearing my flag."

Fortunately, the district school board does not concur with the Live Oak High School administration's interpretation of either board or district policy related to these actions.

The boys will not be suspended and were allowed to return to school Thursday.

All four again wore American flag T-shirts and bandanas.

As they should have been allowed to do on May fifth.


"But then I came to the conclusion that no, while there may be a serious immigration problem, it isn't really the biggest problem. The most serious problem is lack of assimilation." ---- Samuel P. Huntington


"More than one-third of Mexicans in the United States own property in Mexico, nearly 80 percent send money home and 25 percent have a spouse in Mexico. Assimilation and becoming an American citizen are not the objective for many of them." ---- John Shadegg


PORK OF THE DAY:
$18,335,000 for 17 projects by House THUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Olver (D-Mass.), including $950,000 for the National Council of La Raza for community redevelopment activities. There was a heated debate on whether to include funding for groups like La Raza in the 2008 housing bill which resulted in them not being included, but that didn’t stop Rep. Olver from finding money for the group elsewhere.

Either Way is Fine With Me

Now that we've captured the Times Square bumbler, there are a couple of things that should be noted.

First, everybody in the administraton is praising "alert citizens and great police work" for "preventing" a terrible disaster.

Now, I'll not be the one to take anything away from New York's finest, but truth be told, they did nothing to "prevent" a terrible disaster.

They did a damned fine job of catching the inept wannabe bomber, but truth be told, they didn't prevent anything but him leaving the country.

By the time the "alert citizens" and the New York Police did anything at all about the bombmobile, the bomb had already failed to go off.

They reacted to the smoke from the firecrackers, which if the bomb had worked, they never would have seen because of the shrapnel and carnage.

Fact is, we got lucky... damned lucky.

Again.

And now that we have the slapstick clown of bombers in our custody, there's another issue that's being raised.

Because he's rather inconveniently, an American citizen.

Which makes it hard to try him because us citizen types have those pesky "rights".

Some say we should strip him of his citizenship and try him as an enemy combatant.

There appears to be some precedent for that.

Others say he should be tried like a common criminal, in a civilian court, complete with all the circus atmosphere trials like that normally acquire.

We already have one Muslim extremist bomber we're going to try to bring to justice that way, so what's  one more?

I'm not in favor of trying him as a common criminal.

It costs too much, puts too many other citizens at risk, and doesn't give the desired end result.

So, I say either strip his citizenship and try him as an enemy combatant, or do something similar in severity: let him keep his citizenship, and try him for treason against the United States of America.

Both of those options can get him the death penalty... which should make almost everybody happy.

We get serious about consequences for these lunatics, we preserve the rights that we give them that they give no one else, we send a message to other wannabe's, and, of course, Ali Bumbler gets his 23 virgins or whatever the number is.

Like I said... Either way is fine with me.


“To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution.” ---- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution."  ---- Louis D. Brandeis


PORK OF THE DAY:
$500,000 by then-House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee member Tom Udall (D-N.M.) for the Galisteo Basin Archeological sites. The Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Protection Act, which designated 24 sites in New Mexico as archaeological protection sites, was signed into law in 2004. Two years earlier, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill “could affect direct spending” but “any such effects would be negligible.” Only in Washington, D.C. is $500,000 “negligible.”

Mexico Comments on the Arizona Immigration Law

In what has to be one of the more comedic aspects of the media dust-up surrounding the newly passed Arizona State immigration law, Mexico has weighed in.

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the law that requires police to ask for identification or other proof of immigration status if they come into legal contact with a person they believe is in the country illegally.

A corrdidor for both drug and human smuggling, Arizona is home to an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants, and Arizona lawmakers argue that the federal government has dropped the ball in securing the border.

Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Patricia Espinosa said:  "The government of Mexico regrets that, despite the overtures made at all levels by Mexican federal and state officials, the legislators who passed this measure and the governor of Arizona have not taken into account the valuable contributions of migrants to the economy, society and culture of Arizona and the United States of America." 

"The Mexican government took various steps to express to the Arizona government its concerns about the law without obtaining a positive response", Espinosa said.

"Nevertheless, when a measure such as SB 1070 has the potential of affecting the human rights of thousands of Mexicans, the Mexican government cannot remain indifferent."

"Criminalization is not the way to resolve undocumented immigration," Espinosa said. "The existence of cross-border labor markets requires comprehensive, long-term solutions."

"Shared responsibility, trust and mutual respect must be the bases for addressing the shared challenges in North America."

Beyond those comments, the Mexican Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning the law.

President of the senate, Carlos Navarrete Ruiz said in a letter to the Governor and the O-man, "The Mexican senators are concerned about the anti-immigrants actions in Arizona, which we consider against the human rights."

Really?

I don't think you've got your story straight, Carlos.

But you surely exemplify the clear double standard demonstrated time and time again by leaders of Mexico where the issues of immigration and border security are concerned.

Consider this provision of Mexican law that addresses the penalties that Mexico imposes on aliens who are found to be in violation of Mexico's immigration laws:

"Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison.

Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms.

Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered felons as well."

The law also says: "Mexico will deport foreigners who are deemed detrimental to economic or national interests, violate Mexican law, are not physically or mentally healthy or lack the necessary funds for their sustenance and for their dependents."

That's right, under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison.

And Arizona only wants people to have their identity checked?

Everybody here is all upset just because we want to see if they're here legally, and then deport them if they're not?

Give me a flippin' break.

Meanwhile the president of Mexico and our own politicians (who are supposedly representing citizens of the United States), yell bloody murder that the United States needs to provide a pathway to United States citizenship for illegal aliens - individuals who, under his country's laws would be facing two years in a Mexican prison!

Do you think President Calderon is about to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform in Mexico?

Do you think he will provide any sort of amnesty for illegal aliens in Mexico?

There is one lonely, rational voice in the American wilderness on this issue: Congressman Steve King of Iowa,  who is also the ranking Republican on the House Immigration Subcommittee.

Congressman King summed up the situation succinctly with this one sentence quote: "Why would Mr. Calderon have any objections to an Arizona law that is less draconian than his own, one he has pledged to enforce?"

Why indeed!

The CIA reports that the Mexican unemployment rate was recently only 4%, lower than 150 other countries and significantly lower than the unemployment rate of the United States.

Each and every year illegal Mexican aliens working in the United States send more than an 20 billion dollars back to their families in Mexico.

Twenty Billion Dollars.

With a "B"!

And this is only the "visible money" that can be traced, transferred through companies like Western Union.

Large amounts of additional money are also smuggled back to Mexico by illegal aliens revisiting Mexico, and even more money is smuggled back to Mexico from the Mexican drug cartels and people smugglers.

This is money that enriches the Mexican economy while draining money from our economy.

The fact is that Mexico now considers Mexicans who breach our nation's borders to represent the first or second most lucrative source of revenue for the Mexican economy.
 
By providing Mexican citizens with the ability to earn money in the United States and then send it home to their impoverished families,  the U.S. insures that Mexico has one of the most profitable economies of Latin America.

Giving  young and physically fit male Mexicans an open corridor to the United States- albeit an illegal pathway- these men are kept busy working in our country and not making demands of the government of their own country.

So Mexico gets the revenues they generate, while we get the expenses they create... which helps Mexico to maintain the economic status quo that is favored by the wealthy and powerful of Mexico.

But even more helpful is the total disregard for American laws by the government officials charged with enforcing them.

Consider:

"in 2009, Virginia State Police contacted ICE for nearly 12,000 criminal inmates, but ICE picked up only 690."

"In 2008, 2.9 million foreign visitors on temporary visas never officially checked out. About 40% of the illegal alien population are visa overstays."

DHS Secretary Napolitano recently stated that to deport 10.8M (her numbers) illegal aliens “the sheer logistics of doing that are overwhelming.”

And even the O-man recently called the Arizona bill "misguided".

Misguided?

A state requires its police force to enforce laws already on the Federal books because your administration won't, and you call it "misguided" ?

Sen. Reid and co-sponsors have just submitted their controversial immigration bill, Senate Bill 9.

The document has the following controversial language: that America must "move beyond detaining and deporting the undocumented... reunite deported families... reconsider the border wall that is a symbol of fear and intolerance... that those hiding in the shadows of our society are provided a rapid path to citizenship."

You're right, O-man.

Something is certainly "misguided".

But it's not the Arizona law.


"To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens, the moment they foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty." Immigrants should be moved to citizenship carefully and deliberately "to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments; to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government; and to admit of a philosophy, at least, of their feeling a real interest in our affairs." ---- Alexander Hamilton

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birth place, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here." ---- Theodore Roosevelt


 
PORK OF THE DAY:
$71,000 by Rep. Nydia Valezquez (D-N.Y.) for Dance Theater Etcetera in Brooklyn for its Tolerance through Arts initiative. One of the group’s ongoing projects is Angels and Accordions, which according to its website is, “A site-specific performance/walking tour of Green-Wood Cemetery. Produced by Dance Theatre Etcetera and the Green-Wood Historic Fund, in conjunction with openhousenewyork. A cast of 30 angels, 10 accordions and a classical music ensemble guide visitors through Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery.” Perhaps that is where the taxpayers’ money is buried.

Big Government Knows Who You Are

The following video is a current television commercial being broadcast in Pennsylvania.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybcu2itqvEQ&feature=player_embedded

So, this Oldtimer wants to know how they can find one guy who owes a few thousand dollars to a state, and they can't seal our borders.

And how the government has the balls to implicitly threaten one of its legal citizens while doing nothing to punish the illegals.

Here's the thing: They know who the guy in the ad is.

They know where he lives, what he drives, and how long he's been there.

And, he obviously files his taxes, or he wouldn't be on the list of non-payers.

There were lots of rallies this past weekend.

Just as there are every May 1st.

May 1 is traditionally a rallying day for a lot of different groups, including labor unions and communist organizations.

You've seen the footage from Red Square and Beijing every May day.

And, as usually is the case, similar rallies were scheduled for the US as well, in places like Washington DC and Los Angeles, among about 90 other cities across the country.

Which explains how the rallies that were portrayed in the media as "ilegal immigrant rallies" got organized so quickly.

They simply showed up at other rally sites with their signs and then were welcomed into the fray.

Do you think there might have been even a few immigrations and customs agents there questioning people?

Hell no.

Which brings us back to the video.

Pennsylvania, other states, and the Feds are ratcheting up the pressure on American taxpayers, trying to recover amounts that pale in comparison to the amounts owed by illegals for working in the USA.

And, to catch the illegals, you don't need satellite surveillance or high tech methods.

Because existing Federal Law (since 1955) requires every immigrant in the US legally to carry their visa, passport, or green card on them at all times, just as Americans must carry their passport when visiting most foreign countries.

But for some reason, the O-man and his administration (as well as others before him) are loathe to touch the documentation issue.

So, let's go another way.

Turn the IRS loose on the illegals, and bust them all for tax evasion.

Start by subpoenaing every US to Mexico financial transfer document from Western Union and other such companies.

Tax the transferer, and do what the IRS usually does to Americans: assume they're guilty until proven innocent.

And then impose a 100% tax on all international money transfers by non-citizens of the United States.

We already require citizens to have verified identities when opening a bank account, cashing a check, or transferring money, so make illegals play by the same rules.

My point is, there are a lot of ways to go after the immigration issue.

If you don't want to secure the border, make illegals subject to identity verification like Arizona is trying to do.

If you don't want to do that, strangle their ability to get money out of the country.

If you don't want to do that, tax audit the employers and verify everyone's identity.

Start matching up corporate tax returns against employee tax returns and go visit those companies with discrepancies and verify everybody.

And, if you don't want to do that, round them all up for tax evasion.

Hey, it worked on Al Capone.


"Enforcement is the long overdue step to protect our Nation from external threats in a time of war. And then once we do that, we can effectively discuss a guest worker program." ---- J. D. Hayworth

"Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on." ---- Robert Kennedy


PORK OF THE DAY:
$47,575 by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) for the Harlem United supportive housing fund wind power project. While the organization’s website claims to serve an important need in the community, there is no mention of why they need money from the Department of Energy for wind power.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

In a media generally leaning hard left, it's refreshing to see some conservative commentary on the immigration issue.

"As Congress continues to debate ways to address illegal immigration, we must remember the many hard-working legal immigrants that contribute so much to our nation's economy and culture. " ---- Bob Filner

"Legislation passed in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 enhanced our intelligence capabilities and strengthened our national defense, but until now our nation's immigration policies have not adapted to the needs of a post-September 11th world." ---- Chris Chocola

"Mexico takes a hard line on immigration, demanding that visitors to her shores enter lawfully, and show her respect during their stay." ---- John Linder

 
PORK OF THE DAY:
$44,139,929 for 23 projects by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), including: $386,000 for a carbon-neutral green campus; $142,725 for a plug-in hybrid vehicle demonstration program in Las Vegas; and $761,200 for a solar lighting demonstration project. It would appear that Nevada already receives plenty of solar lighting from its more than 300 days per year of sunshine.

Cowards Among Us

Much is made these days of the O-man and his administrations leading the country down the path to ruin.

Certainly, the citizens of the country are expressing their displeasure, as his approval ratings and those of Congress continue to plummet.

And, of course, the Republicans scream long and loud about the situation.

But unfortunately, their cries of despair are merely lip service.

They're much more concerned with staying in office than with standing on principle for any conservative cause.

And, of late, they've become amazingly transparent about that fact.

First it was Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who when facing his first serious challenge to reelection in decades, decided it more important to keep his job and easier to change parties than to fight it out and get reelected based on his values and principles.

Then, Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, became reliable aisle-crossers for the Obama agenda.

And now, the highly visible and vocal Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, who has been running for the Senate as a Republican, has found himself getting his ass whipped by a more conservative upstart, Marco Rubio.

Crist was the heavy favorite in the senate race early last year, and was even among the Republican names bandied about in the 2012 presidential race.

But the primary campaign quickly became a lost cause as the tea party movement embraced the more conservative Marco Rubio, and held up the governor's literal embrace of Obama last year as evidence that Crist was too liberal.

One recent poll showed him more than 20 percentage points behind Rubio in the August primary.

So, once again, rather than fight it out based on personal beliefs and principles, another Republican has turned tail and bailed out of the party, running as an independent, focusing instead on keeping his job.

The truth is that Specter, Crist, and a whole host of other Republicans in Congress are more concerned with keeping their power, privilege, and position, that principles have long fallen by the wayside.

Which is why it's apperently so damned easy for those same Republicans to compromise with the O-man's agenda as opposed to representing their conservative constituents.

They've forgotten that conservatives elected them to actually be conservative, that if they had wanted liberal representation, they would have voted Democrat.

They've forgotten there's supposed to be a clear difference between the parties.

Republican congressmen as a group need to grow some balls and stand up to the continued attacks on the Constitution, states rights, and personal liberties.

They need to continuously demonstrate a clear cut difference between themselves and their Democrat "opposition".

And they need to get back to considering the Dems as real opposition, rather than simply "friends and colleagues.

Because until they do, any token opposition the Republicans do mount is more for the cover of plausible deniability than for principle.

For inspiration, I suggest the Republicans look carefully at the behavior, strategies, and tactics of the Dems when they were a minority.

They did not cooperate, compromise. or cave on issues of importance.

They remained unified, consistent, and true to their principles, no matter how misguided.

They weren't afraid to fight, to get down and dirty for their cause.

And, they were effective.

The Republicans, knowing it usually takes only a few crossover votes, appear to have figured out how to play both sides of the aisle with little penalty.

Studies of voting records show a  group of consistent defectors, supported by a rotating group of occasional defectors.

Snowe, Collins, and Specter have so consistently defected on important issues that they can almost be counted as Democtrats, even if two of them haven't actually changed parties.

Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon and others appear to defect on a regular rotating basis as needed, allowing them good political cover on the homefront while allowing them to be actively courted with favor while they are in Washington.

In turn, they get easy, consistent approvals for special earmarks, committee assignments, office choices, and the like.

In civilian business life, those are often the symtoms of bribery --- receiving things of value in exchange for specific behavior.

But those Congressional cowards who refuse to stand by the principles that got them elected have carefully exempted themselves from such prosecution, along with compliance with most other laws applicable to you and I.

A good friend has clearly and concisely articulated the problem: "They have been going along to get along for so long that for the most part they actually believe that is the optimum road and job description for holding office.


Boldly and clearly standing up with an opposing position, backed with logic, facts, and intelligent reasoning is the key quality needed in turning things around."

It's time for Americans to send these RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) a strong message: "If you feel it necessary to change parties, or sell out our principles, we will fire you for misrepresentation."

Since you have no principles important ebough to stand for, we will exercise ours.


“Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?” ---- Ronald Reagan


"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. " ---- Thomas Jefferson


PORK OF THE DAY:
$475,750 by Senate appropriator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) for research into long term environmental and economic impacts of the development of a coal liquefaction sector in China. WHich only adds to the National Debt, most of which we already owe to.... China.

Reagan Was a Democrat

A little known fact (at least to today's society) is that the bastion of conservatism, Ronald Reagan was, for a while, a Democrat.

During the 1950s he spent years being paid to give patriotic and motivational speeches to factory workers.

He wrote all of his own material, and spent considerable hours crafting each message to insure it accurately represented his thoughts.

This is when he actually defined his political beliefs and came to the conclusion that he was in the wrong party.

As a result of this period he knew what he believed in and could explain it to others.

Which is why Eleanor Clift, of Newsweek, is way off base when she publishes Five Ways that Barack Obama can be More Like Ronald Regan (http://www.newsweek.com/id/234860) in a recent online column.

She bases her idea on the fact that the O-man said during the campaign that he would like to emulate Ronald Reagan—not because he agreed with Reagan's policies, but because he changed the country in ways that endured.

The problem is, Reagan had a natural ability to touch the emotions, a trait that the O-man doesn't have.

He's not going to get a personality transplant; he's an aloof, out of touch, intellectual's intellectual, more Adlai Stevenson than Ronald Reagan.

Reagan spent eight years as Governor of California where he learned how to work with a Democratic Legislature, using clear communication and defined personal and political leadership.

Obama is still learning how to get legislation passed with a strong Democratic majority, exhibiting neither strong personal nor political leadership.

Instead, he continues to try to be all things to all people, without putting his beliefs, preferences, or leadership on the line.

Next year he will have to start learning how to pass legislation with either a reduced majority or a minority position in one or both houses.

He will be into his second term (assuming that he he re-elected) before he really has a handle on Congress, if he ever does.

Several leading Democrats have voiced their opinions that the O-man needs to be clear about his priorities, and become more directive to the Congressional leadership.

Others have said that now that healthcare has passed, he needs to move toward the center in order to mitigate losses in the Congressional mid-terms, becoming more statesman-like, and emulating Reagan populism.

The problem is, the O-man can't do it if he wanted to, because he and Reagan have lived such different lives.

Where Reagan spent time honing his beliefs and core principles, Obama has always been a Progressive.

He started his career as a Saul Alinsky community organizer.

After two years with sparse results, he decided on a change of tactics.

He never seriously questioned or explained his core beliefs and, prior to becoming president, he was always playing to a like-minded crowd.

But he seriously misjudged the legislators he needed to lead.

And his ability to lead them.

Unlike the O-man, those legislators had worked to get where they are, and have no desire to lose their cushy jobs because some neophyte is trying to promote an extremist agenda.

Which is why even though the O-man continues to blame Republican obstructionism, the real obstacle he faces is that those in his own party don't want to follow somebody who has no experience in dealing with real constituents.

The only real followers the O-man can reliably count on are the suicidal duo of Whiney Harry and Princess Nancy, both of whom are having ever more difficulty holding their unruly charges together on key programs.

In fact, on at least three key recent votes, even Whiney Harry voted "no" by what he says was a mistake.

(I'll give Whiney Harry the benefit of the doubt on that, as it had to be a mistake since he has no principles left.)

But if Whiney Harry and Princess Nancy are having this much trouble getting the agenda passed now, and are showing such low approval numbers, what happens after the mid-terms when their majority is certain to be eroded if not erased?

Typically, that's when a President's leadership becomes essential.

Eleanor Clift says that the O-man should become more Reagan like.

But what she really means is that the O-man needs to show some leadership.

Until he does, the only thing he'll have in common with the Gipper is that they were both once Democrats.


"Conversion for me was not a Damascus Road experience. I slowly moved into an intellectual acceptance of what my intuition had always known." ---- Madeleine L'Engle


“Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.” --- Jim Rohn


PORK OF THE DAY:
$1,240,000 for two projects for Brown Tree Snakes control and interdiction in Guam by Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam). Since 1996, 14 projects worth $14.6 million have been earmarked in Guam for interdiction of Brown Tree Snakes, which are still slithering through the appropriations bill. That's an average of almost $69,000 per square mile.