Thomas Sowell on Tuesday!

From Thomas Sowell's column today:

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems-- of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

...

What is stupid is believing that politicians are trying to solve our problems, instead of theirs.

And from the comments, with MANY thanks to PB in WA:

Put a human in a situation where he votes for his own raises and can custom-design his medical, retirement & other perks, and on top of that gets to decide what everyone else is allowed under law, and you pretty much have a monster on your hands, one who will never relinquish what he has been handed.


House full of little ones again soon, y'all have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

"They stand between us and those who would plunge our nation into darkness."

Ben Shapiro tells about another anti-American movie that paints our proud Warriors as monsters and psychos. Funny how many who tell such stories have little or no experience with REAL military members or their families. I take this as a PERSONAL affront, being a Navy Wife of 22 years, and with my brother, cousins, father and uncles having also worn the uniform.

I will not pay to see another Hollywood production, in a theatre or recorded. I rewrote that, because there were conditions such as 'war movie' or a certain time period in my first writing. I apply no such conditions now that I think of it. It isn't as if Hollywood is going to miss my few pennies, I'm not a movie buff in any way shape or form. Like Congress, Hollyweird doesn't give a rat's shiny rear end what I think, either. But I try to stand by my principles, and I don't have enough cash to waste on people who have such little respect for the finest and bravest among us. I can catch the few movies I might be interested in on a cable channel I already pay for. The last movie I watched was "Taking Chance" on HBO. Last year. The last movie I saw in a theatre was "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King."

From the column:
Where is George Clooney when we need him? Where is Ewan McGregor? Where is Tobey Maguire? Apparently, they are too busy pillorying soldiers as would-be Maj. Nidal Hasans to remember who our soldiers really are: Michael Monsoors. Heroes. True brothers. And true protectors.

Number Three

Bob Tyrell's column has something to say about BarryO and His Band of Weasels. BarryO has brought some real 'pieces of work' to his administration, and some of them have the job on a very temporary basis. Sometimes shills and sycophants who worked well at a campaign level really aren't good company at the National level. They say things or do things that cause pain and embarrassment to their Emperor - can't have THAT! I need a pick-me-up this morning, and Tyrell provides much in the way of snark. I love snark.


My guess is that Dunn's expressed admiration for Mao is the cause of her departure. For this revelation, I suppose we have to thank Fox's Glenn Beck. He aired a tape of Dunn notifying an audience of students at St. Andrew's Episcopal School near Washington that this cuddly little butterball of a tyrant — who oversaw the murders of some 70 million people — is one of her "favorite philosophers." The other one, she said, is Mother Teresa, who killed no one, as far as we know. Dunn adduced both as moral exemplars for the assembled youths. Her point was something about setting out to do things you really want to do regardless of criticism. If I followed her, she saw both Mao and Mother Teresa as variations on the old Sinatra standard "My Way." In moral and practical terms, Dunn's advice to the students was confused.


What is more, she stretched the truth when asked to defend her speech. On CNN, she attempted to explain that when she spoke of Mao as one of her "favorite political philosophers," she was speaking ironically. The phrase was, she claimed, "intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat — at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing." Ah, Dunn's war with Fox continues.

I don't know about you, but where I'm from "stretching the truth" is the same as lying. I don't believe for a minute that she intended irony.

Wonder who's next to open mouth and change feet. Stay tuned!

Breaking: Massacre At Fort Hood

Breaking: Massacre At Fort Hood

You don't need my words, go read...these bloggers have links and opinions worth your time.

Andrea at Spleenville.com

Paco at Paco Enterprises

SwampWoman at A1A South

Stacy at The Other McCain

richard mcenroe at Three Beers Later

Jeff at Parrothead Jeff

Quotable Democrats

Quotes from...well, you'll see...

Great Orators of the Democrat Party...

'One man with courage makes a majority.' - Andrew Jackson
'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' - Franklin D. Roosevelt
'The buck stops here.' - Harry S. Truman
'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.' - John F. Kennedy

And from today's Democrats...

"It depends what your definition of 'is' is?" - Bill Clinton
"Those rumors are false .... I believe in the sanctity of marriage." - John Edwards
"I invented the Internet." - Al Gore
"The next Person that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary beads up their ASS." - Joe Biden
"America is--is no longer, uh, what it--it, uh, could be, uh, what it was once was...uh, and I say to 'uh, I don't want that future, uh, uh for my children." - Barack Obama
"I have campaigned in all 57 states." - Barack Obama (Quoted 2008)
"You don't need God anymore, you have us Democrats." - Nancy Pelosi (Quoted 2006)
"Paying taxes is voluntary." - Sen. Harry Reid
"Bill is the greatest husband and father I know. No one is more faithful, true, and honest than he." - Hillary Clinton (Quoted 1998)

And here's one of my favorite quotes, though not a politician, just a Real Man.
"Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." -- John Wayne

(Thanks, Fred!)

UPDATE: I've been reminded that gaffs are not party-exclusive. ALL politicians have things come out of their mouths that are wrong, mistaken, lies, or examples of oral dyslexia - just like the rest of us. WE, however, don't spend a lot of time with cameras and tape recorders following us around to preserve our flubs for posterity...thank goodness! This particular little collection just happened to be all in one place all at one time, so here it is.

You call this 'classy?'

I call it the ugliest damn doll I have EVER seen.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Michelle Doll -

just in time for Christmas!

The icing on the cake of this story has to be that the seller is - ready? - JAILBREAK TOYS! Yes, that's real, and no, I'm not providing a link, you can google it like I did.

Hasn't this made your whole day now? Don't you feel SPECIAL!?!

ADDITION: I can't help but think that Jackie O would have been horrified at any depiction of herself that was this...inaccurate. Of course, she was too classy to have EVER said anything.

"Struck deaf by ego and narcissism..."

My title for today is taken from a comment left after this article by Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator. Very astute. Not so sure Old Media has been struck deaf, or if it's a classic example of "none so blind as he who will not see." If I have an agenda to be advanced at any opportunity, I ignore any differing opinion, view, or evidence. Old Media are Old Hands at that game...and Mr. Lord provides examples.

The article itself is fairly long, but well-written and certainly worth the few minutes of time it takes. In it, Mr. Lord writes a letter to Tom Brokaw, detailing instances of non-reporting in Old Media and Brokaw's condescending remarks about the New Media (Talk Radio and the Internet) on a recent Meet the Press episode, where he was joined by Thomas Friedman.

Part of his smarmy line: And my line to them is you have to vet information. You have to test it the same way you do when you buy an automobile or when you go and buy a new flat-screen television. You read the Consumer Reports, you have an idea of what it's worth and what the lasting value of it is. You have to do the same thing with information because there is so much disinformation out there that it's frightening, frankly, in a free society that depends on information to make informed decisions.

Pathetic. This would be one reason I don't watch network television anymore.

Friedman's 'quote of the day' is this gem: "... the Internet is "an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information.""

Personally, I think they sound jealous: Since ACORN has received millions of federal tax dollars over the years, and has been connected to President Obama in terms of his rise to prominence in Illinois politics, not to mention election activities while he was running for president, one would think this a major news story. Not for the Old Media. As reported by Glenn Beck a full two days after the story broke on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, here's the record of reports on this story:

Fox News -- 19
CNN -- 3
MSNBC -- 0
ABC -- 0
CBS - 0
NBC -- 0
New York Times -- 1 (an AP story)
Washington Post -- 1 (an AP story)

One more excerpt before I go finish the dishes: In other words, across five decades of American journalistic history, the instinct of many Old Media institutions -- specifically including NBC and the New York Times -- has been to deliberately withhold the truth. To quite deliberately use their journalism skills and tools to misrepresent those whose politics they do not favor.

This is NOT the kind of reporting I thought I was learning in high school journalism. Makes me glad I didn't pursue it as a career - I really don't like being embarrassed because I've been lumped in with liars and cheats.

Uphold Volunteer Volunteerism

Read the American Spectator. This is from Tuesday, columnist Matthew Vadum:

As I wrote last week, about 60 groups including ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Color of Change, and Rainbow PUSH Coalition are trying to help the Obama administration modify the meaning of 9/11. They want to turn each Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the importance of bicycle paths, ethanol, carbon emission controls, putting solar panels on your roof, and radical community organizing. It has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year's election campaign.

Might be just me, but as I read what these self-described "organizers" want 9/11 to be, I couldn't help but remember something I was told a long time ago. Wish I could quote it exactly, but it was something to the effect of - "If you're forced to do it, you are not a volunteer. Forced 'service' is slavery." (from my online dictionary: involuntary subjection to another or others. Slavery emphasizes the idea of complete ownership and control by a master)

Bob Tyrrell, founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator

Holy Crow. I knew I liked reading Bob's columns...and I know he must be good at tearing the masks off clowns and impostors, but THIS one really takes BarryO and His Band of Merry Marxists to task. Whew! Make sure you read the comments, too, especially Becky and Grzmlyk.

Here's just a taste of Bob's genius:

My belief, based on reports in the news and from my private network of seasoned agents and provocateurs, is that this White House is a carousel of incompetence. How else do we explain the ravening push on all fronts, health care, the environment, fiscal reform, intelligence reform, and a foreign policy of humility and apology? Unsurprisingly, on every front the President is in trouble. Remember chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's, callous enjoiner, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste"? This White House is a serious crisis.

Ya think???

"Repentence for a misspent youth"

Jonathan Rosenblum at JewishWorldReview.com:

...Western liberals were also prone to the illusion that all dilemmas of public and private life can be resolved by experts, psychotherapists and other "engineers of the human soul." The most learned of men, Berlin nevertheless insisted that intellectual elites have no business presuming that they know better than the man or woman in the street.

Really good column, telling me about a book I'd wouldn't pick up in a hundred years, written about a man I never heard of. The author is Michael Ignatieff. Wow. Explains a LOT about the way BarryO and His Band of Merry CongressWeasels and Their Friends - in the education system, the legal system, the health care system and every government bureaucracy around the country - think, and what they're headed for...not that I didn't know before, but this gives me extra insight.

Belief in a single rational solution to every problem leads as well to nasty politics. Marxists have a term for those who fail to acknowledge the rational solution: "false consciousness." False consciousness can infect entire social classes, and when it does they must either be re-educated or eliminated. In non-totalitarian regimes, ridicule replaces re-education for all those too stupid to accept the consensus. Perhaps that explains why so many writers to the Yale Law Magazine find calling George W. Bush an idiot the height of sophisticated wit. Even "jokes" about Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome son and "retarded" family are not beyond the pale.

Does your government scare you YET?

Thomas Sowell Tuesday with Cal Thomas, too - Decisions, Decisions

We're going to keep beating this drum. Who do YOU think should be making decisions about YOUR medical care? Some government flunky who works for a Political Appointee of the Administration? Your own doctor, in accordance to YOUR wishes? Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com on The Man Who Would Be In Charge of the "Death Panels."

At one time, it would have been none of Dr. Emanuel's business if your physician prescribed the latest medications for you, rather than the cheaper and obsolete medications they replaced. It would have been none of his business if you preferred to have a nice hospital room with "amenities" rather than being in an unsanitary ward with inadequate nursing care, as under the National Health Service in Britain.

The involvement of government gives Dr. Emanuel the leverage to condemn other Americans' choices — and a larger involvement of government will give him the power to force both doctors and patients to change their choices.

As for a "death panel," no politician would ever use that phrase when trying to get a piece of legislation passed. "End of life" care under the "guidance" of "some independent group" sounds so much nicer — and these are the terms President Obama used in an interview with the New York Times back on April 14th.

Here's Cal Thomas:

Anyone wishing to revise America's medical system and model it after Britain and Canada ought to thoroughly examine how these health care systems function before plunging into the same pool. A reasonable conclusion is that these systems require long waits and treatments (if you can get them) that are inferior to the U.S., based on government "guidelines" that frequently approve care only if the patient is deemed "worthy of the investment."

As a symbol, Adolf Hitler has been overused, but the philosophy behind the horrors he unleashed can be found in the beliefs of some of those who would use the power of the state to determine who gets help and who doesn't.

El Campeador has this little bit of 'fluff' from FoxNews, about the FABulous care you'll get when we're all covered by British-style "health" care.

Charlotte, of Oswestry, Shropshire in England, was prescribed Tamiflu via the flu hotline, but when she didn’t feel any better, she was admitted to the hospital on July 29 where she died two days later after her lungs collapsed.

The 16-year-old girl died after being misdiagnosed with the H1N1 virus, when she really had tonsillitis, London’s Daily Mail reported.

Charlotte Hartey’s condition was diagnosed over the phone, like many other H1N1 viruses in the United Kingdom, but when complications arose from Charlotte’s real affliction – tonsillitis – the teenager died.

A post-mortem exam showed Charlotte died from “natural causes.”

Remember - BarryOCare will give you EXACTLY what the British people get. Aren't you excited??? YES WE ARE!

LIFE, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...with WHO in charge of the LIFE part???

REMEMBER:
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.

Jonah Goldberg at JewishWorldReview.com:

When it comes to civil liberties, liberals are often distrustful of government power. But, for reasons that baffle me, they are quite comfortable with Uncle Sam getting into the business of deciding, or providing "guidance" on, which lives are more valuable than others. A government charged with extending life expectancy must meddle not just with our health care, but with what we eat, how we drive, how we live. A government determined to cut costs must meddle not just with how we live, but how we die.

Analysis and translation - for those of us not fluent in NewSpeak and Legalese

I heard some of this listening to Rush today. Amazing stuff. If there was a town hall happening near me, I'd print it out and take it along, pass out copies. Maybe I'll post it on the bulletin board at the laundromat!

The Health Care Bill: What HR 3200, ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” Says.
by John David Lewis.

"Democracy" not "of the People or by the People" anymore

Mitch Albom at JewishWorldReview.com:

I would rather live in a place where people questioned what their government proposed rather than swallowing it blindly — especially a government whose members guard our tax money while taking bribes, shout morality and then get caught with their pants down, or lecture businessmen about private planes and then order a bunch for themselves.

What did Democrats expect with a bill like this? Roses and hosannas?

Byron York:

As a reporter, how does one keep from rooting for the home team? And as a government official, how does one flack for the boss while ignoring the questions any journalist should ask?

This week Douglass undertook to debunk a video going around the Internet showing Barack Obama, before he became president, endorsing a single-payer national health care system. “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan,” Obama said at a conference in 2003, as he was beginning a run for the U.S. Senate. “That’s what I’d like to see.”

A viewer might reasonably conclude that, at least in 2003, Barack Obama was a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan. Not true, said Douglass. In a video posted on the White House Web site, she explained that there was a lot of “disinformation” going around these days about health care reform. Opponents of reform have been “taking sentences and phrases out of context” to create a “false impression.”

“There are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time, and they take a phrase here and there — they simply cherry-pick and put it together,” Douglass said, “and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say.”

A few years ago, Linda Douglass the journalist might have asked just how Obama’s 2003 declaration of support for single-payer health care was taken out of context. Now, Douglass the White House spokeswoman didn’t even address the question.

Jack Kelly:

On Jan. 20, 2009, after an eight year run, dissent ceased to be "the highest form of patriotism."

Now, according to those who once assured us that even violent protests against the war in Iraq were patriotic, to express dissatisfaction with President Obama's plans for health care "reform" is mob rule, or worse.

Beware "Government Grant" Scams

Money is tight. People are nervous. The idea that you can get 'free money' from BarryO and His Merry CongressWeasels is probably more attractive than ever before. DON'T DO IT! There are dozens - maybe hundreds - possibly thousands - of scammers out there, doing exactly what cost this woman money she could little afford to give away. May as well give cash to the 'homeless' family at the off ramp as get taken by one of these scumsuckers.

Your government is not giving you a damn thing. There's no such thing as a free ride - for the average everyday workin' American Joe or Jane, that is. Every good thing has a price...and so do the crappy ones. You know, like 'free' medical care.

Dave Ramsey says when we fall for the lies, we end up paying the Stupid Tax. Don't be as stupid as your government - and the lowlifes who aren't your government - think you are! If it sounds too good to be true, you can bet your lil blue booties it's TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!

BarryOCare = DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!

Thomas Sowell (you KNOW I love him):

Are decisions made by doctors who have treated the same patient for years to be over-ruled by bureaucrats sitting in front of computer screens in Washington, following guidelines drawn up with the idea of "bringing down the cost of medical care"?
...
What is both dangerous and mindless is rushing a massive new medical care scheme through Congress so fast that members of Congress do not even have time to read it before voting on it. Legislation that is far less sweeping in its effects can get months of hearings before Congressional committees, followed by debates in the Senate and the House of Representatives, with all sorts of people voicing their views in the media and in letters to Congress, while ads from people on both sides of the issue appear in newspapers and on television.

If this new medical scheme is so wonderful, why can't it stand the light of day or a little time to think about it?

Robert Tracinski:

You can see how Obama's demands undermine this whole system. To ask insurance companies to cover a patient after the tumor is diagnosed is to ask them to take on a known expense. Combine that with another Obama demand: that insurance companies can't charge higher rates for those who are at higher risk of getting sick. So if insurance companies have to take on a known expense and can't charge a higher rate for it, how are they going to pay for it? By raising everyone else's rates, redistributing their wealth to the new freeloaders.

This isn't insurance, it's welfare. And that's the whole point.

John Stossel:

I keep reading about health-care "reform," but I have yet to see anyone explain how the government can make it easier for more people to obtain medical services, control the already exploding cost of those services and not interfere with people's most intimate decisions.

You don't need to be a Ph.D. in economics to understand that government cannot do all three things. (Judging by what Paul Krugman writes, a Ph.D. may be an obstacle.)

Paul Greenberg:

Here's what some of us are looking for in a health-insurance plan: Will it allow us to choose our own doctor and our own insurance policy? Will it let those who provide our health care order the tests and treatments they consider necessary, or will it hamper them?

Do we get to consult our own physician or is our fate in the hands of Doctor Obama with his glib talk of red pills and blue pills, and how there's really no difference between them except in cost? Oh, and our president is an expert on tonsillectomies, too, and how many should be done. (When he talks medicine, he's almost as convincing as some doctors I know talking oh-so-expertly about politics.)

Another question: Will this country's great big new health-care system get all those lawyers off our doctor's back, and just let the country's physicians practice medicine? Instead of having to practice it defensively? Is there anything in this developing thousand-page mass of rules and regs that will lower the medical malpractice premiums that keep driving up the cost of health-care?

Will this bill give individuals the same tax breaks on their health insurance as businesses are now allowed? Will it let us take our insurance with us when we switch jobs or lose one? Will it encourage good health? By, say, giving discounts to those of us who don't smoke?

It's Tuesday - it's Thomas Sowell

Samples from Mr. Sowell's column at JewishWorldReview.com:

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice."
...
Ultimately, our choice is to give up Utopian quests or give up our freedom. This has been recognized for centuries by some, but many others have not yet faced that reality, even today. If you think government should "do something" about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don't have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom.

So why wouldn't they let this sleeping dog lie? Perhaps because Mr. Reyes is a dimwit.

I would not pass up this phrase as a headline. It's an overwhelming urge I refuse to resist. It's just too beautiful. Read the column, too - Jack Kelly, again at JewishWorldReview.com.

Here's another taste:

There were two problems with Ms. Feinstein's story.

The first is that the assassination plan never got off the drawing board, so there was no program on which to brief members of Congress. The second is that former CIA Director Hayden flatly denied Mr. Cheney had ordered him not to tell Congress about the plan which never got off the ground, and Mr. Panetta's boss, Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, wouldn't back up what Mr. Panetta is alleged to have said. Mr. Panetta himself has kept a discreet silence since the flap went public.

The leakers initially got the headlines they wanted, but as the facts come out, the story cannot end well for Democrats. Few Americans are outraged the CIA contemplated killing our enemies during a time of war. We're doing precisely that right now with drone missile attacks on al Qaida and Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

Swing voters are already uncomfortable about the attacks on the CIA, and -- should there be another terrorist attack on the U.S. -- the downside risk for Democrats is enormous. So why wouldn't they let this sleeping dog lie?

Perhaps because Mr. Reyes is a dimwit. Ms. Pelosi chose him for chairman over the far better qualified Rep. Jane Harman (D-Ca), who'd been the ranking Democrat when the GOP controlled Congress, because of her personal animosity to Ms. Harman. At the time of his elevation, Mr. Reyes didn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shia, an appalling failing in a member of the Intelligence Committee.

Your tax dollars, hard at work, paying the morons we elect. Sad, isn't it.

More on GMC, from John Stossel and Tony Blankley

No, not my brother...as BIG BROTHER and Uncle Sam's Bureaucracy continue to grow, as more and more of your individual rights and liberties are voted away, Government Medical Care will soon join Government Motors Crap as your ONLY choice for health care.

John Stossel at JewishWorldReview.com:
It's crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15 percent of the U.S. economy. It's even crazier to do it by August.

Yet that is what some members of Congress presume to do. They intend, as the New York Times puts it, "to reinvent the nation's health care system."

Let that sink in. A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system.

These are our Elected Officials, most of whom can't buy stamps without breaking rules, don't drive, shop for groceries, or earn a living for a family, who have never run a business - even unsuccessfully! They are the LEAST competent among us, yet have the gall to believe they can make this work? No, to tell you the truth, they don't need it to work - they just need it to pass, to give them more power and control over your lives and the lives of your children and grandchildren.

Is the term "comprehensive" health care misleading? Read Tony Blankley's column, and you will be properly educated on the MEANINGS AND MISLEADINGS of what you hear about GMC:

Comprehensive, as the dictionary defines it, means "including all or everything." It is very similar in meaning to the definition of total, which the dictionary defines as "complete, thorough." If something includes everything, it is complete.

Of course, it is not surprising that NPR uses the White House talking-point word "comprehensive" rather than its synonym "total," because total health care coverage easily might sound like totalitarian health care coverage. And by the way, the dictionary defines totalitarian as "having and exercising complete political power and control." Note that pesky word complete — a synonym for comprehensive — in the definition of totalitarian.

Walter Cronkite Has Blood on His Hands

AMERICAN blood. He died with American and Vietnamese blood - not to mention the other countries the U.N. sent to Southeast Asia - still dripping from his fingers. If you don't believe me, read this blog post at American Thinker, written by Matt Peterson. From "reporter" to activist "journalist," Uncle Walter took a fall from which real journalism may never recover.

Thanks, Matt.

Walter Cronkite Has Blood on His Hands


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