Remember last year when Iran was caught red-handed photoshopping missiles? Well, now they’re at it again, this time photoshopping “supporters” into pro-Ahmadinejad rallies. That’s some support you’ve got their, Ahmadinejad.
From Ahmadinejad’s Millions of Photoshopped Supporters:
(Click on the image for a larger version)
Don’t miss George Will’s column, “Have We Got a Deal For You”. The article touches on the fact that the sickly “Government Motors” will now have an unfair advantage over a healthy Ford.
One other point to consider is that Ford’s very employees — members of the UAW — are now owner-partners with the government of another car company: GM. What a damn mess.
GM is adopting new ways to lose money: Responsive to its UAW masters, GM is moving from China to America the production of some components of one Chevrolet model. Says UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, “It should be built here if it’s going to be sold here.” That principle, now successfully asserted, means economic autarky — the end of international trade, and of prosperity.
The government’s $50 billion — so far — acquisition of the shadow of GM will injure, with unfair financial advantages, the surprisingly healthy U.S. auto company, Ford. Of course, the government does not intend that injury, any more than it intended to cause protests in Mexico over the high price of corn tortillas, a result of Washington’s mandate that Americans burn corn (ethanol) in their cars.
Washington’s “rescue” of GM began because GM is “too big to fail,” and bankruptcy is (well, was) “unthinkable.” Big? GM’s market capitalization, $375.8 million on Wednesday, is about the size of California Pizza Kitchen’s ($340 million) — is it too big to fail? — and one-eleventh that of Harley-Davidson ($4.3 billion). Fail? If GM has not already failed, New Coke was a success.
The administration is determined to prop up GM as a jobs program for the UAW and Midwestern states rich in electoral votes. This frenzy will intensify as the administration’s decisions deepen the debacle.
Hugh Hewitt has an article, “Stopping Government Motors”, that is so thorough I really don’t have anything to add. You really should read the entire piece. Here’s an excerpt:
Almost everyone grasps immediately the deep unfairness to Ford and even the offshore carmakers that now compete against the massive subsidies of the federal government. How exactly is Ford supposed to bear its ‘legacy costs’ while GM is relieved of its past mistakes? How will the UAW negotiate fairly with Ford while realizing that every dollar bled from it is a dollar more likely to go to GM, in which the union now holds a huge equity position? How can every federal official interacting with any car company not know and act with the knowledge that the ‘home team’ - the president’s team - is GM.
Corrupt cronyism has never had quite so large as stage as the new American car business, and the ramifications flowing out from Monday’s announcement are just beginning to be glimpsed. On the same day the president announced the seizure and blithely declared that he had no interest in running the company, he called Detroit Mayor David Bing to assure him that GM would be staying put in its downtown Motor City headquarters. When the president himself is decreeing the leasing arrangements for the company, it is well and truly nationalized, no matter what he says for the benefit of the still-seduced MSM.
This is a decision that must be reversed. GM must be denationalized, the federal government divested of not just its controlling interest but all of its interest in the company. The Republican leadership must immediately and loudly demand the sale of the federal share in the company, even if it costs a large part of the $50 billion already invested. If the Administration balks - and it will, for why would Rahm Emmanuel willingly give up such an enormous political cudgel as a great car manufacturing company with its myriad and powerful though indirect tools of reward and punishment? - then every GOP candidate in 2010 must begin almost every speech with a reminder that the Democrats have willingly crossed a line that has never been crossed in American history. This is not a loan, not a subsidy, not even a massive assist, they must argue, but a seizure. This is not a continuation of George W. Bush’s emergency aid, but a radical expansion of that crisis-driven intervention of late 2008 into a wholesale takeover five months later.
In the effort to reverse this lurch beyond the farthest left fringe of previous Democratic statist urges, individual Americans have a role to play. They have to say no to GM products and services until such time as the denationalization occurs. This is a painful conclusion for those of us with friends still working for the company, and who had supported aggressive efforts to help the private company restructure.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: DO NOT BY ANYTHING MADE BY GM.
Read Neal’s latest political posts at Liberty Waning.
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Jonah Goldberg has a piece today on Obama’s “empathy” criterion in choosing Sonia Sotomayor to replace outgoing Supreme Court Justice David Souter on the nation’s highest court. Check out “Empathy vs. Impartiality” to see what Obama really means when he emphasizes “empathy”:
But Obama has something specific in mind when he talks about empathy. He wants the justice’s oath to in effect be rewritten. Judges must administer justice with respect to persons, they must be partial to the poor, and so on.
I don’t think this is open to much debate. When Obama voted against Chief Justice John Roberts’s confirmation, he said that Roberts didn’t have the “heart” to vote the right way in those 5 percent of cases. Rather than Roberts the Cruel, Obama explained, “we need somebody who’s got the heart — the empathy — to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old — and that’s the criteria by which I’ll be selecting my judges.” Cue Sotomayor the Empathic.
The reasoning here is a riot of dubious assumptions. Obama and Sotomayor both assume that a firsthand understanding of the plight of the poor or the African-American or the gay or the old will automatically result in justices voting a certain (liberal) way. “I would hope,” Sotomayor said in 2001, “that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” This is not only deeply offensive, it is also nonsense on stilts. Clarence Thomas understands what it is like to be poor and black better than any justice who has ever sat on the bench. How’s that working out for liberals?
Of course, liberals say that if you don’t agree with their policy prescriptions on, say, racial quotas or abortion, it’s because you don’t care as much as they do about minorities or women. Which is why they’ve demonized Thomas as a villainous race-traitor. This, too, is aggressively stupid. But even if it were true, why are we talking about policy preferences and the courts? Judges aren’t supposed to have policy preferences, despite Ms. Sotomayor’s insistence that the courts are “where policy is made.”
More important, who says conservatives are against judicial empathy? I, for one, am all for it. I’m for empathy for the party most deserving of justice before the Supreme Court, within the bounds of the law and Constitution. If that means siding with a poor black man, great. If that means siding with a rich white one, that’s great too. The same holds for gays and gun owners, single mothers and media conglomerates. We should all rejoice when justices fulfill their oaths and give everyone a fair hearing, even if that’s now out of fashion in the age of Obama.
Lorraine, France. 10,489 of our military dead. No, Mr. President, we do not apologize. We will never forget.
Rush Limbaugh read this letter on the air today, and it is just unbelievable.
My name is George C. Joseph. I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.
We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people. We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month. All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community. We have strong local presence and stability.
I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees. Sunshine Dodge is my life.
On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as “new,” nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory.
Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler’s insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.
HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN?
THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY
This is beyond imagination! My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN. We did NOTHING wrong.
This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy. This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families? This is a total economic disaster.
HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?
I beseech your help, and look forward to your reply. Thank you.
Sincerely,
George C. Joseph
President & Owner
Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu
This is pure, unadulterated theft. We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the private, free market system in America. We are witnessing the destruction of the greatest engine for the creation of wealth and prosperity in the history of this world, and for what?
This is an excellent visualization of how quickly, and by how much, the National Debt has grown. But the real message is how Obama’s spending is unprecedented, even compared to George W. Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility.
Don’t miss “How ObamaCare Will Affect Your Doctor” in today’s Wall Street Journal. The author, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, starts with the widely-accepted notion that Obama’s “public option” will cause millions to move from private insurance into the government plan which will eventually reduce doctor’s incomes.
At the heart of President Barack Obama’s health-care plan is an insurance program funded by taxpayers, administered by Washington, and open to everyone. Modeled on Medicare, this “public option” will soon become the single dominant health plan, which is its political purpose. It will restructure the practice of medicine in the process.
Republicans and Democrats agree that the government’s Medicare scheme for compensating doctors is deeply flawed. Yet Mr. Obama’s plan for a centrally managed government insurance program exacerbates Medicare’s problems by redistributing even more income away from lower-paid primary care providers and misaligning doctors’ financial incentives.
Like Medicare, the “public option” will control spending by using its purchasing clout and political leverage to dictate low prices to doctors. (Medicare pays doctors 20% to 30% less than private plans, on average.) While the public option is meant for the uninsured, employers will realize it’s easier — and cheaper — to move employees into the government plan than continue workplace coverage.
The Lewin Group, a health-care policy research and consulting firm, estimates that enrollment in the public option will reach 131 million people if it’s open to everyone and pays Medicare rates, as many expect. Fully two-thirds of the privately insured will move out of or lose coverage. As patients shift to a lower-paying government plan, doctors’ incomes will decline by as much as 15% to 20% depending on their specialty.
Physician income declines will be accompanied by regulations that will make practicing medicine more costly, creating a double whammy of lower revenue and higher practice costs, especially for primary-care doctors who generally operate busy practices and work on thinner margins. For example, doctors will face expenses to deploy pricey electronic prescribing tools and computerized health records that are mandated under the Obama plan. For most doctors these capital costs won’t be fully covered by the subsidies provided by the plan.
So what will doctors do?
Doctors will consolidate into larger practices to spread overhead costs, and they’ll cram more patients into tight schedules to make up in volume what’s lost in margin. Visits will be shortened and new appointments harder to secure. It already takes on average 18 days to get an initial appointment with an internist, according to the American Medical Association, and as many as 30 days for specialists like obstetricians and neurologists.
Right or wrong, more doctors will close their practices to new patients, especially patients carrying lower paying insurance such as Medicaid. Some doctors will opt out of the system entirely, going “cash only.” If too many doctors take this route the government could step in — as in Canada, for example — to effectively outlaw private-only medical practice.
These changes are superimposed on a payment system where compensation often bears no connection to clinical outcomes. Medicare provides all the wrong incentives. Its charge-based system pays doctors more for delivering more care, meaning incomes rise as medical problems persist and decline when illness resolves.
Read the rest of the article for more sensible ways to address the problems with how medical care is funded in this country. Obama’s plan will cost a fortune, lead to health care rationing, longer waits, and poorer health outcomes. That’s some bad medicine.
More good stuff over at iOwnTheWorld.com.
This is hilarious! To the tune of “The Candy Man”:
To borrow Al Gore’s favorite word, there’s a consensus that “green power” is good. Right?
This story is further evidence that in California, the BANANA’s* reign supreme.
It was a squirrel, a labor group and an environmental group along with California’s tough environmental regulations, which helped kill a hybrid solar power plant project for a Mojave Desert city.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. The City of Victorville prides itself on being a green city. They recently bought a number of hybrid vehicles for their city fleet. And they are located in the Mojave Desert which receives large amounts of sunshine every year.
When California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), signed legislation that requires a portion of additional electric power generation to be sustainable, the City proposed a hybrid solar electric power plant. The plant would combine a solar thermal powered system along with a natural gas fired system.
After much fanfare at the start, the project began to run into problems during the permitting phase. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) imposes a strict review process. The California Energy Commission (CEC) is the state agency that conducts the environmental review.
The first problem was the squirrel, or more specifically, the Mohave ground squirrel, which is considered to be threatened. While the squirrel has never been found at the project site, nor was there any evidence it had ever lived there, it could decide sometime in the future to live there. As a result, the California Department of Fish and Game decided that the squirrel required a mitigation ratio of 3:1. This means that 3 acres of the desert needs to be purchased and set aside for the squirrel for every acre of project site. This increased costs dramatically since there were few parcels available for set aside.
Read the entire article. You won’t believe how ridiculous this situation has become. This is actually a very sad story for this town. Victorville sounds like a nice place — I hope it can survive this injustice.
* We’e all heard of NIMBY’s — “Not In My Back Yard”. Well, BANANA is a similar variation: “Build Absoloutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”. If that sounds good to you, well, in California they’re going bananas!
Andy McCarthy’s letter to A.G. Eric Holder declining to be on the “President’s Task Force on Detention Policy” is absolutely brilliant. Here’s an excerpt:
Dear Attorney General Holder:
This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.
The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.
Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.
That’s just the beginning. It gets better. If you read nothing else today, read this.
Rush Limbaugh commented on this letter on today’s show.
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| A gallon freezer bag full of falafel balls. Click photo to enlarge. |
Here’s the latest from the southchild kitchen: Yummy, yummy falafels.
Here are the steps with details:
1. Soak a one pound bag (2 cups) of dried garbanzo beans 24-36 hours.
Details: Pour a one pound bag of dried beans onto a cookie sheet, scatter about and inspect to remove any rocks or non-bean stuff. Rinse beans well in a strainer. Put the beans in a big bowl and cover with water a good 4 inches above the beans (they will soak up a bunch of water!). Add 2 Tablespoons salt and stir. You can leave the beans out for many hours, but you should probably refrigerate them overnight.
2. Get all the stuff together to make the falafel batter.
(You can do this step and the next ahead of time and refrigerate the batter which keeps for many days in the fridge.)
Details:
- Drain the garbanzo beans and rinse just a little. Set aside.
- Roughly chop one, yellow onion (I prefer “sweet”) and lightly crush 3 large cloves garlic (or 4 medium). Set aside.
- Mix the following spices in a bowl:
Set bowl aside.
- Prepare fresh parsley: This is Italian, flat-leaf parsley, not the curly stuff. On average, I use a little more than half a “supermarket sized” bunch. Pick off the leaves and tender stems, rinse and dry in a salad spinner. Finely chop enough parsley to measure at least 1 1/4 cups when gently packed. A little more parsley may even be better. Don’t be shy.
- Squeeze the juice out of two lemons into another bowl, separating out seeds. Get all the juice out of them possible (within Geneva Convention regulations, of course). You guessed it, set bowl of lemon juice aside. I bet the folks who invented falafel didn’t use this many bowls!
3. Make the falafel batter. Get out the food processor.
My food processor is small — 9 cups thereabouts — so I make my batter in two batches, each with half of all the ingredients, then I mix them together in a bowl.
Details: Put half the onion, garlic, parsley, garbanzos in the food processor and blend a good 15-20 seconds. Scrape down the sides and add half the spices and half the lemon juice. Continue blending, three or four times, stopping every 10 seconds or so to scrape down until the mixture is well-blended and slightly grainy. Do not over blend this into hummus! The batter should be slightly wet and sticky, but not drippy. You shouldn’t need to add any water when blending, but if it’s too dry, you can add just a little.
Pour mixture in a bowl and repeat blend with other half of ingredients. Combine mixtures and stir together well.
4. Fry the falafel balls.
I don’t own a deep fryer, so I use the smallest stainless steel pot I have (1 quart pot) and fill it approximately 2 inches deep in canola oil (may alternatively use peanut, grapeseed, or corn. Olive oil can’t take this heat, and soy oil? Bleh. Use canola.)
Details:
Prep the takeoff area by setting a draining rack over some paper towels. Your deep-fried falafels will drip and cool here.
Prep the fryer: Be careful! If you have a deep fryer, use it. Otherwise, my 1 quart pot fryer works well. Feel free to use a bigger pot if you’re not an oil cheapskate like me; although, I can cook 75 falafels in half an hour in that tiny pot! Heat the oil over medium heat, and employ a candy thermometer to ensure you hit 350 degrees Fahrenheit. (If you don’t own a candy thermometer, well, buy one. $10 tops, and I’ve had mine 20 years. Plus it’s great for making candy.)
Prep the balls: Using a teaspoon, scoop a healthy teaspoon-plus amount of batter into one hand. Toss batter into a ball in your hand, then place on a pan of some sort (I use one of those flimsy, plastic cutting “boards”). Since I’m using the “cheap-pot” fryer, I can fry 5 balls at a time, so I place the prepared balls in rows of 5. Adjust according to your fryer’s capacity.
Fry: Make sure you have a slotted, metal spoon to fish out your falafel balls. When oil hits 350+, carefully drop 5 prepared balls into the fryer (again, adjust according to your fryer’s capacity). They should sink and then float. If they don’t float, the oil isn’t hot enough. Cooking time is 1-3 minutes, depending on the size of the balls and how brown you like them. Brown is good: I think a darker brown color is better than a lighter brown. Try out both and decide for yourself! When done, fish them out with the slotted spoon and place on the rack to drain.
WARNING: If using the homemade “fryer”, danger time is when you first drop the balls into the hot oil. If you’ve used too much oil (or add too many balls), the oil can boil out of the pot. This can burn down the house, so turn off the burner, remove the pot from the burner, and call your wife/husband to help with the fire and/or cleanup.
Keep the heat on the oil throughout the frying sessions since oil cools down whenever you add a batch of batter…I let the oil have 15-30 seconds between batches to heat back up.
5. Lemon-tahini Dressing
Mix this ahead of time. It keeps in the fridge at least a week.
Details: Put 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup smooth sesame tahini in a bowl. Add a big pinch of salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and cumin powder. Add 1/2 clove minced garlic, and the juice of 1 lemon. Blend well. (If you’ve got some chives you’d like to use up, add a minced tablespoon.) CAUTION: Can also add some minced parsley if you’re not sick of it by now!
6. Shepherd’s Salad.
Also make this ahead of time, as it gets better the longer it marinates. Good for several weeks, if yours lasts that long.
Details: Finely chop and add to a bowl the following: 1 small onion, 2-3 roma tomatoes, and 1/2 - 1 cucumber (peeled and seeded). Basically, add equal parts of each. Add pinch of salt, pepper, 2-3 Tablespoons olive oil, and 1-2 Tablespoons vinegar (red wine is best…red cider works well also). Add a Tablespoon or two chopped parsley (see Caution above).
7. Construction.
In addition to all that stuff above, you’ll need some pita bread (home made is best, but we’ll save that for a later installment), plus some romaine lettuce.
Details: Nuke each piece of whole pita about 9 seconds just to soften. Cut in half and carefully open pocket. Put a piece or two of the romaine lettuce in the bottom of the bread like a liner in the keel of a ship. Lightly spread sauce over the lettuce. Add 3-4 warm falafel balls in a row. I slightly squish each ball to make for a better fit and stable end-product. Dribble a little sauce between and around the balls. Add a generous helping of shepherd’s salad, followed by more sauce on the top.
8. Eat and enjoy!
9. Leftovers.
This recipe normally will make 70-80 falafel balls. I cool the leftovers on the rack and store them in a gallon freezer bag in the fridge (or freezer if longer than a week). With the already made bread, falafels, sauce, salad, and with some lettuce in the spinner, it’s falafels for lunch all week! Heat the falafel balls up in the microwave for 20-30 seconds. They don’t have the same crunch as fresh, but the flavor and smell are all there.
Also, don’t throw out the leftover oil. Instead, use a funnel and a strainer to filter the oil into a clean bottle. Save the used oil for the next time you make falafels!
(Thanks, David)
Yesterday we wrote about the Orwellian GIVE/SERVE act, and the fact that Georgia’s two Senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, were supporters.
Late yesterday, the bill passed the Senate, and of course Georgia’s two RINO Senators crossed over with the Democrats and voted for it. The great State of Georgia deserves better than Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. The final vote was 79-19. Click on the link to see which authentic and brave Republican Senators voted against this authoritarian bill to mandate “national service.”
One thing’s for sure: they ain’t from Georgia.
Are you following the progress of the Orwellian “GIVE/SERVE Act’s” stampeding through Congress? This legislation is bad news, and the Republican sheep are a big part of the happy herd. We think “Republican” is a synonym for “stupid and gullible.” Michelle Malkin’s column today has some of the details:
Volunteerism is a wonderful thing, which is why millions of Americans do it every day without a cent of taxpayer money. But the volunteerism packages on the Hill are less about promoting effective charity than about creating make-work, permanent bureaucracies, and left-wing slush funds. …
Especially troublesome to parents’ groups concerned about compulsory volunteerism requirements is a provision in the House version, directing Congress to explore “whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”
Those who have watched AmeriCorps from its inception are all-too-familiar with how government voluntarism programs have been used for propaganda and political purposes. AmeriCorps “volunteers” have been put to work lobbying against the voter-approved three-strikes anti-crime initiative in California and protesting Republican political events while working for the already heavily-tax-subsidized liberal advocacy group ACORN. …
Taxpayers GIVE their money to SERVE a big government agenda under the guise of helping their fellow man. It’s charity at the point of a gun.
Senator DeMint is one of handful of Republicans that seem to understand what is at stake. Here is his floor speech, and we’ve included a few excerpts below. While we would never expect Democrats to understand this (or to care), when are the Republicans going to learn that government compassion is not compassion, and mandatory voluntarism isn’t volunteering? The passage of this bill by the Senate is proof positive that the current crop of Senate Republicans do not have the Right Stuff when it comes to protecting liberty and freedom. We cannot depend on this bunch to fight the tide that is washing us out into a sea of soft tyranny. They are, in fact, rowing us out to more quickly meet our doom while they whistle and smile approvingly to their Democrat captains.
Thanks, Michelle, for the video and transcript.
NATIONAL SERVICE REAUTHORIZATION ACT — (Senate - March 24, 2009)
Mr. DeMINT…
This bill is everything wrong with how Congress sees the world. Government will make service organizations less effective, less responsive, and less personal. When the French historian de Tocqueville came to the United States not long after we were founded, one of the things that amazed him about our country that was so different from France was that in his home country when there was a problem, people would say: Someone ought to do it and government should do it; but in America we were different. When someone saw a problem, they went and got a friend and formed a small group and solved the problem themselves. Much of that was motivated by religious convictions that our place in this world is not only to help ourselves but to love and help those around us. That was key.
Jefferson called it little democracies, when he saw these little groups all around America voluntarily doing things to solve problems and make communities better. Burke called them little platoons. Most people who understand America know that those voluntary groups are what made our country great and what sustain us even today. Civil society binds communities, not by its fruits, but by its motives–charity, donations, giving without thought of getting anything in return. This is the selfless sacrifice that happens throughout America today. This is what works.
What does not work is what we are doing right here. The big difference is private service organizations exist for the people who receive the aid. Government service organizations exist for the people who give it–in this case, for the people who are paid to do it. You cannot pay people to volunteer and expect the organization to remain focused on its mission. Charity is a private, moral impulse, not a government program.
…Projects that do not work in a civil society get cut. Organizers who lose or abuse funds are dismissed. It is voluntary. So everyone is invested in its success. We know the large groups throughout America, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the United Way, the Salvation Army, the YMCA, Catholic Charities, fraternal orders, groups such as Kiwanis, Rotary, Knights of Columbus. These are large organizations, but they work because they are locally controlled.
Smaller groups, local arts councils and community theatres, PTAs, youth sports leagues, the animal rescues, the book clubs, crisis pregnancy centers, soup kitchens, food and other clothes drives that go on, church service groups, they are everywhere.
Those are the little platoons, the little democracies that make this country work. For us to presume, in the Congress, that somehow we are going to reach out into all these groups and make it work better is pretty presumptuous based on our history.
…
But I think we need to come to a point as a government that we recognize we cannot do everything. That is why we take the oath to the Constitution to defend and protect the very limited form of Government. This Congress, this Government, does not need to start or expand an organization to a quarter million people, when we are paying people to do work that we decided needs to be done and take those decisions out of the hands of millions of Americans who look around every day and see what they can do to make their families, their communities, and their country a better place to live.These are not Government decisions. We need to focus on what we were set up to do and do it much better than we are doing, instead of every week coming in here, bringing our good intentions and our compassion and every problem we see across the country we say something needs to be done. Then we say: The Government needs to do it.
That is the fatal flaw of the Congress today, is we forget that sacred oath of office that says: We will protect and defend the Constitution which says this Federal Government has a very limited function. And those functions that are not prescribed in the Constitution are left to individuals and to the States.
Sadly, both of Georgia’s Senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, voted for this monstrosity. We had hoped Saxby at least had an epiphany after his recent, narrow victory, but it appears he’s right back to his bad habits. These two — bless their hearts — just don’t get it, and we think Georgia deserves better.
Senators, just what the hell are you thinking? Only a Community Organizer in Chief could support such a huge intrusion of Federal control over our private institutions of Civil Society. Do you not realize that with Federal money comes Federal institutions, bureaucracies, and control? Are you both just suckers for any random bill with a feel-good-sounding name? What do you think of Sen. DeMint’s comments? You two have been played the fool by the Community Organizer in Chief. You bought this thing hook, line, and sinker. This bill is nothing more than a power grab by radical, leftist community-organizer groups like ACORN to get control of the private, and truly voluntary institutions that make our civil society the envy of the world. Sen. DeMint said, “This is a huge well-intended mistake we are making”, and he’s correct: the road to hell is paved with good intention, but Georgia’s two Senators seem to have never learned that lesson.
Senator’s Isakson and Chambliss: since you two aren’t bright enough to figure this kind of thing out on your own, and since you continue to get spanked like a Frat boy by President Obama, would you please — please! — just vote like Senator DeMint from now on? Perhaps South Carolina can save Georgia. We can only hope.
Let them know what you think by clicking on their names below:
The Pope Goes to Alaska
The Pope took a couple of days off to visit the rugged mountains of Alaska for some sightseeing. He was cruising along the campground in the Pope Mobile when there was a frantic commotion just at the edge of the woods. A helpless Democrat, wearing sandals, shorts, a ‘Vote for Obama’ hat and a ‘Save the Trees’ t-shirt, was screaming while struggling frantically and thrashing around trying to free himself from the grasp of a 10-foot grizzly.
As the Pope watched in horror, a group of Republican loggers with ‘Go Sarah’ t-shirts came racing up. One quickly fired a 44 magnum into the bear’s chest. The other two reached up and pulled the bleeding, semiconscious Democrat from the bear’s grasp. Then using long clubs, the three loggers finished off the bear and two of them threw it onto the bed of their truck while the other tenderly placed the injured Democrat in the back seat.
As they prepared to leave, the Pope summoned them to come over. “I give you my blessing for your brave actions!” he told them. “I heard there was a bitter hatred between Republican loggers and Democratic environmental activists, but now I’ve seen with my own eyes that this is not true.”
As the Pope drove off, one logger asked his buddies, “Who was that guy?”
“It was the Pope,” another replied. “He’s in direct contact with Heaven and has access to all wisdom.”
“Well,” the logger said, “he may have access to all wisdom, but he doesn’t know squat about bear hunting! By the way, is the bait still alive, or do we need to go back to Massachusetts and get another one?”
(Thanks, John)
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| Click on the sign for the full quote. |
Subject: Awaitting your responce.
My name is Barack Hussein Obama, one of the sons of Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya, and of Ann Dunham Soetoro.
As a result of my recent election to a high government post, I have come into possession of $3,550,000,000,000 ($3.55 trillion of U.S. dollars), that I wish to transfer to various agents in the states and abroad during the years 2009 and 2010.
However, there are many in the U.S. legislative body who want to restrict or encumber these funds. I have spoken with my advisers Messrs. David Plouffe and David Axelrod, also high government officials, on how to distribute this money without hitches, and they advised me to liaise with various U.S. citizens by email who can act as partners to impress upon their representatives that the money in question is urgently needed for important projects.
It is on this basis I am seeking for assistance. Your percentage is negotiable. Please note; your age and profession doesn’t really matter in this transaction. Waiting for your immediate response.
Regards,
Barack Hussein Obama
Scrappleface.com
(Hat tip: GPBurdell)
(Hat tip: Andrew Stuttaford)
The coronation of Prince Charles as global warming soothsayer should thrill the climate chicken littles. Perhaps the good and wise Prince should be nominated for a Nobel prize. That he is getting rich peddling snake oil tinctures is a fitting tribute to the scientific knowledge of his supporters. We recommend Prince Charles and Al Gore consult Bernie Madoff on setting up a carbon credits investment scheme. They’ll “clean up.”
Global warming has reached a ‘defining moment,’ Prince Charles warns:
Prince Charles told 200 business leaders in Rio de Janeiro that the world has “less than 100 months” to save the planet.
“As the world’s economy heads further into recession, it would be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture; to commit the sin, as we say in England and if you will pardon the terrible pun, of ‘not seeing the wood for the trees’. For we are, I fear, at a defining moment in the world’s history.
“We are facing a series of challenges so immense that we can, perhaps, be forgiven for feeling they are all too forbidding to confront.”
In his speech, Prince Charles quoted Chico Mendes, the great Brazilian environmentalist, who said we are all “fighting for humanity.”
Prince Charles’ Duchy Originals ordered to remove ‘misleading’ herbal remedy claims:
Prince Charles’ Duchy Originals brand has been ordered to remove claims about the effectiveness of its herbal remedies from its website, after regulators ruled they were “misleading”.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has upheld a complaint over the online advertising of two remedies, Duchy Herbals Echina-Relief Tincture and Duchy Herbals Hyperi-Lift Tincture, which are sold for £10 for 50ml in selected Boots and Waitrose stores. Although the MHRA has given the company a license to sell the remedies it does not allow them to make any claims about their effects, merely to stress their “traditional use”.
Since the ruling, made at the end of January but only made public, Duchy Originals has since amended its website and agreed not to make similar claims in any future advertising. The remedies have been available in stores and through the company’s website since the end of January and the MHRA made its ruling after a complaint from a member of the public.
The move comes just a week after a leading scientist accused the Prince of “exploiting the gullible” with the Duchy Originals’ tinctures…
