Conservative Donnybrook

I think I speak for all of the regular contributors when I say that Conservative Donnybrook is embarrassed to admit that it missed a pretty major story. Apparently, there was some sort of ill-conceived effort to increase the tax on beer in Oregon by 1900%. This should have been filed under OUTRAGE ALERT and all of us missed this story. I did not learn of it until my father came to visit me this previous weekend and he asked me about. You can imagine his astonishment as I admitted that I knew nothing about it. Even worse, it appears that the ultra-left-wing-activist site, Huffington Post, cadged to the tragedy while we sailed blithely onward. We apologize to our readers and pledge to spend more attention on beer and alcohol-related stories in the future.

I say we let them list the little pikas as an endangered species as long as they will agree that their numbers are a direct reflection of the threat of global warming. If their numbers go up, we needn’t worry about global warming because it will be proof that the claims are bogus. If their numbers go down, then that will be taken as proof of the truth of global warming. Meanwhile, we engage in a strenuous breeding program intended to support the population of the “threatened” species.

If I know anything about rodents, they are notoriously easy to breed. I remember we had two gerbils when I was a wee lad. Both of them were “females.” The next thing we knew, we were being run out of house and home by a profusion of gerbils. I remember my mother drving down some country road with a boxful of gerbils and stopping every quarter mile or so and lobbing out handfuls of gerbils into the ditch. I often wonder if Streamwood, Illinois (which was pretty much a wilderness in those days) is overrun with wild gerbils today.

We should pick any two pikas, place them in an aquarium with plenty of cardboard to chew on, and by the end of the month, we are likely to have 40 or fifty to release into the wild. If 100 or 200 people did this, we could put these sorts of tactics to force “global warming” scare tactics to rest for a time. They started it; but this is easily a fight we can win. I say we make them look stupid.

Police Authorities the nation over have been dogged with accusations of excessive force.  Many times these accusations are, well, less than true.  However, a disturbing trend is developing where the authorities over step their bounds and kill with little to no provocation.

Take, for example, the shooting death of Oscar Grant on a BART platform in Oakland, California. Video shows the handcuffed Grant laying face down on the BART platform.  In the next instant, a police officer draws and fires his weapon, killing the clearly restrained man.  The officer, it is assumed, will claim that he meant to taser the suspect rather than shoot him.  I have handled both a taser and a 9mm.  The weight alone is sufficiently different, not to mention the feel, as to make this explanation unlikely.

Another, less tragic example is from my own backyard where two Santa Paula police officers shot and killed a mountain lion cub weighing no more than 15 pounds. The animal was killed after officers cornered it and advanced on its position.  While deference should be given to the officers, it is hard to imagine a scenario where one would have to shoot a 15 pound cub rather than back off, and wait until Fish and Game officers arrive.  The cub, after all, was not threatening anyone until the clever cops backed it into a corner.

A third example is the retired assistant fire chief in Riverside, California that beat a young dog to death with a rock.  He claims self-defense (as the other officers do) but this is refuted by witnesses.  Neighbors said the pup was calm when the retired fireman beat it, broke its jaw and mortally wounded it.

My point is that we give these people armed authority to regulate society and they do tend to abuse it on occasion.  Yet any abuse should be considered grave.  I am sure you can think of several recent examples from your own area where the police authorities have killed or maimed without sufficient cause.  These sort of events tend to be the exception and not the rule.  You should, therefore, thank the good and trustworthy authorities in your area.  Nevertheless, be it error or angst, situations where excessive use of force occur should not go on without serious repercussions.  Nor should the public sit back while their local police force acts as revenue agents (think red light and speed cameras).  Please, be involved and hold your local authorities accountable.

CORRECTION: Glynn Johnson (the assistant fire chief that beat a small dog) is not retired but is now on paid (of course) administrative leave.

UPDATE (04/23/09): An investigation by an outside agency comprised of members of the Burbank Police determined that the killing of the tiny mountain lion cub by trigger-happy Santa Paula police officers was “an unjustified use of deadly force.” Disciplinary action may be taken.

Add to that Doublethink: “Its not nationalization, its protecting the taxpayer’s interests.” A la Harry Reid discussing the potential take over of insolvent bank Citi Group by Uncle Sam.  We can also include President Obama in the Ministry of Truth for his statement that he will slash the budget deficit in half.  He said this on the heels of increasing the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars!  Under Obama, the deficit climbed from $1.2 trillion or nearly $2 trillion and he hasn’t been president for even 100 days yet!  Let me get this straight, we can only save ourselves by spending more and increasing the deficit, yet “We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences.”  Which is it, Mr. Obama?

I now leave you to spend some quality time with Jim Rogers.

First, I don’t know why all the negativity about Rush. Indeed, to identify the Canadian threesome as our “biggest threat” is a little befuddling. I would contend that Rush is one of the more innovative and remarkable bands of the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even today. Few bands enjoy that long a run of success as has Rush. Likewise, it is relatively rare for a band to forge a sound so new and identifiable as to be immediately associated with a single band. The musical virtues of the trio can hardly be questioned.

All kidding aside, as for Limbaugh, I think the antipathy that people display toward him is fueled largely for the same reasons that people hate the New York Yankees. He is the most successful radio talk show host running – perhaps ever. He has single-handedly revived AM radio and created from whole cloth a genre of radio programming. If for no other reason, he should be admired for that. Let me pose another way to think about Rush (and the Yankees), Bill once told me, when he was a Yankees fan (before he turned into a Dodgers fan) that people hate the Yankees for the same reason that people around the world hate America. When he put it in those terms, I hate to say it, but I stopped hating the Yanks so much.

People probably need to understand that before anything else, Rush Limbaugh is a showman. As he frequently points out, he is an entertainer. I would suggest that Rush provides more benefit than harm. For many people, Rush represents their first introduction to conservatism. I was listening to Dennis Miller’s radio program the other day and he had a musician as a guest (I can’t remember who it was). It became rapidly apparently that the musician was an avowed liberal. What was interesting was that everything that came out of his mouth began, “I feel this; I feel that; I think most people feel…” The one thing that Rush demonstrates to people is that conservatism is not about how it makes one feel, but that it is, rather, an operation of intellect. While we may disagree with some of Rush’s conclusions, if he causes people to examine issues by thinking about them rather than inquiring how they feel about them, his contribution is positive for conservatism.

If one listens to Rush to find out what to think, they are doing themselves a disservice. However, if people tune in and discover a way to think about an issue, and then proceed to critically analyze his thought process, they are on the path to conservatism.

UPDATE: The “musician” that was on Miller’s show was David Carradine, who has apparently formed a band and was involved in some charity work. The interview can be heard here: Carridine Interview. It was his lead violinst’s statements (around 3:20) that focused on how people feel. “I don’t have any angst that everything’s going to turn out well. It feels like something good could be happening. I think if everybody started feeling like something good was going to be taking place, if we all felt that way, I think its all gonna really help it move fast.” She was speaking about Obama and his plan to save the planet from ecological destruction. Carridine put in about how the Obama administration still must deal with the good old boys’ network: “Lest we forget.” That was his complete argument. There was a pregnant pause as Dennis waited to find out what it was exaclty that we should not forget, but David just left it at that. Maybe he forgot. All told, it was extremely informative and inspiring to hear from someone whose thoughts are so well ordered and laid out.

UPDATING THE UPDATE: It turns out the “charity” is in reality a New Age symposium in Los Angeles. If want a hearty laugh, you should check out the lecture topics that were offered. Hysterical.

Karl, I share your gloom about this. I haven’t thought as much about the need to curb the inevitable excesses and corruption that would stem from an alternative right’s hitting critical mass or taking over a major party because I feel (in my more pessimistic moods) that it would almost be a miracle if it achieved that level of success in the first place. On the other hand, the out-of-touch Republican party hasn’t exactly shown any signs of vitality lately, so perhaps it’s ripe for an insurgent challenge.

But there are some serious obstacles to building a movement. A lot of people who would form a natural constituency are in thrall to the Sean Hannitys of the world.  Freeper types regard libertarian and conservative dissenters from GOP orthodoxy with the same kind of special hatred that the old Stalinists had for breakaway leftists. Rush Limbaugh recently called for conservatives, when they next seize power, not to dismantle the State apparatus and return to our proper constitutional order, but this:

If they are going to bastardize the American system, if they are going to make this government large and powerful and intrusive, someday they’re going to lose it. But they’re going to lose it after having amassed all this power. We will control it, and we’re going to turn it right back against them. … It’s going to be a bigger, more powerful, stronger government — and we’re going to turn it against the left in ways they could have never imagined.

This is completely nuts. I don’t care what Limbaugh thinks, but a lot of the people we need to convince treat his words as gospel. There’s our biggest problem.

Mark (Willmoore) wrote an interesting post over at Spinline in which he posed the question of whether there is hope for laissez-faire economics (in particular) and prinicpled opposition to Big Government (generally). As I am wont to do, I left a lengthy (and gloomy) comment. On second thought, I probably should have simply posted my response here (if I was going to be so windy) and left a trackback to Mark’s post. With that in mind, here is the response I left:

Mark,

I would agree with you that if there is hope to be found, it is in the prospect of an “alternative” right rising. Of course, the problem with that presecription is that, if the alternative right is to have any hope of forging a new path, it necessarily has to capture the imaginations of a large number of people. It will, in other words, have to become a new movement conservatism. Perhaps it just a failure of my own imagination, but I cannot conceive of how this will come about practically without this new movement’s descension into the same sort of party politics as led the Republican Party down its path.

Perhaps the nature of all reform is that it is cyclical. A movement rises, captures the imagination of a segment of the population, ascends to power through the formation of bloc alliances with others who share common goals, becomes a major movement, and degrades due to its love of the power that it has seized. If so, even the Paulite movement will inevitably degrade to the point where its primary goal is to enlarge its tent in order to retain power.

It seems as though those of us who wish to retain our Constitutional form of government with its coincident freedoms are doomed to spend a long time in the wilderness crying out and attracting followers. And just when we begin to enjoy the fruits of those labors, we will find ourselves needing to form a new following to counter the excesses of the one we birthed. In the end, the little success that is ultimately achieved by an ascendant “alternative right” will be measured in terms of having slowed the decay of freedom and not in rolling back the abuses.

Sorry to be so gloomy. Huge spending (and ultimately taxing) packages tend to do that to me.

The turncoat Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria voted to raise billions in taxes last night.  California is now facing the largest tax increase in state history.  The budget Abel passed contains $12.8 billion in tax increases, $11.4 billion in borrowing and a $1 billion reserve.  It does nothing to cut spending, only trims (very slightly) scheduled increases.    Included in this bill is a .25% increase in the income tax, taking us from 9.3% (already the highest in the nation) to 9.55%!

This is a call to arms! These taxes must be repealed by the citizens of California.  I call all taxpaying residents of the Golden State to come together to put two issues on the ballot.  First, to repeal the increase in taxes forced upon us by Sacramento. And second, to return the California legislature to part time.  They do nothing but cost us money and cause problems as a full time body.  It is time to take back our state: REVOLT!

Stay tuned, I will have information on how you can help.

Some thoughts by yours truly on bailouts, “stimulus,” and Our Enemy, The Fed, on Doublethink Online. Check it out! Free sample:

We are told that capitalism is inherently unstable, that its inevitable crises must be met with interventionist countermeasures, and that new regulation will prevent future shocks. Many also blame greedy financiers, who irresponsibly concocted exotic derivatives that no one fully understood, and which were traded in ill- or un-regulated markets. The emerging anti-market consensus was crystallized last year by Slate’s Jacob Weisberg, who has proclaimed libertarianism to be discredited by the financial meltdown, now and forever.

In short, a consensus has emerged that the crisis was caused by an excess of capitalism, abetted by bubble-era irrationality, from which only vigorous government action can save us: public works spending, aggressive monetary stimulus, a willingness to bail out distressed industries, re-regulation, and goodness knows what else.

Where is the response of the supposedly free-market side of the ideological divide? David Brooks bemoans the irrationality of markets and pegs blame for the financial mess on a cascade of psychological factors, which cannot possibly be grasped using tools of “classical economics.” In another column, he embraces stimulus as a solution while criticizing the Obama plan’s unfocused character. National Review, meanwhile, expresses skepticism at the effectiveness of any stimulus, but has hardly taken a consistently hard line against government intervention. In fact, in one blog post, Rich Lowry criticized congressional Republicans who opposed the massive TARP bailout as “extremely irresponsible.” Are there any voices left who can raise a compelling defense of free-market capitalism?

Enter the dogmatically free-market Austrian school of economics, and the Austrian theory of the business cycle, which holds real explanatory power over the current mess and convincingly places blame for financial panics and recessions firmly at the feet of government intervention.

According to the Austrians’ theory (despite their name, which dates back to the early twentieth century, today’s “Austrians” are mostly found in the United States), boom-and-bust cycles are, at root, not the consequence of rampaging greed, psychological mania, or insufficient regulation, but are the inevitable consequence of an excess of bank credit, which is the result of Federal Reserve policy.

Read the rest!

A new budget is under negotiation between the Democrat monstrosity in California and the feeble Republican minority.  A vote could occur as soon as Saturday.  The proposal would raise the gasoline tax by twelve cents a gallon, raise the sales tax by 1 cent on the dollar, double the vehicle license fee and impose a 2.5% surcharge on your annual tax. That’s right…a tax on your tax!  California already has the highest income tax at 9.3% for those making over $45,000 a year, The highest gasoline tax in the nation at 45.5 cents per gallon, one of the highest sales taxes at 7.25%, with another 1.5% allowed by the city/county.    California has a budget “shortfall” of $40 billion and the paid thieves in Sacramento seek to fleece us while providing even fewer (to legal residents, anyway) services.

To raise taxes in California, the legislature needs to pass the bill by a two-thirds majority in both houses.  Democrats dominate the landscape here, only three Republicans in both houses need to be turned in order to pass these ungodly taxes.  And there is evidence that a number of Republicans may sell their souls.  John and Ken have started a tax revolt and currently are embarking on a campaign of impaling the heads of various Republican legislators, aides and even the state controller.

All but one of the potential traiter-Republicans signed a no-tax pledge.  They must stay true to their word and stop this madness.  If the Republican party can not hold off this onslaught of historic tax increases during such miserable economic times it will be nearly impossible for it to vocalize a meaningful purpose for its continued  existence.

How much is a trillion dollars? One trillion dollars is $1,000,000 every day for the next 2,740 years. Just so we know what we’re talking about here.

The president unveiled his plan to free the credit markets. SURPRISE! It appears it will costs about $1.5 trillion. It is not clear how much of that will be government expenditures and what percentage will be from coerced rich folk. I just wonder what happens if there are not many rich folks who want to buy failed debt. As I see it, if that happens, there are two possibilities. First, the government to force them to make the purchase anyway with threats of some sort of sanction (think: tax code). Second, the government could entice them by guaranteeing their contributions with promises of increased returns to offset the risk they are taking on. Both versions entail tyranny on a level that America has never seen. The second would cost taxpayers significantly more than the $1.5 trillion estimate that Geithner is touting.

Details are sketchy at this point, so you can be sure that the push to pass whatever legislation is required will begin now. At this point, truly, what is another trillion give or take. We’re equally screwed whether we spend it or not.

With the defection of Specter, Snowe and Collins, the Senate passed Obama’s stimulus package. If the House can reconcile its version with that passed by the Senate, there is little doubt that Obama will sign it into law. As time goes by, more of the details of the package become known.

And those details are alarming. For instance, buried in the fine print is some fundamental changes to the way health care is handled in the United States. One such change is the formation of a new bureaucracy called the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. That organization will be charged with tracking the decisions and treatments of your doctor to ensure that he is doing everything possible to reduce the costs of health care. The idea, it seems, was cribbed from Tom Daschle’s book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. In that book, Daschle said of your family doctor, that he should give up the notion of autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Toward that end, the stimulus package institutes a new nationwide electronic health records system, its use hospitals and doctors will have to be “meaningful users” of. What that means, nobody knows, nor does anybody know what the penalty for transgressing the new requirements might be. What is known is that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will be empowered with progressively stronger measures to see to its enforcement.

In his book, Daschle remarked that the elderly will have to be “more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.” Nonetheless, who wants to bet that the liberal AARP laps this up?

With items like this buried in the fine print, we can only urge our Senators and Representatives to rethink their votes and to block reconciliation. It is the only hope that this travesty can be stopped. I am not optimistic about that.

Today, Arlen Specter (“R”-Pa) wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post in which he explained his latest betrayal of his party. According to Specter, he was prompted to his action by the “unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking,” which convinced him that something had to be done. To fail to act, would be to let down all the other nations of the world, who are looking to the United States for leadership (even though I thought they all hated us). Since “[t]he moderates’ compromise, which faces a cloture vote today, is the only bill with a reasonable chance of passage in the Senate,” one can hardly blame him for acting promptly. After all, something had to be done. He doesn’t say it, but I suspect he was attempting to preserve his principles by compromising his principles in this matter.

Specter was abetted by the Maine Senatorial contingent.

This is what is wrong with the Republican Party. I wrote a comment (which did not make it past the moderation queue, or, for that matter, the trackback queue with this posting) in which I asked Emily, where exactly was the line beyond which she would refuse to compromise with the Left. But, it’s not just Emily, the entire Congress is infected with the notion that compromise, that bipartisanism, reaching across the aisle, and incrementalism is the way to arrest our Republic from careening headlong down the slippery slope into full-blown Socialism. Indeed, there seems to be an attitude out there that a little Socialism will a) appease those who are bent on displacing capitalism and b) is an effective way to bide our time until we can reverse its baleful effects. Indeed, Emily seems to think that one can appease the Left in order to preserve our ideals. And what’s worse is, it appears she knows it.

Now, I’ll be honest. I’m not one to sympathize with Congress or Congresspersons very much, but even I can come to understand that we’ve started to demand a purist position that is really impossible, if not unworkable and problematic for the country. They may not understand us, but we sure as hell don’t understand them. I’m not saying I like the idea of throwing billions of dollars down the proverbial toilet, but if its going to happen, the least we can do is hope that some of that money goes to the right places and does the right things. It sounds defeatist and honestly, it feels defeatist, but I think, at this point, it may be the only hope we have left of making sure that, in practice, our ideals live to see another day.

How, I ask, can one compromise one’s ideals in order to preserve them? Is there a line past which Republicans will say, “No more?” And, if so, where is it? What must the Left propose before we demur, before we draw a line in the sand and dare them to pass it? We’re like the cartoon character who scratches a line in the sand and dares the other to cross it. Of course, the opponent casually steps across it and we draw another line. To make this analogy completely realistic imagine that each time we step back to draw a new line, we step toward the cliff edge which is behind us. At some point, stepping back again will be fatal.

Why do so-called conservatives find it so easy to retreat and retreat? I suspect it has something to do with complacence and fear. First, I suspect most conservatives are not really sold on the virtues of small government. Certainly, George W. Bush was not. And, his constant proposals for a “Compassionate Conservatism” were a transparent foreshadowing of a new era of “conservative”-sponsored Big Government. Unfortunately, after eight years of “Compassionate” “Conservatism,” the Republicans seem to have lost their stomach for the fight. They tasted the power which comes from handing out goodies to constituents. But, NEWS FLASH, Democrats are better at that. If that is how you intend to compete with the Democrats, you will lose. And, by simply playing their game, you encourage them to take larger steps. Indeed, President Obama’s $925 billion stimulus plan would have made FDR blush. For heaven’s sake, the stimulus package is almost as large as the entire government budget, and after one considers that it will have to be 100% financed with borrowed money, its size dwarfs this year’s budget.Second, I think Republicans are afraid if they hold the line on spending, they will be excoriated by the press, the Left, and ultimately the voters. Certainly the press and the Left will try to demonize the Right if they attempt to hold the line. In fact, the president has already taken to the airwaves to begin the attack. But, it’s not at all clear that voters would revolt against the Republicans if they were the grown-ups in the room and said this country cannot afford Obama’s wishlist.

Emily raises a good (if defeatist) point. Republicans will almost certainly cave; that is the nature of the Republicans. Even if they don’t, the Democrats have the votes to pass any legislation they want. Does this let conservatives off the hook? According to Emily, we should get on the gravy train and try to divert as much of that gravy as we can to our causes, constituents and projects. What the hell else could “the least we can do is hope that some of that money goes to the right places and does the right things” mean? But, her point is well taken, we are not discussing whether there should be some monstrous spending bill. Earlier this afternoon, Karl Rove was on Fox News saying that there should be a plan which is “targeted, temporary, and timely.” As Willmoore has pointed out, this is the new mantra. With a mantra like that, it is only a matter of time before a package of some sort is passed. It needs only the working out of the details at this point. Continue Reading »

The legendary front man of the Cramps passed away on Wednesday from a pre-existing heart condition.  Lux Interior created the sound known around the world as Psycho-Billy.  If you never saw the Cramps live, you are a worse person for it.  The showmanship alone was like nothing else music has ever seen.

Lux will be missed.  He was 62.

There’s a meme going around that the only really effective part of the “stimulus” bill for actually helping the economy is whatever portion of it is “targeted, temporary and timely.” See David Brooks, apparently reborn as a dyed-in-the-wool Keynesian.

First, the stimulus should be timely. The money should go out “almost immediately.” Second, it should be targeted. … Third, it should be temporary. Stimulus measures should not raise the deficits “beyond a short horizon of a year or at most two.”

Thanks for Econ 101! Brooks continues:

In a fateful decision, Democratic leaders merged the temporary stimulus measure with their permanent domestic agenda — including big increases for Pell Grants, alternative energy subsidies and health and entitlement spending. The resulting package is part temporary and part permanent, part timely and part untimely, part targeted and part untargeted.

It’s easy to see why Democrats decided to do this. They could rush through permanent policies they believe in. Plus, they could pay for them with borrowed money.

Well, yeah.

And here we have this Ryan Avent fellow, who echoes the targeted-temporary-timely CW:

that there are actually multiple criticisms coming from the right, some of which are more valid than others. If enough Senators can be peeled away to get the bill through by improving how the bill performs on the three Ts — timely, targeted, and temporary — then there’s no problem seeking compromise. But many Republicans have basically no interest in producing a good stimulus bill. …

Continue Reading »

On the way home from work this evening, I tuned into Neal Boortz’s radio program (funny no one else seems to be reporting this) and a caller asked Neal if he’d heard that six different state legislatures had proposed resolutions declaring their understanding that the federal government is limited by the Tenth Amendment. I have found one such resolution under consideration in New Hampshire: House Concurrent Resolution 6. The full text is as follows:

HCR 6 – AS INTRODUCED

2009 SESSION

09-0274

09/01

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 6

A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

SPONSORS: Rep. Itse, Rock 9; Rep. Ingbretson, Graf 5; Rep. Comerford, Rock 9; Sen. Denley, Dist 3

COMMITTEE: State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs

ANALYSIS

This house concurrent resolution affirms States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

09-0274

09/01

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nine

A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 1, Article 7 declares that the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled; and

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 2, Article 1 declares that the people inhabiting the territory formerly called the province of New Hampshire, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree with each other, to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent body-politic, or State, by the name of The State of New Hampshire; and

Whereas the State of New Hampshire when ratifying the Constitution for the United States of America recommended as a change, “First That it be Explicitly declared that all Powers not expressly & particularly Delegated by the aforesaid are reserved to the several States to be, by them Exercised;” and

Whereas the other States that included recommendations, to wit Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia, included an identical or similar recommended change; and

Whereas these recommended changes were incorporated as the ninth amendment, the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and the tenth amendment, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, to the Constitution for the United States of America; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring: Continue Reading »

Obama has managed to nominate a third tax cheat to his administration.  Nancy Killefer has withdrawn her candidacy to be the chief performance officer for the federal government.  The former assistant Treasury secretary for management failed to pay payroll taxes for her nanny and housekeeper over the course of one and a half years. That makes three known tax cheats Obama has appointed so far.  Who knows how many more there are yet undiscovered?

Obama: Change his cabinet will keep!

UPDATE: Dastardly Daschle is out!  Following Richardson’s and Killefer’s lead, He withdrew his candidacy today.