Live on BlogTalkRadio: Mon, Wed, & Fri Call In During The Show: (646) 716-8606 Launch The Podcast Player

Political News

• Barack Obama Ad- Nothing’s Changed
• Q. What Are Commodities?
• Q. How Are Oil Prices Determined?
• State and Federal Treasuries “Profit” More from Gasoline Sales than U.S. Oil Industry
• Define: Windfall Profit
• John McCain Ad – 624787
• John McCain Ad…In Spanish
• “Hyphenated Americanism” Speech – Excerpts

Continue reading →

I’ll be guest hosting on A Newt One’s podcast tonight. You can listen live here, or download it later. Sonlit says we will be looking at all fifty states and what chances each candidate has in picking up their electoral college votes.

Should be interesting. Hope to see you there.

We all know how efficient a state agency is, especially a streamlined department like the Department of Public Health and Human Services. That is why I find it so troubling to hear about the problems they had with their new computers. It seems they were missing some programs other departments were using.

At least some hard-chargin’ all-go, no-quit government employees spoke up:

The issue arose recently when the Child Support Enforcement Division received new computers, but without the games like solitaire, hearts and minesweeper that come with Microsoft software.

Some employees complained that the games weren’t on the new machines while other employees in the department had games, said Lonnie Olson, division administrator.

That’s right. Their computers didn’t have the same games that other computers had. So they complained. And they almost got what they wanted:

“I said if they want them, we’ll put them on,” Olson said, adding that he wanted to make sure all employees in the department are treated the same.

OH GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

There is at least one person with some semblance of gray matter between their ears. I give you Sheryl Olson, deputy director of the Department of Administration:

“To me, the broader policy is nobody should be playing games on state computers,” she said. “We’re at work to work. Why is this even a question? Who has time to play games?”

Can you imagine waiting on authorization for your important health procedure at the new Department of Crappy Government Run Health Care, while the government boob behind the desk tries to complete Minesweeper on expert?

I can.

There was a time in America’s history when the Republican party stood for limited government.

No more.

The conservative Republican posterboy and architect of the “Contract with America” gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, where he “called on the secretary of defense to give a speech every year on the state of our schools.” Why would he call for such a thing? Because Newt Gingrich says that America’s schools are “a matter of national security.”

Homeschooled.

He said he’d argue that point with any conservative.

Well…

This position is generally taken by liberals, which is the main reason I was so surprised to hear Gingrich say it. The argument goes as such: the education of children benefits all of society, and the better they are educated the stronger the country is; therefore, since the strength of the entire nation is fixed to the education of the children, the responsibility for such an important activity should fall on the federal government, and qualified employees sanctioned by the governing body.

There is some truth in there. The education of children does benefit all society. However, that does not result in the necessity of centralized control or oversight by the federal government. The federal government has no Constitutional authority over education. The Tenth Amendment therefore turns the power over to the states:

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.

The education of America’s children, according to the Constitution, is a state responsibility.

Generally, when you mention the unconstitutionality of the Department of Education, a liberal will fall back on the ol’ standby: general welfare. The General Welfare clause was never meant to cover anything other than what was detailed in the Constitution. There are so many examples illustrating how the Founders defined the General Welfare:

• “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” – James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792 _Madison_ 1865, I, page 546
• “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constitutents.” – James Madison, regarding an appropriations bill for French refugees, 1794
• “With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” – James Madison, Letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831 _Madison_ 1865, IV, pages 171-172
• “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” – Thomas Jefferson
• “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.” – James Madison

It is very clear the Founder’s did not intend for the General Welfare clause to be used for anything other than what the Constitution mentioned. (By the way, I covered how we evolved from their vision to the mess we see today in the second podcast we ever did.)

Regardless of what Newt Gingrich says, there is no Constitutional role for the federal government in education. It is not mentioned in the powers given to the federal government, and the Founding Fathers had no intention of allowing the General Welfare clause to change the limited role of Washington.

The education of our children is of vital importance to the future of our country. A job that important should not be left up to the government. Homeschooling and private schools outperform public schools with less money, less danger and less indoctrination.

The farther away the federal government gets from our children’s education, the better for America.

Great video. God bless the American military:

Live on BlogTalkRadio: Mon, Wed, & Fri Call In During The Show: (646) 716-8606 Launch The Podcast Player

Political News

• Mugged by data: Research reveals who the truly compassionate are
• For Obama, charity really began in the U.S. Senate
• Dick Cheney Donates Millions to Charity

Continue reading →

John, John, John, John, John…say it ain’t so:

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler says he believes Republican presidential candidate John McCain blocked his immigration bill from getting a vote on the U.S. House floor. McCain’s staff denies it.

The Waynesville Democrat spoke to the Rotary Club of Hendersonville on Tuesday. He said the Republican leadership tried to bring the Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act to the House floor. They used a provision of House rules called a discharge petition, in which a simple majority can bring to the floor a bill that is stuck in committee.

The petition had 181 of the 217 signatures needed to force a vote on the bill.

“It was going great until McCain blocked it,” Shuler said.

Look, John. I’m gonna be choking back my lunch when I cast that vote anyway. If this is true, you are not making it any easier for me, or any other conservative.

What’s the big deal?

The SAVE Act “increases border security and requires employers to verify the residency status of new employees.” Nancy Pelosi said “(the bill) was not the proper thing for our caucus.” Blue Dog Democrat Heath Shuler said, “the SAVE Act is ‘not about Democrats. Not about Republicans. It’s about what is best for America.’”

McCain, if you think I will feel bad about casting my vote for a Libertarian candidate, you better think again. And I have a feeling there are more people out there like me. Or people who will sit the vote out completely.

You want to get me to feel better about marking “McCain” on my ballot? Do what Mark Krikorian of NRO’s “The Corner” says:

The way to remove all doubt about McCain’s stance on the Save Act, and on his ostensible commitment to enforcement before proceeding to an amnesty, would be to simply co-sponsor one of the Save Act’s companion bills in the Senate, Vitter’s S.2366 or, since McCain doesn’t like Republicans much, Pryor’s S.2368.

Do it, you Arizona knucklehead. And while you are at it, we need to chat about your belief in this global warming hoax…

(Man I miss Fred Thompson.)

Hat Tip: Ace of Spaces HQ

This hoax peddler is persistent:

According to CBS, when correspondent Lesley Stahl says to the former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee that some prominent leaders aren’t convinced that humans are contributing to the problem, Gore says:

“You’re talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat. … That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off.”

Right, there is an equivalency between believing the Earth is flat, and not believing the doctrine of the Church of Global Warming™.

Just because it hasn’t warmed, but cooled, since 1998, no reason to doubt global warming.

Just because it was just as warm 800 years ago, no reason to doubt this current trend is man-made.

Just because the Science and Public Policy Institute found 35 errors in your Oscar winning movie, there is no reason to doubt.

Even though we are pumping just as much CO₂ into the atmosphere and the oceans have stopped warming, there is no reason to doubt the doctrine.

Should I go on? There is so much more…

I had just started an article on Hillary’s history of misspeaking when I decided to just delete it and look at my Google Reader.

What I found in my feed from FullosseousFlap’s (now that is some great alliteration) Dental Blog, was a story by Dick Morris, who knows Hillary’s lies far better than I do:

Admitted Lies

• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)
• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)
• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)
• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn’t cover the market back then.)

Whoppers She Won’t Confess To

• She didn’t know about the FALN pardons.
• She didn’t know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.
• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.
• She didn’t know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.
• She didn’t know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.
• She opposed NAFTA at the time.
• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.
• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.
• She played a role in the ’90s economic recovery.
• The billing records showed up on their own.
• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.
• She was always a Yankees fan.
• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).
• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).

With a record like that, is it any wonder that we suspect her of being less than honest and straightforward?

Not to me it isn’t. But then, I don’t associate honesty with Clintons. Or honesty with politicians, for that matter.