In the so called stimulus bill, there are hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for birth control.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says this will stimulate the economy because there will be less children in the future to be a burden on the government.

This is insulting.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

She is actually suggesting that rather than reducing the amount of spending, we reduce the amount of children.  This is how liberals “deal with the consequences” of liberal policies and economic downturn.  Let’s not even consider reducing spending.  Let’s reduce the population.

Why would she even attempt to sell something to ridiculous?  Because the millions of dollars earmarked in the bill are slated to go to Planned Parenthood:

A Clinton-era program allows states to seek a waiver to offer Medicaid “family planning” services — including people who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. If they seek the waiver, the federal government matches the state funding with $9 for every $1.

On Friday, when the House Energy & Commerce Committee considered the congressional Democrats’ spending bill, the committee eliminated the waiver requirement.

As a result, all 50 states will now offer Medicaid “family planning” services (including contraception) with the federal government offering the same $9 to $1 match. Although the money doesn’t fund abortions directly, it goes to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, which would otherwise have to spend its own money on contraception.

Pro-life advocates say the governmental funds frees up Planned Parenthood dollars to promote and perform abortions that it would otherwise have to spend on family planning.

We are now supposed to give more money to an organization that performs abortions on children that were obviously raped, yet did not report the rape to the authorities.  And because of the increased public funding of birth control, they can shift their private funds to other activities, such as abortions.

And this will stimulate the economy.

This is because of the liberal Democrat’s worldview that every citizen of the country is a dependent, a ward of the state.  Perhaps Chairman Pelosi should ask herself who is going to pay the taxes in the future if there is a steep drop-off in population due to her birth control stimulus plan. 

Let me solve this problem.  This birth control plan is a sure fire winner and will not soak the taxpayer to fund abortions is a roundabout way.

Any man or woman who wants to prevent an unwanted pregnancy can simply print out the following picture and post it above his or her bed:

Regardless of the blood alcohol level involved in the night’s events, this picture, once seen by any red blooded American man, will cause a rapid retreat of blood from very specific blood vessels in his body.  Because of this, intercourse will be impossible.

Now that I have solved this problem, can we forget about giving my looted money to Planned Parenthood?

We’ve been working on a new project over the last couple of months, and our regular readers have surely noticed the giant red banner we had at the top of the site begging for money.  We were able to raise the $600 we needed and RFC Radio is going to become a reality.  In fact, we’re launching it in three weeks.

Check out rfcradio.com and bookmark it!  On February 16th, we’ll go live with a 24/7 stream of news, rock, and talk designed by conservatives, for conservatives.  RFC Radio is for all of us, and we hope you’ll drop us a line and let us know your thoughts.

Thank you to all the good folks who contributed money to the project, to the people who are helping us out by donating their time and talents, and to all the people who are helping us spread the word.

• Self Admitted Communist Pete Seeger Performs for Obama
  Posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009
  The name of the concert was “We are One:  The Obama Inaugural Celebration At The Lincoln Memorial."  Well, one of the performers last night was Pete Seeger, a self admitted Communist. No, I’m not exaggerating. Pete Seeger joined the Young Communist League at age 17, way back in 1936.  Six years later, he joined the Communist Party.
• Bush Commutes Ramos and Compean Sentences
  Posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009
  Breaking news folks.  President Bush has commuted the sentences of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean.  Both received prison sentences for shooting a fleeing drug dealer in the buttocks. Bush didn’t pardon the men for their crimes, but decided instead to commute their prison sentences because he believed they were excessive and that they had already suffered the loss of their jobs, freedom and reputations, a senior administration official said.
• Obama Goes After Assault Weapons
  Posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
  From the “new and improved” WhiteHouse.gov:Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade.
• Obama Rep: “White Male Construction Workers” Get No Help From Us
  Posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
  The post racial candidate. That’s what Barack Obama is called. Heck, the New Republic said “even white supremists don’t hate Obama.”But it seems the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are looking to pass out the stimulus package based on…race:Don’t take my word for it, listen to Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and current member of the Obama economic transistion team.
• Barry and Michelle Do WHAT?!
  Posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009
  I don’t think she knows what she’s saying here:If she does, this is definitely, TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

I began 2009 praising carbon dioxide as the gas, along with oxygen, upon which all life on Earth depends.

Now I praise coal and for reasons the mainstream press and other media will studiously avoid telling you. Coal, as you may recall, is on the Obama hit list because its use, according to the environmental loonies, will doom the Earth to a global warming that is not happening.

The United States is home to huge deposits of coal. It is second only to China in terms of total coal consumption. In 2007, the U.S. used about 1.1 billion tons of coal. According to an authority on energy, Robert Bryce, “That’s the energy equivalent of about 4.2 billion barrels of oil per year or about 11.5 million barrels of oil per day.” By way of comparison, “America’s daily coal ration contains more energy than Saudi Arabia’s daily oil production.” That’s a lot of energy.

Why, then, is the Obama administration and virtually all of the major environmental organizations opposed to coal? We know they oppose any use of oil, but coal, so abundant, so rich in energy would seem to be a great alternative. They oppose it because it emits carbon dioxide when burned (so do forest fires, etc.) and that contributes, they assert, to global warming.

Only there isn’t any global warming any more because the Earth is in a cooling cycle, so there must be another reason. The closest one I can come to is that they either want to return us all to the Stone Age or they are heavily invested in wind and solar industries.

In 2008, climate change alarmists proclaimed April 1^st “Fossil Fools Day” using it to protest energy projects like Duke Energy’s massive Cliffside coal-fired power plant just fifty miles west of Charlotte, North Carolina. How they expect consumer’s to get electricity, fifty percent of which is produced by coal nationwide, is anyone’s guess unless they want to carpet all of North Carolina with solar and wind farms.

Led by a group calling themselves Rising Tide, a spokesperson said, “To survive climate change, we need to end the extraction of fossil fuels, reduce rich people’s energy consumption, localize economies and revolutionize public transportation.” By “rich” they mean YOU.

Obama’s would not be the first administration to try to restrict access to America’s supply of coal, oil, or natural gas from use. Congress has done this for oil by banning drilling in ANWR or off the continental shelf. The Clinton administration closed off the vast coal deposits in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante area and, unfortunately the Bush administration would not revoke this travesty.

President Obama’s choice for Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, is a nightmare for anyone who doesn’t want to pay $8.00 a gallon for gas as the Europeans do. He favors that, but he is on record as saying, “Coal is my worst nightmare” attributing its use to greenhouse gas emissions. During his confirmation hearing, though, Chu was rapidly backpedaling saying mushy stuff like, “I think it is imperative to use coal as cleanly as possible.” He even added that offshore oil and gas production might not be a bad idea. Can we trust this fellow? I think not.

Right now, however, in Europe, Germany is building 27 coal-fired plants by 2020 and Italy plans to increase its reliance on coal from 14% today to 33% in just five years. Throughout Europe, 40 new coal-fired plants are set to be built in the next five years. China can’t build them fast enough and India plans to boost coal production by 50% by 2012 and quadruple it by 2030.

Making sure Americans can’t use their own national resources seems to be a major mission for the federal government. The U.S. Geographical Survey (USGS) has found a “high potential” for oil and gas in Colorado’s Canyon of the Ancients, Washington’s Hanford Reach, and Montana’s Upper Missouri River Breaks.

There are, however, some twenty-seven States in which coal is mined with some 90% of the coal reserves concentrated in ten States. Montana is a big coal state, as is Wyoming. The USGS estimated the U.S. is home to 1.7 trillion tons of identified coal resources. They estimate the total amount when new discovers are included could exceed 4 trillion tons. In other terms, the U.S. has more than a 250-year supply under current use.

But coal is bad, right? Just ask President Obama, any of his so-called environmental and science advisers, and any major environmental organization. This kind of thinking leaves America vulnerable, particularly in light of the fact that a growing population requires the production of more energy, particularly electricity.

What you’re not being told is that, ever since the enactment of the Clear Air Act in 1970, as amended in 1990, the most stringent air pollution law in the world has been in effect. American industry has spent an estimated $350 billion since 1970 to clean the air and each year the cost for pollution control runs about $33 billion.

According to the Electric Power Research Institute, pollution control equipment accounts for up to 40% of the cost of a new power plant and 35% of operational costs. These costs represent about $10 billion of the nation’s electric bills each year and consumers will pay more if the Clean Air Act is amended to be even more stringent. A single “scrubber” in a coal-fired plant can cost more than $100 million to construct and many millions to operate. There are at least 200 of these in operation or soon will be. Someone has to pay for all this clean air and that someone is YOU.

All around the world coal continues to be the energy source of choice. Americans who have plenty of it should, by any rational standard, be thrilled to use it. When our domestic coal is exported, it generates $4.1 billion and presently represents 2.5% of all U.S. exports.

For these reasons, the electricity it produces, the jobs it represents, the value as an export, and the way it does all this without polluting the air, there is ample cause to celebrate coal, glorious, coal.

Author: Alan Caruba

(Also published at WesternFront America)

I don’t think she knows what she’s saying here:

If she does, this is definitely, TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

In February 2007, the Washington Post reported that Bill Clinton made $9-10 million the previous years on the lecture circuit.

$10 million in one year. Over eight years since leaving the White House, NPR reports Clinton has made $109 million.

So tell me why we are paying for his cable bill:

Former President Bill Clinton seems to spend the most across the board. His phone bill from the records KHQ received from 2006 cost taxpayers $104,000. We also pay for the satellite TV in his office, complete with eight separate receivers and all the movie channels that come with the “entertainment package”. Your cost? $1,800 per year.

GREAT SCOTT! Brother, that is a ton of pay-per-view porn.

We also pay for Bush’s subscription to the Wall Street Journal and $83,000 a year on “other services” for Jimmy Carter.

The article asks the most obvious question there is:

why are taxpayers subsidizing ex-presidents who are millionaires?

What is the answer? Tell me below in the comments.

The post racial candidate. That’s what Barack Obama is called. Heck, the New Republic said “even white supremists don’t hate Obama.”

But it seems the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are looking to pass out the stimulus package based on…race:

Don’t take my word for it, listen to Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and current member of the Obama economic transistion team. Then consider the lack of outrage from Rep. Charlie Rangel after hearing Reich talk about excluding a certain portion of Americans based on race:

I am concerned, as I’m sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers. … I have nothing against white male construction workers. I’m just saying that there are a lot of other people who have needs as well. … Criteria can be set so that the money does go to others, the long term unemployed minorities, women, people who are not necessarily construction workers or high-skilled professionals.

Reich later says that “criteria can be set so that the money does go to others, the long term unemployed, the minorities, the women…”

Basically, he is suggesting that Congress set up a plan that eliminates the white man from the picture.

And not only does Rangel agree with him, but he says there needs to be a way to keep the states from having a say in where the money goes. Rangel and Reich know more about the needs of the states than the states do. That’s true elitism.

Here’s the real kick in the groin. I have been told over and over again that there are more white people on welfare than there are black people.

Jet magazine headline: More whites than blacks on welfare despite myth

Ebony magazine wrote in 1995:

Racist attitudes notwithstanding, it is a matter of record that White mothers receive more than half of the checks distributed under the auspices of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program–55.2 percent, compared to 39.2 percent received by Blacks. Additionally, the U.S. Census Bureau reported in February that during an average month in 1990, 61 percent of major assistance program participants were White, compared to 34 percent who were African-American.

So after years of being told that the white folks are the real welfare queens, the first black president’s administration suggests excluding them because they are white.

As Ed Morrissey writes, “What Reich proposes is flat-out official racism by government, refusing to hire people on the basis of their skin color.”

Only on the left could you suggest blatant racism as a policy of economic stimulus and not only get away with it, but have members of Congress openly agree with you.

Not Everyone Is Happy

Is the partying done yet? Is the trash picked up off the mall? Has everyone sobered up? Far more important is the question: Has the defecation hit the rotary oscillator yet?

So many questions. So much uncertainty. So much fear. Yes… I did say F E A R !

See, not all of us were celebrating as Mr. Obama took the Oath of Office. Some of us are genuinely frightened at the prospects ahead… prospects, which do not bode well for the United States and the people who populate these states.

See, there are 58 million of us who voted against Mr. Obama. Did you get that? I said 58 million Americans voted against Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama got 53% of the vote across America. See how close that is to ½ of the electorate? So, when you fan away the media’s smoke… we are right where we were before the election… so far as the common man and woman of America is concerned. We STILL live in a country equally divided, roughly 50/50, about the direction the country should be taking.

Now, you would never know that from all the hoopla in the Mainstream Media about “healing”, and “hope”, and “change”, and all the “feel good” “warm and fuzzy”, “group hug” rhetoric, right out of the 60′s “hippie culture” spouted by the talking heads on TV and the gushing of the “leftie writers” in the printed press. I must tell you folks… to an old southern conservative, like “yours truly”, it is sickening. I could not watch it on the television for fear of vomiting.

Hey, and while we are at it… can we agree that America is no longer a “racist country”, like every other country on the face of the earth? No, you say? And, why not, pray tell? We have been told, all along, by the bleeding hearts in the Mainstream Media that if Obama were elected it would end racism in America!

Well, of course, I knew it was BS then… and it is BS today (BS=Bovine Scatology). But you know, there are actually people walking around on this earth who actually believed that stuff? Yeah! No kidding! That ought to scare you to death! I know it rattled my cage with gusto!

It is absolutely amazing how simple-minded the American voter really is. But, we can take comfort that only half, at best, of the American electorate bought that Utopian nonsense. Remember, only 53% of us voted for Mr. Obama. The other 47% still have their wits about them… and they will be, eventually, the people who save America from the Socialists, the Old Hippies, the Eurocrats, the Neocomms, (Neocomms=New Communists) and the plain ole “Air Heads” who populate the two chambers of our legislative wing of government. (Speaking of Air Heads… have you looked into the eyes of some of those people with their vacuous smiles plastered, permanently, to their faces? You really ought to. If gives new depths of meaning to the phrase: “The lights are on… but nobody is home.”)

I am an old “states righter” who believes that the best government is the government that governs the least. I also believe that the smaller the government the better. I believe we should starve government into reducing its size by cutting taxes to reduce the amount of available funds the government can use to enlarge itself. I believe, as did the men who founded this country and drew up the Constitution, that the Federal Government was/is to be the agent of the states and is to take its orders from the states… not the other way around… as it is today. Like President Reagan, I believe government is the problem and not the answer. I believe Mr. Obama is dead wrong, absolutely wrong, in his stated desire to grow the government to right all wrongs in America. It will only create more wrongs.

I believe Mr. Obama is about to take the US into Harm’s Way… and he has no clue. He is a Commander-in-Chief who will have to be taught how to salute. And HE is to COMMAND the mightiest military force on the planet? YES! Does that not scare you?

And the bailouts: When do you and I have to pay it back? Huh? Oh, yeah! They forgot to mention that, didn’t they? Yep, you and I, the American taxpayer, AND our children and grandchildren, some yet unborn, will be required to put all that money back into the Treasury’s coffers.

Oh, well. We finally have that “Nanny State” 53% of the electorate wanted. Yep! You finally have a government that can give you everything you want. But, by the same token, you also have the government that can take everything you have!

I was in the Artillery when I served the country in the US Army. One of the first lessons I learned, as new artilleryman, was to always remember that as soon as the enemy is within range of your guns… YOU are in range of THEIRS! There are no “gimmes.” There is “No Free Lunch.” Somebody MUST pay. Want to know who is going pay for all the “FREE” stuff you are expecting to get from the US Government under Obama’s reign? Just look in the mirror!

No, some of us are not celebrating. Some us are sincerely worried.

Author: J.D Longstreet

(Also published at WesternFront America)

Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress want you to believe that right now, you are living in the worst economic crisis in American history, save for the Great Depression.

This is simply not true, and the New York Times explains how 1982 was far, far worse:

The job market will almost certainly continue to worsen for most of 2009. Even if the much-needed stimulus bill passes, the economy is likely to end the year in roughly as bad a shape as its 1982 nadir. Which is saying something.

The recession of the early 1980s doesn’t have a catchy name, and almost half of Americans are too young to have any real memory of it. But it was terrible — qualitatively different from the mild recessions of 1990-91 and 2001.

The first big blow to the economy was the 1979 revolution in Iran, which sent oil prices skyrocketing. The bigger blow was a series of sharp interest-rate increases by the Federal Reserve, meant to snap inflation. Home sales plummeted. At their worst, they were 30 percent lower than they are even now (again, adjusted for population size). The industrial Midwest was hardest hit, and the term “Rust Belt” became ubiquitous. Many families fled south and west, helping to create the modern Sun Belt.

Nationwide, the unemployment rate rose above 10 percent in 1982, compared with 7.2 percent last month.

The article goes on to say that at its worst, the unemployment rate right now is around 13%. But even that wasn’t as bad at the 16% seen in 1982.

So what is really interesting here is the fact that the New York Times is reporting this, backing off the doom and glooom perspective of the economy.

Why would they want to do that?

Well, they have the votes they need to pass the stimulus bill. Regardless of what is in it, it will pass (As Boortz writes, “this so-called “stimulus” bill is merely a compilation of years of Democrat spending schemes.”) And it will be signed by Obama.

They don’t need to be doom and gloom anymore. They won. They got their folks in office. Now they can start talking up the economy.

I’m just a right wing conspiracy loon, right? Not so much. There is a history of the media reporting on how bad the economy is when a Republican lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, but talking it up when a Democrat moves in.

Two professors, John Lott, economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Kevin A. Hassett, the Institute’s director of economic policy studies, looked at newspaper articles on the economy. They wrote, “We found that newspaper headlines reporting economic news on unemployment, gross domestic product (GDP), retail sales and durable goods tended to be much more frequently negative when a Republican was in the White House. And this was true even after accounting for the economic numbers on which the stories were based and how those numbers were changing over time.” So bad economic news becomes less bad economic news with a Democrat sitting in the White House. With a Republican in the White House, however, good economic news becomes less good, and bad becomes even worse.

There is entirely too much invested in the idea that Obama is going to rescue everyone from this horrible Bush economy. It’s time to get the American people thinking things are improving.

From the “new and improved” WhiteHouse.gov:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

So what is an assault weapon, and what would the Assault Weapons Ban prohibit you from getting?

The law’s authors had to be as precise as possible in crafting the ban, since the phrase “assault weapon” isn’t really part of the gun-making vocabulary. Rather, it’s a catchall term that gun-control advocates define as covering any firearm designed for rapidly firing at human targets from close range. The 19 guns called out in the ban are all semiautomatic in nature: They can eject spent shell casings and chamber the next bullet without human intervention, but only one round is fired per squeeze of the trigger.

Wait, there’s more:

On top of the Big 19, the ban also included a few formulas for forbidding less well-known armaments. A semiautomatic rifle was considered an illicit assault weapon, for example, if it featured a detachable magazine, as well as at least two of the following five attributes: a folding or telescopic stock; a conspicuous pistol grip; a bayonet mount; a flash suppressor or threaded barrel (i.e., a barrel that can accommodate a flash suppressor); or a grenade launcher. The checklist for semiautomatic pistols includes guns weighing more than 50 ounces when unloaded, and those featuring a “shroud” on the barrel to prevent a shooter’s non-trigger hand from being burned.

The ban also outlawed the manufacture of magazines capable of carrying more than 10 rounds. That meant supplies of high-capacity magazines were limited to pre-1994 models, and gun dealers charged a pretty penny for these relative antiques.

Handguns were not bothered under this ban. But that can easily change. In June of last year, I warned you about a plan to ban handguns by calling them…wait for it…”assault weapons“:

How, you ask? Simple: The bans on so called “assault weapons” define a magazine with the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds as a “high capacity assault weapon feeding device.” Then, ordinary guns such as the Springfield XD, or even the guns that have been around for over 100 years and won the wild west, are suddenly classified as “assault weapons.” Since such a definition defies common sense, most people don’t know that their ordinary handgun, or antique lever action rifle is now an “assault weapon” until they are arrested and jailed.

With Bobby Rush introducing HR 45 and enough RINOs in the Senate to pass any gun control bill, you can expect this to happen.

Now you understand why gun sales have been through the roof since November.

And for those who want to use the old, tired mantra of “why do you need an assualt rifle to hunt with anyway?”

The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting.

Now that Barack Obama is officially the President of the United States of America, he can start rolling back all those horrendous policies that President Bush put in place.  After all, change has come to America.

One of the first things Obama is going to change is Bush’s policy of not using American taxpayer money to fund abortions in foreign countries.  Oh yeah, your tax dollars, in the middle of a gigantic economic meltdown, are going to be shipped to a foreign country to pay for abortions.

President Bush used an executive order on his first day in office to reinstitute a pro-life policy that prevents forcing taxpayers to fund international groups that perform or promote abortions in other countries.

While U.S. law prohibits funding abortions directly, Bush’s Mexico City Policy expands the law by also prohibiting the funding of pro-abortion groups that either do abortions overseas or lobby pro-life governments to sacrifice their abortion limits.

During the presidential election, pro-life groups issued a clarion call to voters telling them their tax money would be used if Obama were elected and saying he would likely reverse the Mexico City Policy immediately after taking office.

The capital publication Congressional Quarterly reports that top Washington officials tell it that the incoming president will reverse the pro-life measure on his first day as president, on Wednesday.

You know, I am constantly reminded of what I was taught growing up, that Republicans are for the rich and the corporations and Democrats are for the little guys.  What we have here is the hope of the far left and the idle minded Democrat voter taking the money of every American in the middle of what he calls the worst crisis since Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and sending it to a group of pro-abortion lobbyists in a foreign country.

How is that looking out for the little guy?

How is that looking out for anyone? 

How do you like this change?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The preamble to the Constitution has been taken to mean many things. One of them, which President Obama implied today in his inauguration address, was the ability for the federal government to spend limitlessly in the name of the general welfare.

The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

This is the same philosophy as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and many others on the American left, and, occasionally, on the American right. John McCain, for example, seemed to believe the question was not whether or not the government could spend in excess, but where the boundry for excessive spending lay.

But this is NOT how the Constitution was intended.

The 10th Amendment

First of all, the 10th Amendment clearly states that the guidelines laid out in the Constitution was ONLY what the government could enact. It argues that all powers not given to Congress should be given to the states. Thomas Jefferson summed up this argument in 1791:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

Yes, but…

However, there IS one small loophole. The preamble notes that:

…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

(emphasis mine)

This could be seen to include government aid such as welfare and perhaps, in a stretch, health care.

But there’s something else that few pick up on.

Unlimited spending and general welfare

The government was never intended to have unlimited spending in the name of the general welfare. The Father of the Constitution, Mr. James Madison, aruged in a letter to Edmund Pendleton:

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

Later, when discussing a foreign aid bill in the House of Representatives, Madison argued:

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.

This is the writer of the Constitution speaking. The Father of the Constitution believed that unlimited spending was completely unconstitutional. So what did he do about it? Madison wrote a list of what Congress could do. These are listed in Article 1, Section 8:

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Nowhere in there is there any mention of welfare or health care or any form of any kind of aid. But is this the only list of things the government can do? Yes, according to Madison:

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

Conclusion

I sincerely believe that President Obama is doing what he thinks is best for the country. But it’s not. This isn’t about whether or not people deserve aid or health care, whether or not they need it, or whether or not it works if and when they get it. We need to follow the Constitution as it was intended, or scrap it altogether. Our Constitution has served us well for over two centuries. When asked to pick between a second New Deal and the Constitution, I’ll opt for the Constitution. As Sam Adams, the great American patriot, once said:

The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.

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The Obamagasm that is going down in Washington, D.C. today will cost a whopping $170 million.  While the media castigated Bush for spending $50 million in 2004, they are mum on Obama’s spending more than three times that during an economic crisis.

I personally agree with Boortz on this one.  I don’t really care.  It is paid for with donations, not taxpayer money.  Oh, there is a taxpayer expense, but that comes in the form of security.  And that would be expended anyway.

What is interesting is who the top donors are for this shin-dig.  At the top of the list, socialist billionaire George Soros:

Top donors from the world of high finance included George Soros, Ronald Perelman and David Shaw, the center said.

Bankers and hedge fund managers will mingle with Hollywood stars and Silicon Valley high-technology titans at the swearing-in ceremony for the 44th president, the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and the balls and parties that follow.

It’s interesting that while Obama plans to soak the rich by letting Bush’s tax cut expire, and talks of redistributing the wealth, Wall Street is topping the donors list. 

Why is that?  Influence, of course:

"While Americans are hoping for real change in Washington, many deep-pocketed donors are hoping money still buys them access and influence," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan money-in-politics watchdog group.

"If history is any guide, these wealthy individuals, as well as the corporations and industries they represent, may more than recoup their investment in Obama through presidential appointments, favorable legislation and government contracts," Krumholz said.

People with Wall Street ties — 118 of them — gave $3.6 million; lawyers gave $2.5 million; and donors from the TV, movie and music businesses gave $1.7 million, the center said.

Soros has been a part of the Obama campaign from before there was an Obama campaign.  There is no doubt he has the ear of the President. 

I wonder how much Soros gives to charities each year.  I mean, aside from his own organizations like the Open Society Institute, which just furthers his socialist agenda.  If he wants to spend his money, he can do it to actually help the little people Democrats are supposed to be helping.

This is it, folks.  America’s troubles are over.  Barack Obama is the POTUS today.  He will fix everything.

At least, that’s what a majority of people think:

The incoming president has a lot to live up to, with polls suggesting that the public has higher expectations of him than for any recent U.S. president.

According to a survey published last night, 71 per cent of Americans believe the economy will improve during the first year of the Obama presidency and 65 per cent said they think unemployment will drop.

Asked about cash-strapped Wall Street, 72 per cent said they thought the stock market would recover.

Some 63 per cent were confident that their personal financial situation would improve.

‘He cannot not succeed. He has to succeed because the world really depends on him right now,’  said Richard Kern, 51, who works in a home remodeling business in Bernalillo, New Mexico.

See, that’s what I’m talking about here, folks. 

As Americans, we should not be pining for a President to fix the stock market or improve our personal financial situation.

We should not be hoping that our President will provide anything for us other than security.  Government is created to protect our rights, so that we can provide for ourselves. 

And yet here we stand today, waiting for the president to use the force of government to take the property of one person and give it to another, one government finds more deserving.  This is the complete opposite of what our Founders believed.

James Madison wrote:

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.

and

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

What else did Obama promise if not an unjust government?

When Reagan took office in 1981, he didn’t promise anything other than getting government out of the way so American’s could prosper.  He reminded us that we were not a government with a people, but a people with a government.  That the states were not a creation of the federal government, but the federal government was created by the states.

He reminded us that America was great, not because of the people in Washington, D.C., but because of the everyday American heroes. 

He understood that “Government is not the solution to the problem, the government is the problem.”

Leftists today laud Obama for reversing that mantra, claiming that government is the only way out of this current economic crisis.  It is this attitude that is pushing us across the bridge to dependence.

It is unfortunate that the American people have allowed themselves to become willing collectivists when there is such a rich history of tyranny and death that follows the creation of such a government. 

I’m not saying that America is going to turn into the late Soviet Union, with lines for toilet paper and gulags.  Not in the next four or eight years, anyway.  But I am saying that the American independent spirit is hurting. 

Photo Credit – Misserion