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It dawned on me that I hadn’t done anything for Black History Month yet. So, while brainstorming what I could do to help celebrate black history, I decided that a few graphics were in order.
I’ll be putting them out a few at a time all week. Here’s three to kick things off:
This is part of black history that isn’t pointed out very often.
Attention Attorney General Eric Holder! President Felipe Calderon on line one:
President Felipe Calderon on Thursday unveiled a “No More Weapons!” billboard made with crushed firearms and placed near the U.S. border. He urged the United States to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico.
The billboard, which is in English and weighs 3 tons, was placed near an international bridge in Ciudad Juarez and can be seen from the United States.
Calderon said the billboard’s letters were made with weapons seized by local, state and federal authorities.
“Dear friends of the United States, Mexico needs your help to stop this terrible violence that we’re suffering,” Calderon said in English during the unveiling ceremony.
“The best way to do this is to stop the flow of automatic weapons into Mexico,” he added.
As far as I know, Fast and Furious isn’t operating any more.
Of course, Calderon isn’t complaining about the successes of the ATF program, but is making a statement about our freedom to bear arms. In his world, if the law abiding citizens were just disarmed, the bad guys would not have .50 sniper rifles.
How’s that working out in Mexico?
In my podcast this week, I took Rick Santorum to the woodshed for his stance on libertarianism. Rick said this:
“I am not a libertarian, and I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. I don’t think the libertarians have it right when it comes to what the Constitution is all about. I don’t think they have it right as to what our history is, and we are not a group of people who believe in no government.”
If that’s not bad enough for you, he said this to NPR in 2006:
One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.
Imagine that. Being an American and thinking government should just leave people alone? Crazy, right? Can Rick show me where the Constitution gives moral busybodies in DC the power to legislate my behavior in my bedroom? And don’t give me this, “Well, you can’t kill someone in your bedroom” stuff. You know what I’m talking about.
Now, let’s contrast what Rick said about with this quote from Dutch, aka Ronald Maximus, aka Ronald Reagan:
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.
Now, you Santorum supporters, tell me how I support him when what he says is in direct opposition to what Reagan thought and is essentially advocating greater government involvement in the lives of Americans.
Congressman Jim Jordan posted the following graphic over at Red State today to remind people that today marks the three year anniversary of President Obama and the Democrats saving America with the Stimulus Package.
And by saving America, I mean throwing your tax dollars down a $800 billion sized sinkhole:
I had a co-worker ask me why I was so negative on the economy when unemployment was going down. I tried to explain to him the thinking behind a quote often attributed to fellow Missourian Mark Twain, who wrote, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”
I think the infographic does a good job of showing what a failure this so-called Stimulus really is, but then Jordan underlined it with this:
As you can see, only 63.7% of working-age Americans are currently in the workforce. The rate hasn’t been that low in almost 29 years! To put it another way, 36.3% of working-age Americans do not have a job and are not even looking.
Obamanomics, also known as the New Deal, also known as Keynesian economics, is once again shown to be a failure. You can accept the theory floated by the apologists of John Maynard Keynes, that we just didn’t spend enough money, or you can accept that taking money out of an economy so you can stimulate it by putting it back in is as effective as making a lake larger by pulling water out of one side and pouring it in the other.
By the time I got to the end of the first half of this week’s All American Radio, I couldn’t believe what I was saying.
It almost sounded like an endorsement, which was weird considering how I feel about the four men in the running. Who was I nearly advocating for?
Listen and hear for yourself. Then come back here and comment.
Texas women are making the claim that male TSA agents behinds the scenes are singling out hot women to go through the naked scanners, and then when they go through, they make them go through again…and again:
When Ellen Terrell and her husband, Charlie, flew out of DFW Airport several months ago, Terrell says she was surprised by a question a female TSA agent asked her. “She says to me, ‘Do you play tennis?’ And I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘You just have such a cute figure.’”
Terrell says she walked into the body scanner which creates an image that a TSA agent in another room reviews. Terrell says she tried to leave, but the female agent stopped her. “She says, ‘Wait, we didn’t get it,’” recalls Terrell, who claims the TSA agent sent her back a second time and even a third. But that wasn’t good enough.
After the third time, Terrell says even the agent seemed frustrated with her co-workers in the other room. “She’s talking into her microphone and she says, ‘Guys, it is not blurry, I’m letting her go. Come on out.’”
When TSA agents do a pat down on a traveler, only female agents are allowed to touch female passengers. But the TSA allows male agents to view the images of female passengers.
Is there any doubt that there are multiple blue shirt clad TSA male agents surrounding the monitors behind the scenes, ogling the scans as they come through?
Not in my mind. Not even a fraction of a doubt.
Gateway Pundit has a video of Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Fox News, talking with Megyn Kelly about the dire need to have religious organizations ignore their beliefs and kneel not to their God, but to the liberal’s most holy text, the Code of Federal Regulations.
It is a typical statement for Debbie, who is not known for her intellectual ramblings. It’s 91 seconds of stupid:
Let’s break this down, line by pitiful line:
“Contraception, Megyn, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this…”
Is it me or is she calling Megyn Kelly a slut? Honestly, what is she saying here?
“…is about $700 a year. That’s real money. And to say to hundreds of thousands of womyn who work for religious organizations, ‘No, because of your employers objections, whether or not you choose to use contraception, you aren’t going to be able to get the same access as other employers’ employees can get access to,’ that’s not right.”
True. $700 is a lot of money. But that’s a lump sum. I don’t know anyone who buys a year’s worth of contraception. Usually, it’s a month at a time, which comes to less that $60 a month.
This perspective is important. The Democrats want us to think that without the employers sacrificing their beliefs, the poor womyn of the country won’t be able to afford contraception. That’s simply not true.
According to these right wing zealots, birth control pills cost anywhere from $15 to $50 a month. That’s not a deal breaker and it certainly isn’t keeping these womyn from getting needed contraception.
Do I also need to address the fact that these womyn choose to work where they work and can choose to leave if they are unhappy with their benefit packages? It’s not like the Catholic Church is dictating to the members of the congregation where they have to work.
They can quit working for the church. It’s still a freeish country.
“Catholic Hospitals employ hundreds of thousands of Americans. I mean, to cut them off as a potential employer for any womyn who wants to be able to have free access to contraception, that is available to any other person who works at a different employer, that’s really not a choice that those womyn should be forced into making.”
So, in the mind of Debbie, if the government doesn’t mandate that insurance companies provide “free” contraception, womyn are “cut off” from said contraception.
Despite the fact that high school kids are provided free contraception at institutions of indoctrination across the country, or go out and buy their own, womyn capable of holding down a job can’t manage to acquire a box of condoms as frequently as they can acquire someone willing to have sex with them.
Apparently, the Democrat Party’s position is, without having contraception handed to them, womyn are helpless when it comes to getting it. Contraception, that is.
And what’s with this “free” label? The whole issue is about the insurance company being mandated to provide access to contraception without a copay. That doesn’t mean the person and employer are not paying for a policy. The employer still has to pay money for a service they believe is wrong. You might not have to pay for the pills directly, but your monthly premiums go towards it, as do the employers.
It’s not free.
Choosing between continuing to hold their job and being able to have affordable access to family planning, and let me add that 61 percent of Catholic womyn support the president’s, uh, uh, current adjustment and as many, as many as that number supported the original decision,
It’s been a while since I got to use a logical fallacy graphic, but this is known as the appeal to popularity:
‘Nuff said.
because, like I said, contraception’s expensive
So is DirecTV, but you aren’t mandating my home owner’s policy provide it without a copay. And let’s be honest, aren’t they both about pleasure? You can go without both. Just think of sex like a pay per view. You’d really like to get it, but you can wait.
it’s important to be able to plan your family.
Agreed. You should take time to think about having a baby. And if you are in a position where you can’t afford contraception without the using government force to mandate an organization to violate its beliefs, perhaps you aren’t responsible enough to be having sex in the first place.
Ninety-nine percent of Americans use contraception sometime during their lifetime
Really? 99%?
How do they all afford it?
This is a huge flaw in her “logic,” for lack of a better word. In one breath, without this mandate, people who work for Catholics can’t afford contraception, and in the next breath, all these people currently living with insurance policies that don’t offer contraception without a copay somehow manage to find contraception.
How exactly did they get it if they can’t afford it without your precious mandate?
Perhaps they can afford it and this isn’t about helping them, but building a narrative to distract voters from the Democrat failures over the last three years and get them to focus on this instead.
and you know, the flip side of this is that religious institutions shouldn’t be imposing their values necessarily on their employees who don’t necessarily subscribe to those values.”
No, but Democrats and the moral busybodies in the federal government should be imposing their values on employers, even when they clearly don’t subscribe to those values.
After watching those 91 seconds of stupid, there was only thing that came to my mind:
That last line is especially relevant, considering the topic.
Mark has this year’s car looking pretty good. He gets all the credit, since he actually made all the decals too.
What do you do when you can’t run on your record? If you watch the Democrats you will find out. The answer is to manufacture bogus issues out of thin air and try to anger and scare people into voting against dismal Democrat policies.
It was just a short while ago that New York Congressman Tim Bishop introduced a bill called the U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act. Never mind that there are no significant call centers in Bishop’s Congressional district on the east end of Long Island. Never mind that his district is still losing jobs that are unrelated to call centers. This is a top priority of his. Why? Because he thinks that if he can get the topic of outsourcing on the table, he might have a fighting chance of holding his seat, because his opponent doesn’t hold a fourteenth century world view that our economy is confined to our borders. We live in a global economy like it or not and we are able to buy affordable products because some of them are made or serviced in other countries. In a similar vein our economy is able to grow and add jobs because we sell high-end products like Boeing jets to their economies.
The Birth Control Brouhaha
Now we have the national Democrat party trying to manufacture an issue over birth control. For those who have been watching the Republican presidential debates, who wasn’t scratching their heads over George Stephanopoulos’ questions and persistent follow-ups about states regulating contraception. Huh? Where did that come from? Dick Morris seems to have figured it out.
httpv://youtu.be/FcBLSp0RScE
It will not be long before the ads start rolling out that the Republican nominee, whoever that may be, favors states banning contraception. With enough lies and distortion, the Democrats hope to make an issue where none exists. There is no movement to ban contraceptives in this country. But under the Constitution could a state ban them? Yes. (Note that I say under the Constitution, not under an activist Supreme Court that likes to rewrite the Constitution as they go along). So the question asked, will be a Constitutional one, the ad that will follow will be that the Republican candidate favors what the Constitution merely allows. I think the Constitution also allows states to pass laws banning silly hats in public, that doesn’t mean that everyone who believe in the Constitution believes in such laws. It is the electorate’s job to police that nonsense.
The Real Issue
What is being missed here is the real issue. If contraceptives should be required to be provided and free under ObamaCare, why not toothpaste? Why not soap or deodorant? Band-Aids? Tums? Kleenex? Birth control pills cost about $15-$50 per month, according to Planned Parenthood. For this you need insurance? That is the cost of 2-3 packs of cigarettes, 2-3 gallon jugs of milk. Perhaps if you can’t afford to come up with that much cash, you should learn to play Pinochle until you can. How about splitting the cost with the other partner? Hell, a bottle of wine to get the festivities started will get you half way there.
The real problem is we have lost the concept of insurance. Insurance is designed to prevent a financial catastrophe from striking due to an unforeseen event. Heart attack, cancer, something that is very expensive and very unwelcome. The brouhaha over birth control is like lobbying for your auto insurance to cover your gas purchases, or your life insurance to cover your groceries. It is beyond ridiculous and it will guarantee that health care costs will not be curtailed by ObamaCare but accelerate until either the cost is astronomical or we will have to wait weeks, months, or years for service. There is a reason that you have to wait about three months to get a CT can in Canada today, but if you want to get one for your dog, it will be about three weeks. The CT scan for you is free through government health insurance. The CT scan for your dog is out of your pocket. It is simple economics; supply and demand. If you fix the price then you have to wait. It may be free, but you could die waiting. Perhaps that’s how ObamaCare plans to save money.
Originally posted at Liberty’s Lifeline.
Bill O’Connell lives in New York and is the author of the blog at http://libertyslifeline.com and the new book Liberty’s Lifeline. Feel free to follow him on Twitter and at the book’s fan page at www.facebook.com/libertyslifeline
It would cost $852 quadrillion dollars to build a real Death Star.
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