Kate at An Ol' Broad's Ramblings has posted a collection of some hard-hitting cartoons in today's edition of "Weasel Time". Several deal with the obvious attempt to begin the "Death Panel" process via new recommendations regarding mammograms and such. One example:
Call the sick Statists in the Senate at (202) 224-3121 then visit "Weasel Time" to enjoy the other toons!
Tired of following the lead of party establishment types who have likely been in their positions for way too long? Disgusted with the procession of career politicians being paraded as the "best chance for victory"? Had enough of the people that contributed to the budgetary, entitlement, and corruption mess that is the Illinois State government?
If you live in or near Clay County, IL, you can come to the Louisville Community Center to meet the gubernatorial candidate that offers a clean break from the tradition of the tired politician! The following is from fellow Tea Party organizer and concerned conservative citizen, Sally Henson:
GREAT NEWS!!!
Adam Andrzejewski is coming to Clay County next Monday November 23, 2009. He will be going to Louisville for a meet and greet for all people including businesses. This is such a great opportunity to ask Adam questions and dispel any myths or hesitations you might have in supporting him. He is the only true Outsider who is running for Governor AND I strongly believe he deserves downstate Illinois’ support.
Aren’t you tired of the status quo, business as usual, politicians? ME TOO.
Come and meet Adam Monday November 23, 2009 from about 3:30 PM to 5:00PM at the Community Center on the square in Louisville, IL.
Of course, Clay County is in the rural downstate region of Illinois that is frowned upon by some party hacks who turn their noses upward at the mere hint of political activism by those considered to be ignorant hicks, as BannedDaveBack, one of my biggest fans commented on Illinois Review last week:
I was fortunate to have received the great news from our illustrious Senator Dick (Durbin), having voted in his little poll on the "public option". Here is the message from Senator Dick:
Dear sam,
We already knew that a majority of Americans support the inclusion of a public health insurance option in the final health care reform bill.
But now that the results of our online poll are in, something else is now clear: the American people who voted for change last November will settle for nothing less than a robust public option.
Over 80,000 people have responded to our poll, proving Americans know the difference between a strong public option and a weak one -- and a weak one just won't do.
Click here to review the results of our public option poll.
Our poll results show that Americans want the strongest possible public option that can pass the Congress:
Click here to review the results of our public option poll.
I am sharing these results with my colleagues in the Senate this week. If any member of the Democratic caucus thinks no one will notice the absence of a robust public option in the final health care reform bill, they have another thing coming.
I hope you'll take a moment to review the results of our poll as I continue pushing for the strongest possible public health insurance option to pass the Congress. Your feedback will no doubt help me make the case that Americans demand a public health insurance option that is made available to Americans in all 50 states starting on day one.
Thank you for your engagement on this critical issue.
Sincerely,
Dick Durbin
U.S. Senator
Is Dick's poll right? Of course the methodology and the sample are not included if you click the link to review the results, but who could doubt what the results were going to be even before Dick had his poll taken?
Now Dick will show this poll to his co-conspirators in the Senate and will claim that his constituents are in full support of the government take-over of the system of medical care delivery in our nation. Dick will use his poll to drive home the fabricated fervor of the American people to receive Post Office style service when they are ill.
What do you think of Dick's little poll?
By Dr. Robert Owens
If no one has told you this yet let me be the first, as you get older time goes faster. If you’re under thirty you’re thinking, “This old coot has finally gone off his rocker! Everyone knows an hour is an hour. So how can time go faster as you get older?” If you’re between thirty and forty you’re thinking, “Who’s got time to think about time and who cares? I’ve got to go to work!” If you’re between forty and sixty you’re thinking “He might have something there” as you day-dream about those endless summers when you were in High School. If you’re over sixty you’re hoping time doesn’t end before you finish reading this paragraph.
Besides being a dimension time is a concept that’s inextricably intertwined with our material reality as in the space-time-continuum, E=MC2 and all that. It took the genius of Einstein to find a way to prove what every old man knows, time can move at different speeds for different people. Knowing all this is little comfort when confronted with reality. The last wave of the Millennial Generation has entered college. I now teach History to students born after the end of the Cold War adults who’ve never known a day without a personal computer, the internet or a cell phone.
When the weapons of the superpowers became too terrible to use the Lost Generation, those who fought World War One and led the world through the Great Depression and World War Two gave America the Cold War. For those too young to remember this was a 50 year conflict marked by bellicose rivalry and our first modern limited war in Korea. Not to be outdone the Greatest Generation, those who grew-up in the Great Depression and fought World War Two and Korea gave us escalating tensions, naval blockades and another limited war in Vietnam. They finished with a flourish by winning the Cold War and then doing a hundred day encore in the Gulf.
The Boomers hit the White House like guest hosts on Saturday Night Live with a snappy monologue and a party in the Oval Office. They tried to keep the limited war train rolling by occupying Bosnia. Losing a Blackhawk in Somalia and bombing Serbia for Kosovo. Then Boomer George met Osama in New York. Enter the first post-boomer president and a War on Terror becomes a law enforcement problem just as Korea with 55,000 dead was a Police Action. Have we refined limited war to the point that we aren’t sure whether it’s a war or a series of unrelated unfortunate incidents?
A friend who optimistically believes every cloud has a silver lining hopes the tragedy at Fort Hood was merely the work of a volunteer in the Insane Clown Army and not a terrorist attack on an American Army base in our supposedly safe Homeland. This struck me as symptomatic of the age we’ve entered; call it the Reality Show at the End of an Era. In the land of the free and the home of the brave the best we can hope for is a demented mass murderer because the alternative is too frightening to face. If home-grown Jihadists are beginning to kill the brave in bosom of the Heartland it won’t be long before check-points and internal passports begin restricting the free in the byways of the homeland.
Have you ever noticed that after Pearl Harbor we didn’t declare war on sneak attacks? Instead, we declared war on those who attacked us. In America today we’re constrained by the emasculating cult of Political Correctness from even naming our enemy. Our leaders blather on about religions of peace when people hold street dances to celebrate 9-11 and mobs murder and burn in reaction to an offensive comic strip. Now we have a person doing his best to enlist as a foot-soldier in Osama’s army while serving in Obama’s, shouting the catch phrase of the 9-11 bomber pilots as he murders more than a dozen unarmed innocents and the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media pussy-foot around trying to give us the false hope that he’s merely a homicidal maniac.
It’s time to understand that if we don’t stand for something we’ll fall for anything and until you admit you have a problem there’s no chance of finding a solution.
Time is slipping into the future. Are we going to stand complicit in our silence as wars without limit fought by people who proudly proclaim they love death more than we love life shoot our unarmed citizens in the name of God? Will we allow apologists for evil to blame the second amendment instead of telling us the truth?
It’s time to rise up and say enough is enough! We know who are enemies are and we know who we are! If the brave want to keep their land the free can’t sit at home chasing the remote. Whatever speed time is moving its going too fast to wait. It’s never too early to be too late. Let’s roll….
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Religion, and Leadership for Southside Virginia Community College. Contact Dr. Owens. © 2009 Robert R. Owens http://robertrowens.com/ Dr. Owens is available for speaking engagements.
Concerned Illinois citizens have an important choice to make on February 2nd, 2010. We must choose the Republican nominee for the United States Senate seat once held, albeit briefly and often in absentia, by President Barack Obama. We must choose from an informed position as opposed to letting apathy or the money of D.C. "moderates" decide who wins the primary. Our choice must be ours, not Senator John McCain's or the NRSC's. Our choice, if we want to begin to make a difference should be a Reagan Republican as opposed to an Obama Republican.
We would do well to abandon the flawed yet seemingly permeating logic that suggests that the only way to return this seat to the Republican Party is to avoid Republican values and the Republican Platform. It makes no sense to take issues off the table by nominating one who will share positions with whichever Democrat candidate wins. It makes no sense to support "He Who Must Not Be Nominated" as I and fellow downstate Illinois patriot, Brian Milleville (of www.downstateiladvocate.com) have dubbed Congressman Mark Kirk.
I would ask the conservative candidates in this race to consider uniting with one voice. I would ask Dr. Eric Wallace, who I supported wholeheartedly to consider supporting Patrick Hughes, Republican for United States Senate. It is clear that the candidate to represent conservative values in the race for the Seante seat must have a genuine Republican message, hold actual Republican values, and have an organization that can assist with the rigors of campaigning. I am convinced that Patrick Hughes is the "Right Choice" and is our best hope for placing a real Republican in one of Illinois two United States Senate seats!Yesterday evening I attended a meet and greet for Patrick Hughes hosted by the Effingham GOP. The Effingham American Legion graciously allowed us to meet in their facility. It was great to meet Patrick Hughes and Charlie Johnson who is working with Patrick in his endeavor to bring real change to Washington. By real change, I mean as Hughes' literature says "A Senator for Us. For a Change." I mean a Senator who believes as Hughes told me yesterday evening, "The Constitution says what it says!"
There are sure to be those in Illinois Republican circles who take issue with a reference to Mark Kirk as an Obama Republican and those who have aligned with Mark Kirk who will cling to Patrick Hughes' personal voting record (or distortions of it) in order to make a thin case against him. Before addressing my justification for referring to Congressman Kirk as an Obama Republican, I will address the voting issue. I asked Hughes about it and pointed out that it has been mentioned in the Illinois Review comments made by Kirk supporters.
Hughes pointed out that he has voted Republican in every election he in which he voted. He also said that he had not been active in the primary process for much of his life (which I could relate to, having grown into the knowledge of its importance and the need of getting more involved, myself.) While he was not participating in primaries, Hughes contributed to the economy, created jobs, and raised a family. I suggest that these endeavors are important and perhaps the best contribution he could have made especially during the times when the likes of Judy Barr-Topinka were being given the full establishment backing (similar to the way Mark Kirk is now.) Hughes did study national policy issues during that period of his life and when it became clear he must do something, he got involved in order to save Illinois taxpayers $2.2 billion as chairman of STOP-IT.
I will grant that Mark Kirk is not always on the left in his political leanings and his military service is certainly commendable. That said, he certainly qualifies as an Obama Republican on several key issues and several issues on which his position could lead to devastation to our state and our nation. His vote for Cap and Trade is truly unforgivable and his protestations about future votes for the same not withstanding, this issue is off the table if Mark Kirk goes up against Giannoulias or another Democrat. Mark Kirk voted to raise the cost of everything manufactured, or in any way transported. Mark Kirk voted for the position of the enviro-statist... despite the current economic difficulties our nation faces! In other words, Mark Kirk voted to worsen the economy and no amount of spin or any election season conversions will eliminate the foul odor of his Cap and Trade position.
Is John Cornyn's plan for the NRSC to recruit and push "centrist" candidates going way too far with the courting of and contributing to Mark Kirk? I think so and until major changes are made, could never donate to the organization. In addition to the glaring disparity between common sense Republicans and Mark Kirk on the catastrophic Cap and Trade, there are several other important areas in which Congressman Kirk seems most comfortable on the left:
As Patrick Hughes says, "We have real problems that require real solutions and a real leader who is not afraid of anyone." We do need such a leader. We do need Patrick Hughes, Republican for Senate!
By Dr. Robert Owens
The Framers moved beyond a loose Confederation of States creating the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known. They birthed a nation conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal unleashing the creative power and energy of humanity in a way never before known and never since equaled. They launched a government of the people, by the people and for the people .
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery the Constitution should feel very flattered. Our founding document has been copied by almost as many countries as radio talking-heads trying to imitate Rush Limbaugh. Though it was the best set of compromises the Framers could hammer-out they knew as time passed it might need to be changed. They made provisions for gradual evolution to occur without the Revolution they used to obtain change they could believe in or the Civil War their grandchildren fought to change that change.
How are we the descendants of the ascendant supposed to change the foundations laid hundreds of years ago into the structure we want today? To preserve and protect the representative nature and federal structure of the government they created the Framers designed a process through which legitimate change must involve the representatives of the people and the States through formal amendments. Outside of this the words as written and as meant were to be the law of the land. The idea that the words of the Constitution have to be re-interpreted every generation is ludicrous. The Federalist papers, the notes of James Madison the primary author and dictionaries of the time exist to tell us what the words meant to the writers. If the words are re-interpreted with every generation all that has to be done to change the document is change the meaning of the words.
The Framers in Article Five provided two methods to propose amendments. Congress may propose amendments with a 2/3 vote in both houses or the legislatures of two thirds of the states can call a convention for proposing amendments. The second method has never been used though today we’re only two states away from calling a Constitutional Convention. When an amendment is ratified by either the legislatures or specially called conventions of 3/4 of the states it becomes part of the Constitution.
This is how we’re supposed to go about changing the fundamental nature of our Republic. Not by fiat, not by decree, not by clever re-interpretation and certainly not by the whim of a fickle electorate every four years.
President Obama is not the first president to appoint an official adviser without submitting them to the Senate for confirmation. Back in the 1830s with an official Cabinet of lackluster hacks confirmed by the Senate President Jackson depended on an unofficial group of close personal friends and practical politicians for advice. Turning a good phrase the journalists of the day anointed this the “Kitchen Cabinet.” Thus the presidents fulfill the letter of the law moving less controversial non-entities through the confirmation process as figureheads to run bureaucratic departments while relying on others outside the glare of scrutiny as their sources of information, their compass.
Has this now become the means to change the nature of our government without using the amendment process? From Republican to Democrat both parties have used an ever growing number of appointments to staff their governments with people who are not accountable to anyone, who are not vetted by anyone and many who couldn’t get a security clearance if they were. Until today we have the Cavalcade of Czars. A school-safety czar who led the way in introducing homosexual advocacy in public schools, a pay czar who decides who gets what at companies receiving government funds, a technology czar forced to resign because of a bribery scandal replaced by one who has no education in technology.
This growing shadow government being constructed alongside our traditional governmental structure combined with the administration’s radical legislative program marks a rising to a crescendo of change that is hard to believe. This radical agenda includes; nationalizing health care along with approximately 1/6th of the economy, the take-over of major industries, a cap-n-tax energy boondoggle that will cripple the economy and comprehensive import-a-voter immigration reform.
Have we reached the tipping point? Will we stand idly by while slick politicians surrounded by people we would never elect turn us into what we would never willingly become? Will we cruise the remote while they fundamentally change America from what we’ve known to what we would never choose? Is this the change we were promised or has someone changed the change.
Will we leave our children in service to an ever growing centralized state with a planned economy and an obedient media singing songs to the Glorious Leader and wondering ,”Why did they let freedom slip through their fingers?”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Religion, and Leadership for Southside Virginia Community College. Contact Dr. Owens. © 2009 Robert R. Owens http://robertrowens.com/ Dr. Owens is available for speaking engagements.
This is not intended to paint the entire generation that followed the "Greatest Generation" with the same red brush. There are certainly patriotic citizens and those who cherish the liberty our founders established among the offspring of the generation who fought World War II. I am related by blood and by marriage to such patriotic children of the "Greatest Generation".
This is about the groovy hippies who never grew out of that phase. This is about the "peace" and "love" types like Bill Ayers who likely mentored Barack Obama more than he would ever admit to the voting public. This is about those who were born in the forties and went from the university to law school to Congress and soaked up all the Marxist ideology they could along the way. This is about those who went from hippy to Congressional intestinal worm and have infested the Capitol for decades. This is about the likes of George Miller (Dimocrat CA-7), who has been in the House since he was twenty-nine years old in 1974. Thank God all of California isn't the same as San Francisco (of course I thank God all of Illinois isn't the same as Chicago too). It is too bad California doesn't have more representatives like the elder and younger Duncan Hunter!
The day after Miller participated in fellow San Francisco Statist scum Nancy Piglosi's passage of the destruction of healthcare (at least if the House Dims and Rep. Cao have their way) as we knew it, I see yet another bill introduced which would once again allow federal government intrusion into places in which it has no damn business! H.R. 3991 the "Emergency Influenza Containment Act" serves the following purpose:To ensure that American workers are able to follow, without financial harm, the recommendations of their employer and public health authorities to stay home when they have symptoms of a contagious disease that may put co-workers, customers, or the public at risk.
The "without financial harm" is the key to this intrusion. We do not require the federal government to determine how many (if any) paid sick days our employers allow! If a person has influenza, his employer will not make him come to work for fear of losing his job. That is of course if the employer is one for whom it is worth working or if the employee isn't an awful employee.
They have moved the government takeover of medical care delivery in our nation through the House. They with the help of RINOs like Mark Kirk have moved the Cap and Trade job killing and cost raising catastrophe through the House. They, again with the "bipartisan" help of "moderates" like Mark Kirk instituted thought crime legislation, because apprently in the eyes of the leftist, a violent crime such as murder should only warrant a maximum punishment if it can be called a "hate crime". By the way, is the murder victim more dead if he was hated by his killer? Is there such thing as a murder, mugging, or assault that is commited out of love for the victim?
The left has used its tools such as the ACLU and the education system to place our nation in such a politically correct contortion that a Muslim who should have never been allowed near our soldiers after some of his sympathies and viewpoints became known was instead allowed to be a psychiatrist in the Army and on Thursday he slaughtered 13 people and injured several more at Fort Hood.
Our children and grandchildren owe a huge debt that they had no say in creating. This is thanks to Republicans as well as the Dimocrats, but the burden on our children can not be too great in the eyes of the leftist vermin who now run our government. The hippies traded communes for their brand of Communism. They redistribute wealth from the taxpayerto the ever-growing dependent class for the sake of some Utopian "greater good" and borrow, borrow, then borrow some more to feed their appetites for governmental domination of the "middle class".
They seek to forcibly silence dissent as their Cuban and Venezualan role models have. They strive for democracy when the mob will vote to seize from the producer or empower the bureaucracy. They villify businesses ... unless the businesses support their agenda. They demonize profit, just not their own. They artfully practice identity politics and still claim that a black man doesn't have a chance in this "mean" country despite the election of Barack Obama. They insist that Muslim terrorists not be identified as Muslim but they along with their accomplices in the liberal media try to implicate Christians when an abortionist is murdered.
They seek the moral degradation of society to weaken the will of the citizen and make him more susceptible to their socialist goals. They are detstable and their actions are harmful. It is past time for Republicans in positions of political power to stop referring to them as "my friend..." It is time to truly be a "party of no" every time the damn Statists attempt to do any damn thing on a federal level that does not fall under an enumerated power in our Constitution! It is time to respect our Constitution and stop denigrating the decent citizens who demand that which constitutionally must fall to the states or local governments actually be left alone by the federal behemoth, as "tenthers"! The Constitution is specific and the Bill of Rights opposes the ten pillars (which can be found in Uncle Karl's book) revered by the Statist.
The above may seem like ranting or rambling, if so, you shouldn't have read it. The times in which we live seem crazy and we don't need our government actively exacerbating the insanity!
I was perusing the new Demotivators catalog this evening and I saw a poster that perfectly represented the atrocity that is our current crop of political porkers. There can be no plausible denial of the obvious fact that many of what are referred to as our "leaders" (or in Barry's case, our "reader") derive inspiration from Marx and believe that Communism simply hasn't been implemented by the right group of Statists to this point. They view themselves as just the (rotten) crop to bring about the U.S.S.A.
While the Dimocrats currently hold the power and certainly represent the bulk of the problem, our "friends" on the other side of the aisle deserve some recognition for their contributions to the seizure of our liberty! Ridiculous RINOs of varying degrees have conspired with the Dims to support the further redistribution of wealth from the producer to the parasite and the punishment of the productive through catastrophic scams such as Rep. Mark Kirk's (RINO - IL 10) Cap and Trade (which he was for before he decided he needs to say he is against it for Senatorial campaigning reasons.)
Today the people's house is doing the work of the left and trying to impose a government takeover of the system of healthcare delivery in our great (but for how long?) nation. The grotesquely disfigured at the hands of an incompetent plastic surgeon, Nancy Piglosi (Statist - CA)... hey do you think her war on our healthcare system was inspired by her tragic face-lift fiasco?... anyway, she is doing her evil worst to take from us the control over our medical care! Power must be centralized and grown in the eyes of these people and the proletariat must be equalized. There must come a time when we depend solely on the benevolence of the all-powerful government, lest Obama's vision not be realized.I urge you to visit despair.com and purchase an item such as the following succinct explanation of one of our glorious government's recent cluster-f***s:
Of course, this sugary sweetness was in response to my piece in support of Patrick Hughes and such thoughts stir quite the emotional rage in supporters of "He Who Must Not Be Nominated" (aka Mark Kirk). Naturally, support for fresh candidates like Adam also illicits rage from some who prefer that things remain the same and that the same politicians continue to be recycled. Perhaps the umbrage of the party establishment is a good thing. Maybe it is time to stop giving the impression that there is no difference between the parties.
Hey, crazy idea! Consider supporting a candidate that does not fit the moldy old mold. How about supporting a candidate who will address the problems of the state instead of play the back-slapping political favor trading that seems to take up the time of those who have for far too long infested our capitol?
Fellow Illinoisans, what informs the belief that by doing the same thing election cycle after election cycle, the problems created by the politicians continually elected will be solved by the creators of the problems?