I wish I were a liberal

American Thinker

I wish I were a liberal, because then everyone would like me. My family would start talking to me again, and chances are, my ex-husband would want to renew the marriage vows he broke when I started spouting conservative opinions.

I'd like to be a liberal because it's ever so much easier to allow others to form my opinions for me instead of researching an issue myself. That always gets me in trouble, especially when the facts I discover diverge from the latest politically correct consensus.

I'd like to be a liberal because then I'd be rewarded for all my shortcomings and nothing would ever be my fault. I'd be an important cog in the wheel of social justice, and a cherished warrior in the current fight for equality.

If I were a liberal, I would be free to have sex whenever and with whomever I want -- and be considered 'empowered' to boot. I could abort any inconvenience with nary a thought because my rights to my body trump the life I would have suctioned out of me.

I'd like to be a liberal because any guilt I would normally feel for what used to be considered deviant, irresponsible behavior may be assuaged by merely advocating the expenditure of other people's money on whatever the cause du jour is. Very cool. Especially since my stock portfolio has tanked.

I want to be a liberal because they care so much. They have a lock on all the fashionable emotions, like tolerance, diversity, equality and patriotism. And as long as my intentions were pure and I 'care', I wouldn't have to accept responsibility for any negative consequences that my actions might cause.

I'd like to be a liberal because everyone knows that conservatives are racist, homophobic, stupid and, well, beneath contempt. Conservatives are motivated by -- gasp -- profit, instead of being nice. Enough said.

It would be swell to be a liberal because I'd be able to redefine reality to my own specifications. I could turn failure into success, murder into choice, lies into 'misstatements', and theft into investment. I would automatically be considered wise, instead of opinionated. Best of all, I could make up the rules as I go along, change them in midstream and then demonize anyone who doesn't agree with me.

It's great to be a liberal because everyone knows they hold the moral high ground. They don't lie, cheat or steal. Oh, and they don't condone torture. The media says so, so it must be true.

Before I am able to join this community of man, however, there are a few ground rules:

I have to acknowledge that government is the best and only solution for any problems America has. Despite the fact that pretty much every government solution to date has been a disaster.

I must agree that America is bad and white Christian males are responsible for all that is wrong with the world. Further, I must agree that terrorists and third world dictators are either freedom fighters or misunderstood men of good would.

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Cap and trade bill includes unemployment benefits - Largest tax increase in history.

Examiner.com

Hold onto your hats folks, here it comes…

In a revealing editorial today, the Washington Examiner (not related to Examiner.com) revealed a huge unemployment package buried in the Waxman-Markley Cap and trade energy bill.

At first glance this just seems like more of the usual Washington shuck-n-jive. However, when one considers the implications of this, it becomes apparent that the writers of the cap and trade bill are very clearly aware that this bill will cost thousands of jobs. So much so that unemployment benefits for those losing their jobs because of it will go for THREE YEARS, 156 weeks. Obviously they are not expecting these hapless folks to find new work easily! The Washington examiner reports that these victims of Washington DC legislation and Congress will get 80% of their insurance premiums paid, a 1500$ relocation allowance, and job search expenses of up to 1500$.

If this is an energy bill… which by the way, is being sold as legislation that will create higher paying “Green” jobs, in higher numbers than those lost, then what are unemployment benefits for up to three years doing in it?

Note to all of those who are supporting this bill, both Nationally and locally here in Oregon, be prepared for your energy costs to go up by a minimum of 50%, and by some estimates up to 90%. Let’s put some numbers with that. Say your average electric bill for a year is 100$ a month. That’s 1200$ a year. Your bill will go up to 150$ a month, for a total of 1800$ a year with just a 50% increase. With a 90% increase that number will be 2280$, or 190$ a month. But that’s not all; the cost of your Natural gas will go up similarly. So will the grocery store’s electric bill, 50% higher refrigeration costs = 50% higher cost passed on to you the consumer. Your Hairdresser’s electricity cost will go up, and so will the cost of your shampoo blow-dry, and Color. Every single industry that uses power of any sort will go up, and your cost of living will rise exponentially.

All this for less that 2 tenths of a degree cooling over the next century, which will absolutely crack up the Chinese and Indians who are praying (if the communist government of China would admit to praying) that this legislation passes! Why?

Because it will absolutely kill the productive engine that is the lifeblood of the United States of America, the economic engine of the world! Of course they want it to pass, it will make them the world’s only superpower. Throw in the fact they own a huge swath of our national debt, and you should now be seeing a very dark black cloud rising over our future.

It should be stressed here, that even a COMMUNIST Government will not institute legislation that will destroy its economy to the extent that this bill will.

Cap and Trade vs. the American Dream

National Review
The global-warming bill got a chilly reception when it was introduced in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s global-warming subcommittee. It was not only the subcommittee’s Republicans but also a number of its Democrats who had serious questions about the proposal to slash greenhouse-gas emissions.

Unable to win subcommittee support for the bill, committee chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) and his chief environmental lieutenant, Ed Markey (D., Mass.), had to withdraw it and go back to the drawing board. After intense closed-door negotiations, they returned to the full committee with a new version last Friday, May 15. Early indications are that this “new and improved” version now contains enough sweeteners to make it palatable to committee Democrats made queasy by the original draft.

These reluctant Democrats hail from states with heavy concentrations of manufacturing employment, lots of electricity generated from “dirty” coal, robust energy sectors (oil refineries, offshore platforms, etc.), and other characteristics that make their districts ground zero for any cap-and-trade scheme. Given all this, one would assume that the fruits of these negotiations would be a watered-down proposal that destroyed fewer jobs, imposed lower increases in energy costs, and demanded less austere lifestyle changes.

One would be wrong. Economists at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis plugged the new provisions of the draft proposal into a sophisticated model of the U.S. economy. The results were nothing short of astonishing: The negotiations succeeded in making the revised plan even more economically debilitating than the original.

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Charlotte Allen: Why I can't stand atheists

TwinCities.com

I can't stand atheists — but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores.

Other people, most recently the British cultural critic Terry Eagleton in his new book "Faith, Reason, and Revolution," take to task such superstar nonbelievers as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion") and political journalist Christopher Hitchens ("God Is Not Great") for indulging in a philosophically primitive opposition of faith and reason that assumes that if science can't prove something, it doesn't exist.

My problem with atheists is their tiresome — and way old — insistence that they are being oppressed and their fixation with the fine points of Christianity. What, did their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?

Read Dawkins, or Hitchens, or the works of fellow atheists Sam Harris ("The End of Faith") and Daniel Dennett ("Breaking the Spell"), or visit an atheist Web site or blog (there are zillions of them, bearing such titles as "God Is for Suckers," "God Is Imaginary" and "God Is Pretend"), and your eyes will glaze over as you peruse — again and again — the obsessively tiny range of topics around which atheists circle like water in a drain.

First off, there's atheist victimology: Boohoo, everybody hates us 'cuz we don't believe in God.

Although a recent Pew Forum survey on religion found that 16 percent of Americans describe themselves as religiously

unaffiliated, only 1.6 percent call themselves atheists, with another 2.4 percent weighing in as agnostics (a group despised as wishy-washy by atheists). You or I might attribute the low numbers to atheists' failure to win converts to their unbelief, but atheists say the problem is persecution so relentless that it drives tens of millions of God-deniers into a closet of feigned faith, like gays before Stonewall.
In his online "Atheist Manifesto," Harris writes that "no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain that ... God exists."

The evidence? Antique clauses in the constitutions of six — count 'em — states barring atheists from office.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled such provisions unenforceable nearly 50 years ago, but that doesn't stop atheists from bewailing that they have to hide their Godlessness from friends, relatives, employers and potential dates. One representative of the pity-poor-me school of atheism, Kathleen Goodman, writing in January for the Chronicle of Higher Education, went so far as to promote affirmative action for atheists on college campuses: specially designated, college-subsidized "safe spaces" for them to express their views.

Maybe atheists wouldn't be so unpopular if they stopped beating the drum until the hide splits on their second-favorite topic: How stupid people are who believe in God.

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Forwarding from vet’s link:

You’re a 19 year old kid. You’re critically wounded,
and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965,
LZ X-ray , Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 -
1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards
away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the
MediVac helicopters to s top coming in.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine
guns, and you know you’re not getting out. Your family
is half-way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and
you’ll never see them again. As the world starts to fade
in and out, you know this is the day. Then, over the
machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a
helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it
doesn’t seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on
it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He’s not Medi-Vac, so
it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into
the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not
to come.

He’s coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire,
as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the
Doctors and Nurses.< /span>

And, he kept coming back.... 13 more times..... And took
about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have
gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman,died last Wednesday at
the age of 80, in Boise , ID ......May God rest his soul.....

I bet you didn’t hear about this hero’s passing,
but we sure were told a whole bunch about some Hip-Hop
Coward beating the crap out of his “girlfriend.”

Medal of Honor Winner Ed Freeman!

Shame on the American Media.

Let us remember him by forwarding this email

—
James M. Olsen
Shining City Media - “True to the Vision”
2412 Soundview Drive NE
Bainbridge Isl, WA 98110
(206) 276-5242 cell / (206) 570-7711 pager

GOP hates Palin

100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKE

New York Post

1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, 3/11

2. "There is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments." -- Obama during the campaign.

MORE: Obama's First 100 Days in Photos

3. This year's budget deficit: $1.5 trillion.

4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a whopping .0027%!

5. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, 4/15

6. "Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the 'teleprompt president' over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech." -- Sky News, 3/18

7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn.

8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer -- to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own -- a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew.

9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn't properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey's induction into the European Union.

10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide.

11. The picture of Obama and Hugo Chavez shaking hands.

12. Hugo Chavez gave him the anti-American screed "The Open Veins of Latin America." Obama didn't remark upon it. At least it wasn't DVDs.

13. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega went on a 50-minute anti-American rant, calling Obama "president of an empire." Obama didn't leave the room. "I thought it was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought," he said.

14. Executives at AIG get $165 million in bonuses, despite receiving an $173 billion taxpayer bailout.

15. "For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back." -- Associated Press, 3/18

16. "After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway." -- New York Post, 2/15

17. MEGHAN CLYNE ON: "I WON" AND THE DEATH OF BIPARTISANSHIP

18. "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." -- Department of Homeland Security intelligence report

19. Nixes a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill.

20. "Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn't have a drug war going on. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there." -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The 9/11 hijackers did not come across the Canada border

21. "The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as 'the largest middle-class tax increase in history.' " -- New York Times, 3/14

22. JOE SCARBOROUGH ON: PROMOTING FEAR

23. Sanjay Gupta was in discussions to become Surgeon General, but the TV personality withdrew after he was criticized for his flimsy political record.

24. Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans believe the Obama administration's release of CIA memos endangers the national security of the United States.

25. Only 28% think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects.

26. "Obama thanked CIA employees for their work and said they're invaluable to national security. He explained his decision to release the memos, then told everyone not to feel bad because he was now acknowledging potential mistakes. Theirs, not his. 'That's how we learn,' Obama said, as though soothing a room full of fourth-graders." -- The Oklahoman, 4/23

27. By releasing the torture memos, Obama opened American citizens up to international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else violate the Geneva Conventions.

28. In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama gave him 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe.

29. TIM CARNEY ON: PICKING BILL RICHARDSON AS SECRETARY OF COMMERCE

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Ira Einhorn: Founder of Earth Day and Killer

Ira Einhorn

(byname: the Unicorn) was a leading liberal icon and activist of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the late-1960's through the 1970's, advocating free love, ecology, and claiming to be a founder of Earth Day in 1970; however, he is best known for the brutal murder of his former girfriend (Holly Maddux) and his escape from justice for nearly two decades.

Protesters confront CNN reporter

Lost In An Energy Wilderness

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Energy Policy: The House approves a Senate-passed omnibus bill that puts 2 million more acres of energy-rich land off-limits. We need a government that leads us out of the energy wilderness and not into it.

Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed on a 285-148 vote the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S.22), which confirms our theory that no good comes from legislation labeled "comprehensive" or "omnibus."

S.22 is a smorgasbord of 160 bills totaling more than 1,300 pages and, no, we're not sure how many who voted for it actually read it. A stimulus bill it is not, for it locks up an additional 2 million acres to the 107 million acres of federally owned wilderness areas. That total is more than the area of Montana and Wyoming combined.

Speaking of Wyoming, 1.1 million of these newly restricted acres are in that state. This bill, which also provides $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California, takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in that state, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

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Look for higher fuel prices.....

Bitch "Jeanne Devon" Famed for Anonymous Anti-Palin Blog 'Outed' by Lawmaker

HuffPo

An Alaskan state legislator revealed in his constituent e-newsletter Friday the identity of an anonymous local blogger who was made famous by her criticisms of Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign season.

Mudflats blogger "Alaska Muckraker" (AKM) rose to blogger fame almost instantaneously when Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin was tapped to be John McCain's running mate, and the then anonymous blogger wrote "What is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan's Perspective" under the penname AKM. Little was known about Palin in the lower 48, and AKM provided a much-needed window throughout the campaign season into Palin's performance as governor of Alaska from a progressive viewpoint.

AKM earned the ire of Alaska Representative Mike Doogan (LD-25) of Anchorage (who happens to be a writer by trade) when AKM wrote a blog post about a rude email that Doogan sent to his constituents. He had saved up all of the emails from constituents on the Troopergate issue, and in December he responded to all of them at once, CC'ing a list of about thirty perfect strangers together in one email, telling them,

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Anonymous Blogger Anonymous No More

The identity of the person who writes the liberal Democratic Mudflats blog has been secret since the blog began, protected by the Anchorage Daily News, among others. My own theory about the public process is you can say what you want, as long as you are willing to stand behind it using your real name. So I was interested to learn that the woman who writes the blog is Anchorage resident Jeanne Devon.

Best wishes,

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Another ugly liberal jealous of Palin.

AIG Bonuses Renew Call for Congress to Read Bills

CBS News

The fine print in the stimulus bill authorizing the AIG bonuses, which was rushed through the U.S. Congress at lightning speed, has led to a renewed call for politicians to read legislation before they vote on it.

That kind of rule may seem like plain common sense, but it's surprisingly common for members of Congress to be handed a bill that's hundreds or thousands of pages long -- and have only a few hours to read it before a vote. In other words, legislators may approve complex and important measures even though they may not know what they're actually voting on.

Jim Babka, executive director of a non-profit, non-partisan group called Downsize DC, says the AIG-bonus flap has prompted more interest in a project he's been advocating called Read the Bills Act.

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California May Ban Black Cars

Michael Arrington

Washington Post

The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them. A presentation on the proposed legislation by the California Air Resources Board is below.

The problem isn't the color per se, but the reflectivity of the paint overall. And dark colors just don't reflect well, so they are likely out. "Jet black remains an issue," says the report.

Democrat looking at taxing health benefit

ReutersUK

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Senate Democrat said Tuesday he would consider taxing U.S. workers on their employer-sponsored health insurance to help pay for extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

"I think that tax provision should be on the table," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who will play a major role in writing the legislation to revamp the U.S. healthcare system as promised by President Barack Obama.

"It's too aggressive. It skews the system," he said of the tax benefit.

Most U.S. workers with health insurance get it through their employers -- 160 million of them -- although recent surveys have shown that number is declining as businesses try to cope with the rapidly rising cost of insurance.

The employer-provided benefit is not taxed as income and critics say the tax break encourages workers to seek a more generous benefit package than they might want if it was taxed.

Eliminating the tax break was part of the health overhaul package proposed by Republican Senator John McCain in his unsuccessful presidential bid against Obama.

But taxing health insurance benefits as income will likely meet with strong resistance from labor unions who negotiate benefit packages on behalf of their members.

Baucus told reporters he does not favor eliminating the tax break but is looking at limiting it. The move would provide a much-needed source of revenue to help finance a broad overhaul that lawmakers hope will contain soaring costs and cover an estimated 46 million uninsured Americans.

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