BIDEN TIME AGAIN

Joe Biden – April 2008 – Iraq is a failure.
Joe Biden – February 2010 – Iraq is a success..
Turning Iraq into a Democracy is one of Obama’s greatest achievements was the theme of Bidens’ message to Larry King.

Joe Biden is first in the line of succession to the Presidency. Smiling Nancy Pelosi follows, then it would be former Klu Klux Klan organizer Robert Byrd. You know Byrd, the Democratic Senator from W. Va. who filibustered for 14 straight hours against passage of the Civil Rights Act. Surely Thomas Jefferson would be appalled to see what has become the party he founded.

Bob B

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BILL OF RIGHTS

The Supreme Court is about to hear a case on gun control. The Second Amendment gave citizens the right to bear arms. The first ten amendments to the US Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights. The case at issue will bring the entire Bill of Rights into the picture.

The narrow issue is whether states and cities can restrict gun control without violating the Second Amendment. One side argues that the Bill of Rights was intended to limit Federal government and does not apply to state and local government. The opposition will counter with the tenet that state and local law cannot contravene Federal law.

If the first argument prevails logic follows that the entire Bill of Rights only prevails at the will of each state. The ten amendments get their name from their function, a list of citizens rights that cannot be abrogated by government.

If you have read A Conflict of Visions or even just the review, you know where each side stands and the core reason why. The Left trusts leaders of government more than it trusts the citizens. They favor more power to our leaders. The Constitution limits the power of our leaders. The Right supports the limitation because it recognizes that all leaders are not good and wants a strong Constitution to protect America from ever drifting into control by a despot.

This case is about a lot more than gun control. It is about government control.

Bob B

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Beating the competition to a parking spot.

OLYMPIC GAMES MUSLIM STYLE

This post is about the best and the worst of the New York Times. First the worst, and it is really bad.

MSNBC has Keith Olbermann; the New York Times has Frank Rich. At Power Line the usually soft spoken Hinderaker begins a scathing analysis with “As an op-ed columnist for the Times, his [Frank Rich’s] assignment, apparently, is to write in such a hysterical fashion that Paul Krugman seems rational by comparison”. Click the blue text and link yourself over to what else Hinderaker has to say about Rich’s latest bit of yellow journalism. You will never know how low the Times can go if you don’t read this analysis.

Next, the best. The New York Times was once the most respected Newspaper in the nation, if not the entire world. Thankfully, vestiges of its former greatness remain. The OP-ED piece Muslims Won’t Play Together by Efraim Karsh is a prime example. We have the Olympics. The Islamic world has come up with their version, called the Solidarity Games. Karsh reports that this year the games were canceled due to a lack of …solidarity.

The sports report is interesting and entertaining, however, what makes the Karsh piece a great journalistic work is not the commentary on the games, but his segway into fundamental Pan-Arabic and Israeli-Islamic issues. In the meager space available for an OP-ED piece Karsh covered ground that another could not have covered in less than a book. You will do well to read it.

Bob B

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CALLING ALL WARMERS

It has come to my attention that more people live in Africa than in Scandinavia. Warm seems to be good for people. Like Mikey, they like it. With tongue firmly in cheek I propose warmers, people of the anthropogenic global warming faith, could save more lives if they became platers instead.

Any fool can see more lives are being lost to earthquakes than to warmth. Surely the warmers can see that. What the world needs now is for good people to rise up against intercontinental plate shift. America as usual is the worst offender. With populations concentrated on both ends it puts a strain on the middle of our plate. George Bush only worsens the problem. He lives in the middle so no one wants to go there anymore.

C’mon college students! Start a movement for a shiftless America. You could call it Students Against Plate Shift.

Bob B

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The Patriotic Act Extension was signed into law today. Harry Reid’s Senate and Nancy Pelosi’s House were able to get it passed with bi-partisan support from the Republican Minority, library access, warrantless wiretaps and all. Who says Republicans do not cross the aisle?

JEFFERSON AND MY MOTHER

Is your path occasionally crossed by an obnoxious zealot? Perhaps it is a friend, relative, or co-worker who asks for your opinion then snarls at your answer. Thomas Jefferson left some advice for you in a letter to his grandson on November 24, 1796.

“In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”

My mother’s advice was, don’t argue with a drunk. Same concept.

So much fuss is made about political acrimony today one could easily get the idea it was never so in the past. But our very nation was born out of political acrimony. The Tea Party, the one in 1773, was a manifestation of political acrimony between the King and the people.

If you are set upon with offensive words, be not dismayed. If you are charged with same, be not intimidated. For of such has it always been and forever will it so remain.

Click this link for a short video of the Bolivian Parliament in action and I mean action.

Bob B

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FALKLANDS GO UNDER THE BUS

Argentina is agitating again to take the Falkland Islands. Oil is involved and Argentina needs the money to keep their socialist government running a little longer

Down through the years America has had no greater or more reliable ally than Great Britain. Sure, we had a spat in 1776 but what family doesn’t. Since then a very special relationship has existed between us, a kinship.

Some 70 years ago Hitler decided he wanted to own England. Hitler was a menace but we saw little threat to our homeland. The world was a lot bigger then and 3000 miles of ocean offered significant protection. And then we had our own day of infamy with the formidable task of replenishing a devastated Navy and building a military to defend our own nation. But that special relationship came to the fore.

Together we ended the atrocity that was World War II. Two hundred thousand flag draped boxes came back. A hundred thousand more lie forever away from home, interred where they died. It is what brothers do for brothers.

When we asked for help to drive Iraq from Kuwait the British were the first to respond. When we sought support for the Iraq war it was British combat troops who took responsibility for the southern portion. They have always been there when we needed them.

Now they need us. They need us to stand with them, not with troops, not with money, just a few spoken words of support. Obama’s response? Bug off Britain! You are on your own. If Argentina, with backing from Hugo Chavez, wants to blockade the Falkland Islands, let them. Excuse my paraphrasing but this abandonment is beyond contempt.

Obama insults the Queen with a gift of his speeches on CD’s that will not play on European players. Michelle gives the Queen a condescending pat on the back. Barack in turn gives a gift to the Prime Minister equally as disrespectful as the one to the Queen. Obama knows what he is doing, and if he didn’t there is a White House department of protocol to advise him. His insults are intentional.

That’s not all. Obama refused to meet with Prime Minister Brown at the G20 Summit, at the UN and on at least three other occasions. Yet he is ready to meet with Ahmadinejad anytime. As if to leave no doubt where he stands, Obama ordered the premature banishment of the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House, sending it back to the British people in a gesture of no thanks.

The British drink tea instead of coffee and eat fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. Other than that they are normal, peaceable, very fine folk. Whatever is it that Obama could have against these Anglo Saxons who represent such a significant part of Americas’ heritage?

FULL OF BLUSTER

The nuclear option and the filibuster brouhaha – pay it no attention. It’s just routine politics. Remember, these guys are mostly lawyers so they argue a lot. The “nuclear option” was a Republican bid to render the filibuster to eternal oblivion by deeming it unconstitutional. It is a thorn to the majority and a tool for the minority. Republicans were the majority at the time so they sought to remove the thorn and the Democrats argued to keep the tool. When the tool changes hands the advocates change sides but the argument remains the same.

The most famous filibuster took place when Sen Robert Byrd (D)WV stood for 14 straight hours on the Senate floor reading portions of the Bible and his mothers cooking recipes all in an effort to block the the civil rights bill. At that time a speaker had to hold the floor in order to maintain the filibuster.

Since then some senators have questioned the need to learn how to make grits and gravy before voting on a vital issue. Others felt a Senator should not be required to stand for hours just to obstruct legislation. So they changed the rules. I believe all you need do now is stand up, say “I am filibustering” and sit down. I think they got the idea from Japanese workers who would work their butts off at the job while wearing a button that said “we are on strike”.

Politics isn’t always serious. Sometimes it’s just silly.

Bob B

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FRIEDMAN’S FAT LADY

Thomas Friedman has penned an article for the New York Times declaring The Fat Lady Has Sung. Friedman’s fat lady is the bounty provided by the generations preceding us. But the glory days are over. “We are eating through the prosperity that was bequeathed to us like hungry locusts.”

He sees the problem and offers a solution – more government spending and higher taxes. Of course he didn’t say “more government spending”, but he advocated for deployment of Obama’s programs as part of the solution. And what is that if not more government spending? Einstein’s definition of idiocy immediately comes to mind. But Friedman is a very intelligent man. If idiocy is not the answer, then how is it that repeating the cause of the problem comes to be seen as the solution?

If you have read A Conflict of Visions you know the answer. It lies in an uwavering belief in the superiority of conceptual planning over the empirical evidence of experience. Reagan came close when he simply said “Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.”

It is clear that Friedman sees government to be the solution. I wonder what he sees as the cause.

Bob B

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