Wishing All A Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2012
Where the Battle Between Liberty and Tyranny Continues
Rational Nation USA
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Newt with his Halo |
This country is in trouble and bold leadership is needed. As someone that has had the privilege to vet these candidates as closely as just about anybody else has, I’ve come to the conclusion there are several good, Christian people running that most years I would vote for.
However, this isn’t most years.
Sadly, there are only two candidates offering a real means by which to actually undo that which the Left has done to this country for the past 50 years, and not just conservative platitudes. One of those candidates is Ron Paul, but his foreign policy is naive at best and reckless at worst. The other is Newt Gingrich, who has campaigned on what I believe is the most important issue facing us as a people—the loss of the rule of law.
The Left has used unelected judges and judicial oligarchy to reinvent the American way of life, from secularism to the loss of the sanctity of life, to the redefining of marriage, the confiscation of private property, and the granting of imaginary rights. There is an entire chapter of my new book devoted to the need for conservatives and Christians to confront judicial oligarchy once and for all. I have spent the past two years of my radio program educating my audience on this issue...
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I understand Newt has taken positions and done things in his personal life I do not agree with, but to his credit he has come on my radio program and been very transparent about those things, and has shown humility and a willingness to be transparent in the process.
He has signed the Personhood Pledge I advocated for. He has offered one of the most articulate defenses of marriage and the family I have ever read from a candidate. He has agreed to never sign a budget into law that includes a plug nickel for an abortion provider. He has agreed to seek personhood legislation and a stronger defense of marriage act...
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This is a time for leadership, not warm fuzzies. The future is at stake, and we may never get another environment with the country so prepared to challenge the system as we have right now.
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... It is my hope the other Republican candidates will follow Gingrich’s bold leadership in providing the country a true alternative to President Obama.
It is my prayer that next year that for once we actually have something to vote for, and not just something to vote against. I am making this endorsement in the hopes that will be the case. Sometimes the most broken people are the ones God does the most tremendous work through. I know that has been true in my life.
(THE HILL) - Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) blasted Ron Paul's foreign policy views Friday in an interview with The Hill and hinted that he might endorse someone else in order to try and stop Paul from winning the Iowa caucuses.
King, a conservative kingmaker in Iowa, said Paul's foreign policy views are dangerous and have not received enough scrutiny. He said Paul once told him he wants to bring home all American troops.
"What Ron Paul supporters need to think about if they think they can elect him as president, a commander in chief can order all of the armed forces back to the United States," he told The Hill. "That means no presence anywhere on the globe — our enemies can fill that vacuum with very little resources, and I am very troubled by that.
"I don't think that’s a worthwhile price to pay to get the good things Ron Paul talks about, like deficit reduction. I don't think that's worth sacrificing our national security."
King, who has not endorsed, said that Paul's strong position in the state might make him more likely to back another candidate. He spoke positively about both Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney. {Read More}
The coming year will not give us a break from the steady stream of political knavery, green graft and governmental stupidity that 2011 delivered, though it will surely provide a flood of politically-induced comedy.
JANUARY: An enterprising BBC reporter -- seeking to prove the practicality of electric cars -- drove from London to Edinburgh. The journey took four days -- longer than a horse-drawn stage would have taken for the trip 150 years ago -- including nine stops of up to ten hours.
(In its first crisis summit of the year, EU leaders declared they would impose Germanic controls on its members' sovereign debts and toasted each other with large portions of Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac. Meanwhile, in the first Republican presidential debate, both television viewers cheered when twelve contenders, apparently chosen at random, actually showed up.)
FEBRUARY: Chicago chose as its new mayor former White House chief of staff Rahm Effing Emanuel, who immediately ordered a voter registration drive in the city's cemeteries. Shortly after that, the "Arab spring training season" began in Egypt. After Secretary of State Hillary said that the Mubarak regime was stable, the Cairo Clubbers traded their top grenade thrower to the Port Said Molotovs for two machine-gunners and a future draft pick.
(In an urgent crisis summit, Eurozone leaders sought to solve Greece's insolvency by imposing budget rationalization written by Italian PM Silvio Burlesqueoni. Eurozone leaders toasted each other's wisdom with a tiny sip of Dom Perignon 1975 champagne. Burlesqueoni requisitioned the rest of the bottle for what he called a "bunga-bunga" party, which term had to be translated for the media by Bill Clinton.)
MARCH: In January, Obama had proclaimed France our best and strongest ally. Because the French never forgive a favor, Sarkozy dragged Obama into his war for glory in Libya. Barry called it a "kinetic military action" and cute little Sarah called it a "squirmish." My blazingly brilliant pal, Andy McCarthy, said that henceforth we should call acts of terrorism "kinetic Islam." Barry told Congress to stuff its War Powers Resolution because bombing Libya wasn't a hostile act. Meanwhile, Hillary called Syria's Bashar Assad a "reformer." {Read More}
This hyper-partisanship has damaged our country in ways too numerous to count. Let me elaborate. Hyper-partisanship translates into hyper polarization. It colors how we relate to one another. It turns neighbors and normal decent folk into the “other,” the enemy, those hateful liberals or those despised conservatives. It is a function of “identity” politics whose aim is to divide persons with common economic interests into warring factions. Divide and conquer. And a great many of us, liberals and conservative alike, buy into this bullshit and later pay a heavy price.
Hyper-partisanship colors how we think. It gives rise to ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING, where a party, a group, a person are either all black or all white with no shades of gray. Very few people in life are either all good (saints) or all evil (devils); yet hyper-partisanship demands that you think this way.
No matter what a person may achieve, the game of politics commands you to ignore the accomplishments and focus on the flaws; or spin good deeds into failures or characterize all deeds as evil deeds, despite evidence to the contrary. Demonize your opponent, that is the way the game is played.
Suddenly, one of our readers says: “Hey, wait a minute! I’m pissed off at something but I don’t know why.” It is this hyper-partisan programming pulling, tugging, sucking you under until you gasp for air. Time to break the cycle.
We are living in an era of non-stop character assassination and defamation, of political hostage taking, and legislative gridlock at a time when millions of people are suffering. There are powerful corporate interests that want us to be this way – divided – so they can cash in their chips and turn into serfs. Unless we break this cycle and say “To hell with you, I am not buying this bullshit anymore, then they win, and our country will wither away as dry wind-blown leaves of Autumn.
Sorry folks! Either we get our act together, or we will have no future at all.
All of us guilty of allowing ourselves to get sucked into the vortex of hyper-partisanship, and I admit to being as rabid as any … especially when baited by “libtard” epithets or facsimiles thereof. Sometimes I run hot or cold trying to end the cycle of mutual recrimination.
Case in point: Almost two years ago (October 26, 2009), I posted this article: DEMOGRAPHIC CLUSTERING AND THE SELF-SEGREGATION OF AMERICA, which touched on some these points. The comment thread is even more revealing than the post (and you will recognize the names of our conservative friends). Here is a quote from the article:
“Over time, according to Bishop, a preference for living with like-minded neighbors in extreme homogeneous communities incubates ever more extremist views. Voters in landslide districts tend to elect more extreme members to Congress while moderate candidates shun public office. Among highly polarized lawmakers, debates degenerate into shouting matches as legislators engage in obstruction and gridlock. That is how our most urgent and pressing issues go unresolved.”
When I look at the current political situation, it seems the article was prescient: We are now more polarized and gridlocked than ever before, and the current slate of candidates are even more extreme to the point of caricature.
Recalling some of RN’s recent comments, he distrusts the corporate plutocracy as much as we do – for the same reasons – and you would think we would have common cause; yet, identity politics and old habits always get in the way – witness the hyper-sensitivity that always accompanies hyper-partisanship.
I am wonder if it would be worthwhile revisiting this subject again and see where it takes us.
I have been asked by various media the last few days for my comments, view of the current situation regarding my former boss Ron Paul, as he runs for the presidency on the Republican ticket.
I’ve noticed in some media that my words have been twisted and used for an agenda from both sides. And I wish to set the record straight with media that I trust and know will get the story right: conservative/libertarian-conservative bloggers.
Is Ron Paul a “racist.” In short, No. I worked for the man for 12 years, pretty consistently. I never heard a racist word expressed towards Blacks or Jews come out of his mouth. Not once. And understand, I was his close personal assistant. It’s safe to say that I was with him on the campaign trail more than any other individual, whether it be traveling to Fairbanks, Alaska or Boston, Massachusetts in the presidential race, or across the congressional district to San Antonio or Corpus Christi, Texas.
He has frequently hired blacks for his office staff, starting as early as 1988 for the Libertarian campaign. He has also hired many Hispanics, including his current District staffer Dianna Gilbert-Kile.
One caveat: He is what I would describe as “out of touch,” with both Hispanic and Black culture. Ron is far from being the hippest guy around. He is completely clueless when it comes to Hispanic and Black culture, particularly Mexican-American culture. And he is most certainly intolerant of Spanish and those who speak strictly Spanish in his presence, (as are a number of Americans, nothing out of the ordinary here.)
Is Ron Paul an Anti-Semite? Absolutely No. As a Jew, (half on my mother’s side), I can categorically say that I never heard anything out of his mouth, in hundreds of speeches I listened too over the years, or in my personal presence that could be called, “Anti-Semite.” No slurs. No derogatory remarks. {Continue Reading}
(The Washington Post) When discussing his amazingness, Newt Gingrich sometimes exaggerates somewhat, as when, discussing Bosnia and Washington, D.C., street violence, he said, “People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz” [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 16, 1994]. What primarily stands between us and misrule, however, is the Constitution, buttressed by an independent judiciary.
But Gingrich’s hunger for distinction has surely been slaked by his full-throated attack on such a judiciary. He is the first presidential candidate to propose a thorough assault on the rule of law. That is the meaning of his vow to break courts to the saddle of politicians, particularly to members of Congress, who rarely even read the laws they pass.
Gingrich’s most lurid evidence that courts are “grotesquely dictatorial” is a Texas judge’s aggressive decision concerning religious observances at high school functions, a decision a higher court promptly (and dictatorially?) overturned. Gingrich’s epiphany about judicial tyranny occurred in 2002, when a circuit court ruled unconstitutional the Pledge of Allegiance phrase declaring America a nation “under God.” Gingrich likened this to the 1857 Dred Scott decision that led to 625,000 Civil War dead. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the circuit court’s “under God” nonsense.
So, Gingrich is happy? Not exactly. He warns that calling the Supreme Court supreme amounts to embracing “oligarchy.”
He says that the Founders considered the judiciary the “weakest” branch. Not exactly. Alexander Hamilton called the judiciary the “least dangerous” branch (Federalist 78) because, since it wields neither the sword nor the purse, its power resides solely in persuasive “judgment.” That, however, is not weakness but strength based on the public’s respect for public reasoning. Gingrich yearns to shatter that respect and trump such reasoning with raw political power, in the name of majoritarianism. {Read More}
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American Bald Eagle - Representing Freedom and Liberty |
"My fellow Americans, be not deterred in your search for reason and rational thought..
Do not turn from your quest to find truth and an understanding of objective reality.
Be ever suspicious of those circling on the far left as well as those on the far right, as they are your enemy. Indeed they are the enemy of constitutionally limited government and liberty.
Be afraid, very afraid of those who would have you believe the state, with its power hungry special interest manipulators, the ones who advocate increased dependency in statism as the answer to our problems. They simply will provide us with more chains to wrap around our already crippled liberties.
Yes my fellow Americans, we face daunting challenges. Challenges that will require both thinking outside the box as well as returning to a principled and ethical constitutionally limited government. It must be accomplished in our lifetime.
The circling fringes are hungry for your support. In their war of "political attrition" they will do and say whatever they think you might like to hear. Ignore the hyperbole and the platitudes. Focus like a laser on the core. The core of reason and rational analysis. Formulating your decisions on objective reasoning and discard all emotionalism. For this is how we as a nation will indeed slay the extremes that are constantly lurking just around the next corner.
Thank you, and may Reason and Objective Rational Thought prevail."
Occupy Los Angeles |
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The City of Los Angeles reportedly faces millions of dollars in expenses brought about by the Occupy LA movement.
City agencies have been ordered to calculate what was spent on the Occupy LA protests.
Repairs to City Hall’s lawn where the Occupy group set up camp on Oct. 1 will require an estimated $400,000. The police action to clear out the encampment on Nov. 30 cost more than $700,000.
Additional expenses are attributed to hauling away debris from the camp, and cleaning up graffiti that defaced City Hall marble walls and trees.
Mayor Villaraigosa says more budget cuts will be necessary to offset the costs.
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Pinhead Damon and President Obama |
Matt Damon rips President Obama in Elle magazine, blasting his leadership qualities and saying he’d prefer “a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done.”
The actor, a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party and onetime Obama advocate, reveals frustration with the administration in his wide-ranging interview.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level,” says Damon. “One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician.’”
Damon then gets even more direct with his own criticism.
“You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of this country, much better,” argues the We Bought a Zoo star.
He adds, “If the Democrats think that they didn’t have a mandate – people are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off.”
“Imagine if they had a leader,” wonders Damon.
Wow.
What do you think of the actor’s comments?
(Mediaite) - Ron Paul walked out of an interview with CNN’s Gloria Borger following a heated exchange over the controversy regarding racist newsletters sent in his name during the 1990s. Borger asked the Congressman if he had ever read the newsletters. “Did you ever object when you read them?”
“Why don’t you go back and look at what I said yesterday on CNN and what I’ve said for 20 something years. 22 years ago? I didn’t write them, I disavow them, That’s it.”
“But you made money off them,”
“I was still practicing medicine,” Paul responded. “That’s probably why I wasn’t a very good publisher, I had to make a living.”
“There are reports you made almost a million dollars off of them in 1993.” Borger noted.
“No, I’d like to see that money,” Paul responded. “I never read that stuff. I was probably aware of it ten years after it was written and it’s been going on 20 years that people have pestered me about this and CNN does it every single time. So when are you going to wear yourself out?”
“Is it legitimate? Is it a legitimate question to ask that something went out in your name?” Borger continued.
“And when you get the answer, it’s legitimate you sort of take the answers you get. I didn’t write them. didn’t read them at the time and I disavow them. That is your answer.”
“It’s legitimate, it’s legitimate. These things are pretty incendiary,” Borger pressed.
“Because of people like you,” Paul riffed.
But Borger continued to barrage Paul with questions, at which point Paul took off his mic and walked out of the interview
“It seems like Ron Paul got tired of talking about it,” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said.
“I did have to ask them. He clearly thinks its irrelevant.” Borger explained to Blitzer. “He thinks it’s been asked and answered…It’s clearly a question he’d rather not be asked.”
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Mitt Romney - Republican Statist |
(Public Policy Polling) - Romney leads Obama
For the first time in PPP's monthly national polling since July 2010 Mitt Romney's taken a lead, albeit a small one, over Barack Obama. He's up 47-45.
Romney has two main things going for him. He leads the President 45-36 with independents. And he's also benefiting from a much more unified party with 88% of Republicans committed to voting for him while only 83% of Democrats say they'll vote for Obama.
Our national survey confirms the wide electability gap between Romney and the rest of the Republican candidate field. Obama leads both Newt Gingrich (49-44) and Ron Paul (46-41) by 5 points, Michele Bachmann (50-41) by 9, and Rick Perry (50-40) by 10. It continues to look like if GOP voters really want to defeat Obama they pretty much have to nominate Romney. {Read More}
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Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee |
(The Hill) - Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said Tuesday that President Obama "absolutely" should use his executive power to continue the unemployment benefits and payroll tax cut extension and said she hoped to discuss the option with the White House later in the day.
"It is extraordinary, don't get me wrong. But I'm feeling the pain of the constituents I left [at] home," Jackson Lee said, speaking on the progressive Ed Schultz's radio show. "I consider this a crisis. I consider leaving Americans without unemployment insurance for January and February a crime. I consider not extending the payroll tax cut ... a crime."
Jackson Lee slammed the move by House Republicans to call for a House-Senate conference as a "ridiculous procedural calamity."
House Republicans called for a vote on the motion Tuesday, which passed without any Democrat votes. {Read More}
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top House Republicans said Sunday they oppose a bipartisan, Senate-approved bill that extends a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for just two months and said congressional bargainers need to write a new version lasting a longer time.
Their comments, along with a House GOP conference call Saturday in which lawmakers voiced strenuous objections to the Senate bill, made clear that House Republicans were intent on changing the measure and left its ultimate fate uncertain.
The Senate used a 89-10 vote Saturday to approve the legislation, which was negotiated by Senate GOP and Democratic leaders and backed by strong majorities of senators from both parties. The House planned to vote on the measure Monday.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Sunday that the bill - which includes the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits and a halt to scheduled Medicare reimbursement cuts for doctors - needs to last an entire year. That was the original goal of President Barack Obama and congressional leaders as they worked on the legislation in recent weeks. {Read More}
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Fascist ? |
(THE HILL)- GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich said Congress has the power to dispatch the Capitol Police or U.S. Marshals to apprehend a federal judge who renders a decision lawmakers broadly oppose.
Gingrich says if there is broad opposition to a court decision, Congress should subpoena the ruling judge to defend his or her action in a hearing room.
When asked if Congress could enforce the subpoena by sending the Capitol Police to arrest a judge, Gingrich assented.
“If you had to,” Gingrich said. “Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send the U.S. Marshall.”
Gingrich made his remarks during a Sunday appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” where he defended his position that the president has the power to eliminate federal courts to disempower judges who hand down decisions out of step with the rest of the nation.
Gingrich cited the 9th Circuit’s decision that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional as an example of a decision drastically out of step with the values of the country.
Gingrich noted the Federalist Papers describe the judiciary as the weakest of the three branches of the federal government and that Thomas Jefferson abolished 18 of 35 newly created judgeships.
“I got in this originally for two things: the steady encroachment of secularism through the courts to redefine America as a non-religious country and the encroachment of the courts on the president’s commander-in-chief powers, which is enormously dangerous,” Gingrich said.
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The Statue of Liberty |
(The Hill) - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lambasted Republicans for leading a “do-nothing Congress” as the first year of their House majority draws to a close.
“It can clearly be labeled the Republican do-nothing Congress. It’s a year of missed opportunities and made-up crises,” Pelosi said in a press conference Friday, which she hoped would be her last for the year.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), responded: "The current 'crisis' was entirely manufactured by the Democrats who run Washington, and everyone knows that."
Pelosi, who lost the Speaker’s gavel nearly a year ago, criticized the House GOP for not focusing on jobs and for ginning up crises that nearly shut down the federal government and caused a national default.
Her comments came as the House prepared to vote on a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown Friday night. While Republicans have accused Democrats of causing the latest crisis, Pelosi tossed the blame back on the GOP for insisting on “hundreds” of extraneous policy provisions that Democrats found unacceptable. {Read More}
(The Hill) - Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) landed in hot water on Friday for his remarks the previous day comparing the Democrats’ proficiency in getting out their message to the notorious head of the Nazi Party’s propaganda department under Hitler.
“If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine,” West said Thursday.
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) sent West a note expressing his disappointment in the remark. “I beg of you to help raise the level of congressional discourse in vigorous debate without resort to personal attacks,” Conyers wrote in a handwritten note first obtained by Politico.
West’s remarks came even as Democrats and Republicans scrambled to reach a bipartisan agreement on a spending bill necessary to continue funding the government into the new year.
“Shame on him,” tweeted Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.). “Rep. West needs to apologize now for insulting the memories of the millions who lost their lives during the Holocaust.”
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) also called on West to apologize.
“This is exactly the type of rhetoric that turns people off to Washington and getting involved in politics,” Ackerman said in a statement. “I call on Republicans and Democrats alike to join me in demanding an apology.”
The Hill - Newt Gingrich signed on to an anti-gay marriage pledge while campaigning Thursday in Iowa and said that people choose to be gay in the same way that others choose to be celibate.
The topic of homosexuality was first broached during an interview with The Des Moines Register editorial board in the morning. Asked if he thought that people chose to be gay, Gingrich said that he thought it was "a combination of genetics and environment."
"I think people have a significant range of choice within a genetic pattern. I don’t believe in genetic determinism, and I don’t think there is any great evidence of genetic determinism," Gingrich added. "There are propensities. Are you more likely to do this or more likely to do that? But that doesn’t mean it’s definitional."
Gingrich was then again asked if an individual could choose to be straight.
"Look, people choose to be celibate," Gingrich said. "People choose many things in life. You know, there is a bias in favor of non-celibacy. It’s part of how the species recreates. And yet there is a substantial amount of people who choose celibacy as a religious vocation or for other reasons."
Later in the interview, Gingrich said that he would reinstate the “Don't ask, don't tell” program if he became president. {Read More}
There has been some major movement in the Republican Presidential race in Iowa over the last week, with what was a 9 point lead for Newt Gingrich now all the way down to a single point. Gingrich is at 22% to 21% for Paul with Mitt Romney at 16%... {Read More}