Quote of the Day
“I made it to 2010 and all I got from the SciFi books of my youth was the lousy dystopian government.”
Quote of the Day
“The communist countries had the worst environmental record in the world; the only saving grace was that they were so inefficient they couldn’t do more damage.” — NY Times best selling author John Ringo
Pelosi losing her iron grip on House democrats?
It appears so, Politico reports that freshman democrat congressman Parker Griffith of Alabama is leaving the democrat party and join the Republicans.
Griffith, a medical doctor, is no fan of ObamaCare it seems.
A radiation oncologist who founded a cancer treatment center, Griffith plans to blast the Democratic health care bill as a prime reason for his decision to switch parties—and is expected to cite his medical background as his authority on the subject.
A Nebraska doctor’s message for Ben Nelson
Michelle Malkin publishes an open letter from a Nebraska doctor to her Senator:
Dear Senator Nelson:
I send this message under “Tort Reform” because the current monstrosity you have pledged your support to says nothing whatsoever about Tort Reform. You have sold the physicians of Nebraska for zilch (zilch for us, but beaucoup federal bucks for you and the liberal partisans in this state). As a family practice physician in Small Town, Nebraska, I was counting on you to be the lone voice of Democratic sanity on this issue, but you sold me out. I will dedicate
every spare minute of my time and every spare dollar I have to defeating you, should you run for re-election.
…
Thank you, Ben, for forcing doctors like me to earn less than the repairmen who fix our appliances. Case in point: We recently had our dishwasher fixed. The repairman who came to our house charged $65 just to come and ‘diagnose’ the problem, then charged another $180 to ‘fix’ the problem. You and your fellow lawmakers have fixed MY going rate (Medicare) at $35 per-visit. Thank you for securing such a ‘lucrative’ rate for me! Thank you so much for making me–someone with 8 years of education!–make less than a mechanic or appliance repair technichian. And thanks especially for falling in line with Obama and the rest of the Democrats to make such a socialist system permanent.
You have my disgust and disdain forever, you socialist-coddling coward.
The 2010 elections should be interesting.
No Christmas Spirit in Lake Wobegon
Garrison Keillor, self-appointed cultural representative of regular old Americans, ruffled some feathers yesterday with a mildly xenophobic rant about Christmas. After lambasting a Unitarian church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for “spiritual piracy and cultural elitism”—tweaking the lyrics of “Silent Night” for a singalong, in layman’s terms—he turned his ire in a different direction:
And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write ‘Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah’? No, we didn’t. Christmas is a Christian holiday—if you’re not in the club, then buzz off.
Yet another example to prove that there is nobody more intolerant and narrow-minded than an tolerant and open-minded liberal. Yup, leftist are all for “diversity” as long as “those people” know, and keep, their place.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Here is a glimpse of how members of Congress travel on your dime.
Besides rooms for sleeping, the 12 members of the House of Representatives rented their hotel’s fireplace-equipped presidential suite and two adjacent rooms. The hotel cleared out the beds and in their place set up a bar, a snack room and office space. The three extra rooms — stocked with liquor, Coors beer, chips and salsa, sandwiches, Mrs. Fields cookies and York Peppermint Patties — cost a total of about $1,500 a night. They were rented for five nights.
While in Scotland, the House members toured historic buildings. Some shopped for Scotch whisky and visited the hotel spa. They capped the trip with a dinner at one of the region’s finest restaurants, paid for by the legislators, who got $118 daily stipends for meals and incidentals.
…
The tour provides a glimpse of the mixture of business and pleasure involved in legislators’ overseas trips, which are growing in number and mostly financed by the taxpayer. Lawmakers travel with military liaisons who carry luggage, help them through customs, escort them on sightseeing trips and stock their hotel rooms with food and liquor. Typically, spouses come along, flying free on jets operated by the Air Force. Legislative aides come too. On the ground, all travel in chauffeured vehicles.
…
The cost they reported for such travel abroad was $13 million in 2008, a 70% jump from 2005, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records. Lawmakers don’t have to report the cost of domestic travel when the government pays. The $13 million didn’t include the expense of flying on Air Force planes, which lawmakers don’t have to disclose.
Oh there is more, much more. Go read the whole thing. There is no Recession in the democrat controlled Congress.
Ex Ted Kennedy Aide arrested on federal theft and fraud charges
The democrat‘s Culture of Corruption keeps marching on. The latest entry is Ngozi Pole, the former office manager for the late democrat Senator Ted Kennedy of the People’s Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Mr. Pole was arrested on six separate counts of federal fraud and theft. He illegally inflated his salary and submitting falsified records to the Senator’s Chief of Staff in order to hide his theft of tax payer money.
Is it time to revisit the Carter Doctorine?
The Washington Times‘ Inside the Ring column reports:
A report by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) states that Iran could use its naval forces to cut off oil shipments through the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, where almost a third of all the world’s oil supplies pass.
The report, “Iran’s Naval Forces: From Guerrilla Warfare to a Modern Naval Strategy,” stated that blocking ships from passing through the 90-mile Strait would cause Iran “tremendous economic damage” and that, thus, Tehran would not “undertake a closure lightly.”
“However, given the importance of the Strait, disrupting traffic flow or even threatening to do so may be an effective tool for Iran,” the report, dated fall 2009, said.
The report said Iran could use its Chinese-made C-801/802 anti-ship cruise missiles to “target any point within the Strait of Hormuz and much of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.”
That brings us to the Carter Doctrine:
The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region.
That’s right kiddies, “Blood for Oil” is the policy of liberal democrat President, and well known racist, James Earl Carter III. Given our Dear Leader‘s apparent desire to follow in the footsteps of the worst president in the past fifty years, he’ll probably get the US tied up in yet another Middle East quagmire.
For those of you who voted for Barack Hussein Obama thinking he was going to pull the US Military out of Iraq & Afghanistan Right Away, deal with the fact that he played you for a sucker. “Useful Idiot” would be the term his political idol would use to describe you.
Today’s Robert Heinlein Quote
I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand’s; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces with the other matters handled otherwise. I’m sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything now.
Robert A. Heinlein, as quoted by J. Neil Schulman in The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana
Shatner & Palin, together on stage…
William Shatner did another jazzy reading from Gov. Palin’s book on the tonight show. Another excellent Shatner performance, which was followed up by Gov. Sarah Palin
appearing to read from Shatner’s latest autobiography, in a similar fashion. Mocking and paying tribute at the same time.
Sarah Palin vs. William Shatner
This video shows what the political hit men on McCain’s campaign team (and senior democrat operatives) were afraid of. Gov. Palin is charismatic, smart and willing to take a risk.
Like Shatner’s character James T. Kirk, she beat the the Kobayashi Maru test.