Plunging Towards Gomorrah
Archive for May, 2009
arlington national cemetery
May 30th
Jonah Goldberg at The National Review mentioned something on Tuesday over at The Corner that I wanted to address. Goldberg was discussing the President role at the Memorial Day service at Arlington National Cemetery.
I think Obama played things pretty much perfectly at Arlington yesterday, continuing the tradition of laying a wreath at the memorial to the Confederate dead and starting a new one of leaving a presidential wreath at the monument to African-American soldiers who fought against the confederacy.
From a political standpoint the president did the right thing, but I think he should have stopped the practice that President Wilson started. Wilson was the first Democrat from the South to be elected after the Civil War and despite the adulation from “progressives” he was pretty dispicable.
Many Southern Democrats hoped — and had good reason to expect — an all-out Dixiecrat revival with Wilson in the Oval Office. But they had to settle for Wilson’s re-segregation of Washington D.C. and the federal bureaucracy and screenings of Birth of a Nation in the White House.
If the president took my suggestion he would face the backlash of many southerners who still have a great deal of pride in their “confederate past;” however, it’s been 140 years and it’s time to get over it. We shouldn’t be honoring a succession movement; especially when the main issue of slavery was so evil. Hopefully a president in the future goes back to the single wreath to honor all Americans who have given their lives to the United States.
cut the president some slack
May 30th
If Bush would have admitted he didn’t know what the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency was many on the left would say it’s proof that he was a moron. There would be endless blogs on the left yakking it up over the idiot president. My guess many on the right will do something similar with this video. Get over it people; the president isn’t a deity.
Obama doesn’t know every single agency in the government. I’ve never heard of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency before today. The president gives speeches every day, he’s going to misspeak, fumble words, and say some odd stuff. While I may disagree with the president he’s not dumb; he’s just a little naive.
the value-added-tax
May 27th
The Washington Post has an article today on the value-added tax (VAT). Some Democrats are considering the sales tax as a way to pay for the expanding costs of social programs. Everyone realizes we’re currently on a course to bankruptcy; however, it’s going to be a difficult to create a national sales tax without taking a beating at the polls.
The fascinating part of the article is that it’s not even a consideration that perhaps the government shouldn’t be in the health care business. No state has been able to create a long-term viable health care system. European states are already taxing their citizens to death and the health care is expensive, slow, and poor. It should also be noted that much of Europe has had the benefit of not having to pay for defense. In many ways Europe has had perfect conditions for fantastic health care and it’s still a failure. Despite these facts, Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, has written a book titled “Health Care, Guaranteed.” Emanuel argues that we can pay for this utopian dream by taxing the crap out of people.
What would it cost? Emanuel argues in his book that a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments. In his 2008 book, “100 Million Unnecessary Returns,” Yale law professor Michael J. Graetz estimates that a VAT of 10 to 14 percent would raise enough money to exempt families earning less than $100,000 — about 90 percent of households — from the income tax and would lower rates for everyone else.
Does this sound too good to be true? Of course it does; this is complete nonsense. An argument could be made that some of the more conservative states with lower taxes could absorb the new sales taxes, but what about all those states in the North? People are already leaving in droves, and a national sales tax would make the economic climate in those states even worse.
I don’t see how anyone could sell the VAT tax without getting rid of the income tax. It seems as if this the author of this particular article is more worried about all the people who aren’t paying (income) taxes. Soaking the rich and burdening corporations with higher taxes (oh, btw, corporate taxes are passed on to consumers) isn’t going to be good for the economy. I’m all for a simpler tax system, but we can’t continue to penalize people for being successful. Democrats are slowly morphing from the party of the have-nots to the party of hand-outs.
supreme court nominee sonia sotomayor
May 26th
Today the president nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. Obama was under some pressure to nominate a Hispanic woman to the court and he followed through. The era of identity politics continues; this is not really a surprise since Sotomayor was on many people’s short list to be picked. Unless there’s some skeleton in the closest that no one knows about she should be confirmed rather easily. This is despite the fact she is on record for making a comment that if had been made by a man would automatically disqualify her.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Imagine if Justice Roberts had said that he could reach a better conclusion than any woman. There’s no way he could ever serve on the court. This quote isn’t a new revelation; it’s been floating around ever since Souter made his announcement. The president knows that her historic appointment will drown out any opposition. This is part of the reason the Democrats adamantly opposed the appointment of Miguel Estrada to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Democrats filibustered Estrada’s nomination because they were afraid President Bush was grooming a latino for the court.
Any serious attempt to block Sotomayor’s nomination will be greeted with cries of racism. The press was quick to label Roberts and Alito “hard line conservatives,” but there will be no such coverage from the press this time around. From a political standpoint it’s a great pick for Obama. He’s able to appoint someone with a liberal judicial record under the cover of a “historic appointment.” This isn’t a new practice; George H.W. Bush did the very same thing with Justice Thomas. After it’s all said and done the court still stands at four conservatives, four liberals, and one swing vote.
fire the grid 2: this time it’s personal
May 25th
Remember Fire the Grid? I know I can’t forget it. I’m talking about Light Beings and Lizard People from space. How can anyone go wrong with that? It turns out the ever-crazy Shelley Yates has decided to do it again. This time it’s going to be called Fire the Grid II. I guess Light Beings aren’t very creative.
The second phase is called Fire the Grid II, and it is about using the power of “I” to unite once again to become “WE”. Just as with the first event, there is a corresponding date and time which have been given to me by my Light Beings. Much has transpired since that momentous day, and roughly 24 months later, there will again be incredibly powerful energy available for all humans to utilize on a new date. The energy I speak of is our own love energy we used on the first FTG event.
The next Fire the Grid takes place at July 28, 2009 at 19:19 Rio di Janeiro time which is also my brother’s birthday. I have to admit the whole “using the power of ‘I’ to unite once again to become ‘We’” sounds a lot like the 2008 campaign theme for Barack Obama; I’m just sayin’…
Firing the Grid cannot be complete without the official t-shirt, bumper sticker, coffee mug, baseball cap, and canvas tote bag. All of these items plus many others are available on Yates’ website. I guess the Light Beings can’t help with the $222 Powerball jackpot. As the date gets closer I’m sure I’ll have more to add to this event. Crazy like this is amazing.
bad journalism 101
May 25th
On Friday, when I was putting together my piece about the Constitution, I stumbled onto another article on wowOwow that was fascinating. It was written by the staff and it’s titled Obama Administration Agrees With Bush: Valerie Plame Has No Case. I know; shocking right? From the very beginning the whole Plame affair has been covered poorly by journalists. The girls at wowOwow continue this trend…
Plame, you’ll recall, was the CIA agent outed by Dick Cheney staffer Scooter Libby after Mr. Wilson, a U.S. ambassador, wrote an op-ed saying he found no evidence of yellow cake uranium in Iraq, a charge that directly contradicted the Bush administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction.
No, I don’t recall the Libby leak because it’s completely untrue. To be fair, the perception that Libby leaked the information is common. I wrote wowWwow a few days ago asking them to make a correction, but I’m not sure if the staff at wowWwow even cares. It would literally take five minutes to figure out that Richard Armitage was the source of the “leak.” There’s a reason Plame doesn’t have a case; no crime has been committed. The only crime in this entire Nadagate saga is the fact the press never covered the story accurately.
Note from Club Soda: Not only that, Tom Harkin, but Joe Wilson’s report contradicting reports by British and other European intelligence agencies (not just the “administration’s claims”) that Iraq was seeking yellow cake from Nigeria was basically based on Joe’s cocktail party conversations as opposed to real intelligence gathering.
law matters
May 22nd
As the next Supreme Court appointment approaches it’s high time to point out the stark differences in how the left and right look at the third branch. The left has been successful in using the judicial system to advance political agendas they were unable to get support for through legislation. The most egregious example is obviously abortion. Abortion is a very divisive issue in the United States. This issue is so divisive that it’s unlikely a national law either in favor of or opposed to it could be passed. Instead the court created the right to have an abortion out of thin air. This is also happening on the issue of gay marriage. Several state courts are creating laws that have failed to be passed by the legislature or by the people directly.
Now a logical debate can be had on those two issues; however, that debate takes place in the legislature. What progressives have missed in this quest for abortion rights, affirmative action, and gun control is that it’s the other less known issues with which the court is wrecking the Constitution. It appears that “progressives” don’t care about the collateral damage. President Obama provided a window into this mindset when he said a judge should use “empathy” when making decisions. That sounds reasonable, I guess; maybe for Judge Judy and civil court, but on the Supreme Court they decide the merits of each case on one thing; the Constitution.
Once our judges start deciding cases outside the jurisdiction of the Constitution, citizens start losing their constitutional rights. Over the last four decades the court has done a great deal of damage on property rights. I was looking for some information on Judge Diane Wood and found an article that had a few basic facts on the Judge. At the end of the article there were some comments. Most of the comments were your garden variety partisan dribble, but two comments were noteworthy enough to highlight. The first comes from Laura Ward:
It is my understanding that Phyllis Doyle Pepe interprets Obama wanting someone on the Supreme Court not to be such a stickler to the letter of the law and to understand that there’s people involved. If so, I’m for that!
By Laura Ward on 05/21/2009 8:32 pm
This is a scary revelation. Unfortunately, Laura represents a large number of people who are losing appreciation for the Constitution. Many people have given their lives for our magnificent Constitution so that it might prevail. Moreover, if the rule of law is to be based on whims and feeling, everything begins to unravel. Policy disagreements should take place in elections and in legislatures; not in the courts.
It sounds good to have an “empathetic” judge cos he’s on our side. But what do we do when a President we disagree with starts picking “empathetic” judges? Better to have someone who interprets the law strictly–equal protection under the law is what we want, because justice must be blind. I love Obama but this is a dangerous, dangerous approach for him to take–to tell a judge to follow his heart instead of the law? Wow. Not good.
By Janine Garrison on 05/22/2009 8:56 am
It’s too bad that this idea seems to be among the minority on the left. This is the negative consequence of a higher education system dominated by liberals who do not allow contrarian views into their classrooms, which ultimately extinguishes critical thinking. We have a President who was a professor of Constitutional law advocating empathy over the Constitution he’s sworn to “preserve and protect.” Judging by his treatment of the Constitution in speech and action, it’s questionable whether this “professor” has even read the document beyond “We the People.” Good lord! I’m sure the people who educated Obama and his peers are all high-fiving each other, but if we can’t expect our judges to be “sticklers to the letter of the law” than what happens to the rule of law?
narcissistic twitter wasteland
May 22nd
The world is abuzz with Twitter. It seems like every Tom, Dick, and Ashton has a Twitter account. If one can wade through the narcissistic Twitter wasteland, the service can be helpful. Twitter is great for following real-time events (like the Google crash last week) or to get the first thoughts of journalists/bloggers. There are even fake spacetweets from astronauts. That aside, I come back to the wasteland.
Yesterday President Obama gave speech supposedly about Gitmo that I’d rather not get into at this time. Former Vice President Cheney gave a speech on the same topic shortly after Obama finished. It seems as if both sides of the political spectrum were happy with their guy’s speech (shocking). Evidently, Senator Tom Harkin took a break from creating and supporting bad legislation to give his 2¢ on the issue. I know this because I’m following “Tom Harkin” on Twitter. Well, not really; I’m actually following his name on Twitter.
Every time some person Twitters Tom Harkin’s name I get an email. That’s great when I find out that Harkin calls Cheney “pathetic” for giving a logical speech on Gitmo, but it’s bad when I get an email tweet like this…
Eveofdestructio: sen. Tom Harkin was on and he talked about how obama is following are great constition and Bill of Rights, which cheney threw out .
Really, the words speak for themselves. I guess it was the word constitution that was on the eve of destruction. It still surprises to me that people believe foreign combatants fall under the protection of the United States Constitution. Who knew plotting to blow up innocent civilians and US targets entitles a person to rights as a US citizen? Anyway, that’s a whole separate post in itself. The great world of Twitter debate has begun. Oh, the possibilities are endless.
the onion: star trek fans upset
May 21st
I’ve been meaning to watch this video since I saw Star Trek. This was the first time I’ve ever watched a Star Trek movie at a theater and it was great. That’s precisely why the video below from The Onion is so funny.
Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’
