The TSA, when confronted by CAIR in this regard, immediately capitulated, thus giving in in the face of yet another Islamic threat.  Simultaneously, the TSA agreed to instruct its security staff, in enforcing the same tortuous security measures for everyone but Muslims, to ‘pat down’ Muslim men and women, with the proviso, of course, that only same gender ‘pat downs’ would be permitted for our Muslim brethren.

The TSA is forcing law abiding Americans to go through a scanner under the pretense that it’s supposed to prevent terrorists from smuggling bombs in their clothing. No one is exempt from this scanner because we don’t want to profile anyone; however, thanks to CAIR, Muslims are exempt upon request from using the scanner. I guess some Muslims do not want to be profiled unless they can use the profile to claim something violates their religion. This is so absurd it defies reality. This is like something from The Onion.

I can’t find any other details about this except from this one source, so I’m a little skeptical; however, the government is stupid enough to do something like this. Even if the TSA is allowing anyone to “opt-out” and get patted down instead, the whole rush to add all these scanners is absurd. Either make them mandatory or don’t install them.

Before becoming President, Barack Obama was a "community organizer" who taught groups like ACORN a special type of math that would ensure their "fair share".

Like Henshaw, your venerable Daily Plunge host, Club Soda received a notice from the Census Bureau stating that the Bureau would soon invade my home with a form to fill out with such pertinent information as my race, gender and so on and so forth. As noted in Henshaw’s earlier post about the Census Bureau notification, it reads in part:

Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

As with the Henshaw notice, the words “fair share” made an appearance on my notification form. I immediately picked up my copy of The Federalist Papers, which also includes The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and The Constitution, to see what the founders had to say about getting my “fair share”.

Shockingly, the phrase “fair share” does not make an appearance in either The Constitution or in any of the letters that constitute the founders’ defense of the new Constitution, The Federalist Papers. However, I did find some interesting notes about the census, its purpose and why the founders believed a census was a crucial element of the republic.

“As the accuracy of the census to be obtained by the Congress will necessarily depend, in a considerable degree, on the disposition, if not on the cooperation of the States,” wrote James Madison in Federalist No. 54, “it is of great importance that the States should feel as little bias as possible to swell or to reduce the amount of their numbers. Were their share of representation alone to be governed by this rule, they would have an interest in exaggerating their inhabitants. Were the rule to decide their share of taxation alone, a contrary temptation would prevail. By extending the rule to both objects, the State will have opposite interests which will control and balance each other and produce the requisite impartiality.”

With the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913, which established the personal income tax, these “opposite interests” – taxation versus representation – no longer applied. Now, the temptation to exaggerate essentially doubles with the added incentive for everyone to grab their “fair share” when it comes time for the Feds to dole out cash.

As Madison implied, without some type of counterbalance to ensure an accurate and unbiased census, corruption would taint the entire process as the states and various special-interest groups within those states would look for ways to make the numbers come out in their favor. This is fertile ground for ACORN-like groups that are not above filling out forms on behalf of dead people, movie stars and professional athletes in order to get their “fair share”.

The sad thing is she’s probably right. There are enough handout and giveaways in this bill to perhaps win over enough people to make it popular.

Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

I guess the Constitutional explanation was too difficult. The Census was designed to determine representation and taxation only, not some kind of income redistribution giveaway. The exact quote from the constitution reads: “representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers.” The words “fair” and “share” are conspicuously absent from Article I of the Constitution.

The notification is also in Spanish, just in case illegal immigrants wish to participate in the American experiment. If you happen to speak French, German, Chinese, or Italian, I’m sorry; you’ll just have to learn English first. Then there’s the plight of the the Taiwanese American.

Thanks to this progressive approach to counting people some people feel disenfranchised. Who can blame them? If the government is becoming one big candy store everyone wants a piece.

I’m part Native American, German, English, Scottish, Irish, and Jewish. What am I? Do I need to take a blood test to see how many races of people I am? If it means that I get a fat check from the Federal Government where can I sign up? If this keeps up we’ll need 100 check boxes for every racial combination.

The PR campaign almost encourages people to over count. Oh no! My race is being under counted! Oh no! They’re not going to build roads!

This is absurd. We don’t need a Census to build roads. If this was the case our state and city governments wouldn’t be spending money on feasibility studies measuring traffic. Why can’t the Census Bureau just say it’s a constitutional requirement to count each person to determine representation.

The Founding Fathers never intended to create Republic full of lobbying groups based on race. The fact that the government conveys this message is appalling, but it’s not surprising considering that government employees come up with the messaging.

It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect. (Let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative.”) The result is a kind of two-party one-party state:

Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless. Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic.

This already exists. Think about entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Both of these programs are unsustainable. Reforming these programs is extremely difficult, and scrapping them all-together and starting over is an impossibility. The right has capitulated and the left has an entitlement that moves the nation further from limited government.

The Democrats’ answer for every problem is more government. If Obama said today: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” it would be hilarious. The President certainly doesn’t believe it and neither does his party. Government dependency can be the only reason that the Democrats are so determined to pass a bill that a majority of Americans do not want. Either way the House votes on this bill is bad for the Democrats in the short term; however, if ObamaCare does pass the repeal movement may ultimately be more devastating to Democrats than Obama’s fragile ego if he fails to deliver.

Worrying about debt is like gaining too much weight and worrying about the size of your clothing. America’s indebtedness would be sustainable and even healthy if the underlying economy were vibrant, innovative and strong and if federal and state governments could channel those moneys productively and quickly. The problem isn’t how much debt we’re carrying today; it’s whether the economy of tomorrow will be able to justify it.

Karabell goes even further suggestion that we should be “investing” more or in other words spending more money. While I agree with some of what Karabell has to say it would have been more applicable four years ago. Simply hoping the dollar remains strong and that interest rates stay low is not a recipe for maintaining a lot of debt.

The All American Burger

The Burger Bar is only open Friday-Sunday, but it sits on the backside of the building facing the beautiful Sarasota Bay. The burgers start at a very reasonable six dollars. I got the All American Single (doubled) with Bacon. That cost me $10 and it was worth every penny. The shiny plastic silverwear looks like real silver at first. The Ritz Carlton spares no plastic expense. The burger itself isn’t enormous, but is cooked to perfection. For some reason the bartender didn’t ask anyone in our group how they wanted it cooked. That was a bit puzzling and visions of e coli danced in my head.

There are also hand-dipped milkshakes for dessert, but it was to too windy and cold for us to try them out (“cold” being defined in Sarasota as anything under 70 degrees F). Be warned, the prices are reasonable but any domestic beer is more than $5 and cocktails are around $12. One other helpful hint is to remember to get your valet parking ticket verified at the bar.

John Patrick Bedell, whom authorities identified as the gunman in the Pentagon shooting on Thursday, appears to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent antigovernment feelings.

If so, that would make the Pentagon shooting the second violent extremist attack on a federal building within the past month. On Feb. 18, Joseph Stack flew a small aircraft into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. Mr. Stack left behind a disjointed screed in which, among other things, he expressed his hatred of the government.

“Appeared” is the key word because right-wing extremists aren’t registered Democrats. Right-wing extremists don’t post anti-Bush tirades all over the internet and they’re certainly not Truthers. Allahpundit over at Hot Air sums it up all very nicely.

Is it possible to be a “left-wing extremist” anymore or do nuts who embrace some lefty ideas before launching an attack automatically fall under the broader heading of “anti-government,” a term that’s conveniently also used to describe conservatives’ opposition to statism? That’s why CSM ended up labeling him a right-winger, I suspect. Righties want a smaller federal government and Bedell hated the military and the military’s part of the federal government. Voila!

It seems the mainstream press lives by the Dan Rather creed. It doesn’t matter what the truth is anymore. The news is fake but accurate.

Harkin is never silent. There’s just not enough time in the day to keep up with all his ridiculous comments. Over at Hot Air they’ve been watching MSNBC so people like me won’t throw up. I wish someone did the same for Tom Harkin. I’d do it, but I’d probably throw up.

Harkin has a new theory on ObamaCare. The GOP doesn’t want it to pass because they know America will love it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This isn’t actually far from the truth. The 30 million or so citizens who get free health care on the backs of all the poor schmucks who have to actually pay for it will love it! The real truth is that the Democrat party wants these people sucking from the teet of the government forever so they’ll vote for the Telly Monster party for life.

Tom Harkin says that as Americans learn more about the bill between now and November they’ll love it. How will Americans learn to love a bill that doesn’t even kick in until 2013? Harkin has been sniffing too much pork.

I suppose this will be the Climate Change Project Manager's office. Nice six-figure BS job if you can get it.

With the economy still in the tank and unemployment continuing to hover around ten percent, a lot of people are starting to wonder, “Where’s my bailout?” Well, if you look at the salary and employment stats in the public sector (city, county, state and federal government) you’ll see exactly where your bailout went.

Your bailout – or at least your hard-earned tax dollars that are partially funding the corporate fat-cat bailouts (the other portion being financed by the Chinese, among others) – is also being used to create make-work six-figure nonsense jobs, such as Climate Change Program Manager at the National Park Service. This ridiculous job, with a pay scale between $103,000 and $155,000, is just the tip of the iceberg (pun intended). According to the Dec. 11, 2009 edition of USA Today:

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector… When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

Moreover, the New York Times reported in August of 2009 that while the private sector lost 6.9 million jobs, state and local governments added 110,000 new jobs. All of this data – and it goes on and on and on, if you care to look into it – strikes me as horribly backwards.

I’m no economist, but if deficits are skyrocketing and companies are looking for relief so they can begin hiring again, wouldn’t logic dictate that government cut jobs, siphoning those people into the private sector, while providing tax incentives to individuals and private sector companies?

In December of 2009, 382,758 federal employees were making $100,000 or more annually. That’s more than $38 billion in what is largely bureaucratic largesse. Last I checked it’s the private sector that actually produces our GDP, not government jobs that essentially produce nothing. That’s a lot of nothing we’re getting for our billions.

Why we’re headed down the same road as western Europe, California, Massachusetts, New York, etc., etc., which ultimately leads to economic crisis and bankruptcy, I’ll never know. Or, maybe I do know…

It’s all about power and payoffs. The more the private sector and citizens cede to the state, the more power and money that’s funneled to the state and its dependants. It’s simple mathematics with the additional wild card of human nature (it’s corrupt, by the way).

While some see this as a Utopian system, rational people recognize that an all-powerful, controlling state destroys liberty and freedom. The explosive growth of public sector payrolls and jobs is simply another data point in a trend line that shows America headed toward the abyss. If you’re not concerned about it, you should be.