Right Reading Round-up 2-21-10 at Maggie's Notebook

Have you received an American Community Survey (ACS) from your government? Snarky Basterd at Feed Your ADHD has. This is not the census, but he is ordered to fill it out and return it. The survey asks how much your rent or mortgage payment is, your retirement or pension amount and when you last married. There's much more, including a $5000 penalty if you do not comply. Read what Snarky plans to do, the message he plans to send, and let me know if you were also selected ordered to complete an ACS.

Daniel Greenfield, writing for CanadaFreePress says There is No End to Jihad, and the assault is not coming only from Islam. This is a hilarious and incredulous look at the mess we are in today, beginning with Joe Stack's attack on the IRS and the Tea Party movement, to the Atlanta Progressive News which fired a reporter for displaying objectivity in his writing, to Mitch Romney's 'vulcan grip" on the rapper, Sky Blu, and how a Palestinian official's sexual escapade is blamed on Israel.  And then perhaps the most important piece of news: the attempted corrupting of a U.S. Congressman by the White House. You can also read Daniel at his own blog, Sultan Knish.

Ron at TOTUS has an incredible video of Steve Reicher, a Marine sniper, who made a kill shot from over one mile away and takes out a terrorist. The History Channel recreated the important story.

Ms Sparky pays homage to Sgt. Klayton Thomas and his short and fatal struggle against lung cancer. His death occurred just two weeks after the military acknowledged a "probable link" between Iraq's "burn pits" and various respiratory illnesses shared by far too many of our military. Photo at right is Sgt. Thomas and his wife Mia in happier times.

Whoa! An Ol' Broad's Rambling says former Democrat Congressman, James Traficant, from Ohio plans to run for office again as an Independent. With a 7-year prison sentence behind him, he wants to get into your business yet again. Kate also has a fine essay up on the Second Amendment.

Reaganite Republican has a complete commentary on today's most important issues...through cartoons. James always has the best Sunday Funnies...and they always speak to reality. Instead of reading and weeping, you read, nod wisely and belly laugh. While I often link to this site's pithy work, I was honored this week to be The Reaganite Republican's Featured Blogger - complete with my very own beloved Liberty Bell Banner. Thank you so much, James.

Carole at No Sheeples Here warns of Obama's "rope-a-dope" strategy, and contrary to Carly Fiorina's famous campaign video, Carole shows us the real "demon sheep."

America's Watchtower reports on Harry Reid's miniaturized jobs bill, which he plans to force cloture on...then add back in, all the left-out, still-wanted Liberal measures to later bills. Deception by spreading it all out in several bits of legislation. This is happening tomorrow!

American Power points to The Narrative, which keeps Republicans "stuck in rearguard actions," and asks four tough questions. Here's one: Do Republicans actually disdain an ideal of justice that conjures up an image of well-fed and well-tended sheep?

Debbie at RightTruth caught Colin Powell resurfacing. The General is in defensive mode. She has a suggestion for him.

J.D. Longstreet, writing at FaultlineUSA warns that our tough times haven't yet arrived. Are we on a "primrose path" to destruction?

...I foresee a complete collapse of the American economic system. Something, I feel, that will be much, much, worse than the Dot-Com Crash back in 2000, or even the Sub Prime Credit Crash in 2008. No, what I feel is coming will be worse than both these two former crashes added together. In fact, it has, I believe, already begun.

Friend and contributor to Maggie's Notebook, Karen, The Lonely Conservative, went to CPAC for the first time this year. She invited me along, and for various reasons, I couldn't make it - DANG! Next year will be different. Anyway, reading Karen's coverage, I see she is as distressed as I that Ron Paul won the straw poll. She got a good shot of Newt Gingrich, and says after his speech, she might to able to forgive him for the "Dede Scozzafava debacle...at least for the day." Good coverage here with Andrew Breitbart videos. Scroll through The Lonely Conservative for more.

Smitty at The Other McCain interviews Katherine Jenerette, a GOP candidate for the U.S. House from South Carolina. Browse through the Other McCain for full coverage of CPAC. From Smitty:

She’s an Army vet, mother of four, and sounds like more of what the country needs. This blog supports tough veterans in the fight to reclaim the country from the clutches of Progressivism.

ChicagoRay has some excellent analysis on the media's "reverse psychology" on conservatism's chances in November 2010, along with a video of Rick Santorum's CPAC comments to FOXNews' Brian Wilson (my favorite new guy).

J at Uncoverage.net (thanks to The Other McCain for the introduction) has some great coverage of CPAC. This page for Day 3, in particular. Read the Ann Coulter one-liners and her closing remark: "You've been a great audience, you're all paid shills for the insurance companies, Keith Olbermann is a girl and GOD BLESS AMERICA.

DaTechGuy has video of the Tea Party Reagan Award winners. Here's your chance to put a face to one of your favorite bloggers. Look around at his many posts on other Reagan Ward Winners, and watch for coming CPAC posts, which he says will be coming this week.

Watch Andrew Breitbart confront Max Blumenthal - tell him he's a "punk" and says "racist" is the worst thing you can call someone. Larry O'Connor at Big Government finishes the con-versation.

Colin Powell Message to Obama: Mr. President We Can't Pay for it all!

Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell's intellectual dishonesty has led him to a realization that you and I faced up to long ago: The Obama administration is determined to lead this country to financial destruction. Powell knows it. When he, a Republican-in-name-only, endorsed Barack Obama, characterized Obama's association with William Ayers as "very, very limited," indicated the issues of William Ayers, terrorism and Obama's Muslim connections were trivial, we knew that Powell was voting for Obama because Obama is Black, kindasorta.

Colin Powell

Powell knew that Obama was the most Liberal Senator, ever. He had Obama's voting record at his disposal every minute of every day. He knew that Barack Obama had little experience to sit in the Oval Office, and now, when its too late, he sees that Obama is wrong. He plainly says: "we can't pay for it all." Obvious too, is CNN's attempt to characterize our President as "the young president." Sweet. CNN, the mother hen: "young president." So protective. More intellectual dishonesty from CNN. From Powell:

I'm a little concerned," former Secretary of State Colin Powell says. "I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president — and I've talked to some of his people about this — is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all. And we can't pay for it all.

See the video here.

2008-What a long, strange year it's been

Cross Posted at The Lonely Conservative

Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates can all agree that 2008 was an interesting year, to say the least. Who would have thought the New York Football Giants would have bested the New England Patriots in the Superbowl? If you thought that would be the strangest thing to happen this year you don’t follow politics too closely.

2008 kicked off in the midst of the Presidential primary season. Democrats bickered over who cared more about the impoverished and who wanted our troops out of Iraq sooner. Republicans went back and forth, each claiming to be the most conservative, while Republican voters kept wondering how they could channel Ronald Reagan. It was all but assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee of the Democratic Party while the Republican field was wide open. Mike Huckabee did well with Christians and John McCain did well with Democrats and the New York Times.

Some Romney supporters were screaming “It’s the economy stupid!” and “Never nominate the candidate endorsed by the New York Times!” but much to their chagrin, Charlie Crist spoke, John McCain became the Republican nominee and Rudy Giulianni’s Florida vacation came to an abrupt end. In the mean time New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was brought down by a hooker. Hillary Clinton was fighting for her life against Barack Obama and the Main Stream Media throughout the spring. She vowed to take things all the way to the convention, and who could blame her? She was going up against a rival who began his presidential campaign almost immediately after being elected to his first term as a US Senator. But just as John McCain was the media’s darling before going up against the New Messiah, Hillary and her supporters finally understood what conservatives have complained about for years. There is media bias! Poor Hillary couldn’t catch a break, and Bubba didn’t help.

The media helped propel Barack Obama to the top of the Democratic ticket. Gas prices soared over the summer while the Democrats and John McCain railed against the obscene profits of oil companies. Showing how little he knows about the economy, Barack Obama swore he would fund his goodies with a windfall profits tax on the evil oil companies. Republicans spent the summer wishing for a primary do-over. The junior senator from Illinois travelled abroad over the summer where he announced we are all citizens of the world and under his leadership America will soon become a beautiful collectivist utopia. Thousands of German concert goers cheered The One while listening to a free rock concert and swilling beer. J

John McCain kept a low profile until the end of August when he announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The world was stunned while conservative rejoiced! Maybe John McCain did have a conservative bone in his body! They finally had something other than his heroic war record to cheer about. Conservatives found a reason to go to the polls in November and wouldn’t even have to be drunk to do so! John McCain actually pulled ahead of Barack Obama in the polls. McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin was so brilliant that the left was enraged and the media went into a frenzy. Reporters and investigators were air-dropped into Palin’s home town of Wasilla, Alaska to dissect every aspect of the woman’s life. They spent more time digging into Sarah Palin’s past in a week than they did to Barack Obama in two years.

Feminists loathed her for not aborting her baby when she learned the child would have Down’s Syndrome. Yes, Sarah Palin was a conservative dream. A really middle class American who put her money where her mouth is and didn’t just talk the talk. Unfortunately for Palin, she had to go on television and defend John McCain’s record in her early interviews. That would be a hard, if not impossible task for any good conservative. The networks’ editing of her answers didn’t help either. But Sarah Palin didn’t let it stop her. She wasn’t there to please Washington’s elite media. Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as a running mate really wasn’t a joke and the two went on the stump together.

Gaffe after gaffe were ignored by the adoring media, while every aspect of Sarah Palin’s life was put under a microscope. Barack Obama’s “God D*mn America” pastor was ignored but it was reported that Sarah Palin speaks in tongues. Going to 57 US states was suddenly not impossible, yet a corruption-fighting, self-made governor with an 80% approval rating inexplicably became a liability. The media’s love for their Chosen One grew deeper with each passing day. One famous commentator admitted on live television to a thrilling physical reaction when the debonnaire democrat spoke. This love affair was a sight to behold. William Shakespeare himself couldn’t have conjured up such complete devotion.

After the government rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the resulting failure of Lehman Brothers, John McCain failed to defend his and President Bush’s proven record of urging more oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Instead he blamed the whole mess on greed. Then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson appeared on TV to announce that if we the people didn’t immediately hand over nearly a trillion dollars to him that the economy would immediately collapse. The strategy of manufactured crisis was coming to fruition right before our eyes and Republicans played right into their hands.

President Bush suddenly befriended Democrats even though they persisted in calling him names. John McCain announced he was suspending his campaign until an economic rescue bill agreement could be reached in Washington. He called on Barack Obama to join him. Barack Obama and his staff had high fives all around in celebration of their upcoming victory. Mr. McCain went to Washington and did…..absolutely nothing! He didn’t insist on an immediate reduction in capital gains taxes to keep capital flowing into the US economy. He didn’t insist on suspending mark to market accounting rules which would have eased the balance sheets of our financial institutions. Heavens no! Had he done that he may have appeared to be conservative.

The maverick whose campaign theme was “I am not George W. Bush” went along with George W. Bush and sidekick Hank Paulson like a devoted puppy. 70% of the public was against the rescue plan, so naturally it passed with bipartisan support, save for a few lonely conservative republicans and moderate democrats. The economy immediately went into a tailspin and Americans watched their life savings disappear into thin air. John McCain continued to blast greed while Barack Obama’s poll numbers went up. Barack Obama kept at it, blaming the economic crisis on the failed economic policies of the past eight years. He and the media forgot all about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid.

The drum beat from the Democrats and the media played on and on. It was the Republican’s fault and so what if Fannie and Freddie gave more money to Obama and the Democrats than anyone else? So what if Democrats were complicit in the failure of the GSE’s or made statements that caused a bank to fail and the entire US insurance industry to take a one day stock loss of 30% and up. The public had no need to know that useless information. Heck, they didn’t even know that Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress since 2006. Yes, it was a good year to be a Democrat. Had it been reported that Republicans failed to stop the Democrats, perhaps things would have turned out differently, but alas, it was not to be. Then Mr. Obama showed up in the yard of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher who had the nerve to ask him a question.

The media and the left went after Joe the Plumber with a vengeance not seen since Sarah Palin hit the campaign trail. They had to work overtime in their attempts to destroy and discredit two conservatives at the same time. Even coastal conservative elites with ivy league degrees joined the chorus against Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. (Let’s hope those “conservatives” are enjoying the DC cocktail party circuit!)

How dare these two regular people show up and act all normal, middle class and conservative!? What happened to the big tent? The elites even turned on their own moderate maverick John McCain when he started pretending to be conservative. Granted, he was sending mixed messages, like calling Barack Obama a socialist and in the next breath promising to bailout delinquent homeowners. But hey, he was convinced by the media and Colin Powell that Americans only like liberals.

A few maverick reporters had the nerve to ask some tough questions of Obama and Biden. Let’s just say they learned their lesson. Newspaper journalists whose editors failed to endorse Barack Obama were kicked off his campaign plane. They learned their lesson, too. But Obama promised a new transparency in government. As expected, the media lapped it up. Sarah Palin finally broke free of the McCain campaign’s bubble of suppression at the same time Joe Biden was put in the corner after one too many gaffes.

There are only so many ”paying higher taxes is patriotic” statements a politician can make before the voters start to catch on. Conservatives flocked to McCain rallies to see Sarah Palin. Despite McCain’s mixed messages it seemed there was hope for his campaign. The stock market rallied just before the election, only to suffer deep losses after the results came in. Job losses in November soared higher than we’ve seen in a generation. Nobody can figure out what investors and business owners know that the media doesn’t.

Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. The world now knows what most conservatives believed all along, that America is not a hateful racist country that would never vote for a black man who is willing to throw family members and life long friends under the proverbial bus when it suits him.

Gay Americans aren’t convinced we’re now a nice nation, but again, sometimes supporters have to be thrown under the bus in the name of unity and hopeandchange. President elect Obama wasted no time in putting together his new team. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich also got busy trying to sell Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. So busy, in fact, that the poor fellow didn’t even have time to visit his barber. Democrats across the land stepped out of character to denounce a fellow Democrat caught up in scandal. Americans were surprised again when Barack Obama announced he would appoint Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the next Secretary of State. They weren’t surprised that nobody’s concerned about former President Bill Clinton’s funny money dealings with foreigners. No, they were surprised at Caroline Kennedy’s unexpected desire to be appointed to Hillary’s senate seat. But hey, now that we’ve elected the most inexperienced candidate for President the sky’s the limit. So what if she hasn’t held a full time job, she’s a Kennedy! We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.

The accidental governor of New York, David Paterson has bigger things to worry about. He’s presiding over an enormous budget deficit (unless you compare it to California) and wants to raise taxes on everything from iPods to malt liquor. He’s convinced that new and creative taxes will lure new business to New York State.

He should just wait until Obama takes office and then stand in line with his hand out. Bailouts continue with more to come in 2009. The Bush administration caved in to the UAW, oops…the auto companies, giving about $17 billion to GM and Chrysler to tide them over until the real Santa Claus comes to town in January. And it isn’t just the auto companies who can expect to be stimulated by the stimuli promised by our President elect. He promises to create 3 million jobs by taking money out of the private sector (aka - taxation) and “investing” it in technologies that aren’t profitable for the private sector.

Let’s hope it works, since he also said he would bankrupt the coal industry. (Be sure to save your energy bills from 2008, just for the sake of nostalgia.) Despite scientific evidence that solar activity causes our climate to change, Mr. Obama has promised to spend…oops again…invest billions of taxpayer dollars to combat man made global warming. This after the coldest fall we’ve seen in a number of years. But scientists be damned! Carbon is bad and we must stop it! We’ll have to figure out how to make plants grow without carbon at a later date, after we figure out how to pay for the trillions of dollars we need to spend eliminating carbon and ”saving” our economy.

Things aren’t all bad for conservatives. The surge in Iraq produced results beyond even Barack Obama’s wildest dreams. There are so few Republicans left conservatives no longer have to spend much time defending them. Gas prices are lower now than we’ve seen in years. (Enjoy it while it lasts as any hopes of increased domestic oil production are dashed.) And with any luck Joe Biden will receive enough media coverage to offer some comic relief for the next few years, we’re sure going to need it. Happy New Year!

Colin Powell's Intellectual Dishonesty

In this video, just after Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama, Powell expressed his concern that the Obama campaign is battling the trivial issues of William Ayers, terrorism and whether or not Barack Obama is a Muslim. 1) You'll note that Powell is clearly accusatory toward the McCain campaign, nevermind that neither McCain or Palin have said such:

...this little Muslim connection and my goodness, he's a terrorist

General Powell should know that his celebrity stature does not enable him to speak for America 2) About 5 minutes 52 seconds into the video, Powell attempts to revise Obama's statement to Joe the Plumber - "it's a good thing to spread the wealth." Instead of an honest discussion about taking my money and yours and giving it to someone else, Powell dishonestly characterizes spreading the wealth as building infrastructure, airports, hospitals, etc., and he says, these perks go "back to the people who paid the taxes." No mention of the perks also being there for people who have NEVER contributed. Obama's tax hikes have nothing to do with infrastructure. They have everything to do with the Democrat agenda, which is simply controlling the wealth of this great Nation. YouTube.com Remember this from Biden?

[speaking of paying taxes] It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

To which Sarah Palin replied:

To the rest of America, that's not patriotism. Raising taxes is about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse.