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            Much has been made about the new “Blogger Tax” that Philadelphia has put in place recently. Many people have stated how this tax is malicious in the fact that typically this tax is taking 6x’s the amount of money that any person has made from their individual blog. What’s also been said is how this is just another way to show how a city that is incapable of creating anything even remotely looking like a balanced budget is just trying to figure out how to shake more money loose from people’s pockets, just like a bully in your old school yard from when we were kids.

            What most people are not recognizing though is that this isn’t about money. This isn’t about taxes. This isn’t about trying to balance a budget or receiving the proper tax money that the city feels entitled and owed. This is about control.

            Anyone that has ever experienced the wrath of a bully, like myself (I mean seriously people…how could I not with a name like Ian), knows that the point of what a bully is doing to you has nothing to do with your lunch money, or wanting to really hear you scream Uncle when your arm is wrenched behind your back, or calls you names in front of the whole school to make people laugh at you. The whole point of what a bully does is to make you dance to their tune and do as he says. He wants to flex his muscles and hurt you because he can, and because it gives him power over someone that he believes is weak or powerless to stop them. Control. “I can make you do what I want and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!” That’s the credo and mantra of the bully clan, and Philadelphia just showed its true colors.

            When you decide that the voice of another person is somehow subjected to an erroneous and outrageous fee on their thoughts and words, you’re doing this not to collect the maybe couple of thousands of dollars that a city could make from such a tax, but to specifically target those individuals that have the courage to make their voices heard and speak against the wrongs of an out-of-control government. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle that the voice speaks from, the point is to shut them up or make them pay. What do you think is the likelihood that a stay-at-home mom with no extra income, and certainly none made from her blog, is going to do when the city comes along and tells her that you need to pay us $300 right now or cease and desist speaking your mind. She’s going to stop speaking her mind, and the bully will have won. This is the government version of “Gimme your lunch money or I will punch you in the face!”

             Whether this is a local borough, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the US Federal government, the City of Philadelphia, or a big dumb jerk in the playground, a bully is still a bully.

              In my younger days, when I was a small, four-eyed, scrawny little kid, I was at the mercy of these types of bullies at first. Mine was a boy by the name of Scott. After a while though, there’s only so much pain, fear, and teasing a boy can take. It wasn’t until I stood up to Scott one day on a spring morning in 4^th-grade and fought back that the teasing stopped. Sure I lost that fight, after all he was bigger and stronger than me, but it was from that moment forward that the veil of fear was lifted from him and everyone saw that even a little pipsqueak like me could make a bully bleed. Once that happens, a bully becomes nothing. A bully becomes something to have contempt and pity for, not fear.

             This is Philadelphia’s version of the bully wrenching your arm and telling you to scream Uncle. We need to stand against this intimidation, all of us who write on the web and have people who read us. We need to focus our attention on the City of Brotherly Love, like that fits right now or has for years, and verbally punch the bully in the face and make him bleed. Once that happens, he will lose all the power of a mean boy on the playground and become what he really is, a pitiful child with no self-control and something that we “Little Pipsqueak’s” should not tolerate any longer.

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Sometimes the best way to find out if you are on the right side of an issue is to see who lines up on the other side of it. New York Post:

A leader of the Hamas terror group yesterday jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero — insisting Muslims “have to build” it there.

“We have to build everywhere,” said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and the organization’s chief on the Gaza Strip.

“In every area we have, [as] Muslim[s], we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer,” he said on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on WABC.

“We have to build the mosque, as you are allowed to build the church and Israelis are building their holy places.”

Hamas, he added, “is representing the vast majority of the Arabic and Islamic world — especially the Islamic side.”

Interestingly, it seems that those outspoken proponents of building the Mosque as some sort of celebration of of this country’s tolerance seem to have nothing to say about the Hamas endorsement.

This need to “build everywhere” fits in with the Islamic idea known as “Dar al Islam,” which is defined by the MidEast Encyclopedia thusly:

Dar al Islam is the area of the world under the rule of Islam , literally, “the home of Islam” or “the home of submission.” This is often used by extremists to include areas that used to be part of the Muslim world such as Al-Andalus (Spain) as well as the Muslim world. It is not a Quranic term or used in the Hadith and it is variously interpreted Moderate Muslims except that Dar al Islam may be any place where Muslims are secure, even if it is a secular society, whereas extremists have a different view.

NRO has an excellent editorial on the mosque and Obama’s feeble response:

Obama’s embarrassing backtracking highlights a more important lesson about the mosque controversy: It doesn’t have anything to do with the free exercise of religion. As Obama spectacularly demonstrated over the last couple of days, you can be a stalwart friend of religious freedom and still not necessarily think the mosque project is a good idea. Indeed, no reasonable opponent of the project contests the right of Muslims to worship as they please in this country — the First Amendment religious rights of Muslims never have been in question, at all. The critics insist only that this particular location for a project led by these particular people — including an imam who cannot bring himself to condemn Hamas — is unseemly and ill-considered. That position in no way implies a disregard for the First Amendment.

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Once, just once, I wish this President would take a stand on something I can agree with. After months of trying to avoid the subject, yesterday Obama finally came out with his stance on the mosque at Ground Zero, and of course, its the wrong, most divisive stance he could possibly take, further alientating ordinary Americans from his hard left, elitist ideology:

Speaking at a White House dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Obama said all Americans have the right to worship as they choose.

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances, Obama said. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.”

Reading between the lines, what Obama is really saying is that any opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is not only insensitive, but anti-American. I find it laughable that this President, who has spent much of his time in office touring the world and apologizing for America’s role in it, thinks he can lecture Americans on what it is to be an American. This would not be so offensive if he at least honestly acknowledged the concerns and objections that Americans have to this project, or if he acknowledged some of the anti-American sentiment by the project leaders, their support for Hamas, their statements that America was an accomplice to 9/11.

I think it’s important to state that while it is not the role of government to deny this project, as the leader of our country, Barack Obama could have taken this opportunity of speaking to Muslims at a Ramadan dinner, to explain why the mosque shouldn’t be built and why many Americans take offense. He could have appealed the to the so-called moderate Muslim world’s sense of decency and respect; after all, this is all part of the same religion that threatens death to anyone who so much as draws a cartoon of Muhammed, isn’t it?

Finally, there’s this from Obama’s speech:

“We must never forget those who we lost so tragically on 9/11, and we must always honor those who led our response to that attack — from the firefighters who charged up smoke-filled staircases, to our troops who are serving in Afghanistan today,” he said.

“Our enemies respect no religious freedom. Al Qaida’s cause is not Islam — it is a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists who murder innocent men, women and children. In fact, al Qaida has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion — and that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11.”

This is either grossly naive, a display of incredible cowardice or a deliberate distortion uttered so as to side-step the real issues in confronting Islamist terrorism. That “gross distortion of Islam” is a religious movement and does have followers–they were the ones who, you may recall, flew those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They were the ones who, you also may recall, celebrated the 3,000 deaths on September 11, 2001.

Moderate Muslims can, should and have denounced this mosque; yet Obama seems bent on ignoring them. There is no curiosity on the part of these elitist liberals of why, when there are more than 30 mosques in New York, that THIS mosque MUST be built HERE, on hallowed ground. There is no curiousity as to where the funds are coming from. They are hiding behind the first amendment, claiming it is tieing their hands–which is funny, since they have absolutely no problem ignoring the Constitution when it suits them, which is more often than not.

As I said earlier, it is not the role of government to stop this project. But if we must follow the letter of the law, then articulating Americans’ feelings and objections to this project and appealing to the decency of those behind the project is the job of the American President. And he has failed us again.

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What happens when a group of influential, like-minded journalists abandon their journalistic integrity in favor of their liberal ideology?

A vastly inexperienced, unqualified and radically liberal man gets elected to the most powerful office in the world.

If you are not following the Daily Caller’s revelations on how these opinion-makers began the memes with which we are all now intimately familiar, you are missing the story of the year. And if you are relying on the conventional, mainstream media to be reporting this story, forget it. For the naive out there who still believe conventional journalism is objective, you are in for a rude awakening. For the jaded cynics who always wanted proof of the collusion of lefty journalists’ crusade against the right, the Journo-list expose is the greatest gift to conservatives since the exposure of the Climate Gate emails.

Smug, calculating and brutal, observe how the story of Obama’s 20-year association with the radical Reverend Jeremiah Wright was silenced with accusations of racism. Here’s the paranoid Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent with the plan:

I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Read about the Journo-listers’ strategy to silence arch nemesis Fox News:

“I am genuinely scared” of Fox, wrote Guardian columnist Daniel Davies, because it “shows you that a genuinely shameless and unethical media organisation *cannot* be controlled by any form of peer pressure or self-regulation, and nor can it be successfully cold-shouldered or ostracised. In order to have even a semblance of control, you need a tough legal framework.” Davies, a Brit, frequently argued the United States needed stricter libel laws.

“I agree,” said Michael Scherer of Time Magazine. Roger “Ailes understands that his job is to build a tribal identity, not a news organization. You can’t hurt Fox by saying it gets it wrong, if Ailes just uses the criticism to deepen the tribal identity.”

Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”

And today, read about the Journo-lister plot to destroy Sarah Palin:

Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign” would need to work hard to discredit Palin. “This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn’t say – very hard-hitting stuff, including some of the things that people have been noting here – scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christia wing-nut a heartbeat away …… bang away at McCain’s age making this unusually significant …. I think people should be replicating some of the not-so-pleasant viral email campaigns that were used against [Obama].”

All of this would almost be funny of it hadn’t proved so successful. These Journo-listers started several memes that were picked up and repeated ad-nauseum by the mainstream media, as they knew they would be. The arrogance of the Journo-listers and their contempt for vast swatches of the American public as gullible rubes proved to be a powerful and effective combination in getting their man elected.

Read everything. And don’t get fooled again.

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Thanks to Newsbusters for doing that work that Americans don’t want to do and watching CNN for us.

First Stephanie Miller calls the Tea Party “teabaggers” and claims that’s what they call themselves, then Nancy Giles starts calling the Tea Party “racist” without proof, and tells a Tea Partier to “shut up” when she tells her she’s wrong. Yes, the Obamaniacs are bringing us together!

The best quote in the video comes from Nancy Giles:

They just – the thing that is so disturbing to me about the Tea Party is that their racist attitudes and the elements of the Tea Party that are racist and violent that show up with racist and violent imagery in their posters, that show up at rallies with guns, that show up and intimidate – emotionally intimidate people, helps move the Conservative, you know, far – closer and closer into – in contaminating the mainstream, doing things like – criticizing Thurgood Marshall.

Racist, racist, RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111oneoneone

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This must be the liberal meme – the New Black Panther Party is laughable! They definitely aren’t a threat to anyone’s rights or safety. Wow, are these people hypocrites. If Samir Shabazz was KKK the PG would be flipping out.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ain’t ‘fraid no Panthers:

Two members of the New Black Panther Party stood outside a North Philly polling place on Election Day 2008 in paramilitary garb. One of the two brandished a billy club looking vaguely menacing, but mostly silly.

The men stood outside the predominantly black polling center for a short time before cops sent them on their way. One of the men is alleged to have said something insulting about white people. Neither was arrested.

On the basis of a silly nonevent by two nobodies, the right wing has invented an outrageous conspiracy theory about the Justice Department’s alleged disregard for the voting rights of white people.

Something else which is probably silly to the PG – Hillary Clinton supporters claiming that Barack Obama stole the 2008 Democratic primary election:

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I know that this is a fairly long post, but I believe in sharing with friends and this discussion gave me a snapshot of the inner mind of a Socialist.

The following was the chain for a discussion with a classmate that I have in my present Business Communications class. The initial question posed that started this chain was “Why do you feel that you can trust NPR over other media outlets? Why can you not trust other media organizations? If this is true can we change the way we gather and distribute news to our audiences?” I felt you should all see the fight we have ahead of us and the war of the minds we are waging today.

Here is how I started the response chain for the class to this question:

Honestly, why would you trust NPR over the other media news outlets, especially since NPR is National Public Radio and is paid by the Federal Government? That, in my mind, makes them even less trustworthy than any other independent organization because they are beholden to the federal government and the whims of whatever the Fed feels like giving to them depending on how much they support the federal government’s agenda than an independent organization that raises their money the independent and capitalist way, through independent contributions and companies paying money for airtime on their channels via commercial time. When an organization is dependent on an cash cow, visa-vie the Federal government, and the trials and tribulations of that group and how much you toe the line for whatever talking points they demand of their groups that take money from them makes them, in my book, less trustworthy than independent companies that raise their money the old fashioned way, through selling commercial time to private organizations and companies. The independent companies are, in my book, more trustworthy by a long shot, than any organization supported and funded by the federal government, regardless of whatever administration is in charge of them.

This is how Lori (get to love her folks…she’s our Socialist in the left corner in this particular boxing match) responded to my reasonable assertion:

Ian,You said “When an organization is dependent on a cash cow…”

Wouldn’t you agree that the cash cow you are referring to is really capitalism at its best? I mean isn’t that what capitalism is about? It’s all about the money. Whoever has more gets to put their message out there. FOX news operates the way it does and has that rightish slant because Rupert Murdoch owns the organization. He won at the capitalist game and now he gets his own channel to broadcast whatever he wants.

NPR is not owned by the federal government. It’s just called National because it’s well national and it operates on airwaves that are public. NPR is donor supported and that’s how they operate.

 Ultimately I believe all organizations are dependent on cash cows- the American consumer.

Lori

Bakersfield, CA

I had to respond to this dripping with socialism-love nonsense:

I personally believe that you are missing a fundamental aspect to what Capitalism is all about. It’s not about money, but money is partly the motivator (or gasoline if you want to think of it in another fashion). Capitalism, and more specifically the Free Market System, is based on personal choice. It is based on you setting your own personal priorities as to what you want to earn money to buy, what you want to spend, what you feel is important to you and your family, if you have one. In a free market system, you or I could decide that we can do something better than someone else out there and start a business to make it better than them. We could also decide that we want to start a business to become our own boss and do something new, or better, than the rest of the world. The Free market is an extension to the freedoms inherited in all of us by the Natural Laws we were born with and endowed by God with. This is just the economic system version of that.

A market that is controlled by a government, or a planning commission or whatever terminology or group you want to assign there, is a Socialist system and it has the opposite priorities and affects on its citizens than a Free Market system does. When a person believe they can do something better than someone else in the market, or cheaper, or faster, or whatever that betterment may be, a Socialist and top-down controlled system locks that individual out because they are not and their new system is not “Part of the Plan.” Socialism stifles creativity, inventiveness, and the entrepreneurial spirit in much of humanity. There is no incentive to do better because to do so would throw off “the Plan” from the central planning committee, which top-down governments never allow. They never allow these things because in then moves the control from those at the top make the choice to those at the bottom, you and me, in making decisions on what is best for ourselves and the economy. Tyranny’s never allow control to move down, because if they do then they lose control and they will never allow that.

This was not meant as a taking to task. I just want everyone who reads this to understand the fundamental differences in those 2 economic and social philosophies. And NPR is partially subsidized by the Federal Government through federal grants. This can be found on pg. 9 of their 2009 Fiscal budget (http://www.npr.org/about/statements/fy2009/2009_LA_NPR_Cons.pdf). Their operational revenue amount is found on pg. 5.

When you divide that amount the government gives them by their operating revenue, this money accounts for approximately 13% of their overall operating capital. Obviously, this does not make them a Federal mouth piece per se, but when 13% of your operating budget comes from 1 source, you are pretty beholden to them to make sure that money keeps flowing in. Any business that has 1/8th of its operating budget come from one location would jump through hoops to make that customer happy. It just becomes very bad for freedom of speech and differences of opinion when that 1/8th is coming from the government. That’s all I’m saying.

Here is how she countered back:

Hi Ian

I would have to disagree with you. Capitalism in theory may be about freedom but it really is about money (CAPITOL=money). In my opinion there are lots of companies who exemplify this, all you have to do is look at the corporate scandals of the last few years. I take offense to your use of using God as a defense for capitalism also. God has nothing to do with all the money hungry hoarders in this world who only care about themselves.

I don’t think Socialism is perfect but I do think there are advantages to that type of system. People in these types of systems tend to do things that actually make them happy rather than what will get them the most money. I for one would love to have lived in a country where we didn’t have to pay out of the nose for an education. Education is something, in my opinion, that can make and break a country.

NPR may be partially subsidized but Chrysler and AIG were both bailed out by the government because if not the country would have gone into a tail spin. I don’t agree with that and I’m sure as a capitalist enthusiast you probably don’t either. I’m curious to know, what would your solution have been?

I really enjoy your perspective Ian. Please don’t misunderstand my posts to you as anything other than an educated discussion.

Lori
Bakersfield, CA

Notice how she didn’t argue my facts, but went to the tried-and-true tactic of attacking the messenger initially and then say that it was an emergency and we “Had to do it!” I couldn’t let this sit, so here is how I replied:

There are no advantages to a Socialist system, unless you are looking for someone to take all the chances and possibilities of wild success OR failure out of life. The problem with that though is that in order to make sure that everyone is taken care of equally, you must make everyone equal. In order to make everyone equal, you must, by definition, hold people back from achieving too much or being too successful in work, in life, in thought, in ideas, in happiness, in health, in family status or position, in ethics taught by parents to children, in religion, and the list goes on and on and on. All of this “Equality” must be dictated by the state and not by our own personal hopes and dreams. We would no longer be in charge of the dreams and goals we believed we could achieve, by the state would.

Your child could tell you one day that “Mommy…I want to be a doctor someday and help sick boys and girls.” and you would have to follow that childhood dream up with this, “That’s nice sweetie…but the state says we already have enough doctors, so it’s been decided that you will be an auto mechanic because the state says we have a shortage of those.” What kind of parent would that make you? More importantly, is that the world you want to raise your child in?

And Lori, I believed you missed what I was saying about God. I was not saying that God was about money. I was saying that Capitalism is an extension, in an economic sense, of the Natural Laws that were endowed to us by our creator. This is a fundamental concept of what our country is founded on. Without God being at the top, or whatever you believe of as God since it is a personal choice and relationship, then those rights we enjoy are not inherit inside us but given by the state. God must be at the top because if not then those rights are no longer rights but freedoms we were given by a government, and what a government gives, then can take away. Power is supposed to go from God, to you and I, to the government…not the other way around. The former is freedom, while the later is tyranny..

Don’t you see, in order to make all equal, then we must all equally suffer and be restrained from the individual greatness each of us has inside ourselves. This is counter to what we know is the human yearning to achieve greatness and do great things. Socialism holds you back. Capitalism unchains you and says “Go!” And capitalism is not about money, it’s about getting the hell out of someone’s way and saying “You choose your own path to what your dreams are, if you do this right, the world will be your oyster, and we will all be better for your success.” Money is nothing more than the fuel to that fire.

Whether it’s a dollar bill or a pucca shell on an island, we all want to be fairly compensated for the hard work we do. That right now comes in the form of a Dollar. Don’t be angry at the dollar because it is nothing more than a representation of the fair reward for work done. Capitalism equals freedom to dream and strive to make yours and your family’s lives better. Socialism equals accepting your lot in life determined by someone else that doesn’t know, or frankly care, what you dreamed for yourself, and determines what “Freedoms” they LET you have. That’s not freedom at all…that’s slavery, and I thought we fought and died as a people to throw those shackles off. Don’t chain your dreams to the ground in the mud…but give them wings and tell them “fly”

__________________

I’m still waiting for her counter-argument to this.

I may be waiting a while.

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A judge has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional based on the 10th Amendment:

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from giving pension and other benefits to same sex couples, is unconstitutional, reports the Associated Press.

Tauro wrote that the 1996 law ran afoul of the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment. “The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment,” Tauro wrote.

Just one problem here – the DOMA does not prevent states from recognizing homosexual “marriage”. The DOMA states that the federal government does not recognize homosexual “marriage”, and that states are not required to recognize homosexual “marriages” performed in states which do recognize them.

Apparently Judge Tauro doesn’t understand the 10th Amendment, but that really wouldn’t be that much of a surprise, considering that neither the President of the United States, nor half of the Justices on the Supreme Court, nor the majority of the Democratic Party understand the 1st Amendment, the 2nd Amendment, or the 14th Amendment.

The 10th Amendment simply states that any power not specifically granted to the federal government by the US Constitution is granted to the states. Thus, as anyone with the slightest modicum of intelligence can see, the DOMA does not violate the 10th Amendment. If a state wishes to recognize homosexual “marriage”, that state is free to do so.

In reality, the exact opposite of what this “judge” ruled is the truth. The DOMA protects the 10th Amendment, that is, it allows states to make their own laws regarding the recognition of homosexual unions. In declaring the DOMA unconstitutional, this “judge” is arguing that if one state votes in favor of recognizing homosexual “marriages” as valid, ALL states are required to do the same.

But, this is how liberals have been “progressing” our nation for at least the past 50 years. If they can’t get their way at the ballot box, why, they’ll just have some judge arbitrarily change the meaning of the Constitution! Hurray for “progress”!

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From today’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

One day recently, my daily Bible devotional was titled “Of Dogs and Swine.” It was taken from Matthew 7:6 of the New Testament. The verse reads: “Do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.”

In biblical times, dogs were largely mongrels and scavengers and swine were considered unclean. Both were considered greedy, vicious and filthy.

Dogs and swine in this verse represent people who, because of their perversity and ungodliness, refuse to have anything to do with the holy and precious things of God except to trample them under their feet, turning and tearing God’s people to pieces.

As I read this devotional verse, I found myself relating it to those governing our great nation today. I believe the current administration and Congress are trampling and tearing apart everything that is holy and precious to our country.

I pray those who read this opinion will agree and realize those governing today must be defeated before they destroy us.

We can begin by voting against every Democrat running for office in November.

Thomas H. Taylor

Hempfield

Not that there aren’t plenty of anti-God people in the GOP, but hating people of God isn’t part of the Republican Party platform. Many typical liberals today are just like the dogs described in the Biblical verse; vicious people who will turn on you and figuratively tear you to pieces if you reveal yourself as a serious Christian. See: The liberals’ treatment of Sarah Palin.

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Congress is very close to repealing the extremely sensible “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which allows homosexuals to serve in the American military as long as they don’t talk about their sexual orientation. This policy is being repealed as part of the PR battle of radical homosexuals to force government-sponsored homosexual marriage. That’s all there is to it.

You see, it’s not enough for homosexual “marriage” to be legal in the United States, which it is. Anyone is free to rent a hall, hire a “minister”, and have said “minister” perform a “marriage”. It’s just that the government will not recognize that “marriage” as valid. In certain countries homosexual “marriage” actually is illegal, meaning that those who hold private ceremonies in which two people of the same sex are married are punished by the government with fines and imprisonment.

But in the United States, which currently has libertarian and sensible policies regarding homosexuals, the radical homosexuals will not be satisfied until their “marriages” are recognized and celebrated by all people – as demanded by order of the iron fist of government. It’s ironic that so-called “libertarians” support such fascist tactics.

With the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy repealed, the military will be forced to make numerous expensive adjustments, the most obvious of which is that they will probably need to build separate living quarters for the openly homosexual troops, segregating them from everyone else. Why? Because otherwise some wiseguy will make a fuss that if the homosexuals get to sleep and shower with people of the opposite “gender”, then men and women should be integrated as well. After all, the left is all about “fairness”; is it “fair” that homosexuals should get to enjoy eye candy while heterosexuals do not?

I would also not be surprised to see the draft brought back as a result of this change in policy, as it’s likely that many men will choose not to join the military as a result of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell being repealed. I can see the liberals in Congress now decrying these men as “bigots” and “homophobes” as a part of their calls for the restoration of the draft, which has only been recently proposed by liberals like Rep. Pete Stark.

This is a foolish change in policy which will only cause problems within the military, but that is of no concern to the radical homosexuals. Their only concern here is reaching a stepping stone in using the power of the federal government to achieve their ultimate goal of forcing the people of the United States to sanctify and celebrate homosexual “marriage”.

Also, it’s nice to see that Congress has their priorities in order. While the Gulf of Mexico is turning into a giant tar pit, they’re screwing around with social engineering in the military. It’s great to see Obama and the Dems get the biggest pass of all time on that disaster while Bush caught hell, and continues to catch hell, for his response to hurricane Katrina.

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This is the letter of the year. What a perfect explanation of modern American politics:

It seems when liberals protest, no matter what they do or say, they are merely getting involved, trying to make a difference and exercising their rights as Americans. When conservatives protest, they are proving they are violent Nazis, anti-American and racists.

Liberals never have to debate a policy (or even read a controversial bill) or stick to facts. When they can get personal, mock and vilify, this is thoughtful statesmanship. If conservatives focus on an issue, they are mean-spirited and racist, while the issue is ignored.

Liberals always try to help the little guy; they are noble. Conservatives always try to line the pockets of the rich and are venal, ignoble and racist. When a black person is a liberal, like Rep. Charles Rangel, pointing out his lapses is racist. When a black person is a conservative, like Justice Clarence Thomas, he is a racist and must be insulted and impugned. It is impossible for a liberal to be a racist, even if he was a member of the KKK. It is impossible for a conservative not to be a racist, even if he is black.

Liberals are highly intelligent and above reproach, while conservatives are stupid, the butt of jokes and of low morals. Conservatives can do no right and liberals can do no harm. Does anyone really believe this?

BILL YORK
Upper St. Clair

The best part of this letter is Mr. York emphasizing that every time conservatives disagree with liberals on ANYTHING, that it MUST be because of racism. The genius of the letter rests in his repeating the word “racist” over and over and over to the point of parody, which is exactly what the left does.

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Nikki Haley, candidate for governor of South Carolina, is under attack and is in danger of being Palin’ed by the media.

She is latest version of Sarah Palin, meaning, the latest pro-life conservative politician who happens to also be a beautiful woman. She is also the latest target of the MSM. How so? Well, some joke of a blogger claimed that he had an affair with her years ago, so naturally, this is considered as being major news by various MSM outlets, including the AP and CBS News.

This story is not newsworthy. If the blogger’s accusations are proven true, then it will be newsworthy. Right now, it’s not. And yet, the MSM is covering it. Why?

Simple. Because you are not allowed to be a pro-life conservative woman in the United States of America. If you are, the media will do everything it can to destroy you – everything it can to protect the right to kill unborn children, as the very notion of a highly respected, beautiful woman representing the pro-life cause makes the left furious. Furious enough to use lies and innuendo to destroy people’s lives.

This is just the beginning for you, Nikki Haley. I hope you’re tough enough to endure it.

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Watch as over a period of about sixty seconds, Chris “Tweety” Matthews blames HALLIBURTON and CHENEY for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, then makes a misogynistic comment. Vintage Tweety!

HALLIBURTON. CHENEY. HALLIBURTON. CHENEY. BUUUUUUSH!!!!

Remember, it’s not that Obama sucks as president, it’s that BUSH screwed up the country/planet/universe so bad that even Obama can’t do anything about it.

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Liberals and “moderates” are appalled at the decision made on the new history textbooks in Texas, which will affect history textbooks throughout the entire nation. They are furious that such right-wing extremism is going to be in these books which will be used to teach children. Just take a look at how EXTREME these FASCIST CONSERVATIVES are:

In one of the most significant changes leading up to the vote, the board attempted to water down the rationale for the separation of church and state in a high school government class, pointing out that the words were not in the Constitution and requiring that students compare and contrast the judicial language with the wording in the First Amendment.

They also rejected language to modernize the classification of historic periods to B.C.E. and C.E. from the traditional B.C. and A.D., and agreed to replace Thomas Jefferson as an example of an influential political philosopher in a world history class. They also required students to evaluate efforts by global organizations such as the United Nations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.

Telling kids that the words “separation of church and state” don’t actually appear in the US Constitution? EXTREME!!!!

Doing away with the arbitrary replacement of “Before Christ” and “Anno Domini” with “Before the Common Era” and “Common Era”? EXTREME!!!!

During the monthslong revision process, conservatives strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers and required that the U.S. government be referred to as a “constitutional republic,” rather than “democratic.” Students will be required to study the decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

Emphasizing the beliefs of the Founding Fathers and making clear that our county is a republic under a constitution? EXTREME!!!!

After being defeated, the liberals said that they don’t want liberal or conservative textbooks, just excellent textbooks. Right. And an “excellent textbook” is one which implies that “separation of church and state” is in the US Constitution, doesn’t contain “BC” or “AD”, suggests that the Founding Fathers (oops, I meant to say “Framers”) were a bunch of godless Communists, and refers to the United States as a “democracy”.

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Today is “Everybody Draw Mohammed” day on Facebook, and liberals are very upset, because in case you didn’t know, drawing Mohammed is against Islam, and we wouldn’t want to do anything that is against someone’s religion!

…Unless it’s blaspheming Christ, blaspheming God, making movies about how evil the Catholic Church is, writing editorials about how evil the Catholic Church is, desecrating the Holy Eucharist, calling the pope a Nazi, claiming that the Catholic Church opposes of the ordination of women because it hates women, claiming that the Catholic Church opposes abortion because it hates women, claiming that the Catholic Church opposes homosexual “marriage” because it hates homosexuals, claiming that the Catholic Church is the enemy of science, ridiculing the Blessed Virgin Mary, claiming that all priests are pedophiles, or referring to 2,000 year old unchangeable Catholic dogma as “right-wing extremism”.

These people are the biggest hypocrites in the world. That said:

*~@:{(>

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Why don’t they just link directly to Democrats.org? It would save them the trouble of pretending to be objective:

What do former chief justices William Rehnquist, Earl Warren and John Marshall and former associate justices Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter and Lewis F. Powell Jr. have in common with Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s new nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court? None of them had experience as a judge before being nominated.

How interesting that the PG starts its editorial with an answer for the most common criticism of Kagan. Especially since we all know what an excellent Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter was. I never heard of him before today, but apparently he was an old buddy of FDR’s who was nominated for the high court thanks to nepotism. Kind of like Harriet Miers.

While such a choice has not occurred in almost 40 years, Ms. Kagan’s lack of time on the bench is far from disqualifying. The Constitution doesn’t require it and history endorses the view that, even without judicial experience, she is in very good company.

So why not put the Sham-Wow guy on the Supreme Court? If experience isn’t important, and, as many other liberals have argued, that we need more diversity on the court? The Sham-Wow guy would certainly bring a new perspective! He could give anyone who wins a case a free Slap-Chop. Or if we want another woman, how about personal trainer Jillian Michaels? She’s only 36 years old and would be the first Supreme Court nominee with abs of steel.

You might think I’m being rather arbitrary here, but am I really that different from the PG thus far?

Though final judgment should be reserved until after the confirmation hearing, it appears that Mr. Obama has chosen boldly and well. Ms. Kagan has had a stellar legal career in academia and government that more than makes up for not having been a judge. Nobody can seriously argue that she lacks the intellectual heft to be a member of the court.

Yes indeed, after all, from 1970 – 1972 she was a law clerk for the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Joe E. Estes. She was admitted to the Texas bar in 1970 and admitted to the DC bar in 1997. In 1986, she became the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association. In 1992, she became the first woman to head the State Bar of Texas. She has also served as chair of the Board of Editors for the American Bar Association Journal and as the chair of the ABA’s “Commission on Multi-Jurisdictional Practice”.

Oh wait. That was Harriet Miers. My bad.

Her resume is golden. She received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton, a master’s degree from Oxford and a law degree from Harvard and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In the early 1990s, she and Mr. Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law School. She was the first female dean of Harvard Law School, the first female solicitor general in the nation’s history.

Can anyone honestly say that this “golden” resume is significantly different than that of Harriet Miers which I listed above? Both of them have law degrees. Both of them clerked for Justices of high courts. One was the first female dean of Harvard Law while the other was the first female to head the State Bar of Texas.

If she is confirmed, she will be the third female justice sitting on this court, the most in its history, and at age 50 she would be the youngest justice currently on the beach.

So Jillian Michaels would be more qualified, then? Female, younger than 50, plus if as a Supreme Court Justice she wore a black sports bra instead of a robe she would get more people to pay attention to the goings on of the federal government.

And “beach” is what the PG actually put in their editorial. Must have been a fat-finger typo since the “a” is so close to the “n” on a keyboard. “The youngest justice currently on the beach.” Well, heck, if you want a young female justice on the beach, Jillian Michaels is the woman for you!

Ms. Kagan has a liberal background, but she is replacing another liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens,

So Justice Stevens also would have banned military recruiters from Harvard in a ridiculous protest against the don’t ask don’t tell policy? According to Kagan, don’t ask don’t tell is “a moral injustice of the first order”. Does Stevens agree with those hysterics?

and she enjoys respect across the board, as evidenced last year when seven Republican senators voted to confirm her as solicitor general.

Seven Republicans voted to confirm her for a position which usually changes out every few years, and that means she has bipartisan support to be a Justice on the Supreme Court for the rest of her life. Right.

This nominee is neither a radical nor a partisan provocation,

She banned military recruiters from Harvard in protest over “don’t ask don’t tell.”
She banned military recruiters from Harvard in protest over “don’t ask don’t tell.”
She banned military recruiters from Harvard in protest over “don’t ask don’t tell.”
She banned military recruiters from Harvard in protest over “don’t ask don’t tell.”
She banned military recruiters from Harvard in protest over “don’t ask don’t tell.”

Why doesn’t that appear in your little campaign commercial of an editorial, PG? Wasn’t that in the DNC Talking Points?

and she deserves a fair hearing devoid of the usual partisan rancor.

I assume that means Senator Specter won’t be involved. Oh, wait, she’s pro-abortion, so Specter will adore her.

Jillian Michaels for the SCOTUS.

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Justice Stevens’ replacement will be a pro-abortion liberal activist. Of that there can be no doubt.

Me, April 23, 2010

Today’s “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip seems appropriate:

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Writing about the Specter’s and Crist’s of the Republican Party, Michael Smerconish reminds us of why he’s no longer a Republican.

A more open question is whether the Specters and Crists of the political world would be better off remaining in the Republican Party and effecting moderation from within. As one who’s long implored the GOP to reopen the tent and appeal more to centrist voters (and recently became so frustrated by its refusal to do so that I myself became an independent), part of me wishes Specter had stuck around.

The GOP nominates the most moderate Republican candidate for President in the history of the Republican Party , and he was so far to the right for Michael Smerconish that he voted for, literally, the most liberal Democrat politician in the American Presidency.

We can all be for Big Republican tents, but c’mon. Barack Obama is no moderate, and definately not a Republican moderate.

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It’s a shame Democrats have no sense of humor, nor joy in their lives.

On Tuesday, as first reported by Capitolwire.com, foundation president Matt Brouillette wrote in an e-mail sent to media and foundation supporters: “… I hope you’ll join us May 8th to pump a few rounds (or fire a cannon…) into a beat-up truck bearing anti-freedom policy ideas like “ObamaCare,” “Card Check,” “Cap and Trade,” and other failed, wealth-redistributionist ideas.”

Apparently Democratic gubernatorial Jack Wagner, who is listed on the Foundation’s web site as a confirmed guest, suddenly had scheduling problems and backed out. Now, even Republican state committee-endorsed lieutenant governor candidate Jim Cawley, it appears is having second thoughts. He told Capitolwire he would have to “take a look” at the activities before commenting.

The GOP candidates for U.S. Senate (former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey and Peg Luksik) and governor (Attorney General Tom Corbett and House Rep. Sam Rohrer) are on the attendees list.

Also invited was Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Hoeffel. Upon hearing of the truck shoot, Hoeffel told Capitolwire: “These right-wingers have trouble talking straight, so I hope for safety’s sake, they can shoot straight.”

Hoeffel, who said he would not attend, added, the event “certainly reflects the coarseness of political debate these days. They obviously think it’s fun, so I am tempted to respond with humor, but in all seriousness, it just does reflect their lack of respect for opposing points of view.”

No word on Hoeffel’s participation in “Draw Mohammed Day.”

Buzzflash:

Maybe it sounds like a day of “fun” in Lancaster, but if they were Arabs, you can be sure the event would be closed down by a SWAT team and the Arab organizers arrested.

In case shooting up “liberal cars” interests you, “Tickets are $65 for adults and children participating in shooting or archery activities; $50 for nonparticipating adults and children 12 and older.”

Oh, and the best news for wholesome families is “Children under 12 and accompanied by an adult will be admitted free.” What a glorious day of families picnicking and symbolically killing liberals!

It might be of benefit to our health and safety if we started accepting these gun nut shoot ups that target political opponents as dangerous as an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.

If we don’t do so soon, it may be too late. It may be too late already. It’s not a joke; LiveFreePA feeds the flames of hatred and provides them with firepower.

It’s almost like these guys have never been to a Homecoming and smashed up a car with a sledgehammer.

Guns are scaarrrrrryyyyyyy.

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Today the Supreme Court ruled by the narrowest of margins, 5-4, that a war memorial cross may remain on private land. The 5 who decided in favor of sanity were the 4 originalists and the “swing-vote”, Kennedy. The 4 liberal activists were all against the cross.

The completely innocuous cross in the Mojave Desert which no one could possibly think establishes a religion in violation of the First Amendment originally stood on public property, but when the ACLU complained, the land was sold to the VFW, thus making it private in what should have been the end of the matter.

After all, if the issue is that a cross on public property somehow establishes a national religion in violation of the First Amendment, as insane as that argument is, then taking that land out of the control of the government should resolve the issue. Right?

Wrong. The true issue is that America is filled with lawyers who happen to be extremely hateful anti-Christian bigots. They don’t care if the cross is on public property or private property – they want the cross torn down because they hate crosses. That is the real “crux” of the matter. These people have spent years of their lives trying to get this cross torn down for no reason other than that they have an unbelievable hatred for Jesus Christ and Christians.

And if John Kerry had been elected President of the United States, we would have two more anti-Christian Justices on the Supreme Court instead of constitutionalists John Roberts and Sam Alito. If Kerry had won in 2004, the federal government would have ruled that a cross on PRIVATE PROPERTY needed to be torn down… and religious freedom would now be dead in America. Killed by bigots motivated by hate.

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