Archive for the 'Liberal Lunatics' Category

I’ve personally seen some of my progressive friends throw their own temper-tantrum and lament the filibuster rule in the Senate, openly proclaiming that “since when is 41 greater than 59″ and that the European’s parliamentary system doesn’t suffer from the problems our system does. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Well, Arnold Kling has a pretty good article over at the Library of Economics and Liberty entitled “The Progressive Tantrum“.

A quick taste:

Everyone agrees that the Republicans are just throwing sand in the gears of good government and not offering any ideas. What that means is that they are not offering ideas to enlarge government.

(snip)

My point here is not to champion Republicans. It is not to champion democracy. My point is that the ones throwing the temper tantrum right now are the Progressives. They think that the 2008 election gave them the right to operate like China’s autocracy, and they are lashing out hysterically at those they perceive as preventing them from doing so On the one hand, the villains are a small minority in the Senate. Or maybe the villains are the incoherent majority of the people.

The important point is that Progressives are never wrong.

Kling also has some examples of the Progressives lamentations (from a Thomas Friedman column) that we don’t have more of an authoritarian system that would allow us to bypass this troublesome system our Founders set up:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Seriously. Expect more of this, especially as the progressives start to see their greatest opportunity evaporate into a dissipating mist….

President Abraham who?

He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.

State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.

“We are certainly not trying to go away from American history,” Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, told Fox News. “What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day.”

As the North Carolina curriculum stands now, ninth-grade students take world history, 10th-graders study civics and economics and 11th-graders take U.S. history going back to the country’s founding.

Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.

Emphasis mine.

Let me get this straight. When North Carolina Students are 16 to 17 years old, and 1 year from going out into the world, and not only that, are 1 year from VOTING, you want to take away their freshest and most adult study of our country’s history, and in fact, its founding? When they can be taught what Jefferson and Hamilton, Madison and Adams, fought for and won? What those men believed would be the best form of government?

Un. Real. But to be expected.

My favorite quote was from “Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction”:

“The students are in school for 13 years,” said Garland. “They certainly are taught U.S. and North Carolina history in middle school.”

I am sure that the 6th grade history curriculum discusses the Declaration on a Highlights for Kids level, which is pretty much where you damned hippies want to leave them. Any discussion of the Federalist Papers (noticably missing from the Highlights archives….) won’t be necessary at the 11th grade level, you see, because it was studied earlier… trust us.

This is exactly why public schools are failing. This is why one of the most important things parents can do is to be active in PTAs, be active in knowing the decisions local school boards are making, what the states boards of education are doing, and in fact, perhaps even running for one of those seats to prevent these revisionists from taking the next generation and teaching them that their exhalations are killing Mother Gaia.

I am so glad that my children are not becoming dumber by attending North Carolina schools.

Here in Maryland, as in much of the United States, the cold snap continues. Meanwhile, across the pond, Great Britain is covered by snow. (H/T Ice Age Now)

Next up, a look at some liberals. Well, actually two looks. The British site Telegraph will be listing the 100 most influential American liberals, and has started with numbers 100 through 81. Back here in the states, John Hawkins at Right Wing News gives us the “20 most annoying liberals of 2009″.

Let’s not forget our liberal-in-chief. In The Minority Report, Ken Taylor calls Obama’s transparency “a transparency of lies”. (H/T ARRA News)

Speaking of alleged lies, in CNS News, Alan Caruba writes about “The Lies About Green Jobs”. Hmmm, that’s “3 letters: J-O-B-S”, isn’t it, Mr. Vice President?

Please excuse me while I roll my eyes over this one. Disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich calls himself “blacker than Barack Obama”.

From Canada Free Press, Daniel Greenfield tells us about “The Secret History of the Left”.

One more reason that crude oil and thus gasoline are getting more expensive: increased Chinese demand.

How well do you know the American Revolution? Take the quiz.

Bring out the asterisk. Nearly Nobody’s News reports that former major league baseball player Mark McGwire has admitted to using steroids back during his playing days. In 1998, McGwire hit 70 home runs, breaking the single-season record of 61 by Roger Maris in 1961, itself subject to an asterisk because Maris played in a 162-game season, whereas the Babe Ruth had hit 60 in a 154-game season. McGwire’s record, steroid-aided as it may have been, lasted only three years, as Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001, likely also a steroid-aided feat.

In a courtroom in East Boston, there will be no pussy-footing around with this potential juror.

With the Holiday season, things have been pretty slow around here. This is certainly understandable, since we all have our familial duties this time of year. But someone has to get in the first post of 2010.

For me, Christmas means visiting with my parents and seeing the extended clan down in Virginia. This year, it also meant getting rid of snow on the side of the street in front of their house, and from on top of dad’s car. Various siblings had already shoveled their driveway. Meanwhile, I had cleared about 20 inches of snow from my sidewalk and car back in Maryland, and thus brought some recent experience to the task. Fortunately, the day was sunny, with temperatures above freezing, allowing me to leave some of the snow to melt away.
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Back in 1968, John Lennon sang the following lines in the Beatles song Revolution:

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

Lennon was not what I’d call an anti-communist. His politics leaned leftward, including opposing the war in Vietnam, as reflected in another one of his songs. But perhaps he still realized how evil Mao was. If so, he had more sense than the designers of this year’s White House Christmas tree ornaments.

Ha! After I read this article I came up with some of my own answers.

Understanding the pros and cons of health overhaul

Q: How many people would be covered?

A: The Senate bill would cover 94 percent of eligible Americans under age 65; under the House bill, it’s 96 percent.

That’s a major improvement over the 83 percent now covered, but the safety net would have holes.

Some 16 million eligible people would remain uninsured under the Senate bill and 12 million under the House bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s not counting illegal immigrants, who would not be eligible for government assistance under either bill.

We shouldn’t be counting illegals! They should be LEGAL first.

Q: Why don’t lawmakers just provide coverage for everyone?

Uh because it would cost so much even the rich couldn’t afford it.

Q: How affordable is the new middle-class coverage going to be?

A: It depends.

Most people would remain in their employer plans. Self-employed people and those working in small businesses would be able to buy coverage through a new insurance marketplace, with government subsidies available for many.

The aid is substantial for lower-income households, but drops off rapidly for the middle class.

The evil IT DEPENDS answer. Red flag. As for many people remaining on employer sponsored plans, that’s a joke! Employers will drop the benefit of health insurance and pay the fine for it because it would be cheaper. The idiots crafting this bill KNOW this. And their counting on US to crawl to them for insurance.

Q: Twenty-year-olds don’t have many health problems. Would they be required to get coverage?

A: You bet.

Unmarried children could stay on their parents’ plan until age 27 in the House bill, 26 in the Senate plan. That change would start in 2010.

20 yr olds loose freedom. And unmarried adult children will remain children, who depend upon Mommy and Daddy until they’re seriously grown up and should be fending for themselves. A generation of free loaders in the making.

Q: Older people are concerned about what’s going to happen to Medicare. Should they be?

The article explains that NOOO, old people have nothing to fear because benefits won’t be taken away. Nope. Just by reducing the fee paid to the docs is ALL that’ll happen. What happens when they have less docs? Hmm.

Besides, old people hog all the resources anyway…they are useless to society so let’s cut them loose and let’em die. It’s gonna happen. We see it already with government panels changing the game by suddenly claiming breast exams and tests aren’t necessary until a woman is 50. That’s the beginning of OLD…and hell if they kill off enough women look at all the money saved…

I heard this wonderful little snippet that I had to rewind and hear about twenty times just to make sure I heard it come out of the President’s speech tonight:

A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play. And an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

This has always been the history of our progress.

In 1935, when over half of our seniors could not support themselves and millions had seen their savings wiped away, there were those who argued that Social Security would lead to socialism. But the men and women of Congress stood fast, and we are all the better for it.

In 1965, when some argued that Medicare represented a government takeover of health care, members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, did not back down.

I will agree with the statement that hard work and responsibility SHOULD be rewarded with “some measure of security and fair play” in that if you work an honest days work, you should find yourself better off. SHOULD. There is no guarantee, never has been. Living is risk. Doing anything carries risk. You can work your butt off and circumstances could pop up and “BAM”, everything you worked for is gone. OR things go really, really well, and you are comfortable and wealthy beyond one’s wildest imagination. That is our history.

Not the GOVERNMENT having to come in to “help deliver on that promise”, though I’m not sure what the “promise” was.

And THEN he has the guts to come out and say that this is the way our “progress” has always been, using FDR’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society as examples of “always”. Yeah. Don’t go back to the Founders, but just back into the progressive era of this country where the foundations of socialism were set, where the soft tyranny could begin, complete with the nanny state we will all enjoy. This is a slow creep. Though it seems that the snowball has picked up momentum in the last few years or so…

We have gone from equality of opportunity to equality of results. We must now guarantee a certain level for each citizen to enjoy, regardless of effort or circumstance. And we must take away from others in order to do this. Once again, our Founders did not intend this.

Bah. I fundamentally differ with this man, and the majority of his party and supporters. They believe in “leveling” the playing field, implying that adversity, and overcoming it, are their jobs and not each individual citizens.

Before some lefty troll jumps in and starts sqwaking that I am talking all crazy anarachist here, let me say that the government, local, state and federal all have their roles, with the federals the weakest as far as what it should be meddling in. That being said, if laws are being broke to the detriment of one, then ofcourse the government steps in to the fray to correct it.

And how the U.S. Constitution is being violated here requiring the use of federal power to correct a violation of a right is lost on me, and is just ignored as a non-issue. Because only those crazy Ron Paulians or nutty libertarians give a rats arse about that withered old parchment anymore. Shoot, there is a NEEEEEEEED. People are HUUUURRRRTTTING! Going BAAAAANKRUPT! Blah. Blah. Blah. I don’t say this to be harsh or cold, but the people spewing these sob stories are doing so not because they want me to help them, but so that I will let the government step in and help them, by taking away my choice and freedoms, confiscating more of my wealth and property, all to further their agendas that they can’t pay for. Yeah, that was a run-on sentence, I’m pretty sure, but I’m on a roll, so screw it.

On Fox, they’re discussing the cost, and how the President is pretty much got 10 pounds of crap stuffed into a 5 pound bag with his figures on how to pay for it. Not just the evil Repubs, but even Obama supporters are saying that he’s off. On CNN, they’re stuck on lamenting the “LIE” outcry during his speech that got Pelosi’s eyes bugged out and her hot under the collar, and anything else but the costs. I won’t even turn over to MSNBC where Matthew’s leg is quivering, Olbermann is frothing at the mouth, and Maddow, well, I can’t even look at her much listen to her smug Adam’s apple.

The question I have is, how are we going to fight this when it passes. And it will pass, in some form. Public option or not, the government will show its tentacles in the bathing suit areas of our liberties. Will the states say enough! We reassert our rights under that dusty and ill-used 10th Amendment, and since this has nothing to do with interstate commerce, you can go pound sand D.C. Or will individuals say that they’re rights are being violated because the federal government has come and ORDERED them, under penalty of law, to purchase a product. And this is NOT like auto insurance. IF I don’t own a car, I don’t have to purchase auto insurance. When this happens, and our freedoms continue to be whittled away for our own good, when is enough enough? And where do WE go to find freedom again?

Bah. I’m going to bed…

Atleast she doesn’t shift the court further to the left…..

WASHINGTON — Ohio prison authorities confirmed Tuesday the execution of Jason Getsy, 33, who was convicted of the 1995 murder of a 66-year-old woman he shot while trying to carry out a contract killing.

Getsy was pronounced dead at 10:29 am (1429 GMT) local time after receiving a lethal injection at Lucasville prison, where Ohio carries out its executions.

On Monday evening, the US Supreme Court rejected Getsy’s final appeal 5-4, with newly-confirmed Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the minority as she cast her first vote on the court in favor of delaying the execution.

Yep. Taking the side of the douchebag man who was paid to kill a main (who survived) and then murdered his mother. And Getsy’s argument of why he shouldn’t be executed. Because the man who paid him to kill didn’t get the death penalty but simply life in prison with the possibility for parole after 20 years, which somehow had something to do with absolving the fact the Getsy himself chose to pull the trigger multiple times and kill an innocent woman.

Weak. And barely readable.

When Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) held a town meeting in Houston this past Tuesday, a woman named Roxana Mayer, identifying herself as a physician, expressed her support for the pending health care reform legislation. Only one problem – she’s not a licensed physican. She’s not even involved in the medical profession. She’s a grad student in social work and an Obama delegate. Patterico has the details, including his e-mail exchange with Mayer.

This raises two questions:
1. Are there any laws against impersonating a medical doctor?
2. If this is not Astroturf, what is?

Just a Grunt, at JammieWearingFool, has this to say.

We can only imagine what the left’s reaction would be if someone opposed to Obamacare falsely claimed to be doctor. But in the meantime, if Rep. Jackson Lee has to deal with any more fake physicians, she could always adopt the following as her theme song.

During most of the Bush presidency, various Democrats told us that people had a right to voice their dissent, without their patriotism being questioned. Some even pulled out the quote, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”, often attributed Thomas Jefferson (although there is no evidence that he ever said this). But when the president is a Democrat, how much respect do they have for those who dissent from his agenda? We’ll let a prominent California Democrat tell us.

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