Another Addition to the Montana Blogosphere

We the People of Montana, just showed up. Seems to lean more to the Dextra side than that of the Montana Sinestra. But you can find her here.

Theater of the Absurd

Press Secretary Gibbs is attempting to reassure the great unwashed hoi polloi that the accused planner of 9-11 will be convicted and executed. The reason that he needs to reassure us is that people are starting to wonder why on earth we are having these trials in civilian courts and not where they belong; military tribunals. The mantra has always been from the Left that we need to treat them as criminals to demonstrate the superiority of our legal system to their murderous methods. That Gitmo and the military tribunals were simply going to be used as recruiting posters for future jihadis.
I am sure that those same future jihadis will be less likely to carry out on their desire to get the 42 virgins now that they know the plotters will receive a fair trial and then be executed. Unless they are found to be not guilty, in which case we will hold them forever anyway. Yeah, that's fair.
Can't we just admit that this is nothing but show, a tool with which to bludgeon Bush and Republicans rather than any serious moral point?

Anybody Seen Mark T. Lately?

I would hate to think that he actually did follow his silly philosophy and do what this guy did.

Channeling Their Inner Democrat

Make a bone headed accusation, and then try to pretend that you didn't make it. I am sure that the Pullitzer Committee would be so proud.

Uniting the Republicans

Only Obama could have done it.

Best Line Evah

From Charles Krauthammer talking about Obama's assertion that the election of Brown was due to voter anger at GWB.

Let's get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that ... it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.

Fear the Power!

Why Integrity Really Matters

So you never have to answer a question like this.

Irony

I don't usually watch MSNBC, but wanted to see how they reported the results of the Brown Coakley race. Watching Rachel Madow, she was interviewing former Gov. Dean "The Scream" who of course did the obligatory "It's Bush's Fault." But then, the conversation turned to the Democrats blaming each other for the loss, and Dean says "Blaming others is for losers."
For once, I agree with him.

Onward, Ever Onward

Into the Valley of Death Rode the 316 (Soon to be one less), looking neither Left, um, okay, looking only Left, they charged ahead, heedless of the cannonades from both sides:

In one way, I admire their persistence, but I think that their courage is owed more to a total lack of understanding of the situation, more than a willful choice. Heroes recognize the danger and act as needs be done. Fools are heedless of the danger and act as they want.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Apparently, they have managed to capture the heinous criminal, who disregarded the warnings from the TSA cop and went into an area that was reserved for departures. As a direct consequence of those actions, thousands of people had to be rescreened, and many missed their flights. People were forced to stand outside in the cold, denied simple accommodations such as water or bathroom breaks, in order to recover the security that was breached.
Sen. Lautenberg (Dementia, NJ) is very disappointed that the scofflaw should only be punished as a misdemeanant, instead of as a felon. What a strange world we live in, if you consider it all together, that because a Romeo wannabe wanted one last kiss from his girlfriend, we have to inconvenience and disrupt so many people, and the emphasis is put on Romeo, and not the governmental security system that is supposed to be there to protect us.
In reality, the TSA is nothing more than theater. They do nothing to reduce the probability of an incident in the air (Christmas BVD Boomer is but one example) but are supposed to reassure us, the traveling public that our government is looking out for us. As if. The truth is that the government is looking out for itself, and the citizens be damned.
And people wonder why resistance is growing to government interference with our medical care. But I am sure that in the latter case, they will do much better. Now, what is that definition of insanity again?

Never Having to Say You're Sorry For Being a Racist

From the Washington Post:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) apologized today for referring to President Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect" in private conversations during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Amazing isn't it, not just that he said something that stupid, but that it took almost two years for it to surface. Why so long?
My theory, is that the emphasis that the Democratic Party puts on race, is due to its own internal racism. No one I know would ever say anything like Reid's comments, and even if it was said, it would quickly be shut down as unacceptable in today's culture. But for two long years, it remained out there, festering, pulsing, and hidden by the very people who said it and heard it. At the highest levels of the Democratic Party.
Then, compare it to the treatment of Trent Lott when he was in the same position. The fact that Republicans drove him from his position while Democrats are now circling round their wounded leader says so much about who the real racists are.
The KKK would be so proud.

The WHO numbers in Context

Mark T. is famous for relying on the crappy numbers from the WHO study to point out that we are 37th in ranking for health care. Here is a short rebuttal of the nonsense:

What apparently does not matter is that our population has universal access because most physicians treat indigent patients without charge and accept Medicare and Medicaid payments, which do not even cover overhead expenses. The WHO does rank the U.S. No. 1 of 191 countries for "responsiveness to the needs and choices of the individual patient." Isn't responsiveness what health care is all about?

Data assembled by Dr. Ronald Wenger and published recently in the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons indicates that cardiac deaths in the U.S. have fallen by two-thirds over the past 50 years. Polio has been virtually eradicated. Childhood leukemia has a high cure rate. Eight of the top 10 medical advances in the past 20 years were developed or had roots in the U.S.
OpinionJournal Related Stories:

The Nobel Prizes in medicine and physiology have been awarded to more Americans than to researchers in all other countries combined. Eight of the 10 top-selling drugs in the world were developed by U.S. companies. The U.S. has some of the highest breast, colon and prostate cancer survival rates in the world. And our country ranks first or second in the world in kidney transplants, liver transplants, heart transplants, total knee replacements, coronary artery bypass, and percutaneous coronary interventions.

We have the shortest waiting time for nonemergency surgery in the world; England has one of the longest. In Canada, a country of 35 million citizens, 1 million patients now wait for surgery and another million wait to see specialists.

When my friend, cardiac surgeon Peter Alivizatos, returned to Greece after 10 years heading the heart transplantation program at Baylor University in Dallas, the one-year heart transplant survival rate there was 50%—five-year survival was only 35%. He soon increased those numbers to 94% one-year and 90% five-year survival, which is what we achieve in the U.S. So the next time you hear that the U.S. is No. 37, remember that Greece is No. 14. Cuba, by the way, is No. 39.

Read the whole thing.

I Admire the Democrats

This might be hard to believe, but I do admire the Democrats in one way: They have bet their future on what they believe in. Having demonized everything Republican for so long, they were rewarded with absolute power after the 2008 elections.
Now, there is no excuse for what they have done. No one to blame, not even Bush, and they are running the country into the ground. And still, the Democrats forge ahead, undeterred by polls or common sense, intent on remaking America, and hoping that we rubes will recognize them and their good deeds.
Maybe the Democrats are wrong.

"And I Won't Raise Your Taxes a Single Dime!"

Yeah, right.
From the article:

Let’s look at the new numbers for 2010 Biweekly, Single, Payroll Period, after subtracting withholding allowances

Not over $233: $0 in taxes
Over $233 – $401: 10% payroll tax
Over $401 – $1,387: $16.80 plus 15% of excess over $401
Over $1,387 – $2,604: $164.70 plus 25% of excess over $1,387
Over $2,604 – $3,248: $468.95 plus 27% of excess over $2,604 (Notice the large salary range is gone)
Over $3,248 – $3,373: $642.83 plus 30% of excess over $3,248 (Notice the substantial increase and 30% tax rate on these wages)
Over $3,373 – $6,688: $680.33 plus 28% of excess over $3,373
$14,450: pays $4,169.99 plus 35% of excess over $14,450

These patterns of additional withholding can be seen throughout the new charts for the 2010 tax year for single and married persons. It appears that everyone earning a paycheck is affected, not just retired military; social security payments will remain the same.

Why would the Democrats tinker with the withholding taxes and, ultimately, cause more stress on Americans and businesses? Why would the Democrats create more wage categories and deliberately target the middle class with a huge withholding increase and 30% tax rate? Are the Democrats trying to backfill the deficits they created in 2009? Because taxpayers will have overpaid the federal government payroll taxes, will they be eligible to get back this additional withholding money in a tax refund when filing in 2011? Do taxpayers in the hardest-hit wage categories even realize that their paychecks are going to be significantly lower, unless they make the necessary changes?

Read the whole thing.

Courage, Bought and Paid For

Baucus has responded to allegations that he was drunk on the Senate floor. Apparently, using someone's words as they are spoken by that person constitute

an "untrue, personal smear" designed to attack Democrats' health-care reform legislation.

Now, why would the senior Senator say that his words were an attack on the Democrat's "health-care reform legislation?" I was sure that he helped to create it. Maybe he is as disappointed in it as everyone else.
Oh, wait a minute, he is just using the standard "when you are screwed, attack the anyone else" method of mature political discourse. This has worked for years, and it is frustrating to the Democrats that those damned peasants of the electorate keep pointing out to them that they have been given the majority and it's their responsibility. The distraction method of the past doesn't seem to be working as well. Better fall back on the old tried and true: It's Bush's fault.
But the most amusing thing to me, was when Baucus was asking the question "Where's the courage?"

"I ask, where is the senator on that side of the aisle who has the courage to break from their leadership, break from the partisanship they are exercising on their side of the aisle, to work together to pass health-care reform?" Baucus said. "I ask, where is the courage?"

Doesn't Max understand that as expensive as this bill is, that Harry Reid couldn't afford to buy any more votes than he needed? The courage of the Democrats was to state intractable positions, then recant them upon a suitable doling of taxpayer largesse.
Me, I am just as happy that for once, Harry Reid exercised some fiscal responsibility.

This Explains Everything!

Pitiful, but at least he didn't call them Communists. That would smack too much of McCarthy tactics.

It's For the Children

Bill Clinton is calling the Tea Party Protesters "Tea Baggers" a juvenile slur, that is sure to titillate his many followers. It diminishes the protesters in their minds, not realizing that it actually diminishes him and the followers. For those Democrats who want to use the slur, please feel free, in fact I encourage you to continue to slander the citizens of this country who for the first time feel compelled to protest. I know that they are not as accomplished as the Left is at protests, but that doesn't mean that they aren't as passionate.
If the Democrats are right, and the Tea Partiers are nothing but a fringe driven by Fox News, Rush, et.al. then they will not have an effect on the future. On the other hand, if these people are ordinary citizens who recognize that the usurpation of power and wealth for the betterment of the Democrat Party (and that is what this about, not the country) the Democrats are not going to be in power much longer.
In some ways, it is easy to feel sorry for the Democrats, because they haven't a clue. They only talk to those that they agree with, and yell and deride anyone who doesn't agree with them. They claim to be for "the people" but they are as far removed from them as Marie Antoinette was from her adopted countrymen.
But if there are any intelligent Democrats out there who are actually interested, here is an example of some of the people who are Tea Party protesters. When you read the article, you will notice a common theme: We are doing this for our children and grandchildren. That is because we (the Lamest Generation) are going to be the beneficiaries of the government largesse about to be doled out, but it comes at the expense of our children and grandchildren.
A young guy told me one day, that my generation had basically bankrupted the country, and that his generation was going to pay for it. And I agreed with him. Is it too much, not to add still more debt to my children and grandchildren for nothing more than a partisan program that is not designed to solve the uninsured problem, but is instead an attempt to cement a Democrat majority for the future?
The funny thing: It will do neither.

Freedom of Speech?

Mark Toharski can always be counted on for hours of pseudo-intellectual babble, and is usually harmless, since even the Left seems to see him for a fool. But I think that he is onto something in his Orwellian world where "free markets" aren't free, but regulated ones are. At least he is as consistent as when he says that he is in favor of capitalism, so long as the government is controlling the markets.
The reason that I think that he is onto something, is that the Obama administration seems to be in agreement with him. Nothing like admiring that fine upstanding democrat Hugo Chavez when we are talking about political speech in this country.
Essentially, Mark and others' argument is that the public airways need to be controlled, not only for the prevention of interference of signals, but the interference of ideas. For that reason, so many are in favor of the so called "Fairness Doctrine" as a means to restrict Talk Radio, and its lack of support for the current Leftist administration. Those darned Right Wingers keep raising unpleasant questions and facts that are getting in the way of implementing the utopia for the workers that they seek. Of course, in this utopia, they would be the masters, but that would be okay, because they would be benevolent.
So, what exactly are we talking about here? What is being impacted by the implementation of the Fairness Doctrine? How about the Constitution?
The First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The speech element of the Constitution has been litigated from the beginning of the Republic. While not all speech is protected, political speech is. And guess what Right Wing Talk Radio is all about? How about political speech?
The Left's willingness to sacrifice the Constitution for the sake of their agenda is frightening. Do they not realize that by controlling the airwaves, they open the door to the Right doing the same thing to them with the over the air broadcast news? I know that they claim it is already being done through the conservative owners who dictate what the reporters say, which is just plain delusional. As Obama himself said, "Most of you voted for me, and all of you supported me, apologies to the Fox table." It is not the ownership that drives their agenda, it is the agenda of the so called "journalists" who conflate punditry with news reporting.
The last argument that they use, is that the airwaves are public property, therefore the government has the right to regulate them. It is true that the government has the right to regulate who uses frequencies, and how they are used. But that is not the same as regulating what is being said. That is blatantly unconstitutional.
Thank God, that the Left has hit their high water mark, and will soon be on the way out. The threats they pose to the Constitution are too dire to ignore.

Fool Me Once . . .

Oh, hell, they'll probably fool me again. But the Republicans have seemingly stumbled upon the magic formula of fiscal sanity, and limited government as the touchstones of their 2010 campaign. I have always said that I believe in the principles of the Republican Party, even if they don't.
For those social conservatives, I would say to not fear the change. Limited government is less likely to force government mandated abortions or gay marriage, because that is not the proper role of government. A Win-Win for both fiscal and social conservatives.
Republicans always said that government doesn't work, and when elected proved it. The Democrats of today seem to believe that the government can solve all problems, and they promptly show that they are horribly wrong. Maybe we should stick with the ones who were right.
On the other hand, if the Republicans decide to revert back to the previous eight years, there will be a quick turnaround again. You get one more chance Republicans. Don't blow it.

Please.

Democrat's Civil War Begins!

Much has been made of the disarray of the Republican Party (the untimely reports of its demise being greatly exaggerated) but while not literally true, does show some serious problems: Lack of willingness to self identify as Republicans; The punjabs who would pick Scozzafava to represent their party in the NY-23 race, who withdrew and threw her support to the Democrat; and the last remnants of a PR campaign to demonize G. W. Bush. But if you think that they have it bad, consider the Democrats: Jay Stevens is disappointed in his Party's slight rightward tug, and is offering a solution:

In short Congressional Democrats - as usual? - will do the exact opposite of what they should do.
One way to mitigate this probable rightward shift is threaten primaries in key districts....

Earlier, Yellowstone Kelly put voice (or is it pixels?) to the disappointment felt by the failure of the Democrats to deliver on their many promises. I hope the Kelly doesn't think that it will get better, because we are talking about politicians for crying out loud.
Will we soon be seeing articles about how the Democratic Party is going to have to become more conservative in order to stay viable? Don't hold your breath. But by default, it does seem as if the Grand Old Party is rising from the dead. Just in time for Halloween apparently.