Time to Educate ourselves – Free Audio Books
For those of you who may not have time to sit down with a book but always seem to have an MP3 player rolling, here’s a couple selections worthy of your time:
Federalist Papers: http://www.archive.org/details/federalist_papers_librivox
The Federalist Papers were a series of pamphlets written mostly anonymously at the time to convince the people, of New York specifically but everyone generally, to ratify the Constitution. Authors were later confirmed to be a collection of Radical Revolutionaries like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. For a deeper understanding of our Constitution the Federalist Papers are required reading or, in this case, listening.
Anti-Federalist Papers: http://www.archive.org/details/antifederalist_0707_librivox
The Anti-Federalist Papers were a series of pamphlets written mostly anonymously at the time attempting to convince people that the strong Federal Government outlined in the Consitution would end up being an albatross around the Liberties of the people. I recently finished a study of the Anti-Federalist papers and…wow…these guys were prophetic. As is the case in most things, there is a happy medium between the idealism in the Federalist Papers and rampant cynicism of the Anti-Federalist papers but, unfortunately, we as a Nation failed to find it. The issues raised in the Anti-Federalist papers are exactly what we are dealing with today.
5000 Year Leap: http://www.nccs.net/5000-year-leap/_jkgFoe95jlsf4poG/
This book was written by W. Cleon Skousen. In 1971, Skousen founded a non-profit educational foundation, “The Freeman Institute” which sought to provide students a place to read both sides of any political issue from original sources. In 1982, the institute became the National Center for Constitutional Studies (NCCS), a national organization headquartered in Malta, Idaho.(WikiPedia). The book details how the philosophical aspects of the Constitution came to be. Where the Federalist Papers discusses the debate about the ideas, this book details the birth of the ideas themselves.
All of these are freebies and well worth the time and effort to grab and listen to.
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Nobel Prize
This is a joke. Mr. Nobel is once again spinning in his grave. This is a far cry from the intended purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize…a President having accomplished absolutely nothing in his brief 10 months in office beyond inviting known marxists and pedophiles into the Whitehouse Staff doesn’t deserve such an award. What he deserves is a kick in the pants.
This is actually an opportunity for President Obama. He could refuse the award claiming he hadn’t had the same kind of impact on World Peace as certain other world leaders. You know, leaders like Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket, or Mullah Omar. This would allow him to show his character and continue sucking up to the world’s most vicious despots.
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Humana and Free Speech
Humana sent a note to its customers holding Medicare Advantage policies explaining the impact on the health insurance reform plan. They told their customers that benefits would but cut as part of the plan. HotAir reports the Congressional budget office tells us today that Humana is correct. Unfortunately for Humana, the Administration isn’t concerned about truth so much as the protection of this aspect of the President’s agenda.
Humana received a direct threat from Medicare (under Health and Human Services which is headed by Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas). Medicare explained that Humana had tried to confuse and mislead their customers and therefore the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WILL BE INVESTIGATING ALL MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PROVIDERS.
Senator McConnell has some words to say about this:
Now, for anyone who reads my stuff they know that I’ve had some serious issues with my Senior Senator. His handling of President Bush’s Amnesty bill was tragic. His utter lack of leadership on the Senate floor has been a burr under my saddle for quite a while. THIS speech however certainly wins the Senator some points from me.
Fight the good fight Senator McConnell! Fight to protect our God given unalienable right to Free Speech!
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Some have asked why I refocused…
THIS is why. Men like that Corpsman. Purple heart recipients who honor us all by gleefully return to their comrades, leaving young wives and children behind, for the sole purpose of “saving Marines”.
Sure wish the President recognized these fine heros. I wish the President would support them and their commander by supporting the surge request.
Full article below the fold for my reference more than anything else.
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President Obama weak on Afghanistan
Via HotAir: Charles Krauthammer nails the President on the “policy” in Afghanistan. God Help us and our Warrior Class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxi2IILt8sk&feature=player_embedded
And now from Blackfive as well. Glad I’m in excellent company.
I’m squarely with Krauthammer on this. We have no cart and we have no horse. General McChrystal has privately called for a surge in Afghanistan. That report was leaked to the legacy media without a hint of objection from DOD. (Leakers of foreign policy material should be shot, allowed to heal, then shot again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.) The leaked report was issued to the President on August 30. Not a word from the President on it since that time although he HAS had time to yuk it up with Letterman and his legacy media pals.
Mr. President, please contact Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee’s office. I’m sure she can help you with her most excellent multi-tasking skills.
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15 abortions in 16 years…the Book.
I found this link in the article section at Hotair. I spent a good 30 minutes crafting my comment there. Ms. Vilar seems to be concerned for her safety after publishing her book. I will not be a party to threats directed at Ms. Vilar and pre-emptively condemn anyone who might cause her any heartache whatever.
As I said in my comment at HotAir, the premise of her book angers me and I feel like she has slapped my wife and I squarely in the face.
God Bless you Ms. Vilar.
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Presidential Exposure and our National Discourse
Over the past couple weeks President Obama has been making the rounds on the various legacy media outlets trying to pitch his case for his Health Insurance Reform plan. He doesn’t seem to understand that the case has been made and rejected by the American people. Perhaps he does understand it and now he is simply trying to force his case by getting angrier and angrier himself. President Obama is no fool. He knows that the more he presses Americans the more we will rhetorically fight back. The more we fight back, the more he trots out the “we should be more civil in our discourse” line. Which is a pitiful attempt to change the subject. We witnessed an excellent example of this during the President’s speech before the joint session of Congress.
It seems that the President wants civility in OUR discourse but doesn’t intend to model that behavior on his own. In his speech he wasted little time on civility as he labeled all of us who disagree with his proposal as liars and extremists. When Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) called him on it during the speech we all had to endure the next 48 hours of “beat up on Joe” even though he immediately apologized for his inappropriate outburst. Please understand that the bulk of the outrage we saw after the speech was a political contrivance for the sole purpose of demonstrating the “lack of civility” the President and his cohorts(chiefly Speaker Pelosi) have been whining about for quite a while. What Joe Wilson did was wrong. It was a slap in the face to the Office of the President. It was wrong when the Democrats booed President Bush and it’s wrong now. Only difference is we expect it from this breed of Democrat. Conservatives hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior. A standard that Mr. Wilson knew he had violated before the second echo of his words in the chamber.
Changing the subject is the last defense for the loser of an argument. We’ve all used the tactic with the same result if the opposition is worth their rhetorical salt. Even if successful, the loser of the argument is still a bit tainted for his effort. How tainted is the debater who, rather than simply changing the subject, resorts to personal attacks and name calling? I’m not talking about the Python-esque name calling of “Silly Kniggit” or personal attacks of “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries”. I’m talking about tossing out the racist grenade.
It seems that any opposition to the President’s policies is now labeled as racist. We have lied about death panels. We are heartless for the however many million Americans who currently have no health insurance. We are in bed with the insurance companies. But WE are the ones who are supposed to be civil. The arrogance is astounding.
It seems that the more the President is on TV, the more we get lectured to about being civil in our lieing, heartless, corrupt laden discourse. Mr. President, we are not stupid. We are your boss. You cannot brow beat us and we will not tolerate or participate in your 1984-esque media exposure. Your rhetorical skills, however formidable, will not when our support unless the rhetoric makes sense to us lieing, heartless, corrupt legions.
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Have you forgotten?
I haven’t. Allahpundit hasn’t. Ed Morrissey hasn’t. Many others haven’t.
NEVER FORGET!
Have you forgotten what these animals can do?
Have you forgotten what they made our neighbors endure?
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STOP Cloture vote on Cass Sunstein appointment **NOW WITH VIDEO**
Cloture Vote succeeded: 63-35.
Looks like 4 Republicans voted for Mr. Sunstein. Roll Call to be added once it is available.
Partial ROLL CALL **UNOFFICIAL** (Official Roll Call will be here once posted and below the fold in this article.)
Republicans voting FOR Cloture:
Bennett, Collins, Gregg, Hatch, Lugar, Snowe, Voinovich, Hatch
Democrats voting AGAINST Cloture:
Webb, Lincoln
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Health Insurance Reform
Tomorrow evening the President will wax poetic on the virtues of his idea of Health insurance reform. By all accounts this presentation on the floor of the House of Representatives before a joint session of Congress will have to be a homerun to convince Republicans to support any of the proposals he and his party have come up with.
Here’s hoping he’s read Sarah Palin’s Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal. Since I know he reads my blog religiously(oh wait, he hasn’t found a church yet) regularly, I’ll include the entire piece here.
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Rev. Wright and the Post-Racial Era
This just in from Faux News by way of Jammie Wearing Fool:
So, once again, because we have issues with a proposed bill before Congress we are “racists”. That’s fine “Reverend” Wright. We will continue to judge bills on their content. You continue judging us based on the color of our skin. We’ll see what the American People think is racist and what isn’t.
Oh, “Reverend” Wright, say hey to Mr. Jones for me. I think he’s just past the front axle of the bus you are both under.
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All the President’s Men…
The news continues to break on the Van Jones resignation and other fallout the late night resignation has created. It appears that Mr. Jones was brought on board without completing a 67 questionaire that would have, in theory anyway, revealed his Marxist, Radical, Truther past. Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President, had this to say about Mr. Jones soon after his appointment to the ever growing Czar list:
So, Ms. Jarret makes the claim that they had been following Mr. Jones “for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland”. Would that period of time include his activities with STORM? How about his participation in the Rodney King riots?
A commenter here asks if we can extrapolate from the Van Jones debacle that the President agrees with the philosophy of Mr. Jones. I don’t know about that. We have to take people at their word and try to match their words with their actions. We have nothing from the President that might indicate he is a marxist. However, we have all kinds of evidence that he is as Radical as these Acorn folks “reclaiming” a home:
President Obama was a national leader for Acorn. So, you be the judge. Just how radical is the President? I maintain we continue to take him at his word. As the commenter pointed out, the President told us during his campaign that we should look at the people he surrounds himself with. Let’s do that in the days ahead beginning with Mark Lloyd.
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#VanJones resigns in the middle of the night
I was hoping that Mr. Jones would stick around. From the stunning lack of language of any sort from the Whitehouse on the matter, one is left to assume that Mr. Jones still has the support of the Administration and they simply failed to talk Mr. Jones out of his decision to resign.
On another note, it seems that anyone who works in the Whitehouse must complete a questionaire that includes questions that essentially boil down to “have you ever done, said, or associated yourself with anything that might embarrass the President?”. Faux News reports the Whitehouse confesses that Mr. Jones did not complete said questionaire. So, who in the Czar Committee did?
So, Mr. Jones can return to his Green for All organization and focus on greening up the inner cities. Not a bad idea really. His book had some pretty good ideas but the problem falls back on Mr. Jones’ own racist rhetoric and marxist beliefs which cloud his ideas in all kinds of mystery. Was Mr. Jones intending on forming some kind of political movement? Who knows now.
Kids, let this be a lesson to you…be careful of your associations and what you allow to placed up on Youtube.
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#VanJones: I was against that petition when I signed it.
The headline comes from one @paulclucas from twitter. Just wanted to give credit for the Kerry-esque apology/explanation/nail in his political career’s coffin he offered this evening to the ongoing charges of his radical nature.
This sounds like something right out of a Simpson episode. I can almost hear Bart, “I didn’t do it! I’m sorry it offended anyone! I didn’t mean it! I disagreed with it! You can’t prove it!”
Please. As AP said at HotAir:
Three possibilities. One: The Truthers are lying and simply added names of activists like Jones who, um, no one had ever heard of when the petition was circulated in 2004. If that’s true, it’s curious that people like Ed Asner and Janeane Garofalo, whose names are also on there, apparently haven’t objected in the five years since. Two: As I said in the Beck post, maybe Jones doesn’t actually believe the theory but signed on for the sheer romantic rebel pseudo-intellectual glory of it. In that case, we’re in the same situation as we were with Ron Paul when he denied having written the racist crap in those old Ron Paul newsletters: Even if he’s telling the truth, the fact that he approved it proves he’s either too stupid or careless to be trusted with power. Or three: Jones is lying. Unless the correct answer is number one — and it’s mighty curious that Jones isn’t saying it is — then he’s got to go. Pull the trap door, Barry.
He’s done. Right now, this statement and the others to come are just the last grasps for anything close to his integrity. In the end we will all get to read about how this is all just a racist attack by all us rich plutocrats against a hard working family man who only wanted to serve his country.
Don’t let the door hit you on your marxist @$$ on the way out.
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