I just have to…. I can’t stop myself from doing it….. here it is…. (h/t – Michigan-Matt who saw it in comments section at American Spectator.)

Please join me in prayer:
Heil Obama, who art in Washington,
Hallowed be your Fame.
Your kingdom won.
Your will be done,
In the red states as it is in Congress.
Give us this day our mortgage paid.
And forgive us our conservative talk radio,
As we condemn those who speak out against You.
And lead us not into great depression,
But deliver us from the evil Bush.
For Yours is the kingdom,
and the media, and the podium,
for at least another 4 years.
Amen.

Ah, the Liberal Prayer for Bigger Government.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

“Republicans don’t want real reform, because for more than 10 years they have benefited from their culture of corruption. Instead of seizing the opportunity today to enact real reform, Republicans once again put the special interests first, leaving the American people to pay for the Republican culture of corruption.” — (Not My)- Feb. 1, 2006 Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Well, well, well.   Hypocrisy, thy name is Nancy (and Harry, and Barry, and Charlie, and Rahm and Murtha, etc., etc.,)

The Texas financier accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday of “massive ongoing fraud” was a generous political donor who gave more heavily to Democrats.

Since 2000, R. Allen Stanford, the chief of the Stanford Financial Group in Houston, his wife and company gave $2.2 million in political contributions — $1.7 million to Democratic candidates and committees — according to Federal Election Commission records.

The most recent donation on record was $300,000 from Stanford Financial Group to the Democratic Governors Association, a so-called 527 group not subject to campaign contribution limits.

Other big beneficiaries included the Democrats’ congressional campaign committees, which received $1.2 million over the years, and their Republican counterparts, which got $322,000, including a $28,500 personal donation last year to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Stanford and his companies gave $128,500 to the Republican National Committee, plus $2,000 to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), $4,000 to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), $4,000 to Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas), $4,000 to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and $4,800 to the committees of Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), among other contributions.

Under Nancy’s breaking the “Republican culture of corruption”, she has successfully cowed MILLIONS of dollars to keep her and the Socialist Democrats of America in power.

Let’s take a bet on which of the parties’ groups and Members of Congress return the money… and which don’t.   I’m confident Charlie Rangel will be the last to cough up his green.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Sometimes, our critics, in reacting to our posts, end up making our points for us. As Bruce puts it, in his comment to my latest post, “All one needs to do is read the comments from ‘outraged’ liberals in this post to reinforce Dan’s point.

In that post, I wondered why some gay marriage advocates brand all gay marriage opponents haters rather than engage their arguments.  In the thread following that post, many such advocates didn’t even bother to acknowledge my argument, but instead resorted to insult.

One critic even trotted out the standard insult used by gay liberals to slander gay conservatives, “self-loathing” while assuming we came by our ideas via “religious teaching/indoctrination” and ignoring facts.  And while busy making assumptions about us, he accused us (and our defenders) of being impervious to “reasoned discussion”!  WOW.  Well, he did make me smile. 

And if, as another critic put it, “anyone using the traditional’ definition of marriage as the bulwark of their argument is arguing a losing case,” why then do so many opponents of that definition resort to ad hominem? If it were a losing argument, couldn’t then they easily rebut it via reasoned discussion?

To be sure, some of our critics do make valid points, a number of which echo things I have said on this blog, notably about “no-fault divorce [being] a greater threat to social cohesion than gay marriage.”

It was, however, one critic whose comment really caught my eye:

You have no idea what this student presented in his speech. It was enough to get an experienced professor as well as two students rather riled up. He could have been saying hateful things about homosexuals, which for some reason you gloss over and assume that because he was defending traditional marriage that he must have been arguing in good faith. (Really, can’t you just learn to love the big gay homo that you are?)

First, note his last snide aside, assuming yet again (yawn!) this particular gay conservative is self-hating (as it seems we all must be to fit into his narrow world view).  Yeah, maybe the guy did say hateful things about homosexuals, but does that justify the reaction of the professor, calling him a “fascist bastard”?

As to getting the experienced professor and students riled up, well, just look at the thread and this man’s own comment.  He does get riled up pretty easily, doesn’t he? (more…)

If you thought your personal financial situation was bad in November, 2008….. you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.  Obamanomics is killing our future already!

Michelle Malkin:  On Nov. 4, after Barack Obama clinched the White House, the market closed at 9,625.28.

In mid-morning trading today, the day President Obama signs his massive Generational Theft Act into law and a day before he unveils a massive new mortgage entitlement, the Dow dropped to to 7,606.53.

Now, imagine if President Bush had presided over a 2,000-point stock market tumble in the same time period — during the first few months of his presidency.

REUTERS:  DOW HITS 10-YEAR LOW

Here’s what today alone looks like on the Dow Jones (via Drudge)

HopeandChange??   YIKES!

I’m stocking up on essentials…

UPDATE: Oh yeah, and have you noticed that gas at the pump costs more now than when President Bush left office?

So prices at the pump will probably keep going up no matter what happens to the benchmark price of crude oil.

“We’re going definitely over $2, and I bet we’ll hit $2.50 before spring,” said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. “This is going to be an unusual year.”

On the last day of 2008, gas went for $1.62 on average, according to the auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express, a company that tracks transportation data.

Why is that?  Read the article. (h/t – Instapundit)

Help fight Obamanomics.  Buy a bumper sticker!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  To those critics who claim that Obama can’t possibly “own” the decline in the stock market sincehis election, recall that these indices are a kind of futures market, with investors buying in (or selling as the case may be) based on how they believe the economy will do.  Note how on Election Day 2004, the markets tooka tumble when it looked like John Kerry would win.  And how they rebounded when it turned out he did not.

So, in the wake of the Democrat’s elections, investors were taking their cues from what he said and whom he appointed.

Why do some gay marriage advocates refuse to argue with supporters of the traditional definition of marriage, and instead label them as haters.*  Fifteen years ago, maybe even ten, only a handful of people in this country would think that marriage referred to anything but a monogamous union between one man and one woman.

That includes some people with otherwise “spotless” (in the eyes of liberal gay groups) records on gay issues.  Many of those include champions of state recognition of same-sex civil unions (and other pro-gay legislation), just so long as they’re not called marriage.

Even Barack Obama has defended social conservatives who favor the traditional definition of marriage.  Heck, he favors such a definition himself.

A reader e-mailed me an article which showed how politicized, how politically correct, our discussion of same-sex marriage has become. Jonathan Lopez, a student at Los Angeles City College, says a “professor called him a ‘fascist bastard’ and refused to let him finish his speech against same-sex marriage during a public speaking class last November, weeks after California voters approved the ban on such unions.”

When Lopez complained, the professor threatened to have him expelled. That student is suing.

Instead of responding to the student with argument, the professor responded with ad hominem attacks. Not a very good education in public speaking in my view.

(more…)

Those who read this blog know that I’m a strong supporter of the Governor of Alaska.  Aware of her accomplishments, standing up–and defeating–many of the corrupt politicians in the Last Frontier, all of them male,* I know Sarah Palin is capable of the Herculean task of cleaning the Augean stables iof our nation’s capital, made ever more squalid by the “stimulus.” 

That said, given her relative youth (she’s just 45) and her limited knowledge of national issues, I believeshe should wait to run for president.  Moreover, the more experience she has as chief executive of the nation’s (geographically) largest state, the more she will demonstrate her leadership capacity.  And she’ll have more time to become well-versed on issues of which she demonstrated only a cursory understanding in the 2008 campaign.

Unlike Barack Obama in 2008, there’s no fierce urgency for Sarah Palin to run for president in the election immediately following her “debut” on the national stage.  Obama had to run last year when the memory of his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech was still fresh.  The more time passed since that speech, the more manifest would his absence of accomplishments become.

Palin had already made significant accomplishments when John McCain tapped her last August as his running mate.  Indeed, it was those accomplishments which drew her to his attention.

She only need continue to govern in the manner she has governed.  If her record is any guide, her accomplishments will increase with her time in office.  

To secure her place on the national stage, she need supplement her leadership by doing what she began in the campaign, familiarizing herself with national issues.  She has shown herself to be a quick study.  The more time she devotes to these issues, the better prepared she will be handle aggressive media interviews and so convince more Americans of her readiness to lead.

* (more…)

At Protein Wisdom, Dan Collins gets at the essence of the problem of the “Fairness Doctrine,” “The problem with defining diversity of perspective is, of course, that someone must do the defining.”

That’s one reason why, in determining who should be allowed to speak out on issue of national concern, I prefer freedom to fairness.  It boils don to who gets to determine what’s fair and what’s not.

Just look at where the Obama Administration is turning to define fairness:

The new news is that the administration may be farming out the task of what constitutes acceptable diversity to . . . MoveOn.org, which has been compiling a large database of unacceptable outlets.

Read the whole thing as Dan provides more examples of “fairness” on media outlets whose bias escapes the notice of MoveOn. Seems the only bias these people find intolerable is that from the right.

The concluding paragraphs of the AP article on the Venezuelan referendum to abolish term limits offered a telling insight into how leftist parties in Latin American countries handle political victory.  Instead of seeing their respective elections as a means to run the government for the particular term of office, they use them as beachheads to perpetual power (for themselves and their parties):

Chavez took office in 1999 and won support for a new constitution the same year that allowed the president to serve two six-year terms, barring him from the 2012 elections. Sunday’s vote was his second attempt to change that; voters rejected a broader referendum in December 2007.

Venezuela’s leftist allies in Latin America have followed the model. Ecuador pushed through a new constitution in September and Bolivia did so in January. Both loosened rules on presidential re-election. Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinistas also plan to propose an amendment that would let Daniel Ortega run for another consecutive term.

So, now Chavez can run for president for as long as he likes. Ortega, who has never won a majority of the popular vote in Nicaragua, seeks to facilitate his own hold on power.

It seems these demagogues are more interested in maintaining power than in maintaining constitutional democracies where leaders serve for a short period of time, then retire to live as citizens in the nation hopefully improved by the laws they enacted and policies effected.

UDPATE:  In the comments, Kevin Bliss notes something that the authors of the AP article left out, “Venezuela is in dire economic shape.”  Seems that’s something that happens pretty readily when leftists consolidate their power in Latin American nations.

With recent polls showing that Republican opposition to the “stimulus” has helped make the party more competitive, the GOP has a chance to repeat the gains it made in the 1994 mid-term elections, quite possibly winning back the House and with an outside (okay, very outside) chance of recapturing the Senate.

But, if Republicans want to win, they have to do more than just run against the spendthrift policies of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Democrats, they also, like their forebears in Clinton’s first term, need to run on a reform platform. To that end, they would be wise to put together an updated version of the Contract with America.

In this Contract, however, unlike the 1994 version, they must acknowledge that they made mistakes while in the majority. Back then, almost no one could remember when Republicans had controlled two consecutive Congresses. Now, many can. So, Republicans must make clear that they have learned from their mistakes in the majority.

This time, just as they did fifteen years ago, they can run against a Democratic leadership determined to centralize power, making it difficult for the minority to contribute. At the start of the current Congress, Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats rewrote House Rules, reversing Republican reforms and returning to old runs which made it all but impossible for the minority to offer alternative legislation or amendments to bills.

Republicans can once again campaign on being the party of open government, borrowing a page from Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign. As he is reneging on his commitment to transparency, the Republicans can promise to hold his feet to the fire.

The first plank in a new Contract with America would be to do something with all legislation that Democrats promised (& failed) to do with the “stimulus”–post it online for a full 48 hours before voting.

After his bath today, the YoungestPatriotNephewWest expressed himself on his onesie; it reads “I picked the best uncle,” probably because he knew that uncle has promised to take him to Disneyland when he’s four.

Like his cousin Mitchell, he too has his own blog where he likes to post pictures his uncle took of him and his Mommy.

In January 1997 when I worked on Captiol Hill and Newt Gingrich was up for a second term as Speaker of the House, we received word in our office that one TV network (as I recall it was NBC) would feature on its evening newscast (and/or its Sunday talk show) any Republican member who voted against the Georgian’s reelection.

In other words, the supposedly unbiased network would reward any dissension from GOP unity with free air time.

As I read Jim Hoft’s post on what he terms the “Double Cross” of the three Republican Senators who voted for the Democrat’s spendthrift “stimulus” package, I wonder if  the prospect of favorable media treatment impacted their decision to buck their party (and their principles).   By turning on their own party, Republicans almost always earn the accolades of an otherwise hostile (to Republicans) news media.

No wonder, as Jim observes:

At those critical moments, when Democrats need party discipline, they are unanimous. The GOP on the other hand, has a few familiar faces who can be counted on to betray their party time after time.

It seems the media helps reinforce Democratic Party discipline while rewarding Republicans who break ranks.

As we are all contemplating our whopping $13.00 tax refund, and $36,000 per family debt to the US of Obama government, I thought it was appropriate to remind you of our exclusive bumper stickers and other merchandise.

Show it proudly on your gas-guzzling SUV or quiet/kid-killing Prius.

Questioning Obama IS the highest form of patriotism.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

While lunching today with some Bay Area GayPatriot readers, I commented that if Democrats want to try to reimpose the “Fairness Doctrine,” let them bring that debate on.  It’s a debate they’re sure to lose.

Coupled with the rushed manner in which they passed the “stimulus,” it will make their party seem increasingly like one opposed to free and open debate.

The media market has so changed since last that Doctrine was originally adopted that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would be hard-pressed to justify it today.  Should the FCC again reenact the doctrine, it would serve to silence certain forms of speech, shutting down fora that did not exist, indeed, were not even contemplated, when it was initially introduced sixty years ago. As such, it might not now pass constitutional muster.  

And the debate would only remind voters that Democrats tried to silence conservative media.  That would play well with the most extreme elements of their base, but not with the American people as a whole.

Those liberals who favor the Fairness Doctrine just don’t like having conservatives regularly challenge their policies and ideas.  Just as congressional Democrats refused to solicit Republican opinions when they crafted the “stimulus,” those liberals seek to exclude their ideas from popular media.

It is entirely that exclusion which led to conservative success in the new medium (at least it was relatively new in 1987 when the Fairness Doctrine was repealed) of talk radio.  Had the mainstream media not tilted as far to the left as it did then (and still does), offering excessively critical coverage of Ronald Reagan, conservatives would not have felt as frustrated as they did, longing for a forum which presented their views.

Rush Limbaugh would not have then found –and held–an audience had the MSM not so regularly distorted conservative views.  Indeed, one could say that Rush Limbaugh is a creation of liberal media bias.

If Senator Stabenow wishes to silence Rush Limbaugh, she need not reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine as she seems eager to do rather all she need do is persuade her allies in the MSM to cover her political rivals fairly.

For many conservatives, Rush is a necessary antidote to media bias.  Thus, the only way to silence him would be to make him unnecessary.  The media could make him unnecessary by covering liberals with the same scrutiny they conservatives.  And fairly reporting conservative ideas and policies  

I daresay that Mrs. Stabenow has no intention of promoting such journalism.

On Tuesday, House Democrats promised not to vote on final passage of the “stimulus” until forty-eight hours after it had been published online. They even held a formal vote on it, with not a single Democrat (nor a single Republican) voting against it.

With a majority in the House, Democrats set the schedule for votes. Yet, even though the legislation was released to Congress only at 11PM Thursday night, posted 32 minutes later on the Speaker’s web-site, the House completed its vote at 2:24 PM the following day (yesterday).

So, that’s 14 hours and 52 minutes from its online publication to the completion of the vote (or 15 hours 24 minutes, if it had been published online when my information shows it was released to members of Congress).  But, I guess if you do math like the Democrats who crafted this fiscal behemoth, there’s not much different between 15 and 48.

House Minority Leader John Boehner said “not one member [of Congress] has read this:”

I wonder how the American people will react when they start learning about the provisions buried in the bill, including language partially overturning the popular and successful Welfare reforms of the Clinton Era and a major overhaul of the health care industry.

Voters will look too kindly on representatives who rushed such a huge and expensive bill. This is not just business as usual in Washington, it’s business as usual on steroids.

Our fellow citizens might just think it fitting this legislation passed on Friday the Thirteenth.

ADDENDUM:  Tigerhawk weighs in: (more…)

And he’s something to show.

Note how he dressed up to see his uncle.

So says Ed Morrissey to Obama groupies who call Republican opposition to the president’s policies “a political war.” He references a particular criticism from an individual who, sometime after February 24, 2004 used any pretext imaginable to demonize George W. Bush.

It’s as if they can’t accept that some people might have legitimate objections, based on our economic philosophy and political principles, to oppose the president’s policies. Heck, back when Bush was president, opposition to the president’s policies was deemed patriotic.

And not to mention that some of the very people now criticizing Obama and congressional Democrats on their spendthrift “stimulus,” had also criticized Bush and congressional Republicans on similar grounds, not holding the line on federal spending.

How ironic it is that some of the very individuals who call criticism of Obama “war” would label any action of his Republican predecessor an abomination.

It’s only a matter of time now before the Senate passes the “stimulus.” Senators Collins, Snowe and Specter did not even extend Americans the courtesy of delaying the vote so that Senators would have time to familiarize themselves with the bill’s contents.

As a result, their constituents, the American people, won’t know how their representatives intend to spend their money, perhaps the largest single amount even spent in a single vote (not related to the normal budget process), until after the money is spent.

Some might say, echoing the president’s truculent remark to House Republicans, that they won. And yes, they did win, but they didn’t campaign on a “stimulus” of this magnitude. We haven’t had a serious debate on this “stimulus,” haven’t even considered some of its various provisions. Heck, even those voting for it hadn’t had time to read it.

And with its passage, we see, as Jim Geraghty put it, All Barack Obama Statements Come With an Expiration Date.  Its passage lacked the transparency Obama promised in his campaign (and which he reiterated when he took office.  In accepting a package crafted by House Democrats (who did not solicit Republican input), the president abandoned another promise–to put forward legislation which was ”temporary, targeted and timely.”

Hardly “post-partisan” that.

Instead, as Jennifer Rubin found his signature legislative accomplishment so far to be “a liberal land-grab with hundreds of pages of non-stimulative largess. . ., hardly the model of bipartisanship or transparency, even the A.P. concedes.”

That wise blogress quotes Slate’s John Dickerson, no conservative he, who found the process of crafting the “stimulus,” and passing it into law was little more than business as usual in our nation’s capital:

. . not only is the end product ragged—some of the elements aren’t terribly stimulative—but the means were ugly. The differences between the House and Senate bills were reconciled mostly in secret by House and Senate Democratic leaders, three Northeastern Republicans, and White House aides. This is hardly unusual for Washington—which is precisely the problem: It’s not the change Obama promised.

That they would rush to passage a bill of this magnitude at a time of record deficits doesn’t suggest leaders acting in a transparent fashion, but politicians trying to get something past the people, lest they figure out what their representatives are doing.

It seems that for Barack Obama, change was just words, a theme he could use to win election. During the campaign, many of us, including this blogger, questioned his commitment to change given that he had never distanced himself (on any significant issue) from his party’s leadership either in the United States Senate or its Illinois counterpart.

“Change” was just the name of the vehicle he used to enact traditional Democratic policies through routine political means.

UPDATE:  And let’s not forget, Obama promised to end the practice of writing legislation behind closed doors.

Feeling all comfy, cozy in his warm hand-knitted sweater (made by a blog reader no less!) on a cold and breezy San Francisco day, the YoungestPatriotNephewWest (YPNW) yawns and gets ready for a nap:

In withdrawing his name as nominee for Commerce Secretary, Judd Gregg helped provide a window both into the Obama Administration’s increased politicization (and subservience to left-wing interest groups) and into the reflexive attack mode of the Administration’s defenders (many of whom blame Gregg or Republicans for this embarrassment). It’s almost as if some of them (unlike Camille Paglia) can’t accept that “the One” could blunder. Any mistakes he makes must be attributed to someone else.

It’s not just that they can’t admit he could blunder, but that they assume all his actions must needs have only noble motives. Barack Obama, in their view, could never descend into the foul swamp of rank politics.

But, in tapping Judd Gregg for Commerce Secretary, he did just that. What other reason could there be to tap a Republican Senator from a Demorat-trending state with a Democratic Governor to his cabinet when that Republican had not shown great enthusiasm for that Department when in the Senate?

And, if the president had so trusted this Republican to administer a federal department, why did he remove one of that department’s primary programs from his jurisdiction?

Basically, this appointment was little more than a cynical political ploy to make the president look bipartisan by reaching out to a principled Senator from the opposing party. Yet, this is bipartisanship as window-dressing. True bipartisanship would have meant that you not just include members of both parties, not just consider the opinions of your ideological adversaries, but adapt your policies to reflect their concerns, tempering your own partisan edge.

By limiting Judd Gregg’s authority at the Commerce Department, the president was essentially saying he didn’t want to include his ideas in his Administration. He just wanted that (R) in his cabinet.

And he had hoped by having a Democratic governor pick Gregg’s Senate successor, he might tap a more malleable legislator. This was all about increasing Democratic power in Washington while appearing bi-partisan.

Congress is about to vote on the most expensive piece of legislation in U.S. history and they don’t even have twenty-four hours to review it. According to Allahpundit:

When CNSNews.com asked members of both parties on Capitol Hill on Thursday whether they had read the full, final bill, not one member could say, “Yes.”…

UPDATE: “Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) predicted on Thursday that none of his Senate colleagues would “have the chance” to read the entire final version of the $790-billion stimulus bill before the bill comes up for a final vote in Congress.”