The passage of the cap and tax bill in the House is bad juju for every American out there who gives a damn about prosperity and living a good life. I’m not being a doomer, I’m just speaking frank about the fact that the merry band of idiots we call representatives (and that’s the nicest thing I can call them) has sold the America that we know down the river so that they can look good in the eyes of the Sierra Club, Al Gore and Obama. There is no other reason for them to have done this. Global warming is a lie. Climate change is a fallacy since, well, change is something that happens regardless of our interference. And alternative energy won’t work when it’s shackled by government and environmentalists.

Xcel Energy’s president, a firm supporter of this push, admits that they will have to shutter a number of their coal and natural gas power plants to meet the goals. They don’t care. It won’t hurt them. They’ll just raise rates on the consumer, and since we’re stuck in horrible government-regulated monopolies with the power companies, we have to either suck it up or not have electricity. There is no third option.

Oh, and don’t think that the power companies won’t be raising rates to deal with this cap and trade bullcrap. In an effort to start the process, Kansas City Power and Light requested regulatory approval to raise their rates by$71.6 million. Luckily the government “only” allowed them to raise their rates by $59 million (or a 14.43% increase per average household’s monthly bill). And why the increase?

“Environmental upgrades.”

And think about this… Cap and tax hasn’t even gone into effect yet. What will happen once all of our power companies are forced to start shuttering their plants and replace them with other sources of energy?

So think about this and who voted “yes” on this bill… And then make sure you appropriately thank your representative for this next time you get a chance. After all, you were just told to go suck an egg in the name of your representative looking “green.” I bet you feel special now, don’t you?

And slaps down Judge Sotomayor. Again.

Will this have any bearing on her nomination process for Supreme Court justice? It had better. She doesn’t have a good record when it comes to her judgments holding up in the SCOTUS, and this new one just tips the scales even further.

But will Obama get his way anyway? I’m not going to hold my breath…

I got this email from ParentalRights.org:

Dear Friend of Parental Rights,

It is very important that we speak up right now.  Please call before you close this email!

Sincerely,
Michael Farris

I happened to catch this evening’s 60 Minutes and caught the segment on Mexico’s drug war (http://tinyurl.com/nygkge). While this is of interest to me, I was appalled that they repeated the same lie that has been floating around for a while now… Namely that 90% of Mexico’s assault weapons come from us. I guess they do believe that if you repeat a lie enough times that it eventually is accepted as truth by the trusting public.

What’s worse is that they addressed this to Janet Napolitano who did not correct them despite the fact that this information has been absolutely proven false.

To top that, they interviewed Mexico’s attorney general who took the opportunity to slam our Second Amendment rights, essentially claiming that our rights are responsible for their weapon problem. So this is our fault? Interesting since we can’t own fully automatic weapons, grenades or rocket launchers… And I don’t suspect that drug cartels are armed with, and outgunning police and military with semi-auto rifles…

According to Mexidata.org:

It’s not correct.  The 90% figure was originally based upon a misunderstanding, and thereafter it has been constantly repeated in the media and political world.

According to a spokeswoman for the ATF (U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), “over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.”

To borrow a Shakespearean expression, “there’s the rub.”

The fact that 90% of the “traced weapons” were from the U.S. was transformed in the media to the false report that 90% of the weapons used for criminal purposes in Mexico were from the U.S.

They go on to say:

According to William Newell, an ATF Special Agent, during the period of 2007-2008 Mexico sent 11,000 guns to the ATF to be traced. Of those 11,000 weapons, 6,000 were able to be traced. Of those 6,000, 90% were traced to the U.S.

But those 11,000 guns weren’t the only weapons confiscated in that time period.  In fact, from 2007-2008 Mexican authorities recovered 29,000 guns.

That means that during that time period (2007-2008) 83% of the recovered guns in Mexico were not traced to the U.S.A.

PETA: Upset that Obama swatted a fly… Oh, come on! These people have got to get a life. Seriously. I wish my life were so inane that I could justify expending energy over Obama swatting a fly. Just pathetic.

Eric Holder: Taking cues from the Obama White House, this jerk cites the recent high-profile shootings as evidence that we need stronger hate crime legislation. OK, fine. If we’re going to have this bullcrap jammed down our throats then I want it completely over the top… I want protection because I have freckles. Double that because I have glasses. Oh, and I want protection because I’m a veteran. And you had better throw in protection for politicians and government bureaucrats, because I think that the people are hitting the point where it will be deemed necessary to burn them at the stake…

Ariel Wade: Is taking White Castle to court because they refused to allow her to drive her scooter through the drive through. Now we’re not talking Vespa here. We’re talking more like Hoveround… She is claiming that this is an equal opportunity thing. White Castle claims it is a safety thing. I’m siding with White Castle here. This isn’t an equal rights or ADA thing… This is just plain stupid.

England: What the hell is going on over there? Gordon Brown and his corrupt party officials are becoming more of a joke every day. It’s too bad though, since it seems that Brown and Obama are like kindred spirits… The only difference is that people in the UK aren’t quite so apathetic about government corruption. Apparently, we love it.

ABC News: Need I say more? This is no longer news, it is state-run television à la China and North Korea.

Should we be surprised? The Obama White House has relied on fear and panic tactics since day one, and now they have released a new 200 page report on the doomsday scenario of global warming. Of course, it’s not new research or new information; rather it’s a re-hashing of old hyperbole and theortical nonsense. If the Obama administation could produce something new and tangible, I might be convinced. But re-tooling the data that didn’t convince me before isn’t going to do much good.

It’s really pretty simple. The White House is full of shit on global warming. The evidence that it is a power grab far outweighs any evidence that global warming is real or a genuine threat to mankind.

The FDA is now taking on tobacco…

I know I’m not the only one bothered by this, but people have been shockingly silent about it. Even over on the FOX News website there hasn’t been a whole lot of outrage over this power grab by congress and the administration.

That’s what it is, after all. I have throughly gone over what this new legislation against tobacco entails, and it doesn’t do anything but give the government yet more regulatory power over us.

I can’t fathom why people would think that this is at all OK. The big excuse that I am seeing on the news sites and message boards is that this was passed with big bipartisan support so any dissenters should just shut up. Duh! Of course it passed with bipartisan support. No legislator who values his position in government over any sort of principle is going to stand up for tobacco. It’s tabboo. Untouchable. We might as well start calling tobacco users “lepers.” So to use the excuse that this won by a bipartisan vote is meaningless. What is of importance is that we now have tobacco under the wing of one of the most bloated, self-righteous and useless bureaucracies in the United States government. The FDA, by many accounts, has done more harm than good over the years (go to CEI and search FDA for some great examples). If anybody thinks that this is going to help do a damn thing other than tie things up in bureaucratic mazes needs to stop and think about things for a moment. After all, the FDA barely manages to tend the issues that it’s already charged with, and now we’re throwing the great tobacco boondogle into the fray.

When did tobacco use stop being a choice to be made by the individuals?

Want to know my little conspiracy theory? The war on drugs is lost and everybody knows it – so to save face, the government is hell bent now on winning the war on tobacco. Hell, they have to win something, right? If we allow people to think that they have free choice, then they’re not doing their job…

I have been pondering this North Korea thing for a couple of days now. No, not the nuke thing, but the prisoner thing. And it got me wondering… How in the hell did we ever get so arrogant?

To be certain, being arrested in North Korea and sent to “prison” there really sucks. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. However, you can’t get arrested and sent to a North Korean prison if you don’t go to North Korea. It really is that simple.

North Korea is a sovereign nation. They have borders, and unlike us they actually enforce that border. While we may think that we are supperior “citizens of the world” (amplified ten-fold by Obama’s own arrogance), but the truth of the matter is that being an American citizen does not give you the right to do as you please in other countries. Of course, the “fine”  folks in Washington help to propel this by diligently working to ensure that American citizens don’t have to pay any consequences for their arrogance, which really doesn’t help matters much.

Sure, I will concede that North Korea would do well by releasing the women in the name of international relations; however let’s get real for a minute – North Korea has shown very little interest in appeasing the international community. With that said, if North Korea decides to hold on to these women, who are we to say “no?”

To further that, North Korea detains many people without our government getting all uppitty about it, so itsn’t it a bit hypocritical to stand now and lay the claim that it’s fine for them to arrest and imprison their own people, but not our people? It’s not as if the North Korean police chased these women down and arrested them on our soil. In fact, I see very little difference between their treatment and the treatment of North Koreans in North Korea – the only difference being which country’s ID card they carry.

So again, where does our arrogance come from? We are not kings of the world. We hold no legitimate power over other countries other than the power of opinion. All we can say is “please” and hope for the best. Yet that’s not the route we are taking, is it?

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not interested in backing down from a fight. Far from it. But I do firmly believe that we need to do a better job of choosing our fights – and otherwise keeping our noses out of others’ affairs.

The 2009 elections in England are proving one thing: the people aren’t happy with Liberalism.

The Libs were crushed in the elections, losing strongholds that they had held solidly for more than 20 years. An interesting twist considering our own Libs are hell bent on following the model set forth by the European Libs.

Americans had better take note: Liberalism fails. Obama and the Liberal Dems will fail. It really is that simple. The only question is how much damage we will allow them to do to us before they do fail?

The South Carolina Supreme Court has forced the governor to take money from the “stimulus” bill, ending a battle between the governor and the democrats who think that the stimulus money is a right and used education as a shield to hide behind when making their arguments.

What the hell?

I guess I just didn’t realize that the stimulus plan was something that was to be forced upon everybody… Or else. And now the SC Supreme Court has upheld that.

State’s rights? What are those? We’re one big supersized family under the fist of Washington DC.