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Saturday, June 4, 2011

Congratulations, We Have Been Set Up For A Royal Screwing.

Steve | June 4, 2011 at 8:22 am | Tags: Barack Obama, Election, Electoral College, Mitt Romney, National Popular Vote, Net present value, President of the United States, United States | Categories: 2012 Election, Constitution, Crazy Politicians, crime, Idiot Law Makers, Idiot U.S. Presidents, Media, Republican Party, Tea Party, United States, US Presidents | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-7kD

Off With Their Heads

Umm, This is a Berry Berry bad idea.. Steve

Posted by Judson Phillips on June 4, 2011 at 8:29am in Tea Party Nation

Imagine you live in a Red State. Tennessee is a good example. We can call Tennessee a "dead red cat state." The voters of Tennessee would vote for a dead red cat before they would vote for Obama. Yet, all of Tennessee's votes could go to Barack Obama.

Voter fraud? No something much worse.

The worse is a proposal gathering steam, sponsored by some Republicans called the National Popular Vote. The National Popular Vote is a stealth way to repeal the Electoral College that our founding fathers gave us.

As most people probably know, every four years in November, we go to the polls but we do not vote for President. Instead we vote for the electors that go to the meeting of the Electoral College and that is the official vote for President. Since the electors are committed to a particular candidate, the end result is never a surprise.

Under the NPV, the states sign an agreement that says whichever candidate gets the most votes nationally, gets the electoral votes from that state. For example, you could live in Tennessee, where 60% of the population is going to vote for a Republican. Even Mitt Romney could carry 60% in Tennessee. Yet if Barack Obama has more votes nationally, all of Tennessee's 11 electoral votes would go to Barack Obama.

Under the NPV a candidate does not even have to take a majority of the popular vote, only be the largest vote getter.

When the founding fathers established the Electoral College, they set up a brilliant system. The Electoral College requires that candidates have a broad appeal. Candidates cannot simply restrict their campaign to a few densely populated areas and ignore the rest of the country. Even small states play a crucial role in the elections when we have the Electoral College. Many of those who push the NPV point to the 2000 election, which is one of three times in our country's history where a candidate won more popular votes but lost the Electoral College. Had Al Gore paid attention to his alleged home state of Tennessee, he would have become the 43^rd President. Had he won Tennessee, Florida's votes would not have mattered.

When you eliminate the Electoral College you basically wipe out the state lines. This is nothing less than an assault on federalism. Eliminating the Electoral College changes the American states from state to more like administrative departments of the national government.

Technically, this is not abolishing the Electoral College. It is simply gaming the results.

Currently, the NPV has passed in eight states.

When you are undecided about an idea, you can often gauge its merit by looking who supports it. The National Popular Vote is endorsed by a multitude of liberal newspapers. If liberals think something is a good idea, it probably is not. The Advisory Board consists of liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans. There is not a single conservative on that list.

The National Popular vote is tailor made for a billionaire to run a campaign in a few large metropolitan areas, collecting a plurality of the vote and is suddenly President. This is not a popular vote as it could allow a candidate with support in only two or three small but densely populated areas to run and win. They can pander to New York corridor, Los Angeles/San Francisco area and Chicago, pretty much ignore rest of the country. The left likes to call the heartland of America, "fly over country." If the National Popular Vote becomes law, fly over country will not just be that. It will be irrelevant to the politics of choosing an American President. Most of the Red States of America will not be part of a Republic. We will simply be ruled.

~Steve~ Formally from The USA.

http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topics/congratulations-your-vote-just

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Minnesota: Koran-pushing Muslim woman stabs 2 outside library (video)

creeping | June 4, 2011 at 11:45 AM | Tags: Creeping Sharia, fbi, islam, law, Legal, Life, Media, Muslim, News, Politics, Random, Religion, Sharia, travel, utube, Video, youtube | Categories: Alerts, Creeping Sharia, Legal, Media, Minnesota, News, Politics, Religion, Sharia, Video | URL: http://wp.me/pbU4v-8JR

Hat tip Vlad Tepes for the video via Police: Woman Stabs 2 Outside Bloomington Library « CBS Minnesota. BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) — Two people were stabbed in a seemingly random attack at a Twin Cities library. After the incident Wednesday night at the Oxboro Library in Bloomington, 35-year-old Samira Abdalla Salim was arrested. Salim was [...]

Gary Johnson Excluded From NH Debate

Anyone who thinks the political process in this country is not rigged is blind.

Gary Johnson Excluded From NH Debate
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/gary-johnson-excluded-from-nh-debate

"CNN, WMUR, and the New Hampshire Union Leader will host a presidential debate on Monday, June 13th in Manchester. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, and Ron Paul will participate. In addition, unannounced candidates Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum will also take part.

"Gary Johnson, however, will not participate. Why? Because he wasn’t invited."

Freedom is always illegal!

When we ask for freedom, we have already failed. It is only when we declare freedom for ourselves and refuse to accept any less, that we have any possibility of being free.

Let's Finally Dispense With 'Hero' Nonsense

Let's Finally Dispense With 'Hero' Nonsense
by Steven Greenhut

Not only did Alameda firefighters and police stand around, watch and do nothing as a suicidal man, Raymond Zack, spent an hour in the San Francisco Bay, neck deep in water, they didn't even go into the water to retrieve his lifeless body after he died. They left that work to a bystander. To make this incident even more infuriating, police and fire officials defended the inactions of their employees and blamed budget cuts and city policy for this inhumane behavior by those who often claim to be selfless protectors of the public.

At least we can dispense with all the hero nonsense from public safety "first responders" who use the hero card whenever they are negotiating for higher pay, better pensions and other bigger budget items. When it comes time to actually act like heroes, they often act like bureaucrats. Certainly, as a deadly fire in San Francisco Thursday that claimed the life of at least one firefighter shows, these jobs can be dangerous (although they don't come near the top of the most-dangerous-jobs list). But the Alameda tragedy is an increasingly common situation as officials put their own safety, comfort and bureaucratic priorities above everything else.

Per the MSNBC report: "Interim Alameda Fire Chief Mike D'Orazi said that due to 2009 budget cuts his crews did not have the training or cold-water gear to go into the water. 'The incident yesterday was deeply regrettable,' he said Tuesday. 'But I can also see it from our firefighters' perspective. They're standing there wanting to do something, but they are handcuffed by policy at that point.'"

For God's sake, blaming budget cuts is reprehensible especially given the large chunk of local budgets that firefighting services consume. Simple decency required some effort – rather than standing around and gawking by these highly paid professionals – to save a troubled man. The bystander who fished out his body didn't have cold-water gear (let alone a big pension from the fire department), but she jumped into the water any way and acted like an actual human being. The water was a bit chilly (54 degrees) but it's not Alaska.

The article quoted a local resident who made the sensible point: "This just strikes me as not just a problem with funding, but a problem with the culture of what's going on in our city, that no one would take the time and help this drowning man." And it's a huge cultural problem within any firefighting department that would put budgetary complaints and red tape above doing their basic human mission of saving someone in harm's way.

The Alameda police showed even deeper bureaucratic inhumanity. "Certainly this was tragic, but police officers are tasked with ensuring public safety, including the safety of personnel who are sent to try to resolve these kinds of situations," Alameda police Lt. Sean Lynch told the San Jose Mercury News. "He was engaged in a deliberate act of taking his own life. We did not know whether he was violent, whether drugs were involved. It's not a situation of a typical rescue."

This response is typical from police agencies. First they say that officer safety is their first priority. Then they blame the victim. Well, if you're not going to do your job and endure even an iota of risk, then let's stop playing up the risks to officers. And helping suicidal people and troubled people of all sort is part of the job of a police officer, one would think. No one, of course, will be held accountable for any of this, which is how it works in the public sector, and especially with public safety agencies.

The whole scene sounded like something from the Three Stooges, except with tragic results. According to the MSNBC report, "The Coast Guard was called to the scene, but the water was too shallow for its boat. A Coast Guard helicopter arrived more than an hour later because it had been on another call and had to refuel."

When asked if he would save a drowning child in such waters, Alameda Fire Chief Ricci Zombeck offered this bureaucratic and maddening answer to an ABC news reporter "Well, if I was off duty I would know what I would do, but I think you're asking me my on-duty response and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures because that's what's required by our department to do."

Obviously, then, we are safer without these departments. A heroic bystander might at least jump in the water and try to save your kid while the professional, well-paid, highly pensioned "hero" is forbidden by policy (and a bureaucratic attitude) to do so.

The firefighters, cops and Coast Guard, with all their personnel and top-of-the-line equipment, were incapable of even trying to save the life of a man who stood neck deep in water for an hour. Something definitely is wrong with this picture. It reminds me of another incident in Philadelphia I wrote about for LewRockwell.com a few years ago:

"In a videotaped 'rescue' along the Schuylkill River last May [police and firefighters] did nothing other than watch for a half-hour or so as a troubled man clung to the side of a bridge, then jumped off and drowned. … [T]hey were joking around as the tragic event transpired. It took a roller-blading passerby and another bystander to attempt a rescue. … And the officials wouldn't touch [the dying man] or try to resuscitate him until the rubber gloves and other safety equipment was on the scene. They left the dirty work for the brave volunteers. This infuriating response didn't merit a rebuke from the police commissioner, who actually praised the assembled cops for their efforts after a public outcry ensued."

Instead of getting punished, Alameda officials will get rewarded – with additional training dollars. But who really believes that even if that money had been available and the policy been different that these first responders would have done the right thing? The local resident was right. The problem is a deep cultural one, something I see to be endemic in the government agencies that always claim to protect and serve us.

Police and fire agencies are bureaucracies and, as such, they end up functioning in a similar manner to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the IRS and any other alphabet soup agency you can name. As writer Thomas Sowell put it, "You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing."

And so normal people stand around wondering how we can end up with such a bad outcome – a needless death – while the bureaucracies, stuck as they are on procedure, tell us they acted appropriately.

It's about time the public starts rethinking our public safety policy and starts wondering whether the creation of big costly bureaucracies, encumbered by ridiculous rules and designed mainly around the convenience and safety of those working in the agencies, is the best way to protect the public's safety.

http://lewrockwell.com/greenhut/greenhut65.1.html

A Conservative Foreign Policy Comeback?

A Conservative Foreign Policy Comeback?
Jack Hunter
June 3rd, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv9HvjBij38&feature=player_embedded

President Obama's intervention in Libyapardon me, "NATO's" intervention in Libyahas become a moment of reflection for conservatives. Whereas the Right gave the last Republican president carte blanche on foreign policy despite cries from the Left about abuse of power, many conservatives now mimic those complaints by demanding that our current Democratic president follow the rule of law.

The Libyan intervention Obama promised would last only "days, not weeks" has now lasted over two monthsa direct violation of the War Powers Resolution which requires the President to get Congressional authority for such action after 60 days. Writes conservative columnist George Will: "The U.S. intervention in Libya's civil war, intervention that began with a surplus of confusion about capabilities and a shortage of candor about objectives, is now taking a toll on the rule of law."

Will isn't alone in his concern. While the establishment centrists of both the Democratic and Republican leadership continue to shield Obama from the rule of law, some of the loudest demands that this war president be held accountable continue to come from the Right.

In the Senate, some of that body's most conservative membersRand Paul, Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Tom Coburn and John Cornynwere co-signers of a May 18 letter to Obama insisting that the President respect the War Powers Resolution and rule of law. Needless to say, Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and "maverick" Republican John McCain vocally disagree with these conservative senators.

In the Republican-controlled House, Speaker John Boehner and the rest of the moderate GOP establishment predictably had the President's back. Likewise, Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinichone of the few antiwar liberals who did not sell out with the election of Obamapredictably launched a full-frontal assault on this war president. Kucinich introduced what the Washington Post called a "drastic" proposal that demands Obama withdraw forces from Libya within 15 days. Kucinich's co-sponsor was Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana. Indeed, some of Kucinich's loudest champions concerning this legislation were conservative Republicans. Reports the Post: "Now, a Democratic president has asked the country to support a new military action and missed a legal deadline that required him to get Congress's authorization. In response, an antiwar movement has appeared in an unlikely place: a House dominated by the Republican right."

Co-sponsor Burton noted "I think, in the House, there's probably enough votes to pass this," and he must've been rightafter closed door meetings with fellow Republicans the GOP leadership tabled the measure. Said Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith, "His intention is not to undermine the commander in chief, at a time when we have troops in harm's way."

Never mind that the Founding Fathers' intended for Congressespecially the "people's house" in the House of Representativesto be the governing body that determines what justified putting "troops in harm's way." True to his characteristic Bush Republican form, Speaker Boehner obviously believes this important decision should lie entirely with the President in defiance of the Constitution's explicit instructions that Congress must declare war.

Make no mistakea majority of Republicans in both the Senate and House still retain the same doltish mindset as Boehner. But then again, a majority of Republicans have never been conservative. This is nothing new. What is new is that the minority of Republicans who are beginning to rethink American foreign policy are almost exclusively conservatives. Kucinich bill supporter, Republican Rep. Jeff Flake perhaps had the greatest insight this week: "There's been disquiet for a long time. Republicans have been too eager to support some military ventures abroad. And this, (getting out of Libya) I think, is perhaps a little more consistent with traditional conservatism."

Flake is right. Perhaps more than he realizes.

Known as "Mr. Republican," in the mid-twentieth century, Sen. Robert Taft led the conservative charge against the prevailing Democratic belief that it was America's mission to "make the world safe for democracy," as defined by Woodrow Wilson and promoted by Franklin Roosevelt. In 1946, Taft said that the US went to war to "maintain the freedom of our own people… Certainly, we did not go to war to reform the world." In 1957, author Russell Kirk would write in his "Ten Canons of Conservative Thought:" "In the affairs of nations, the American conservative feels that his country ought to set an example to the world, but ought not to try to remake the world in its image." Despite neoconservative assertions to the contrary, many historians have noted Ronald Reagan's distaste for prolonged military conflict and that he had the least interventionist policy of any president in the last 50 years. Wrote Pat Buchanan of his former boss: "Reagan did not harbor some Wilsonian compulsion to remake the world in the image of Vermont." At the end of his life, National Review founder William F. Buckley called the Iraq War a mistake and suggested that Bush should be impeached. So did Dennis Kucinich.

It is no mistake that many of the GOP's most conservative members now more closely align themselves with what some might consider liberal antiwar positions, precisely because prudence in foreign affairs has always been the traditionally conservative position. This might become easier to see the more conservatives realize that Bush was this generation's Wilson and Obama is now the new FDRpromoting big government at home and abroad with utopian rhetoric and reckless abandon.

Concerning foreign policy, traditional conservatives have always been concerned first with America's interest, caution and restraint, and the rule of lawsomething Taft and Kirk always knew, Reagan and Buckley were old enough to remember and too many conservatives today have all but forgotten.

This week, more than a few Republicans proved that genuine American conservatism isn't entirely dead yetas a Democratic war president unintentionally jogs the Right's historical memory and helps to revive conservatism's traditionalist heart.

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2011/06/03/a-conservative-foreign-policy-comeback/