Space, The Final Frontier...someday

I have strong opinions. Overall, Obama will go down in history as, at best, a mediocre President. As strong as my opinions are on Obama, they are even more solid on manned space flight. To put it succinctly:

We need to go there. NOW. We should have had Lunar colonies since the 1960's, and should be establishing thriving colonies on Mars by now. The first manned missions to Titan should have launched about two years ago. The population in low to mid Earth orbit should be in the tens of thousands by now.

NASA was a mistake, born out of panic and politics. Don't get me wrong. The men and women of NASA were true heroes. My earliest memory is watching a Gemini mission. But the X-Plane pilots called Mercury "spam in a can" for good reasons. We sacrificed the amazing strides of the X-Plane missions for a quick, dirty, expensive, bureaucratic way to beat the Soviets.

Had we continued the amazing progress, a combination of military and civilian greatness, of the X-Plane series, we would have accomplished all the things in my second paragraph, and then some.  We were well on our way to reusable flight to low earth orbit in the late 1950's! Sputnik brought all that progress to a halt.

So now, here we are, with three Space Shuttle flights left. After those flights, the United States will have no capability to enter low Earth orbit, let alone go back to the Moon, Mars or anywhere else. For the forseeable future, we will be paying for rides from the people who created Sputnik all those decades ago.

This was not Barack Obama's fault. The short-sightedness of America's space program dates back 60 years. While I wanted more, much more, than what Obama proposed, the proposed plan may be the best we can do right now.  Sad, very sad, but true.

Obama has decided to fund private space industries. It's about time.  Had the decision been made to pump money in to private space flight sixty years ago, we would not be talking about a Mars trip in 2035. Men, women and children would already be there.

The key will be for the Obama administration to fund the private enterprise, and then LEAVE IT ALONE. Government meddling will only slow down whatever progress is made. It would be a change in style and philosophy for a big government liberal like Obama to actually leave anyone alone. But that's what needs to happen. If he does, the jobs lost at NASA will quickly be gained as individuals, private individuals, take the necessary steps to the planets, then the stars.

Glad That's Over:

President Barack Obama's advisers plan to remove terms such as "Islamic radicalism" from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.

 And here I thought those 19 hijackers were Islamic Radicals. Whew! Good thing they were just common criminals. Common criminals who killed nearly 3000 people, destroyed the World Trade Towers. It'll come as a relief to the passengers of who took down the Islamic Rad...er...terrori...er...criminals, keeping them from destroying something else...like The White House. 


Of course, those passengers are dead. Sorry, Mr. Beamer. It appears we've stopped rolling.

Selective Amnesia: Maxine Waters

She may be one of the most outrageous Representatives out there. And, apparently isn't terribly interested in truth...

Regime Change

The selective amnesia of the Left never ceases to amaze me.  When you use their words, their tactics, against them, they are shocked, appalled that anyone would say or do such a thing.

Byron York details just one example, in exquisite detail:

Apparently some people didn't get it. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews appeared deeply troubled by the word. "I've never seen language like this in the American press," he said, "referring to an elected representative government, elected in a totally fair, democratic, American election -- we will have another one in November, we'll have another one for president in a couple years -- fair, free, and wonderful democracy we have in this country…. We know that word, 'regime.' It was used by George Bush, 'regime change.' You go to war with regimes. Regimes are tyrannies. They're juntas. They're military coups. The use of the word 'regime' in American political parlance is unacceptable, and someone should tell the walrus [Limbaugh] to stop using it."
Matthews didn't stop there. "I never heard the word 'regime,' before, have you?" he said to NBC's Chuck Todd. "I don't even think Joe McCarthy ever called this government a 'regime.'"

That word was regime, as Rush Limbaugh applied it to the Obama Administration.

It appears that Matthews has suffered a major memory loss. I don't have the facilities to search for every utterance of Joe McCarthy, but a look at more recent times reveals many, many, many examples of the phrase "Bush regime." In fact, a search of the Nexis database for "Bush regime" yields 6,769 examples from January 20, 2001 to the present.

He then goes through example after example ending, of course, with Matthews himself. 

I wonder when the studies will come out "showing" the apparent organic brain damage holding left of center views appear to to cause.  

Oh, wait! The left already did those studies, "proving" their own points...if they remember it, of course.

The Echo Chamber of the Liberal Blogosphere

 I've spent a couple of weeks exploring the best of the liberal blogs.

Here's the rule when dealing with Progressives: The more they accuse the Right, the more likely it is they are doing whatever it is they accuse us of.

Great example is the link in the title of this post.

I tracked the story down through several left blogs and read the comments on each. On some of the blogs, the link to the Bloomberg Poll wasn't even mentioned. Maybe because those bloggers knew the analysis linked to the poll was a lie. More likely, the story fit what they wanted to believe, so why bother. The echo chamber the lefty bloggers have developed is staggering, and frankly sad.

I'm not going to do the work for you. Take a look at the link, and most especially the sixth paragraph.  Then look at the actual data, and decide for yourself if the analysis is accurate.

Is Barack Obama a Socialist? You May Be Surprised at My Answer

When you are hooked on politics as I am, it's easy to answer questions like the above quickly. Name a conservative talk show host, and you can be pretty sure they would answer the question with a resounding yes.

But he's not. Nor is he evil incarnate, the Anti-Christ, or the reincarnation of Lenin.

Saying such things simply makes you look crazy.  And crazy doesn't win elections.

Obama is a big government liberal. Period.

He believes government, specifically the Federal government, is the change agent needed to help individuals.

He wants more government, not less.

If you want that, vote for him.  And vote for those like him.

Government is a poor change agent. Individual initiative is a better one.

That message wins elections. Always has. Always will.

Daniel Henninger: Would the Founding Founders Love ObamaCare? - WSJ.com

Would the Founding Founders Love ObamaCare?
Some would. Most would consider it a breach of the Constitutional covenant between the Federal Government and the People. Not the first, but the latest in a century of over-reach by the Progressive movement. Daniel Henninger presents the case well.

They Called Reagan an Airhead Too: Norman Podhoretz

Apparently one of my daughter's high school teachers began blasting Sarah Palin today. Not a great plan. After all, Lexi helps with my blog posts sometimes. Norman Podhoretz is one of the great conservative intellectuals of our time. In this piece he blasts his intellectual conservative peers about Mrs. Palin.

What I am trying to say is not that Sarah Palin would necessarily make a great president but that the criteria by which she is being judged by her conservative critics—never mind the deranged hatred she inspires on the left—tell us next to nothing about the kind of president she would make.

Take, for example, foreign policy. True, she seems to know very little about international affairs, but expertise in this area is no guarantee of wise leadership. After all, her rival for the vice presidency, who in some sense knows a great deal, was wrong on almost every major issue that arose in the 30 years he spent in the Senate.

What she does know—and in this respect, she does resemble Reagan—is that the United States has been a force for good in the world, which is more than Barack Obama, whose IQ is no doubt higher than hers, has yet to learn. Jimmy Carter also has a high IQ, which did not prevent him from becoming one of the worst presidents in American history, and so does Bill Clinton, which did not prevent him from befouling the presidential nest.

He ends with this:

As for me, after more than a year of seeing how those "prodigious oratorical and intellectual gifts" have worked themselves out in action, I remain more convinced than ever of the soundness of Buckley's quip, in the spirit of which I hereby declare that I would rather be ruled by the Tea Party than by the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama.

Amen and amen.

Who Are These Guys? From The Mudville Gazette

This is an important story on so many levels.


It's the kind of analysis professional journalist should be doing, if they didn't have such a stake in "proving" this was legitimate protesters.

If this sign was carried by real Tea Partiers, they need to be found and turned over to the Secret Service. If, as I strongly suspect, they were paid participants from the other side, they need to be found, turned over to the Secret Service, and exposed.  So, do these guys look familiar to anybody?

I May Be Moving Again...

I'm considering moving back over to Wordpress. While I like Blogger, and the upgrades Google has made over the years are phenomenal, the templates are still limited, and don't allow me to play with the CSS and HTML the way I would like. I've not made a firm decision yet, and would be interested in any feedback from folks either way. Send me an email, or comment.

Apollo 13: 40 Years Later

I grew up with astronauts. Well, not really. Never got closer than when my Dad took me to a NASA presentation at the Masonic Lodge sometime in the early '70's. They had real, honest to goodness Moon rock. Moon grain, really. But wow!

One of the things we always thought we "knew" was that if Apollo 13 had missed the reentry window, the 3 Astronauts would have either burned up, or skipped off Earth's atmosphere to spend eternity in space...

Then again...

Conservative Blogging 101

I've been looking for something like Adam Graham's Rules for Blogging for years. Every blogger, conservative, liberal or in-between should listen to this one, Rules for Bloggers, before writing another post.

Crying...or crying wolf?

Surely you remember back to September,when Nancy Pelosi tearfully related her fears of violence.



If Speaker Pelosi and her cohorts were so concerned about violence, tell me why they did this:

They plowed right through all those "violent" Tea Party protesters.
And the only weapon in view was being held by Nancy Pelosi.

The Promised Land

If I knew where this came from, I'd credit it.

Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel , "pick up your shovel, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land".

Nearly 75 years ago, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a camel, this is the Promised Land".

Now Obama has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of camels, and mortgaged the Promised Land.

I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, Savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc. . . .

I called Lifeline, the suicide help line.

Got a call center in Pakistan ..

I told them I was suicidal.

They all got excited and asked if I could drive a truck...

The Next Obama Summit: NASA on April 15th

I know it's going to surprise people, but I really don't like the Obama Administration. Shocker, right?

But I very much agree with the Obama Administration's budget and plans for NASA and manned space flight in the future.The plan is based on proposals from The Planetary Society. It pushes us farther and faster , and adds millions to private corporations, a far cry from what NASA was doing under the Bush Administration.

There is a rumor going around that Obama will give the Kennedy speech on April 15th, putting us on Mars within the decade. I sincerely hope that's what happens. And, if he follows the The Planetary Society guidelines, we will go with the intention of staying. That, in and of itself, would make Barack Obama a pivotal figure in world history.

The technological benefits of going to Mars would benefit us all. It would give this nation a goal to rally around,  something to unite us instead of dividing. And it would open up the New Frontier in a very real way. Saddle up.

Astronomers Find 90% More Universe! | Universe Today

And Progressives are already trying to figure out how many more Democrat voters that may give them.

Actually, this is a big deal. Astronomers knew they were missing a some fraction of the universe thanks to the large distances, but they simply had no idea they were missing so much. The universe is so huge, we cannot get our minds around it.

Threats to Democrat Congressmen: How Convenient.

A closed door meeting was held with Dems.  Then good 'ole Stenny comes out and says there have been death threats. If the meeting had occurred in open session, I would be a lot less skeptical.

The radical playbook requires them to make themselves the victims. If they can make us step back, they win.

Having said that:

If you want to kill the momentum to repeal Obamacare and allow the Progressives to continue their march toward Immigration, Cap and Tax and who knows what else, make stupid threats to Congressmen.

When you make threats of physical violence, you become just like the radicals who are now in power. The '60's radicals learned the lesson well, put on suits and ties, and took over.

The radicals need a villain, someone to target.

We must not give them more ammunition.

They will make up lies. Based on video from last weekend, they already have.

We must not give them any true incidents to verify their lies.

Paul Ryan,The Distinguished Congressman from Wisconsin...

I watched the entire healthcare summit between Obama and the Republicans a few weeks ago.

One of the bright spots was Paul Ryan and his charts.  If you didn't see it, you can get a reprise of it here.



He presents the arguments against Obamacare in stark terms.

He repeats and expands his arguments in the title link of this post.

It will bankrupt our nation.

It will further government's control of individuals, both employers and employees.

The law as written won't solve the problems it claims to fix.

The proposals made by Paul Ryan and other Conservatives were shot down by Progressives bent on control and further instituting the nanny state.

There are, as of this posting, 58 comments from right, left, center,and a couple that appear to come from alternate universes.  What is clear is that of these 58, no more than a third actually read Paul Ryan's opinion peice before putting fingers to keyboard. That's about par for political discourse today.

If you decide to comment either here or at the Journal-Sentinel, please read the article first. It will help, though not prevent, you from sounding like an idiot.

Master of My Domain...Not Quite

Would the Seinfeld fans in the back of the room please stop snickering and have a seat? Thank you.

Blogging used to be an easy gig with no costs attached. You got yourself a Blogger or a WordPress account, came up with a name no one else had, and started writing and reading other bloggers. Who cared what your domain name was? They all had "blogspot.com" or "wordpress.com at the end. There were a few fancy schmancy guys out there, like Glenn Reynolds over at InstaPundit. com. But, for the most part, you wrote for your friends, and most importantly, for yourself.

Then along came Google adsense. And Amazon. And respect. 

Holy crap. We weren't bloggers, we were "citizen journalists."  We took down Dan Rather.  We were the "Pajamahudeen."  

I was having email conversations with Hugh Hewitt! (Who? Never mind. It seemed big at the time.)

And I got stars in my eyes thinking I could actually make money at this stuff.

And I wasn't dot blogspot dot com anymore. Matt and I got us our very own DOT COM! 

We were (insert drumroll here. Fireworks here. Ah, hell. Let's just do the whole Angelic Choir) 

!!!!!libertyjustincase.com!!!!!

Brought in another partner, Craig. 

Got the website (not a blog anymore. I was a WEBSITE. say it proud, say it loud.) up in the stats of other blogs. Even got a tsunami of hits from 'ole Glenn Reynolds himself over at InstaPundit. 

We even started referring to ourselves as LJiC. Very classy. Very big-time.

But PajamasMedia never called after the initial emails saying how great I could be, and how they were putting together talented bloggers with a cool marketing tool that would make me lots of money. 

Adsense made me a grand total of 37 cents.  And Amazon? Sigh.

Matt became a pirate...sort of.  The military, after all the military blogging of 2000 and 2004, clamped down hard. Something about military bloggers having an undue influence on Presidential elections or something.

And the world moved on. And I got bored. Ran out of things to say. 

Craig kept things going, cross posting from his original blog, Red Satellites.  You can find him in my blogroll on the right. You'll notice he's still a "dot blogspot dot com" kind of guy. That's cool.

I got hooked in to Facebook, and Twitter. 

Matt decided he couldn't keep up the cost of the

!!!!!libertyjustincase.com!!!!!

site. And so we ended it. I wrote one last post, quite good I think, and we were done.

Until I got the blogging bug again.  

No stars this time. No choirs, except the one at First Baptist Church, Prague, Oklahoma, where you find my wife most Sundays.

And, I'm a "blogspot dot com" again. 

I'm writing what I want, when I want. I'm not worried too much about readers. I'm writing more for myself now, less for others. Feels kinda nice, to tell you the truth.

Found out today that libertyjustincase.com will cost me $299 to get back. Seems its in some kind of "renewal status" since Matt let the domain name expire. 

It may become available again in the next few months. If it does, I can get it for $10 a year. 

Who knows? Maybe I'll purchase it when it becomes available.  Or maybe not. 

There's something comfortable about being a blogspot. Sort of humbling. I think I need that,that humbling thing. I'm pretty much okay with being a "blogspot" kind of guy.  It's nice.

The House: 2010.

If you want to know how Florida 8th looks this November, CQPolitics is the place. How about California District 25? Yep, here's the analysis.

CQ Politics | House Race Ratings Map for 2010

And Here are the Senate Races, analysis and all.

Now if they would just make all this an app for my IPhone...

The Bigger the State...

...the Smaller the Citizen.

A five minute course in truth by way of The Lobster Pot.  Dennis Prager's University. Five minute courses far better than many a semester I've taken over the years.

Finally, Something I Can Agree With Joe Biden On

Only Joe Biden could stand in front of a nationwide audience, the dream of a hundred years worth of Progressive vision about to be realized, and believe he wouldn't be overheard as he introduced the President.


He's right though. Obamacare is a "big f***ing deal." David Brooks puts it in perspective,with no cursing, a talent Joe Biden seems to be sadly lacking.

Yet I confess, watching all this, I feel again why I’m no longer spiritually attached to the Democratic Party. The essence of America is energy — the vibrancy of the market, the mobility of the people and the disruptive creativity of the entrepreneurs. This vibrancy grew up accidentally, out of a cocktail of religious fervor and material abundance, but it was nurtured by choice. It was nurtured by our founders, who created national capital markets to disrupt the ossifying grip of the agricultural landholders. It was nurtured by 19th-century Republicans who built the railroads and the land-grant colleges to weave free markets across great distances. It was nurtured by Progressives who broke the stultifying grip of the trusts.

Today, America’s vigor is challenged on two fronts. First, the country is becoming geriatric. Other nations spend 10 percent or so of their G.D.P. on health care. We spend 17 percent and are predicted to soon spend 20 percent and then 25 percent. This legislation was supposed to end that asphyxiating growth, which will crowd out investments in innovation, education and everything else. It will not.

With the word security engraved on its heart, the Democratic Party is just not structured to cut spending that would enhance health and safety. The party nurtures; it does not say, “No more.”

C.S. Lewis said it best.
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It is a tyranny that smothers, all in the name of the common good, all in the name of saving it's victims from pain.

Mr. Brooks continues:

The second biggest threat to America’s vibrancy is the exploding federal debt. Again, Democrats can utter the words of fiscal restraint, but they don’t feel the passion. This bill is full of gimmicks designed to get a good score from the Congressional Budget Office but not to really balance the budget. Democrats did enough to solve their political problem (not looking fiscally reckless) but not enough to solve the genuine problem.

Nobody knows how this bill will work out. It is an undertaking exponentially more complex than the Iraq war, for example. But to me, it feels like the end of something, not the beginning of something. It feels like the noble completion of the great liberal project to build a comprehensive welfare system.

Perhaps Joe Biden was correct. His use of expletives, gutter language, seems somehow far more appropriate to this undertaking. It is most assuredly not noble, but it is a f**king big deal."

Could the IPad be the new Mac? Could it kill the old Mac?

(Hat tip to Louis Gray for this one)

At first, I agreed with Louis that PCWorld must be off it's medications.

But the more I thought about it, the more I came to see the logic:

The Mac's greatest enemy may not be Microsoft Windows. It may beApple itself. In a conversation at a Goldman Sachs technologyconference, Apple COO Tim Cook said that Apple is a "mobile devices company," and that more devices will get the iPhone OS. A bit later, AT&T's CEO said the iPad would mostly be a Wi-Fi (read: home) product rather than something you tote around and use on the street.

This jibes with something I've been thinking about Apple: if it could do the Mac all over again, it would use the iPhone OS. Don't think of the iPad as a big iPod touch. Think of it, rather, as the new Mac—a new mode of home-based computing that Apple hopes will bubble up through its product line.

If the touchscreen keyboard is as easy to use as it looks. If it has an easy to use Office Suite, like IWork. Well, Hmmmm. But then there's this:

This means no independent software stores, fewer open-source projects, and perhaps a blanket ban on BitTorrent, Flash, and Firefox. It means a much more restricted peripheral market. The Mac will no longer be a PC as we know it—it will be an "end-to-end experience" like the iPhone.

Bleggghhhh! Now there would be a deal-killer. One of the few things I miss from my old PC days is the Open Source Software availability. I have HATED the closed market of using the Mac. I knew it when I got the IMac and my beloved Mac-mini. But I sure haven't liked it.

I could have written this last part myself:

Maybe it's just that I was raised on 1980s personal computers, or that I took too many American civics classes in school. But I feel that absolute power tends to corrupt, and having a single gatekeeper with no checks or balances is almost never a good thing. Obviously, the iPhone ecosystem has flourished under Apple's benign dictatorship. But the whole ecosystem is reliant on that dictatorship remaining benign. (And even now people who enjoy BitTorrent would argue that it isn't benign at all.)

As someone who's owned a Mac since 1986, and as someone who likes the vibrancy and innovation that open platforms bring to the marketplace, I'll admit I'm fearful, uncertain, and doubtful. Apple has fallen in love with end-to-end experiences, and I don't want anyone other than me to have the last word on what I can install on my own home computer.

Yep. So give me my IPad, but understand that I want it to be MINE. ObamaCare will be enough of a dictatorship. I don't need one on my computer.

Morning Bell from The Heritage Foundation

Let's start here this morning. The Intolerable Acts of 2010 will not stand.

Bruised, Battered, but Resolved

I was going to write a long, eloquent diatribe tonight. But, instead, I'll just repeat my facebook status:

We, as a nation, need to take a deep breath tonight. Not so we can scream louder at each other, but so we have time to think about what we say next. I was telling a friend that I've never seen the emotions quite so raw on the political blogs as tonight. We all need to stop, and go to bed. The fight will be there tomorrow morning. Good night.

What Stupak Received: His Thirty Pieces of Silver

I think Judas made a better deal with the Sanhedrin...

STATEMENT FROM COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR DAN PFEIFFER

Today, the President announced that he will be issuing an executive order after the passage of the health insurance reform law that will reaffirm its consistency with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion.

While the legislation as written maintains current law, the executive order provides additional safeguards to ensure that the status quo is upheld and enforced, and that the health care legislation’s restrictions against the public funding of abortions cannot be circumvented.

The President has said from the start that this health insurance reform should not be the forum to upset longstanding precedent. The health care legislation and this executive order are consistent with this principle.

The President is grateful for the tireless efforts of leaders on both sides of this issue to craft a consensus approach that allows the bill to move forward.

A text of the pending executive order follows:

EXECUTIVE ORDER

- - - - - - -

ENSURING ENFORCEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ABORTION RESTRICTIONS IN THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (approved March ¬¬__, 2010), I hereby order as follows:

Section 1. Policy.

Following the recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“the Act”), it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding Federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment. The purpose of this Executive Order is to establish a comprehensive, government-wide set of policies and procedures to achieve this goal and to make certain that all relevant actors—Federal officials, state officials (including insurance regulators) and health care providers—are aware of their responsibilities, new and old.

The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly-created health insurance exchanges. Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience (such as the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. §300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, Pub. L. No. 111-8, §508(d)(1) (2009)) remain intact and new protections prohibit discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

Numerous executive agencies have a role in ensuring that these restrictions are enforced, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Section 2. Strict Compliance with Prohibitions on Abortion Funding in Health Insurance Exchanges. The Act specifically prohibits the use of tax credits and cost-sharing reduction payments to pay for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) in the health insurance exchanges that will be operational in 2014. The Act also imposes strict payment and accounting requirements to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services in exchange plans (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) and requires state health insurance commissioners to ensure that exchange plan funds are segregated by insurance companies in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, OMB funds management circulars, and accounting guidance provided by the Government Accountability Office.

I hereby direct the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS to develop, within 180 days of the date of this Executive Order, a model set of segregation guidelines for state health insurance commissioners to use when determining whether exchange plans are complying with the Act’s segregation requirements, established in Section 1303 of the Act, for enrollees receiving Federal financial assistance. The guidelines shall also offer technical information that states should follow to conduct independent regular audits of insurance companies that participate in the health insurance exchanges. In developing these model guidelines, the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS shall consult with executive agencies and offices that have relevant expertise in accounting principles, including, but not limited to, the Department of the Treasury, and with the Government Accountability Office. Upon completion of those model guidelines, the Secretary of HHS should promptly initiate a rulemaking to issue regulations, which will have the force of law, to interpret the Act’s segregation requirements, and shall provide guidance to state health insurance commissioners on how to comply with the model guidelines.

Section 3. Community Health Center Program.

The Act establishes a new Community Health Center (CHC) Fund within HHS, which provides additional Federal funds for the community health center program. Existing law prohibits these centers from using federal funds to provide abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), as a result of both the Hyde Amendment and longstanding regulations containing the Hyde language. Under the Act, the Hyde language shall apply to the authorization and appropriations of funds for Community Health Centers under section 10503 and all other relevant provisions. I hereby direct the Secretary of HHS to ensure that program administrators and recipients of Federal funds are aware of and comply with the limitations on abortion services imposed on CHCs by existing law. Such actions should include, but are not limited to, updating Grant Policy Statements that accompany CHC grants and issuing new interpretive rules.

Section 4. General Provisions.

(a) Nothing in this Executive Order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: (i) authority granted by law or presidential directive to an agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This Executive Order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This Executive Order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.

THE WHITE HOUSE,

The GTL™ Sunday Guest Column — “A March Towards Madness” By Christopher L. Doster

A great guest post. Worth saving and reading again.

The GTL™ Sunday Guest Column — “A March Towards Madness” By Christopher L. Doster

I Can't Remember Being More Proud of a Talking Head...

Karl Rove gave a lesson in how the war must be fought on the Talking Head shows in the coming months. He didn't let 'ole Pluff-n-Stuff get by with one lie; not one false charge. No wonder President Bush called him The Architect.

The Myth of the Pro-Life Democrat: Phyllis Schlafly

I'm going to quote her remarks extensively, and without editorializing. There is no need:

"It is naive for any elected official, especially one who describes himself as 'pro-life,' to expect that a promise to issue an Executive Order that reasserts the intentions of the Hyde Amendment will be fulfilled by the most pro-abortion president to ever sit in the White House. Perhaps Mr. Stupak and his fellow pro-life Democrats forget that President Obama's first Executive Order was the repeal of the Mexico City Policy to allow for international funding of abortion."

"Not only would an Executive Order be rendered meaningless in the face of Congress passing legislation which actively provides for the massive expansion and funding of abortion services, but anyone who doubts the abortion tsunami which awaits this bill becoming law lives in a fantasy world."

"Barack Obama has lined every existing federal agency with the most dedicated pro-abortion ideologues, and we know that he will continue this pattern of pro-abortion appointments when it comes time for him to fill the over-100 bureaucracies created to administer his socialized health care program."

"Any formerly pro-life Democrat who casts a 'Yes' vote for this Senate health care bill tonight will be forever remembered as being among the deciding votes which facilitated the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade."

"Mr. Stupak and his Democrat followers have now clarified that you cannot be pro-life and be a Democrat.  If abortion was truly their biggest issue, they wouldn't willfully align themselves with the Party of Death."

"This vote will expose the myth of the 'pro-life Democrat.'  With this single vote, the Democratic Party will divide our nation into the Party of Death and the Party of Life, and future elections will never be the same."

Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum. 

Stupid, stupid Stupack

I'm trying to make myself believe that the first three letters in his name are only coincidence, I really am...

Day by Day Today

Day by Day. One of my favorite cartoons

Racist Teabaggers? Let's Check the Video, Shall We?

The racist slurs didn't happen. Period.
But it sure made a great story...er...fable...er...lie.

And Now For Something Completely Different: A Periodic Table of Science Bloggers

This is just plain cool. I'm not a science blogger, at least not totally. I just blog what interests me. And this most certainly does.

Stupak and Company Cave

That's it. With Stupak and gang onboard, it's over. The healthcare monstrosity is passed. You could hear the crowd outside as they got the news.

How Do We Pray For Our Nation This Night?

One of my favorite bloggers is a wonderful woman who goes by The Anchoress. This is a night our nation desperately needs anchoring. In this post, she speaks to the question: How do we pray for our nation this night:

. . .when the Bush-Gore recount battle was going on, I asked my parish priest, a very wise man who loves Christ, how to discern God’s will. I wasn’t asking so much for his opinion on the politics of the day but when I am in one of these political battles and a religious person, can I discern God’s will in the course of trying to decide whether I should write letters, call my Congressperson, or whatever?

His simple answer was “God’s will will always be for the salvation of the individual involved.”

So I try every day now to pray for the salvation of the president, all members of Congress, and the American people. I cast my cares upon the Lord.

We are in a deeper battle here, which you well know . . . I also think in the end this all has to do with the salvation of souls, including the souls of our president and these politicians who deign to rule over the rest of us. I think we who believe must hold fast to Christ, the True Center, and bring as many along with us as possible.

Yes. How perfectly right. God’s will will always be for the salvation of the individual involved. And it follows that the salvation of the individual involved will lie in that individual’s conforming him/herself to the Word and Will of God.

Individuals.

It's how God sees us. Individuals making decisions that effect other individuals.

I've been reading The Breach, a history of the Clinton Impeachment. This was another dark time in our Nation's history. In the midst of that time, one man made a heroic and painful decision.

Bob Livingston was set to be the new Speaker of the House. But he also knew that his affair of years before was being released to the media. He knew he could not govern the House under such circumstances. He took the floor on the second day of the House debate on Impeachment.

If you watched the debate on that Saturday morning, the screen was split between the House, and the U.S. bombardment of Baghdad, in order to stop Saddam from continuing his research on weapons of mass destruction.  A dramatic day, soon to be made even more riveting by Rep. Livingston's resignation, and his call on Clinton to do the same thing. He showed courage and honor, an example of bravery I hope is remembered tomorrow, as another historic House debate gets underway.
Bob Livingston's fateful speech begins around 1900.

Tea Party Misbehavior

The MSM will work hard to make us focus on a couple of idiots yelling racial slurs. It gives them cover to ignore the thousands that showed up in Washington today.

Thousands, representing millions of us that are fighting every way we can to prevent this bill tomorrow from becoming law.

By the way,does that look like hundreds to you? Accurate estimates put the crowd at 30,000.

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Maybe the Dems Believe Their Own Lies

I've worked with delusional clients for twenty years. Listening to Obama now makes me think he's not lying...at least now.

One of Clinton's talents was an ability to compartmentalize the truth, allowing him to temporarily believe his own lies. It requires a master liar to do that.

Obama is not a master liar of clintonian proportions. He has now fallen into one of the many traps along the path to becoming a Master Liar. He believes his own lies. He's told the story so many times that he now believes it's true.

This makes him far more dangerous than Bill Clinton. It makes Obama delusional. And while most delusional people are not dangerous, most delusional people are not leaders of the free world.

I pray there are members of his party who do not share his delusions, and can look past the lies. It's the only chance this nation has to remain free.


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Charlie Brown and Lucy? Maybe

This is a great piece on why the House Dems don't trust the Senate Dems. Very innocent in it's own way.It strikes me that a better analogy is rival Mob families in on the same crime. Remember: There is no honor among thieves, especially political ones.

Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance: A Huge Story if True

A huge hat tip to Gun Toting Liberal for this bombshell.

I thought long and hard about rather to post this story. Debbie Schussel is a pretty reliable source, and it sure looks like she did her homework.

In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes.  Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.

In February 2009, a well-known conservative writer sent me this, about a friend at FOX News:

The guy went on to tell me about Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts,” which are staged across the country with the proceeds going to children of slain soldiers. Of course, as the guy tells it, there’d be a lot more money every concert to go to the cause if Hannity didn’t demand–and get–use of a Gulfstream 5 plane to fly him and his family/entourage to the concerts; a “fleet” (that’s the word the guy used) of either Cadillac or Lincoln SUVs for him and his family/entourage; and several suites at really expensive hotels for him and his family/entourage. The promoter apparently values Hannity’s star demands at well over $200,000 per event. The source says he heard that Oliver North pulled Hannity aside at one of the concerts and told him that this had to stop. But that may mean that, from now on, Hannity has to fly on a G4 instead of a G5, gets only a few luxury SUVs, and two or three suites.

The post gets worse. If true, this would end Sean Hannity's career. The folks who listen to Talk Radio will tolerate a lot from the hosts. Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction is a good example. Willful deception at the expense of our troops and their families would not be tolerated by anyone.

Freedom Alliance's response is here. Debbie Schlussel is right. It's weak, and hopefully will just be the opening salvo in it's defense.

Hugh Hewitt: One of the Best Sources For Conservative Activists

I've listened to Hugh Hewitt for years. He is not on radio here in Oklahoma, but thanks to the internet, all radio is local. A law professor and radio host, he was the first to see blogging as more than a passing fad, and still one of the best sources of info and conservative activism around.

Democrats Need to Watch This...

...especially Nancy Pelosi, as it is about to happen again.
Dick Gephardt showed grace and class. Pelosi has neither.
If they think we will forget this weekend, then they are bigger fools than they appear.

The Breach

As I watch the Democrats continue their unending death march, I keep seeing similarities to the Republicans who continued to go after Clinton even when the polls were against them. The Breach is one of the best looks at both sides of the Impeachment fiasco. History has a tendency to repeat itself until we learn its lessons.

A Dose of Truth from a Real American Heroine

Ingrid Martin didn't have to say anything. She could have kept her mouth shut. Thank God she didn't. She took on the President, and "spoke truth to power." Isn't that the phrase the liberals used back in the sixties? 

I crossed my hand and bit my lips a couple of time, and when he made his Medicare claim I said ‘no, no, no,’ ” she told me yesterday.

“ ‘Yes, sir, I’m fine,’ I told him. ‘I just don’t support your bill,’ ” she said. “And at that point, security and everyone stopped.”While she kept her reactions more in line with Justice Sam Alito’s, the president must have noticed. As he shook hands after the speech, he asked her, “Are you OK?”

And so it came to pass that, for two minutes, Obama and an informed citizen who doesn’t support his plan shared some straight talk. Well, Martin talked straight, anyway.

“He asked me what I would do, and I said the problem is that he’s doing insurance reform, but the problem is really the cost of medical care itself. I said we should fix things that are driving costs up, like defensive medicine and the need for tort reform,” she said. “He told me the bill handled all that, and I said ‘Well, I don’t believe it.’ ”

Ingrid Martin, of Brunswick, Ohio, called out the president of the United States. And at his own pep rally, to boot. “Oh my gosh, I’m calling the president a liar,” she said afterward.

About time someone did. 

The Corner - National Review Online

This represents 3 strikes: Arrogant. Ignorant. Incompetent. That fits the unHoly Trinity of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

During a press conference held by eleven Congressional GOP doctors today, Rep. Paul Broun (R., Ga.) had harsh words for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.)

“I have three simple questions Ms Pelosi,” said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga. “Are you so arrogant that you think you know what’s best for the American people? Are you so ignorant that you are oblivious to the wishes of the American people? And are you so incompetent that you are going to ignore the Constitution of the United States, use tricks, deceptions, bald faced lies to try to ram down the throat of the American people something that they do not want and is going to be absolutely worse for their healthcare?”

The Corner - National Review Online

Blogger Templates

This template is called The Morning After. I really like it. Note to self: I know just enough HTML and CSS to really screw this blog up good. ALWAYS back up before changing the HTML. Sigh.

Can the Republicans Take Barbara Boxer's Senate Seat?

That question would have been a resounding NO a few months back. Now?
Tom Campbell is within 4 points. The Democrat Death March continues...

QUESTION: If the election for U.S. Senate were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Barbara Boxer, the Democrat, and Tom Campbell, the Republican?

	BARBARA BOXER	TOM CAMPBELL	UNDECIDED
ALL	47	43	10
MEN	42	49	9
WOMEN	52	37	11
DEMOCRATS	80	11	9
REPUBLICANS	7	85	8
INDEPENDENTS	43	45	12
WHITE	41	51	8
HISPANIC	60	29	11
BLACK	75	7	18
ASIAN	47	40	13
18-29	51	38	11
30-44	49	40	11
45-59	48	46	6
60+	38	48	14
NORTHERN	43	45	12
CENTRAL	39	55	6
LA COUNTY	58	28	14
BAY	63	24	13
SOUTHERN	35	57	8

We the People

Ray Stevens has put my feelings to music. I suspect he's speaking for a lot of people with this song.

The Dem Death March: A Little History from The Daily Beast

This, from Peter Beinart, explains alot. Worth reading twice.

Blogging has come a long way...

I stopped blogging a couple of years ago. Stopped using Blogger before that. Coming back is getting easier all the time. Google has added so many new features and upgrades, like this one. I'm blogging from my IPhone to two blogs, and could include Facebook and Twitter if I wanted. How cool is that?


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Location:Meadowbrook Ln,Prague,United States

I Think Obama meant this as a bad thng but...

considering his poll numbers, Dems who vote against the unhealth bill may be thankful come November that the big O is not going to "help" them.

Coming Home

Liberty Just in Case began as a way for me to express my feelings about 9/11, and how my world changed because of it. With Matt's help, I took it to a whole new level, then lost interest. Now, I find a need to bring it back. I've returned to the original design, and it feels good, like coming home.