The American Love Affair with the Automobile is History

As I sit here writing this, General Motors (GM), once the nation's largest employer, is about ten minutes away from filing for a "government led" bankruptcy. What that means is, once the dust has settled, the federal government is going to wind up controlling about sixty percent of the company.

It will represent the largest industrial bankruptcy in this nation's history.

For those of us who fell in love with the automobile during our formative years, and who now make up a decidedly dwindling number of true "car enthusiasts," this is not a happy time, and it doesn't matter whether you were really a Mopar aficionado or a Ford guy. GM was part of the "Big Three," and seeing it in this sorry condition is akin to a kick in the bag.

P.J. O'Rourke, author of twelve books, and who has written for Car & Driver (my favorite car mag for two decades) among other publications, has opined as to what it was that killed the love affair Americans once had with the automobile:

Thus cars usurped the place of horses in our hearts. Once we’d caught a glimpse of a well-turned Goodyear, checked out the curves of the bodywork and gaped at that swell pair of headlights, well, the old gray mare was not what she used to be. We embarked upon life in the fast lane with our new paramour. It was a great love story of man and machine. The road to the future was paved with bliss.

Then we got married and moved to the suburbs. Being away from central cities meant Americans had to spend more of their time driving. Over the years away got farther away. Eventually this meant that Americans had to spend all of their time driving. The play date was 40 miles from the Chuck E. Cheese. The swim meet was 40 miles from the cello lesson. The Montessori was 40 miles from the math coach. Mom’s job was 40 miles from Dad’s job and the three-car garage was 40 miles from both.

The car ceased to be object of desire and equipment for adventure and turned into office, rec room, communications hub, breakfast nook and recycling bin—a motorized cup holder. Americans, the richest people on Earth, were stuck in the confines of their crossover SUVs, squeezed into less space than tech-support call-center employees in a Mumbai cubicle farm. Never mind the six-bedroom, eight-bath, pseudo-Tudor with cathedral-ceilinged great room and 1,000-bottle controlled-climate wine cellar. That was a day’s walk away.

We became sick and tired of our cars and even angry at them. Pointy-headed busybodies of the environmentalist, new urbanist, utopian communitarian ilk blamed the victim. They claimed the car had forced us to live in widely scattered settlements in the great wasteland of big-box stores and the Olive Garden. If we would all just get on our Schwinns or hop a trolley, they said, America could become an archipelago of cozy gulags on the Portland, Ore., model with everyone nestled together in the most sustainably carbon-neutral, diverse and ecologically unimpactful way.

You can find P. J.'s entire excellent article here.

It is definitely worth a read.

HOA NAZIs Never Rest

As I have noted previously, I am not exactly fond of home owners associations (HOAs). Given my personal interactions with these hideous people over the years, I actually tend to think the Gestapo and the Stasi were staffed with warmer people.

This latest HOA outrage comes to us not from Florida, but oddly enough Texas, and involves a retired disabled Marine, his personal vehicle, stickers affixed thereon, and an HOA run by idiots and that apparently has way too much time on its hands.

Frank Larison, now 58, spent 14 years of his life serving this nation as a United Sates Marine. One of those years was spent on combat duty in Vietnam. Appropriately, Mr. Larison is rather proud of his service, and wanted to communicate this pride to others by placing stickers on his vehicle in support of the Marines. Seven of them, actually.

However, the HOA for the condo complex he resides in is crying foul, and threatening the retired Marine and combat veteran with all kinds of unpleasantness, which includes having his vehicle towed at his expense, as well as fining him $50 for any future infractions.

Apparently, this particular HOA from hell (as if there was one that isn't) has a rule that forbids placing any form of advertisements on vehicles. How this relates to displays in support of the Marines is beyond me.

My Fox Houston has the full report:


You can view the written version here.

Some neighbors are outraged.

"That is his identity," said neighbor Mary Castagna. "He goes to a lot of the veteran meetings, and it means a lot to him. Everyone else agrees with it; it doesn't bother anybody."

"He's in the Marines, and he's proud of it, and I don't blame him," said neighbor Paul Hardy. "If I'd gone through what he's gone through, I'd be kind of proud of it myself."

So would most of of us, Mr. Hardy.

But this is the strange part:

The letter from the board states you can't have any form of advertisement anywhere on your car on your property. FOX 4 cameras spotted bumper stickers for political parties, health causes, and other non-commercial interests on the property as well.

Hmm. Is it just possible the idiot HOA member who is giving Mr. Larison all this grief might just have a problem with our nation's military, and those who have served in it?

If I were Mr. Larison, I would be out sticker shopping.

But, that's just the kind of person I am.

I will be sure and keep an eye out for the outcome of this lunacy.

If the Russians Can See It, Why Can't the American People?

If there is one group on Earth that can testify to the disastrous failure Marxism truly is, it is the Russian people. After all, they spent over seven decades living under the most dignity-robbing, murderous, tyrannical, and freedom-destroying form of government the world has yet seen.

During that sad time, millions of their fellow countrymen died, either through starvation, overwork or outright murder. The more fortunate among them spent endless years rotting in the gulags. Aside from Albania and North Korea, the former USSR had to be one of the dreariest, drab, and most depressing places on this rock.

While our fellow Americans are currently busying themselves following American Idol and their favorite sports teams, Obama and his people are rapidly turning this nation into a totalitarian Marxist hell-hole, one that will be essentially financially bankrupt from day one.

What is more, they are doing it in broad daylight, right in front of God and everybody. They will eventually rob us all of the hard-won freedoms and liberties so many of us hold dear, yet most of the government-educated dumbMasses that populate this nation are seemingly oblivious to it.

Even Pravda has weighed in on what is currently happening to this nation with a warning most among us should truly heed (bolds are mine):

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

Ouch!

You can read the whole thing right here.

If the people of America do not soon wake up and start paying attention, we are all going to wake up one morning in a country that many of us are not going to recognize, but will be all too familiar to those who were unfortunate enough to have to live in the hell that was the former USSR.

It doesn't have to happen.

Home Bible Study Requires A Government Permit In San Diego County?

Apparently, if you intend to invite, say, about fifteen people over to your domicile for a Bible study in San Diego County, California, you might want to make sure you have tens of thousands of dollars lying around to pop for a "major use" permit.

That is exactly what a local pastor and his wife are being told by county government bureaucrats that they must do if they wish to continue to host Bible studies in their own home, which are usually attended by fifteen people or so.

Of course, this is ridiculous on its face, and obviously a case of a government-schooled, over-zealous bureaucrat who is more than a little ignorant of the concept of private property rights. Then again, this could be something more, based on the questions posed to the homeowner by the government bureaucrats (bolds are mine):

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"

First of all, I find the inquisitorial nature of these questions to be well out of bounds, and not a little disturbing, particularly because they are being asked by a government employee. It almost seems as if the government was zeroing in on them because they happened to be Christian.

What business is it of the government's what is said by those attending a gathering in a private home? Do they ask similar questions to other residents who regularly have people over for a BBQ? A football game?

More to the point, would the government be this nosy if this were a Muslim gathering?

Somehow I doubt it.

The couple has sent a letter to the county demanding they back off, as this is a clear violation of their 1st Amendment rights as they relate to religious freedom.

If you ask me, that is just for starters, as there are property rights and other freedom-related issues in play here, as well. The couple has said that if the county continues to pursue this course of action, they will consider a federal lawsuit.

Good for them.

You can read the entire 10News.com story here.

The Texas Flag Flap

A hospital supervisor in Mansfield, Texas was ordered by her employer to take down an American flag she had hung in her workspace just prior to this past Memorial Day weekend (bolds are mine):

Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors.

When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said.

McLucas' husband and sons are former military men. Her daughter is currently serving in Iraq as a combat medic.

As it turns out, the offended co-worker was an African immigrant who came to this country 14 years ago, and apparently has little or no appreciation for her adopted country of residence. But it gets worse:

...McLucas said that supervisor took down the flag herself...

"The flag and the pole had been placed on the floor," McLucas said.

So, not only was this African immigrant offended by the sight of our nation's flag, but totally disrespected it by placing it on the floor.

You will find the entire CBS11TV story here.

Of course, due to the adverse publicity this affair has generated, McLucas' employer, Kindred Hospital, which is owned by Kindred Healthcare, has since apologized and has allowed for the flag to be put back up.

My problem is, this should have never happened in the first place.

I do not give a damn that someone might be offended by the sight of the American flag, whether they are from here or not.

I am sick to death of people offended by our flag telling us that we, citizens of the United States of America, have no right to display it. I'm sorry, but there is no constitutional protection against being offended.

As for this African immigrant, she should be invited to return to the land whence she came, as I feel rather strongly that people like her should not be allowed to live in this country.

Midwest Fairtax Rally

Go here for more info.

Cartoon of the Week

By Michael Ramirez

(h/t: IBD)

To Those Who Have Served Our Nation And All Of Us

Since the time of the American Revolution through the present day, this great nation has been blessed to have no shortage of courageous citizens like yourselves willing to take up arms to defend it, and if necessary, forfeit your very lives in order to do so.

You were willing to go wherever your country sent you in order to defend America, its people, or to prevent others in the world from realizing the sad fate of living under hideous tyrannies.

You have willingly fought in deserts, jungles, in the skies and on (as well as beneath) the high seas of the world in order to defend freedom and liberty.

It was never really easy, rarely pleasant, and not a little dangerous, but you went anyway because your country asked it of you.

Some of you never returned to your home country alive, having given your lives not knowing the final outcome of the conflict you were willing to fight in. Still more of you came back with physically less than you left with. Sadly, some of you returned home safely only to be spat upon and accused of all kinds of hideous atrocities by some of our very own citizens. Some of you returned scarred in ways not otherwise visible.

Every last one of you returned home a true American hero.

The citizens of this nation, and no small number of free people throughout the world, owe you all a debt of gratitude we will never come close to repaying. I thank God for each and every one of you.

Thank you for your selfless service to the United Sates of America, and to all of us.

Parade Grand Marshal to Sons of Confederate Veterans: Get Lost

The Morehead chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has been denied permission to participate in the Ironton Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade, which they have previously been a part of.

The 5th Kentucky Infantry Camp #2122 received a letter from Arthur J. Pierson, parade grand marshal, rejecting the group’s request to participate in the parade, without giving any reasons why.

“Your parade request for SCV, 5th Kentucky Infantry camp #2122 Morehead, KY, has been considered and NOT APPROVED,” the letter stated.

The 5th Kentucky wanted to march with a color guard that would feature two Confederate flags – the Kentucky Confederate flag and the Confederate battle flag – and two motorcycles.

The group wanted to march to memorialize the service of Confederate veterans, many of whose descendants live in the tri-state.

You can find the entire Morehead News article here.

This is wrong on several levels, and it is giving off the foul stench of political correctness.

The Civil War is a huge part of this nation's heritage. It was, in so many ways, a watershed event, the ramifications of which are still being felt today.

To prevent those who's ancestor's fought on a side that we may not agree with from participating in a parade meant to honor our nation's military veterans who gave their lives is not only unconscionable, but profoundly ignorant.

(photo credit: File Buzz)

Mark Steyn Says Only Thing Being "Stimulated" Is Statism

Mark Steyn is one of my favorite columnists, authors and commentators, as he rarely minces words when talking about the pressing issues of the day and where they may be leading (pushing?) us. Even if he doesn't always get things exactly right, he still makes a compelling, if not a little uncomfortable, argument to bolster his assertions.

Like me, he feels things are heading in a decidedly totalitarian direction right now, one that is going to negatively impact the prosperity, not to mention the freedom and liberty of future generations of Americans.

His writings are never going to give the reader a warm, fuzzy feeling about the world in which we reside. They aren't meant to, as cold, hard reality is neither kind nor sensitive.

The stimulus will do nothing for the economy, but it will dramatically advance the cause of statism (as Mark Levin rightly calls it). Last week's vote in California is a snapshot of where this leads: The gangster regime in Sacramento is an alliance between a corrupt and/or craven political class wholly owned by a public sector union-bureaucracy extortion racket. So what if the formerly Golden State goes belly-up? They'll pass the buck to Washington, and those of us in nonprofligate jurisdictions will get stuck with the tab. At some point, the dwindling band of citizens still foolish enough to earn a living by making things, selling things or providing services other than government-funded program coordination will have to vote against not just taxes but specific agencies and programs – hundreds and thousands of them.

You can read Mark's entire excellent column here.

As always, it is a most interesting read.

Cartoon of the Week

Even though I will be amongst the millions of Americans who will be sending lots of charcoal smoke into the atmosphere on Monday, I hope we will not forget those who sacrificed so much to ensure our freedom to do so.

(h/t: My friend Eowyn @ Giovanni's World)

Great Video: Liz Cheney Verbally Bitch Slaps Anderson Cooper

Awesome!

Dick Cheney's Excellent Speech at the American Enterprise Institute

Needless to say, he kicked Barry Obama's spineless ass, and then some:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Nice shooting, Mr. Cheney.

Its Not Your Mother's Girl Scouts Anymore

Think the Girls Scouts of the USA is a good, safe place to park your young daughter to keep her out of the insanity of the current culture war? Think again while you take a look at what the daughters of our nation are now going to be exposed to in this organization (bolds are mine):

In "Amaze: The Twists and Turns of Getting Along," girls from the sixth to the eighth grade will read a quote from Buddha and be encouraged to explore mazes and stone or dirt labyrinths – symbols rooted in pagan mythology and popular within the New Age movement as meditation tools.

They will be briefly introduced to Polish poet Anna Swir, known for her feminist and erotic poems, and Jane Addams, an ardent feminist and pacifist who received a Nobel Peace Prize.

The text features a quote from Harriet Woods, former president of the National Women's Political Caucus – a bipartisan group that endorses pro-abortion female candidates who run for public office.

As your daughter gets into higher age groups, particularly her junior and senior high school years, it gets even worse, as some of the "roll models" they will be introduced to are:

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: labor leader, activist, feminist, founding member of ACLU and chairwoman of the American Communist Party

Luisa Moreno: labor leader, social activist, member of the Communist Party, married to delegate of the Socialist Party of America

Simone de Beauvoir: existentialist, French author of feminist books including "The Second Sex," key player in France's women's liberation movement

Rigoberta Menchu: Guatemalan activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who joined Marxist guerrilla movement

You can read Chelsea Shilling's excellent WorldNetDaily article here.

It looks to me as though the Godly values that helped to make America great are slowing being removed from this once great organization.

The Girl Scouts should be the one place our nation's daughter's are safe from indoctrination by the freedom-hating Marxist left.

God knows they get enough of that from attending government schools.

I have to admit that I love some of the cookies the Girl Scouts sell, but I will have to seriously re-evaluate whether or not I will be buying them in the future.

Cartoon of the Week

By Richard Ramirez

(h/t: IBD)

DHS Withdraws Controversial Report

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) boss Janet Napolitano has ordered the now infamous report that implied, among other things, that our returning veteran soldiers were potential terrorists, be withdrawn:

"The wheels came off the wagon because the vetting process was not followed," Ms. Napolitano told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

"The report is no longer out there," she said. "An employee sent it out without authorization."

Sorry, but I am not buying a word of that, particularly given that the report was "leaked" just ahead of the April 15th Tea Party protests that went on all over America.

And even though this report has been "withdrawn" and is slated to be re-written, the proverbial cat is now well out of the bag.

I find it not a little disturbing that those of us who stand in support of this nation's founding document are now officially considered to be extremists, subversives, and even potential terrorists, by our very own government.

I care not how this report is going to be massaged, tweaked and re-worded, as I fully expect the end result will be just as insulting as before.

Perhaps even more so.

You can read the entire Washington Times story here.

Napolitano should be fired and packed off to Arizona. Tomorrow would be good. Yesterday would have been better.

The Electronic Police State Has Arrived

No, it isn't coming in 2047, or at any other time in the future.

It is here today:

In what may be the first assessment of its kind, a private company that offers a range of privacy products for computers and other technology is ranking the United States No. 6 in the world for having the most aggressive procedures for monitoring residents electronically.

The report, called The Electronic Police State, assesses the status of governmental surveillance in 52 nations around the globe for 2008.

The document was released Cryptohippie, Inc., which was set up in 2007 through the acquisition of several little-known but highly regarded providers of privacy technologies.

Not surprisingly, China and North Korea ranked No. 1 and No. 2, with Belarus and Russia following up. But the United Kingdom ranked fifth followed by the United States.

Read Bob Unruh's entire WorldNetDaily article here.

Wisconsin Court Upholds Warrant-less GPS Surveillance

Are law enforcement agencies in your state secretly tracking your vehicular movements? If you reside in the state of Wisconsin, they just might be doing exactly that.

The Chicago Tribune has reported that the Wisconsin District 4 Court of Appeals, which is made up of three judges, has ruled unanimously that law enforcement agencies in that state may place GPS tracking devices on citizen's vehicles to track their movements without first having to obtain a warrant:

As the law currently stands, the court said police can mount GPS on cars to track people without violating their constitutional rights -- even if the drivers aren't suspects.

Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure, Judge Paul Lundsten wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel based in Madison.

You will find the whole story here.

As a libertarian, I find this court's ruling to be contrary to everything I believe in as a freedom-loving American citizen. No government agency should be allowed to place a tracking device on your vehicle without first going before a judge and making a case for it.

I realize we are moving more toward a surveillance society, particularly in the more urbanized areas of the country, with traffic cameras, red light cameras, cameras on public sidewalks, even cameras in the local car wash, and I realize you can be tracked via your cell phone as well, but secretly placing tracking devices on citizen's vehicles without probable cause is going way beyond the pale.

This is once ruling I hope to see go all the way to the United States Supreme Court and be tossed, before this lunacy starts to catch on in other places.

Assuming that it hasn't already.

Do Gun Grabbers Ever Sleep?

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has introduced legislation ostensibly designed to make it tougher for firearms to fall into the hands of anyone that is considered to be a "known or suspected dangerous terrorist."

To those not "plugged in" to the way government thinks, at first glance, H.R. 2159, the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009 seems perfectly reasonable, as who would possibly object to putting up road blocks to keep firearms out of the hands of those who harbor ill intentions?

The problem is, government gets to define who among us actually falls into the category of a "known or suspected dangerous terrorist."

This proposed legislation:

... permits the attorney general to deny transfer of a firearm to any "known or suspected dangerous terrorist." The bill requires only that the potential firearm transferee is "appropriately suspected" of preparing for a terrorist act and that the attorney general "has a reasonable belief" that the gun might be used in connection with terrorism.

Gun rights advocates, however, object to the bill's language, arguing that it enables the federal government to suspend a person's Second Amendment rights without any trial or legal proof and only upon suspicion of being "dangerous."

"[Rep. King] would deny citizens their civil liberties based on no due process," objected Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. "A 'known terrorist?' Look, if the guy has committed an act of terrorism, we shouldn't have to worry about him being able to buy a gun; he should be in jail!"

Pratt further warned WND of the potential overlap of H.R. 2159 and a recent DHS memo that warned against potential violence from "right-wing extremists," such as those concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty.

"By those standards, I'm one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano's terrorists," Pratt said. "This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they're all potential terrorists. Actually, we could rename this bill the Janet Napolitano Frenzied Fantasy Implementation Act of 2009."

You can find Drew Zahn's entire WorldNetDaily article here.

The way this clearly unconstitutional bill is worded, it might just mean that we conservatives could very well be denied our God-given, constitutionally-protected 2nd Amendment rights, based on the opinion of a liberal government bureaucrat.

Stay tuned.

Photo of the Week

And it only cost us hapless taxpayers $357,000 to make, too.

Er, the photo, I mean.

American Justice: Blind No More?

Bruce Walker at American Thinker is lamenting the sad fact that our nation's legal system is increasingly becoming less and less objective, and more ideologically driven:

The ugly fact is that in every crevice of public life in which we expect to find an unbiased, objective, and dispassionate guardian of individual fairness, we find instead a blindered, bigoted, and boorish hack whose only real interest is in advancing "the cause." Witness the nauseating spectacle of parrots and hand-puppets in the mainstream media slavishly advancing the Obaman cult of personality. Witness the thuggish intrusion of political correctness into the pleasant diversion of beauty contests. Witness the kindly mask of public librarians, whose mission was once to liberate minds through the vistas of books, and who have now descended into champions of the tunnel vision of the left.

Public education has become a form of thought control and textbooks have deleted from famous literature the very language which made the literature great, replacing forceful words with euphemisms, historical and fictional characters with proscribed dogmas of what the left believes that real life should be, and calculated excisions of vital knowledge as thorough as anything that Stalin's toadies could have done in the black dungeon of totalitarianism.

You can read Bruce's entire article here.

"Extremist" Detained, Warned for "Subversive Survivalist" Bumper Sticker

If you have a Don't Tread On Me bumper sticker affixed to your vehicle, you might want to think twice before driving through the state of Louisiana.

According to relatives, an unidentified man who was driving in the area of Ball, La., was pulled over and detained for half an hour by a law enforcement officer for having said sticker affixed to his vehicle. He reportedly underwent a background check during his ordeal to determine if he was a member of an "extremist" group.

According to the relative, it happened this way: Her brother-in-law was driving home from work through the town, which has a local reputation for enhancing its budget by ticketing speeders. He was pulled over by police officers who told him "he had a subversive survivalist bumper sticker on his car."

"They proceeded to keep him there on the side of the road while they ran whatever they do to see if you have a record, keeping him standing by the side of the road for 30 minutes," she told WND.

Finding no record and no reason to keep him, they warned him and eventually let him go, she said.

You can read Bob Unruh's entire WorldNetDaily article here.

I don't know what the man who was detained plans to do, but if I were to be pulled over and detained for half an hour because of a bumper sticker, the grandchildren of every elected official in whatever jurisdiction it took place in would grow up knowing me as Mr. Plaintiff.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some bumper stickers to order.

Cartoon of the Week

By Richard Ramirez

(h/t: IBD)

Boston Cops Using Database to Spy On Celebs and "High-Profile Citizens"

The Boston Globe is reporting that a recent state audit in Massachusetts has turned up some serious malfeasance on the part of some state law enforcement officers:

Law enforcement personnel looked up personal information on Patriots star Tom Brady 968 times - seeking anything from his driver's license photo and home address, to whether he had purchased a gun - and auditors discovered "repeated searches and queries" on dozens of other celebrities such as Matt Damon, James Taylor, Celtics star Paul Pierce, and Red Sox owner John Henry, said two state officials familiar with the audit.

You can read the whole story here.

If they can do it to celebrities, they can damn sure do it to the rest of us, and not just in the state of Massachusetts.

Oklahoma State Legislature Overrides Governor's Veto and Asserts State's Sovereignty

Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry vetoed a similar measure ten days earlier, but the state legislature came right back and overrode his veto, and now his signature is no-longer required on the measure.

The House passed the measure 73-22. It now goes to the Senate.

"We’re going to get it done one way or the other,” said the resolutions’ author, Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City.

"I think our governor is out of step.”

House Democrats objected, saying the issue already had been taken up and had been vetoed, but House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, ruled the veto is not final action.

Key said he expects HCR 1028 will pass in the Senate. HJR 1003 earlier passed the House 83-18 and won approval in the Senate 29-18.

You will find the entire Oklahoman story here.

This doesn't signify that a wave of rebellion is imminent or anything, but it does send yet another message to Washington that not everyone in the country is as bowled over by Barack Hussein Obama as so many among us seem to be, particularly given the unprecedented federal power-snatch that is currently underway.

Of course, this won't go over well with Janet (Reno II) Napolitano and the people at DHS. After all, we who have federalist leanings have been tagged as a threat to the nation.

I have to wonder just how many Oklahoma state legislators are going to soon be facing IRS audits?

Time To Scrap the Patriot Act

I really don't mind the federal government doing things like this to non-U.S. citizens who sport funny beards, wear towels on their heads, smell of camel dung, and have been actually caught planning or carrying out a terrorist attack against this country, as I do not believe the provisions of the U.S. Constitution should apply to such people, but for the government to do this to a 16yo U.S. citizen is unconscionable:

Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.

"I was terrified," Lundeby's mother said. "There were guns, and I don't allow guns around my children. I don't believe in guns."

Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from," Lundeby said. "This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now.

Third world country, indeed.

You can read the whole WRLA story here.

I have no idea as to the guilt or innocence of young Mr. Lundeby, but that is irrelevant at this point.

Unless or until the federal government produces evidence that this young American is in some way connected to the Islamist barbarians that we are currently at war with, then he deserves to be treated the same as any other citizen suspect, and should be afforded all the rights and protections provided for in the Constitution.

(h/t: Drudge)

University of Wisonsin Seeks To Punish Students For Off-Campus Bad Behavior

The University of Wisconsin is a public educational system, which means it is run by government agents. As such, it believes it has the authority to punish students for things they do away from campus.

I can see all kinds of abuses brewing with this government idiocy.

All they are really doing with this nonsense is turning out future mindless nanny-state supporters, which I believe is the result they are seeking.

(h/t: Boortz.com)

Top Ten Reasons Obama's "Plan" Will Fail

Mikiel de Bary at American Thinker has put forth ten reasons why Obama's economic plan for America isn't going to work:

10. The Obama economic team really does not know how we got into this mess. For example, Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, claims that the "fundamental cause" of the current economic downturn is the decline in asset prices from the levels reached in 2006 and 2007, i.e., from the peak of arguably the biggest and broadest asset bubble in history. In other words, she believes that the retreat from absurd valuations is giving us problems.

9. Obama himself follows the scapegoating line initiated by Bush. He blames both the general asset bubble and its collapse on insufficiently regulated companies, rather than on fiat money and central banking -- the sacred institutions of the failed macroeconomic establishment -- which financed every aspect of the Great Bubble.

You will find the rest here.

About the only thing I do not agree with is the assertion that this plan was cooked up by Obama.

I see it as a plan by which the federal government intends to make economic slaves of us all.

(h/t: Boortz.com)

The White House Blogs

(Updated Below)
The White House has decided to hook up with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. No biggie, really, but the comments from some of the "friends" are proof positive that voting in this country should be severely restricted, preferably before what is left of our freedoms and liberties disappear forever.

Some unedited (except for screen names) examples from their MySpace page:

Obama i looked forward into you being the president, i've seen things that i really never seen before, im latino and i see you go all around leaving messages to spanish award shows and all that extra stuff, well about the flu yor handling the situation good so keep it up and thanks for everything

9/11 was an inside job. The war on terror is a hoax.

hope you can get the cure to the swine flu and find a cure for cancer i think you should legalize weed.

So glad to have you as our president! It's about time we got a democrat back in office. Bush was horrible... Clinton rocked (another democrat) even though he pulled down his fly for some chick. And Bush Sr. sucked so maybe Americans will get it that Democrats are better than Republicans!

[Hi President Obama my name is (name redacted) I'm 23yr old.. I just want to say think you for bring hour President my spelling is bad lol but what are you planing on doing for the people that is on ssi ?? oh bye the way i always wanted to talk to you sir plz message me back I'm looking forward to her from you [Hello White House!
thanks for the friendship with me...

...i wish u live up to ur name giving a white/clean administration not only for USA but to the whole world!...

...all d best!]

Hello, I just want you to know what I am worried about. The enviornment is in alot of trouble. Our social studies class is planing to help the problem. We are going to have everyone turn off their lights if they are not in the room. That way we save alot of energy. Plus, my main worry is about the polar-bears because they are taking most of the effect on Global-Warming. When the ice melts it makes the ocean bigger. Then, they have to swim more then they run. Plus, since Global Warming is heating everything up, the polar-bears must be over-heating. They have all that fur for the coldness! But the tempeture is rising in many degrees!
Thanks you for listening to a girl with a voice

Is too much to ask for some universal health care?! It should be a HUMAN RIGHT!!! Why doesnt our government use our technology and resources to run our planet we have enough resources that are natural and the technology to harness it so that we never have to use man made oils. ANYONE WHO DOESNT KNOW OUR GOVERNMENT IS MONETARY WHICH MEANS IT IS CURUPT. NO MONEY MEANS NO PROBLEM GET RID OF CURRENCY AND THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE. ZEITGEISTMOVIE.COM, check it out for urself.

I love this man. He is the best man sence jesus. I love everything about him and i wish he had more then 4 to 8 years!

My daddy said when is my check coming?

america needs a change ...stop this destruction of peoples lives and the mental and phisical hurt ... we need to wake up and realize that everyone is equal and noone is lesser than another ...we need our freedom from insults and broken spirits ...we need a new america ...an america that helps everyone ...no matter what the costs we need to be a good people to let the others know that we are a good people and not a destructive country

LOL-Aren't government schools wonderful?

Update: Apparently, the Obamanistas have deleted all Twitter posts from the George W. Bush presidency.

Brats.

Guv'mint Motors Plucks Pontiac Permanently

As I noted previously, the federal government is in the process of taking over General Motors (GM) which announced last week that their Pontiac Division was going to join long defunct (and all but forgotten) Oldsmobile on the ash heap of automotive history.

This is an unfortunate development because, as a car enthusiast, I have always considered Pontiac to be among the more interesting of the GM brands, if not mechanically, at least visually.

People who bought Pontiacs were willing to shell out a few more bucks to get something a little more visually interesting than a slightly down-market Chevrolet. It didn't really matter that most of the mechanicals were the same as could be found in the Chevy version of the same car, it was just that the Pontiac was a little sportier to the eye. It had a little more style.

Of course, there were some Pontiac models that did stand apart form their GM counterparts. Who can forget the pavement-wrinkling GTO's and the early Firebird Trans-Ams?

How many of us who came of age in the '70's and, after seeing Smokey and the Bandit for the first time, secretly wished we could have a black T/A just like the Bandit drove, and that we could give 'ol Buford T. Justice fits as we raced from Georgia to Texas and back, on what was essentially a really long beer run, just because a big fat guy in a funny suit with a wad of cash was thirsty?

C'mon, you know you did it, too.

I recently got to spend some quality wheel time in a fully loaded Pontiac G8, and thought it to be a very well-rounded, buttoned-down machine. Too bad the American public didn't see it that way.

I didn't flinch when Oldsmobile disappeared from the scene, but something about Pontiac being no more is not a little sad.

Somehow, unlike the GTO, I just don't see an American rock band doing a song about some dorky government-designed transportation appliance that nobody is going to want to be seen in, much less buy.

FairTax.org Contest Winning Video

I meant to post this excellent video several weeks ago, but it somehow slipped my mind:



If you are interested in learning more about the FairTax, please go here.

Obama Is a Statist, Not a Socialist; by Edward H. Crane (Cato Institute: Commentary)

Edward H. Crane, the founder and president of the Cato Institute, has offered up an interesting commentary on our 44th POTUS:

There is a reason sales of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged are going through the roof. The book is nothing if not prescient. The "Troubled Assets Relief Program" is straight from its pages. Monday's New York Times front page suggests Atlas may be starting to shrug. "Doctor Shortage Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals," laments the headline. Hmm. Wonder why there would be a doctor shortage in the face of nationalized health care? Perhaps bright young people considering a career don't want to work for the federal bureaucracy?

Click below to read the entire article, as it represents a point of view that is somewhat different than what you are probably familiar with:

"Obama Is a Statist, Not a Socialist" by Edward H. Crane (Cato Institute: Commentary)

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Kill Bill HR 45

Former Black Panther and current Democrat congress critter from Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush has introduced HR 45, the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing & Record of Sale Act of 2009, a bill clearly designed to screw with law-abiding gun owners in every conceivable way.

Some of the provisions contained within this hideous piece of legislation include:

• All firearms must be eventually registered, not just new ones
  
• All firearm owners must be licensed by government
  
• You must supply a current driver's license
• You must be fingerprinted
• You must supply a social security number
• You must be willing to submit to a physical and mental exam any time the government chooses
• Each time you buy or sell a firearm, the sale must be recorded, and you will be charged a $25 fee for updating your records
• The government will have the right to enter your home and check to see if you are storing your firearm(s) in a manner the government finds acceptable
  

There is much more, and you can read the entire bill here.

I am not going to get all hot an bothered over this just yet, as Bobby Rush isn't exactly a congressional leader, and he himself was convicted in 1969 on an illegal weapons charge and spent six months in the slammer. As of this posting there are no co-sponsors of HR 45.

My guess is it will languish and be left to die in committee, as the American people are in no mood for additional gun control measures at the moment, particularly those that are so obviously aimed at future confiscation, as Rush's bill so clearly is.

Per his Discoverthenetworks write-up linked above: (bolds are mine)

Rush is also among the staunchest congressional supporters of gun control. He has proposed legislation that would regulate the sale and purchase of bullets. "Ultimately, I would like to see the manufacture and possession of handguns banned," said Rush, "…that's the endgame."

-Yes, I am quite sure you would, you freedom-hating, gun-grabbing hypocrite.

As noted above, I doubt this lunacy will ever make it out of committee, but given my observations over the last 107 days, anything is possible with this current crop of congress-critters, not to mention the fondness for all things totalitarian exhibited by the Obama administration.

Nonetheless, this most definitely bears watching.

Cowboys Practice Facility Collapses In Storm

Luckily, no one was killed.



While watching this video, I was amazed that no one was electrocuted, given all the electrical wiring, metal and water that was around.

Illinois Congress-critter Admits Obamacare Will Destroy Private Health Insurance

Well, duh.



Is it just me, or does she seem just a little too happy about all this?

(h/t: Drudge)

Thought Crime Bill Passes House

I previously noted that a "hate crime" bill was being assembled in congress that essentially was going to make thought an actual crime in this nation.

Sadly, we have now moved one step closer to this insanity, as the bill has made it through on a 249-175 vote in the House. It appears Equal Protection Under the Law, like so many other things that make this country truly unique, is about to become a thing of the past.

It still has to pass in the Senate, but I expect it will sail right through with little meaningful resistance.

Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com has more here.

Of course, the Huftards, along with their libtard comrades could not be happier, as this gets them pretty much to where they have wanted to be all along-to throw Christians into prison for publicly expressing their beliefs, even in their own church.

Hopefully, the U.S. Supreme Court will show this clearly unconstitutional travesty the door before too much damage is done.