Former Community Pisser-Offer Pressing for Internet IDs

Via cbsnews.com:

STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.

Details about the "trusted identity" project are unusually scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said.

Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have exited ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years ago. Three years ago, proposals were were circulating in Washington to transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S. Defense Department.

In March 2009, Rod Beckstrom, director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA "effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions," and has proposed moving some functions to the agency's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

Is America (As Founded) Retrievable?

I have to confess that I really don't know anymore. I once believed there was no way the American people would sit idly buy while their country was stolen right out from under their noses. Now that I am watching it happen, and in broad daylight no less, right in front of God and everybody, I am beginning to think our last chance to save our republic via the voting booth came and went in November of 2008. Perhaps it was even further back than that, now that I really think about it.

My friend Tom in NC at Fellowship of the Minds has written a piece that very much mirrors my own thoughts as to where we currently are as a nation.

It is not a comfortable read:

I don’t know what it is going to take before the American people say enough is enough. Do we not see what is happening? Do we not care that our government is ruining our and our children and grandchildren’s future for decades to come? Are we simply not willing to take own destinies in our hands and fight back?

This president and this government care nothing for our opinions, care not when millions of us gather in Washington, D.C. to protest their policies, and care not when we vote overwhelmingly against those policies. We now have control of the House but the liberals still control the Senate and the White House.

I fear that the Republicans are sometimes too willing to compromise instead of fight, and as we all know, we can’t take two more years of liberal policies. Our economy and our infrastructure will essentially collapse under the weight of socialism. It is only a matter of time before our country becomes a police state; it has already started in our airports with invasive searches and in our healthcare with bureaucrats making life and death decisions for us. Soon the FCC will control the Internet in direct violation of the first amendment to the Constitution.

You will find the rest of this excellent post here.

I hope, no, pray that now that the holidays are behind us that the American people will start to pay very close attention to what is happening in our nation's capitol, as any more complacency on our part could very well be fatal to our republic - and that right soon.

Wanna Save America? Then Do Away With The EPA

Via investors.com:

Republicans are assuming that cap-and-trade (aka cap-and-tax) is dead because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lacks the votes to bring up the House-passed bill and because this issue proved a loser in the 2010 House races. Like the famous Mark Twain saying, its death may be exaggerated.

The Senate's environmentalism expert, Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., warns us that the Obama administration is trying to implement cap-and-trade anyway by bureaucratic regulations. Directives issued by the Environmental Protection Agency are coming down the pike to increase energy costs and kill jobs.

Last May, the EPA issued what it called a tailoring rule to govern new power plants, oil refineries and factories that yearly emit 100,000 tons or more of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons or sulfur hexafluoride. Inhofe reports that this tailoring rule will further reduce our manufacturing base and especially hurt the poor and elderly.

Inhofe predicts that the EPA standards planned for commercial and industrial boilers will cost 798,000 jobs. He also warns about the harmful effects on jobs caused by new rules on ozone emissions.

Since Barack Obama moved into the White House, the EPA has proposed or finalized 29 major regulations and 172 major policy rules. The EPA is, for the first time, simultaneously toughening the regulations on all six major traditional pollutants such as ozone and sulfur dioxide.

Before Climate-gate exposed the politics behind the "science" of global warming, a 5-to-4 Supreme Court ordered the EPA to consider regulating emissions based on that unsubstantiated and now largely discredited theory.

Despite a long record of supporting Obama stimulus and spending legislation, the expected chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., says, "We are not going to allow this administration to regulate what they have been unable to legislate."

Opposition to EPA's new rules is remarkably bipartisan. Seventeen Democrats signed a letter to EPA Director Lisa Jackson opposing them.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was elected after running a TV ad showing himself firing a rifle to put a bullet through a copy of the cap-and-trade bill, and he promised to fight EPA attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. He may have a difficult task because Jackson is plotting to force mass retirements of the coal plants that provide half of U.S. electricity.

EPA's aggressive overregulation is forcing the electric industry to choose between continuing to operate while taking on major capital costs of complying with heavy new burdens or closing down and building new plants that use more expensive sources such as natural gas. The public will surely end up paying higher electric rates (aka a big tax increase).

The ObamaCare law was deviously designed to take decision-making away from our elected representatives and give it to 15 "expert" members of the Obama-appointed Independent Payment Advisory Board. Many provisions of this law prohibit Congress from repealing or changing decisions of the "experts."

The Obama administration is using administrative regulations to implement what is known as card check, which even the Democratic Congress refuses to legislate. Obama's recess appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker, has lined up a 3-to-2 board majority to repeal the rule that requires secret ballots in unionization elections.

Currently, a secret ballot of workers is mandated to unionize a company. Becker's new regulation will eliminate workers' right and make them subject to coercion and bullying to induce them to vote yes on a card visible to union bosses.

The Obama administration is also toying with a plan to substitute administrative regulations for treaties. Several years ago, the Council on Foreign Relations fingered the treaty provision of the U.S. Constitution as its most objectionable section, and now an ex-Clinton administration State Department bureaucrat, James P. Rubin, has floated a New York Times op-ed suggesting that treaties are not "worth the trouble anymore," and we should substitute domestic regulations.

The globalists find it inconvenient that our Constitution requires a two-thirds Senate vote for treaty ratification. Horrors! That, they say, causes "international frustration" with America.

This frustration broke into print because there are not enough Senate votes to ratify the New START Treaty that Obama signed with Russia. Rubin's solution is to ditch the ratification process and substitute executive agreements and pronouncements.

Rubin reminds us that after it became clear the Senate was not going to ratify a climate-change treaty, Obama just used EPA regulations, and so we can do likewise with arms-control treaties. Let's just ignore the Constitution and let Obama bureaucrats make all important decisions.

Above article as originally posted.

I once referred to things such as this as creeping tyranny, but no more, as the tyranny has landed upon us and is now surrounding us on all sides.

I hope the GOP will act to put a swift end to this nonsense when the new congress is seated in January, because this nonsense, when combined with the implementation of CommieCare, as well as the coming tax increases - both the ones we know about as well as those yet unknown, could very well spell the end of our republic.

(h/t: boortz.com)

Boortz Explains It All

Via Boortz.com:

Did you catch the Dow yesterday? Not what you might call good. So, how's this economic recovery working for you folks? 

Truth is, we may be about the fall off the edge of an economic cliff. We are roaring toward the precipice at 100 while Biden is touring the country trying to tell us we're well within the speed limit. It may well be that by the time the American people fully realize how dire our economic situation is .. and how bad it is going to get under Obama's policies .. it may well be too late.

We are approaching that point. Fast. Yesterday's 2.7% drop in the Dow Jones was just an indicator that we are not on a fast track to recovery. In fact, quite the opposite. While Joe Biden tours the country on a "Summer Recovery" tour, trying to convince you how the Obama administration saved us from disaster ... our economy is slowing. Businesses aren't hiring. And Democrats in Washington are poised to only make matters worse. The Royal Bank of Scotland is warning that the global economy is stalling out and that this could lead to a massive flooding of the money supply by the Federal Reserve in efforts to fight off a world-wide deflationary recession.

You can read the rest at this link.

Fasten you seat belts, folks, as I see some major turbulence coming our way.

More Nanny State Nonsense

Via CNSNews.com:

A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are.

States receiving federal grants provided for in the bill would be required to annually track the Body Mass Index of all children ages 2 through 18. The grant-receiving states would be required to mandate that all health care providers in the state determine the Body Mass Index of all their patients in the 2-to-18 age bracket and then report that information to the state government. The state government, in turn, would be required to report the information to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for analysis.

The Healthy Choices Act--introduced by Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee--would establish and fund a wide range of programs and regulations aimed at reducing obesity rates by such means as putting nutritional labels on the front of food products, subsidizing businesses that provide fresh fruits and vegetables, and collecting BMI measurements of patients and counseling those that are overweight or obese.

You will find the rest at this link.

One common trait among virtually all totalitarian governments throughout history is the idea that children belong to the state rather than the parents.

I see this as just one more lurch in that direction.


(h/t: Drudge)

The RNC Just Doesn't Get It

I am not currently a member of the Republican Party. I do not donate to the party, or its candidates. In fact, I left the party back in the late 1990s, as their leftward lurch into areas once owned by the dems was more than I could stomach as a conservative.

In 2000, I voted for Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate, as I knew that George W. Bush, while a decent human being, was a product of the anti-Reagan movement of the country-club set of the party that began even before Reagan had left office.

Translation: George W. Bush was no conservative.

My fears came to fruition when Mr. Bush, along with his own party in control of congress, went on to nearly double the size and scope of the federal government during his tenure.

I ended up voting for Mr. Bush in 2004, but I didn't make my mind up fully until I was in the voting booth with a ballot right in front of me. We were, after all, at war, and as much as I agreed with Mr. Badnarik on so many crucial issues that faced us, coming from a large military family, I just couldn't stomach the idea of John Kerry as Commander in Chief.

I once again voted for the republican candidate in 2008, but the reasons for that should be obvious. McCain has his flaws, in fact, a suitcase full of them, but one thing is for certain, unlike his somewhat mysterious opponent, he was no communist.

I held my nose tightly, pictured Sarah Palin in my mind, and pressed the touch screen for McCain.

I had thought that the Republican National Committee would certainly get its act together once the hideous disaster I knew Obama was going to be became blatantly obvious even to the thick heads of the tone-deaf republican "leadership."

Apparently I was a little naive in my assumption. Okay, maybe a lot naive, but one uncomfortable fact remains:

The only thing standing between the Obama regime and the irreparable demise of America as we knew* it is the Republican Party.

Yes, that is scary as hell, I know, but there is no other viable political organization in place that can stop Obama cold, in time, and even begin to reverse the hideous damage this fraud of a POTUS is rapidly carrying out on this nation.

As you all know, the RNC just refused to oust Michael Steele as the party's chairman. I have a sick feeling inside that was a hideous mistake.

Via nymag.com (emphasis mine):

This week, Steele did what any sufficiently desperate captain does in such a parlous situation: summarily chuck his first mate overboard. The victim in this case was Steele’s chief of staff, Ken McKay, who reportedly learned that he’d become chum when his wife saw the news on cable. But the ouster of McKay and his replacement with an Ur–Steele loyalist did little to quiet the waters. Instead, the GOP consultant and former Steele adviser Alex Castellanos went on CNN and became the first big-name Republican to call for Steele to quit. “We still have seven months to pull our act together,” Castellanos said. “I think a change at this moment would be a good thing.”

[...]

Yet even if Steele does survive, the RNC may not, at least not in anything like the form it has traditionally taken or with the power it has traditionally wielded. In the wake of McCain-Feingold and more recently the landmark Citizens United Supreme Court decision on campaign spending, both national parties were already in the process of seeing their roles weakened dramatically and taken over by private interests. That trend is secular and has nothing to do with Steele. But his gaffes, mismanagement, and all-purpose absurdity may very well exacerbate the trend within the GOP—in the process presenting a short-term opportunity for Democrats to do better in 2010 than the political class expects.

You will find the rest of the piece here.

I hate to tell you, Mr. Castellanos, but you and your party have right now to get your act together, not seven months.

Should angry conservatives bolt in a misguided effort to form a third party at this stage, it will all but ensure the communist left will be seating a permanent, defeat-proof socialist congress come January.

Should that happen, it will be all over for America.

I would like to see a much greater sense of urgency on the part of the party leadership, and I would like to see it right now, not four months hence, and certainly not seven. They seem, however, to be stuck in "business as usual" mode, and that does not bode well for the future of this republic.

I firmly believe that the fate of America, as it was founded, will be decided this coming November, not in November of 2012. We cannot afford for the republicans to screw this up. Not even a little bit.

If the leadership of the Republican Party doesn't "get it," then perhaps it is time to oust that leadership in favor of one that fully appreciates the precarious state this nation now finds itself in - while there is still time to possibly reverse course.

Should the communist left maintain its grip on power, and Barack Hussein Obama is allowed to continue his destructive policies unmolested for another thirty-one months, the America we all were born into is finished.

There will be no retrieving it in November of 2012.

*That is not a typo. This country was fundamentally changed the instant Obama signed CommieCare into law. There is still time to change it back, but that time is growing perilously short.

Tea Party Crashers

(See update at bottom)

Well, you just knew it had to happen. A bunch of stinking, freedom-hating, communist supporters of the Comrade Chairman have put up a website dedicated to the 'destruction' of the Tea Party movement.

Apparently, their plan is to infiltrate Tea Party events and do anything they can to try and make those attending look bad in the eyes of the American people.

What is truly funny is these Obama boot-licking commie goobers claim to have the support of a lot of republicans and independents.

Right.

Just how many repubs and independents do you know who support Obama's turning this nation toward communism?

Yeah, me, neither.

Here is a direct link to their comments page. Have fun.

As one who is involved heavily in the Tea Party movement, I can tell you first hand these "crashers" do not know what they are talking about. I have met a large number of Tea Party goers and supporters, and they are about as middle of the road as you can possibly get - a very good cross-section of our society, who have become alarmed at the crushing debt we are now saddling on future generations, our seemingly out-of-control federal government, and the economy and job-killing taxes on the horizon.

I have yet to meet even one that matches, or even comes close to matching, what these "crashers" are trying to portray us as.

I know many of you will be attending Tea Party and other similar events on or around April 15th.

Keep you eyes peeled for these communist saboteurs.


Update: Michelle Malkin has much more on who these commies are, as well as some advice on how to deal with them.

John Voight's Letter to Comrade Chairman Obama and the American People

In one year, the American people are witnessing the greatest lie that is cleverly orchestrated by President Obama and his whole administration. The lie is a potent aggression that feeds the needs of people who either have not educated themselves enough to understand the assault upon us all or the very poor and needy who live to be taken care of.

President Obama feeds these people poison, giving them the idea that they are entitled to take from the wealthier who have lived and worked in a democracy that understands that capitalism is the only truth that keeps a nation healthy and fed. Now the lie goes very deep and President Obama has been cleverly trained in the Alinsky method and it would be very important that every American knows what that method is.

It is a socialistic, Marxist teaching and with it, little by little, he rapes this nation, taking down our defenses, making new language for the Islamic extremists. The world looked up to us as a symbol of hope and prosperity now wonders what will become of the entire world if America is losing its power.

The American people who understand exactly what is taking place have come together in the thousands, vowing to try to stay together as a unit of love and freedom for all men and women, from all walks of life, shivering to think that this once great nation will be a third world country.

This will be the first president to ever weaken the United States of America. President Obama uses his aggression and arrogance for his own agenda, against the will of the American people when he should be using his will and aggression against our enemies.

Every loving American for peace and truth and the security of our nation must come out and join the Tea Parties in their states. The opposition will continue their tactics; they will lie and plant their own bullies amongst us. Everyone must pay close attention to who stands next to them. We can weed out the liars and agitators.

Let us all stay in Gods light. Let no man put asunder. We can and we will prevail. God bless us all!

~Jon Voight, April 10th, 2010

Perfesser Barry Soetoro

My friend Eowyn over at Fellowship of the Minds dropped this little gem of a post on her blog today, and I thought I would share it with you:

This is MAJOR news.

One of the accomplishments much trumpeted by Obamabots is that their man, the Punk, after he graduated from Harvard Law School was a “professor” at Chicago University Law School. Finally, a leading faculty member at Chicago Law has come forth with the truth on Obama’s teaching, including:

• How Obama got a job teaching law: It was a political favor. The law school actually had turned down his application to teach there.
• What his academic title was: Obama was a “lecturer,” never a “professor,” not even an “adjunct” professor. The distinctions between/among these academic titles are important. A lecturer is someone who is hired on a year-by-year basis, without going through rigorous screening or possessing sterling academic credentials.
• How other faculty members regarded him: They thought him lazy and unqualified.
• What he taught at the law school: Although he was hired to teach Constitutional Law, Obama instead taught Machiavellian power politics à la Saul Alinsky, the Marxist ideologue who dedicated his book on community organizing, Rules for Radicals, to the fallen evil angel Lucifer.

I hope this revelation of Obama’s Chicago Law School “teaching” will be the first of more truth-tellings by those who had known the Punk.

You will find the rest at this link.

I think we are beginning to get a much clearer picture of who, not to mention what, Barack Hussein Obama actually is.

We are also gaining a much better understanding of why this supposedly highly-educated, "eloquent" man requires the aid of a teleprompter to string even two coherent sentences together.

We are also beginning to see why he has shelled out nearly $2 million to keep large parts of his past hidden from public scrutiny.

Of course, this was all out there in plain sight for people to see way back when this mysterious protege of the America-hating George Soros first announced his candidacy for POTUS. It's just too bad that 65 million of our fellow Americans couldn't turn off American Idol and put down their stupid People Magazines long enough to take notice.

Elections, after all, have consequences, and the one that took place in November of 2008 may have reverberations that last well beyond our lifetimes.

Speaking purely for myself, I now see the elevation of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency as surpassing Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, gun control, and government "education" as the most colossal scam ever perpetrated on the American people.

I really want to believe that America has not become too stoopid to survive as it was founded, but I am truly beginning to wonder whether or not it has.

God help us.

Florida School Teaches Kids About Life Under Communism

Via HeraldTribune.com:

The line: "I will serve the glorious East German state better."

The students copied it repeatedly after watching a propaganda film depicting the evils of Western culture.

The drill was part of a history lesson taken to an elaborate level Tuesday at Pine View, where Stephany and the rest of the 2,000 students participated in an interactive lesson commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.

"This was a project of the history club, and their idea was that students should really have an idea of what it was like to live in a communist state," said social studies teacher Patricia Johnston, who helped organize the project and served as the lead "comrade."

Students, with the help of a local landscaping company, erected a nearly 100-foot paper replica of the Berlin wall, complete with graffiti. It stood across the middle of the campus to mimic the concrete wall that separated communist East Germany from capitalist West Germany from 1961 to the end of 1989.

You will find the entire story at this link.

I think this is a really great idea, given today's widespread and profound ignorance of what communism really is all about, particularly among younger Americans.

What I find truly amazing about this is that Pine View is a government school for gifted students.

Perhaps this idea will spread so that the evils of the most murderous, tyrannical and freedom-robbing form of government the world has yet seen will not be forgotten - lest they be repeated.

A Notepad Mea Culpa Regarding the A.C.L.U.

I have to admit that I am not a real big fan of the A.C.L.U. I understand what they claim to be, but they have always seemed to me somewhat biased and selective when it comes to speaking out in defense of certain individuals or groups. My sense has always been, with a few notable exceptions, they tend to lean a little too far to the left for my comfort, but that is not to say they don't get it right on occasion.

Back on February 10th, I posted this article about the feds and police spying on pro-lifers in Wisconsin, and in which I wrote the following:

I doubt we will hear so much as a peep out of the A.C.L.U., either. Of course, we all know if George W. Bush were still in the White House and the feds were investigating, say, C.A.I.R., the people at the ACLU, among other lefty-oriented organizations, would be spinning on their eyebrows and spitting nails over it.

Apparently I was a little hasty in condemning the ACLU for its "lack of action" in this matter, as this comment was posted by Chris Ahmuty of the ACLU of Wisconsin:

Anonymous said...

Dear Dave,
The ACLU objected to this instance of domestic spying the day Wisc. Pro Life issued their media release. Below is our tweet with a link to the AP story in which we condemn the govt. And we have not stopped here. There is a lot going on which might surprise you.

"ACLU WI asks are the feds spying on you? http://bit.ly/9xBHvf "

Chris Ahmuty, ED
ACLU of Wisconsin

The link provided by Mr. Ahmuty lead to this Wisconsin State Journal story:

It concluded the report was unlikely to "have any impact on civil liberties or civil rights" given its limited dissemination. But anti-abortion groups and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin on Monday both criticized the federal government's collection of information on law-abiding protesters.

You will find the whole story here.

I hope the attention this matter has generated will cause the DHS, and other law enforcement agencies, to consider their actions carefully the next time around. After all, our federal government has, in a sense, acquired the power of life and death over us, and power of that nature needs to be watched closely. Very closely.

-And it matters not whether the people running said government have a "D" or and "R" behind their names.

I also hope the scrutiny will result in those responsible for this hideous incident to be called on the carpet, but that is probably asking a bit much given the current environment in D.C.

Ed. note: The Notepad thanks Mr. Ahmuty for pointing its error out, and for teaching this blogger a lesson.

Man-Made 'Climate Change' Scam Finally Unraveling (Maybe)

I pegged man-made climate change as a scam pretty much from day one. I mean, the very idea that human activity could affect the climate of the Earth has always struck me as preposterous, if not a little arrogant.

What I found equally preposterous, and not a little disturbing, was the large number of people the world over who were so easily convinced by the scam artists that CO2 was somehow a pollutant. This probably reflects on the rather sorry state of science education not just here in America, but all over the planet. The appalling lack of common sense so prevalent today probably contributed to this, too.

I also began to notice something else, and that was the political leanings of those who were pushing this fraud. I very quickly picked up on a common trait that most all of them shared: They were all socialists, Marxists and communists.

Other people began noticing this, too, hence the term watermelon - green on the outside, red on the inside. Many also began noticing the rank hypocrisy of the fraudsters themselves, such as Al Gore, R.F.K. Jr., and many many others who were living in huge mansions and flying all over creation in private jets of all sizes and descriptions telling us ignorant peons to bury our cars, go live in tents, eat vegetables and wear hemp sandals.

There was something else going on, too. These frauds were using scare tactics to push a lot of legislation through congress that was decidedly hostile to freedom and liberty. They managed to get a lot of it through, too, which to date has cost the American taxpayer approximately $79 billion. They are still trying today with the hideous freedom and liberty destroying Cap & Trade (which I refer to as Crap & Tax) bill.

Even if they can't get this abomination through congress, the EPA is saying they will implement it through regulation with the blessings of Obama administration, which isn't exactly keen when it comes to defending the country's founding principles. I just bet our nations founders are overjoyed.

It now seems one of the scientists at the center off all this is now backing away from many of his earlier claims about man's affect on the planet's climate.

Via the dailymail.co.uk:

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

You can read the entire article here.

Even if this scam is finally fully exposed for the hideous fraud that it is, that won't stop the federal government from continuing to use climate change in a effort to further encroach on our God-given freedoms. I'm not real sure if it is going to hamstring the U.N. from trying to use it as a tool for yet another global wealth redistribution scheme, either, although the recent collapse at Copenhagen was encouraging.

I do, however, think we are moving closer to a time when Al Gore & Co. are going to owe us an engraved apology - along with $79 billion.

Time to End Universal Suffrage?

Tom Tancredo makes his case:

---

---

The uncivil debate over civic illiteracy

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Posted: February 13, 2010
1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

After 35 years in politics, I am seldom surprised by the venom that flows from the mouths of liberals when one of their sacred cows is criticized. But the "fan mail" following my speech a week ago to the tea-party convention in Nashville has been truly amazing.

I spoke to the opening session of the event about why it is a good thing that John McCain was not elected president. I expected those remarks to be controversial in some quarters, but the only controversy in the news coverage of my speech was about my suggestion that we need a civics literacy test for voters.

Evidently, you cannot question the value of universal suffrage, and in the liberal lexicon, universal suffrage means not only that there should be no unreasonable or discriminatory bars to voting, but that all adults should be forced to vote, no matter how ignorant or disconnected to the civic affairs of the community.

I did not say in Nashville that all 67 million Obama voters are illiterate rabble who would fail a civics literacy test. What I did suggest and what I believe is that in the 2008 presidential election, the margin of victory for Obama was provided by people who would not be at the polls if we had meaningful civics literacy requirements for voting. Hence my statement that the lack of a civics literacy requirement is one reason we have a committed socialist ideologue in the White House today.

That statement provoked a stream of angry e-mail messages from outraged Obama voters, many of whom proudly proclaimed their advanced degrees in art history, Egyptology and political science. The message was as consistent as it was strident: What an ignoramus I must be to question the educational level of Obama voters!

My tea-party remarks had nothing to do with educational credentials or even IQ. We are all painfully aware that Barack Obama, like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton before him, got more votes from college professors than his Republican opponent. My remarks were aimed at the electorate's lack of civics literacy, which is quite different. Literacy in civics and American history is not necessarily enhanced by additional years of higher education devoted to increasingly specialized expertise in some field.

I have often suggested that new voters should be required to pass the civics literacy test already given to immigrants who want to become naturalized citizens. Yet, my suggestion was twisted into the idea that I want to see a return to "Jim Crow laws" that were used to keep blacks from voting.

This distortion of my proposal requires two acts of self-deception. First, it requires you to believe that minorities will fail any civics test, an idea that is highly insulting to all minorities. Secondly, it requires a willful disregard of the real history of Jim Crow laws. Blacks were not kept from voting by the laws themselves but the blatant discriminatory way they were administered by local officials. It is absurd to claim that any civics literacy test will be discriminatory, yet that is how my proposal was described by leftist bloggers and liberal journalists like E.J. Dionne.

Predictably, in this age of Internet video messaging

, left-wing blogs and liberal advocacy groups sent the video clip of my remarks to their members and asked them to "send Tancredo a message." The messages generated by this organized temper tantrum ran the gamut from questions about my patriotism to solemn prayers that I would get some horrible disease and die a painful death – and soon.

All our founders' inspiring, biblical quotes in one place – a must-have for your library: "America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations"

The potential for "elected despots" was well understood by our nation's founders, and they devised mechanisms in the Constitution to reduce that danger. They understood that throughout history, democracies had followed certain patterns and cycles, cycles ending in tyranny. So, instead of a pure democracy, they designed and established a republic organized as a representative democracy, with checks and balances and other innovations to help safeguard our liberties.

Voting your own short-term self-interest over the common good is a problem as old as Rome, but today it has taken on a new urgency. Using the powers of government to expropriate other people's wealth and property enters the pandemic stage when half the voting public pays no taxes

and a third of adults are government employees

or living on government pensions.

Can civics literacy programs in our schools and civics literacy tests for voters hold these forces in check? Maybe it's not the whole answer, but to me, it sure seems like a good start.

-End

Tom Tancredo's commentary was originally posted here.

I agree wholeheartedly with Rep. Tancredo. The votes of the stoopid and the illiterate (civic or otherwise) have pushed this nation right to the very edge of its destruction.

In fact, I would go one step further and restrict voting in national elections to only those who actually pay federal income taxes. Net tax consumers should have no say.

There is, after all, no constitutional right to vote in a national election.

If we continue to allow the non-productive to use the power of the federal government to take from the productive, the fate that Alexis de Tocqueville warned us about all those years ago is going to become a cold, stark reality.

Since the beginning of recorded history all free republics have shared one common trait: They all managed to vote themselves right out of existence.

Perhaps we might be the ones to finally break the chain.

The Obamanistas Want To Track Your Cell Phone

Via CNET.com (emphasis mine):

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves.

FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

You will find the entire article at this link.

It appears our Constitution is about to be shat upon yet again by the federal government, and the 4th Amendment thereof may be about to take in right in the neck.

Just like CARNIVORE and ECHELON, I doubt we will be hearing much from the left over this outrage. After all, one of their own is currently in the White House, so that makes this sort of nonsense acceptable in their twisted way of thinking.

Of course, if George W. Bush was still POTUS, these very same hypocrites would be spinning on their eyebrows and spitting nails, while accusing GWB of being everything but a child of God.

Understand, I have no problem with law enforcement using available technology to track real criminals, particularly those who pose a danger to innocents, but they at least should have to obtain a warrant to do so. I would even support a streamlined process to speed up the process, but only if it is very tightly controlled.

Obviously our system of privacy laws has a very long way to go before it catches up with rapidly advancing technologies. This is not a little dangerous to those of us who believe in our right to privacy and the 4th Amendment, as government could get away with a lot of shenanigans in the interim.

It's even more of a concern when you take into consideration the decidedly totalitarian leanings of those currently in power, and who seem to often operate is if the Constitution does not apply to them.

Stay tuned, because this hideous story is far from over.

DHS & Police Illegally Investigate Pro-Lifers in Wisconsin

Via LifeNews.com:

Obama Administration Admits It Wrongly Tracked Abortion Groups in Wisconsin

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 8, 2010

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Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) -- The Department of Homeland Security admitted today that it improperly conducted a threat assessment on pro-life and pro-abortion groups in Wisconsin. The assessment came before an expected rally last year in response to the University of Wisconsin Hospital board decided to allow abortions.

In February 2009, pro-life advocates planned to protest the hospital's decision to open up a new Madison Surgery Center doing abortions.

The Associated Press reported today that the department said in a memo that it "destroyed all of the copies of the assessment after an internal review found it violated intelligence gathering guidelines about 'protest groups which posed no threat to homeland security.'"

AP indicated the assessment was reportedly only shared with the director of Wisconsin's intelligence-sharing center and local police in Middleton, Wisconsin, the site of the rally.

Today, a pro-life organization in Wisconsin informed LifeNews.com of its concerns.

In response to an open records request by the Alliance Defense Fund and Pro-Life Wisconsin, the Middleton Police Department and the Wisconsin Department of Justice, along with the Department of Homeland Security all refused on February 4 to release copies of the threat assessment.

Pro-Life Wisconsin officials told LifeNews.com that the assessment was "inappropriately shared" and should never have targeted pro-life groups.

“The majority of Americans identify themselves as pro-life, and the Middleton Police Department has shown they are out of touch with this peaceful majority,” said Peggy Hamill, state director of the pro-life group. “Pro-lifers are not a minority of the population, nor are they second-class citizens. We refuse to let our First Amendment rights be silenced.”

A few months later in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights concluded the investigation was an improper use of department resources.

The conclusion said the department inappropriately directed against activities protected by the First Amendment, in which law enforcement inappropriately engaged in “the collection, retention and dissemination of U.S. person information regarding protest groups which posed no threat to homeland security and… violated [DHS] Guidelines.”

Hamill said DHS destroyed its copies of the report, but the Middleton Police Department retained its copy.

In January 2010 the Alliance Defense Fund, on behalf of Wisconsin pro-life advocates, asked the Middleton Police Department for a copy of the report pursuant to Wisconsin’s open records laws.

The Middleton Police Department refused to disclose the report and further said that the DOJ similarly refused to authorize disclosure of the report, despite the fact that DHS had already determined that the report was an improper investigation of freedom of speech activities.

“This move by DHS illustrates the Obama administration’s goal of silencing pro-lifers. It is disturbing that a local police department has apparently tapped into the security apparatus of the federal government to potentially obstruct free speech,” Hamill concluded.

“Last year, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano unjustly included pro-lifers in a report on domestic terrorism, and here we see her words in action," she said.

-End

You can find Steve Ertelt's original article here.

Welcome to Comrade Chairman Obama's Amerika.

If we were living in a sane world, my hope would be that heads were going to ultimately roll over this travesty, particularly that of Janet "Reno II" Napolitano, but I shan't hold my breath waiting for it to happen, as the Holder "Justice" Department has shown itself to be somewhat, a'hem, lax in enforcing the law when it involves those they support.

I doubt we will hear so much as a peep out of the A.C.L.U., either. Of course, we all know if George W. Bush were still in the White House and the feds were investigating, say, C.A.I.R., the people at the ACLU, among other lefty-oriented organizations, would be spinning on their eyebrows and spitting nails over it.

As for the State Controlled Media, they are about as close to useless as it is possible to be.

I would love to see some serious federal lawsuits brought forth over this matter, as that is probably the only way those responsible for this blatantly illegal idiocy will ever be forced to explain themselves.

Clearly we are dealing with a rogue administration that considers itself immune from constitutional scrutiny of any kind, and is not above using federal and local law enforcement agencies to try and intimidate those who actively, or even passively, oppose the hideous policies of the Obamanistas.

It does not get any more hideous than wantonly murdering unborn children, or supporting those that do.

Given Obama's actions during the campaign in attempting to use the courts to silence his detractors, this should surprise no one. It most definitely does not surprise me.

Not even a little bit.

Obama is Spending Us Into Well Beyond Mere Oblivion

Let's face it, folks, George W. Bush did not exactly endear himself to we of the fiscal conservative persuasion, but Barack Hussein Obama, with no small amount of help from a slew of like-minded, out-of-control congress-critters, is on a blistering pace to make the Bush administration appear positively miserly in comparison.

I pulled this form Boortz.com a little earlier, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture for future Americans:

THE TRUTH ABOUT GOVERNMENT

By Neal Boortz @ February 8, 2010 8:42 AM

Since we're talking about our wonderful Imperial Federal Government .... Here are some shocking facts to keep in mind:

-The cost of our federal government is 25% of our total economy (GDP).
This is compared with the average of 20.7% of the GDP during 1970-2009

- If you include the cost of state and local government, the total cost of government is almost 40% of our GDP

- Since 2008, the cost of our federal government has increased by one-fourth

- By 2020, Obama will have increased the federal government by one-half on a per family basis

- Before the recession, federal spending totaled $24,000 per household

- By 2020, Obama would raise that to $36,000 per household

Just remember these numbers folks. They have meaning.

-End

Obama and the far-left are very rapidly spending this country right down the financial crapper. Personally, I believe this is being done deliberately.

This idiocy must be stopped now, not in 2013.

Porkulus II to be called 'Jobs Bill'

They could just call it what it is - a slush fund.

I hate to tell Rep. Sherman, but thanks to Barack Hussein Obama, we're broke and cannot afford this lunacy. We can't even afford the lunacy that has already passed through this rogue and completely out-of-control congress.

Besides, jobs don't come from government, congressman Sherman, they come from the private sector, which your hero Obama is currently destroying.

My guess is, just like TARP and Porkulus I, the bulk of however much money this ends up being will be combined with what they have already stolen, and used in an all-out effort to install a permanent socialist congress - if not next November, then in 2012.

We must throw these Marxists out of power before it's too late.

Video: CommieCare Would Pass if the Males in Congress Were Sent Packing?

God, where do they find these people?

America's Declining Economic Freedom

If, like me, you are one who pays fairly close attention to the level of freedom and liberty we still enjoy as citizens of the greatest experiment in freedom that has ever been conducted since the first historians began scratching figures into the walls of caves, you have no doubt noticed that we have been losing said freedoms at what I consider to be an alarming, as well as an unacceptable, rate.

Like me, you have probably wondered from time to time just exactly where we stack up against the rest of the world in this all-important area. Well, the people at the Heritage Foundation have been examining this, as they do each year, and have come up with some analysis that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who truly values their freedom, particularly that of the economic variety. One year ago, we were the sixth freest economy in the world, which was pretty pathetic. Now we have dropped to eighth place.

Via the Wall Street Journal (Bolds are mine):

The United States is losing ground to its major competitors in the global marketplace, according to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom released today by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. This year, of the world's 20 largest economies, the U.S. suffered the largest drop in overall economic freedom. Its score declined to 78 from 80.7 on the 0 to 100 Index scale.

The U.S. lost ground on many fronts. Scores declined in seven of the 10 categories of economic freedom. Losses were particularly significant in the areas of financial and monetary freedom and property rights. Driving it all were the federal government's interventionist responses to the financial and economic crises of the last two years, which have included politically influenced regulatory changes, protectionist trade restrictions, massive stimulus spending and bailouts of financial and automotive firms deemed "too big to fail." These policies have resulted in job losses, discouraged entrepreneurship, and saddled America with unprecedented government deficits.

In the world-wide rankings of economic freedom, the U.S. fell to eighth from sixth place. Canada now ranks higher and boasts North America's freest economy. More worrisome, for the first time in the Index's 16-year history, the U.S. has fallen out of the elite group of countries identified as "economically free" by the objective measures of the Index. Four Asia-Pacific economies now sit atop the global rankings. Hong Kong stands in first place for the 16th consecutive year, followed by Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Every region of the world maintains at least one country among those deemed "free" or "mostly free" by the Index.

You will find the rest at this link. I strongly encourage you to read it in its entirety.

I have to believe the overall decline of America is reversible, even though it flies in the face of recorded history.

What helped get us here was the spread of the idea that people could use government to loot the property of others. That idea can be eliminated, even though doing so is an extremely tall order.

History does not have to repeat itself.

The Extreme Left's Plan for Amerika

Via John F. Gaski at American Thinker (emphasis is mine):

Poor Bill O'Reilly and Brit Hume. There they were on the O'Reilly show a few weeks ago, puzzling over why Barack Obama and the Democrats are doing so many things that are damaging to our country. Bill and Brit agreed that they couldn't possibly be harming the nation intentionally, because negative voter reaction would redound to them politically and electorally. Can't the Democrats see this? Did they suddenly get stupid politically? This is so unlike them. How to explain this anomaly?

Poor Bill and Brit, and many others, indeed. It is time to think the unthinkable and speak the ineffable. Apart from the troubling question of intent, or whether Obama-Pelosi-Reid just have a novel view of the public interest, the national Democrats are unnaturally and mysteriously sanguine despite growing backlash by the American people. Why? One reason: The Dems don't believe they will ever have to face a real election again. Is their plan not becoming obvious? It is very straightforward:

(1) Grant amnesty to the illegal aliens (the correct term for lawbreaking invaders, regardless of their natural and rational motives) which will create up to 30 million reliably Democrat voters -- especially after being registered at least once each by ACORN. That is cushion enough to carry any national election. Why else could Dems be so fixated on this agenda item?

You will find the rest of Gaski's excellent column here.

I believe Gaski has it exactly right, and far too many conservatives are already chilling the bubbly in anticipation of a huge conservative victory next November that I am not at all convinced is coming.

There is no doubt in my mind that TARP and Porkulus were brought about for the sole purpose of ensuring a permanent defeat-proof socialist congress is put into place, and I expect the far-left to employ every dirty trick contained within its arsenal over the next two elections to make that a reality. They might even manage to invent some new ones along the way, such as Universal Voter Registration, which even a blind monkey could see as the vote-fraud scheme it obviously is.

Neal Boortz has been warning us for years about the far-left taking power and never relinquishing it again, and spelled out exactly how they are doing it.

Sadly, there are still too many among us who have yet to wake up and take notice. Yes, the Tea Parties were all well and good, but when you really think about it, they didn't get really cranking until the intricacies of ObamaCare began filtering out.

It's just too bad they didn't get up and going back when the bailouts and slush funds were being proposed and put into place. Those horses have now left the barn and bolted for God-knows-where, and rounding them up again my very well prove impossible.

The people of this nation have historically gotten away with waiting around to the last second of the last minute of the eleventh hour before realizing something was amiss in this country. I fear that we have now reached the point where, by the time most Americans put down their People Magazines, turn off American Idol, and finally began taking notice as to what is really happening to our republic, it is going to be too late to repair the damage.

I pray every day that I am wrong.