"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams (1770)

DO YOU REMEMBER JANUARY 3, 2007?

MOST  PEOPLE DO NOT REMEMBER THIS, BUT ITS ALL TRUE FACTS. CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELVES!!

DO YOU REMEMBER JANUARY 3, 2007? This can be a real eye opener.

This tells the story, why Bush was so bad at the end of his term ...

Don’t just skim over this, it’s not very long, read it slowly and let it sink in. If in doubt, check it out!!!

The day the democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007 the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress. The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this:

January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress.

At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH

Remember the day...

January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?

BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!

Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy.

And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA and the Democrat Congress
So when someone tries to blame Bush.

REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party.

Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009.
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending.  After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Hussein Obama, who voted for the budgets.  If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Barack Hussein Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.

DEAN: Dangerous misreading of the Constitution

Liberals invent the power to consign our children to involuntary servitude

Around the end of this year, the government of the
United States of America will run out of money. Again. By running out of money, we mean government will exhaust its ability to borrow more money without going back to Congress to increase the amount of the debt it is authorized to carry. Right now, the government is authorized to borrow $16.4 trillion, but that is not enough. Because the government is borrowing about 40 cents of every dollar it spends on its day-to-day operations, it can be expected to run out of money pretty regularly. In fact, we went through this fiscal farce just last summer. Like a tired rerun, it is back again.
Not surprisingly, we are talking about real money. To put this amount of debt in some perspective, it is more than a trillion dollars more than the size of the entire U.S. economy. Just in case anyone has been reading the news lately, it is a potential tragedy of Greek proportions. It is putting our constitutional system of government in hock and mortgaging the liberty of future generations of Americans. For a nation that, until now, has lived by the philosophy that it would hand the next generation a brighter future than the last, it is quite a reversal. So how did we get here? Last year’s debate about increasing the debt ceiling offers some intriguing clues.
Last summer, American liberals felt threatened. Their unalienable right to spend money they don’t have was called into question when a Republican House of Representatives refused to increase the ability of the government to borrow money without some assurance there was a limit to it. In a fit of pique, liberals argued that a failure to increase the amount of money the government was authorized to borrow would cause a default that was unconstitutional. It seems that the “me” generation thinks it has a constitutional right to continue to spend money it does not have. Without much doubt, its theory has to be among the most stupid - and most childish - constitutional arguments that ever have been put forward in Washington. But a compliant press actually gave it some credence.
They were desperate. Margaret Thatcher reportedly once observed that the problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s money to spend. We don’t say we believe in socialism on this side of the Atlantic, possibly because the public doesn’t think government is very good at producing anything except deficits. Even liberals understand that nationalizing the means of production would be a disaster, if for no other reason than that it would deprive them of a source of political contributions. Liberals do, however, believe in spending other people’s money. That much is clear. But the difference is that on this side of the Atlantic, the liberal left prefers to spend the money of future generations. That is easier because the unborn don’t have a say in the matter. They don’t have the right to vote and cannot object.
In essence, what happened last summer was that a liberal government’s ability to spend the money of future generations was being threatened. A sympathetic establishment, quite rightly, saw it as an existential threat. In response, it invented a frivolous constitutional argument about default and followed the adage that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe you.
In fact, the Constitution is quite clear in this area. It should be. It was built on the foundation of a rebellion that was, in turn, inspired by a tax revolt. That is one reason why Article I of the Constitution firmly vests the power of the purse in the elected representatives of the people in Congress . The power to tax, spend and, yes, even to borrow are all vested in Congress , which shall have the power “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.” Pretty clear, you might think. Neither the executive nor the judiciary has that power. In fact, it is unconstitutional for the executive to spend money not appropriated by Congress. That much is obvious even to the most uninformed reader of the Constitution. So how could anyone get something so fundamental so wrong?
The liberal left ignored the text of Article I of the Constitution because the House is controlled by fiscal conservatives. They could not figure out why that in itself should not be unconstitutional. While that argument must have been tempting, they instead focused their attention on the 14th Amendment, one of two post-Civil War amendments that, in their view, codified the federal government ’s moral supremacy over a subservient nation. The previously obscure Section 4 of the 14th Amendment deals with Civil War debts. It states, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrections or rebellions, shall not be questioned.” It goes on to repudiate the debt of the Confederacy. Nevertheless, it has language that you can play with. If you omit the phrase “authorized by law” and assume that the word “debt” includes expenditures subject to congressional authorization that are not debt, you can invent a theory that failure to authorize more borrowing would lead to a “default” that would be unconstitutional. Never mind that it is a complete fabrication, because existing tax revenues are more than sufficient to pay the interest on the actual debt, and the outstanding actual debt can be rolled over beneath the existing ceiling. But neither the text of the Constitution itself nor the fiscal reality of the government ’s borrowings would stop liberals from embarking upon a journey of self-serving constitutional fantasy. The end, as the left likes to say, justifies the means.
A compliant liberal press lapped it right up. Politico ran an opinion column, full of obvious errors, that screamed “Dear GOP, Default is Unconstitutional.” The Washington Post commended the president for his restraint in not invoking the bogus constitutional argument, selectively quoting the language of the 14th Amendment without the pesky phrase “authorized by law.” Because the legislative power is vested firmly in Congress , that condition was not particularly helpful to the cause. The Post article even raised the preposterous notion that the president might have the power to raise new taxes or issue new debt, quoting others, of course, and conceding that the issue was a “little-researched” question. In Washington, apparently, the dumber the idea, the more research it needs. Go figure.
But while we are looking at the question of the constitutional implications of fiscal irresponsibility, it might be more instructive to consider the other, far simpler, post-Civil War amendment to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment elegantly states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment of a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” Involuntary servitude includes indentured service and peonage - in other words, compulsory service in payment of a debt. Think about that for a minute.
Under current estimates, the national debt is projected to increase to nearly $26 trillion by the year 2022. That debt will be inherently unsustainable, as the chairman of the Federal Reserve has emphasized. If interest rates increase - a near certainty if the economy ever recovers - the country will be in a trap of its own making. The government will have to borrow more and more money just to service its existing debt. If the historical rate of growth in the national debt is any guide - it roughly has been doubling every 10 years since 1970 - children born today may cast their first vote for president of a bankrupt government, with a debt approaching $50 trillion. Servicing the interest on that debt alone would require more revenue than all the money the government collected in income taxes from their parents in 2011, and that assumes interest rates are held to a modest 3 percent. It seems unbelievable.
These figures do not even include the real costs of underfunded entitlements, which, by some estimates, are more than twice the federal debt. The Social Security disability “trust” fund will be insolvent in four years, and Medicare in 12. We are fortunate Medicare beneficiaries don’t need contraceptive services.
The implications of this are obvious. Future generations of Americans will be saddled with the compulsory yoke of paying for the fiscal irresponsibility of this generation. They may ask themselves why the protection of the 13th Amendment should not be available to them. They may wonder how the liberties that millions have given their lives to preserve could be squandered so easily and recklessly. They will ask their parents and grandparents for an explanation of their selfish betrayal. They may read Jefferson’s admonishment that spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling future generations. They will read the Declaration of Independence and ask themselves whether they can assert the same separate but equal station that our forefathers asserted, and sever the bonds of the yoke they are compelled to bear without their consent. Unlike the liberally invented nonsense about the 14th Amendment, those are and will be legitimate and important constitutional questions.
So instead of asking whether a failure to increase the debt ceiling is unconstitutional, a truly vigilant and responsible citizenry and press should ask themselves whether it is unconstitutional to incur any additional debt, particularly for their children. That is, assuming the “me” generation cares about its children and grandchildren. That is not necessarily a constitutional question, but perhaps it should be.
Warren L. Dean Jr. is a lawyer and an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center.
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© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
del.icio.us Tags: Constitution,Liberty,Political

Medieval Warm Period Was Global Event

Environment Issues

March 29, 2012

Medieval Warm Period Was Global Event

Current theories of the causes and impact of global warming have been thrown into question by a new study that shows that during medieval times the entire planet heated up.  It then cooled down naturally, says the Daily Mail (U.K.).

• A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University has found that contrary to the "consensus," the Medieval Warm Period approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn't just confined to Europe.
• In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica -- which means that Earth has already experience global warming without the aid of human carbon dioxide emissions.

At present the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change argues that the Medieval Warm Period was confined to Europe -- therefore that the warming we're experiencing now is a man-made phenomenon.

• However, Professor Lu has shown that this isn't true -- and the evidence lies with a rare mineral called ikaite, which forms in cold waters.
• "Ikaite is an icy version of limestone," says Lu. "The crystals are only stable under cold conditions and actually melt at room temperature."
• It turns out the water that holds the crystal structure together -- called the hydration water -- traps information about temperatures present when the crystals formed.
• This finding by Lu's research team establishes, for the first time, ikaite as a reliable way to study past climate conditions.

The scientists studied ikaite crystals from sediment cores drilled off the coast of Antarctica.  The sediment layers were deposited over 2,000 years.

The scientists were particularly interested in crystals found in layers deposited during the "Little Ice Age," approximately 300 to 500 years ago, and during the Medieval Warm Period before it.  Both climate events have been documented in Northern Europe, but studies have been inconclusive as to whether the conditions in Northern Europe extended to Antarctica.

Lu's team found that in fact, they did.  They were able to deduce this by studying the amount of heavy oxygen isotopes found in the crystals.  During cool periods there are lots, during warm periods there are not.

Source: Ted Thornhill, "Is This Finally Proof We're NOT Causing Global Warming? The Whole of the Earth Heated up in Medieval Times without Human CO2 Emissions, Says New Study," Daily Mail (U.K.), March 26, 2012.

For text:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2120512/Global-warming-Earth-heated-medieval-times-human-CO2-emissions.html

WHAT'S AN INFIDEL ?

AN INFIDEL
WHAT'S AN INFIDEL ?
This is a true story and the author,   Rick Mathes, is a well-known leader in prison ministry.
The man who walks with God always   
gets to his destination. If you have a   
pulse you have a purpose.
The Muslim religion is the fastest   
growing religion per capita in the   
United States, especially in the   
minority races.
Last   month I attended my annual
training session that's required for   
maintaining my state prison security   clearance.
During the training session there was   
a presentation by three speakers   representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who each   explained their beliefs.
I was particularly interested in what   
the Islamic Imam had to say. The Muslim   
gave a great presentation of the basics   
of Islam, complete with a video.   
After the presentations, time was   provided for questions and answers. When it was my turn, I directed my   question to the Muslim and asked: 'Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I   understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy   jihad[Holy war] against the infidels of the world and, that by killing an   infidel, (which is a command to all Muslims) they are assured of a place in   heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?'   
There was no disagreement with my   statements and, without hesitation, he replied, 'Non-believers!'
I responded, 'So, let me make sure I   have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill   everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in heaven. Is that   correct?'
The expression on his face changed from   one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just been caught   with his hand in the cookie jar.'
He sheepishly replied, 'Yes.'   
I then stated, 'Well, sir, I have a real   problem trying to imagine The Pope commanding all Catholics to kill those of   your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering all Protestants to do the same in order to   guarantee them a place in heaven!'
The   Muslim was speechless .
I continued, 'I also have a problem with   being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers   to kill me! Let me ask you a question:
Would you rather have your Allah, who   tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells   me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with   me?' You could have heard a pin drop.
Needless to say, the organizers and/or   promoters of the 'Diversification' training seminar were not happy with my way   of dealing with the Islamic Imam, and exposing the truth about the Muslims'   beliefs.
In twenty years there will be enough   Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President.
I   think everyone in the U.S.should be required to read this, but with the ACLU,   there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!   This is your chance to make a difference...
FOR CHRIST'S SAKE....SEND THIS ON   .. . 

In Search of a Small-Government Republican

In Search of a Small-Government Republican:


In 2010, the Tea Party led a return to conservatism's traditional small-government roots, resulting in the biggest Republican landslide in 70 years. Yet, just five weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, both of the front-runners for the Republican nomination are strong advocates for a bigger, more activist government. Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner argues, "Neither Mitt Romney nor Newt Gingrich are a threat to truly cut back the size, cost, and intrusiveness of the federal government. ...For those with a yearning for a smaller, more limited, more constitutional government, this election becomes more dismal with each passing day."

• "Back to Bush's Big-Government Conservatism," by Michael D. Tanner
• "Newt Gingrich Is No Conservative," by Gene Healy

California’s “golden” status set to run out of money in two weeks

Kimberly Dvorak

, San Diego County Political Buzz Examiner

November 15, 2011 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.

Once famous for the “gold rush,” California’s fertile land drew anybody who wanted to strike it rich, sadly those days are long gone and have been replaced with tax and spend policies that have ended in massive deficits.
California’s financials offer proof that the month of October painted serious accounting problems for the state. According to the October Statement of General Fund Cash Receipts and Disbursements report from California State Controller John Chaing, the state’s income plunged by $3.6 billion. On the other side of the balance sheet, California’s spendaholic ways will increase by $10.2 billion this year. The governor and state legislators don’t seem to be smarter than a fifth grader- that's a $6.6 billion deficit.
According to Chriss Street of Cal Watchdog, “California has already drawn down 85 percent of its credit lines and only has $4 billion remaining to fund a $13.8 billion deficit.  With the same sovereign credit rating as basket-case Portugal, California’s debt is at maximum risk of being downgraded to ‘junk’ bonds.  With credit lines almost tapped-out, the sovereign debt crisis that has hammered Europe may arrive in America.”

2011 Palm Spring Veterans Day Parade

Short-Changed by State, School Districts Borrow and Students Lose

by Stephen Frank on 09/19/2011

Proliferate spending by unions and union controlled school boards has caused teachers to be fired, maintenance to be delayed and needed equipment put on hold.

“But in San Diego, where Stover now works as deputy superintendent of business at San Diego Unified School District, getting short-changed by the state has become a way of life.

For years now, the state has been getting further and further behind on its payments of tax revenues to schools. Faced with a constant shortfall in cash, Sacramento has steadily increased the amount it has to write in IOUs to school districts and is constantly behind by several months in delivering cash to schools.

What started in 2002 as a one-week delay in getting about $2 billion out to districts has now ballooned into a $10 billion problem statewide.

San Diego Unified alone is currently owed about $70 million. Other smaller local school districts like Grossmont Union High School District and San Marcos Unified are owed tens of millions of dollars apiece — equivalent to around 30 percent of those districts’ entire budgets.”

10 Years ago today the most effective attack since the revolutionary war on our homeland occurred. Just as it was during the revolution it was not the Government that responded but the people, "We the People" drew a line that would not be crossed and it was the folks on flight 93 that drew that line on 9/11/2001.



I fear that politicians will not stand with "We the people" to protect our land of Liberty and Freedom. But with political careers on their mind run like the little cowards that we know they are.



From united to fractured when political gains come to play "We the people" are always the losers.



It is "We the people" that elect these folks and if they cannot respect the will of the People then we need to elect someone who will. http://amplify.com/u/a1cps1

QUOTE OF THE CENTURY, MAYBE EVEN THE MILLENNIUM



Some people have the vocabulary to sum up things in a way you can understand them. This quote came from the Czech Republic . Someone over there has it figured out. We have a lot of work to do.



"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president." http://amplify.com/u/a19n2q

The Housing Crash and Smart Growth–NCPA

Economic Issues

June 2, 2011

The Housing Crash and Smart Growth

There is general agreement the financial crisis that began with the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008 was worsened by the bursting of the U.S. housing price bubble.  It is also generally acknowledged that some of the fuel for the housing bubble came from a relaxation of mortgage loan standards that allowed many families to purchase homes they could not afford with loans on which they subsequently defaulted.

However, the U.S. housing bubble varied substantially by geography, says Wendell Cox, adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis.  Many metropolitan areas with prescriptive land use restrictions were not able to respond to the increased demand for homeownership caused by the greater availability of mortgage credit.  The result was higher prices, which encouraged speculation and increased house prices even more.  From  2000 to 2007, among the nation's 50 largest metropolitan markets:

• In the 10 markets with the greatest rise in prices compared to income, the cost of a house rose by an average of $275,000, relative to incomes.
• Among the second 10 markets with the greatest price escalation, house prices rose $135,000.
• By contrast, in the major markets with the least rise in prices, houses increased only $5,000.

For the nation as a whole, house values more than doubled from 1999 to the peak of the bubble.  From the peak in the fourth quarter of 2006 until the end of 2010, homes values fell more than $6 trillion. Losses after the bubble burst were even more concentrated than house price gains.  Consider:

• From the peak of the bubble in 2006 to the Lehman Brothers' collapse on September 15, 2008, more heavily regulated metropolitan markets accounted for 73 percent of aggregate value losses.
• All prescriptively regulated markets (more heavily regulated markets) accounted for 94 percent of losses, or an average of $97,000 per house.
• Responsively regulated markets (less restrictively regulated markets) lost just 6 percent of their value, or an average of $12,000 per house.

If the prescriptively regulated metropolitan areas had instead had responsive land use regulations, prices likely would have escalated at a much lower rate during the housing bubble.

Source:  Wendell Cox, "The Housing Crash and Smart Growth," National Center for Policy Analysis, Policy Report No. 335, June 2011.

For text: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st335

For more on Economic Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=17

House passes restrictive antiabortion package

The so-called No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act is approved along party lines and would make into law current policies that prohibit federal money from paying for abortions through Medicaid and some other federal programs.



While I support the right of a woman to make this choice, I don't have the responsibility to pay for that choice.



It is not up to me or anyone else to condemn someone for this difficult choice that may haunt them. They will have a discussion with their god when the time comes. http://amplify.com/u/a11hfd

The head of the worm known as Al Qaeda has been removed let us not forget that the worm doesn't need a head to proliferate.... http://amplify.com/u/a1106a

While out eating lunch recently, I overheard a conversation between a mother and her young son.



"What is tomorrow?" she asked him.



"It's President's Day," the boy replied



"What does that mean?" she asked.



The boy paused thoughtfully for a moment, and responded, "President's Day is when Obama steps out of the White House and if he sees his shadow, we have 2 more years of unemployment and stupidity."



I almost snorted my iced tea. http://amplify.com/u/byvmr