This is a man with no principals
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in PA Politics on April 30th, 2009
Share on FacebookJoe Biden is leading the way with more fear mongering.
“I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, it’s you’re in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. (LINK)
Unfortunately, we aren’t all elitist jerks who have a choice whether we mix with those little sneezing people in coach class.
The latest outbreak of the flu has been turned into the latest in a series of catastrophes. Since Barack Obama has been president, we have had one emergency after another. The prescription for each problem is the same…more government and more spending.
Personally, I have stopped listening to health warnings. It’s a case of the “boy who cried wolf”. The media likes a good emergency (for ratings) and politicians have the need to “do something”. Unfortunately, these calls for worry and action have consequences. They disrupts lives and business. They can become economic burdens to people who are already in difficult situations. Joe Biden’s warning about air travel can hurt the tourist industry.
Is it too much to ask for our Vice President to think before he speaks?
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense,photoshopped on April 30th, 2009
From Rasmussen Reports:
For just the second time in more than five years of daily or weekly tracking, Republicans now lead Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 41% would vote for their district’s Republican candidate while 38% would choose the Democrat.
This is more a collapse of Democratic support than it is support for Republicans. As the economy continues to struggle, the daily problems of governing (and micro-managing) a huge economy will continue to put Democrats in bad light.
Most Americans don’t follow politics and they have no sense of history. They don’t think about their own personal ideology and how that relates to support for one party or another. They get a general sense of the world around them.
I believe the United States is still a center-right country, and support for liberal policies will continue to degrade. Most Americans live by common sense and common sense says you can’t spend money you don’t have. When the inflation hits (and it will), the blame will fall squarely on the Democrats. They will have been governing for too long to blame Republicans.
Inflation will kill the Democrat’s reign.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in polls,predictions on April 29th, 2009
In a predictably liberal AP story, Al Gore warns of shrinking ice caps:
We have to act and we have to act quickly because we don’t want to cross this tipping point
Back in the world of real science: A german study has found the Arctic polar ice to be surprisingly thick
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense,Global Climate Change on April 28th, 2009
Mayor Nutter said of Arlen Specter’s switch from Republican to Democrat:
But I think it demonstrates that the Republican party is so out of touch that there’s no room for great moderate like Sen. Specter. (LINK)
A “great moderate”? Name one “great moderate” in history. George Washington was the leader of a band of rebels. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln were not moderates. They have firm believes and risked everyting for their principals.
Moderates can go either way. It depends on the wind. There may be effective moderates, but there are no “great moderates”.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on April 28th, 2009
Arlen Specter has switched to the Democrats. Actually, he has been a Democrat for a long time. This move is simply an attempt to hold on to power…the only thing Arlen Specter actually cares about.
This will change the General Election dynamic for him. Instead of running statewide displaying how he can bring home the bacon, he is going to have to justify trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. Instead of saying he is a moderate when it comes to organized labor, he will have to defend the indefensible…taking away the secret ballot. Oops. I forgot. He is against card check now…even though he supported it before he got into hot water with conservatives.
Is it just me, or does he remind everyone of Richard Nixon when he speaks?
Arlen Specter is a say-anything, spend-anything self absorbed politician. He is exactly the kind of guy who ruined the Republican party. He should fit in just find with the Democrats. Arlen…don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in PA Politics on April 28th, 2009
Our Founding Fathers installed a bicameral legislature that consisted of a people’s house and a house to represent the states. The House of Representative is the people’s house. The Senate used to represent the states.
For those with an interest in history, maybe you recall that it was a compromise to share power between big states and little states. It was more than that. At the time of our founding, the House represented the people and Senators, that were selected by State Legislators, represented the states. The Senate kept the House from taking rights away from the states. This was abolished by the progressives of the early 20th century. The 17th Amendment changed the Constitution in 1913 so that Senators are now elected by the people as well.
There are no advocates for the states at the national level any longer. The consequence has been an erosion of states rights…and I’m not talking in racial code words. I believe decisions are better when they are closer to home.
Let’s use abortion as an example with some made up numbers to describe a point. Let’s say 90% of New York likes the idea of unlimited abortion. Let’s say 90% of Texas likes the idea of very limited abortion. If we say at a federal level that we agree with either side, then 50% (90% in one state and 10% in the other) are dissatisfied. It doesn’t matter what the national decision is. If each state is allowed to make its own decision, then 90% of both states are satisfied.
Contentious issues are better handled at the state level, but we have no one left in Washington fighting to keep issues out of Washington…thanks to the progressives of Wilson’s era. Since that era, Washington has gotten more powerful and the states are left to do the bidding of Washington.
We have strayed a long way from the intent of our founding fathers. We have repealed other bad amendments from that era. It is time to repeal the 17th amendment.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on April 24th, 2009
I’m celebrating…now that Earth Day is over. Actually, the Earth Day concept is quite noble. Some people involved have good intentions, but the mouth pieces have been wrong so frequently, we should have learned by now to stop listening to them.
Earth Day started in 1970. At the time, the air and water was far more polluted than it is today. The Earth Day-ers had a message. We are all going to die! Their predictions were outrageous and wrong, but every year they return to come up with a modified message that is outrageous and wrong.
Here is a sample as reported by Reason.com
- By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.
- In January 1970, Life reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
- Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
The truth of pollution is that our world is cleaner now than it was at the first Earth Day…and when I say our world…I don’t mean the planet. I mean the United States. Because we are wealthy, we were able to fight a growing pollution crisis. China is today just learning what we learned 30 years ago.
The environmentalist always have the same message. It is business and free markets that lead to pollution. Actually, the issue can be traced to the problem of the commons. When no one owns a resource…a piece of land, a river, the air…then no one takes care of it. A town could pump sewage into the river because they didn’t have to deal with the consequences. Cars could spit out smog because young drivers didn’t pay the price as older citizens with lung ailments did. Coal fired power plants could belch sulfur into the skies because acid rain didn’t hurt their bottom line. At least that was the common line of thinking until the 70′s.
Eventually our polluting ways caught up with us. I lived in Akron, OH when I was a teenager. I played soccer near the big tire factories. The air stunk and my clothes where ruined by black dirt. The river that ran behind my house was the Cuyahoga River. It is famous for starting of fire (although not in Akron). That river dumped into Lake Erie which was “dead”.
We learned that the problem of the commons needed to be dealt with. This is the one of the few areas where I think the federal government needed to get involved and it is Constitutional. Pollution from one state does not stay in that state. Smog floats to neighboring states. Rain washes into rivers that travel clear across the country. Pollution is an interstate commerce problem. The federal government therefore needed to take action to control the problem. They needed to claim ownership of the unclaimed commons and “secure the blessings of liberty…to our posterity”. It would be immoral to leave our children a stinking, rotting heap.
I feel that way about pollution and yes…I still think Earth Day is ridiculous. I would find it so much more palatable if it wasn’t run by a bunch of unscientific political activist with political goals disguised as concern for the Earth. Population control is some god complex disguised as science. When it runs amok, you end up with Hitler. Global Warming is a scare for international bodies to redistribute wealth from producers to non-producers….spreading the wealth. When these scares are lost to common sense and real world observations, new ones will be found. The new scares will be pushed by our public schools onto our children so that they can continue this nonsense for another 40 years.
That’s my problem with Earth Day.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Global Climate Change,PA Politics on April 23rd, 2009
From Protein Wisdom,
Some torture is more forgivable than others, I guess.
At issue is Barack Obama’s request to toss out the Embassy Hostage class action law suit filed by American Diplomats against Iran. The diplomats were held as captives for over a year during the administration of another weak Democratic President, Jimmy Carter.
The lawsuit says the hostages were tortured, beaten sometimes until they lost consciousness and kept in fear of their lives, at times even lined up in front of marksmen locking their guns. It says they were imprisoned without adequate food, clothing or medical care, blindfolded with their hands tied, interrogated for hours at a time and kept in isolation for months at a time.
The law suit claims one of those hostage takers was the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Obama Administration on April 22nd, 2009
When asked about Dick Cheney’s recent comments that claim documents show results from inhanced interrogation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said,
Well, it won’t surprise you that I don’t consider him a particularly reliable source of information (LINK)
Let’s flash back to 2007, before it was clear the the surge would ultimately work. Then-Senator Hillary Clinton said to accept General David Patraeus’s progress report required
a willing suspension of disbelief. (LINK)
As First Lady, she defended her husband honesty…before the stained blue dress was revealed, which of course led to a perjury conviction.
It seems Hillary is not a very good judge of people’s honesty. It seems as though Hillary basis her judgment on politics…not integrity.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on April 22nd, 2009
As reported by AP, Jeff Immelt the CEO of GE claims
the global economic crisis has “fundamentally reset” the way companies do business and capitalism itself (LINK)
That is exactly what he is pushing for. GE doesn’t care about making stuff any more. For years they have been selling off manufacturing resources. GE has positioned itself to make billions trading carbon offsets. Yea, they have windmills and a bunch of other equipment that would be uncompetitive without government subsidies…but that’s not where the real money is.
It is easy to come to the conclusion that in order to see the “green movement” through (green can mean environmental or financial), GE used its NBC network to push Barack Obama and a progressive agenda. NBC’s green week wasn’t about ratings. It was about public policy. They don’t put Jenine Garofolo on the news because she has insight and intelligence. Actually, I can’t think of any reason they put her on TV without a script.
After the election, Immelt was named to President Obama’s economic advisory board. Maybe the President wanted to keep his campaign promise. Instead of selecting a hated lobbyist from GE, he skipped the middleman and went right to the top.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Alternative Energy on April 22nd, 2009
The Boston Globe is failing. The New York Times which owns the Boston Globe is failing. John Kerry is worried. He has scheduled a May 5th meeting on “the future of journalism” (LINK). John Kerry says:
America’s newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount.
The people have spoken. The Globe is bankrupt because people have already found alternative sources. The Globe dying will create a void providing an opportunity for a 21st century news product.
John Kerry rightfully is concerned. The Globe is friendly to his party and to him. What replaces the Globe may be less in step with progressive ideals.
This is were progressives always concern me. Politics is their guiding principal. They speek of capitalist greed, but isn’t John Kerry’s transparent attempt to save the Globe for political purposes greed for power. Immorality is a human quality. It exists in both business and in politics.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Free Markets,free speech on April 22nd, 2009
Maybe the Department of Homeland Security should consult the FBI. The FBI’s “Most Wanted” terror suspect is an animal rights activist who is charged with bombing two California offices in 2003 (LINK)
This is what the FBI has to say about these left wing extemists:
Animal rights and environmental extremism pose a significant domestic terror threat. To date, extremists have been responsible for more than 1,800 criminal acts and more than $110 million in damages. Currently, we are investigating approximately 170 such extremist incidents across the country.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on April 21st, 2009
During the campaign, Barack Obama was asked if he would meet with leftist thugs from around the globe. It wasn’t exactly put that way, but in essence, that was the question. Without pausing, he said he would. I guess the follow up question should have been, will you meet with right wing leaders from democracies. According the the Jerusalem Post,
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday canceled his plans to attend the upcoming AIPAC summit, after it became clear that US President Barack Obama would not meet him during the conference.
- Right wingers in this country are profiled and labeled extremists by the Department of Homeland Security.
- Obama won’t meed with right wing leaders
- Obama will meet with communists and socialist and all around bad guys
- We have renamed the War on Terror to Overseas Contingency Operation
- Janet Napolitano refers to terrorist attacks as man caused disasters
It is clear what the Obama administrations fears. Not terrorists. Not countries that want to see are downfall. What they fear is losing power to conservatives.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Obama Administration on April 21st, 2009
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in video on April 18th, 2009
