The Crowbar

Flexing my free expression muscles, I am participating in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.

I’m not an artist, so my drawing is extremely amateurish: I used MS Paint. But, it’s my Allah-given right to draw what I wish regardless of whom I may offend. That said, my drawing is especially meant as a slap in the face to the Jihadists masquerading as moderate Muslims. Organizations like CAIR sell themselves as our friends when indeed they are anything but. Mohammed was a violent, insidious man which is why the  Koranic scriptures are bipolar – the ever benevolent, ever merciful Allah orders the death of infidels and their infants. Most Muslims may not ascribe to Jihadist thought, but the Jihadists have the upper hand because a) they are tolerated by sympathetic ”moderates” and b) they’ve built a theological foundation based on the violence-related scriptures in the Koran.

For those of you who think it’s disgraceful, disrespectful, pointless or foolhardy to depict Muhammad, think again. First consider that Muhammad has been depicted throughout the ages. Second, consider that “most Shi’a scholars accept respectful depictions and use illustrations of Muhammad in books and architectural decoration, as have Sunnis at various points in the past.” Shi’as represent the vast majority of Muslims. Additionally, “most contemporary Sunni Muslims believe that visual depictions of the prophets generally should be prohibited.” So, even some Sunnis have no problem with Muhammad deceptions? There’s a clue.

I am not participating in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day to offend Muslims. I am participating to demonstrate to the Jihadists and the American Left that they have failed to intimidate me into silence or compliance. I am participating to prove that freedom of speech and freedom of expression still exist in America.

Lest it gather dust or rust, I elect to exercise this right.

“Buddy Muhammad” is a play off  Buddy Jesus as seen in the movie Dogma.

Any member of the power-elite reading Jonathan Martin & Ben Smith’s hit piece (posted 4/22/10 5:05 AM EDT) on the exaggerated, inflated, & overestimated importance of the Tea Party Movement would absolutely conclude that they’re 100% correct.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe the Tea Party is just a bunch of whiny white self-serving rich people blowing off steam before the inevitable progressive juggernaut sets in and transforms America into a grotesque perversion of her former self. I guess the power-elite have nothing to worry about; the Tea Party was just an anomaly, a glitch. Now they can go back to making themselves rich & powerful through devious manipulation of the everyday American sucker.

Exaggerated - Definitely Exaggerated.

Meet upstate NY (read: geographically conservative area) Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Paladino. He’s a disgusting racist sexist political opportunist who is attaching himself like a leech to whichever party happens to be popular.

The folks at WNYmedia obtained extremely damning emails sent & forwarded by Paladino. Their report is not for the faint of heart.

So, when you have a smarmy narcissist who claims to be a Tea Party kinda guy and he gets caught doing what smarmy narcissists do, how does the depraved liberal blogsphere respond? A: It gets giddy with glee.

Think Progress:

One of the newest heroes of the Tea Party movement is “outspoken” Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, a multimillionaire who has railed against “liberal elites.” Earlier this month, he officially declared his Republican candidacy for New York’s gubernatorial race. However, WNYMedia.net reveals that Paladino has “regularly forwarded pornography and racially degrading material to friends on the Internet.”

Charles the Cowardly King of Little Green Footballs:

The Tea Party-endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate for New York, Carl Paladino, has been sending out emails that you will not freaking believe.

WNYmedia.net has an exposé of Paladino’s work, and be aware — it’s not work-safe. It’s actually not even human-safe, and I mean that literally. NY Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Paladino’s Racist and Sexist Email History.

Daily Kos:

NY-Gov: Bestiality, porn and racism from the tea party candidate

Of course there’s something else that [Paladino] brings to the table … his habit of “sending hardcore pornographic and racist emails around town.” They include:

But, even the New York Times – the paper that never misses an opportunity to slander the Tea Party – does NOT mention the Tea Party connection to Paladino.

Gosh, could it be because Paladino is a FORMER DEMOCRAT? NYT:

He is running against Rick Lazio, a former congressman, and Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive and, like Mr. Paladino, a Democrat who switched to the Republican Party.

So Paladino was a racist sexist narcissistic Democrat before he switched parties out of political opportunism. No wonder the NYT didn’t bite!

Yes, this means that the sleazy lefty blogs really ARE shamelessly attempting to smear the Tea Party, which is really a slightly-right-of-centrist movement that threatens liberal-progressivism to the core.

The obnoxious freedom-hating lefty blogsphere must be exposed for what it is.

DailyKos’ Jed Lewison distorts a Washington Times story about Republican lawmakers who opposed the stimulus and are now trying to direct federal money back to their districts – you know – where the money came from in the first place.

In that magikal world that is DailyKos, this means that these Republicans secretly believe the stimulus was a good thing.

If there’s one thing that unites the Republican Party it’s that the stimulus bill was a job-killing piece of legislation that was the worst thing in the whole entire world for the economy, right? Or maybe that’s just what unites them in public, because in private the Washington Times reports they’ve been working overtime to get their hands on job-creating stimulus cash.

Is anyone surprised that a DailyKos author sees conspiracy in this? Someone please tell Lewison that taxpayers live in Republican districts, too. 

Basic Economics

Lewison is missing (or purposely avoiding) the idea of opportunity cost. So, 50 jobs are “created” by stimulus funds, but how many were lost as a result of the of increased taxation and government inefficiency? It’s more than 50 because government is always inefficient; it costs time & money to gather taxes & redistribute them. Here’s a simple formula for Lewison’s review:

Stimulus Jobs Created – Jobs Lost From Taxation – Government Inefficiency = Total Jobs Created

Let’s give the Government the benefit of the doubt and say the government was mildly inefficient (choke!) so we only lost 1 job due to inefficiency. Since the stimulus money is really taxpayer money designated for job “creation” we can set the Jobs Lost From Taxation equal to 50.

50 – 50 –1 = NEGATIVE 1

Government created jobs ALWAYS cost MORE jobs than they create, even in the BEST case scenario!

The Republican lawmakers aren’t being hypocrites, they’re cutting their losses. They can’t unmake the law so at least they’re getting SOME money back for their beleaguered constituents.

Omissions

Lewison leaves out this enlightening part of the Times article:

Another House member who has scored high ACU rankings, Rep. Robert B. Aderholt, Alabama Republican, also voted against and criticized the stimulus.

“Rather than create jobs or stimulate the economy, this massive spending bill was a laundry list of programs that focused on states with big-city urban communities,” he wrote in the Oct. 4 edition of the Daily Mountain Eagle newspaper.

Three days later, Mr. Aderholt sent a letter to Mr. Vilsack on behalf of a foundation seeking stimulus money to expand broadband services in his district.

“Congressman Aderholt supported some of the ideas in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but disagreed with much of it and that’s why he voted against it,” Aderholt spokesman D.J. Jordan said.

“Since the bill was passed and became law, the congressman wanted to help a local foundation receive some of the broadband money that otherwise would go to another state.” [emphasis mine]

So Lewison, out of ignorance or cynicism, condemns the Republican lawmakers who are trying to make the best of a bad situation that was hoisted on them by most Democrats and many fellow Republicans. 

Lewison concludes:

Kudos to the Washington Times for having done the leg work of filing the FOIA requests to expose these examples of Republican lawmakers talking out of both sides of their mouths, publicly lambasting the stimulus as a job-killing measure, but privately conceding that it actually created jobs. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way of demonstrating Republican hypocrisy on the question of whether the stimulus bill creates jobs, and Dems should remind them of it every waking day.

The Dems probably won’t do as Lewison recommends (except the electorally safe ones) because they know the truth, but I hope they do because it would allow Republicans to demonstrate to the public how the stimulus harmed the economy. But my question for Lewison is: if the stimulus was creating jobs, why do we have anemic jobs recovery far beyond what the stimulus propaganda predicted?

Gurgling up from the Cesspool of the Grubby Left erupts a stinky bubble of false indignation. Witness Robert Schlesinger, regular believer reader of the fringe left site ThinkProgress, masquerade as the Righteous Defender of Retards Everywhere.

So, what’s the real story? You see, Schlesinger, a fanboy of Rahm’s, is angry, very angry, that Sarah Palin called for his hero’s resignation as Obama’s Chief of Staff. What’s scorned fanboy to do? Hold on to the wrath and unleash it a just the right moment, of course!

Enter Rush Limbaugh, determined to stir the puddin’:

LIMBAUGH: Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are looney tunes. And I’m not going to apologize for it, I’m just quoting Emanuel. It’s in the news. I think their big news is he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

Yeah, OK, Rush is being an insensitive ass, as usual. He wrong to compare liberal activists to retards – it’s an indignity to retards. Seriously. “Retards” are usually loving, innocent people. Members of the hard left are usually bitter, nasty, hateful, crude, creepy, and generally extremely unpleasant to be around.

Sarah’s response to Rahm’s comments was vehement and personal, but why – what’s behind it all? 

How can anyone forget how Palin was treated by the “professional” press after she was announced as John McCain’s running mate? It was a mob mentality, Palin was outright abused by the press. Did Obama’s campaign do anything to dissuade the press from the hideous smears and maltreatment? Emanuel was Obama’s chief strategist and, considering his bully temperament, I suspect he actively encouraged the press to be horrible to Palin. We know that Emanuel, Time’s 2009 Person of the Year, has had an all-too-cozy relationship with the press. Remember Begala, Carville, and Stephanopoulos’ daily chats with Emanuel back in January 2009? Is there any question that he still “chats” with them on a regular basis?

We all know what’s going on. Emanuel is an ugly, blind partisan filled with Chicago-style ball-busting vulgarity. Is this really who the Democratic Party wants to be one office away from the President? Given Emanuel’s severe lack of grace on every front and on nearly every issue, selecting Emanuel for Chief of Staff not only shows poor judgment on Obama’s part; it shows political naiveté. Even lefty pundits have major reservations about Obama selecting him. It’s past time for Emanuel to go.

I totally agree that Palin should call out Limbaugh on his insensitivity – Limbaugh should apologize to the special needs community. But, Limbaugh isn’t a hyper-partisan public official with a history of inappropriate-for-a-public-officials vulgarity. Should he be fired? No. The now-defunct Air America radio hosts said much worse than Limbaugh, which probably lost them listeners and ultimately their jobs. The audience will ultimately judge whether Limbaugh is still worth listening to.

As for Schlesinger, the newly self-appointed Righteous Defender of Retards Everywhere, he’s a hypocrite. I see no blog entry of his condemning Emanuel’s private-made-public comments. Fanboy Schlesinger is just as bitterly partisan as his hero, Rahm Emanuel. He’s interested in helping his side maintain power, not doing what’s right for special needs people.

I joined Twitter almost exactly a year ago, but I don’t consider myself an expert on Twitter etiquette. Most third party analyzers accuse me of not engaging my users enough, which is probably true. Engaging every person who tags me for Follow Friday takes a lot of precious time that I often cannot afford.

The Follow Friday phenomenon is a great thing, Twitter users staking their reputation on you and vice versa. It’s an honor to be tagged. When I first started on Twitter I returned every #FollowFriday, but then it started taking away from my Twitter experience. It became too tedious and disingenuous, so I stopped – probably to my detriment, but I just couldn’t do it.

Then, along came Twitter Lists. It slowly dawned on me that I could use it to permanently and continuously thank all those who honored me with a Follow Friday tag.

Now, every person who tags me for Follow Friday gets added to my Follow Friday list. Then, every Friday I tweet the link to the members of my list, making it much easier for potential followers to add them. 

I also watch my Follow Friday list as a stream of tweets, as Twitter intended. It’s great to be able to do that for a specific set of Twitter users. 

It’s not perfect. Because of my method, a Twitter user I recommend for Follow Friday will not see a reply from me. But, that’s why I’m writing this post – so I have a way to tell them that I’m not brushing them off and that I’m grateful for the Follow Friday nod.  

 

Typical of Millhiser & ThinkProgress to attempt to bully legitimate opposition, the only available strategy to those who’ve already lost the argument and won’t honorably concede. Of course, his job, career, and reputation are on the line, so I get his desperation. Too bad he chose the wrong side.

Millhiser’s chosen bullying tactic is to inappropriately marginalize those who question Congress’ authority to force everyone to buy something merely because they exist. He calls us “Tenthers,” a lame attempt to sweep us to the fringe along with Birthers and Truthers. The Tenther moniker even has it’s own Wikipedia entry. Created on Sept 26, 2009, the article is already slated for deletion for violating Wikipedia’s general notability guideline – which means someone just made it up.

For the record, I’m a Firster Through Tenther. :)

Concern over government overstepping it’s authority is a very basic concern, shared by everyone who is sane. It’s somehow fringe to not entirely trust those in charge? It’s odd that someone of Millhiser’s stature would so readily dismiss something so fundamental to a functioning democracy. Does Millhiser advocate unconditional trust of all government authority? Please. Here he goes:

Pelosi is right to be dismissive of the fringe right-wing theory behind this question, which has no basis in the Constitution itself. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power “[t]o regulate commerce…among the several states” as well as the authority to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” its power to regulate commerce.-Een ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledges that these constitutional provisions give Congress sweeping authority to enact laws that regulate “economic activity.”

Yes, the Commerce Clause. A favored liberal citation to justify power grabs – because it just gives so much wiggle room:

The clause does not represent some indication of a shadowy list of “other powers” as needed to suit your convenience. It simply establishes a mandate for Congress to be able to enact legislation to carry out the specific powers which are granted. If we were to assume that this empowers Congress to do whatever it wants as long as it promotes the “general welfare” then just as Professor Hutchinson argues from the other side, the rest of the document could just be thrown in the trash.

Further, I must wonder if Millhiser actually reads the cases he sources because Justice Antonin Scalia had a lot more to say than just the words “economic activity:”

This principle is not without limitation. In Lopez and Morrison, the Court–conscious of the potential of the “substantially affects” test to “ ‘obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local… [The cited case] rejected the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic activity based solely on the effect that it may have on interstate commerce through a remote chain of inferences… “[I]f we were to accept [such] arguments,” the Court reasoned in Lopez, “we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate.”

Limitations on Congressional authority? Goodness me, whoever heard of such a thing?

I hate to say it, but it’s painfully obvious that Millsner operating with an agenda in mind, he’s less interested in protecting your rights and more interested in his ‘side’ retaining and gaining power.

Politico.com’s inconsistent bias (accused by both sides) leads me believe they may suffer from collective ideological Bipolar Disorder. Politico has previously claimed it’s not all that ideologically biased, but it’s doubtful they’ve managed to root out worldview bias, which is ideological in nature.

Regardless, at the moment, Politico seems to be in the midst an anti-conservative mood swing. 

Jim VandeHei and Michael Allen paint outspoken conservatives as “hard-core” miscreants who are going to ruin the Republican Party’s 2010/12 chances because their “flamboyant rhetoric and angry tone” is chasing away the sensitive moderates. They’re shooting at Limbaugh, Beck, et al, but, surprisingly their target is also the rank-and-file teaparty conservatives: 

Many top Republicans are growing worried that the party’s chances for reversing its electoral routs of 2006 and 2008 are being wounded by the flamboyant rhetoric and angry tone of conservative activists and media personalities, according to interviews with GOP officials and operatives.

Their message is for conservatives to quit pressuring their weary leaders to be more conservative:

…some Republicans worry the party could squander an opportunity to capitalize on voters’ concerns about Obama and the Democratic Congress because they come off looking shallow, sharply partisan or just plain odd to persuadable voters.

This is standard RINO fare, those who are in the Republican party but whose animus is ‘conservative Democrat.’ Do you have any doubt that the “many top Republicans” they speak of are John McCain, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Eric Cantor? You shouldn’t doubt it, since the article names them specifically.

Politico attempts to demonstrate their point:

This big tension is playing out in a smaller way in the special election in upstate New York. Congressional leaders are backing moderate Dede Scozzafava, despite her liberal views on abortion and other issues, because they think she has the best chance of winning this swing district. Conservatives, including many who participated in the much-publicized “tea party” protests, are convinced she is insufficiently Republican, so they are throwing their support and money to third-party candidate Doug Hoffman.

 The result: Polls show the Republican vote could be so split that a lackluster Democratic candidate could pull off a win. If Republicans blow this race, it will leave the GOP holding only two of New York’s 29 House seats. A decade ago, it had 14, most of which were occupied by Northeast moderates who no longer feel welcome in the party and were voted in by independents who remain very skeptical of the party’s policy solutions

But, Even Tim Mak on RINO David Frum’s website Newmajority.com opposes Scozzafava:

Across the country, Republicans are scratching their heads and wondering, “How in the world did we end up with Scozzafava?” How did the GOP pick someone who is in favor of card check and had been approached by the Democrats to be their nominee? How did the Republicans in upstate New York choose a candidate who, according to one rating system, is more liberal than 43% of New York State Assembly Democrats?

Gosh, maybe “Republicans” like Scozzafava who support betraying basic democratic ideals like, you know, voting privacy, shouldn’t be welcome in the Republican party?

How clear it is, now, that Politico is trying to manipulate it’s readers by omitting the rest of the story.

I take it back, it’s not Bipolar Politico is suffering from, it’s just plain old emotional detachment that we see all too often in political analyzers who like to play games with people’s lives.

Thomas Sowell > The artificial raising home ownership numbers by politicians is responsible for high unemployment

We can only hope that Alec Baldwin never gets into a serious position of power. In an article that reads like a water cooler politics conversation, Baldwin blames automakers’ resistance to stupid environmental regulations for their current plight:

they spent billions of dollars attempting to bribe the Congress to avoid putting in seat belts and air bags, installing catalytic converters and reaching more ambitious fuel efficiency standards. For the most part, they succeeded. [emphasis mine]

Obviously, the industry did not succeed in it’s resistance to seat belts, airbags and catalytic converters. So, now we know that Baldwin has only green on the mind. More:

I feel horribly for every single man and woman who will suffer as the result of this heartbreaking turn of events. I was the voice of Chevy Tahoe TV spots for five years in the early 90′s. I drove a Tahoe then and loved it. Now, I drive a Prius.

LOL. Yeah, I’m sure he feel sooo “horribly” for them. So now we know that Baldwin drives an ugly fish-like car… er, I mean a Prius. And, finally, we get to the heart of Baldwin’s water cooler screed:

Let energy conservation and fuel efficiency rule the day. Let the carmakers go under.

So here we have Baldwin, who feels “horribly” for all those people “who will suffer” advocating for automakers to go under for the sole reason that they resisted idiotic environmental regulations. Nice. Of course we all know that those people “who will suffer” would be the unions, who are the real reason US automakers are in the mess they are in. Unions are unsustainable in a free market, which is why they always attempt to regulate the market in their favor, etc. Automakers would be wise to abandon an impossible situation. Baldwin’s popularity declined by 2% this week. If his acting is as lame as his attempts at political writing, that might explain it.