The Antidote to socialism

I got this from the WSJ
    Here is the link

By PETE DU PONT

Last year I wrote that the enactment of ObamaCare meant "the Europeanization of America is coming to pass, for individual choice and opportunity are being replaced by statism." That law is transferring 17% of our national economy from the marketplace to full control and regulation by the federal government.
And that is just part of the problem. Over the past three years, our nation's economy has become more and more like some of the fragile and overextended statist European economies. The federal debt held by the public as a share of GDP was 40.3% in 2008, 53.5% in 2009, and 62.2% in 2010, and it is estimated at 72% this fiscal year. Everyone can agree that we must change our policies before it is too late, so that we do not end up like Greece or Italy.
But things are looking bleak. While Standard & Poor's and Moody's threaten our nation's credit ratings over our level of debt, one smaller ratings agency has already lowered it. Egan-Jones Ratings Co. downgraded the U.S sovereign debt from triple-A to double-A plus, understanding that the lack of spending control is an essential challenge to our economy in the future. S&P's and Moody's may eventually come to similar conclusions.
All of which suggests it may be too late already. Earlier this month Dan Henninger quoted Robert Lucas, a Nobel laureate in economics, who speculated that "by imitating European policies on labor markets, welfare and taxes," the U.S. has "chosen a new, lower GDP trend." These policies look much like Europe over the past few decades--or America in the 1930s.
As Mr. Lucas points out, in the first 70 years of the 20th century European and American economic growth increased together. But starting in the 1970s, Europe's growth lagged due to larger welfare-state costs and much higher taxes. The Obama administration has put America on a similar trajectory.
How do we get America away from European-style socialism? We can all agree that the debt ceiling needs to be raised, for we cannot default and there is not enough we can immediately cut to stay under the current limit
We can also agree that it would be harmful to the economy to focus on increased tax revenues to try and dig us out of the economic hole. Raising tax rates in a counterproductive attempt to raise more revenues would depress economic growth and hurt any chance of a significant increase in jobs, especially since the new taxes would fall on employers who are just beginning to feel the costs of ObamaCare, not to mention a bevy of other new and threatened regulations.
Republicans in the House hoped the debt ceiling negotiation process would have been a chance to reset the trajectory of huge increases in government spending. But it is not likely to happen, for the president will not move enough to fix our worsening financial position. That means the 2012 election is the most likely opportunity to change America's fiscal policies.
So the public policy results of the next election must be business and individual tax reform—lower rates on a flatter and broader base, repeal of ObamaCare, and reform of entitlement programs (slowly raising the Social Security retirement age, adding in block grants to the states for their own Medicaid rules, etc.). Add in the elimination of farm and "green" subsidies like ethanol,continue banning earmarks, and get federal spending down to 20 percent of GDP.
None of these policy changes will be possible with President Obama in the White House or Democrats in control of the Senate. America needs new political leadership to get our economy back on track, leadership in the hands of those willing to actually make the basic decisions needed. We need the kind of leaders who made America great in the last century so that it can remain successful in this one.

Obummers prison blues

Since I hung around youtube a bit, that is where I go to get my monday music that I post.  I looked around a bit more and found this gem:  It is about ACORN

and this one, hehehe  Obummers prison blues

Are you a commie or a citizen

This was a video shot 50 years ago when the government knew how communist operated, rather then becoming a socialist based gov't  like today

Congress use of gov't aircraft

Judicial Watch took the lead in exposing former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) abuse of military aircraft. The massive amount of press coverage resulting from our investigation not only led to a great deal of embarrassment for Pelosi, but it also prompted current House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to announce he would fly commercial between his home district and Washington, DC. Unfortunately, however, according to a new batch of documents we recently uncovered from the United States Air Force, the abuse of military resources continued in 2010, not only by Pelosi, but by other members of Congress as well.

The records, which include flight manifests, expense summaries, copies of receipts and Congressional correspondence, detail a number of trips made by Speaker Pelosi and other Members of Congress in 2010, including:

    More here    Compliments of Brettbart big government

Borrowing Is No Longer Stimulus?
The Congressional Budget Office not long ago forecast that Barack Obama’s $1 trillion-plus annual deficits — scheduled over the next decade — would result in almost another $10 trillion in aggregate debt. Going back to the pre-Bush tax rates this time won’t balance the budget. Slashing discretionary spending will not. So large has the splurge become, and so hooked are the constituencies of federal money, that massive cuts to entitlements necessary to stave off financial implosion may well prompt Greek-like protests.
That staggering sum was apparently conventional wisdom until the November 2010 election. But now there is fear that at some point in the future, Obama will not be known as the first African-American president. Nor will he be cited even as the hope-and-change phenomenon of 2008. Instead, posterity shall know him as the single greatest borrower in American presidential history, a novice who nearly wrecked the U.S. economy by borrowing over $4 billion a day without any feasible proposal how to pay back such a vast sum — taking a post-recession recovery and turning it into a stagflationary mess. In the third year of his tenure, Obama is still left only with “Bush did it” as an explanation of what went wrong.
Obama has managed the nearly impossible: the greatest peacetime deficits in U.S. history — about $1.5 trillion per year — in his first three years achieved almost no economic expansion. Instead, unemployment is chronic and stays over 9.2%; growth is stagnant; gas is sky-high — and the president seems stunned that none of what he had promised came to pass. All his liberal nostrums have been tried and been found wanting. There is no successful EU model, no winning blue-state statist paradigm for guidance.
Remember that his key advisors — Goolsbee, Orszag, Romer, Summers — have now quit and did not last even three years, their policies orphaned by the very parents who spawned them. Even the president joked that “shovel-ready” was a joke. When he evokes “stimulus” and “investment,” in response, we do not even think “borrowing” and “taxes,” but rather “he’s clueless again.” The old argument that we simply did not borrow enough (say, $5, $6, $7 billion a day?) is laughable beyond the point of caricature, given that the administration followed the Bush record of record peacetime debt. The only mystery is whether the massive Obama borrowing was a product of incompetence, a poorly thought out gorge the beast way of increasing taxes and redistributing income, or a more cynical effort at creating a permanent constituency of millions of new food stamp recipients and federal workers. Or more than that still.

     More here

Domestic Jihadi recruiting

As the House Homeland Security Committee prepares to hold hearings this week on the issue of radicalization in the Somali community, it is important to note the reach that the al-Shabaab terrorist group has into the United States. Earlier this month I reported exclusively here at PJM on a fresh set of al-Shabaab recruits from Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio that were interviewed on their way to Somalia by award-winning Kenyan journalist Fatuma Noor. And in June, I broke the story about an al-Shabaab suicide bomber from Minneapolis — the second Somali suicide bomber from Minneapolis, and only the third recorded case of an American successfully carrying out a suicide bombing (all three were Somali-Americans).

Undoubtedly one of the issues that the Homeland Security Committee will be looking at is how more than two dozen young Somali-Americans, many of whom were good students coming from middle-class families, were recruited to travel overseas to join the global jihad. What will likely never be mentioned: how that recruitment continues unimpeded today.
Not only is the Minnesota mosque that has served as the “radicalization incubator” for many of these youths still churning out jihadist recruits, but one of al-Shabaab’s top recruiters continues his recruiting efforts openly on Facebook and has targeted hundreds of Somali high school and college students.

      More here

Coyote control, government versus Wyoming Ranchers

I read this from here, and I got a real chuckle out of this

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

COYOTE HUNTING AND THE GOVERNMENT

The old fellow in the big cowboy hat got a standing ovation

The Sierra Club and the U. S. Forest Service were presenting an alternative to the Wyoming ranchers for controlling the coyote population.

It seems that after years of the ranchers using the tried and true method of shooting or trapping the predators, the Sierra Club had a "more humane" solution to this issue.

What they were proposing was for the animals to be captured alive.

The males would then be castrated and let loose again. This was ACTUALLY proposed by the Sierra Club and by the U. S. Forest Service.

All of the ranchers thought about this amazing idea for a couple of minutes.

Finally an old fellow wearing a big cowboy hat in the back of the conference room stood up, tipped his hat back and said, "Son, I don't think you understand our problem here. These coyotes ain't fuckin' our sheep; they're eatin' 'em!"

The meeting never really got back to order.

Obummers balanced approach

2nd Amendment.......for dummies

More of this 90% crap from the discounted print media(LSM)

I got this from PJ Media, I usually post budget stuff for it is important to me.  I also post 2nd amendment stuff also for that is also important to me. I will add comments in blue fonts   The link is here 

        When I first heard rumblings about gun walker in the blogs several months ago, I immediately stated that this was done to further the political ambitions of the administration to push gun control and the assaults weapons ban.  They did this to bolster the 90% claim that hillery was pushing.  The justice dept and ATF are political animals and they know that to get funding, which equals money and power(#1 goal of a federal agency) they would have to assist in manufacturing these figures.

PJM readers are among the best-informed when it comes to various stories involving firearms and crime because the editors employ writers that know firearms and firearms law. Perhaps more importantly, PJM editors and writers put in the effort to find and print the objective facts of a story. This is a not a trait of the increasingly dumbed-down mainstream media, which in this case churned out little more than a quickly re-worded press release.
Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle printed a story by Hearst reporter Dan Freedman which uncritically regurgitated a Democratic press release from June 13 as the latest news. It included the “I told you so” arrogance one should expect from today’s under-educated class of journalist, stating:

The claim that Mexican cartels rely on huge stocks of military surplus weaponry from civil wars in Central America is the mantra of pro-gun organizations fearful that linking drug violence to U.S.-purchased weapons could lead to more gun control.
Though gun-rights advocates and at least one prominent U.S. senator ferociously stand by that politically charged theory, federal firearms data show only a tiny percentage originate south of Mexico’s border.
Indeed, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and others have cited the Mexico-bound flow of weapons from firearms dealers in border states including Texas and California in arguing for restoring the expired federal assault-weapons ban and other gun restrictions.
In response to a query from Feinstein, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported last month that of the 29,284 weapons recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing in 2009 and 2010, a total of 20,504 — 70 percent — were “United States-sourced firearms.” Virtually all of the remaining weapons were not traceable because insufficient information was submitted.

PJM readers know exactly what’s happening here: it’s the “90 percent lie,” again.
All of Freedman’s “content” comes from a dishonest claim made in Senator Dianne Feinstein’s dishonest June 13 press release:

About 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to a U.S. gun-tracing program came from the United States, according to a report released by three U.S. senators Monday.
Of the 29,284 firearms recovered by authorities in Mexico in 2009 and 2010, 20,504 came from the United States, according to figures provided to the senators by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Most of those weapons — 15,131 — were U.S. made, while another 5,373 were of foreign manufacture but had moved through the United States into Mexico.
The ATF said the remainder of the weapons total — 8,780 arms — were of “undetermined origin due to insufficient information provided.”

Freedman is obviously parroting the Feinstein press release and is simply too incurious to investigate the liberal anti-gun senator’s claim.
Once again, here is the truth: Far more than 29,284 firearms were recovered in Mexico in 2009-10.
The 29,284 figure only includes those weapons that the Mexican police and military recovered, inspected, and determined possibly could have come from the United States, and then submitted to the U.S. for tracing. But far more weapons were recovered, inspected, and determined to come from Central American or Mexican government stockpiles or from the black market (primarily from Asia).
President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Hillary Clinton originally championed the 90 percent lie. Which has now become the 70 percent lie, which is better, but still not close to the eight percent truth.
Freedman is misinforming his readers, attempting to shape their worldview based upon a dishonest representation of the facts. More insidiously, Freedman is using widely debunked data to undermine those who actually understand the issue.
He intends to undermine the firearms experts and research academics who understand the issue and the facts and who have pushed back against politically motivated presidential speeches, congressional reports, and the mainstream media’s complacent reporting of the same.
Meanwhile, Eric Holder’s Justice Department has run guns to one cartel, and Hillary Clinton’s State Department sold military grade weapons to another . Don’t expect Freedman to report on those stories accurately either, if at all.

More Airplane pics

Here is a trio pic, of a German Luftansa A380 airbus
An American Delta Airlines Boeing 747-400
An Italian Atlantia Boeing 777.

Airplane....Pic

This is a pic of a Quantas 747-438. VH-OJN (cn 25315/883) "Dubbo" with a V-Pod on a rescue mission to save VH-OJL which has been stranded in Johannesburg since the 15th of July after her #3 engine failed operating QF64 to Sydney. OJN is seen here approaching Gate 53 as QF63 after the first leg from Sydney. In just over an hour she will be off to Johannesburg. 

 Korean air with a A380 and a Boeing 747-400, interesting pic of the size of the aircraft.

More on Obummer

I got this from personal liberty digest.

Obama Following In Hitler’s Footsteps

July 26, 2011 by Robert Ringer 

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY CHUCK KENNEDY

Barack Obama wants to do what is right for America, but his vision of “right” is wealth redistribution on a massive scale carried out by an all-powerful Federal government.

Watching the nonstop commentaries on television about the debt ceiling debate only reinforces the reality that most people — including many perceived conservatives — still don’t get it. If they did, they would not allow themselves to be diverted by a political circus.
It amazes me how the vast majority of conservatives — both inside and outside of the media — still take Barack Obama seriously and believe he is desperately trying to save the United States from economic disaster. Don’t get me wrong. Obama wants to do what is right for America, but his vision of “right” is wealth redistribution on a massive scale carried out by an all-powerful Federal government.
As Obama continues to toy with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling, he is well aware that the continuation of his policies will destroy the U.S. economy beyond repair. I believe his strategy from the outset has been to follow the Saul Alinsky model: Win the Presidency through a semi-legitimate election, then tighten your grip over everything and everybody, move swiftly to create economic chaos, and use the chaos you’ve created to establish a dictatorship.
Now don’t go giving Obama too much credit for originality. He’s really just a slick and clever copycat. Getting elected and then using your powers to eliminate all competition is an old trick used by power-hungry thugs throughout history.
Of all the dictators over the past hundred years, I believe Obama’s rise to power mirrors that of Adolf Hitler’s more than anyone else. I know, I know… I can practically hear readers chuckling. Enslaved people throughout history have a propensity for chuckling — until they wake up one morning and find themselves in chains. So, by all means, feel free to chuckle — but do hear me out.
Though most people don’t realize it, Hitler was legitimately chosen to be chancellor of Germany in 1933 by President Paul von Hindenburg. At his swearing-in ceremony, Hitler faithfully repeated the oath of office: “I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me, and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone.”
Nice words… similar to those uttered by Obama when being sworn into office. Hitler was a charming, eloquent speaker who carried on incessantly about change. (Sound familiar?) Then, once elected, he moved quickly to establish a dictatorship, accomplishing that seemingly impossible feat in 52 days. Obama moved swiftly as well, but opposing forces in America made it impractical to establish a quick dictatorship.
The upstart Nazi Party (which was the commonly used name for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party… repeat, Socialist) staged a slobbering love affair between Hitler and the German people. (Sound familiar?) When Hitler spoke for the first time as chancellor, it was said that he “was greeted with an outpouring of worshipful adulation unlike anything ever seen before in Germany.” (Sound familiar?)
In The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek explained the way countries travel the road from democracy to dictatorship:

It is important to remember that, for some time before 1933, Germany had reached a stage in which it had, in effect, had to be governed dictatorially… Hitler did not have to destroy democracy; he merely took advantage of the decay of democracy and at the critical moment obtained the support of many to whom, though they detested Hitler, he yet seemed the only man strong enough to get things done.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government of America was very weak — which was a good thing. It was true then, and it’s true now: You can have a strong government and a weak people, or a strong people and a weak government — but you cannot have both. Today, we have a draconian, out-of-control government and a very weak people.
Arguably, democracy in this country started to break down in 1787 when the Constitution created a strong Federal government. It got worse — much worse — under the fascist policies of Woodrow Wilson’s reign from 1912 to 1920. Then, beginning in 1932, FDR’s failed socialist policies took away even more individual freedom from American citizens. And the final disintegration of true democracy in the U.S. was catalyzed by the left-wing revolutionaries of the 1960s.
So if you’re wondering how Obama and his Marxist cronies have been able to violate the Constitution as though it didn’t exist, the answer is that they are merely taking advantage of the decay of democracy in the U.S. that was already present when they came to power. While Americans have been busy focusing on sports, reality TV, eating out three nights a week and trying to pay their mortgages, the fascistic socialists in Washington have been quietly working to establish a dictatorship based on the ruins of our democracy (which actually began as a republic).
Get it? I hope so. Because if a vast majority of everyday folks don’t get it soon, it will be too late. As I have repeatedly said, the debt ceiling debate is nothing more than a distraction from the real, underlying problem we all face: We are losing our freedom.
Our focus should be on stopping Barack Obama and his Marxist allies in Washington from establishing a communist dictatorship — politely referred to by conservative media commentators as an “imperial presidency.” But regardless of what one calls it, the important thing to understand is that under a dictatorship, everything else becomes irrelevant — including the debt ceiling “crisis” that political junkies are spending so much time fretting about.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

This is an email from Dad...I add the ones that I believe others in the blogosphere would enjoy.

"Dhimmitude"


New Word For The Day - "Dhimmitude" – What Does It Mean?Obama used it in the health care bill. 
Now isn't this interesting? It was used in the health care law.



Every day there's another revelation of what Obama is doing to our country.


  Dhimmitude -- I had never heard the word until now. Type it into Google and start reading. Pretty interesting. It's on page 107 of the healthcare bill. I looked this up on Google and yep, it exists. It is a REAL word.



Word of the Day: Dhimmitude



Dhimmitude is the Muslim system of controlling non-Muslim populations  conquered through jihad. Specifically, it is the TAXING of non-Muslims in exchange for tolerating their presence AND as a coercive means of converting conquered remnants to Islam.



Obama Care allows the establishment of Dhimmitude and Sharia Muslim diktat in the United States . Folks, this is exclusively an Islamic concept under Sharia Law. So exclusive they had to make up an English word to define the concept. Why would our government start interjecting Sharia Law concepts into new broad and sweeping legislation like health care that would control the US population? ....Anyone? Muslims are specifically exempted from the government mandate to purchase insurance, and also from the penalty tax for being uninsured. Islam considers insurance to be "gambling", "risk-taking", and "usury" and is thus banned. Muslims are specifically granted exemption based on this. 



How convenient. So a Christian would have crippling IRS liens placed against all of their assets, including real estate, cattle, and even accounts receivables, and will face hard prison time because they refuse to buy insurance or pay the penalty tax. Meanwhile, Louis Farrakhan and all other US Muslims will have no such penalty and will have 100% of their health needs paid for by the de facto government insurance. Non-Muslims paying a tax to subsidize Muslims. This is Sharia Law definition of... Dhimmitude. This is not a Western Civilization concept. 
Dhimmit has two purposes : To enrich Muslims AND to drive conversions to Islam.

Among the tax takers or I call them the freeloaders

I got this from "the American Thinker" the link is here 
     The blue font are my comments...

    When I delivered Pizza, we as delivery employees knew who was on "gub'ment assistance"   We would deliver there, get cussed out, get stiffed and sometimes get robbed by the denizens that live there.  We would  see the 60" tv's the 22" dubs, the PS3 or the Xbox 360 and the stereo blaring out rap and the lawn furniture in the section 8 housing that was inserted in middle class neighborhoods to promote "fairness"  You have seen the house, the ones that are run down, unkempt lawns, and trash...what do they care...it ain't their house...the gub'ment got it for them.   Once this one is trashed, the gub'ment will get another one for them.      And we the taxpayer are on the hook to repair it
By Earl Wright

July 25, 2011

Among the Tax-takers

By Earl Wright     

I worked for the IRS and survived.  I learned about taxpayers, but the really interesting part of it was learning about tax-takers.
We all have this vague notion of people who don't pay taxes but receive money from Uncle Sam in what euphemistically is called a tax refund.  That's what I had, a vague notion, until I was forced to close my business in 2010.  I took a seasonal job with the Internal Revenue Service to get some household cash flow going.  We "Timmy Geithner warriors" were appalled by what welearned.
We generally knew that 47 percent of our population pays no income taxes whatsoever.  However, we didn't know, and I suspect that very few of you know, how much of your tax money is actually given to non-taxpayers -- in a lump sum, to do with as they please.  Over lunch we joked that half the tattoo parlors in America would go under without Uncle Sam's largesse.  Only later Ilearned that was closer to the truth than a joke.
Like most anti-poverty programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit when enacted in 1975 was supposed to be temporary.  It was visualized as a tool to lift the working poor out of poverty.  It was quickly made permanent and has been modified numerous times over the ensuing 36 years.  In 2004, 20 million families received $36 billion.  The flower children assume that was $36 billion spent on food, shelter, and health care.  We who live in the real world know it was spent on big-screen television sets, 22-inch chrome wheels, and colorful tattoos.
It was widely noted last week that those living below the poverty level in the U.S. tend to own cars, TVs, computers, cells phones, enjoy air-conditioning, and own video game consoles.  The free money these folks receive from you and me is not counted for poverty level calculations.
In addition, the feds estimate that between 22 and 30 percent of taxpayers claiming EITC do not actually qualify so we spend an additional $8 billion to $10 billion trying to straighten that out.
I can't talk specifics about my time at the IRS, but here are some generalities.  Those claiming EITC also qualify for other so-called refundable credits (how can something be refundable when nothing is paid in the first place?).  The typical 1040 would show an income of between $12,000 to $18,000 for the year.  It was usually accompanied by one W-2 with the income earned almost always by a female.  With other refundable credits listed, a "refund" would be claimed of between $6,000 and $9,000.
And these people believe that is their money; they have a right to it.  I fielded a telephone query from a woman who didn't even say hello, but blurted, "I haven't got my taxes."  For an instant I thought she meant that she didn't have enough money to pay her taxes, but I quickly realized she was talking about her "refund."  We newbieslearned that those who pay taxes have a general fear of calling the IRS and tend to be nice on the telephone, while those who don't pay any taxes believe they are entitled and are not always pleasant to deal with.  We alsolearned these aren't the brightest people on the planet with many signing their refund over to a tax-preparer and then claiming they didn't know they had done that.  (The "instant refund" scam perpetrated by many storefront tax-preparers is a whole other story.)
I mentioned the tattoo joke above.  It turned out to be the truth in the only anecdotal story I heard during my stint at the IRS.  A golfing buddy said his girlfriend's daughter claims EITC among other things and received a U.S. government check for $6,000.  She used the money to take her toddler daughter and the child's ne'er-do-well father to the Monterey Bay Aquarium -- a couple hundred bucks -- and spent the remainder for a giant tattoo on her back.  I'm so glad I could help.
President Obama has asked us to embrace "shared sacrifice" to help break the stalemate over the debt impasse while lecturing, "We might as well do it now -- pull off the Band-Aid, eat our peas."  Well Mr. President, are you including the above-mentioned 47 percent in your shared sacrifice scenario?  Should they pull off the Band-Aid while drinking their $5 energy drink in front of their 60-inch flat-screen TV?  I know I would feel much more like brothers fighting the good fight if their hands weren't in my pockets.
Earl Wright was employed as a customer service representative in the Accounts Management branch of the Internal Revenue Service's Fresno, CA Service Center from Jan. 24, 2011 until he was furloughed June 3, 2011.  He says it was like returning to the 7^th grade

BLOGLIST!!!

I got a blogroll finally set up...HOORAY!!!    Check out the blogroll and let me know if I forgot one

additional music

After doing Monday Music, I figured I would add a few extra.

Also a couple of oldies

Rhinestone Cowboy

I also added "Tell it all Brother"

    This is from Kenny Rogers and the First edition.  I remember listening to this music while I was around ankle biter stage because my Dad liked it.  Funny what you remember when you are little.

monday music

I am switching gears and bringing "power ballads" a mostly 80's thing.  Even now the sing are recognized immediately.

Boston with

"Amanda"

Night Ranger with
"Sister Christain"

The Obummer legacy

more budget cuts.....

President Obama continues to push the notion that he wants a "balanced approach" to budget cuts, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the only spending cuts he is willing to contemplate are cuts in defense spending. The vast entitlement system that now eats the majority of tax dollars is, by contrast, not only on his list of programs to be sustained, but expanded. Mr. Obama seems determined to protect the welfare state. He lacks the courage and the candor to admit to the unsustainablity of an entitlement system which has pushed the nation to the brink of insolvency as our debts continue to mount. Instead of addressing the source of the spending problems, it is becoming clear that Mr. Obama intends to hollow out the military. What folly!
Only weeks ago, Obama signaled intentions to cut $400 billion from Defense, but key Democrats are already talking about even large cuts of $1 trillion to Defense. Such a move would signal a broad American retreat from the world and erode our national defense for many years to come. Obama's military budget shenanigans are yet another reminder that the key characteristic of Obama’s involvement in any aspect of U.S. life--economics, policies or participation on the world scene—is that Obama's policies have left Americans with a weaker world presence as a result of his involvement.
Military spending is an area which, traditionally, in past years, Dems have loved to cut. Democrat eagerness to cut military spending is the result of a fundamental, ideological difference: the GOP believes the U.S. is served best by a strong military, both at home and abroad, while Dems believe that a more kumbaya, we-are-the-world, approach is the way to best protect America. Obama, who first launched his apologize-to-the-world tour on this premise, has never been a keen supporter of endeavors military. Obama's recent threats, that our veterans might not receive their retirement and disability checks if a debt ceiling-budget compromise is not reached by 2 August, just prove that point.
It seems clear that the $100 billion in defense cuts proposed in the FY2012 budget are merely the tip of the iceberg. Further cuts will likely be proposed because the budget dollars for defense are so big and because cutting in this area will appease at least one faction of the Dems ideological extremist base.

Colonel West on Islam

Dealing With Muslims

Two Black Americans were elected as republicans to Congress this cycle.  One is Col . West from southern Florida . He won in a walk. This new Congressman was an extremely popular commander in Iraq . He was forced to retire because during an intense combat action a few of his men were captured. At the same time, his men captured one of the guys who were with the Iraqis who captured his men. Knowing that time was crucial and his interrogators were not getting anywhere with the prisoner, COL West took matters into his own hands. He burst into the room and demanded, thru an interpreter, that the prisoner tell him where his men were being taken. The prisoner refused so COL West took out his pistol and placed it into the prisoner's crotch and fired. Then the COL told the prisoner that the next shot would not miss. So the prisoner said he would show where the American service members were being taken. The Americans were rescued. Someone filed a report on incorrect handling of prisoners. COL West was forced to retire. COL West was just elected in November 2010 to Congress from Florida . During the elections he was part of a panel on how to handle or how to relate to Muslims. You will see his answer here explaining in just over a minute the truth about Islam.

Watch the video.....

Continuation of past post.....

The Assault Weapons Ban: How Silly Was It? (Part Two)

We know it failed, they know it failed. So what could possibly give the Obama admin and gun-control advocates the confidence to push for it again? (Read Part One of this series here.)

June 24, 2011 - 12:00 am - by Bob Owens

On March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial “large magazines.” Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control: “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said.
“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

In every practical respect, the firearms-related provisions of the “assault weapons ban” were an objective failure. But absurd restrictions on firearms weren’t the only part of that legislation that passed only to succumb to an outcome quite different than it’s anti-gun progenitors had in mind.
Along with creating the term “assault weapon,” this Clinton-era law also created the similarly arbitrary term “high-capacity magazine.”
A detachable magazine is a container that holds cartridges for a given firearm, and the number of cartridges typically varied with the size and the purpose of the weapon at hand and the size of the cartridge it fired. Small turn-of-the-century handguns typically carried magazines of just 6-7 cartridges. The standard magazine capacity of many pistols that became popular in the 1980s was 15 rounds or more. The standard capacity of military grade rifles and carbines was 20-30 rounds. As time progressed, firearm designers were finding ways to put a larger number of cartridges in the magazines of their weapons.
When legislators decided that the “assault weapons ban” should also include a restriction on the number of cartridges that any given magazine could hold, they declared that any magazine that held a greater amount of cartridges was a “high capacity” magazine. It didn’t matter to them that many of the firearms in question had as their standard capacity magazines with round counts from 13-30 rounds or more, or that some of these firearms had had such a capacity since before the congressmen and congresswomen writing the law were born.
Congress arbitrarily decided that 10 rounds was “enough” for American citizens, and included provisions that once the law went into effect, any magazine manufactured after the date the law went into effect that had more than ten rounds would be illegal for anything other than law enforcement use.
Like the firearms provisions of the bill, these magazine provisions also had unintended consequences.
As it turns out, firearms magazines are both typically very robust and reliable in design, and incredibly easy to mass manufacture. Once made, they last indefinitely.
Between the time Congress started signaling that they would create a magazine capacity restriction and the implementation of the law, factories worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week churning out millions of nothing but high-capacity magazines, which were stockpiled by manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers in massive warehouses.
As a result, “high capacity magazines” for most common firearms were freely available throughout the life of the ban. As e-commerce came into early maturity during this time period, many high-capacity magazines were more available than they had been before the ban was signed into law.
How?
Congress had neglected to make the possession or sale of high-capacity magazines illegal, and only outlawed the manufacture of new magazines.

Here we go again........SSDD(Same Sh*t Different Decade)

The Assault Weapons Ban: How Silly Was It? (Part One)

With the Obama admin and a Washington Post editorial calling for its reinstatement — amidst a tie-in to the Gunwalker scandal — it's worth revisiting the boneheaded law.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, February 26, 2009:

As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.

The fabled “assault weapons ban.”
Few laws ever passed have been as idolized — and misunderstood — as Title XI of the Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Subtitle A (the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act).
To listen to the Obama administration, the media, or the nominated head of the ATF spin it, the ban made it illegal to purchase machine guns, and outlawed the ownership or use of high-capacity magazines, saving billions, perhaps trillions, of lives.
That mischaracterization is as wrong as it is laughable. The law had nothing to do with machine guns and real military-issue assault rifles, and did nothing to measurably impact violent crime.
The purpose of the law was to ban the sale and importation of certain semi-automatic (one bullet fired per trigger pull) firearms by name, and a wider group of firearms that had an arbitrarily selected list of  largely cosmetic features. These features did not affect the rate of fire, accuracy, or range of the firearms impacted. Firearms were determined to be “assault weapons” — a term that was created by the law itself — if it had two or more of the following features:

Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

1. Folding or telescoping stock
2. Pistol grip
3. Bayonet mount
4. Flash suppressor, or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
5. Grenade launcher (more precisely, a muzzle device which enables the launching or firing of rifle grenades)

Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

1. Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
2. Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
3. Barrel shroud that can be used as a hand-hold
4. Unloaded weight of 50 oz (1.4 kg) or more
5. A semi-automatic version of an automatic firearm

Semi-automatic shotguns with two or more of the following:

1. Folding or telescoping stock
2. Pistol grip
3. Fixed capacity of more than 5 rounds
4. Detachable magazine

It was a law passed by lawmakers who desired to “do something,” but who didn’t have the expertise or intelligence to pass a law with any real meaning or measurable impact. It resulted in a 10-year timeframe where this …
…  was an “assault weapon,” but this …
… was not.

Airline tickets will cost less???

AP2011

The FAA control tower at Reagan National Airport is seen in Arlington, Wednesday, March 23, 2011. (AP)

Washington –  Efforts to avert a shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration failed Friday amid a disagreement over a $16.5 million cut in subsidies to 13 rural communities, ensuring that nearly 4,000 people will be temporarily out of work and federal airline ticket taxes will be suspended.

Lawmakers were unable to resolve a partisan dispute over an extension of the agency's operating authority, which expired at midnight Friday.

The subsidy cut was included by Republicans in a House bill extending operating authority for the FAA, which has a $16 billion budget. Senate Democrats refused to accept the House bill with the cuts, and Republican senators refused to accept a Democratic bill without it. Lawmakers then adjourned for the weekendBut underlying the dispute on rural air service subsidies was a standoff between the GOP-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate over a provision in long-term funding legislation for the FAA that would make it more difficult for airline and railroad workers to unionize.

Obama administration officials have said the shutdown will not affect air safety. Air traffic controllers will remain on the job. But airlines will lose the authority to collect about $200 million a week in ticket taxes that go into a trust fund that pays for FAA programs.

FAA employees whose jobs are paid for with trust fund money will be furloughed, including nearly 1,000 workers at the agency's headquarters in Washington, 647 workers at FAA's technology and research center in Atlantic City, N.J., and 124 workers at the agency's training center in Oklahoma City.

"These are real people with families who do not deserve to be put out of work during these tough economic times," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said in a statement.

Airline passengers could see a big savings on their airfares, but the situation is complicated. Federal taxes on a $300 round-trip airfare are about $61, but about half that comes from airport and security fees that will continue to be collected, according to the Air Transport Association.

Airlines, alerted earlier this week that FAA authority could expire, have been making adjustments to their computer systems and websites so that at midnight, taxes would no longer be added to airfares, the association said.

One airline, U.S. Airways, was already raising its fares. Other airlines may try to reap a windfall profit from the tax holiday.

Passengers who bought their tickets before the shutdown, but who travel during the shutdown, may wind up due a refund, Treasury Department spokeswoman Sandra Salstrom said. That's because it's not clear whether the government can keep taxes for travel that takes place during a period when the government doesn't have authority to collect taxes, she said.

Likewise, it wasn't clear if passengers who buy tickets after midnight with no taxes included would wind up owing taxes if their travel took place after FAA's operating authority is restored, she said.

The IRS will probably issue guidance later to clarify the situation, Salstrom said.

Long-term funding authority for the FAA expired in 2007. Unable to agree on new long-term funding legislation for the agency, Congress has kept the FAA operating through a series of 20 short-term extension bills. The extensions had been routine until this week.

The Senate passed a long-term bill in February and the House a different version in April. Lawmakers have resolved most of the differences between the bills, but no progress has been made on a half dozen or more controversial issues.

Republicans say Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is insisting that a labor provision in the House bill sought by the airline industry must be dropped before negotiations can go forward.

The labor provision would overturn a National Mediation Board rule approved last year that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Under the old rule, workers who didn't vote were treated as "no" votes.

Republicans complain that the new rule reverses 75 years of precedent to favor labor unions. Democrats and union officials say the change puts airline and railroad elections under the same democratic rules required for unionizing all other companies.

The White House warned in March that President Barack Obama might veto the bill if the labor provision is retained.

Just before he blocked the Democrats' extension bill, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he shared House Republicans' frustration "that favors to organized labor have overshadowed the prospects for long-term FAA" funding.

Another unresolved issue involves about $200 million in air services subsidies to rural communities. The program was created when airlines were deregulated in 1978 to ensure continued air service on less profitable routes to isolated communities. The House long-term FAA bill would eliminate the program except for airports in Alaska.

The Senate bill would eliminate service to 13 communities that are either less than 90 miles from a hub airport or where subsidies total more than $1,000 per passenger. That's the language House Republicans added to their extension bill.

But one of the biggest defenders of the program is Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over FAA legislation. One of the airports that would lose subsidies is in Morgantown, W.Va

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/22/partisan-dispute-to-partially-shut-down-faa/#ixzz1Swada9Pz

The democrats are intent on raising taxes....no matter what

Debt Talks: The House-passed spending control plan rejected by the Senate is exactly what Republicans were elected to do last November. The president's obsession with tax increases repudiates the will of the people.
Like a headmaster in chief of some Dickensian orphanage, President Obama earlier this month told us to "eat our peas" — meaning accept the tax increases we know are good for us.
Socialism has always come down to contempt for the will of the people, to a benevolent elite force-feeding its enlightened policies down the throats of the masses.
Karl Marx himself once dismissed free elections as merely "deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in parliament."
A CNN/ORC poll this week directly contradicted the media template that most Americans think tax increases are good for them. It found that 66% support the cut, cap and balance bill that passed the GOP-controlled House of Representatives but was killed in the Democrat-controlled Senate on Friday.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called it "one of the worst pieces of legislation to be brought to the floor of the U.S. Senate." It "violates the spirit of our Constitution," he said. Why? One reason: The cut, cap, balance solution doesn't raise taxes.
Speaking at a "town hall" meeting of his supporters in Maryland on Friday, Obama disingenuously insisted that "we can't just close our deficit with spending cuts alone," avoiding tax increases, because Washington, among other things, shouldn't have to "stop funding clean energy research."
According to Obama, if we don't increase taxes on an economy suffering 9.2% unemployment, "seniors would have to pay a lot more for Medicare." (He failed to mention that Medicare is doomed without substantial reform.If we don't hike taxes  leaving investors with less wealth with which to generate new private-sector jobs  "laid-off workers might not be able to count on temporary assistance or training to help them get a new job," according to the president's circuitous logic.
What's going on here is pure political calculus. Republicans have done their job, offering a plan that raises the debt ceiling, sharply cuts current spending, reforms future spending authority and asks the states to ratify a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.
If that's not big — "big" being what Obama continually says he wants — what is?
The president, however, wants Republicans to co-own this dismal economy. And, at least as much, he wants Republicans to lose all credibility on their pledge not to raise taxes.
The debt battle of 2011 is all about getting Republicans to betray their spending and tax promises so that Barack Obama can be re-elected in 2012.

Intelligence analyst of the Norway bombings

I get intelligence summaries in my mailbox,   This is a good site, you can get in their e-mail list .


      I will be surprised if this is anything other than jihadist trying to make a statement and strike fear in the Scandanavian countries.  Remember a few years ago when the cartoonist drew a cartoon of mohammed and the islamic area erupted in rage.  Of course that seems to be the the normal course of action.  They get upset and expect the west to apologize for what ever transgression is committed.  I of course never see them apologize for anything.  They view the western based world with contempt, they view us as weak.  Such things will become more prevelant as time goes on.  especially with the U.S. starting to withdraw from that area of the world.

Firefighters at the site of an explosion near government buildings in Oslo on July 22
What the Norway Attack Could Mean for Europe July 22, 2011 At least 17 people have died and more have been injured in an explosion in downtown Oslo and a shooting at a Labor Party youth camp outside the Norwegian capital. Norwegian police arrested the shooter at the camp and believe he is connected with the explosion, though others could be involved. The significance of the events in Norway for the rest of Europe will depend largely on who is responsible, and the identity of the culprits is still unclear. However, STRATFOR can extrapolate the possible consequences of the attacks based on several scenarios. The first scenario is that grassroots Islamist militants based in Norway are behind these seemingly connected attacks. Grassroots jihadist groups are already assumed to exist across Europe, and this assumption — along with previous attacks — has bolstered far-right political parties' popularity across the Continent. Many center-right politicians have also begun raising anti-immigrant policy issues in order to distract from the ongoing economic austerity measures brought about by the European economic crisis. If grassroots Islamist militants are found to be the culprits in Norway, it will simply reinforce the current European political trend that favors the far right. That said, some far-right parties, particularly in Northern Europe, could get a popularity boost sufficient to push them into the political mainstream, and possibly into government. If an individual, grassroots or organized domestic group with far-right or neo-Nazi leanings perpetrated the attack, the significance for the rest of Europe will not be large. It could lead to a temporary loss of popularity for the far right, but long-term repercussions for the far right are unlikely since these parties have begun tempering their platforms in order to attract a wider constituency. There is also the possibility that the attacks are the work of a skilled but disturbed individual with grievances against the Labor Party. This possibility would have few long-ranging repercussions beyond a reworking of domestic security procedures in Norway. Another scenario is that the attack was carried out by an international group which may have entered the country some time ago. Regardless of the time frame, if the culprits crossed a border to get into Norway, other European countries will feel very vulnerable; Norway is Europe's northern terminus, and if international militants can get to Norway, they can get to anywhere in Europe. This vulnerability could severely damage the Schengen Agreement, once a symbolic pillar of Europe's unity, which has been under attack in the last several months. The agreement allows visa-free travel between the 25 countries in the Schengen Area (most of which are EU members, but the Schengen Area does include some non-EU members like Norway and Switzerland). The agreement came under pressure when Italy threatened to allow migrants fleeing the Libyan conflict and Tunisian political unrest to gain temporary resident status in order to cross into France. It was Rome's way of forcing the rest of Europe to help it with the influx of migrants. The solution proposed by France and Italy was to essentially establish temporary borders "under very exceptional circumstances." Later, Denmark reimposed border controls, supposedly due to an increase in cross-border crime. The attack in Norway, if it involved cross-border movements, could therefore damage or even end the Schengen Agreement. Other European countries, particularly those where the far right is strong or where center-right parties have adopted an anti-immigrant message, could push for further amendments to the pact. A transnational militant plot against a European country in the contemporary context could also be significant for European defense policy. When the 2004 Madrid attack and 2005 London attack happened, many in Europe argued that the attacks were a result of European governments' support for U.S. military operations in the Middle East. This is no longer really the case for Europe, although European forces are still in Afghanistan. It is much more difficult to blame Europe's alliance with the United States for this attack. As such, Europe could very well be motivated to take ongoing efforts to increase European defense coordination seriously. Current efforts are being led by Poland, which is doing so mainly because it wants to increase security against Russia's resurgence, not because of global militancy. The problem with Warsaw's plan is that it has little genuine support in Western Europe, other than France. An attack on Norway could, however, provide the kind of impetus necessary for Europe to feel threatened by global events. The last scenario is that the attack is linked to Norway's involvement in the campaign in Libya. If the Libyan government is somehow connected to the bombing and/or shooting, the rest of Europe will rally behind Norway and increase their efforts in Libya. This scenario would essentially close off the opening in negotiations prompted by a recent move by Paris and other European governments saying they would be open to Moammar Gadhafi's remaining in Libya.

30 years of innovations......

I shamelessly ripped this off from  here

Lockheed Constellation

The Lockheed Constellation ("Connie") was a propeller-driven airliner powered by four 18-cylinder radial Wright R-3350 engines. It was built by Lockheed between 1943 and 1958 at its Burbank, California, USA, facility. A total of 856 aircraft were produced in four models, all distinguished by a triple-tail design and dolphin-shaped fuselage. The Constellation was used as a civilian airliner and as a U.S. military air transport, seeing service in the Berlin Airlift. It was the presidential aircraft for U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.    More here


     I have some pics of a Constellation that was pretty much rebuilt at Paris - Le Bourget (LBG / LFPB) 
    
 The plane spent 1.5 years there for corrosion repair.    Here is the origonal pic:

  The plane is the last flying Constellation in the northern hemisphere.

   It is a piece of flying history

Ready for the european airshow circuit and member flights.