Administration Proposes New Agency to Study Climate Change

If you thought Obama was serious about cutting the deficit, you need to brace yourself for this announcement:

The Obama administration on Monday proposed a new agency to study and report on the changing climate, which has drawn concern among many scientists in recent years.

I can see their first report:

"After six months of study, we have concluded that climate change is based on erroneous assumptions, and the long-term variations we can document are not human-based.

Therefore, we recommend this agency be de-commissioned, and our cushy jobs should be terminated."

Yeah. That'll happen.

Quote of the day

"The only freedom which can last is a freedom embodied somewhere, rooted in a history, located in space, sanctioned by genealogy, and blessed by a religious establishment. The only equality which abstract rights, insisted upon outside the context of politics, are likely to provide is the equality of universal slavery." M.E. Bradford, A Better Guide than Reason

Poll: 75% 'angry' at government

It's about time:

Three-quarters of the nation’s voters are “angry” at the federal government’s policies, according to a new Rasmussen Reports survey out Monday.

Of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed Feb. 5-6, 75 percent said they were either “very” or “somewhat” angry with the “current policies of the federal government.” Forty-five percent said they were “very” angry.

Nearly two-thirds, 60 percent, agreed with the statement that “neither Republican political leaders nor Democratic political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today."

The percentage of those who said they were angry with the federal government has been on the rise.

We can only hope we had some part in that.

I clicked on the Rasmussen for more details, and boy, what details! Check out this analysis:

The divide between the Political Class and Mainstream voters, however, is remarkable. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Mainstream voters are angry, but 84% of the Political Class are not. Those numbers include 57% of Mainstream voters who are Very Angry and 51% of the Political Class who are not angry at all.

But then 68% of Mainstream voters don’t think the leaders of either major political party have a good understanding of what the country needs today. Sixty-one percent (61%) of the Political Class disagree.

The ruling elite has every reason to be fat and happy these days. The vast majority of the people, however, has much to be angry about, from the irresponsible pace of mounting deficits, to pointless, endless wars, to government-backed demographic revolution.

Colts upset, DC encased in snow

That's what prompted a Southern belle to observe:

"It really happened! The Saints are in the Super Bowl and hell has frozen over!"

Thanks to Mark Thomey for forwarding!

South Carolina now requires ’subversives’ to register

Here's a law that will encourage more civic participation, open debate, and protect us from subversives at the same time:

Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions -- or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state's "Subversive Activities Registration Act," passed last year and now officially on the books, states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State."

There's even a $5 filing fee.

By "subversive organization," the law means "every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State."

We're reminded every 5 seconds that inclusion is a great virtue. And this law includes just about everyone and every group.

Federal Government Closed on Monday

Oh, no:

The federal government will be closed on Monday in the Washington area, according to the Office of Personnel Management, as the region continues to plow out of an historic snowstorm.

How can the nation function without the guidance of the Wise Ones in DC? Who will prioritize, organize, and direct our otherwise feeble, blind efforts while ensuring we comply with the latest standards of inclusion, tolerance, and achieving diversity?

I don't know. I just don't know.

The death of the Tea Party movement

The Nashville Tea Party convention was supposed to harness the raw power of the Tea Party protests into an organized political movement. Instead, Sarah Palin corralled the real rogues back into the GOP Establishment's holding pens:

This new tea party bears no resemblance to the one that began a year ago as a reaction to the collapse of our financial system and the subsequent bailout. That movement of ragtag and unorganized libertarians, independents and conservatives was something new and unique. An authentic protest movement angered not just by the new President, Barack Obama, who had presided over the bailouts but the president who started the ball rolling and whose incompetence had led to the crisis in the first place, George W. Bush.

The people we saw on the steps of Legislative Plaza and county courthouses across the state last year weren’t “movement conservatives.” Certainly the movement conservatives were there at those protests but the tea parties were much bigger in size, scope and concept than just traditional modern conservatism reheated. Last night, the professional conservatives fixed that for good.

This is how ruling elites maintain their power. When authentic dissent bubbles up from the populace, inciting revolt, the powers that be always find betrayers who will guide the dissenters back into the fold.

And that's exactly what Palin's done. All the little errant sheep have been fooled, trussed up, and delivered.

Denmark Vesey was a terrorist

But a good terrorist, according to Charleston mayor Joe Riley:

The lynch-mob mentality

Too many Americans seem to think it's ok for the government to execute a person it's accused of terrorism without having to bother with a trial:

... to someone who equates unproven government accusations with proof, those [judicial] processes are entirely unnecessary. Even in the absence of those processes, they already know that these persons are Terrorists. How do they know that? Because the Government said so. Even when it comes to their fellow citizens, that's all the "proof" that is needed.

That authoritarian mentality is stronger than ever now. Why? Because unlike during the Bush years, when it was primarily Republicans willing to blindly trust Government accusations, many Democrats are now willing to do so as well. ... The Government can literally just flash someone's face on the TV screen with the word Terrorist over it (as was done with al-Awlaki), and provided the face is nefarious and Muslim-looking enough (basically the same thing), nothing else need be offered.

Worse, this heel-clicking mentality the pro-war, any war crowd developed during the early months of the Neocon Wars has incubated and spread. Now it infects both the right and left:

But note how ... right-wing commenters are almost exclusively of the "just-kill-him" school of thought, and how identical they sound to that minority of Daily Kos commenters I linked above who, in their blind loyalty to Obama, also insist that there's nothing wrong with simply snuffing out the lives of their fellow citizens who are "Terrorists" (meaning: anyone their Leader claims is a Terrorist) with no due process or oversight whatsoever. Ultimately, authoritarians are authoritarians, regardless of whether they situate themselves on the left or right.

That last line is as dead-on accurate as it is chilling. Already, the government has branded advocates of gun rights and smaller government as potential terrorists. The end of this road is a tyranny that pre-emptively crushes any dissent.

Thanks a bunch, war supporters.

Southern Music break

Hey, it's Friday, y'all!

Here's one of the more haunting songs honoring the Confederate soldier. It was adapted from an Irish melody entitled, "The Boy with the Auburn Hair." Here's Miss Deborah Brinson with "The Southern Soldier Boy."


Oh if in battle he was slain
I'm sure that I should die
but I'm sure he'll come again
And cheer my weeping eye

But should he fall
In this our glorious cause
He still would be my joy
For many a sweetheart mourns the loss
Of a Southern soldier boy

Then all the colors will bleed into one

Just think how much more efficiently big government and big business can operate once all those pesky human divisions have been flattened into one monochrome mass! That's what this piece from Ventures Charlotte, a publication of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, envisions:

When Kavita Gupta moved to Charlotte in 2006, she read an article in Ventures Charlotte about Charlotte being one of the best cities in the South. The point struck her as odd. "Why are we talking about the South," the formerly LA-based architect recalls thinking. "Or even American? We need to change our outlook. We need to think globally."

And wasn't it nice of Kavita Gupta to journey here to tell us how we should gut our traditional culture and transform ourselves into rootless, shapeless cosmopolitans?

But then, she has a point: Once Southern identity has been erased, a major component of what makes America America will have been eliminated. After that, the sky's the limit ...

Will Obama Play the War Card?

You can count on Pat Buchanan to dish out the reality that most want to ignore, and I generally applaud him for that. But this time, he's serving up more reality than I can handle:

Republicans already counting the seats they will pick up this fall should keep in mind Obama has a big card yet to play.

Should the president declare he has gone the last mile for a negotiated end to Iran's nuclear program and impose the "crippling" sanctions he promised in 2008, America would be on an escalator to confrontation that could lead straight to war.

And should war come, that would be the end of GOP dreams of adding three-dozen seats in the House and half a dozen in the Senate.

If you're president of the United States -- or a calculating monster concerned only about keeping his grip on power (yes, I'm repeating myself again) -- war is the perfect solution. The leftists will cheer on the overthrow of a regime that denies civil rights to women and homosexuals. Andrew Sullivan, who's almost as obsessed with regime change in Iran as he is with Sarah Palin, will break out the rainbow flag beside Old Glory, and will once again cheer on the Pentagon's crusade for homosexual liberation.

Imagine pro-war, any war Sarah Palin standing arm-in-arm with Andrew Sullivan as both salute the troops. War does that with former foes.

And of course the chickenhawk Neocons will giggle in anticipation of mass mayhem prepared just the way they like it, far away, and against much weaker Muslim victims. As Buchanan notes in the same article:

Daniel Pipes in a National Review Online piece featured by the Jerusalem Post – "How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran" – urges Obama to make a "dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue" by ordering the U.S. military to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Citing six polls, Pipes says Americans support an attack today and will "presumably rally around the flag" when the bombs fall.

Pipes is right, of course. Already, I can hear Rahm Emanuel whispering in his boss' ear, "Wag that dog, Obama."

The Creditor and the Plastic Duck Junkie

A sobering wake-up call from DumpDC:

Just remember, my friends, that nations like China and Japan hold the very life and existence of the United States government in their hands. If China made a decision tonight to destroy the US Government, it would be all over by end of business Friday.

As it says in Proverbs, “the borrower is the servant of the lender.”

The accompanying video should get your attention. And so should the conclusion: "The only possible chance for liberty to exist in North America is state secession."

Finding meaning in life

It was Samuel Huntington who observed that in the post-Cold War world, flags count because culture counts. The end of the 20th century saw the demise of the ideological, multi-ethnic empire, and loyalty to ideology gave way to loyalty to historical identity.

That most ancient of human needs, making and sustaining mutually beneficial relationships with one's compatriots, is the starting point for discovering one's identity. Here's a Wake Forest professor who's investigating the benefits of ethnic identification for young people:

A new study by Assistant Professor of Psychology Lisa Kiang has found that close ties to an ethnic group foster a positive sense of meaning and purpose in adolescents.

"This sense of meaning in life is, in turn, associated with high self-esteem, good academic adjustment, healthy social relationships and other beneficial effects," said Kiang, who was the lead author of the study, published in November in the online edition of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Kiang's study is the first that pinpoints meaning and purpose as an explanation for why ethnic identity has such a positive effect on other aspects of adolescents' wellbeing, she says.

She studied 579 Latin American, Asian and European-American high school seniors and found that adolescents who felt strongly connected to their ethnic group also expressed a clearer sense of meaning in their lives than adolescents without close ethnic ties.

Psychiatrist Lynne Jones, in States of Change: A Central European Diary, wrote:

"Nation can be one aspect of identity that enhances our sense of self, adds to the enjoyment of difference, increases our possibility for participation in public life, and enriches the world community."

In other words, actively embracing heritage is essential to being human. The blaring, endless distractions of modern life make us forget essential things sometimes, and we often have to re-discover what we have lost -- or what has been taken. It's good to have guides to show us the way.

Concerned Patriotic Americans Committee to Deport Andrew Sullivan

See? We're not just advocating the deportation of Hispanic illegal aliens. We're much more nuanced than that.

The history of government subsidies

1933 - The Agricultural Adjustment Act pays American farmers who don't grow crops.

2008 - The TARP Act pays investment bankers who don't make money.

2010 - The US pays Afghan insurgents who don't attack US troops.

Vegetative brains show signs of awareness

Science continues to march on:

Scientists have detected glimmers of awareness in some vegetative brain-injury patients and have even communicated with one of them — findings that push the boundaries of how to assess and care for such people.

And speaking of pushing the boundaries, it's just a tad ironic that the division of the Federal government responsible for "enforcing federal statutes and executive orders" that prohibit discrimination is looking for mentally retarded attorneys. No, really:

The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine. Applicants who meet the qualification requirements and are able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation are encouraged to identify targeted disabilities in response to the questions in the Avue application system seeking that information.

How long until discriminating against those who cannot meet the qualification requirements is prohibited? Ask this counselor:

Pig-man transplants 'within 5 yrs'

Science marches on! Now if we can just find a donor bear ...

From "Don't ask, don't tell" to "Don't resist, it's coming anyway"

What do we make of this interesting statistic?

"... a Military Times poll in December 2008 found that 58 percent of U.S. troops do not want gays to serve openly in the armed forces. Ten percent of respondents said they would leave the armed forces if the ban were lifted and 14 percent said they would consider doing so."

What makes this interesting is the disconnect between what the majority of troops and the top brass. Here's Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff:

"Speaking for myself, and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.

No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity, theirs as individuals and ours as an institution."

So if you're opposed to ending DADT, you lack integrity. Got that?

And now comes news that General Colin Powell also supports ending DADT.

Senator Roland Burris of Michigan, who is black, claimed ending DADT is just the latest front in the never-ever-ever ending battle for Civil Rights, and invoked that holy name in his comments before the Senate panel:

What we need is a policy that allows any individual who has the integrity and the commitment to serve this country to serve this country. And we can go back to President Truman, who took the audacity to integrate the services. At one time, my uncles and members of my race couldn't even serve in the military. And we have moved to this point where they're some of the best and brightest that we have had.

Here's the kicker: Both the top brass in the military and the Civil Rights movement side together against their own rank and file. The NAACP's top dogs, however, have had greater difficulty in convincing their own membership.

Most African-Americans are profoundly religious, and oppose the homosexual agenda. One homosexual activist, Andrew Sullivan, has lamented this before: "There is, alas, no ethnic community as homophobic in America as African-Americans." (Opposition to mainstreaming deviancy reveals an irrational fear, you see.)

What's going on here is simple: You get to top positions in the military and Civil Rights elite by pleasing the powers that be, not by representing the rank and file. Civil Rights is a holy word used to sanctify the expansion of Federal power, so the Civil Rights industry is a major player within the ruling elite, just as much as the military.

The globalists who run this country expand and consolidate their control by uprooting traditional Western, Christian culture. So naturally they've made the "Gay rights" agenda their own, and anyone wanting to join the ranks of the ruling elite has to play their game.

Hence the disconnect between constituency and leaders.

ANALYSIS: Southerners drive far-right of Republican Party

How distinctive is the South from the rest of the country? Distinctive enough to make Northern liberals crazy -- and that's a good thing! From the Institute for Southern Studies:

It's also true that Southerners are hardly alone in holding extreme views: The fact that "only" 60% of those in the West, for example, believe that Obama is a socialist, or that 34% of GOP voters in the Northeast think the president should be impeached is a hardly a testament to national moderation.

Despite those caveats, it's also clear that the South remains a uniquely strong base for the GOP's most extreme views.

"Extreme" means "not supportive of the leftist, secular agenda."

As we've noted before, the cultural and political differences between the South and the rest of the deteriorating DC Empire are real and enduring. But DC's monopoly on power makes genuine self-government impossible for us -- we must accept the rule of the increasingly authoritarian central government.

Therefore, the present system is not representative of who we are and what we want. All we want is self-government. Period.

Florida voters want immigration laws enforced

From the Miami Herald:

Florida voters don't want immigration laws waived to make it easier for Haitians to stay in the United States or immigrate into the country, a new poll shows.

Fifty-one percent of 1,618 registered Florida voters surveyed by Quinnipiac (Conn.) University said they wanted immigration laws enforced compared to 43 percent opposed to them being waived in the wake of the deadly Haitian earthquake Jan. 12.

Voters were opposed, 50 percent to 46 percent, to a decision by the Obama Administration to grant temporary legal status for 18 months to Haitians living in the U.S.

Have American voters EVER been consulted on whether they wanted their nation transformed into a Third-World country?

Here's an even sillier question: Will popular opposition to this specific policy change this or any of DC's immigration policies?

CIA Chief: Al Qaeda Poised to Attack U.S.

They're coming closer ... closer ...

Al Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday.

The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terror contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Al Qaeda is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta added.

Now let's stay calm and follow these sensible preventive steps:

1 - Scream and run around the room.

2 - Beg the Federal government to spy on us and protect us.

3 - Burn the Bill of Rights, especially those parts that give accused terrorists the rights of Americans to a lawyer, a trial, and habeas corpus. Because we all know that anyone who's accused of being a terrorist IS a terrorist. (It's just like the accusation of being a racist -- the more you deny it, the more obvious your guilt.)

But whatever we do, we can't enforce border security, or stop the flow of immigrants from Muslim nations. Because -- well, we just can't. Period.

Support for secession grows

You find evidence for hope in the most unlikely places sometimes.

In a recent Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll of 2003 Republicans, 33% of Southerners answered "Yes" to the question, "Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?" The question wasn't whether a state has the RIGHT to secede, but SHOULD it secede. The other regions weren't as supportive, dragging the national average down to 21%.

Maybe a little background is in order. In the American Revolution, most of the colonists either opposed or were neutral to secession from Britain; only 40 to 45 percent of the white population supported the Patriot Cause.

So we're half-way there, folks.

hat-tip to Charles Johnson!

Susan Collins spreads central myth about the Constitution

The junior senator from Maine has no more understanding of the Constitution than Sean Hannity:

Focusing on the DOJ's decision to charge the alleged attempted Christmas Day bomber with crimes, Mirandize him and provide him with counsel, Collins railed: "Once afforded the protection our Constitution guarantees American citizens, this foreign terrorist 'lawyered up' and stopped talking" (h/t). This notion that the protections of the Bill of Rights specifically and the Constitution generally apply only to the Government's treatment of American citizens is blatantly, undeniably false -- for multiple reasons -- yet this myth is growing, as a result of being centrally featured in "War on Terror" propaganda.

This is not Constitutional nit-picking; as Greenwald argues, it's central to defending our basic liberties. The Bill of Rights was NOT designed to be a guarantee of individual rights -- its original purpose was to limit the power of the Federal government.

Why is this distinction important? If the Federal government can claim the Constitution empowers it to protect the rights of Americans, there's no limit on what it can do. In fact, our rights are best protected by keeping the government from exceeding its authority. That's why we cannot submit to a Federal government that thinks it can illegally surveil, imprison, or torture anyone, citizen or non-citizen -- especially in the name of protecting freedom.

Bill Gates: White kids not eligible for my scholarships.

Welcome to post-racial America, courtesy of Bill and Melinda Gates. From the Gates Millennium Scholars home page:

Students are eligible to be considered for a GMS scholarship if they:

• Are African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander American, or Hispanic American

There's little I can add in the way of commentary to this, so I'll just post a random joke from the Internet:

Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Al Gore were in an airplane that crashed.

They’re up in heaven, and God’s sitting on the great white throne. God addresses Al first.

“Al, what do you believe in?”

Al replies, “Well, I believe that the combustion engine is evil and that we need to save the world from CFCs and that if any more freon is used,the whole earth will become a greenhouse and we’ll all die.” God thinks for a second and says “Okay, I can live with that.

Come and sit at my left.”

God then addresses Bill Clinton. “Bill, what do you believe in?”

Bill Clinton replies, “Well, I believe in power to the people. I think people should be able to make their own choices about things and that no one should ever be able to tell someone else what to do. I also believe in feeling people’s pain.” God thinks for a second and says “Okay, that sounds good. Come and sit at my right.”

God then address Bill Gates. “Bill Gates, what do you believe?”

Bill Gates said, “I believe you’re in my chair.”

Archaeologists unearth mystery document in Philadelphia

Historians, political scientists, and legal experts attempt to decipher strange document found in the city in which it is believed to have been composed:

Researcher Lorianne Updike Toler was intrigued by the centuries-old document at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

On the back of a treasured draft of the U.S. Constitution was a truncated version of the same document, starting with the familiar words: "We The People. . . ."

Some experts allege the document chartered something called a "republic" with "limited powers," something that modern political scientists agree would only prevent the government from doing good things.

"This was clearly written by backward, unsophisticated people," said one noted scholar of government.

An Anti-War Secessionist Movement is alive

What do the people do when the central government pushes its bullheaded agenda of spiraling deficits, endless wars, and socialized medicine on them against their wishes? They do the Jefferson thing, that's what. From Veterans Today:

In today’s Time Magazine online we learn that in the State of Vermont, among perhaps the most left leaning population in the Union, a secessionist movement has started in the wake of these unpopular wars. They have a slate of anti-war and secessionist candidates and they are running for office in the state. The piece is entitled Secessionist Campaign for the Republic of Vermont .

It seems that roughly 13% of the state’s population presently claims that they support the movement. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“According to a 2007 poll, they have support from at least 13% of state voters. The campaign slogan, Naylor told me, is “Imagine Free Vermont.” In his fondest imaginings, Naylor said, Vermonters would not be “forced to participate in killing women and children in the Middle East.”

This is what happens when our nation continually engages in these ridiculous and unnecessary wars overseas without taking into account the wishes of her citizens.

This is the only way to stop an increasingly other-worldly, uncaring central government.

Virginia Senate bills say no to requiring health insurance

I love the smell of nullification in the morning. It reminds me of -- freedom. Because it's the first step toward reclaiming self-government, and that's what the Virginia Senate has taken:

Virginia's Democratic-controlled state Senate passed measures Monday that would make it illegal to require individuals to purchase health insurance, a direct challenge to the party's efforts in Washington to reform health care.

The bills, a top priority of Virginia's "tea party" movement, were approved 23 to 17 as five Democrats who represent swing areas of the state joined all 18 Republicans in the chamber in backing the legislation.

It's impossible to overestimate the significance of this. As the Tenth Amendment Center observes

... nullification is much more than a mere rhetorical statement issued by a state legislature. At its very core, it’s mass civil disobedience to the federal government by the people of a state with the backing of the state government.

Robert E. Lee would be proud.

via memeorandum.

Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power

Here's the latest from the Imperial Death watch:

In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.

The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country’s entire economic output. ...But the second number, buried deeper in the budget’s projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years.

... as Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, used to ask before he entered government a year ago, “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?”

Answer: Not much longer. The effects of DC's insane spending are already being felt. Here are just two examples of how Red China is using its economic leverage to affect US behavior:

Barack Obama cancels meeting with Dalai Lama 'to keep China happy'

China warns US on Taiwan arms sale

Can a people whose government has enslaved them to foreign creditors be truly sovereign?

This place and these people just ain't worth it

Here's a gritty, first-hand account of the Dystopia that is Afghanistan. Read this and you'll appreciate the appropriateness of the title, as well as the insanity of the Neocons who imagined US forces could mold Afghanistan into Iowa. Warning: rough language and even rougher lack of cultural sensitivity! (I try to shield my more delicate readers.)