Free In Idaho!

So, the coffee is made, my Sweetie and the dog are both asleep here on the couch beside me, so it’s time to do some Saturday morning reading.  Let’s see…

Fiscal baloney.  Yup.  Reason has “Five Lies About The American Economy“.

How can the American economy keep getting worse under the intensive care of an interventionist economic team almost universally praised for its brilliance? The answer may be that the Obama administration is dealing with a fictional economy, one that bears little resemblance to the economy the rest of us inhabit. And when the difference between fact and fiction becomes too apparent, they just make stuff up.

The American people don’t want it. But Obama doesn’t care. IBD has “Why The Health Bill Makes No Sense“.  But really, who needs 15 reasons?  The American people have said NO.  That oughta settle that.

Health Reform: So it’s come down to this — desperate Democratic leaders strong-arming members on the worst bill ever before they go home to explain to constituents why they decided to commit political suicide.

I was at the Sheriff’s yesterday getting my CWL renewed. A lot has changed in the years since I was there last.  Then it was a small desk tucked away in the back of the drivers license office.  Today the weapons permit desk has been moved out to the main lobby, and made much bigger. There are now two ladies working it because, let’s face it, they’re doing a lot of business. At 11am there were five or six folks behind me and two ahead of me. Only a couple of these were renewals, so the ranks of those carrying concealed is growing daily. Here’s a short article with some good tips for those just beginning.

So select the size of your pistol first and foremost, and base it on what you need in order to carry it 24-7, 365 days a year (all the time).

Something to think about, concerning the differences between libertarians and conservatives (esp neo-conservatives). Is Libertarianism Real Conservatism? Give this a read, see what you think.

Considering their new, radical definition, it’s easy to see why Rush and other mainstream conservatives don’t consider libertarians part of their movement — because they’re not. And while it remains to be seen how the irreconcilable differences will play out between limited government libertarians (whose numbers are growing) and big government neoconservatives (whose ideology still dominates), let there be no more ignorance about which philosophy is truly more alien to the historical American conservative movement — and let there be no further delusions about which philosophy was most responsible for creating it.

Did you know that 36% don’t pay any taxes at all now? Actually, when you think about it, it’s worse than that. How many of those 36% actually get cash payments _from_ the government? Spreading the wealth. If you tried to open a restaurant and fed 36% of your “customers” for no charge, how long could YOU stay in business? Here’s a couple of interesting charts on who pays taxes these days.

Well, enough of that.  It’s getting light out.  Time for some fresh eggs and bacon, then load some rifles in the truck and head for the range.  Hope you all have a great day!

From NRO today

Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”
What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

My emphasis. Democrat death panels for babies… truly evil.

The stupid hippies over at the Boise Weekly paid money for this and put it on their cover this week.  I guess that just goes to show, some folks don’t have the sense God gave a goose…

Republican.  That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.  At least not with today’s GOP.  For all their backslapping and good ole boy “we’re gonna win in November” giddiness, there really isn’t enough good ones to make the changes this country desperately needs.  Michelle points that out in her post about Jim Bunning’s efforts to force the Obama administration and the Democrats to make good on their “pay/go” promises.  A valiant but ultimately losing effort, btw.

Sen. Bunning’s move to unmask pay-go hypocrisy has been dismissed by the White House as “irrational.” His GOP colleagues are backing away.

But if Republicans can’t stand up and question the permanent Nanny State and can’t point out the unintended consequences of liberal intentions without folding like card tables, what good are they?

What good, indeed. I note that both of Idaho’s Senators, Crapo and Risch, voted “No”. Thank you gentlemen. No thanks to the 21 “R” Senators that joined the Dems for business as usual.  Jim Bunning is a good man.  Most of the rest are just politicians… liars and cheats.

After all the tough talk from Representative Walt Minnick (D-ID) about not going along with the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Healthcare takeover, I have one question for you all…

what are the odds ol’ “Right For Idaho” Minnick will flip his ‘No’ vote and bring a ‘Yesss’ to the table when the Party asks him to this week?  After all, what’s he got to lose?  His seat?  He wasn’t going to keep it no matter how he voted on this.  Nothing to lose, gonna stick it to the people… like I’ve said before, a good Democrat to the end. 

Right for Idaho, eh?

Tuesday morning Update:  according to an article in the Idaho Statesman this morning

Rep. Walt Minnick of Idaho will not change his vote from no, his spokesman, Dean Ferguson, said Monday night. Minnick had declined to state a position when contacted earlier by the AP.

Somebody pinned him down. One of the commenters on the article suggested he’d change parties and win the seat again. Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.

Hmmm… CNN, eh?

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

Well, with Obama’s approval rating below 50%, and Congress’ rating at 18%, is it any wonder that even CNN is beginning to find a majority of citizens who are more than just a little wary of their government? After all, a supermajority of Americans wants Congress to either scrap the current “healthcare” bill and do nothing (or at least start over), yet the leadership of the majority party is planning to pass it anyway using cheater’s rules and a one vote majority. That’s kinda threatening.

Most Americans are being negatively affected by the economy, yet the government is spending money it doesn’t have, on credit, so recklessly that even the Chinese recognize there is a problem. Yeah, that’s rather threatening as well.

Adding a new dimension to the term “talking points”, the same Administration that castigated Republicans for their “talking points” has set up a “how to call talk radio” webpage. Not even Richard Nixon at his most paranoid thought of using the gullible elements of the American public in such a way. Do you find that threatening?

In perusing some of the left side blogs I find some head scratching going on, and many people questioning “what has the government done to threaten anyone?  I don’t understand where this poll is coming from, the Bush administration was threatening but not this one” blah blah blah.  People, read what the poll was about.  Has the government gotten so large and powerful as to be an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of its citizens?  It didn’t ask what rights you’ve lost, or when your guns were taken away, or anything else.  It simply asked if the government has gotten big enough to be a threat.

Is the government big enough to try to mandate what a citizen must buy?  Is it big and powerful enough to mandate that you participate in its retirement ponzi scheme, which, by the way, would land a non-governmental schemer a long prison sentence?  Is it big enough to punish you for saying or doing “the wrong thing”?  Is it big enough to take away your property and give it to someone else?  Is it powerful enough to demand that sports figures or the CEO of a foreign company go before a kangaroo court to testify and apologize?  Is it powerful enough for an unelected agency to mandate rules and regulations for businesses and citizens alike?  Is it so large now that few even talk about trying make it smaller anymore, they just argue over who gets to steer?

Only 56 percent of the folks answered yes.  That may seem like progress, until you think about it.  But if only 56% recognize the size and power of Leviathan, well, I find THAT threatening.

Caught with his mouth full today, claiming no one has been talking about reconciliation.  Oh really Harry?

(h/t HotAir)

What’s so hard about calling Obama a socialist?  He is.  We were flipping channels the other night and got to see O’Reilly drawing his silly line around the word socialist, and we thought he looked like a fool.  But then, it was O’Reilly, so what did we expect?  Brits and Europeans know it when they see it and they don’t have the same problem calling what it is.

I have a lot of respect for Bill O’Reilly, but to a Brit who has seen his fair share of socialists and lives in a socialist country run by a self-described socialist party by a self-described socialist prime minister who has taken over for another self-described socialist prime minister, it is puzzling why self-described independents like Mr O’Reilly are doing backflips in an attempt to avoid the obvious fact — President Obama is quite clearly a socialist.

All these verbal gymnastics that are used to avoid stating the obvious may be rather humorous for someone watching from over the Atlantic, but for Americans, such delusion is a very serious matter. It is important, not just for the American right, but for the American people as a whole, to realise just exactly who it is they have elected to office.

Time grows short. America isn’t perfect, and never has been, but what it is becoming is a nightmare. I had an octogenarian friend this past summer tell me he was glad he didn’t have to live through what I and his kids were going to see…

Ever have one of those mornings when your eyes pop open an hour earlier than normal?  You lay there in the dark, trying to convince yourself you don’t need to go down the hall to the little room, and you don’t need to get up yet, and you really wanted to sleep in till 6, and…

then your Sweetie says, “Are you awake too?”

Yeah.  One of those mornings.  The dinky dog wasn’t happy with us for waking him up at 4am, and it was too early to wake up the chicks, so we made a big pot and started watching the news.  Oh what a surprise, the soap opera is still going on.  Hmmm.  Wonder what’s on the internet?

CPAC is getting a lot of press, at least on the right side of the web.  So in the midst of all the good and happy talk, it’s essential that someone remind us that the current crop of GOP politicians is the same old pack of, uh, crapweasels politicians that have been there and got us here.  Anyone remember the “Medicare Prescription Drug Program”?  David Paul Kuhn reminds us over at Real Clear Politics

The drug bill episode also included its share of Democratic double standards. Democratic leaders like Harry Reid lecture Republicans today about obstructionist tactics. But Democratic leaders attempted a filibuster and murkier parliamentary maneuvers to kill the Medicare bill.

This is why the drug bill captures both parties’ hypocrisy. It explains why we have millions of conservatives more aligned to the Tea Party movement than to Republicans. It’s why we have more independents than Democrats or Republicans. It’s why a recent CNN poll found nearly two-thirds of Americans want a major third party.
…
Americans crave leaders from both parties, who will sit down together and take the hard stands.

But until those leaders emerge, we will likely suffer the fiscal hypocrites. A Democratic president who said “I don’t” believe in big government in the same 2009 budget address that heralded the return of big government. And we will suffer the Republicans who lecture, “do as I say, not as I do” about spending, without recalling what they did and what they said.

Yes, that quote goes easy on Republicans, but go read the article, there’s plenty of tar and feathers to go around. And while JD is getting plenty of good press right now, it’s good to remind everyone he’s got history too.

Speaking of hypocrisy and being disconnected from the will of the American people, have you heard the one about Obama and bipartisanship?  How about the one about Obama being against cronyism?  Then there’s the bit about understanding health care costs.  Whooboy, it’d be funny, except so far he’s getting away with it.

The Obama administration’s apparent intention to use the “budget reconciliation” process to try to advance its proposed health-care overhaul has shined the spotlight on why it, and the federal government as a whole, should not control what will soon be one-fifth of our economy. Simply put, the president has repeatedly emphasized three problems that must be addressed, while pursuing a course of action that would exacerbate all three. 

Did you hear that the National Enquirer may be up for a Pulitzer for breaking the John Edwards story? I know, me too. But hey, if AlGore can win an Oscar for horsefeathers, and Obama can win a Nobel for nothing, it’s fitting that the Enquirer win a Pulitzer for gossip. Wonder if Matt Drudge has a feeling or two about that? You really didn’t expect any Climategate stories to win, did you?

Speaking of Climategate, despite the fact that sports and gossip is getting all the press right now, the fallout from the exposure of the global warming hoax continues to increase, this time in that nasty marriage of convenience between politicians and big corporations.

It’s hard to tell right now which part of global warming policy is in the fastest free fall — the economics, the politics or the science. The politics seemed to be winning the race yesterday. At least five major U.S. corporations have pulled out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an agglomeration of business and green groups lobbying Washington for climate legislation. High on USCAP’s agenda is a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.

The withdrawal of BP, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar from USCAP is widely seen as another sign that cap and trade, which would allow corporations to buy and sell emissions credits, is losing ground politically.

OK, that’s enough coffee for now. The light is on in the chicken house and there is a light dusting of snow on the deck. Think I’ll start the fire, then head for the kitchen… there’s a bunch of fresh brown eggs in the fridge, a hunk of ham left over from dinner the other night, and some cornbread muffins we made last night. You folks have a great day too.

The criminal fraud that is “man-caused global warming” continues to unravel.  Of course, if your local news outlets are as worthless as the ones we have here in the SW Idaho area you’d never know about it (or about tea party protests, or a whole host of other things).  But, through the magic of AlGore’s internet, which ironically enough is going to be the man’s nightmare, we find sites like Pajamas Media which run articles laying the scam out for all to see.  Assuming of course you’re someone who cares about such things.

There is a financial empire being built on top of AGW, one that we’ve already begun to discuss on PJM. The basics are simple. If you accept that CO2 is the problem, then steps need to be taken to reduce CO2 emissions, which many developed countries have attempted using “cap and trade” schemes. In cap and trade, you use the law to require companies in developed countries to reduce their CO2 emissions, or to buy carbon offsets if they can’t.

Where do carbon offsets come from? Simply enough, some authority must certify that someone else has either reduced their CO2 output, or has agreed not to do something that would increase CO2 output they would otherwise have done. For every ton of CO2 you don’t emit, you get a certificate that you can sell on the carbon market to someone who needs permission — an indulgence — allowing them to emit a ton of CO2.

But what about the details? Who has the authority to certify? And how do you measure CO2 not emitted? The opportunities for graft are vast. There isn’t much that is easier than not building a facility that therefore doesn’t emit CO2. Convince an inspector that you really would have built that facility, or simply that you built a modern efficient plant where you might otherwise have built a dirty inefficient one, and you’re entitled to a credit.

Once you have the carbon credit you need to sell it, which means there must be a market — a role filled in part by the Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX). The CCX, which was started with seed money from both government and private non-profit sources, is most emphatically a for-profit firm that functions like any commodity exchange. If you have a story about the carbon you aren’t emitting and need it certified, the CCX can certify it — for a fee. Then the CCX will help you sell it — for a commission. If you need to buy carbon credits, the CCX will match you up with a buyer — for a fee — and sell you the certificate (and charge you a commission).

All of this is reasonable in theory, because after all what you’re doing is letting the market set a price for the carbon reductions, just as it sets a price for the fuels burned that lead to carbon emissions. In practice, it’s at least utterly opaque — the CCX is a U.S. corporation, but it is wholly owned in England, and draws its ability to act to certify CO2 reductions through a UN-chartered NGO out of Geneva. The principals are people who have banking experience with Goldman Sachs and strong political connections with the Democratic Party, through Chicago and through Al Gore.

It is, of course, purely a coincidence that this market, which simply doesn’t exist without the legal requirement that companies reduce carbon emissions, is closely connected with the politically connected people who are pushing for carbon restrictions by law and treaty.

You know, there is a mythical place called America where once upon a time a slimey fraud like this would have drawn reporters eager to expose the high and mighty, to topple them to the great applause and appreciation of their fellow citizens. In that make believe place brave politicians would have stood their ground and resisted being bought off by the scammers.  But that place doesn’t really exist.  What we really have are pols like John McCain and Newt Gingrich eager to go with the flow (read that “get in line with their hand out”), and a press that praises them for seeing the light and “burnishing their green credentials”.

You’re on your own Buckwheat.

Boise area blogger Adam Graham has a good piece up over at Pajamas Media supporting JD Hayworth over John McCain.  I wholeheartedly agree with him.  I think this year is way past time to send McCain into retirement.  Among the reasons Adam gives is this one

Reason #6: Put the fear of the voters back into Republican senators.

For decades, primaries have been free rides for GOP senators. The last elected Republican incumbent to lose a Senate primary was Jacob Javits. Many Republican senators are out of touch with the party’s base. Republicans have given renomination to every Republican to seek reelection in the past thirty years. Is it then any surprise that they become arrogant and dismissive?

The effect of a McCain defeat or near defeat, coupled with the potential defeat of Utah’s Senator Robert Bennett at the that state’s convention, would send a clear message to senators across the country that they do not own the offices they hold. They might then learn that they will be called to account and replaced if they are not responsive to the party base.

Taking a Senate seat away from a political dynasty like the Kennedys was good to see, but it has to hold true for ALL Senate seats including (especially?) Republican seats. Power corrupts and one needs look no further than the so-called Class of ‘94 to realize how far and fast they fall, how soon they lose what they say are their principles, and how quickly it goes back to being business as usual in Washington. The FedGov didn’t get as big and bloated as it is because of one evil Party. Like Adam says, there is no divine right to a seat in power, be it Republican or Democrat. Those seats don’t belong to you politicians, they belong to the people. And perhaps an even bigger reason to teach that lesson to the politicians is to teach it to the voters as well. Hey people, throw them ALL out!

You gotta love Idaho.  While the world economy and climate goes to hell in a handbasket, Idaho lawmakers find time to deal with the truly important things in life.  Like roadkill. 

BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho lawmaker wants to make it legal to snatch up roadkill, saying letting a dead animal rot on the highway doesn’t make sense if someone can make a few hundred dollars off it.

He’s a Republican. Know how I can tell?  This actually is a job creating bill (a stretch, yes, but hey, this is Idaho).  If he was a Democrat, he’d be trying to figure out a way to get the Boise Mayor’s pet downtown trolley project passed and more funding for public television.