We The Informed People

I recognize that my blog is amateur at best and will probably not ever be quoted on any nightly news but I do think that the things I write about are important. Many citizens don't even try to keep up with politics and policy because it is so mixed with bias and there is so much going on. We the people, however, need to be informed or our country cannot function and more of our rights will slowly be taken away by US GOVT INC.
In my blog I try to distill the main important parts in order to help the people. Please spread my blog to those who need to be informed. That means everyone. I thank you but you should thank you for helping other citizens to know what is going on in their own country.

A Note on Stimulus

The Big Lie: "I know that there are a lot of folks out there who've been saying, 'Oh, this is pork, and this is money that's going to be wasted,' and et cetera, et cetera. Understand, this bill *does not have a single earmark in it*, which is unprecedented for a bill of this size. ... There aren't individual pork projects that members of Congress are putting into this bill." --Barack Obama
But . . . (note--Some of these may be worthy projects, but they are not economic stimulus.)
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$300 million for grants to combat violence against women
$2 billion for federal child-care block grants
$6 billion for university building projects
$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
$150 million for the Smithsonian
$34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
$500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities
$44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
$350 million for Agriculture Department computers
$88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building
$448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
$600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
$450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
$600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
$1 billion for the Census Bureau
$4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
$850 million for Amtrak
$87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
$1.7 billion for the National Park System
$55 million for Historic Preservation Fund
$7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”
$150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases
$150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”
$2 billion for renewable-energy research ($400 million for global-warming research)
$2 billion for a “clean coal” power plant in Illinois
$6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
$3.5 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants
$3.4 billion for the State Energy Program
$200 million for state and local electric-transport projects
$300 million for energy-efficient-appliance rebate programs
$400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments
$1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries
$1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees
$8 billion for innovative-technology loan-guarantee program
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
$4.5 billion for electricity grid//Summary://
$79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (to give money to large, irresponsible big-spending states with Democratic constituencies: "At best, we’re just shifting money around from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, robbing a relatively prudent Cheyenne to pay an incontinent Albany. If we want more ants and fewer grasshoppers, let the prodigal governors get a little hungry.") --"50 De-Stimulating Facts" National Review Online Feb. 5, 2009

Thoughts of the Day 7

From Wolfshield:
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"The amount of money involved [in the stimulus bill] is staggering. With 90 million tax filers who actually pay taxes, the $787 billion means the average taxpayer will pay over $8,700. By itself, adding $8,700 to the average tax bill should get every one's attention. But that is on top of everything else that we are spending this year. ...[T]his year's deficit is already at about $1.7 trillion -- almost $19,000 per taxpayer." --economist John Lott

"Never have so few spent so much so quickly to do so little." --Rep. Tom Cole, R-OKLA

"[Obama] achieved more of his aims in this single legislation than many presidents will achieve in an entire term. I mean there's more new net public investment here on things the Democrats consider essential for long-term growth like education, scientific research, alternative energy, than Bill Clinton was able to achieve in two terms." --Atlantic Media's Ronald Brownstein

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson

"[I]f you thought 'change' meant getting competent and honest people with no ties to special interests into influential government positions, you can now consider yourself suckered. I put the lesson this way: you vote for a Wizard, but you get a man behind a curtain." --columnist Randall Hoven

"You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer." --Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"[W]hat could possibly be more reckless than spending a trillion dollars you don't have on a plan that you have no evidence will work? What could be more irresponsible than doubling the generational debt for your partisan pet projects in a time of crisis? And what could be more selfish than stifling debate by deploying fear to induce voters into supporting it all?" --columnist David Harsanyi

Constitutional Rights Use Permit

So I was watching Glen Beck on Fox News (which happens to be one of the best, most worthwhile things on television today) and he was talking about how in Illinois if you own a firearm (or in order to buy one) you must have a registered State firearm ID card. In other words: in order to exercise your 2nd amendment rights as guaranteed and enumerated by the Constitution of the United States of America, you must obtain a permit. Scary? I think so.
Glen Beck was also talking about how somewhere in the works (I apologize for not having more certain details and citations) there is a law that would require you to have a $1 million insurance policy that would be used in case you or an one else accidentally or purposefully harms someone with your gun. One of the biggest problems with this ridiculous piece of legislation is that NO ONE carries this type of policy for purchase.
Not only will you need a permit (in Illinois) but an insurance policy in order to use your constitutional rights. We the people should be appalled and sobered at what is happening in this country.

Obama is up to something

My cousin sent me this article. It is from Fox News. Apparently Obama is attempting to take some control of the U.S. census. According to the article there are a number of different ways that messing with the census could affect the power in our government. It is subtle and sneaky and I don't like where it could go. The census gives government the official picture of who we the people are. If that view is skewed terrible things can happen.
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Utah's congressional delegation is calling President Obama's decision to move the U.S. census into the White House a purely partisan move and potentially dangerous to congressional redistricting around the country.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told FOX News on Monday that he finds it hard to believe the Obama administration felt the need to place re-evaluation of the inner workings of the census so high on his to-do list, just three weeks into his presidency.

"This is nothing more than a political land grab," Chaffetz said.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the move "shouldn't happen." He and Chaffetz are trying to rally Republicans "before its too late."

"It takes something that is supposedly apolitical like the census, and gives it to a guy who is infamously political," Bishop said of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who would be tasked with overseeing the census at the White House.

The U.S. census -- a counting of the U.S. population -- is conducted every 10 years by the Commerce Department. Its results determine the decennial redrawing of congressional districts

As a matter of impact, the census has tremendous political significance. Political parties are always eager to have a hand in redrawing districts so that they can maximize their own party's clout while minimizing the opposition, often through gerrymandering.

The census also determines the composition of the Electoral College, which chooses the president. If one party were to control the census, it could arguably try to perpetuate its hold on political power.

The results of the census are also enormously important in another way -- the allocation of federal funds. Theoretically, a political party could disproportionately steer federal funding to areas dominated by its own members through a skewing of census numbers.

At this point the White House doesn't seem willing to say what Emanuel's role will be in overseeing the census, and White House officials say census managers will work closely with top-level White House staffers, but will technically remain part of the Commerce Department.

But critics say the White House chief of staff can't be expected to handle the census in a neutral manner. Emanuel ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 election, and he was instrumental in getting Democrats elected into the majority.

"The last thing the census needs is for any hard-bitten partisan (either a Karl Rove or a Rahm Emanuel) to manipulate these critical numbers. Many federal funding formulas depend on them, as well as the whole fabric of federal and state representation. Partisans have a natural impulse to tilt the playing field in their favor, and this has to be resisted," Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told FOX News in an e-mail.

Critics note that the method of counting can skew the census. Democrats have long advocated using mathematical estimates, a practice known as "sampling," to count urban residents and immigrants. Republicans say the Constitution requires a physical head count, which entails going door-to-door.

In 2000, Utah, which has three congressmen, was extremely close to landing a fourth House seat based on U.S. Census numbers, but the nation's most conservative state fell short by a few hundred votes because the Census Bureau wouldn't count Mormon missionaries from Utah serving temporarily overseas.

The GOP took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Utah leaders had hoped the 2010 census would rectify the problem, but now worry that they will lose again if the census is managed by partisans.

When Obama nominated New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to be commerce secretary -- he was later forced to withdraw -- he indicated that Richardson would be in charge of the census.

The decision to move the census into the White House was announced just days after Obama named New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican, to be his commerce secretary. Gregg has long opposed "sampling" by the census and has voted against funding increases for the bureau.

Sabato said moving the census "in-house" will likely set up a situation where neither the Commerce Department nor the White House will know exactly what is going on in the Census Bureau. He said the process is "too critical to politics for both parties not to pay close attention."

"I've always remembered what Joseph Stalin said: 'Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.' The same principle applies to the census. Since one or the other party will always be in power at the time of the census, it is vital that the out-of-power party at least be able to observe the process to make sure it isn't being stacked in favor of the party in power. This will be difficult for the GOP since I suspect Democrats will control both houses of Congress for the entire Obama first term," Sabato said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/09/gop-sounds-alarm-obama-decision-census-white-house/

Thoughts for the Day 6

From Wolfshield:
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"A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him." --Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

"You know how Congress is. They'll vote for anything if the thing they vote for will turn around and vote for them. Politics ain't nothing but reciprocity." --Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the House of Representatives to pass a bill spending $820 billion -- or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate. Only 10 percent of the 'stimulus' [is] to be spent on 2009. Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ (or both) members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions or other Democrat-controlled unions. This bill is sent to Congress after President Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long. According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote. Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for the president to have read the whole thing. For the amount spent, we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000. We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000. There has been pork-barrel politics since there has been politics, but the scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before -- and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation. ... This is more than pork-barrel -- this is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day. Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible government is only a distant echo of our forgotten ancestors." --Ben Stein

"When moralizing conservatives get caught, say, cheating on their wives or challenging stall mates to robust Greco-Roman wrestling in airport bathrooms, liberals justifiably howl at the hypocrisy of it all. When liberals fail to pay taxes it's merely, to borrow an old catchphrase from Daschle, 'sad and disappointing,' but ultimately not that big a deal. If Democrats are serious about their arguments for raising taxes, shouldn't they be downright giddy about paying what they already owe? And shouldn't they loathe tax cheating more than anything?" --columnist Jonah Goldberg

"Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs. I don't think we can go fast enough." --Nancy Pelosi (Um--pardon?)

"I didn't come here to be partisan, I didn't come here to be bipartisan. I came here ... to be nonpartisan, to work for the American people, to do what is in their interest." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

"For those on the right who still cling to the fantasy that Obama is a bipartisan centrist, I refer you to his recent statement that FDR did not do enough by way of government spending to end the Depression ... and his government-expansion-on-

steroids, non-stimulus pork bill. The inevitable explosion of federal debt this legislation would cause is reason enough to oppose it, even if it were likely to stimulate the economy. But even some liberals are disputing its potential to stimulate. The hastily crafted bill, with its corrupt funding of ACORN and other favors, is a disgracefully irresponsible effort to expand the public sector, diminish the private sector, empower the autocrats, and further divest us of our individual liberties -- all at the expense of present and future generations." --David Limbaugh

Hail to the . . . uh . . .

So, the first time Pres. Obama was sworn in there was a mess up during the presidential oath. The powers that be decided to swear him in again but apparently the second time he did not have his hand on a bible. So . . . how is he president? If he did not swear on the bible to uphold the constitution of the USA then how is he in the white house?