Sibby Online

Another intolerant act from the secular left

David Limbaugh points out another intolerant from teh secular left:

It seems the mainstream media's favorite pastime is to ridicule Sarah Palin. Of all the screeds I've read, I don't think any are snarkier than the Washington Post's Sally Quinn's "On Faith" blog post "Sarah Palin's 'rogue' Christianity."

Do we need further proof of the secular orientation of our dominant media culture than the fact that Quinn, an avowed atheist, pens the Post's "On Faith" blog? That would be like featuring a column by Fidel Castro on free enterprise and individual liberties.

On her mini-bio, Quinn writes: "I announced to my parents when I was 13 that I was an atheist. And I was a committed atheist all of my life. My view was that more evil had been done in the name of religion than anything else in the world. I saw no redeeming value in it at all. Then I met Jon Meacham and we began talking. No, Jon didn't convert me, but he did convince me that religion was not a subject to be dismissed or disdained."

If that's true, why did Quinn devote her entire blog post to dismissing and disdaining Sarah Palin's profession of faith in her book, "Going Rogue"? I must admit, though, it's difficult to tell whether Quinn is motivated more by her disdain for Sarah Palin, whom she has a history of berating, or mainstream Christianity.

Need scientists to be scientist

Looks like many of today's scientists are more political than factual:

Officials at a key global warming research center in the United Kingdom have authenticated a series of e-mails and other documents apparently taken from their computer system by a hacker, but they cannot explain what scientists in internal exchanges meant by references to a "trick" that would "hide the decline" of global temperatures nor by instructions to delete contrary data.

Author James Delingpole writes in a London Telegraph column the most damaging revelations indicate climate-change scientists may have "manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause."

According to the Australian Investigate magazine, the 62 megabyte Zip file with documents, e-mail exchanges and other information from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit apparently was posted by an unidentified hacker on a Russian web server.

One e-mail said: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd (sic) from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Another expressed internal doubts: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."

Further, an e-mail exchange suggested the suppression of information: "Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment – minor family crisis."

"And, perhaps most reprehensibly," Delingpole writes, "a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority."

He cites an e-mail: "This was the danger of always criticizing the skeptics for not publishing in the 'peer-reviewed literature.' Obviously, they found a solution to that – take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board …What do others think?"

Myron Ebell, of the GlobalWarming.org website where "cooler heads prevail," said the e-mails are "shocking."

"Its kind of interesting to learn that petty politics seems to be more prevalent in the scientific community than in the political community," he said.

The documents, he said, "raise a huge number of questions about the integrity of a lot of people in the alarmist community.

"What I've seen there is a very strong effort to manage the issue by scientists and not as a scientific issues. It's very improper," he said. " One of the criticisms is that we need scientists to be scientist, and policy can be handled in public debate."

Natural Law of economics destroys the Progressive agenda

Cory Heidelberger will not accept the truth of Natural Law as applied to economics. Ilana Mercer presents it to argue on behalf of "property rights"...a natural right that Cory has a hard time understanding:

Going against the GOP grain, fleetingly, Dick Armey took on a former Clinton lackey named David Goodfriend on CNBC's "The Kudlow Reports." To make his argument against the encroaching command economy, Armey, who holds a Ph.D. in economics, mentioned that economist Ludwig von Mises had crushed the socialists in the great calculation debate.

Another economist called Bryan Caplan (disapprovingly) parsed the Mises proof thus:

"Government ownership of the means of production renders economic calculation impossible. If the state owns all of the capital goods, there will be no market for capital goods; with no market, no market prices [can arise]; no market prices [means] no way to calculate profit-and-loss. QED."

Far be it from me to expect the media front- men and women of the GOP to understand why the rational allocation of resources in state-run systems is virtually impossible. Even less likely is this cadre to crack open a von Mises or von Hayek volume – or, for that matter, consult WND's Vox Day – for the answers.

But there is no good reason why Republicans can't turn their stuttering attempts around by mastering plain, principled arguments for private property.

Why are privately owned homes cared for and public housing trashed? Why do government-controlled forests burn each year at tremendous costs to the people and property they abut, while privately managed forests are spared? Why did crops rot in the collective farms run by the old Soviet communist system, but not in capitalist, commercial farms?

Government-controlled resources go to seed precisely because they are not privately owned.

Entrusted with the management of assets you don't own, have no stake in – on behalf of millions of people you don't know, don't care about, are unaccountable to and who have no real recourse against your mismanagement except to whine like wimps – how long before your performance plummets?

Property-rights economist Armen A. Alchian unpacks it for us:

"Under socialism, government agents – those whom the government assigns – exercise control over resources. The rights of these agents to make decisions about the property they control are highly restricted. People who think they can put the resources to more valuable uses cannot do so by purchasing the rights because the rights are not for sale at any price. Because socialist managers do not gain when the values of the resources they manage increase, and do not lose when the values fall, they have little incentive to heed changes in market-revealed values. The uses of resources are therefore more influenced by the personal characteristics and features of the officials who control them."

In other words, to the extent that vestiges of private property and its ethics are currently present in health care, these will be supplanted by the collective "wisdom" of central planners like Harry Reid.

Democrats must stop Obamacare to save themselves

Larry Elder makes a great point with a history lesson you will not get in the Progressive's government schools:

"The political risks of failure are pretty high."

A former congressional aide offered this ominous assessment following the House of Representatives' passage of "health-care reform." Warning to the Senate: President Obama and his party face political catastrophe if you fail to do your part so that the president can sign a bill!

Nonsense.

The political risks of success are much, much higher. Taxes would go up – and not just on "the rich." And since "the rich" provide jobs, they would hire fewer people, spend less on their businesses and take fewer risks. Costs would explode beyond government estimates – which conveniently limit the estimated price tag to only the first decade.

Expect insurance companies to deny requests for medical treatment at a greater rate than today. Why? The bill would require insurers to take people with pre-existing illnesses, so denying requests for treatment would be the only potent weapon to reduce costs. And since those with pre-existing illnesses could not be denied coverage, people would simply wait until they required care before getting insurance – only to drop it and risk paying fines once they were treated.

Government eventually will start "controlling costs" by rationing care – denying requests; imposing waiting times for treatment; and withholding treatment from those with "bad" lifestyles (e.g., those who smoke cigarettes or those who fail to exercise and eat "appropriately") and those considered too old to "sufficiently benefit."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, during the Great Depression, launched the New Deal – a blinding array of expansive and expensive government programs designed to "rescue" the economy. Obama, as did FDR, calls this expansion necessary in order to achieve economic recovery. Government expansion – in this case, Obamacare – and economic prosperity supposedly go hand in hand.

Henry Morgenthau served as FDR's treasury secretary. Thus Morgenthau, who served from 1934 to 1945, was to FDR what current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is to Obama. Morgenthau wrote in 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

Political Armageddon if Obamacare fails? No. A recent Rasmussen poll shows more "likely voters" opposed than in favor. Preventing Obama from being Obama is job security for both the president and the congressional Democrats.

Congress should stop the Mohammed trial

Ann Coulter points out the silliness of the diversity nuts, and has a solution, if we still have a separation of powers in DC:

Among the worst aspects of America's "diversity" is that liberals' reaction to a heterogeneous population is to create a pecking order based on alleged victimhood – as described in electrifying detail in my book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America."

In modern America, the guilty are sanctified, while the innocent never stop paying – including with their lives, as they did at Fort Hood this month. Points are awarded to aspiring victims for angry self-righteousness, acts of violence and general unpleasantness.

But liberals celebrate diversity only in the case of superficial characteristics like race, gender, sexual preference and country of origin. They reject diversity when we need it, such as in "diversity" of legal forums.

After conferring with everyone at Zabar's, Obama decided that if a standard civilian trial is good enough for Martha Stewart, then it's good enough for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. So Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is coming to New York!

Mohammed's military tribunal was already under way when Obama came into office, stopped the proceedings and, eight months later, announced that Mohammed would be tried in a federal court in New York.

In a liberal's reckoning, diversity is good when we have both Muslim jihadists and patriotic Americans serving in the U.S. military. But diversity is bad when Martha Stewart and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are subjected to different legal tribunals to adjudicate their transgressions.

Terrorists tried in civilian courts will be entitled to the whole panoply of legal protections accorded Stewart or any American charged with a crime, such as the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, the right to exclude evidence obtained in violation of Miranda rights, the right to a speedy trial, the right to confront one's accusers, the right to a change of venue, the right to examine the evidence against you, and the right to subpoena witnesses and evidence in one's defense.

Members of Congress have it in their power to put an end to this lunacy right now. If they don't, they are as complicit in Mohammed's civilian trial as the president. Article I, Section 8, and Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution give Congress the power to establish the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts and to create exceptions to that jurisdiction.

Congress could pass a statute limiting federal court jurisdiction to individuals not subject to trial before a military tribunal. Any legislator who votes "nay" on a such a bill will be voting to give foreign terrorists the same legal rights as U.S. citizens – and more legal rights than members of the U.S. military are entitled to.

South Dakota governemnt, no longer in retailing

Because of hard economic times, the state government can no longer afford to increase economic activity by selling products made in South Dakota:

The Made In South Dakota Internet site is about to become window shopping only.

The Rounds administration is removing the shopping cart function.

When the change takes effect later this year, consumers no longer will be able to use the state government Web site to directly buy gift certificates and private goods such as jewelry, furniture, food, dŽcor, music and apparel.

The Made In South Dakota pages won't go away, however. Goods still will be on display, but buyers will be on their own to make the purchases through other avenues.

State government's money woes drove the change.

Managing the site and promoting it cost state government about $48,000 annually, according to a spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Economic Development, the agency that runs the site, www.madeinsouthdakota.com.

Of course, we should understand that "free" marketing through government is not a "free market capitalistic" process. Lee Schoenbeck tried to address that:

State government sales of goods came under direct fire in the 2006 session of the Legislature. Leading the charge was Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown.

He sponsored a resolution that sought to put a constitutional amendment on the election ballot that would have limited government sales. He also persuaded the Senate to pass legislation that would have set limits and requirements, but the measure, SB188, was killed in a House committee.

Schoenbeck's efforts were directly opposed by Brent Wilbur, a contract lobbyist for the governor, as well as others. Schoenbeck was supported by the South Dakota Retailers Association and the South Dakota arm of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Why should the taxpayers fund a contract lobbyist for the governor whose purpose is to increase funding that will end up increasing taxes?

ACLU working to free 911 terrorists

The most anti of the anti-Americans has to be the ACLU:

Eric Holder called his decision to try the suspected plotters of 9/11 in New York City “the toughest decision I’ve had to make as attorney general.” It was unarguably the most controversial one. In my opinion, it was also the stupidest one. The decision has rightly received plenty of criticism, but what has not been talked about is the months of lobbying behind closed doors that made this happen. Meanwhile, one of the major players responsible for pushing this is popping the cork and cheering the decision.

That the ACLU cheers this latest attack on American national security is no surprise. After all, they are up to their ears in making sure Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his friends get sprung, although the mainstream media seems to be ignoring the ACLU’s role. I wrote last year at Pajamas Media that the “John Adams Project” would undoubtedly play a role in securing three hots and a cot for Khalid Sheik Mohammed while he awaits his day in an American court:

What is it? In a nutshell, the ACLU has assembled a “Dream Team” of attorneys with an $8.5 million budget to defend terrorists currently held at Guantanamo. Who’s the primary object of the ACLU’s affection? Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

The ACLU, true to form, impugns the professionalism and competence of men and women of infinitely more honor than their accusers by referring to tribunals as a “kangaroo courts.” But could the ACLU really be so scandalized that this mass murderer will stand before a military tribunal? Could the ACLU truly be standing up for his “fundamental rights”?

What is the true purpose of a multi-million-dollar campaign to get KSM off the hook?

The ACLU explains: “The ACLU chose to focus on Mohammed’s defense,” Romero said, because he appears to be “the government’s top priority in the prosecution. And whether or not they are able to convict Khalid Sheik Mohammed under these rules may well determine the fate of the almost 300 other men who are detained at Guantanamo.”

So that’s it. The ACLU wants to set KSM and 300 other terrorists free or at least make it impossible for the tribunals to serve their function. Because KSM is the worst of the worst, because he is the terrorist in custody most responsible for 9/11, the ACLU is his champion.

So is it really any surprise that the ACLU would be reaching around to pat itself on the back? This is a major victory for the organization.  The rest of America should pause and consider the Pandora’s box that has been opened. Extremist groups like the American Civil Liberties Union are willfully plowing full speed ahead on dangerous roads with blinders on. Sadly, we are governed by individuals influenced and swayed by such groups.

Big government, Democrats just do it quicker

Walter E. Williams also understands that both political parties favor big government:

Last Tuesday, I had the pleasurable task of being master of ceremonies for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation dinner in Washington, D.C., that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Founded in 1981, the Atlas Foundation assists the formation of free-market think tanks around the world to spread the ideas of personal liberty, private property rights and limited government. So far, they have been successful in at least 70 countries. Attending the two-day celebration were think-tank representatives from many of these countries, including those from Croatia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, South Korea, Russia and Brazil.

Alan Kors, University of Pennsylvania history professor, gave the evening's keynote address. What he revealed about the dereliction and character weakness of academics, intellectuals, media elites and politicians is by no means complimentary, but worse than that, dangerous. Professor Kors said that over the years, he has frequently asked students how many deaths were caused by Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong and their successors. Routinely, they gave numbers in the thousands. Kors says that's equivalent to saying the Nazis are responsible for the deaths of just a few hundred Jews. But here's the record: Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 20 million of their own people and those in nations they conquered. Between 1917 and 1983, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Zedong and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese.

Professor Kors asks, why are the horrors of Nazism so well-known and widely condemned, but not those of socialism and communism? For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers. How much hunting down and seeking punishment for Stalinist and Maoist murderers has there been? In Europe, especially Germany, hoisting the swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. It's acceptable to hoist and march under a flag emblazoned with the former USSR's hammer and sickle. Even in the U.S., it's acceptable to praise mass murderers, as Anita Dunn, President Obama's communications director, did in a commencement address for St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral where she said Mao was one of her heroes. Whether it's the academic community, the media elite or politicians, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism – a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.

Academics, media elites and leftist politicians both in the U.S. and Europe protested the actions and military buildup of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet Union. Recall the leftist hissy fit when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and predicted that communism would wind up on the trash heap of history.

Professor Alan Kors did not say this, but the reason why the world's leftists give the world's most horrible murderers a pass is because they sympathize with their socioeconomic goals, which include government ownership and/or control over the means of production. In the U.S., the call is for government control, through regulations, as opposed to ownership. Unfortunately, it matters little whether there is a Democrat- or Republican-controlled Congress and White House; the march toward greater government control continues. It just happens at a quicker pace with Democrats in charge.

South Dakota government's financial health analysis

The Pew Center has this interesting study:

 South Dakota's state government might be in relatively better shape financially than most states throughout the nation, but a new national report indicates South Dakota is in worse shape than all but one of its neighbors.

The financial-health report distributed earlier this month by the Pew Center on the States gave South Dakota a rating of 12, on a scale of 0 to 30 with 30 the worst. The ratings were based on state governments' financial conditions as of July 31.

By comparison, five of the six states around South Dakota received better ratings: North Dakota, 9; Montana, 9; Wyoming, 6; Nebraska, 7; Iowa, 7; and Minnesota, 15.

Texas, with a rating of 9, was the only other state in single digits.

Worst was California at 30. Others in the twenties were Arizona, 28; Rhode Island, 28; Michigan, 27; Oregon, 26; Nevada, 26; Florida, 25; New Jersey, 23; Wisconsin, 22; Illinois, 22; Colorado, 21; Georgia, 21; Kentucky, 21; Washington, 20; Mississippi, 20; Maine, 20; and New York, 20.

The ratings were based on percentage change in revenue; percentage of budget gap, change in unemployment rate, foreclosure rate, whether a supermajority (two-thirds or larger) is necessary in the Legislature for tax increases, and what's called the GPP money grade.

Wht is with the "whether a supermajority (two-thirds or larger) is necessary in the Legislature for tax increases" factor? Why can't reducing spending to balance the budget be a valid, and perhaps even teh best method to gix a government's financial problems.

Cellulosic ethanol cost $2.35

Using more expensive forms of energy will injure an economy. Such is the case with renewable fuels:

Poet LLC, the nation's top ethanol producer, says it is has reduced its cellulosic ethanol production cost during the past year from $4.13 per gallon to $2.35 per gallon.

The Sioux Falls-based company plans to produce 25 million gallons of ethanol each year from plant waste typically left behind in farmers' fields at its corn ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa.

A pilot-scale plant in Scotland, S.D., has produced about 20,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol since it began operations a year ago Wednesday.

Privately held Poet says it has reached the cost savings by reducing energy usage, enzyme costs, raw material requirements and capital expenses.

Progressive left violently attacks Tea Party members

Remember how Obama used his power and fear-mongering against Tea Party members?  Now members of his communist movement are the ones allegedly guilty of violence:

Che Guevara supporters with a radical pro-amnesty coalition viciously attacked and bludgeoned tea party protesters at a Florida anti-illegal-immigration rally, including a 62-year-old man who was beaten and kicked in the face.

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC called for "Tea Parties Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration" to form quickly across the nation on Nov. 14. In less than 30 days, protests were scheduled for more than 50 towns and cities.

But two Fort Lauderdale, Fla., tea party protesters were brutally beaten by pro-amnesty activists on the day of the nationwide rally as they attempted to film Florida's Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition counterprotest.

ANSWER members carried Che Guevara signs and other black and yellow placards that stated "Full rights for all immigrants." They shouted, "Amnesty yes, racists no!"

As the two men attempted to film the protest, an ANSWER member in a black tanktop and blue jeans lunged after one of the cameramen and beat him with a sign, pushing him into traffic. Another ANSWER member in a white T-shirt attacked the same cameraman while the victim defended himself with what appears to be a camera tripod.

A female tea party protester began screaming as Dave Caulkett of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement and the initial ANSWER attacker fought in the middle of the street.

The following is a video of the attack released by ALIPAC:

"Supporters of President Obama's amnesty plans attacked Tea Party Against Amnesty & Illegal Immigration demonstrators in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009. One of the men attacked is 62 years old," ALIPAC reported. "Dave Caulkett of FLIMEN is assaulted and then kicked in the face while he is down. The other cameraman from the tea party is hit with several signs."

Progressive's ideology will bring a Ceasar

So says Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson:

The source of the problem is democracy. Decades of so-called “progressive” thought have led us to abandon the limited-government, constitutional republic established by our founding fathers. In the name of putting more power into the hands of "the people," the government has arrogated sweeping powers.

There is a famous passage (possibly cobbled together from several separate statements and authors) that explains democracy’s fatal flaw, the inherently self-destructive element that caused our founding fathers to distrust democracy (google “James Madison on democracy” for more):

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

Crude, majoritarian democracy (as in, “there are more of us than there are of you, so we’re going to redistribute your wealth”) inevitably undermines the harmony of society. A free market, as competitive as it is, is based on peaceful, voluntary cooperation. When commerce is free and unfettered by government interference, both sides to a transaction normally gain, thereby promoting social harmony.

Democracy, by contrast, engenders social conflict. Money changes hands by force of the taxman and the threat of imprisonment, not voluntarily. Democracy pits citizens against each other in a sordid squabble whereby many strive to have the state confer benefits seized from their fellow citizens.

Today, Washington redistributes trillions of dollars annually, so the capital is swarmed by battalions of lobbyists, representing myriad special interests, each trying to secure more political rent from government than what government takes from them. As the late, great economist Hans Sennholz described it, the democratic "transfer society" resembles the absurd spectacle of a circle of people, each trying to pick his neighbor’s pocket. How can there be social harmony when everyone is trying to rip off someone else?

This process of using government to extract wealth from other citizens (dubbed “legal plunder” by the 19^th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat in his brilliant essay, “The Law”) has reached the point where Uncle Sam is essentially bankrupt. (See “We’re Broke.”) With government spending and deficits soaring under the present administration, the day of reckoning approaches. If foreigners should decide to cut their losses and balk at financing any more of our debt, either interest rates will soar, collapsing the economy, or the Fed will monetize all the debt, collapsing the dollar and the economy.

Can that day of cataclysm be postponed? Perhaps the wealth-redistribution system can be kept on life support a while longer, if government can confiscate a much larger share of the middle class’ wealth (yes, the middle class, because there aren’t enough rich people to finance all of Uncle Sam’s promises) or by dramatically slashing benefits.

When that momentous day arrives, there will be a lot of angry Americans. One might say that the so-called “social contract” will be broken, but the problem is, there isn’t just one such “contract.” There are two, and they are fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed to each other.

One “contract” is the government’s long-standing promise to support those in need. Many Americans have been taught to believe that they are entitled to a share of other people’s property, even if they have contributed nothing of value to society themselves and have made poor choices. The other social “contract” is the traditional implicit promise of America: namely, that if you work hard, you are entitled to the fruits of your labor.

When a financial crackup occurs, those who have been taught to depend on government will demand continued government benefits. If government fails to provide them, those demands could turn violent. On the other hand, if government moves to confiscate a significant chunk of whatever wealth remains in the hands of an already-hurting middle class, then millions of peaceful, law-abiding, hard-working Americans may finally reach the breaking point and rebel, as our forebears did in the 1770s, against a government viewed as abusive and oppressive.

How bad could it get? If the social order breaks down, civil unrest could disrupt markets and shortages of essential goods could occur. The resulting chaos could trigger martial law. A strong leader—a Caesar—could institute some sort of command order. Millions would resent it, but it would be accepted, because the alternative—civil conflict, chronic disorder, and impending starvation—would be intolerable. In such a calamity, Caesar would be the lesser of two evils. The American Republic and Constitution would join earlier democracies in the ashbin of history.

God help us.

Independents being pushed to teh right, thanks to Obama

Dennis Prager has noticed how Obama's actions over the last year have pused Indepndents to the right:

In half a year, there has been a 23 percent shift from Democrats to Republicans among independent voters. And nothing particularly bad had occurred – no further economic meltdown, no terrorist attack from abroad (the poll preceded the Fort Hood attack).

Now Americans see the left's policies for what they are:

1. The left wants America to abandon its defining commitment to individualism and replace it with a European-style nanny, or welfare, state. At most Americans' core is an abiding belief that we are supposed to take care of ourselves, our families and our neighbors, and not rely on the state to do so.
   
   
2. The left is naive about evil. Most Americans deemed communism evil; the left ridiculed President Ronald Reagan for calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and often undermined the fight against the communist world. So, too, the left is naive about Islamic terror and undermines the fight against it.

   The smoking gun was the nearly universal denial by the left that his Islamic beliefs had anything to do with Maj. Nidal Hasan's mass murder of fellow servicemen at Fort Hood. One of many examples was this reaction to the shootings by Evan Thomas, editor at large at Newsweek: "I think he's probably just a nut case. But with that label (Muslim) attached to him, it will get the right wing going. ..."

3. The left is more interested in redistributing wealth than in creating it. This should have been as obvious to Americans as the brightness of the sun. Finally, Americans are coming to realize that the left's goal is now, as it always has been, equality, not prosperity.

4. The left is far more interested in power than the right is. This, too, should have been self-evident, but finally, people are realizing that those who are preoccupied with creating an ever-expanding state are obviously far more interested in amassing power than those who want a smaller state.
   
   
5. The left is preoccupied with America being loved, and in pursuit of that end, compromises some of America's core values. Examples abound here, too. To cite a few: the Obama administration's neglect of those in Iran risking their lives for freedom in that tyranny; the administration's refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan leader visited Washington, lest the president annoy China's dictators; the American government siding with Hugo Chavez against the Honduran government, which had legally removed a Chavez clone from the Honduran presidency; and the president's obsequious apologies for America wherever he goes.

A motto of my radio show and of my life is "Clarity is our friend." It is certainly so here. Clarity about the left will be a blessing to America.

The negative impact of Green Jobs

The po0litical game of bragging about job creation seldom talks about teh jobs lost. Example...Big Stone 2. Cory Heidelberger and his big-government control freaks celebrate this:

Developers have announced that Big Stone II, a 1.6 billion dollar coal plant scheduled to go up near Milbank, South Dakota will not be built.

The Big Stone II project would have caused hundreds of millions of dollars to circulate in the Milbank area. Some business owners made plans based on those figures.

Dave Forrette is a Grant County commissioner and owns the Millstone restaurant, a business he couldn't wait to watch benefit from Big Stone II.

"As a businessman in the community it's not just disappointing, it's devastating to not have this project come in. The economic impact would have been immeasurable."

Dave says the tax base generated by Big Stone II would have been great for the area.

"Every place up and down Main Street was looking forward to this. Then you turn that money over that they would have been spending seven times. It's huge."

Porkulus adds to state bureaucracy

When the weak say that we get more from the federal governemtn than what we pay in, we should subtract our cost of implementing the federal programs, such as the state Department of Education. That issue is brewing in regard to Porkulus:

South Dakota Auditor General Marty Guindon wants to hire two more auditors he has said are needed to meet federal requirements for reviewing spending on stimulus projects and other state programs.

But Republican state Rep. Larry Tidemann of Brookings, who is the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said he will not support adding the auditors because it's state policy to use the stimulus money without increasing spending to manage the projects.

"We have told people we would not expand state government to meet the demands of the stimulus program," said Tidemann.

The Legislature's Executive Board, which handles administrative duties for the South Dakota Legislature, told Guindon on Monday that he can ask for the additional auditors when next year's state budget is compiled. Board members said the decision will be up to the Legislature's Appropriations Committee, which writes the budget.

Tidemann also is a member of the Executive Board.

Guindon said the Legislative Audit Department needs an additional staff member to meet requirements for auditing stimulus projects. Another auditor would help the department meet federal deadlines for auditing regular state programs that use federal funds, he said.

The two auditors would cost a total of $104,000 a year, Guindon said.