WELCOME TO THE NEW BANANA REPUBLIC

What an incredible headline: "US, Venezuela to restore envoys".
The United States and Venezuela are to reinstate ambassadors to each other's capitals following tit-for-tat expulsions last year.
Officials in Caracas and Washington confirmed the decision, which follows an easing of tension since President Barack Obama came to office.
That was the lead in a news item on BBC News this afternoon.

Yes, I know, it's shocking...but not surprising in view of the recent friendly exchange between Barack and Hugo. At the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, President Chavez presented Barack Obama with a gift of a book: "The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano".

The book is widely considered the bible of the Latin American left. That's all Obama needs...more radical, far-left propaganda. Well, I'm sure he hasn't been getting nearly as much of that since he left Reverend (?) Wright's church.

Now our illustrious President (or should I say el Presidente'?) is ready to play patty-cake with the tin-horn dictator from Venezuela. Yes, the same one who denigrated President Bush by referring to him as the devil, when he made his speech at the United Nations. I'm sure you remember..."el Diablo spoke in this room yesterday...you can still smell the sulphur".

Chavez is a man who has done nothing but voice his disdain toward the United States.
He comes to our country and shows nothing but hatred and disrespect for our former President, while we allow him to exercise the same freedom of speech we, as Americans, enjoy. I have to ask a rhetorical question..."could any American get away with that same type of behavior in Venezuela?" I doubt it.

But now, Hugo and Barack apparently are going to be BFF's!

I have nothing else to say about this situation, and really don't have any major discussion on my mind, except to let everyone know what Mr. Obabma is up to and that it is deplorable for the President of the United States to bend over and take it like this on behalf of all of us.

CASH FOR CLUNKERS? THE ONLY CLUNKER IS THE BILL ITSELF.

What a concept! "CASH FOR CLUNKERS"...on the surface, this looks like a pretty good deal, but we really have to stop and think about the plan.

Officially Called the Consumer Assistance Recycle and Save Act of 2009, or as we've come to know it, “Cash for Clunkers,” the program will cost the tax-payers $1 billion and will provide a voucher of up to $4,500 to help offset the cost of new car purchases or leases over the next five months.

The purchaser will present the voucher to the dealer who will in turn receive an electronic payment from the feds(actually, from us). This program will apply to cars purchased or leased between July 1st and November 1st of this year.
There are, of course, some stipulations as to what kind of mileage the new car gets; in order to qualify, the "clunker" has to have a fuel economy rating of no more than 18 MPG (combined city and highway ratings), and the new car has to have a fuel efficiency rating of at least 22 MPG (18 MPG for pickups and SUV's) and get at least 4 MPG more than the "clunker".

That's not that much of an improvement, considering the 35.5 MPG CAFE Standard just passed, and with such a slight MPG improvement requirement, are we really accomplishing anything?

Sure we are! But it has nothing to do with the environment. It will help the auto manufacturers get people into the new Obamamobiles (you know, the expensive death traps we've discussed before).

It will also do one other thing: it will adversely affect the economy. Now you may ask "how will it do that?".
Remember when the feds said everybody deserved the "American Dream" and forced lenders to make sub-prime mortgage loans to people who couldn't afford to make the payments?

Well, we are about to create a sub-prime auto loan environment. Now with a $3500- $4500 voucher in hand, consumers are going to go out and buy cars they can't afford to pay for.

Think about it. Why do people drive "clunkers" in the first place? The answer to that is really quite simple: THEY CAN'T AFFORD A NEW CAR!

We are about to see car repo's on the same scale we are seeing home foreclosures because Obama claims this new fiasco will clean-up the environment and conserve fuel.

A person with a modicum of intelligence or common sense can figure out that it will do very little to accomplish either of those things.
So as it turns out, this is just another "Obamanation".

CAFE' STANDARDS...NOTHING TO DO WITH WHERE NOT TO EAT!

Well, talk about contradictions! On one hand, Obama says he wants to see the automobile industry recover from its slump and survive...on the other hand, he seems to be doing everything he can to flush it down the toilet.
The only segment of the industry that could possibly be helped by the new 35.5 mpg requirement would be the Yugo...but they quit making it years ago. Why? Nobody wanted the damn things because, even though they got great mileage, they putt'ed along the highway (assuming you had the courage..no, stupidity, to try to operate it at highway speeds), and folded like aluminum foil in a collision.
Now Obama is telling the auto manufacturers that they have to build the American equivalent of Yugos, completely ignoring the fact that a car like that is not what the American motoring public wants. In order to achieve the newly required mileage, the new cars would have to be considerably lighter, with smaller, less powerful engines, making them more likely to be involved in an accident and the occupants less likely to survive. These new "energy efficient" death traps will cost the consumer, on average, $1,300 more to purchase. A lot to pay for a vehicle greatly inferior to today's automobiles.
Environmentalists claim that the new standards will reduce carbon-dioxide tailpipe emissions by 30% by 2016. However, increasing fuel efficiency reduces the per-mile cost of operating a vehicle, which in turn increases the number of miles driven, thereby negating, or reducing any benefit gained from the new CAFE' standards. According to auto club statistics, between 1970-2001, the US made cars almost 50% more efficient, but the average number of miles a person drives doubled. So, we in effect, do nothing to decrease carbon-dioxide emissions entering the atmosphere, and put the American motorist at far greater risk of injury and death.
Americans will be paying more for cars and continuing to die in ever-greater numbers on the road, all for a reduction of less than one-half of one percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. It almost seems as though hardcore tree-huggers want to save the planet by killing people, but are only accomplishing the killing part.
As an aside, the higher price of these new "ObamaMobiles" will cause lower income people to continue to drive their existing lower mileage, higher emissions cars...but wait!!
What a surprise...the Democratic Congress is already considering a "cash-for-clunkers" program to encourage trade-ins. The "cash-for-clunkers" program will help the Democrats patch the flaw in the plan, but will also help save UAW jobs so that the Auto Workers Union members can continue to vote (and we know how they vote).
Besides, forcing the poor into the ObamaMobile will kill more people, but that doesn't seem to be a concern...it's been shown for years that dead people tend to vote Democratic!

We must STOP THE MADNESS!

GUN PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK

Once again, our elected leaders (?) are trying to push through their anti-gun legislation. This is HR-45 "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009".
Now, you may ask, "who is Blair Holt?". Blair Holt was a 16-year old Chicago high school student who was tragically murdered on May 10, 2007 when a teen gang-banger opened fire on a city bus. Young Blair was on his way to school. He was a model student, a good kid, and not involved with any of Chicago's youth gangs. The gun used to kill Blair was illegally obtained in spite of Chicago's strict gun control law. A law that contains many of the same provisions as HR-45.
The Chicago city law is one of the toughest regulations in the country concerning gun ownership, posession, and registration.
Chicago Municipal Code § 8-20-040(a) mandates that;

All firearms in the City of Chicago shall be registered in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. It shall be the duty of a person owning or possessing a firearm to cause such firearm to be registered. No person shall within the City of Chicago, possess, harbor, have under his control . . . or accept any firearm unless such person is the holder of a valid registration certificate for such firearm. No person shall, within the City of Chicago, possess, harbor, have under his control . . . or accept any firearm which is unregisterable under the provisions of this chapter.

37. Chicago Municipal Code § 8-20-050 provides: “No registration certificate shall be issued for any of the following types of firearms: . . .(c) handguns . . .” While Section 8-20-050(c) provides exceptions for certain handguns owned prior to the law’s effective date, and handguns owned by police officers, security personnel, and private detectives, the provision, in conjunction with Section 8-20-040, generally bars the private home possession of handguns by law-abiding adult citizens.

38. Chicago Municipal Code § 8-20-090(a) provides: “A registration certificate shall be obtained prior to any person taking possession of a firearm from any source.”

39. Chicago Municipal Code § 8-20-200 provides:

(a) Every registrant must renew his registration certificate annually. Applications for renewal shall be made by such registrants 60 days prior to the expiration of the current registration certificate.

(b) The application for renewal shall include the payment of a renewal fee as follows:

1 firearm . . . . $20.00; 2-10 firearms . . . . 25.00; More than ten firearms . . . . 35.00

(c) Failure to comply with the requirement for renewal of registration of a firearm shall cause that firearm to become unregisterable.

In addition to the Chicago City Ordinance, the State of Illinois requires possessing firearms or ammunition to have a 'Firearms Owner's Identification Card" which is issued by the State Police.

More about Blair Holt's death: Young Blair's death is being used by our overzealous lawmakers
to sell this legislation to gullible Americans. Blair Holtt has been reduced to a symbol being used to take firearms away from law-abiding citizens. Blair was much more than that, and his tragic death should not be used this way....Blair Holt was a HERO...he stepped in front of a schoolmate to protect her from the scumbag with the illegal handgun...an act that saved another's life but lost his. Blair Holt deserves better treatment than to be used in this way.

Blair Holt's name needs to be remembered as that of a hero...he was not a Congressional Bill.

If you value your rights under the 2nd amendment, you need to speak out. Call you Senators and Congressmen. This bill has to be shut-down.

I WANT 3 VOLUNTEERS..YOU, YOU, & YOU...

My title line about 3 volunteers comes from an old Army joke....but now it applies to our nation under the dubious leadership of Barack Obama...and IT IS NO JOKE.
Okay, so the Congress has passed the G.I.V.E. act (Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education), HR 1388 and passed it on to the Senate. Now the Senate has renamed it the "Serve America Act, S 277, and they have passed it.
There are still some good guys in the Senate...Senator David Vitter [R-LA] offered an amendment to the bill which would have stated that "no funds within the underlying bill for various service-related programs can go to “ACORN or any of its affiliate organizations in any way.”ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It’s a community organizing group for “low- and moderate-income people” according to its website.The group’s political committees generally support Democrats. Senator Vitter's amendment was killed by a vote of 53 to 43.
On the other hand, I am disappointed in our NC Senator Richard Burr, who, rather than voting to kill the bill, introduced an amendment to require an FBI Background Check on every volunteer. The way I understand the bill, everyone will be required to volunteer in some way, so there will be an FBI file on everyone. Fortunately, Senator Burr's amendment was not passed.
The following is an excerpt from the blog of Axis of the Right, conservative watchdog group:
The House of Representatives passed the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act (GIVE), creating a mandate for community service among high school and college students. The bill spends $6 billion on beefing up government-paid and sponsored national service programs, and paves the way for future mandatory service by establishing a commission to explore the feasibility of such a plan. The stated goal of the Obama Administration is to require service programs in secondary schools, as well as for a period of three months to a year of service before, during, or after one’s college education.

Leaving aside the already talked about civilian socialist army comparisons, expanding government’s role in the business of community service is a bad idea for several reasons. First, it places a mandate on what should be a “volunteer” activity. Community service is a wonderful thing, but it is and should be the result of volunteering or goodwill on the part of participants. Second, coordination of such efforts are best applied at the local level. The Federal Government has not demonstrated an ability to run anything efficiently, and a national mandatory community service program for ALL young people has the potential to grow into an enormous bureaucracy that can never be effectively managed. Finally, and probably most ominously, the service mandate would do severe harm to organized religion and move our nation to a more secular society. The bill would severely harm local religious charities, as it does not allow coordination with any religious organization. Religious charities do some of the best charitable work in this country, and do it in a cost-effective way. Forcing young people to give up their time to a government charity will preclude many of these people from serving in religious charities that they may otherwise be inclined to serve in.

Additionally, the bill also bars participants in the program (which, remember, will likely end up being mandatory) from participating in religious activities. This blatantly unconstitutional provision will no doubt be hailed by both liberals and the ACLU as protecting that great “Wall of Separation” between church and state. Combined with its likely effect on religious charities, this bill essentially ends up moving creating a statist replacement for religious activity. By separating the role of churches from service and forbidding religious participation while in the program, the government is promoting a marginalization of the next generation of Americans from organized religion. With many Republicans on board due to the feel-good soundbite of “community service”, the bill is likely to become law. It is tragic that religion, which has been a hallmark of American society since it’s founding, will be the biggest victim of this bill, further moving our nation towards a secularism that was never envisioned by our founders.

More later when I've had a chance to digest what they've done...actually, I don't think it can be digested...puked is more likely.

CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR?

Barack Obama claims to be a "Constitutional Scholar" having concentrated on the subject of Constitutional Law while at Harvard University (the college everyone from a humble, poor background attends). Based on those studies, one would assume that Mr. Obama has a solid understanding of our Constitution, so why does he not seem to understand that HR1388 as it has been proposed is unconstitutional.
Here is what the U.S. Constitution says in Article 13 about "Mandatory Volunteerism";

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Even I find Article 13 to be easy to understand and self-explanatory.

I'm not a Constitutional Scholar, but I did learn a few things about the Constitution back when you could still get a good education in the public schools (a long time ago...before the NEA).
Abraham Lincoln (whom Obama seems to believe he is the reincarnation of) pushed for basically the identical Article while running for President in 1861...that proposed article read:

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

The article Lincoln campaigned for was not ratified, but it was again proposed and ratified in its present form in 1865. Obviously Barry hasn't read that part.

HR1388 was originally titled “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education” with the acronym "G.I.V.E.", and passed in the House by a vote of both Democrats & Republicans of 321-105. It is now in the Senate and is being hidden under a new name; S277, "The NATIONAL SERVICE REAUTHORIZATION ACT".

The resolution was rushed through the House and when it got to the Senate, Senator Harry Reid [D-NV] asked for, and was granted Cloture. If you don't know what that means, here is the definition: Cloture is a means of terminating a filibuster, which is a prolonged speech on the floor of the Senate designed to forestall legislative action.

As soon as Cloture was granted, Senator Reid and his cronies then moved to bring debate on the bill to a close, effectively blocking any opposition to its passage.

Calling your Senator or Congressman will do no good at this point, however the American people should flood the Senate switchboard to voice their dissatisfaction with the way this is being shoved down our throats. The Senate switchboard number is (204)224-3121.

If this HR1388/S277 becomes law, we will all become serfs of the state.

WHO VOTED FOR HR 1388?

I'm about to tell you...but first, I feel compelled to mention one apparently honorable Democrat, Robert Berry, D-Arkansas, who was the only member of his party to vote against the bill.
Now, the bad news....we obviously have a lot of Republican Representatives who either didn't bother to read the resolution (like the stimulus package), or they are closet Democrats. Below is a list of the Republicans who have voted for this piece of crap:

Rep. Steve Austria [R, OH-7] Rep. Spencer Bachus [R, AL-6] Rep. Judy Biggert [R, IL-13] Rep. Brian Bilbray [R, CA-50] Rep. Gus Bilirakis [R, FL-9] Rep. Mary Bono Mack [R, CA-45] Rep. Virginia Brown-Waite [R, FL-5] Rep. Vern Buchanan [R, FL-13] Rep. Ken Calvert [R, CA-44] Rep. David Camp [R, MI-4] Rep. Anh Cao [R, LA-2] Rep. Shelley Capito [R, WV-2] Rep. Bill Cassidy [R, LA-6] Rep. Michael Castle [R, DE-0] Rep. Tom Cole [R, OK-4] Rep. Ander Crenshaw [R, FL-4] Rep. Charles Dent [R, PA-15] Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart [R, FL-25] Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart [R, FL-21] Rep. Vernon Ehlers [R, MI-3] Rep. Jo Ann Emerson [R, MO-8] Rep. Jeffrey Fortenberry [R, NE-1] Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen [R, NJ-11] Rep. Elton Gallegly [R, CA-24] Rep. Jim Gerlach [R, PA-6] Rep. Brett Guthrie [R, KY-2] Rep. Dean Heller [R, NV-2] Rep. Timothy Johnson [R, IL-15] Rep. Peter King [R, NY-3] Rep. Mark Kirk [R, IL-10] Rep. Leonard Lance [R, NJ-7] Rep. Thomas Latham [R, IA-4] Rep. Steven LaTourette [R, OH-14] Rep. Christopher Lee [R, NY-26] Rep. Jerry Lewis [R, CA-41] Rep. Frank LoBiondo [R, NJ-2] Rep. Frank Lucas [R, OK-3] Rep. Thaddeus McCotter [R, MI-11] Rep. John McHugh [R, NY-23] Rep. Howard McKeon [R, CA-25] Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers [R, WA-5] Rep. Candice Miller [R, MI-10] Rep. Tim Murphy [R, PA-18] Rep. Erik Paulsen [R, MN-3] Rep. Thomas Petri [R, WI-6] Rep. Todd Platts [R, PA-19] Rep. Adam Putnam [R, FL-12] Rep. Dennis Rehberg [R, MT-0] Rep. Dave Reichert [R, WA-8] Rep. David Roe [R, TN-1] Rep. Michael Rogers [R, MI-8] Rep. Harold Rogers [R, KY-5] Rep. Thomas Rooney [R, FL-16] Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R, FL-18] Rep. Aaron Schock [R, IL-18] Rep. John Shimkus [R, IL-19] Rep. Michael Simpson [R, ID-2] Rep. Christopher Smith [R, NJ-4] Rep. Mark Souder [R, IN-3] Rep. John Sullivan [R, OK-1] Rep. Lee Terry [R, NE-2] Rep. Glenn Thompson [R, PA-5] Rep. Patrick Tiberi [R, OH-12] Rep. Michael Turner [R, OH-3] Rep. Frederick Upton [R, MI-6] Rep. Greg Walden [R, OR-2] Rep. Rob Wittman [R, VA-1] Rep. Frank Wolf [R, VA-10] Rep. Donald Young [R, AK-0] Rep. C. W. Young [R, FL-10]

If your congressman's name is on this list, you need to contact him and voice your concern and displeasure...your children's and grandchildren's futures depend on it.

More on HR 1388 coming in the next couple of days.