Is A Constitutional Amendment Needed To Restore Federalism?

I've heard a lot of ideas about how to reinstate the federalism our Founding Fathers envisioned. Some were quite tame, being the passing of resolutions in various state legislatures restating their belief and adherence to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the US Constitution. I've heard some crazy ideas about secession (At times I've espoused New Hampshire's secession and the reforming of the Indian Stream Republic).

One of the better ideas I've heard is a Constitutional Amendment that asserts the individual states rights to regulate their own affairs as is presently defined by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and putting the federal government, and particularly Congress, back in their places where they belong. There's a certain appeal to the idea.

...state legislatures have a real power under the Constitution by which to resist the growth of federal power: They can petition Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.

Article V provides that, "on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states," Congress "shall call a convention for proposing amendments." Before becoming law, any amendments produced by such a convention would then need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.

What sort of language would restore a healthy balance between federal and state power while protecting the liberties of the people?

One simple proposal would be to repeal the 16th Amendment enacted in 1913 that authorized a federal income tax. This single change would strike at the heart of unlimited federal power and end the costly and intrusive tax code. Congress could then replace the income tax with a "uniform" national sales or "excise" tax (as stated in Article I, section 8) that would be paid by everyone residing in the country as they consumed, and would automatically render savings and capital appreciation free of tax.

That's something I think a lot of people could get behind. It will get away from the idea that the more you make the more the government steals from you. Instead, taxes will be based upon what you spend. While some of the bleeding hearts will claim such a tax will “hurt” the poor, I can see exemptions of necessities, such as food, clothing, and medications. Just about everything else will come under the umbrella of the consumption taxes. Savings will promoted rather than punished as it is under the present tax code. It will certainly eliminate the dreaded Form 1040 nightmare every April 15th.

More on the proposal for an Amendment:

Alternatively, to restore balance between federal and state power and better protect individual liberty, the repeal of the income tax amendment could be folded into a new "Federalism Amendment" like this:

Section 1: Congress shall have power to regulate or prohibit any activity between one state and another, or with foreign nations, provided that no regulation or prohibition shall infringe any enumerated or unenumerated right, privilege or immunity recognized by this Constitution.

Section 2: Nothing in this article, or the eighth section of article I, shall be construed to authorize Congress to regulate or prohibit any activity that takes place wholly within a single state, regardless of its effects outside the state or whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom; but Congress may define and punish offenses constituting acts of war or violent insurrection against the United States.

Section 3: The power of Congress to appropriate any funds shall be limited to carrying into execution the powers enumerated by this Constitution and vested in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof; or to satisfy any current obligation of the United States to any person living at the time of the ratification of this article.

Section 4: The 16th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed, effective five years from the date of the ratification of this article.

Section 5: The judicial power of the United States to enforce this article includes but is not limited to the power to nullify any prohibition or unreasonable regulation of a rightful exercise of liberty. The words of this article, and any other provision of this Constitution, shall be interpreted according to their public meaning at the time of their enactment.

Except for its expansion of Congressional power in Section 1, this proposed amendment is entirely consistent with the original meaning of the Constitution. It merely clarifies the boundary between federal and state powers, and reaffirms the power of courts to police this boundary and protect individual liberty.

Might this be the only way to send the federal government a message it can understand?

High Taxes = High Unemployment

One thing you never hear the Democrats talk about is the connection between high state income taxes, high unionization rates, and high unemployment rates.

This connection is not a recent phenomenon, having been proven to me back in the 1970's when the People's Republic of Taxachusetts boosted taxes across the board during a deep recession and saw unemployment skyrocket well beyond the national average as businesses closed or moved out of state (usually to New Hampshire and Vermont, neither which had income taxes). And as revenues fell they raised taxes again and saw unemployment rise again.

Is it any wonder we're seeing the same effect again? California has very high taxes, a high level of unionization (particularly among state employees), and has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the nation. There has also been a net outmigration of people and businesses from the Golden State, which shows how badly the economic conditions created by state government over-spending and over-taxation have become. It's not much different in a number of other states.

The aforementioned Massachusetts, as well as New York, New Jersey, and Michigan are suffering from the same malaise, as are a number of other states. Just look at the tax burden state by state and compare it to the present unemployment rates for each state. The comparison should be proof enough that high state tax burdens tend to kill jobs and weaken businesses.

Of course I expect this lesson to be wasted on the tax-and-spenders.

Absolutely Clueless

I know some Democrats are totally friggin' clueless, but this guy's picture is in the dictionary next to the definition of clueless.

Chairman of the New Hampshire Democrats has got his priorities screwed up. Last year he claimed New Hampshire's Civil Union law was the most important business the state legislature handled. Never mind the overblown state budget and revenue shortfalls that affected everybody, civil unions were far more important to this jerk.

More Funding For Bussard Fusion Project

Some good news on the energy front for a change.

The Bussard Fusion project, also called Polywell or Inertial Electrostatic fusion has received an additional $2 million in funding from the Department of Defense.

Originally proposed by the late Dr. Robert Bussard, polywell fusion uses a far simpler mechanism than either tokamak or laser fusion to achieve a fusion reaction.

Ironically polywell fusion has shown greater promise than the more traditional (and long running) programs all while costing a fraction of the other programs. To date, Bussards theories and calculations have held up under testing, having gone through 7 iterations of reactor, with each one performing as Bussard had predicted they would as they increased in scale. The latest reactor, the WB7 (which stands for Wiffle Ball 7, as the reactor resembles a large wiffle ball), has performed well and had few, if any surprises.

After Dr. Bussard's passing, a number of scientists from the Los Alamos National Lab took leaves of absence to carry on Bussard's work.

Should Bussard's theories hold up this could mean almost unlimited energy for the human race without the problems of waste disposal or greenhouse gases. Of course I expect some of the less stable environmentalists to decry such a breakthrough, claiming that we'll be using up valuable and limited resources better used elsewhere. Of course those resources might run out in a few hundred million years if we aren't careful, but I doubt it will be a problem.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was definitely a mixed bag for weather this weekend, with temps in the 70's on Friday, in the 50's with clouds and intermittent rain on Saturday, and sunny and in the low 60's on Sunday.

BeezleBub worked at the farm all day Saturday, getting back onto the swing of farm work with most of his day spent out in the field pulling plastic 'mulch' from the soil in preparation for plowing. He'll be spending most of his April vacation working at the farm, getting things ready for the farm stand's opening on May 1st.

Today we took a drive around the lake, checking out the scenery and the preparations being made for the upcoming summer tourist season. We also stopped at the Old Country Store in Moultonboro to pick up some Vermont sharp cheddar cheese and some homemade chocolate.

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While there has been wide coverage of the Tax Day Tea Party protests on blogs like Instapundit and blog media like Pajamasmedia, two New Hampshire blogs have links to the Tea Party activity in the Granite State – GraniteGrok and Amy Kane'sAtlantic Avenue. Both also have extensive coverage of the Tea Parties, and Amy's blog has links to Tea Parties in Boston as well.

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Pam Meister explains why she, I, and so many others are now considered radical right wing extremists by the Obama administration.

I wear the title proudly if it means someone who stands for the freedoms hard won by our forefathers and paid for with the blood of patriots. I wear the title proudly if it means someone who stands for the United States Constitution and understands it (particularly the Ninth and Tenth Amendments). I for one cannot stand idly by when tyranny comes to us in the guise of a charismatic socialist incompetent with delusions of adequacy.

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To add more fuel to the fire: It looks like Obama is taking some pages from Atlas Shrugged. Unfortunately, he's taking the wrong pages and working to cripple the economy, not free it.

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Here's a picture gallery of Philadelphia's Tea Party.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Via Sissy Willis comes this observation by Andrew Klavan:

Zombies are dead creatures that don't produce anything and must devour the lives of others, even though once everyone becomes a zombie, there'll be nothing left for anyone to eat. Government is exactly the same. It doesn't start businesses, it doesn't create wealth, it doesn't invent anything. It devours all the stuff that you make.

You bar the door against property tax, they come in through a sales tax. You board the windows against income tax, they reach in through an energy tax.

Now, there are some differences between the movie zombies and the government kind. In the movie the zombies didn't try to tell their victims that being devoured was good for them … or, my favorite, let me devour your flesh because I know how to use it better than you do.

Thus it is always with the self-proclaimed elites. Too bad they're always wrong.

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Despite claims to the contrary, the Tea Parties are far more diverse than the Leftist Anti-War/Anti-George Bush protests ever were.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Yet another story via Instapundit, this time dealing with the poor protection our infrastructure possesses against Electromagnetic Pulse attacks. A perfect illustration of the effects of EMP on the US was the TV series Dark Angel, showing a post-'pulse' America.

While some telecommunications is becoming a bit less susceptible (more is switching over to optical fiber every day), the electronics that runs it all is still vulnerable. The same is true of our power grids for there is little built in protection to help the systems survive EMP, whether man-made or natural (massive solar flares can also generate EMP).

There may be some measures homeowners can take to protect their home electrical system and electronics from EMP.

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Dr. Helen Smith points us to a new blog with a John Galt theme. Go check it out.

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From the aforementioned Galtslist blog, a picture I wish I'd had for the Tax Day Tea Party protest last week.

A larger version of the picture can be found here.

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In case you've never read Atlas Shrugged and don't understand the phrase “Going Galt”, the Atlas Society has posted an explanation.

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There must be something in the water down in Texas because they've got a lot of beautiful women...and most of them appear to be conservative.

That certainly is true of Texas blogger RightWingSparkle.

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Anyone that has a basic understanding of economics and the law of diminishing returns already knows this: Even if Obama taxed the rich at 100% the revenue collected won't even come close funding his planned spending.

Gee, ya' think?

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Don Surber tells us of a smart move by the Montana legislature exempting Montana-made guns from federal gun laws within Montana. As Surber writes, it's “a move which underscores a state’s right to legislate commerce that occurs totally and exclusively within its own borders.”

New Hampshire should do likewise. Two companies – Sturm Ruger and Thompson/Center Arms – manufacture guns in the state. It's time to exercise our Ninth and Tenth Amendment rights.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where boats have already been making their appearance, businesses are already gearing up for the summer, and where we can still find ammo for our guns.

Henry Waxman Must Be Destroyed - Part 2179

As if we needed even more evidence that Henry Waxman (D-CA) is the most despicable member of the House.

He's shown more than once he doesn't give a rat's ass about our economy or the American people. All he's shown us is that he'll work hard to destroy anyone that tries to thwart his plans, inside Congress or out.

Physicians Pulling Out Of Medicare/Medicaid

What would you do in the following circumstances?

You have a business that caters to those seeking your goods or services. To help increase the number of customers you will see, you work a deal with a buyer's club to offer their members special consideration (better prices during sales or a small discount for some services or goods). Now, after a year or two, the buyer's club tells informs you that will give a 20-30% discount for all goods and services to their members or they'll make it difficult for you to do business.

If you're like most people, you'd tell them to take a hike and break off doing business with the buyer's club. From that point on any members of the club that show up at your business will be told you no longer take their membership card or coupons. They have to pay the same price as everyone else.

In effect that's what happening in health care, where doctors and other medical professionals are being told Medicare and Medicaid will only pay a percentage of what is owed for treatment. In many cases the reimbursement being offered by those two programs doesn't cover the cost of providing care, particularly when the cost of doing all the paperwork involved is so high.

Doctors are deciding they will no longer take Medicare or Medicaid patients because they lose money with every single one. Some doctors have gone so far as to become cash-only practitioners, taking no insurance and doing away with the exorbitant costs of processing insurance forms and justifying every little detail of treatment. Can you blame them?

Writes Dr. Marc Siegel, a internist and associate professor of medicine at the NYU Langone Medical Center:

Bottom line: None of the current plans, government or private, provide my patients with the care they need. And the care that is provided is increasingly expensive and requires a big battle for approvals. Of course, we're promised by the Obama administration that universal health insurance will avoid all these problems. But how is that possible when you consider that the medical turnstiles will be the same as they are now, only they will be clogged with more and more patients? The doctors that remain in this expanded system will be even more overwhelmed than we are now.

I wouldn't want to be a patient when that happens.

Neither would I.

John Stossel took a look at health care back in 2007, exposing the problems government is creating and how health insurance, particularly government health insurance, has drastically driven up costs of providing care. His report also highlighted a number of physicians who broke away from the health insurance feeding trough and take cash only.

An interesting side effect of this move was the how little these doctors charge patients for services rendered now that they are out from under the all-seeing eye of the insurance companies. They even post their fees in their waiting rooms so there's no question what the doctor will charge. Another side effect: patients got better care, even the poor patients. With health insurance, the actual cost of any given service or procedure is hidden from view because the of added costs of processing the insurance forms, justifications for treatment, and making the eventual payment to the provider. That's a huge overhead we're all paying just for health insurance.

We'd be better off without health insurance, at least for routine medical care. I can see health insurance for catastrophic care and for some kinds of chronic care, but that's it. Health insurance for anything else is a waste of money and time (and remember, time is money).

Update: For a preview of what government controlled health care (socialized medicine) is really like, here's a view from Canada:

Having worked closely with the Canadian government's healthcare, here are few telling quote from the health minister.

- 27%-33% of the population account for 90% of annual health care expenditures. The other 67%-73% are either well or undiagnosed.

- Canada population is smaller than California's and less homogeneous.

- US health care subsidizes the world's socialized health systems. Without the profits from health care there would be little or no research, drugs, protocols, procedures, or broad based care. All gov run systems would simply degrade and push people into more privatized care, while still paying taxes for our gov program.

- 30% of Canadians pay taxes for government care AND carry a private policy.

- Medicare/Medicaid's government programs are larger in expenditures than all the world's socialized systems combined.

- The US population is not as homogeneous as the other countries used the dollar-benefit calculations, regarding longevity, birth survivals, etc. Factor out illegals and the poor who, in many cases. have a family histories where no one has ever been to a doctor, then they walk in to emergency room and say fix me. Understand the drivers of "hidden" costs and the US will rank highest in options and outcomes for equivalent dollars.

When it matters, i.e. when its personal, Canadian officials secretly (to the average Canadian) send their children, themselves and friends to Cleveland or NY for care. Canadians in Ft Myers, FL, use a long-standing US billing service to remit their medical bills to Canada, while receiving treatment on "vacation" in the US.

If Bureaucrats can decree groups or individual as servants of the state, our history seems to indicate the subjugated do not remain so for long.

Do we really want to go down the path others countries have trodden and end up with a health care system that neither keeps people healthy or provides care.

Who's The Kook Now?

After Janet Napolitano's release of a scurrilous report calling veterans, pro-lifers, and anti-tax libertarians potential recruits for extremist groups, the Department of Homeland Security has had to do some major back peddling. It does not bode well for any Americans that might disagree with the present administration because they might be labeled as domestic terrorists.

Glenn Beck was called a kook for saying that the Obama administration was threatening civil liberties. Now John Zeigler gets handcuffed for the crime of journalism and Team Obama is turning Homeland Security loose against domestic political opponents. Who's the kook now?

Ironically, Zeigler was arrested at USC's Annenberg School of Journalism.

I guess I'll be on the DHS list of domestic political opponents soon, if I'm not already on the President's Enemies List.

Command Line Commandos

You have to wonder what was going through the minds of the Boston College Police Department when they decided it would be a good idea to arrest student Riccardo Calixte. Apparently his computer knowledge made him suspect, particularly his ability to use the command line in order to run programs or computer utilities.

The case in question deals with Calixte and an unnamed complainant making allegations about “suspicious” computer activities. Calixte is also accused of sending an e-mail to a mailing list that disparaged the complainant. That right there should have given the police some pause and made them investigate whether the suspicious activity allegations were payback for a perceived wrong.

Because Calixte allegedly is skilled with computers, has been seen with unknown computers, had "jail broken" iPhones, used different operating systems "to hide his illegal activities," and "illegally downloaded movies as well as music," among other supposed indicators of wrongdoing, college police seized the student's cell phone, iPod, computers, disks, and, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a "Post-it" note that Calixte was using to take notes about officers' actions during the search.

The crime being investigated is the sending of an e-mail to a school mailing list that identified another student as being gay. That student, the victim in the case, is the informant providing information against Calixte.

So, with little investigative work beforehand, the BC Police seize every bit of electronic equipment of the suspect. Their reasoning: he's a computer science student, knows how to use the command line, works with a number of operating systems, and probably knows how to write programs, too. By that twisted chain of logic, that makes me as much as a suspect as Calixte. It also makes Skip of GraniteGrok a suspect, as well as my dear brother, and a few million other people in North America.

The entire basis of the seizure of Calixte's equipment is this: “We think this guy sent an e-mail to an e-mail list.”

By that reasoning I should have all my electronics seized, too.

How stupid is that?

Message To The GOP - It's The Spending, Stupid!

A commenter to Mona Charen's opinion piece (lambasting CNN's advocacy of increased government spending and tax slavery) had the right of it: If the GOP wants to return to its roots and regain some power in Congress, then it must shift its focus.

You still don't get it.

Really, the road back for Republicans is not to champion lower taxes. Tell us something we don't know. That is way too narrow to appeal to ANYONE. The GOP must become conservative on many levels instead of a slightly right clone of the dems. Has no one figured it out? IT'S THE SPENDING STUPID. Every single congressional representative and every single senator MUST pay the price at the ballot box for supporting this insanity. They are all in the process of sinking this ship. Get the feds out of our lives and realize that no government can ever cure what ails this world. So stop taking all your little boo-boos to Uncle Sam and stand on your own two feet. You won't get dizzy, I promise.

While taxes are but one part of the problem, it is the spending that drives taxes. The GOP must focus on that aspect.

Compare between what the President and the Congress are planning to spend and average family and how they must handle their spending. Show the people what this profligate spending will do to them, how it will hurt them, hurt their employer, hurt their business, hurt their kids and their dreams. Show them how the plans of the Socialist-In-Chief will not bring about prosperity, but misery. Show the people that the government will end up holding a gun to their heads and emptying their wallets if nothing is done about the economy-busting budgets foreseen by the President and Congress. Show them the government has become a gang of looters that really doesn't have their best interests at heart.

Show them the GOP is just the opposite of that and maybe, just maybe we can stop this madness. And if the GOP can't or won't do this, then maybe it's time the party goes the way of the Whigs.

Tea Party Reactions From The Left

It seems the reactions of the Left and the media to the Tax Day Tea Parties are pretty much what many of us expected: ridicule, hostility, or outright refusal to acknowledge something actually happened.

Our local TV station, WMUR, had a crew at the Manchester, NH Tea Party for quite some time, but their newscasts made little mention of it, and then only in passing in relation to the tea parties held in larger cities.

Comments made by the Obama faithful to a number of posts and forums show the contempt the left feels for anyone having the audacity to question their beliefs and their leader. Many tried to minimize the significance of the tea parties, saying they don't measure up to the size of protests professionally organized by the Left over the past few years. Yet others keep running the old tired line about how the protests were being run by Karl Rove, Fox News, and a host of other conservative /right wing persons or organizations. They cannot believe these protests were grassroots efforts by people across the political spectrum dismayed and/or disgusted with the direction Congress and the White House have been moving, spending money we don't have on things we don't need, and bankrupting the country in the process.

Many on the Left have used the argument that President Bush ran up a huge deficit and 'we', meaning those protesting now, did nothing about it. Therefore we have no right to complain now. But their argument is based upon a false premise. Many of us did protest, writing to our Congresscritters and to the President about their wasteful spending, for all the good it did. But what many of these same Leftists fail to mention is that President Obama will blow past Bush's seven years of deficit spending in one year, and somehow that's just fine with them. An interesting paradox, isn't it? Of course the paradox doesn't bother them in the least because they're used to believing two contradictory things at the same time.

How Government Will Destroy Health Care In The Name Of Fairness

It seems that over the past 30 years or so the Democrats have been decrying the poor state of health care here in the US despite the fact that we have one of the best (and most expensive) health care systems in the world. They keep bandying about the “47 million Americans have no health insurance” canard without explaining where they came up with that misleading claim. They also don't explain how their cure for this “problem” is to ensure the destruction of our health care system in the name of fairness and to turn it into an even bigger disaster than the Canadian or British National Health Service.

How is it that providing equally poor or non-existent health care to everybody is a fair to anyone? The Democrats won't bother to answer that question because we know how in love they are with the idea of 'equal outcome' even if it means destroying something that works pretty well, even though it's not perfect.

One thing we know is when a British member of the European Parliament is warning us not to go down the same path as the UK in regards to health care, we should listen:

[John] Prescott is trying to fabricate a row out of my interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, in which I warned Americans against adopting a socialist healthcare system along British lines.

I wonder whether anyone still falls for this sort of stuff. For a long time, Labour politicians had two slogans which they would trot out whenever healthcare came up: "Envy Of The World" and "Free At The Point Of Use". These phrases were not intended to be arguments. Rather, they were ways of playing your trump, of closing down the debate.

The NHS, he says, is Britain's "greatest creation". Really? Greater than parliamentary democracy? Greater than penicillin? Greater than the discovery of DNA, or the abolition of slavery, or the common law? John, the NHS produces some of the worst health outcomes in the industrialised world. Britain is the Western state where you'd least want to have cancer or a stroke or heart disease. Ours is now a country where thousands of people are killed in hospitals for reasons unrelated to their original condition. If this is our "greatest creation", Heaven help us.

As for the second slogan, which [Prescott] renders as "need and not ability to pay", there is no health system in Europe or North America that leaves the indigent untended. What is at issue is not whether we force poor people to pay, but whether we prevent wealthier people from doing so. The British system treats everyone equally, it's true: we queue equally, we wait weeks for operations equally, we are expected to be equally grateful for any attention we get.

Any time government takes over a previously private enterprise, just about everybody suffers (except for the bureaucrats that end up running it...into the ground). And claims about how government will merely be another provider of health insurance to the contrary, the government will undercut the private health insurance providers until they pull out of the business or go under, and then “fill the gap” left by their departure. Once that happens, we'll be stuck with a massively inefficient and uncaring government bureaucracy that will see to making sure no one gets the health care they would otherwise be able to afford. This system will also drive people out of the medical profession, much as it has in Canada and the UK, creating a shortage of personnel that cannot be filled because of the disincentives the government has created for going into medicine.

A public program won't compete in a way that any normal business would recognize. As an entitlement, Congress's creation will enjoy potentially unlimited access to the Treasury, without incurring the risks or hedging against losses that private carriers do. As people gravitate to "free" or heavily subsidized care, the inevitably explosive costs will be covered in part with increased outlays to keep premiums artificially low or even offer extra benefits. Lacking such taxpayer cash, private insurance rates will escalate.

Much like Medicare, overall spending in the public option will be controlled over time by paying less for medical services, drugs and technology. With its monopsony purchasing power, below-market fees will be dictated on a take-it-or-leave-it basis -- an offer hospitals and physicians won't be able to refuse. Medicare's current reimbursement policies pay hospitals only 71% of private rates, and doctors 81%, according to the Lewin Group.

What we will end up is not health care, but access to a waiting list for health care. And like Canada and the UK, access to a waiting list is not access to health care, as far too many people in both countries have found out. Too many have died waiting for routine medical care that is readily available in the US. How is it the morons in Congress have come to believe this option is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist? It's obvious they really don't understand the economics of what it is they're trying to do.

By controlling the prices and keeping the reimbursements artificially low (they call it keeping the price of services low), they are stimulating above normal demand for those services while at the same time ensuring the available supply of those services will dwindle. They will have created a shortage of health care providers in their efforts to make sure everyone has access to health care. That's what happens when people that haven't a clue about the laws of supply and demand start tearing apart a system they don't understand and replacing it with one they believe will work because they have the best interests of the people at heart. Their intentions are good.

We all know where that road leads. Unfortunately they're willing to drag us down there with them.

How Very Cool

I was going to write something profound (or snarky) about the government's moves to ensure equally poor health care to everybody. But then I received an e-mail from a friend of mine that included this clip and any thought of writing that post went right out of my head. As she wrote:

These kids are unbelievable! Most of you I am writing to (exception: PE teachers) have ***NO*** idea how incredibly hard these moves are. I did not catch even one mistake! ...and did you catch those smiles?
Be sure to watch the second "Freeze Frame" loop to see the close-ups. [Press the 'more' button at the end of the clip - ed]

The profound/snarky post will wait until tomorrow.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The first real sign of spring finally arrived.

It's not the first robin, nor the first shoots of perennial plants making their appearance. The real sign of spring is when BeezleBub goes back to work on the farm.

Yesterday was his first day back, spending most of the day setting seeds in the plug trays as part of the weekly plantings. While this is something just about every member of the field crew has to do, BeezleBub is one of the first of the crew called back, so he's the first to deal with this rather tedious but vital task. He also had to stoke the wood-fired boiler used to heat the greenhouses used to give the various flowers and vegetables an early start.

He was tired, but tired in a way that a good day's work gives one.

Spring has indeed returned.

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One thing I've found is a number of people that are aware of the upcoming Tax Day Tea Party aren't aware that it's more than a local phenomenon. As I mentioned to one of them, the protests are scheduled to take place in more than 300 cities across the country. He was incredulous, happily so.

I for one will be attending the Tax Day Tea Party protest in Manchester, NH.

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Does Obama's arrogance know no bounds? Apparently not.

During his recent European jaunt, Obama called America’s past attitude towards Europe arrogant. He failed to offer any particulars, and with his concomitant criticisms of predecessor George Bush, my guess is that he’s referring at least in part to that cowboy swagger Europeans so loved to hate.

But [my own observations] of Obama is as least as much (if not more) in line with the defintion of the word “arrogant”, which has always seemed to me a perfect description of the man: “overbearing pride evidenced by a superior manner toward inferiors.”

George Bush may have been cocky. But I don’t recall him having an air of looking down on others. This is precisely the attitude Obama conveys, and it’s all the more strange since he is relatively devoid of real world experience other than the academic. But arrogance is a trait I’ve often noticed in academics, as well.

As have I. It has become quite apparent our President does indeed look down upon those he considers his inferiors, including the four still-living former Presidents.

What an arrogant jerk!

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Even the Washington Post is now saying there's no way Obama won't be raising everybody's taxes. It will be unavoidable given the massive deficit spending he has planned for the next 10 years.

When even Obama's MSM supporters are calling him on his claims, you know there might be a paradigm shift in progress.

(H/T Viking Pundit)

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Is this any surprise? Not to those of us that understand motivation and compensation.

Big banks lose top talent to foreign competitors and startups.

More than one bank warned Congress this would happen, but were ignored.

Here's more on the exodus.

The message couldn’t be clearer: no seasoned investment banker worth their salt wants to work for the government if they can help it. Unfortunately for the taxpayer, who now shares in the prosperity of Goldman Sachs and Bank of America via the recent bailout packages, the bankers who packed their bags and jumped ship last week are arguably some of the most seasoned professionals the industry has to offer.

There's no way such an exodus will be good for the banks or the depositors.

(H/T Instapundit)

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I never thought it would come to this: competing protests. The Tea Party protests have been drawing hundreds, if not thousands. The pro-Obama/pro-socialism New Way Forward protests have been drawing...umm...a dozen or so.

Which ones do you think are truly grassroots protests?

Hint: It ain't the ones calling for more government control of everything.

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It appears even the conservative media has had to cut costs, including laying off some of their personnel. Unfortunately one of the casualties was Ben Kepple, a reporter for the conservative Manchester, NH Union Leader.

As Benjamin reported on his blog:

ALL GOOD THINGS come to an end. In my case, the particular good thing that came to an end was my great job working as a reporter. It was interesting and engaging work, tough at times but also a lot of fun, and it was made even better by the great people with whom I worked. Plus, the pay and benefits I received were fantastic for the field, which made the work even better.

It wasn't entirely a surprise that I lost my job, of course. Since journalists love writing about themselves, the papers have been filled with stories about the troubles facing the media industry. So it's not as if I'm the only reporter to find himself studying up on rules and regulations about his unemployment benefit. Rather, I'm simply U.S. Media Sector Casualty No. 36,012 of the Global Economic Downturn. Business is business, and when you're at the bottom of the seniority list, these things can happen. So I certainly don't have any hard feelings about it, particularly since my employer kept me on as long as it could in my job.

Let's hope he won't be out of work for long.

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BlackFive brings us another story of Jesse MacBeth-like douchebaggery by someone trying to scam money from the parents of a former NCO.

His parents were skeptical and scam artist got nothing from them (thank goodness).

Frankly, hanging is too good for a scumbag like this guy.

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I just found out two friends of ours we met through the blogosphere way back when are in the process of divorce. Deb and I thought these two were in it for the long haul, so this is one heck of a surprise to us.

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Bob Parks reports on the end of the Somali pirate saga, with three of the four pirates killed by Navy SEALS and the captain of the Maersk Alabama safe and sound.

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One other bit of information from Bob Parks that I find interesting: It's become apparent the biggest racists are the lefty commenters.

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Also from Bob Parks, an eerily clairvoyant quote from Ronald Reagan:

You cannot pour billions of dollars into make-work while destroying the economy that supports them and call that opportunity. And you cannot build up years of dependence on government and dare call that hope.

If only Barack Obama understood Reagan's words.

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Henry Waxman (D-CA) must be destroyed.

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An unusual and early review of the new Star Trek movie premiere (in Kuwait, of all places).

(H/T Instapundit)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the thermometer is saying it's still winter, the woodstove is still running, and where the countdown to the Star Trek movie is winding down.

Obama: Abandoning Our Allies And Other Incompetent Moves

Why is it President Obama is working so hard to abandon our allies and kowtow to our adversaries? What kind of leadership is this?

Can it be the leadership of someone ignorant of our history with our allies and incapable of understanding how diplomacy works? Unfortunately the answer is yes.

I wonder how long it will be before he pisses off our trading partners by pulling a Smoot-Hawley and further crippling our economy? He's already shown he really doesn't understand how our economy works, proposing unsustainable spending and taxation that will leave our children and grandchildren paying off debt we shouldn't even be considering under any circumstances.

Update: One commenter to Caroline Glick's piece hits it right on the head:

Barack Obama is setting the stage for another World War. His polices of appeasement, slashing conventional military forces and nuclear disarmament are all the signals that our enemies need to think that the United States has once again become a helpless giant.

As distracted, inept and undercut by his own Secretary of State as George Bush was in his second term, our enemies still had a chilling vision of what American military might can accomplish when is allowed to do what it was meant to do: to protect American citizens from attack by foreign attack by destroying them. Two supposedly invincible military obstacles, Afghanistan and Iraq, where collapsed in a matter of weeks. The leftist desires to see the U.S. military mired in “quagmire” became the butt of jokes. To this day the clueless MSM cannot understand why the United States has not come under attack since 9-11. Heightened security, collapsing terrorist sheltering countries and killing jihadis by the tens of thousands apparently have no meaning for them. In their view the best defense against people who hate us is a good round of self -abasement and appeasement.

Well, the lefties now have an administration in Washington that they have always sought. Disarmament and appeasement are the “new” progressive policies. Shortly we will get yet another demonstration of what these policies mean in real world. Israel is too close to the front lines to allow these woozy “love thy enemy” fantasies to set in. What better time could there be to break with Washington?

History has shown appeasement does nothing except bring about the very thing the appeasers are trying to prevent. Showing weakness to our adversaries does nothing but encourage them to press forward and force even more concessions until the appeasers are helpless and pose little threat of retaliation. And then the adversaries will strike without mercy. This is a pattern that has been repeated again and again through history.

When it comes foreign relations President Theodore Roosevelt had it exactly right:

“Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

For some, it's the only language they understand and the only language they respect. Yet our present President is going to throw it away and leave us open to attack and blackmail. That is not the mark of a leader.

Tea Party Protests A True Grassroots Effort

Gay Patriot brings up an interesting point about the Tea Party movement: It's a phenomenon based upon an idea and not a personality.

While Barack Obama’s presidential campaign did tap into a frustration with the-then incumbent Administration, that movement was built around an individual not an idea. Note how much the image of Obama was tied to the “ideas” of his campaign, “hope” and “change.” And those ideas were little more than bromides.

Obama's campaign was built upon a cult of personality, and not solid democratic ideals. While he made the appropriate noises during the campaign, they were merely empty promises made to cover his true agenda. The Tea Party movement however, is based upon the individual American's displeasure with the direction the President and his Congressional overlords are taking this country. They have a better understanding of the fallout from the socialist agenda of Obama Administration, both fiscally and constitutionally. It is a gut reaction from average American, a feeling that something has gone horribly wrong. This is their reaction.

Reactions from the nihilist Left seem to think this grassroots movement is nothing less than an effort to foment revolution.

Write that date down; people- it could very well mark the beginning of the end. With the notoriously conservative Tea Party movement gaining steam, is it time to take the ‘United’ out of ‘United States’?

The Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party-people consider themselves a coherent and diverse network of Americans from every conceivable walk of life. They are cultural warriors fighting against the tax-happy, spend-happy ways of the evil Obama cabal, real American patriots, and staunch defenders against the creeping evils of Socialism.

In reality, their ‘movement’ is incredibly divisive, a mindset that stands in sharp contrast to Obama’s calls for bipartisanship in this time of great national need. Their arguments have the potential to divide the country along titanic lines not seen since the bloody days of the Civil War.

“ Obama’s calls for bipartisanship”? Really? I guess that's true if your definition of bipartisanship is telling the Republican members of Congress to “shut up and do what we tell you to do!” Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have locked out Republicans from debate and compromise on the budget, the stimulus bill, and a host of other budgetary and lawmaking efforts. If that's bipartisanship, I want nothing to do with it.

It is the present administration and Congressional leadership that has acted in a divisive manner, ignoring those that disagree with them as if they have nothing worth listening to. It's starting to sound a lot like what we saw happen in Venezuela after Hugo Chavez took over – all things democratic were shoved aside or minimalized and replaced with Chavez's vision of a socialist Venezuela. Never mind that his 'vision' has all but destroyed his country's economy, curtailed civil rights, and visited misery upon the very people he claims he wants to help.

All that aside, the Tea Party movement is a grassroots movement. There are no political party organizers or funding behind it, unlike organizations like ACORN and OFA (remember ACORN got a couple of billion dollars of our tax money to help support The One's agenda).

The sheer number of scheduled rallies already shows the success of this truly grassroots endeavor. Unlike the Obama campaign, which was built around an individual, we don’t have a central organization in Washington, New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.. Our energy comes primarily from the citizens organizing in the various cities, not from the candidate around whom his supporters rallied.

And it takes effort to plan such a gathering. That we see such effort from coast to coast is testament to the concern of citizens about the ever-increasing size of the federal government. Another sign of the rallies’ success is further is the eagerness of some on the left to sabotage and/or smear our protests. They can’t fathom that conservatives, libertarians and even moderates would engage in the type of activity in which they delight.

Of course if the positions were switched, the Left would be going ape over the tactics being used to 'silence' them. But because it is they trying to silence the rest of us, it's perfectly fine for them to do so. As one commenter the nihilist diatribe linked above put it:

2002: Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

2009: Dissent is the highest form of treason.

Change we can believe in.

In other words, when we dissent against the leftist policies being implemented upon us against our will, somehow we have become traitors to our country. But what it really is is that our dissent is anathema to what all the socialist/progressive/cultist Left believe is the One True Faith, and that we must be marginalized or silenced because the One True Faith will brook no heresy. And that's what the Tea Party protests are – heresy against a long running, anti-human rights, impoverishing, murderous political ideology.

Therefore call me a heretic. I wear the title proudly.

Again from Gay Patriot:

To be sure, protest, to borrow an expression, is not really our cup of tea. We would really rather not rally; most of those upset by the proposed spending increases and certain tax hikes have real jobs. And we don’t have much nostalgia for the demonstrations of the 1960s–as do some on the left.

This is truly a grassroots effort if ever there was one. It shows that Americans’ love for freedom remains unabated, 236 years after our forebears protested British encroachments on our liberties.

And that's what we're protesting to protect: our lives, our liberty, our sacred 'fortunes'.

Tea Party On Tax Day

With Tax Day approaching and literally hundreds of Tax Day Tea Party protests scheduled to take place all over the country, we have to ask ourselves a number of questions. Some are simple. Others are profound.

One of the more interesting ones we should be asking our representatives in Washington is this:

Why is it you think that we, the American taxpayers, work for you? It is you who works for us, and we are hereby giving you notice that you better shape up and remember who's paying the bills, including your salary. Because if you don't, you're FIRED!

This is something the Founding Fathers tried to instill in all Americans when they authored the Constitution and its 'user guide', the Federalist Papers.

Here's a little reminder of what it is we're up against:

Envy

I hadn't thought of the Democratic Party this way, but one commenter to Bill Whittle's message to the rich summed it up this way:

It was with good reason that one of the Ten Commandments explicitly forbids envy. It is a poisonous emotion. We are now ruled by a political party based on envy.

I couldn't have said it better.

Message To The Rich - Leave While You Still Can

It appears Bill Whittle has taken a page from Ayn Rand and is advising the rich to get outta Dodge before it's too late:

Well, I read this article in the Washington Post, and I thought: there you have it. The top ten percent, that pays sixty percent of the total income tax and which allows the bottom half – HALF! – to pay nothing… Those horrible, greedy bastards are not using their free-will generosity as “efficiently” as the government can, so let’s just take more of their money and call it square.

So let me now send a personal message to The Rich in America…

As an American and a patriot, I implore you – I go to my knees and beg you – LEAVE NOW.

Leave. Just go away. Retire to the Cayman Islands or Bermuda or wherever, but do it now, please, while you still have some love for this country. Close your companies, fire your employees, shutter your factories and offices, sell your property, and take all of that somewhere else… better yet: somewhere scenic but poverty-stricken. Somewhere that could use some wealth creation. Somewhere that people simply are grateful to have a job in the first place. Somewhere where you will be appreciated.

As John Galt did in Atlas Shrugged, Whittle is telling the folks that actually produce a lot of wealth in this country to get out will they still have some of it left.

I don't blame him in the least, for the looters are running Congress and sit in the White House. They will steal every bit of wealth they can get away with, and then some, all while telling us “it's for the good of society”. The question is, which society? It certainly isn't the society of the the hard working, risk taking, self-made American. Instead it's for the society the looters see as deprived, exploited, and deserving of the results of the hard work of someone the looters despise intensely – the successful. It doesn't matter to the looters that their every action does more harm to those they profess to represent than anything the rich have ever done.

The looters have already started to wiggle their way into various parts of our economy, forcing themselves first into the financial sector, then the automotive sector, and soon into every other vital portion of our economy. Soon they will be in total control and our economy will start coming apart because the looters haven't got a friggin' clue how the economy really works. Oh, they have some nice socialist theories about the way it should work. The only problem is that every one of them have been discredit over the years because none of them work.

All they manage to do is create trickle up poverty and misery because they make the assumption people will work hard for altruistic reasons, for “the good of society”, and forgo the usual things that motivate them to succeed. There's one big problem with that theory: people aren't altruistic when their bellies go empty and their families suffer from the cockamamie theories and programs the looters foist upon them. Altruism is a fleeting thing. People can be and are altruistic now and again, here and there. But no one can be that way 24/7/365. It isn't in their nature. It's one major factor the socialist looters presently running two branches of the US government have conveniently ignored. (The Marxists-Leninists in the old Soviet Union tried desperately to instill such altruism in their populace, but failed miserably because they misunderstood human nature. Ultimately the Soviet Union collapsed because of that failure to understand 'how things work'.)

The looters are working overtime to instill hatred for the producers of wealth, because they need an excuse to seize ever greater portions of the wealth created, and use the confiscated wealth “for the good of society.”

You are not welcome in America any more. Take your wealth and prosperity and inventiveness and hard work and vision and insight and bold risk-taking and joy in seeing growth and wealth creation and just go away – right now, before it’s too late. Because if you stay, Joel Berg and Barack Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd will continue to come after you for more and more and more and they will not ever stop – not ever – until you are forced to flee. And when that day comes, you will go with not with fond remembrances and a desire to return home, but rather a black heart and hard and bitter memories.

So on behalf of those few of us who still believe in the Land of Opportunity, I beg you and implore you, in the name of our common patriot ancestors who worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that we could become so spoiled and ungrateful: take your 60% of the total income taxes and just go away.

Because if you do, then there will no longer be an Enemy for the Left to stick it to. Then, perhaps, the half of the country that pays no income tax might have to put some skin in the game. Then, perhaps, with most of the wealth generation gone we will turn to our community organizers to provide the wealth creation, and the tax dollars, and the innovation. When you have gone the President of the United States, supported by an army of little acorns like Joel Berg, will have to start calling for the rest of us to be taxed more to address the inequality gap.

Without a foe, the looters will have a tough time selling their message. But maybe all they'll need to do is to find new foes. For example, more than a few states have already redefined “millionaire”, allowing them to tax even more people under their “stick it to the rich” tax codes. It's just a matter of time before the federal level looters do likewise. Of course they might decide to redefine the greedy rich as “anyone with a job.” (I know of a few that already consider anyone with a job as the privileged elite. Of course these same folks also advocate for the poor and are trying to make sure even more of us become that way. How twisted is that?)

Bill Whittle is right. The rich should get the hell out of the US while they still can. Don't let the looters have it their way. It's time for them to 'go Galt'.

Thoughts On A Sunday

I've been 'bach-ing' it since yesterday afternoon, with Deb and BeezleBub off to visit the WP In-Laws over the weekend. It's too quiet with them gone, even with our six feline family members keeping me company.

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It's been some time since I started using Linux on a couple of the Weekend Pundit computers. A new release of the Ubuntu distribution, version 9.04, will be coming out in a couple weeks with some new features that look really neat.

With a few minor exceptions, I have found Linux to be more than adequate for almost 95% of the tasks I need to perform. The 5% of the tasks Linux can't handle are work related, using specialized software with Windows specific security keys. But it's rare I need to bring that kind of work home, so Linux does what I need it to do and does it well.

About the only negative I can report is that what anti-virus software is available for Linux (Clamav and AVG) isn't user friendly. One, Clamav, requires recompiling the kernel in order to enable a graphical user interface rather than using a command line. But viruses that affect Linux are few and far between...so far.

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Even though the warmer weather has arrived, we're still using the woodstove, though only in the evenings. We'll still have almost 4 cords of firewood left by the end of the heating season, enough to get us through most of next winter, if not the entire winter. We haven't used nearly as much wood as we did last year.

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President Obama has learned his charisma doesn't have any affect on other heads-of-state, being limited to the suckers that voted him into office back on this side of the pond. His pimping for other members of the G20 to pump trillions of dollars into the world economy as a “stimulus” has been rebuked. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded:

“I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money...We must look at the causes of this crisis. It happened because we were living beyond our means...We cannot repeat this mistake.” Germany has set aside about 4% of GDP for stimulus so far and has resisted increasing that to the extraordinary American level of about 8% of GDP.

The President is learning his oratory has little effect on those outside the US. Could it be because people elsewhere have a better read on Obama and realize he's a poseur, in over his head?

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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This morning's Good Morning America reported on the killings in Binghamton, NY, Pittsburgh, PA, and Oakland, CA. Part way through their report they made the statement that there are “renewed calls for more gun control.”

How disingenuous is this? Who is calling for more gun control? They haven't told us this. Could it be it's mostly the MSM making these calls? Are they being joined by the usual suspects?

Without a doubt.

I have to ask them this: Why is it that states with very minimal gun laws also have very low crime rates?

That's a question they haven't answered to date, nor do I expect to receive one because it flies in the face of what they've been preaching all these years.

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More people in the Obama camp are wising up to the sleight-of-hand being pulled by the President and Congress when it comes to the historically large and deficit-ridden $3.5 trillion budget. A number of lies have been told in an effort to get support for the economy busting spending plan of the Socialist-In-Chief.

Congress has agreed to spend $3.5 trillion of American taxpayer money -- 34 percent of it borrowed -- for the purpose of economic recovery. Or so we are told.

Speaking of the President's budget, which both the House and the Senate passed on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "It's going to take a lot of work to clean up the mess we inherited, and passing this budget is a critical step in the right direction."

That was a deliberate lie, exposed as such by the budget itself. The bulk of its so-called recovery spending occurs years down the road, well after the administration predicts the economy will have begun growing again.

It's smoke and mirrors, folks. The present administration figures it can spend your money better than you can. Never mind the fact that you earned it. They want it, and the money your children and grandchildren will earn for the next few generations or so.

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To give you a preview of what the future holds should the unions get their way and EFCA passes, Mayor Frank Guinta of Manchester, New Hampshire has been handed an ultimatum by the city's unions, making it very difficult for him to make necessary budget cuts in order to prevent an unaffordable rise in property taxes. Somehow the unions have come to believe they are immune from layoffs and pay cuts, and can dictate to the mayor and aldermen whether or not there will budget cuts or tax increases.

I could have sworn our elected officials were supposed to control spending and taxes, not the unions.

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Another Obama tax pledge bites the dust.

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The real reason the government doesn't want banks to repay TARP funds?

They want to control the banks directly.

The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell 'em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash -- which was often forced on them in the first place -- the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That's what's happening right now.

If I didn't know better I'd swear Obama and his advisors are acting more like a Chicago mob crime family, taking control of legitimate businesses and skimming money off the top.

The government is even threatening healthy banks, forcing them to take TARP funds they don't need, don't want, but can't give back, giving it control of those banks. In effect Barack Obama is nationalizing the banks through threats and subterfuge, bypassing the legislative process and oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of the government. It's an extortion racket, plain and simple.

There is simply no authority in the U.S. Constitution for Congress to exercise the level of control it now seeks over private industry. In fact, this level of control will wind up costing the businesses that took TARP (voluntarily or involuntarily) money since they will lose key employees who will go to work elsewhere and because the reporting requirements will take time and time is money. The Constitution basically says that if the government wants to take time or freedom or money from someone or something, it must sue for it. It cannot just give itself the authority to do so via legislation.

I wonder if or when the MSM will wake up to the fact that Obama has fooled them all, made them willing dupes in a campaign to radically make over the US into a socialist hell run by a creation of the Chicago political machine. Hopefully they'll realize it before he actually controls them, too.

Are you scared yet?

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More on narcissism.

Sound like anyone we know?

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Here's an indicator of “bipartisanship” in Congress.

Not one Republican in the House, not one, voted in favor of Obama's $3.5 trillion budget. Twenty Democrats also voted nay. Can you blame them? They know this budget is an economy-killer and want nothing to do with it.

Will this be setting up a mid-term election sweep in 2010, removing a large number of spend-and-tax Democrats from the House? I hope so. It may be the American taxpayer's only hope to undo the damage Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are doing to the economy.

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There's no way we should let Obama control the Internet. He's been seizing too much power that isn't his to begin with. The last thing we need is to give him the ability to shut it down during an ambiguously defined “emergency”. Knowing his proclivities, “emergency” could be defined as too many blog posts criticizing him and his plans to create a socialist America.

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Sales of Atlas Shrugged now ranks #18 at Amazon.

What do you think that means? (As if we didn't know.)

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If the government takes control of the health care system, will they withhold treatment for otherwise healthy elderly citizens because it would be cheaper to make sure they die? Glenn Reynolds argues the point that if life-prolonging medical treatment keeps the elderly healthy and active, they are more likely to keep working and paying into the system rather than being paid by the system.

I can see where that would be the case, knowing quite a few retired folks that wish they were still healthy enough to keep working. (No, I'm not kidding. As more than one person put it, being retired is great for the first month or so. After that it can get boring.)

If life expectancy increased by twenty or thirty years, I doubt very much people would still be retiring at 65.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where mud season is upon us, thoughts are turning to the upcoming boating season, and where the ice is quickly disappearing from the lake.