Where did I put that Birth Certificate?

The sweeping republican victories in the November, 2010 elections may result in President Barack Obama being declared ineligible for re-election in the 2012 general election.

The republicans won dramatic victories in the U.S. House of Representative, gaining 62 seats and re-claiming the majority in that chamber. They enjoyed some success in the U.S. Senate as well, narrowing the democrat majority in that chamber to 53-47. But nationwide republicans gained 700 seats in state legislatures. They took control of 19 previously-democrat controlled state legislatures and now control 55 of the nation’s 93 legislative chambers (some states having only one legislative chamber). Additionally, republican state governors now outnumber democrats 29-20 (with one independent).

This has troubling implications to democrat hopes for future elections as many congressional districts will undergo redistricting in the next few years as a result of population changes highlighted by the 2010 census. Redistricting will re-apportion congressional seats based on the current population figures, but it is the state legislatures that draw the new district lines. They usually draw those new district boundaries to favor the electoral chances of the party in power, which is now the republicans.

But in recent weeks, another implication of the national republican victory has emerged. Arizona, and at least four other states, are considering passing laws that will require future presidential candidates to prove that they are eligible to hold the office of the presidency before allowing their names on the ballot. This, of course, stems from the discussions relating to Barack Obama’s citizenship. Mr Obama claims to have been born in Hawaii, but has not produced evidence of that event, to date. Article II, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states that, “No person, except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible for the Office of the President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five Years; and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

Mr. Obama and his supporters have derisively referred to anyone who questions the authenticity of his citizenship as “Birthers,” with the clear implication that their sanity should be questioned due to their obviously poor judgement. But with republicans in charge of many state legislatures and governor’s offices, the chances are pretty good that Mr Obama will have to actually produce a long-form birth certificate to get his name on the ballot in several, perhaps many states for the 2012 presidential election.

All of this would be unnecessary, of course, if there was a vigorous, objective national press corps performing their constitutionally protected function; digging up facts and actually reporting news. If we were not possessed of a corrupt, derelict, lap dog media made up of hopeless sycophants breathlessly carrying Mr Obama’s water, some fearless “journalist” would have made his claim to the Pulitzer Prize and discovered the truth about Mr. Obama’s arrival in this life. Clearly, if he had nothing to hide, we'd have seen the proof by now. If Mr Obama was a republican, we would know every detail of his birth, and every unsavory moment of his life since.

Oregon...beautiful scenery, dimwitted voters

President Barack Obama has agreed to go along with the compromise plan to extend the Bush era tax rates for two more years. Note there is no tax cut in anyone’s future, save for the piddling 2% reduction in the Social Security taxes; simply a continuation of the rates that already exist. But from the whining and sobbing of the Obama base on the far left, it is pretty clear where Mr. Obama’s tax policy will go when this extension runs out.

Mr. Obama will surely press to raise the tax rates on the evil rich in another politically motivated economic decision. Of course, the intention will be to increase revenues to the federal treasury which he will then re-deploy to purchase democrat votes. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Mr Obama and his democrat allies in congress will raise the tax rates and sit back and expect more revenue to flow into the Treasury.

Raising taxes results in more revenue to the treasury only if all other conditions remain the same. This is the static model that democrats always use. However, in the real world, the dynamic model, every economic decision results in changed conditions, sometimes a multitude of changes. Even tiny changes in the price of anything will result in changes in demand.

Even though democrats do not believe it, people’s behavior will change if the price of living here (taxes) goes up. They can chose to move to another jurisdiction, or they can chose to do less business if doing more results in government confiscation. Or if they are truly evil rich, they will hire smart tax attorneys and keep a couple of congressmen on retainer to ensure favorable treatment. Whatever they do, their behavior will be different than it would have been before the change in economic conditions.

Where’s the evidence on the dynamic model of the market? A glance at what has happened in the People’s Republic of Oregon this year is illustrative. The voters, ever advancing the concept of social justice, voted to raise taxes on rich Oregonians in 2009. Naturally, they expected that existing tax revenues of $180 million would go through the roof when the 38,000 “rich” people of Oregon began paying their taxes at the new rates.

What actually happened in Oregon should provide a guide to greedy democrats seeking to gather other people’s money to spend on their next vote buying campaign. Tax revenues in Oregon fell by $50 million in one year! The supposed 38,000 rich Oregonians turned out to be only 28,000. I wonder what happened to the other 10,000 rich people? They either left the state or hired a good lawyer or politician to take care of their problem. Or perhaps they simply chose to do less business and earn less money.

And how is Oregon doing in the economic recovery, now that Mr Obama and his administration have brought us all back from the precipice? Oregon is lagging just a little bit. It does not have the highest unemployment rate in the nation, but it does have the second-highest unemployment rate in the entire United States, at 12.4 percent. Only Michigan, another state owned and operated by the democrat party and labor unions, has a higher rate of unemployment.

There are none so blind as those who just refuse to see, and who continue to make economic decisions for political reasons.

Stay in your lane, Governor

Governor Not So Bright

While brutal winter weather has brought holiday transportation to a standstill in Great Britain, and massive snowfalls are pummeling the west coast, outgoing California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is lobbying for a job in the Obama Administration to work on Global Warming, oh...excuse me, Climate Change.

In Great Britain, millions of travelers have been stranded in a “third-world” travel nightmare in airports and train stations all over the nation. The London Mail reports, “Heathrow, the country’s major international airport, is still effectively closed two days after the last heavy snowfall. Substantial parts of our national rail network are still struggling with deep snow, and there are abandoned cars to be seen on hard shoulders all over the country. More snow is expected today, especially in the north.”

Snowfall in Great Britain is a rare thing, and no figures are published for average snowfall. Snow does fall intermittently in northern and eastern areas, Wales and higher elevations, especially in the mountains of Scotland. Snow rarely lasts more than a week before melting.

Northern Ireland has experienced record low temperatures this week. One gent, quoted in the Mail said, “I can't remember a time when so much snow has lain so thickly on the ground, and we haven't even reached Christmas. And this is the third tough winter in a row. Is it really true that no one saw this coming?

Meanwhile, back in the states, Governor Schwarzenegger’s own state is being inundated with unusual winter precipitation whether it is heavy rain in the central valley or foot upon foot of snow in the mountains.

And yet California’s formerly republican governor, the husband of Kennedy niece Maria Schriver, is hoping to find employment by carrying the global warming, er climate change water for the Obama Administration.

While seeming to ignore the recent stories proliferating in the news confirming that global warming is a contrived hoax and that record cold temperature are being experienced all over the world, the governator continues to carry the torch for the environmental left. “I'm a big believer in environmental issues," Schwarzenegger said, who added that he wanted a post where he could use his "celebrity power … knowledge and experience" to impact public policy. "I've traveled the world. … I'm very familiar with the world."

Familiarity with the world is a good thing, governor. A measurable IQ would be pretty handy as well. Maybe you should get back to something you do well.

Mr Obama and his pal Russian President Medvedev

The Obama Administration, with the assistance of its Senate allies, is attempting another all-too-familiar scheme to ram a piece of questionable legislation through the Congress before the end of the so-called Lame Duck Session, this time with major foreign policy implications.

Sen. Reid (Democrat-Nevada) is urging senators to accept Mr Obama’s START Treaty, signed by the president and Russian President Medvedev last April. The treaty requires the approval of the senate, by a two thirds majority, before it can become law.

Republican senators have voiced objections to the treaty, claiming that ambiguous language in the treaty raises questions about the treaty’s possible limitation of U.S. missile defense. The preamble of the treaty contains language that republican senators believe could allow the Russians to withdraw from the treaty if they choose to do so. How interesting that we would involve ourselves in a treaty, which has the effect of federal law on our government, with a nation that can unilaterally decide to ignore it if they feel like doing so.

To clarify the situation, Republican senators have asked, repeatedly, for records of the treaty’s negotiations so as to decisively establish the meaning of the treaty’s language. Such requests for the negotiating record have been provided by republican administrations in 1972 for Nixon’s Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and in 1987 by the Reagan Administration for its Intermediate Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty.
But, apparently, asking for the START negotiating record is something akin to asking for other closely held state secrets, like President Obama’s birth certificate or his collegiate academic performance. Instead, after only five days of discussion in the senate, and without having clarified the treaty’s language, Senator Dick Durban, number two ranking democrat, has urged that the treaty be brought to a vote. What is the rush, Senator Durban?

While the urgency of completing this treaty, which could have far-reaching effects on the capability of the United States to defend itself from missiles targeting U.S. cities is high on the list of democrat priorities, they did suspend debate on the measure to consider another bill of equal consequence, to them, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislation that would permit homosexuals to serve openly in the U.S. military.

Democrats, and some republicans, seem inclined to accept the word of the Russians. They were also inclined to accept the word of the communist government of the U.S.S.R that preceded the current crowd in the Kremlin. They are inclined today to accept the terms of this treaty despite the evidence of Soviet-era duplicity and outright violation of previous treaties (Reagan withdrew from SALT II in 1986 after it became clear that the Soviets were ignoring the treaty). Committing the United States to an international treaty is serious business, and democrats and republicans should keep in mind that the Russians, like the Soviets before them, will always act in their own interest and never, ever in our interest.

They would be wise to consider the counsel of General George Washington to the Continental Congress on a very different matter of national interest, when he said, “It is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its own interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.” The Russians will always be bound by their own interests, and we should be prudent enough not to venture far from our own. Mr Obama’s treaty with the Russians has the potential to portend great danger to the United States and we should take the time necessary to understand it fully, and amend it if necessary, before making it U.S. law.

Seen on Breitbart's Big Government Blog.....

Referenceing the recent flood of classified documents from "secure" government archives to Wiki Leaks website, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is quoted as saying:

“If we want to keep our nation’s secrets ‘SECRET,’ store them where President Obama stores his college transcripts and birth certificate.”

Good point, seems nothing is more secure than Mr Obama's CV.


Columnist Thomas Sowell, commenting on President Obama leaving office after one term: “…he may also leave the voters wiser, though sadder, after they learn from painful experience that you can't judge politicians by their rhetoric, or ignore their past because of your hopes for the future.

The Religion of Peace

Who says that terrorism, or even the threat of it, is not effective. The radical fundamental Islamists of the world need only express dissatisfaction to send the “leaders” of the west stumbling over each other to get in front of the camera to condemn whatever offense irritated the Islamists this time, hoping to avoid the wrath of the world’s terrorists.

When Baptist minister Terry Jones, Dove World Outreach Center, Gainesville, FL threatened to burn Korans in public on 11 Sept, American politicians came out of the woodwork to condemn the idea of burning the muslim holy book. President Obama himself has weighed in on this “crisis,” saying, "I just hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values," Obama said in an ABC interview. He called the plan a "recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda." Mr. Obama did not elaborate on what might we might do to reduce Al Qaeda recruitment, but it’s good to know that he at least considers increasing recruitment a bad thing. President Obama earlier called the plan a "stunt" and urged the pastor to abandon it.

Other American leaders, from Secretary of State (for now) Hillary Clinton to Defense Secretary Gates to General David Petraeus have rushed to the microphones to condemned Reverend Jones’ threatened Koran burning. Presidential Press Secretary, the hapless dimwit Robert Gibbs, called Reverend Jones’ plan a “monumentally terrible idea.”

While American leaders hustle to the microphones to attempt to mollify the “Muslim World,” Old friend Imam Rauf is still planning to erect his 9/11 Victory Mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center. Responding to public outrage and demands that he move the planned mosque (though not abandon it), he has essentially threatened that attempts to move the mosque away from the Ground Zero site will incite Muslim violence against the United States. "The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack," he said. “If you don't do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world," Imam Rauf predicted that the reaction could be more furious than the eruption of violence following the 2005 publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Fox News reported.

There you have it. If they don’t get their way, they will riot, burn cars, behead journalists, stone women, detonate bombs in crowded places, hijack airplanes, bomb airplanes, fly airplanes into buildings, attack Olympic athletes. You can fill in the blank with whatever form or radical Muslim violence most fits your taste.

Until today, while dealing with violent Muslim “religious” fundamentalists has been difficult and sometimes deadly, we have been dealing with a group that is confined to the use of conventional weapons. They do not even have access to aircraft that they have not first hijacked. But the whole game will change the instant Iran becomes a nuclear power.

While we can wince and feel uneasy about the horrific violence perpetrated by Muslims all over the world in the name of the Religion of Peace, we have been relatively safe from, if offended by, that violence. But what happens when the Iranians, and by extension their allies in the “Muslim World” have nuclear weapons, what will the reaction of American politicians be when they are offended by some Baptist minister? Will we see our President further pressuring Israel to greater and greater concessions to the Palestinians? Will we see him agreeing to a “limited establishment of Shari’a Law in Dearborn, Michigan, to satisfy the demands of the “Muslim World”?

The Muslim World understands one thing: strength. They understood that when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Los Reyes Catolicos, crushed the Caliphate of Cordova in January, 1492 and cast the Moors from Spain. They understood that when Israeli tanks rolled up to the Suez Canal in June, 1967, and they understood it when U.S. armed forces streamed into Baghdad in 2003. But what the Muslim World understands better than anything else is weakness. Every time they threaten violence and see western leaders cower before their threats, they are convinced they have a winning hand. That, more than anything else, serves to increase al-Qaeda recruitment.

Human Rights and the United States

The Obama Administration, through its diplomatic surrogates in the Clinton State Department, has recently released a report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as part of that organization’s Universal Periodic Review. In that report, the Obama Administration pats itself on the back for restoring American virtue, badly stained by the Bush Administration. The report admits flaws in the human rights record of the United States, like the fact that one of its constituent states, Arizona, actually writes laws intended to protect itself from unlawful invasion by illegal democrat voters from Mexico. The report also admits that the United States actually detains illegal combatants captured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan in the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Good lord, where will it stop?

What the State Department report does not mention is why a great nation like the United States would even consider contributing any information, let alone a report, to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. While the Commission’s name intones a concern for Human Rights around the world, the actions of the Commission’s member states indicates something quite different. Interestingly, the U.S. State Department also publishes “Country Reports,” (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/) outlining the conditions that may be expected in various nations of the world, even those who make up the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. A quick trip through the pages of the State Department’s Country Reports on some of the nations on the UN Commission members makes for interesting reading.

The African nation of Angola, a member of the UN Human Rights Commission, is a nation governed by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) since 1979, and is characterized by a “tight, centralized control” by that government. The State Department report indicates that while there are no reports of politically motivated killings, police use of excessive force resulted in at least two deaths in 2009 and as many as 23 in 2008, along with reports of routine police torture and killing of prisoners in custody. Other highlights mentioned in the State Department’s Country Reports on UN Commission members include:

Burkina-Faso: Corrupt security forces, which “continued to abuse prisoners with impunity, including frequent threats, beatings and torture to extract confessions.” Prison condition in the country were “harsh and life-threatening.”

China: “severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities” is commonplace, and “extra-judicial killings, executions without due process, torture, forced confessions and forced labor are routine.

Saudi Arabia: ruled by Islamic Shari’a Law and characterized by "routine disappearances, torture and physical abuse, there is no freedom of speech, assembly, association, movement, or religion" in this nation that condones violence against women and children.

With a membership like the nations listed above, among many others, what possible motivation could the Obama Administration have for condescending to even submit a report on human rights in the United States? Why would that thought even occur to any American, let alone someone living in the White House?

The answer is that the Obama Administration has long held and often expressed the belief that the United States of America is a deeply flawed nation in need of “change” that only a person of Mr Obama's towering intellect and goodness can affect. Mr Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism and sees our country as equivalent to the likes of Burkina-Faso or China or Lybia. In short, Mr Obama and his administration hold a deep loathing of America and a contempt for the American people.

It would have been nice to know how Mr Obama regarded this country before the presidential election of 2008. And we might have known these unpleasant facts if there had been a working, honest press at work in the country instead of a deeply corrupt, derelict media devoted to the election of a man who was completely unqualified and ill-equipped to govern a great nation.