Toys in "Happy Meals"

When did 3 out of 5 of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors become such WEENIES?
I expect this in SF and/or Berkeley, but Santa Clara County always was a safe enough distance away. Maybe not anymore.
Whenever anyone on the Left cries something about "keep your laws off my body" - just remember that it is the Left that is continuously telling us how to live our lives, what we can eat, what we can drive, etc. And now, what kind of promotional toys a fast food chain can pass out. This micromanagement of our lives is a loss of liberty - many, many small losses add up to a significant loss of our freedoms.

Oh but this is for the good of kids, who aren't adults, they say? Fine. If we're going to regulate what kids can see about sugary cereals and plastic toys in fast food because it might be bad for them, how about we regulate what they see in schools about sex and their bodies?
--No more teaching them that sodomy or other gay sex is perfectly normal, and safe as can be as long as you use a condom.
--No more enabling them to have abortions without their parents' consent.

But will the Left do that? I thought so, or not.

What the McDonald's Corporation should tell these liberal local governments.

Hysteria about the Arizona Immigration Law

Let's get real. The law requires police to check with federal authorities on a person's immigration status, but if, and only if, officers have stopped that person for some *other* legitimate reason and come to suspect that he or she might be in the U.S. illegally. The heart of the law is this provision:

"For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency...where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person..."

Critics have focused on the term "reasonable suspicion", but what fewer people have noticed is the phrase "lawful contact," which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because s/he's already violated some other law. So this law would come into play in a traffic stop, or a burglary, or a robbery, or some other arrest.

As far as "reasonable suspicion" is concerned, there is a great deal of case law dealing with the idea, but in immigration matters, it means a combination of circumstances that, taken together, cause the officer to suspect lawbreaking.

For example: human smuggling. An officer stops a group of people in a car that is speeding. The car is overloaded. Nobody had identification. The driver acts evasively. They are on a known smuggling corridor. That is a not uncommon occurrence in Arizona, and any officer would reasonably suspect that the people in the car were illegal.

But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally and the lawman can go no further. An overcrowded car out on a joyride does not equal illegal alien trafficking in that case.

Is having to produce a driver's license too burdensome? These days, natural-born U.S. citizens, and everybody else, too, are required to show a driver's license to get on an airplane, to check into a hotel, even to purchase some over-the-counter allergy medicines out of fear they may be making meth. If it's a burden, it's a burden on everyone.

Meanwhile, a funny parody, because only the truth is really funny.

And our ever objective lamestream media coverage....

The Obamunist Economic Goal

Eurostagnation. Dick Morris explains:

When Obama took office, he had one paramount goal in mind — to increase the size of the federal government....

Socialism is not an epithet or even an economic philosophy. Whether a nation is socialist or not is determined by a single, simple statistic — what percent of the economy (GDP) goes to the public sector? When Obama took office, the U.S. public sector (federal, state, and local) spent about 30% of GDP. Now it is 36%. If Obamacare lives to be fully implemented, it will pass 40%.

The United Kingdom has a public sector that accounts for about 40% of its economy. Germany is at about 48%. France is at 50% and Sweden at 54%. If Obama is allowed to let the public sector expand to 40% of our GDP, we will become a European socialist democracy, to our everlasting detriment. We will thereby inherit the sclerosis that afflicts Europe — permanently high unemployment and low economic growth. (Again fully documented in our book 2010).

But after his swearing-in, President Obama couldn't say that he was going to raise taxes to move us toward socialism. So, instead, he raised spending to do it and borrowed the money to pay for it. Now, with interest rates set to rise (because the Fed is not printing money as fast as it was), our debt service burden will be so onerous that it will become obvious to everyone that the deficit Obama has created is unsupportable.

Now, we pay an average of 3.5% interest on our $12 trillion national debt. That works out to an annual debt service bill of about $400 billion. While large, it's not impossible. Defense spending, for comparison, is $550 billion, Social Security is $400 billion, Medicare is $300 billion, Medicaid about $200 billion. 

But, when interest rates rise to 7-8 percent — as they must now that the Treasury cannot just borrow newly printed money but must get real loans from real lenders to finance its deficit — the burden will grow to close to $1 trillion, about a quarter of our budget. Put differently, the entire take of personal income taxes in the United States comes to about $900 billion. All of it will go to debt service.

The United States will become just like the subprime mortgage holders who borrowed at low teaser rates only to see their interest grow until they had to sign over their entire paychecks to the mortgage company.

Obama has been expecting this outcome all along. It is how he will achieve socialism in the United States. He will use the pressure his deficit creates to force higher taxes that will permanently expand the public sector.

Reagan increased the deficit to force liberals to stop spending. Obama has increased it to force conservatives to vote for higher taxes.

Once a spending increase is matched by a tax increase, it lasts forever. That is how Obama plans to move the government's share of the GDP permanently over 40% — into socialist territory.

But the Republicans can and must stop him. By refusing to vote for a tax increase and cutting back Obama's crazy spending, slicing his stimulus package and ratcheting back federal Medicaid payments (by zero funding the increases built into Obamacare), Republicans can cut the deficit without higher taxes.

Indeed, the party should commit to lowering taxes by cutting Capital Gains levies to stimulate investment, jobs, and revenues. The only tax that works economically is a tax cut!

Such a defiant stand, in the face of withering criticism from the media, economists, and the Federal Reserve, can only be made by hardy souls. Indeed, such a stance by a Republican Congress will lead to exactly the same sort of government shutdown — when Obama vetoes the budget — as discredited the GOP in 1995-1996 and led to Clinton's re-election. 

"Pre-Existing Conditions", The Tea Parties, and responsbility

So the leftists mock us for warning what Obamacare will bring:

But the rot and ruin is already on the way. I had an interesting conversation with a health insurance agent the other day. The costs of all of our health insurances are going to increase substantially--on average, by $1200 per person for the coming year.
 
Why? Because insurance companies can no longer deny coverage for "pre-existing conditions".  Oh, how wonderful? Those *evil* insurance coverage can't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions?  Think again. Your car insurance doesn't cover accident damage you incurred *before* signing on with them, and for the same reason. If someone is facing a massive increase in his premium, but no one can deny him coverage for pre-existing conditions, why shouldn't he just wait until something bad happens and buy insurance then? Sure, it would likely be more expensive then, but that's assuming he kept paying for it after the crisis passed.  Without the pre-existing condition rules, why not sign up when you get sick, drop it as soon as you get well, and sign up again when you get sick again?  Oh, Obamacare has a fine for those who do not buy insurance you say? Penny ante. And that's not until 2014. When it comes, why not just pay the relatively small fine everytime you drop insurance and continue gaming the system?  Only one thing stands in the way of everybody doing this: personal integrity.  That's the same personal integrity that keeps me paying my mortgage when I could hop on the government bailout wagon. It's the same integrity that compels me not to spend money I don't have on things I don't need, instead of maxing out a credit card and weaseling out on the debt — by way of one of those companies whose advertising consists of telling people they can get a fifty percent discount on what they owe "predatory" credit card companies.  In theory, good government is supposed to discourage "moral hazard," that is, taking bad risks and otherwise behaving badly because someone else will pay for it. But the Obamunists and the rest of the liberals encourage it, from bailing out companies "too big to fail" to underwriting every American who considers himself entitled to walk away from an underwater mortgage, not because he can't afford it, but because he feels no compunction whatsoever to honor a contract he signed.  People like me? The message is crystal clear: integrity is for suckers — sucker.  And this is what fuels the Tea Party Movement. Those of us who play by the rules are tired of being made into suckers by the Obamunists and the Left. It seems in American politics today, there are three types of people in the world: (1) those who do the right thing, namely, the Tea Party members, (2) those who don't, namely, the Obamunist liberal Democrats, and (3) the "low information voters" who straddle the fence with their finger held aloft to see which way the wind is blowing.  Right now there's a massive Category 5 hurricane gust of wind blowing in the direction of the Demunist takers, whose despicable sense of entitlement ought to be shame-inducing.  But it's not. And every time government pats these people on the head and tells them it's "not their fault" for anything, the fence-sitters head down the path of least resistance, knowing that safety in numbers is the best defense for the indefensible. Or as any grade-schooler would put it: Everyone else is doing it, why not me?
People can rationalize anything. From the (black) street thug who sells crack because "the (white) man is keeping me down" to the shyster lawyer who pockets millions after running a business into the ground because "he's earned it" — to a government which justifies destroying incentive because "it's unfair that equality of opportunity doesn't yield equality of results" — we are constantly reminded that we, the good guys, are taking a beating across the American landscape.  And yet people are fighting back. The Tea Party movement is many things, but the premise behind it is simple: we will not yield to moral anarchy being promoted as "social justice". We will not mortgage the future of the country to underwrite the selfishness and irresponsibility of the present. We will not accept expediency as a viable substitute for the rule of law, the most glaring example of which is illegal immigration "reform."  We will not "do it," just because everyone else is.  "Progressive" Leftist Commiecrats think they can shout down such a movement and discredit it with smears. Good luck, comrades. Good luck telling Americans with integrity that they're bigots, racists, red-necks, etc. Good luck selling "flexible" morality to people with clear consciences and pure hearts.  Good luck persuading them that "clinging" to their faith, their families and the Second Amendment is a fool's errand.  Despite what "progressive" liberal Demunist Commiecrats think, not every American can be compromised — not with a handout, an entitlement program, or anything else which necessitates abandoning one's integrity for security. Those Americans will not be gulled by the false promises of government-sponsored "happiness" — or the inducement of progressive guilt which posits that life is a zero-sum game in which every winner requires an equal number of losers or victims. They will never feel ashamed for being decent, hard-working, law-abiding Americans, who believe in the Constitution, capitalism and American exceptionalism. That is why "progressive" (anti) America despises the Tea party movement. "Progressive" Demunist Commiecrats will never understand the true greatness of America. They will never understand how a nation which gave the rest of civilization a two thousand year "head start" vaulted past every other country to the top of the heap in less than three hundred years. For them, America is an ongoing blank-ist and blank-ophobic tragedy in which the only remedy is atonement — an atonement which requires Americans to lower their hopes and expectations for the future in order to "align" themselves with the Turd world.  That's what the Leftist Democrats are selling as hope and change, my fellow Americans.  The Tea Partiers aren't buying. And the bet here is a substantial majority of Americans aren't either. Those Americans may not be officially aligned with the Tea party phenomenon, but they are with it in spirit. It is a spirit that scares the hell of out those frantically trying disparage it by any means necessary.

The femi(commu)nist mentality explained

Thanks to Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom.

What kind of insanity is this?

Organizer Ty MacDowell said the point of the march was that a topless woman out in public shouldn’t attract any more attention than a man who walks around without a shirt.

And actually, the leftist “womyn” in the cartoon above *does* make a certain dreadful sense.

It's part of "deconstructing" standards and meanings, distorting the reality of human nature and natural law, to the point where what is right and good is whatever *they* say it is, and what is wrong and bad is whatever we, the sane American patriots, think, do and say.

Every communist revolution has it's reign of terror to follow, where any potential opposition is cowed into walking on eggshells.

Already heaven help the male co-worker who makes an innocous remark that may somehow be misconstrued.

Obama's legislative process

The Left's mantra is that: "Bush was running one of the least accountable and most duplicitous administrations in history! Doing things with extraconstitutional means! Waah!"

But this doesn't seem to bother them at all:

That's from Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group. Check them out. 

Despite blunders like Amnesty and Medicare entitlement expansion, yes, I guess I do.

The Innate Immorality Of The Lib Left

If your father went into his grandson's room, found his wallet and took all the money in it, what would you call it? I know what I'd call it. It's exactly what I'd call a twelve trillion dollar IOU run up by the Baby Boomers who will be long retired — and sucking even more money out of the system — when the true measure of such a monstrous lack of morality gets realized.  It's called stealing, and I can't think of a single moral code on the planet which condones it.  Let me explain something to the hand-wringers who decry the "lack of compassion" in Americans who believe they're entitled to the lion's share of their own labor. There is no such thing as compassion in government-mandated wealth redistribution. When I hear so-called religious leaders talking about the sanctity of such, even going so far as to say, "that's what Jesus would do," it makes me gag. Perhaps the only thing worse are secular leftists invoking Christ's name to promote some freedom-killing concept, despite the fact that most of them despise religion.  Memo to the terminally misguided: the entirety of Judeo-Christian principles is based on the concept of free will, not coercion. Genuine compassion consists of voluntary giving, aka charity. And by the way, conservatives give far more to charity than liberals. Liberals idea of compassion is giving your money to their pet causes, after siphoning it through government, and skimming a little of the top as payment for their oh-so compassionate ways.  Furthermore, Christ wasn't a leftist, which is exactly why leftists attempt to denigrate, control or eliminate religion whenever they acquire enough power. Leftists know that religious-based morality is beyond government control and in direct competition with the totalitarian demands of complete fealty to the state.  Make no mistake: the neo-Marxists in Washington, D.C. — and that's exactly what they are — want as many Americans as possible to be totally dependent on government.  Such dependency is completely immoral. The condition of our inner cities is a testament to that reality. We've always had poor people. What we didn't have prior to the Great Society was the virtual destruction of the nuclear family and the virus of unconscionable behavior that destruction abetted — despite the fact America was far more racist in the past than it is now. We didn't have legions of unapologetic nihilists with no concept of dignity, self-reliance, or hope for the future. We didn't have hucksters promoting eternal victimhood — for which there is no remedy other than government.  It's absolutely amazing that the American left has never been taken to task for this ongoing, orchestrated tragedy. And spare me the "best intentions" excuse. Results count, and the expansion of the welfare state has been an unmitigated disaster.
What's more immoral than having a vested interest in maintaining a certain level of human misery?

What's more immoral than liberals taking pride in how many people they've put on government programs? Isn't genuine morality defined by how many people one can get off government programs?
It sure as hell ought to be for many reasons, even if one of them is purely pragmatic: we're literally going bankrupt promoting the faux-morality of liberalism.  Which is why morality itself must be re-defined by liberals. Government confiscation and redistribution, no matter how onerous, is hailed as "social justice." Anyone who lacks anything, whether or not such lack is due to irresponsible behavior, is deemed "worthy" and automatically entitled to compensation. Anyone who has "more than his fair share" is inherently evil. Even the religiously-inspired idea of "be your brother's keeper" becomes "be your brother's keeper — or else."  In the coming weeks, Democrats and their media shills will be in full pitch mode, telling the American public what a great idea health care reform is. What they won't tell you is nobody said it wasn't. But this bill wasn't about health care reform. If it were, Democrats wouldn't have had to bribe members of their own party to pass it. They wouldn't have to force people to buy insurance, or fudge the CBO numbers to make it seem like this bill was deficit neutral. They wouldn't have left out tort reform, or exempted themselves from it. They wouldn't have front-loaded the goodies and back-loaded the economically destructive poison. The wouldn't have seen unrelenting resistance by a majority of Americans, or a total lack of support by Republicans.  They wouldn't have to keep selling it after they've already passed it.  A Fox News poll shows that 79% of Americans believe the economy could collapse. It also showed a substantial majority doesn't think that "elected officials Washington, D.C. have ideas for fixing it." Absolutely, totally wrong, my fellow Americans. Of course the politicians know how to fix it. But all of the fixes require a reduction of government power and the expansion of individual freedom. The Obama administration, and a Democratically-controlled Congress will never countenance that. Never. Better to rule in hell, as it were.
And that's utterly immoral.