Barney Frank to Retire

Spittle shield vendors to be hit hardest.   The number one source of spittle on Capital Hill,  Barney Frank, has announced his retirement,  Karen is heartbroken, from Lonely Conservative:

Good Riddance! Barney Frank to Retire

Now that the damage is done, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is retiring. Good riddance to him. Here’s a video report on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from 2008 – listen carefully from the 1:20 mark on

Reaxs Michelle and RS McCain.

The bad news is that Franks’ retirement makes Maxine Waters (D – Moon) ranking ‘rat on the banking committee.

John, Verum Ssrum, reports Herman Cain has been accused on having a consensual affair, link.

Wow!   No allegations of illegality, or sexual harassment.    Just an allegation of  a thirteen year affair.    Wake me up when the lame streamers have some news to report.

Funny, when B.J. Clinton was president the lame streamers ignored evidence of rape and sexual harassment.   However let a black man dare run for president,  all media restraints are off.

Robert Reich continues to demonstrate that his blood never quite reaches his brain, from San Francisco Chronicle:

Some of the excesses of "Occupy Wall Street" leaking out

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum: It was hijacked.

According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech, and corporations are now people.

Yet when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances – clubbed, pepper-sprayed, thrown out of public parks and evicted from public spaces.

[…]

Yet as Occupiers seek to make their voices heard about all this, they’re told the First Amendment doesn’t apply. When they peacefully assemble – erecting tents in public spaces – they’re attacked and evicted.

In Reich’s demented view,  real people are not entitled to express their views, if they do so through a corporations, which are merely legal identities real people use to represent their interests.

On the other hand, Reich seems to think tents, but not ideas, represent free speech.  There is another name for Reich’s particular concept of free speech, to wit public health hazard.

Over at Outside the Beltway, comes the sad, and somewhat shocking news of the death of Kim Joyner, James’ wife.

Stop by and leave a note.

Gabrielle Giffords’ husband, Navy Commander (retired) Mark Kelly is as plum loco as the man who shot her. Jared Loughner, from Newsbusters:

PIERS MORGAN, HOST: Some interesting insights in the book into who, you know, walked to the plate and who didn’t, really, in terms of political colleagues and people that she had worked for and against. Sarah Palin doesn’t come out of this very well, I don’t think, because there was a woman who at the time had been putting these cross hair things on her website and stuff, including Gabby.

And in her haste to take responsibility didn’t even bother to pick the phone up, to write, do anything.

MARK KELLY: Yeah, we were never contacted by her.

MORGAN: I find that extraordinary.

KELLY: Yeah, I was surprised too. You know, certainly the targets that she put over Gabby’s and other people’s districts, in our opinion, was not the right thing to do. She is not the first person to do that. And it hasn’t always been Republicans that have done that.

Reax Dan Collins,Consrvatory:

You know, I don’t want to criticize the guy, because he and his wife have a tough row to hoe, but in an interview with that British guy, Kelly was asked whether they had heard from Sarah Palin. He said that he was surprised not to have been contacted, and that although Palin wasn’t responsible for what Loughner did, she had acted irresponsibly by circulating her map with targeted districts.

[..]

If, as Kelly admits, Sarah Palin is not responsible for his wife’s terrible affliction, then exactly for what is Palin to apologize to him and Giffords? Is she supposed to apologize for a climate of political polarization? Would an expression of condolence from Palin have eased their pain? Hasn’t she been abused in the most vicious terms by the left? Is she owed an apology? If so, by whom?

Kelly wants an apology from Mrs. Palin for Loughner shooting his wife.   Sure!   By Kelly’s own admission, Mrs. Palin had nothing to do with the shooting of Kelly’s wife, and everything to do lose with an apology.   Had Mrs. Palin apologized for the Loughner’s shooting of  Giffords (Mrs. Kelly) the lame stream media would have used Mrs. Palin’s apology as an admission of guilt.   Put Kelly in the padded cell next to Loughner.   They are two of a kind.

Turkey Trot, 24 November 2011, Webster,NY, from 13-WHAM:

Webster, N.Y. – Thanksgiving means food and football for many – but before all that – thousands of runners took the opportunity to burn off some calories before the big meal.

More than 4-thousand runners took part in the annual Webster Turkey Trot Thursday morning.

video:

We had close to five thousand runners in Webster and another one thousand in Greece. We had more runners that all the Organize Wall Streets had demonstrators. Yet nobody calls the Turkey Trotters the Ninety-Nine percent. Nor should they.

We here in America have a problem.

It is a major problem. There are large number of people in this country, indeed I begin to suspect majority, who are sensing danger and destruction in our near future if this problem isn’t solved.

Certainly it can be considered an economic problem, but I suspect that most people of come to the understanding that runs far deeper than this.  There are a large number of people, who have correctly identified that the locus of the problem is in Washington.  That said, they’re a little vague as to specifics.  There are a large number of people who will directly blame Barack Obama for our current problems.   These  will tell us, that the president is inept.  And that our problems, are because of that massive ineptitude.  Certainly, Obama shares in the blame.  Indeed, he is the representation of the philosophy that is to blame. No argument.

However, Ineptitude?  ummmm..  No.

Observe a rather forceful example; Can you possibly imagine anyone else managing to ramrod through a takeover of 1/7th  of the economy, specifically medicine, without Congress even having read what is proposed?  I certainly cannot.

On that basis we have to assume that there is some political gravitas residing in the White House, and that logically, something else must be the issue. How might we identify this issue?  It would certainly help if we started seriously and objectively looking at history.

I’ve done so, and  I dare to suggest to you that the problem is the degree to which the country has been tilted to the left.

Consider this well;

The kind of mess Jimmy Carter left us in is not often discussed, particularly by liberals, anymore.  That’s understandable.  It’s a kind of painful history for them.  But Carter, being Liberal, implemented liberal policies, and so left us with 21% inflation or more.  He left us with double digit inflation; he left us with an energy crisis which was artificially created by an abjectly blind foreign policy.

Of course, Carter was aided by the fact that then, as now ,  the majority of the GOP of the day was willing to play along because frankly a lot of them even back then they were decidedly not small government conservatives. Frankly, they liked their jobs to much to make too many waves.  In other words, they became more like Democrats; doing a better job of supporting themselves and representing themselves and their own interests, over that of the people.  (Buying votes with taxpayer money)

Along came Ronald Reagan, and the majority of the GOP leadership

Remember... the GOP leadership didn't like Reagan, any more than the left did. And that's a clue.

didn’t like him. because he DID want to make waves… conservative waves.   If you think I’m kidding, consider the 1976 primary…. and yes, ’68, as well.  But the rank and file came up, along with a large number of Democrats, and Reagan got in with a landslide. With him came a large number of real conservatives into the Congress, particularly into the House. That has its own implications which I’ll get to momentarily.

For the moment, however, let’s stick with what we have. Jimmy Carter and his policies left leaning as they were, unarguably were an unmitigated disaster.   Given a landslide with which Ronald Reagan and those of Reagan Republicans were all acted, suggests that this is a fact that was seen very clearly by the majority of the electorate. They clearly saw liberalism as the problem, and with their vote sought to remove that problem.

I hear some readers saying “If leftist policy was such a problem, why was Bill Clinton so successful?  ”

The fact is he was not.  As a matter of fact, he had America heading into an economic downturn not unlike what we’re in right now. Now, there’s a lot of folks who will to this day argue the technicalities of this. But the fact is, that the economy had been on the skids for better than 6 months before Clinton left office. Andof course Clinton had his defense ready…. I remember spending a good deal of his time complaining about tax breaks for the rich.  Rather like today, don’t you think?

The fact of course is that the rich were already, by the time Clinton got into office, paying the result of a roughly 10% tax increase, whereas the poorest Americans had their taxes cut around 540%….(Us census figures) And because Clinton refused to cut spending on anything but the Military…. which is in fact the only program Democrats have EVER cut funding on… we started downhill. Government spending exploded in a way that had not been seen until that time, as did prices of energy and along with that everything else.

And yes, I hear you mumbling about a surplus.  Let me make this clear; there was no surplus under Bill Clinton.  they reported surpluses were actually projections which never materialized because spending was so wildly out of control under the Democrats.  The only cut the Clinton have are enacted of his own volition were cuts on the military.

Of course the left… and the press… (But I repeat myself) tried to pin the recession on GWB, but it was not so. Clinton essentially destroyed domestic energy production… oil, mostly, to satisfy OPEC. Again, blind foreign policy.  And blind domestic policy, as well.  Our economic boom of the bush and Reagan years, along with the first few of bill Clinton’s, was built on relatively cheap oil.  Of course, supply and demand come into play here.  Once Clinton destroyed our domestic capacity through the Liberal tool that is the EPA and other tools of a similar nature, oil prices started going through the ceiling, thus our economy started tail spinning. I’ll bet  few of you reading this will remember the blackouts on the West Coast, the tail spinning stock market,  and skyrocketing energy prices.  That’s because they’re not often talked about in the polite circles of the liberal press.  But they happened.

But of course it’s all because we don’t tax the rich enough, we’re told.  Here again, history takes a hand; when the income tax was originally devised, it was used as an attack on the rich.  The income tax as originally devised ended up with a rather small percentage of tax, I believe it was something on the order of 1%.  And it only a packed the rich.  However, as time went on the tax went down as far as the middle class.  The reason simple enough; that’s because that’s where the money is, as famous Bank Robber Willie Sutton used to say. Do we have any reason to think this “Tax the rich” thing will not come down on the ret of us, as has every “tax the rich” cry in history?

Now, we are told by the left, that the tax deficits of the period were caused by the tax cuts issued by Bush SR. Of course, that’s not true either. Frankly, I’ve got a little tired of that lie, too.  We don’t have an income problem, we have a spending problem. And then, as now, no survivable tax increase would cover the huge amount of spending being applied by the left.  The problem was that the amount of spending coming out of the Democrats, far exceeded the increases in tax revenue caused by what recovery there was.

What turned it around was the election of George W. Bush.   Understand me clearly, here;I’m no fan of Bush…. either one… W was at best a centrist, as his father before him.  Indeed, I consider the Reagan era, and the Bush era, to be two separate matters.  Remember, Bush senior was given the vice presidential nod under Reagan because Reagan was seen by the GOP leadership to be too far to the right, and they felt a balancer was needed. (The voters, then as now disagreed, thinking Reagan’s conservatism the answer to a national prayer. So the GOP leadership brought in an ostensibly centrist Republican.  The fact is, he was somewhat  to the left of center.  Not as far as Clinton and Obama, but… he was certainly no conservative.  To the degree that he was farther to the right than Bill Clinton, it was enough to get the economy moving again.

We can go back further into history if you like, LBJ, Kennedy, FDR, ( I’ve already address the fact in another writing that FDR actually prolonged deepened the depression instead of solving it )  …etc.. But I trust the point has been made.

In short, this country is in trouble to the precise degree it’s been tilted to the left over the years, and historically it has recovered to the degree that it has moved away from such leftism.   The fact is, that what we have right now with Obama is what we would have had with Carter had Carter been somewhat more adept at politics.

Put another way, Obama has put our country into larger problems in every way, because he was more successful at implementing liberal policy then was Carter. The idea that Obama also had super majorities in both houses of Congress, didn’t hurt matters too much either, from his point of view.

But see; The problem has always been liberal policy, to the degree it is applied. The solution has always been moving away from that policy.

I said last August, that Obama has done everything wrong, in terms of what the country needs.  He’s done pretty well tending his own political needs, but the country has gone wanting. Everything he’s done every policy enacted…. 100%, right down the line…. has been an abject failure.

But we can only call it a failure  only if and I say again only if, we define success as a booming economy and an America that is strong in the world and free at home,  and respects the rights of the individual first.

Obama and the Democrats have been extremely consistent in this regard.   I dare to submit that one does not get to that level of consistency without both talent, and intent.  Again, I point to the Healthcare debug will, and how easily it was pushed through both houses of Congress and into law. Far from political ineptitude, this suggests a fair amount of political weight.

I say, that it’s time to give up this myth of Obama incompetence. He knows damned good and well what he’s doing… and he’s doing as he intends. The problem isn’t a political ineptness, but a political stupidity and a blindness to the history of his own party, and his own politics, and their effect on the country and the world.

Shorter yet… the problem is the policies themselves, not who enacts them.

I have dared to raise the argument in the past that the destruction of America is what Obama intends.  After all, one cannot rebuild the nation in their own image as he claims he wants to do without tearing down what exists, first. there is part of me that would like to think the best of people, and suggest that he really doesn’t know what it is he’s doing, doesn’t understand the repercussions  of the policies that he’s put into place.  but if that’s so, then what we’re dealing with is an abject blindness to the results.

As to that blindness…There is, I suppose, a certain dedication involved.  What I’m suggesting is similar to what I’ve suggested about Al Gore and his dedication to “global warming“.  This website has often revealed glaring contradictions to the global warming myth.  Others have done a better job.  Yet we still have people who despite the facts believe in this tooth fairy of global warming.

I suppose Liberal economic policy to be much the same.  There will always be true believers.  We just haven’t implemented the right policies yet.  But if you talk to the communist party USA, who by the way avidly supports Obama, you’ll often find that phrase used there, as well.  Socialism works they say, They just haven’t gotten it right yet…. ignore the destruction the previous attempts have caused.

I suppose Obama could arguably be considered among these.  But I tend to doubt it.  His approach to just about everything, seems to me far more cynical than the average devote’ of socialism would emit.  But don’t discount that blindness among rank and file liberals. I’ve seen it too often to ignore it. So have you.

And there’s still arguing class warfare, even today in the Obama administration.  Some things never change, I suppose.  They need a straw dog.  Let’s defeat this one right now;

Supposedly, the big issue with liberals these days is profits by banks.  Sorry, wrong answer. The  fact is that the total 2011 pretax profits of the entire US financial sector stands at $426BUSD. That’s almost enough to fund the federal government for 42 days, given it’s current rate of spending. Almost, but not quite.  Wanna take all those making a profit? Fine. The pretax profits of all private enterprise amounted to $1.88 trillion.  That’s enough to cover the federal government’s spending for almost 5 months. I say again, the issue here isn’t that were not taxing enough, it’s that we’re spending too much.  Way too much.  And most of that is going to entitlements.  Direct payment from government to individuals.  As such, the usual leftie trick of cutting the military isn’t going to solve the issue, either.

As it stands something on the order of 65% of our income is going to governmental taxes and fees when all levels of government are considered.   Around here, we have an 8% sales tax.  Add to that road taxes on gasoline… which of course never get to the roads. Add to that license fees. Then add all the taxes we’re heaping on corporations which are always passed on to the consumer as a cost of doing business. Now add the costs of unfunded government mandates on corporations in what they build… adding at least half the cost to any car or truck you buy, as an example. What are these, but a tax?  And on it goes.

Taxes are too high, government is too large. I hope you will forgive me the observation, but I am less than impressed that the solution is more taxes and more governmental power.

The main problem with the Liberal solutions which are being tried yet again don’t work.  They never have.  They never will.  There is no instance in the history of the world where a nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.  No instance of success in freedom, where are all power has been given to government .  Government redistribution cannot create wealth.  It never will.

These are points that even China has begun to figure that out, along with Russia.

Government control doesn’t work, either.  As an example, if gun control actually worked, there wouldn’t be any violent crime in Washington DC or NYC.  As someone who visits both frequently, I can tell you that crime is doing rather well in both those locations.  Carl Rowan seems a fair example of the real results of Liberal non-thinking in that regard. Oh, you don’t remember him? Simple to solve that problem.

Wikipedia:

Rowan gained public notoriety on June 14, 1988, when he shot a teenage trespasser, Neil Smith, who was on his property illegally. He was charged for firing a gun that he did not legally own. Rowan was arrested and tried. During the trial, he argued that he had the right to use whatever means necessary to protect himself and his family. Critics charged hypocrisy, since Rowan was a strict gun control advocate. In a 1981 column, he advocated “a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail—period.” In 1985, he called for “A complete and universal federal ban on the sale, manufacture, importation and possession of handguns (except for authorized police and military personnel).” ^[4][5]

Rowan was tried but the jury was deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial and he was never retried. In his autobiography, Rowan said he still favors gun control, but admits being vulnerable to a charge of hypocrisy.^[6]

The bottom line is real and carried his own gun because he knew a liberal policies wouldn’t protect him.  In fact,he knew liberal policies endangered him…   and he reacted accordingly.

In any event, Liberals in this country haven’t learned that lesson yet that their policies are the problem. As Reagan himself used to say…. government isn’t the solution…. government is the PROBLEM. And that’s where the large number of congressional conservatives that came in under Reagan I mentioned before comes into play.  I suggest that more conservatives are going to be in office as a result of Obama…. and I mean real conservatives… not the wannabes like Romney and McCain and Hunstman… that whole crowd can drop off the planet so far as I’m concerned.

If such people gain power in this next election,  such “moderates” we as a country we will be as toasted as we’d be with four more years of Obama.

Must we continue to suffer while they figure that out, (or more likely while they don’t figure that out)  and continue to chase their utopian nightmares? I strongly suggest to you that it’s time that we stopped blaming everything else but the real problem for our current dilemma; the problem is liberalism.   We are the 53%. We’re the ones supporting the 47%. N0 wonder we need two jobs to make ends meet.

The solution is the removal of it.

The problem is government, and the power therein.

The solution is the lessening of it.

It’s time we acted accordingly.

How dumb to you have to be to be a liberal?   Liberals only seem to support free choice when it kills a living person, see abortion.    Robert H. Frank, moron, who for  reasons unknown to modern man, is employed as economics professor at Cornell, wants to wage war on Black Friday.

Aside, I quipped during Thanksgiving, that human has the innate ability to turn anything into a competitive sport, both men and women included.    An glimpse into the competitive [blood] sport of shopping, video;

Hat tip video: Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

As for me, I take a live and let shop attitude.   If you don’t like competitive shopping on Black Friday, don’t.   On the other paw, Frank seems to be mortally offended that  some people would choose to shop on the day after Thanksgiving,  from New York Times:

These costs might be worth bearing if they led to even larger gains. But when all outlets open earlier, no one benefits. Few people actually want to shop in the wee hours, and the purchases that do occur then are presumably offset, dollar for dollar, by reduced sales during normal business hours. Even the shoppers who turn out for early openings seem motivated primarily by a fear that others might snap up bargains before they get there. But if all stores opened later, there would be no fewer bargains than before. In short, we have a classic collective action problem, an arms race.

Black Friday (or, more accurately, Black Thursday Night) is only hours away, so it’s too late to do anything about early openings this year. But we can start thinking about what can be done to protect our future Thanksgivings. Many societies employ “blue laws” — laws that mandate closing times, usually on Sundays. But there is a simpler, more flexible, way to approach this problem. Inspired by the 9-9-9 proposal of the Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, I call it the 6-6-6 plan — an across-the-board 6 percent national sales tax (on top of any existing state and local sales taxes) in effect from 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving to 6 a.m. on Black Friday.

Reax from the Pundit from Poca, Don Surber:

As he does not allude to any, I doubt there is empirical evidence to back Professor Frank’s assertion that stores deliberately remain open when “few people actually want to shop” just for spite or to inconvenience their employees — especially at the beginning of their biggest sales season when they simply lack the time to recruit and re-train replacements for disgruntled employees.

Certainly families are important. But so is shopping. Most Americans put in 40-hour weeks, not 10 or whatever a tenured economics professor at Cornell works. And most Americans work far longer than from August 24 to December 16 and then again from January 23 to May 27, the instructional year for Cornell in this school year.

Greedy one percent professors should not be begrudging some poor working class Fred Flintstone a few extra hours of overtime.

Frank argues that status is somehow bad for you, from Wikipedia:

Frank is one of the first to highlight the perversities of what are known as positional arms races. His book Choosing the Right Pond shows how important status is, and how much we pay for our status. Frank argues that the race for status is bad for society as a whole, as there cannot be improvement in overall status available, because every time person A rises above person B, the sum of their status remains the same. The only thing that changes is which person is where in the hierarchy.

He reasons that this race for status explains partly why increases in wealth do not increase well-being, or do not increase it much. If most of our earnings are spent on an empty game of status, we should not expect much improvement in quality of life

But on the other finger, status is good for Frank:

Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and a Professor of Economics at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He contributes to the “Economic View” column, which appears every fifth Sunday in The New York Times.

Given Frank’s likely schedule, or lack thereof, he has the luxury of shopping during weekdays, when the poor working stiffs are holding down their day jobs.

Editor’s note:

As this is written, (Edited, really) I’m preparing to go to bed. I have to leave at 3am for Southern PA from my western NY home, to make a 10am delivery.

As such I really don’t have a bunch of time to write a new thought for this thanksgiving day. Fortunately, I have several years worth of writings to lean back on. Here’s a post I put up a couple years ago, on the subject of Thanksgiving, and as usual, it takes a cultural bend….

-1-

Britt Hume a couple nights ago:

A traditional Thanksgiving meal between two elementary schools in Claremont, California, has parents in an uproar over costumes.
The kindergarteners have long celebrated the holiday by dressing up as pilgrims and Native Americans and taking turns visiting the other school to share in a holiday feast, but parents this year are divided over what the costumes represent and whether they should be allowed at all.

Michelle Raheja, whose daughter is a kindergarten student, wrote to her teacher, “It’s demeaning. I’m sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis) or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation’s history… There is nothing to be served by dressing up as a racist stereotype.”

The Los Angeles Times reports after a school board meeting last week, officials decided to hold the meal without costumes. That decision angered the parents who supported the original event.
Mother Dena Murphy said of Raheja, “She’s not going to tell us what we can and cannot wear. We’re tired of [district officials] cowing down to people. It’s not right.”

Well, just so. Kids have been dressing up and taking part in Thanksgiving plays, since the Civil war. It’s my view we risk losing ourselves in all this sensitivity. I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t the case that at least some of the noise we hear on days like this, isn’t aimed at exactly that. I mean, how much more dispiriting a message can we send our kids than our own culture and history isn’t worth a damn? Welcome to government schools.

Ah, yes… Government schools. Always a battleground anymore, over exactly this. The comparisons Raheja draws are incredible on their face, but so too is the overall position being taken. It does, however have the action of prying us from our American heritage. That always seems the goal of such actions, doesn’t it? And the teachers and administrators seem to be willing participants in such battles… on the side opposite of American values.

Sometime ago I read a quote from an educator who later went on to political life, whose name I can’t recall at the moment. If any of you can remember the quote I would appreciate passing it along in the comments. But paraphrasing, he said the intent of education was to get students to come out different than their parents. While there may be positive aspects involved with this, I have come to regard this as particularly ominous, given that at least part of the task the quote assigns educators, is to alter the culture, by teaching the students values which their parents do not share. You can certainly understand, therefore, why so many consider Catholic and other religious-based schools to run afoul of their vision of what Education is for; As I’ve said these tend to teach the cultural values which have been handed down generation by generation.

As a result of decades of this brand of “education’, we’ve become sensitive to the point of active denial of our own heritage. Our own story isn’t known to our kids… and the bit Hume speaks of, proves that… and it also shows us the narrative that IS being pushed… that the US is the enemy of everyone.

Because of that long standing effort to demoralize the United states…(in every meaning of that phrase)… perhaps even some of you are unaware of the origins of this day being set aside as a national day of Thanksgiving. Let’s examine the day’s history and historical meaning, shall we?

Let’s start with the fact that Ol’ Ben Franklin wanted to make the Turkey the national bird, thinking the Eagle a bird of Bad moral character, a rank coward.

‘course now, the turkey Ben Franklin knew was brightly plumed, and a rather cunning bird… and not today’s bird, so darned fat he couldn’t fly… such a creature would have never made it in a world of predetors. So, had Ben had his way, the turkey would be in the endangered species list, and we’d all be eating roast Eagle, with all the trimmings, I suppose.

Seriously, though… some of you wonder who we’re thanking, and for what. A look back will answer these questions, and possibly give you a new perspective on things.

Many of you, I’m sure don’t know that Thomas Jefferson wasn’t interested in a national day of Thanksgiving, apparently being conflicted about who we were to thank. However, some more open minded people prevailed. Like George Washington, for example… who said in part, in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation;

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;- for the civil and religious libertywith which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

In 1863, Lincoln had cause to be thankful, as well.

By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the wastethat has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Of course Thanksgiving in it’s current context would be eventually declared unconstitutional, if we allow the courts to run things. the bit that Hume speaks of is exemplary of how that course is run. And perhaps that’s something we ought to remember today, as well.. and be thankful that they’ve not gotten that kind of power from us, yet. That, I am certainly thankful for. (May they NEVER have such power!) If original intent counts for anything in the realm of the Constitution, and I think it does, these proclamations should end the argument about claims of separation of church and state.. and the push toward the removal of the one we should be thankful to, today.

Johnathan Rothenburg said a few years ago, aptly,

While we can and should have debates within the political arena as to the correct role that religion should play in contemporary American society, that debate should be settled democratically by voters, not capriciously by judges. Liberals have often enjoyed success in the courts when they have failed at the ballot box, such as with broad interpretations of the Establishment Clause, these precedents set by our greatest Presidents demonstrate that America’s cultural underpinnings were never based on atheism.

Quite correct.

Well, that touches on the historical and cultural background. But there’s a more personal meaning as well. I’m going to tell you to have yourself a good Thanksgiving. But what do I mean when I say that?

Look, here it is; even with everything going on, today, we have a lot to be thankful for. Myself, for my family, that I have a fairly good job, and so on. Worth celebrating, every one of them.

Please…. Pay attention to those around the table with you this day. Look them in the eye. Let them know. Give thanks for them while you have them. Consider that no relationship is forever, since we are all mortal.

Put aside what petty differences you have with these special people in your life, for special they are. Alas!, that many of us find out how special they were only after they are gone from us. I think there’s no pain deeper than that belated understanding. Celebrate those relationships today and celebrate that whatever else happens, you are together, on this day.

Also think about the fact that the small mountain of food on your table, today, is possible because we are still a blessed and semi-free nation. Such feasting is possible only in nations that are free.

So, think about those in uniform serving these United States to ensure we ARE free to the degree we are. If you can’t do something special for them, pray for them, anyway. If you’re not a religious type, think good thoughts about them, karma counts too. If you are traveling this weekend, through airports or whatever, and you see someone in uniform, thank them for their service. It’ll make their day, trust me. If you see a group of uniforms, obviously traveling together, well…. Billy Beck told us of an experience he had recently…

I happened to spend a few minutes in the atrium of Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport. (Oh wait… it’s now “Hartsfield-Race-Grifter-Maynard-Jackson International Airport”. I almost forgot.) Sitting there, I observed a line of troops in desert camo, standing two-abreast in the outlet of a corridor into the atrium space. On a signal, they took up their gear and began to move out, in column. They made their way through the atrium, and the whole place — perhaps three hundred people (it was early) — stood up as one, rendering a thunderous ovation for the whole time that the troops were in sight.

Lamed by the spectacle, I couldn’t move to get out my camera. I wish I had, though. It was terrific.

So, you get into that situation, stand up and bang your hands together. You’ll be amazed how many others join in, and at the smiles of the uniformed. It’s a feeling you won’t soon forget.

Pay heed today to the fact that freedoms unguarded do not abide forever, and that with the kind of business Hume talks about, and what we’ve seen of late, the last year or two, those freedoms may not outlast us, and as with family, many of us find out how special they were only after they are gone from us.

In looking over this post I see I sound a bit more cautionary than I have in years past. Perhaps it’s advancing age, perhaps it’s the political climate, perhaps it just a better understanding of all this, perhaps it’s a combination of all of them, I don’t know. But I’ve never held back from you what I was thinking before and I’m not about to start at this late date.

Again, have a good Thanksgiving, today.

Word to the wise, change is not a synonym for improvement, see frying pan, fire, from Kim Sengupta and Solomon Hughes,Independent (UK):

Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country’s new government.

The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new “enemies of the state”, “disappeared” in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Muammar Gaddafi fan club.  However I am yet to be convinced that Muslims have the inherent capacity for self-governance.   Prove me wrong.   The world would be better place for it.

Count your blessing that you live in a constitutional republic.

From Cadie Thompson, CNBC:

Some demonstrators[morons] are planning to occupy retailers on Black Friday to protest “the business that are in the pockets of Wall Street.”

[…]

The goal of the movement is to impact the profits of major corporations this holiday season.

Just what the American woman needs, even more motivation to shop, from Karen, the Lonely Conservative (but not so lonely shopper):

What better reason to stay home and shop right here than to avoid the disease and bug infected criminal occupy mob on Black Friday? I hope they keep it up, not because it could help my own bottom line, but because it will show the 99% that these degenerates don’t stand for them. And hopefully, enough people will wake up to the fact that the Democrats and President Obama stand with those working overtime to destroy our way of life.

More reax, Bruce McQuain, Questions and Observations:

Ye gods … save us from the economically challenged and politically unhinged.  Clever, no?

If you don’t like shopping at Wally World don’t.  I intend to spend Black Friday hiking..   However I have learned a few things, among them never get between a woman and her passion.    The Ninety-Nine Percenters, are going to be massively out numbered by the crazed throngs of shoppers.   And the Occutards think the UC Davis police used force…. Impede the access to millions of crazed shoppes at your own risk.  May God have mercy on your soul.

Addendum:   If  Organize Wall Street are indeed the Ninety-Nine percent, why are they so few and so out numbered, from Andrew Galvin, Santa Ana Register:

The folks from Occupy Orange County might need to work on their delivery if they want to get their message across.

A two minute “flash mob” by members of Occupy’s Santa Ana contingent left some Walmart employees feeling disrespected and confused.

[…]

The group began chanting a message intended to convey solidarity with Walmart employees and urging them to skip work on the day after Thanksgiving.

If the Occutards are gong to claim to be the Ninety-Nine Percent, they need to show numbers which would reflect the ninety-ninn percent and not just a few angry miscreants.

For a movement which claims to represent ninety-nine percent of the population, the Occutards seem to suffer a shortage of chicks.   Whereas the Tea Party was organized by and had plenty of participation by Tea Mommas., from Nice Deb:

So, the #Occupy movement is led by scruffy, whiny, white  dudes, who look the other way when women are sexually assaulted at their encampments, but are baffled and embarrassed because more women are not a part of their movement.

The Tea Party, on the other hand, is led by fierce, strong willed women, who are looking out for their children’s futures like “Mama Grizzlies”. One poll indicated that 55% of the Tea Party movement is made up of women.

Some of the excesses of "Occupy Wall Street" leaking out

Seldom at a loss for words, RS McCain offers his take, from the Other McCain:

There are probably women who aren’t bothered much by poor hygiene, and there may be women who aren’t bothered by a lack of toilet and bathing facilities. But I think you’ll have a hard time finding women who aren’t bothered by the kind of bad stuff that happens to women when they’re constantly surrounded by a bunch of scummy, predatory cop-haters: Rape, sexual assault, sexual assault, rape, sexual assault, indecent exposure, sexual assault, gang rape . . . You get the picture.

So maybe one of the secrets of attracting women to your movement, is not to rape them. Who’d have thunk?

PIAPS, a/k/a Mrs. B.J. Clinton evidently wants to do for the Clinton administration, what she did for the Cold War, from Karen, the Lonely Conservative:

Two Democrat pollsters, Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell, have a piece in The Wall Street Journal urging President Obama to abandon his campaign for a second term. They argue that the nasty campaign will make it impossible for him to govern. (Not that he’s very interested in governing, I might add.) I probably don’t have to tell you who they believe should run in his place

What Mrs. Clinton and her ham handed diplomacy did was re “reset” the Cold War. Now Mrs. Clinton wants to reset the Clinton administration, from Carl in Jerusalem, Israel Matzav:

In the ‘bad old’ days of George W. Bush (and for that matter, Bill Clinton), the United States was the World’s sole superpower. Now, President Obama has ‘re-set’ relations with Russia and they’re back in picture stirring up trouble just like the old Soviet Union.

What could go wrong?

In the hands of Mrs. Clinton, plenty.

Milton, PA– I came down here last night with a load of  green beans and such. They’re unloading me as I write this. It’s cool around here today, but not yet cold, except at night. My truck is running fine.   My internet connectivity is a little screwy as I get used to the new phone. That will pass, I’m sure. Let’s get to it.

• OWS and Animal Farm:Glenn notes:
  

  #OCCUPYFAIL: OWS Organizers Occupying Luxury Hotels. “Tents are not for me.”It really is getting more and more like Animal Farm all the time, isn’t it?

  Quite. If there’s anything surprising about this it’s that anybody is surprised.

  I notice over to OTB Joyner is bemoaning the violence now being used occasionally against OWS protesters. I tell him:

  There is a point in time at which civil disobedience becomes criminal.  Force is used against criminals every day of the year. In every kind of country including ours. Why, after months of this nonsense, is anyone… even Greenwald… quite possibly the least honest blogger out there, surprised that violence is finally used here?

  The line that got crossed in this case was a lawful order to disperse that wasn’t followed.  That makes the protesters criminal.  They’ve been pushing this for some time, wanting to become martyrs.
  The bottom line is that’s what the protests are all about. Can’t have publicity without martyrs. They call themselves Martyrs. I call them domestic terrorists.   The Daily Caller has managed somehow to get ahold of the arrest records of some of the people that have been arrested at various OWS cities, end if found that a goodly chunk of them come from rich white families. granted, that it’s not all of them, but a surprising number of these kids are simply spoiled brats.  I’ve seen speculation that there simply trying to assuage their guilt over being born rich.  Where would that come from do you suppose?  I suggest that it comes to to us by way of the politics of hate spilling from the Obama White House, and the SEIU.  What we have here is Obama and the Dems trying to create disorder.  Chaos.  They apparently subscribe to the Friedrich Nietzsche newsletter…. he who said (Arguably) “Out of chaos comes order“.  With them, they hope, at the top of the order. I point again to the brown shirts , who back in the day provided the disorder in German society so that a new order could be swept in.  And the Brown shirts often used this tactic  that we’ve seen more than once in the OWS crowd. UC Davis, one of the most liberal colleges in the country, is now calling for an investigation on all of this.  Frankly, I’m not surprised that they’re not supporting the police in this. But we should be.

• Supercommittee…. is anyone shocked by the outcome? They shouldn’t be.The Democrats never wanted this deal. They know damned well that the Democrats aren’t going to go along with not going for the class warfare they’;ve been spouting for the last eon. The bottom line is that they wanted something to toss at the Republicans in the coming election. You can’t run against a “do nothing Congress” if it actually did something.
• EU: WATER DOES NOT HYDRATE Remember, gang, these are the same folks that warned us about “Global Warming”. These are the folks that Obama, along with most of the left, want us to be more like. Flash this in the face of anyone who tells you government is a solution to anything.
• Near Poor? The New York Times has finally gotten around to admitting that people aren’t doing so well.
  

  …When the Census Bureau this month released a new measure of poverty, meant to better count disposable income, it began altering the portrait of national need. Perhaps the most startling differences between the old measure and the new involves data the government has not yet published, showing 51 million people with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line. That number of Americans is 76 percent higher than the official account, published in September. All told, that places 100 million people — one in three Americans — either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.

  Of course all this is “unexpected”. And of course the paper steadfastly refuses to link these numbers to the cause… Leftists like Obama and their policies. But you and I know better. SOS steadfast are they and their support for the left, that instead of actually pinning blame on the perpetrators, they’re down to arguing what and what does not constitute “poor’.   Welcome, dear friends, to hope and change.

Why we we pay good taxpayer dollars to support the useless Department of  Energy?

Graph curtsey of Department of Energy

Graph Source:  Department of Energy.

In the thirty-four years the federal Department of Energy has existed, domestic consumption of oil has increased, domestic production decreased and imports increased. In other words the DOE has been a massive failure.

So why do we continue to  pour tax dollars down the DOE drain:

President Barack Obama unveiled on May 7 a $26.4 billion budget request for DOE for fiscal year (FY) 2010, including $2.3 billion for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The budget aims to substantially expand the use of renewable energy sources while improving energy transmission infrastructure. It also makes significant investments in hybrids and plug-in hybrids, in smart grid technologies, and in scientific research and innovation.^[6]

Hat tip:  Wikipedia.