Nightly Ramble: Unions Again;Barney Frank Isn’t; More

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the ‘shere… Bitsblog’s Nightly Ramble.

• I shouldn’t have to tell you the amount of heat I’m taking for my stand on Unions. Boortz, today touches on this, too…
  

  Yesterday we talked at length about the auto industry and how it is completely drowning because of unions. Here’s a small scale union story for you …Detroit is trying to clean up its image. In efforts to do so, the city council wants to give a $200,000 contract to a non-profit organization dedicated to the reforestation of the city. It’s being called The Greening of Detroit. The group made up of volunteers would plant 2,000 saplings in neighborhoods that have been plagued by some invasive species.

  Enter the local union: AFSCME Local 542. This union has now stalled the City Council from authorizing this agreement for The Greening of Detroit. Why? Because the local union sees this as competition for the city’s 50 forestry workers and they believe that the city is outsourcing THEIR jobs by allowing this non-profit organization to plant trees. Instead, this union would rather the government spend the $200,000 on trees and then pay the union workers to do the labor on top of that … rather than allowing these volunteers to plant the trees for free.

  Do you even begin to understand how many different ways this is wrong? this is just one of many such things that have cross my desk… and some of the people calling this stuff to my attention… including this example from Neal… are themselves union members.
  By the way, Neal… welcome to the blogging world. It’s about time.

•   Why do I get the feeling from Barney Frank’s reaction to Paulson’s announcement yesterday, that he had some motive for the bank bailouts that he wasn’t telling us about?  His complaints certainly don’t make sense on the grounds he’s presenting them. When you see that great a leap from reality to the argument presented, you know there’s some other motivation. Can it be he was still hoping to use the toxic properties as ‘public housing’? I have little enough faith in governmental processes now… when this guy is involved my trust factor goes to zero. As, may I add, should your own.
• Did anyone really think BDS was going to be gone once the Bush Administration’s terms ended? Think again. What we have here is a movement to make opposition to Democrat wet dreams, criminal.
• Meanwhile of course dirty tricks against Republicans are legal, and cheered in some quarters.
• And Henke still thinks we can work with Democrats?   No, Jon.  Not only ‘no’, but ‘HELL NO!”  There is no negotiations with Democrats No compromise.  None. The experience of both Bushes and John McCain  and ahost of others, should have taught you that much, and proven it to you beyond any question. They tried the route of compromise, and as I predicted back in 91 and 92 they got handed their asses for their trouble. It happens every time.  What’s interesting is the number of people who are seeing this fact, and reacting correctly to it.
• Oil’s now at $55/bbl, in case you’re still following that. How often did I get pounded by morons for suggesting last August that $40/bbl was likely in the near term? Let me just say: SITYS. Understand; How long the price stays there depends on how the Democrats deal with Energy going forward. If they retrench their ‘no drill’ policy, as seems likely to me, prices will go right back where they were… $140 plus. Remember, they view short oil supply is something to be sought, not avoided. They think Americans paying sky high prices for energy is a good thing.  Just one of the many examples where compomise isn’t possible.
•  Billy mentions Bruce’s yesterday post about the New York Times and the financial problems they face. Personally, the place sliding into New York Harbor sludge wouldn’t hurt my feelings any, but I’ll say I’d like to see somone like Murdoch snap the place up. It’d be interesting to see if he could make the place into a real news outlet. It’d be more interesting to see what effect that would have, not only on heir circulation figures, but on the news business in general. The injection of honesty would be revealing, I think.
• BTW, Billy… did you see the Nuge is back?
• Oh, come on, now… a little early for this don’t you think?
• And speaking for Palin… Now, they retract, damage already having been done. No hard feelings, what?
• Speaking of the damage already being done by the time something gets done abut the problem, I see the Catholic Church finally got round to cutting off ACORN funding. About bloody time.

Has Max Baucus ever read the Constitution?    I kind of doubt it.  According to the New York Slimes:

WASHINGTON – Without waiting for President-elect Barack Obama, Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, will unveil a detailed blueprint on Wednesday to guarantee health insurance for all Americans by facilitating sales of private insurance, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, and requiring most employers to provide or pay for health benefits.[…]

People would have a duty to obtain coverage when affordable options were available to all through employers or through the insurance exchange. This obligation “would be enforced, possibly through the tax system,” the plan says.

Duty to obtain health care coverage?  On what farging planet?   Read the Constitution Senator.  You are full if it.    The ‘rats can’t even wait for BO to assume office before they start ignoring the Constitution.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… BitsBlog’s Nightly Ramble

 

• So, Google’s tracking the flu, by watching it’s search engines.. and who searches? Camel’s nose. Think I’m streching the point? Look, gang.. all it’s going to take now, given the bailout pattern we’ve seen, is the failure of Google… and the government thereupon stepping in as a stockholder, setting special conditions. And before you tell me ‘Google can’t fail’, allow me to remind you GM couldn’t miss, either, until the unions and the government got ahold of it.
•  Remember we spoke yesterday about how Bush had class, and Obama didn’t? Case in point. Look, gang, this is nothing more than theschool of Sol Alinsky. And this isn’t even the opening round, yet.
• I note Nashville 21 saying perhaps Republicans should break out the same tactics, and use them on Democrats. I have to say, it’s looking attractive. I’ll get into this idea further, later as I have time. But look, they’ve already demonstrated that there’s no compomise with them… and if Bush and McCain hoave shown us anything, it’s that.  
• Her ancestors came over on a boat… whereas she came over on  a train. A “Virgin’ train no less.  I mean, you can’t write this stuff.
• Steyn is a must read, today.
• Barone gets it right, but….:
  

  A roomful of academics erupted in angry boos Tuesday morning after political analyst Michael Barone said journalists trashed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, because “she did not abort her Down syndrome baby.”Barone said in an e-mail that he “was attempting to be humorous and … went over the line.”

  Quit being a wuss, Barone. They got ticked because frankly, you got closer to the truth than was comfortable, particularly for that decidedly leftist crowd…

  At the start of his talk, Barone also did an informal, show-of-hands poll about cable news preferences. Attendees said the results were roughly MSNBC, 35 percent; CNN, 55 percent; and Fox News, 10 percent

  Nope.. no slant there, huh?

• John Edwards is in Rehab, sorta… and will doubtless be showing up on the political radar in 2012. and  more importantly, 2016. Nice to know Democrats are so open minded about what goes in in personal lives, isn’t it?  Of course, ignore all the crap thrown at Republicans, this last cycle, or that last comment doesn’t make sense.
• Meanwhile, am I suppose to feel sorry for this guy, too? Sorry, no… and for the same reason.
• Boortz notes:<blockquote>The FEC will not be auditing the Barack Obama campaign because it doesn’t want to conduct a messy audit of a sitting president. Meanwhile, there is a rigorous audit of the McCain campaign going on.Ah, yes, transperancy.
• I keep thinking of getting XM activated in my truck… but I wonder if they’re going to last longer than the one year contract I’d be signing. And that’s even aside from the quality of the streaming.  I’m starting to think that the only reason I’m even looking at it is because it has an XM radio in the dash (Stock) that isn’t enabled.
• Speaking of SUV’s I see people are buying them again. Good, maybe we’ll save mroe lives than we can with the Altoids cans they’re selling as cars, these days. Gas prices coming down is part of what drives that, (You should pardon the pun) but SUV prices, particularly in the used market are down, too… to the point where overall costs are still lower for an Larger, safer, more comfortable SUV, than they are for a matchbox car,  even at $3.50 a gallon. Which by the way, is a point I’ve already made here over the summer. For the record, my Rainier gets 21-23mpg.
  

  Bit's 2004 Rainier at the NY Balloon Festival

• By the way, speaking of SUV’s; and electronics, I see where there’s a company who has developed a box to replace the OnStar boxes in the GMT360 (Trailblazer /Envoy/ Rainier/ Bravada,  etc). The system allows a bluetooth connection to your cell phone, which will allow you to use the radio/cellphone feature through your regular cell phone. Total cost for all you’ll need is around $300, but it’s cheaper than the OnStar contract nonsense. OnStar’s a good idea, but not at the cost… which would be a lot less if folks could tack the OnStar to a pre-existing family plan. If you’d like info feedback me here, and I’ll pass along the info.
• More SUV thouhts are available here, here, and a whole list of them here.
• For al the complaints about hate, it seems to me there’s a lot of hate coming from these people. I’ve said ir before I’ll say it again; It’s not hate or not hate, but WHOM you hate that motivates these folks. That can’t stand intolerance unless it’s someone they don’t like.
• Still trying to steal votes for Franken.
•  So much for Obama’s vaunted ethics.
• “What the hell was I thinking?” Well, yeah. I called it ‘buyer’s remorse’… I tell you it’s going to happen shortly.
• Billy… I’ve a better…. “What?!?!?! What? I can’t hear you….. You’ll have to speak up, sonny… I’m a little hard of hearing…. Hello? Hello? (Click)”…..   (chuckle) You’re welcome.

Some shots from a trip on November the first.
As usual, drill each pic, then drill again for the full sized shot.
Careful, they’re pretty big.

Billy Beck:

“Great” Britain

It killed Baby P. The actual murder was bought and paid for out of state benevolence.

That kid was only seventeen months old, and the people ostensibly charged with responsibility for looking out for him watched it all happening and did nothing.

The essential thing to keep in mind through all this is the manifest divorce of authority from responsibility. The rotten mother and her perp boyfriend will sit a while, but the jobholders will not relinquish their poses. They will carry on with straight faces while that kid moulders in his grave.

The thing is, Billy, is that this kind of this is eminantly predictable, even on the face of it.  Once government steps in to take over a responsibility… as you say…  ostensibly … from the individual, in this case, as regards their responsibility as parents, what can be expected except that the individual will expose themselves as being totally unsuited to tend their own affairs? They’ve never been trained to accept such responsibility, and have never been expected to do so.

And, of course once that happens, government exposes itself as being totally unsuited to the task they’ve appointed themselves, as well, as in this case. As a result, we’ll have exactly what we had on the floor of the commons the other day… finger pointing, and a lot of heat, but not much light.  It becomes not an issue of whose job it was in the first place but an issue of political football, since nobody will ever question that the government should have done something.

Think; everything government pushes itself into… Domestic examples… Energy… Economics, parenting, transportation… comminications, technology… gets fouled more or less proportionally to the degree of governmental involvement.

I suggest that while government should have a minimal backstop role in all these matters, what we see today is hardly to be considered minimal. We’d actually have a chance to make things work were government actually to respect the constitutional limits placed on it, which they have not.

Your chosing this case to comment on is well done… it is in fact emblematic of what we face today, across the board. Other governmental intrusions are less bloody, perhaps… but no less tragic in terms of negative impact on society.

 

And think; Tragic and public as this case has been, does anyone really think it’s the only such? Or is it just the only one we know about, since there’s a dead child’s body to be accounted for?

Reynolds:

CHRIS DODD INTERVIEW, CENSORED:

 

Scott hosted a weekday 5 to 7 p.m. drive-time talk show until Oct. 29. That was the day he taped a combative interview with U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut (pictured with Mutual Housing chief Seila Mosquera during a recent tour of New Haven’s Fair Haven neighborhood).

The interview focused on two controversies that have dogged Dodd recently: He received personal “VIP” loans from Countrywide Financial, a predatory lender he was supposed to be regulating as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. And he helped craft a $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill designed to spur new small-business and homeowner lending — but which turns out to be designed instead to enable banks to buy other banks. . . .

The result was riveting radio. But WELI’s listeners never got to hear it. Asked why the interview never ran, Todd Thomas, Clear Channel’s regional operations manager, said, “That’s something that happened behind closed doors.” He declined to comment further.

 

I wonder if fairness-doctrine fears are already having a chilling effect

Gee, ya think?
Good Lord, people, what does it take to admit the obvious?

Greet news, Arthur J. Shawcross is dead, WHEC-TV:

Arthur Shawcross, the notorious serial killer who murdered 11 local women is dead. Most of his victims were prostitutes, but Shawcross struck fear into the entire community for two years.

It would nice if they could bury hm locally.  His grave will need planty of watering.    Shwacross was convicted of at least thirteen killings.  I suspect more.    I blame New York State’s inept criminal justice system for all of the death of the local women.  Nobody who kills two children shold ever leave jail alive.

RocWiki:

The greatest tragedy of this story is how easily so many of the lives lost to Shawcross could have been saved. Criminal activity in his youth escalated from burglary and arson, eventually to convictions of manslaughter and pedophilia². Displaying model prisoner behavior, he was paroled early and the police attempted to relocate him to Binghamton. However, following a public backlash against having a convicted child rapist and murderer settled in their community³, the police modified access to his records so even other departments would have difficulty obtaining information on the whereabouts of Shawcross. He was silently moved to Rochester. When the killings in Rochester began, police checked their records for known predators and found none.

 Partial list of Artie’s victims, Wikipedia:

Patricia Ives, 25

Frances Brown, 22

June Cicero, 34

Darlene Trippi, 32

Anna Marie Steffen, 28

Dorothy Blackburn, 27

Kimberly Logan

June Stotts, 30

Marie Welch, 22

Elizabeth Gibson

Dorothy Keller, 59

May the ladies continue to rest in peace, while Artie rots in Hell.

Talk about pity, Karl Rove, a/k/a Turd Flower, nails the problems with two administrations, present and future, Gateway Pundit:

I’ve learned in looking back now a sobering lesson. The president needs to be careful in his language but he cannot allow the kind of brittle and brutal attacks that were made on this president at certain times to go unanswered. And, we probably made a mistake at times

Video:

 

Rove describes the woes of two adminstrations iin a bit just over fifty words. The problem with the Bush adminstration was failure to address demented critics.   The death of the Obama administration will be failure to comprehend the meanings of words.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… Biitsblog’s Nightly Ramble…

Did you thank a vet today?

It’s vets day, and it’s also my wedding anneversary, so a light day, today.

• I see where theMars Lander Pheonix has finally given up. It’s not talking to controllers, anymore. Apparently, it’s been having increasing probems with the cold, and whatnot, and they’re pretty much given up hope of talking to it again.
• I can’t imagine a better indication of how bad things are for America when that toxic twit  Terry McAuliffe starts a run for Governor of Virginia.
• And people are starting to notice. TakePaul Broun(R) Congresscritter from Georgia. Here’s someone who has a firm grip on reality. Alas, because the illusion is more attractive, he’ll likely get pilloried for his trouble.
• David Limbaugh:
  

  “The most unnerving aspects about the Democrats’ sweeping victory Nov. 4 are their intolerance for dissent and their willingness to censor and otherwise suppress their opponents.”

  Well, yeah Then again, I said that yesterday.
  It’s not like nobody told you, Ann.  SITYS seems a cold comfort now, though.

• Bush has class, whatever else might be said about him. More, I think, than Obama, but we’ll see in four years. And certainly more than his followers, as Bruce exmplores today.
•  Just like that Frankenvotes appear. And yes, there are some who think it fraud.  I’m one of them.

A couple shots out my front door after a passing storm… an unusual end-to-end rainbow. Donna caught these.

I dunno about where you are, but around here we usually only get one end of the thing or the other.  There are many who hold this to be a sign of good luck.

Personally, I just got a kick out of watching it. As usual, drill the pic, then drill again for full size. Careful, the filesize is pretty big.

Me at Q&O  just now…

I have always seen the union as the core of the issues with domestic automakers. I submit that the quickets and most efficient way to get GM back in the black and on a growth pattern is to eliminate by government fiat, unions. Yes, I’m serious.

Proof? Look; The American auto-industry has been doing pretty well outside of the big three, mostly because they’re not dealing with the Unions overlarge demands on wages and bennies. I’ve been saying for bloody years, now that Unions are killing America. It suprises me not at all that things are at this pass.

Is there anyone on the planet who does not understand that the Democats… who are all over this bailout (ostensibly) for auomakers, are also, generally speaking the ones who don’t gave a rat’s bump about American industry, and they are people who have been runing against corporate America? Why would they want to bail corporate America out?

In this case, the answer is simple and direct; They’re not about bailing out the big three, they’re about bailing out the UAW, from whom they invariably get massive support… both in votes and in dollars. One could argue there’s a direct conflict of interest there, but I suspect you won’t hear anyone but me making the suggestion.

All this aside from the control the government… meaning Democrats… get to claim as shareholders.

The Politico posts something today that offers no new insights, but is perhaps worth going over again:

Barack Obama promised he would lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans and presumably raise them for the 5 percent who benefited most under President Bush’s tax policies. But, remarkably, the most affluent 5 percent supported Obama and that was perhaps the key to his victory last week.

This group — and the rise of a new elite class of voters — is at the heart of the fast-paced changes in demographics affecting the political, sociological and economic landscape of the country. While there has been some inflation over the past 12 years, the exit poll demographics show that the fastest growing group of voters in America has been those making over $100,000 a year in income. In 1996, only 9 percent of the electorate said their family income was that high. Last week it had grown to 26 percent — more than one in four voters. And those making over $75,000 are up to 15 percent from 9 percent. Put another way, more than 40 percent of those voting earned over $75,000, making this the highest-income electorate in history.

The poorest segment of the electorate, those making under $15,000, has shrunk from 11 percent to 6 percent over the past dozen years. And those making $15,000 to $30,000 annually — the working poor — also shrunk from 23 percent to 12 percent of the electorate.

…

While Obama received record votes from the expanded minority communities, that alone would not have led to victory had he not also secured so much support among the growing professional class — and in doing so went beyond the successful 1996 coalition that also climbed the income ladder to include newly targeted soccer moms. Back then, President Clinton got 38 percent of the vote among those making over $100,000. This year Obama earned 49 percent of that vote. He also got 52 percent of a new polling category — those making over $200,000 a year who were no longer among the top 1 percent of earners, as they had been in past elections, but were now the top 6 per cent.

And for all the talk about the surging youth vote, those under 29 went from 17 percent in 1996 and 17 percent in 2004 to a mere to 18 percent of the electorate today — and that youth surge was heavily fueled by the fact that the minority communities are much younger than their white counterparts. Of the 18 percent under age 29 who voted this year, 11 percent were white and 7 percent were minority.

Well, look, there’s a history of richer voters doing this, and history shows why. When Ronald Reagan took office part of the argument was about confiscatory tax rates on the upper classes. This, Carter argued was ‘fair’. What they didn’t say was that under Carter, and indeed, under LBJ and his ‘great society’, and under Bill clinton as well…the only group that saw any real after tax income gains was the upper income groups. The middle class and lower income groupings, saw income decreases.  In comes Reagan, who lowers cap gains taxes and ALL income groups see gains.

It’s not hard, based on that history then, to understand why the rich like Democrats.

Thank Them.

I wrote this bit back in may of ’04. It seems to apply well to our current situation.

—-

-Churchville, NY — I’m catching up on some railfanning… I gather from some online friends a rare bit of power is moving through in the next hour or two. Too bad it’s raining this afternoon. The light is terrible for photo work.

Ah, well. At least I’m able to spend some time with my kids. My older boy in particular, is starting to get really sharp in his questions about life, and we’ve been talking today. One of the things we’ve been chatting about is the war in Iraq, and my thoughts on it. For one thing, he wanted to know what I had been thinking about the widely reported death of Pat Tillman. To explain that to him, I had to get into some detail on why we honor service to our country. It’s amazing how little of that is taught in schools anymore.

For those who don’t know, Tillman was an NFL player, and a pretty fair one at that. I don’t need to tell you NFL players haul in money by the plane load. Tillman turned it down, instead going into the Army. He was killed in action near the Pakistan/Afghan border on Thursday.

I do have a question: What rock have you been under? No, don’t worry. I’m just commenting on the massive news coverage we’ve seen on this topic; the news media can’t get enough of it.

I told him I’d already written about all of it in my Blog. We chatted for quite a while about it all. I expressed to him, as I had in my Blog the other day about my discomfort with the coverage Tillman’s death had gathered.

Don’t misunderstand; I have a small mountain of respect for Tillman. I have sympathy for his family, his loved ones, his buddies in the field. I refuse, however, to be caught in the trap of regarding the death of this one soldier as being of greater impact than the death of any other. I will not hold the service of this one to be unequal to any other that serves us true.

I can understand why the press thinks this a special case, I guess. For example, I cannot dispute that Tillman gave up greater financial wealth to put on the uniform of his country, than most soldiers do. Tillman, if glory was what he was about could easily have covered himself with a sort of personal glory by remaining in the NFL. So, certainly, he wasn’t after the glory, as one I’ve written of elsewhere on this site for months now, would seem to have been. I don’t call THAT true service.

Perhaps some historical perspective will help me to make my point clearer.

I had occasion, recently to see “The Glenn Miller Story” again, just recently, and am now struck by the parallels, as I have been in the past. Miller put on his uniform because he thought he could do some good in his country’s efforts against the Nazi threat. He ended up giving his life for his choice. Who knows where Miller’s music would have taken him, had he lived out his natural life, instead of ending up at the bottom of the English Channel.

Like Miller, Pat Tillman’s choice was about personal sacrifice, and of service… Service of an ideal he thought bigger than himself.

That kind of dedication is be cherished, certainly. But we must not allow ourselves to be swayed by the life position the soldier had, before he/she was a soldier, in our estimation of the value of that soldier.

Understand me clearly, please; The honoring of our vets has always held special meaning for me; it’s a lesson my parents instilled very well, indeed. It was brought home to me, as I was recently looking at pictures from a trip we made through the Gettysburg PA area some years ago.

It’s a particularly meaningful thing, when you’re standing on that field…. something that goes well beyond the cold facts and figures about who died from what company, how old they were, or even where they were from. It’s more a feeling you get…. you can sense it… not unlike being at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, or visiting Arlington National Cemetery. I’m told Omaha Beach, and Pearl Harbor and many other sites are the same way. I’ve been at the funerals of firemen and policemen who died in their line of duty, and that was also remarkably similar.

In each case, we’re dealing with places and concepts of death. But death alone doesn’t do it; doesn’t create that solemn atmosphere that is so unique to the above places. After all; there are lots of mass casualty accidents have happened over the centuries and their sites are well marked, and revered, or at least held apart, and yet, their impact doesn’t approach that of an Iwo Jima or a Pearl.

Even under the shelter of the relative safety of the time that has passed since the events, as you stand in each place, you can still feel it; Lives were lost there that were willingly (And in the case of the civilian deaths at the towers, unwillingly) sacrificed toward a higher ideal.

Our feelings and conclusions can be far different from what those lost experienced. Yet, their lives and their sacrifices still count for something. And the thing is, it doesn’t take much for us to out ourselves in their mindset.

Think of it this way; Every single man who died at Gettysburg, at Normandy, at Pearl and all he rest, and now in the Middle East, has meaning for us because each of them, had their own lives, just as we have our own lives.

These people loved, they laughed, they cried. They had a favorite food, a favorite color, a particular bit of music, or of poetry stirred their souls, like none other, just like we, ourselves. Every bit as much as you and I love our lives, they loved theirs. Their lives were as precious to them, as yours is to you. Their loss was as keenly felt by their loved ones as yours would yours. And yet, they gave their lives up, for something bigger.

I have a neighbor, whose father just recently needed a liver transplant. This neighbor willingly gave up part of his liver to be transplanted into his father. A noble action, certainly, commendable, and impressive. But with all respect to my neighbor, the choice to do that is comparatively easy to make. He knows and loves his father, and the sacrifice is fairly light by comparison.

How much more noble is a sacrifice of one’s life for people that one will never meet?

Well, the Pat Tillmans of the world, gave of themselves for the benefit of people they would never know…. you and I, and countless others from many nations. If not for their sacrifices, you’d not be reading this BIT, because I’d not have written it…. we’d be living in a very different world, possibly, one not nearly as good to us as it has been.

Look upon those actions, those sacrifices, and know what you’re seeing is strength, courage, and nobility in measures that should not… can not, be ignored. It must be honored by us all; it was made, after all for our benefit.

So how can we allow ourselves to be swayed by what position such people held prior to putting on the uniform of their country? Those things are simply not important. We must not allow that metric to guide us in the amount of respect shown them, be they living or dead after their service.

They’re all worthy of the very same respect, living or dead. Not because of their having lived or died, not because of the amounts of money or positions they gave up, or what impact they had on us when they weren’t wearing the uniform, but because of their respect and understanding of the ideals that uniform represents. Ideals they hold highest.

these are values I’ve been at some pains over the years to teach my boys as they grow up in this wonderful place called America. I fear that when and if we let these values pass away, America will, as well.

It is those ideals we should be holding high, as they did. We respect them not because they lived or died as a result of their service to our country, but because of the higher ideals they served. We should hold them, ALL who serve us true, in our hearts.

And Tillman would be, I suppose, among the first to agree with my thought.

The suppoed “Constitutional Scholar” is in for a rude awaking on January 20. video:

The total powers of the President as articulated by Article II, of the Constitution of the United States:

Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Do you the word rule, or synonym thereof, anywhere?   Well neither do I.

If you are not an employee of the federal government, the President has utterly no authority to rule over you. The President is the head of the Executive Branch of the Federal government and not Lord, sovereign or even Messiah. I am a citizen of the United States, not a subject.  Obama’s title of office will be President, not King.

Hell no, I will not submit!   Will you?

Hat tip:  Warner Todd Huston, Newsbusters.

Addendum:

Art Smith, opines:

DavidL at BitsBlog takes this at face value, which is not in the least unfair.  He characterizes this as a signal that Obama himself holds his sense of power in office at a higher level than the Constitution calls for.

I’m sincerely hoping that this little more than an unfortunate slip, perhaps even Freudian in nature (or not), by someone answering an already unsettling question.  Brokaw’s “Are you gonna try to be a shadow government?” should be raising a few eyebrows as well.  It piques my interest that a (supposedly) respected member of the press would ask a question like that as if a shadow government makes sense.

I admit that I was steamed, when I posted this last night.   Art’s response was cool, collected and rational.    However a good night sleep, after a long day of hiking, has not abated my alarm.

Was this a mere unartful word?   Could be, Team Obama is rather proficient at unartful words.

A couple of points.

One, Barack Obama professes to be a Constitutional Scholar, a claim of which I am suspicious.  If Obama holds himself to a Constitutional Scholar, I ask for a higher standard of exactness from the One and not a far lower one.    We can and should expect more from a professed Constitutional Scholar.

Two, BO has a Messiah complex.   He has babbled about changing the World.  BO has allowed his scyophants’ Messiah meme to go unchallenged.  In other words, Valerie Jarrett unartful remarks are not the first indication of BO’s Messiah complex by rather just the lastest in a long series of omenous signs.

BO has help a long string of jobs.   At no point was any job ever big enough to statisfy his ego.   It seems only prudent to assume that the role of Chief Executive of the United States, as defined by the Constitution, will not sate BO’s lust for power.   Listen to Michelle Obama on a rant.  She talks that  When Barack is President, he will require.

If BO does not have a Messiah complex, he will have four years to prove me wrong.    Are we as a nation willing to take the risk that BO merely thinks of himself a mere mortal human being?

McQ, Q and O, is attributing this remark to Jim Moron Moran, democrat, Virginia(VA-8):

We have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it and they have an antipathy towards redistributing wealth and they may be able to sustain it for a while but it doesn’t work in the long run.

Video:

Maybe is Christian to covet other people’s money, if you too stupid to manage your ownm Johnathan Mark:

After a dozen years with an income that places him in the top five percent of U.S. workers, Jim Moran has a negative net worth, a peculiar accomplishment for someone who sits on the House Appropriations Committee. Would you let Jim Moran manage your money?

Aside from the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, the best reason to oppose redistrubution is to keep your money out the hands of morons, sorry Ace, like Moran.