Say Anything Blog

by Will Wilkinson

Remember America’s can-do, point man in the war on drugs, the so-called “Drug Czar?” Well, if you like czars, you’ll love President-elect Barack Obama. He’s proposing a new “technology czar,” he’s considering a “climate czar,” and he’s even floated the idea of a “car czar.”

In tough times like these, America does not need a dose of tragic Russian authoritarianism. America does not need more czars.

Did you know that the Constitution does not mention czars even once? I know, weird. The president’s cabinet is composed of heads of various executive offices. These offices, like the Department of Education, are generally proposed by the president and approved by Congress. But the president can create new sub-cabinet-level offices more or less at will—which is where most so-called “czars” dwell.

View Article…

The Bush years have given rise to fears of a resurgent Imperial Presidency. Those fears are justified, but the problem cannot be solved simply by bringing a new administration to power.

In his provocative new book, The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy argues that the fault lies not in our leaders but in ourselves.

When our scholars lionize presidents who break free from constitutional restraints, when our columnists and talking heads repeatedly call upon the “commander in chief “ to dream great dreams and seek the power to achieve them--when voters look to the president for salvation from all problems great and small--should we really be surprised that the presidency has burst its constitutional bonds and grown powerful enough to threaten American liberty?

Fred on the Economy

Barack Obama’s choice for education secretary,Arne Duncan, tried to run Chicago schools like a business.  As with most monopolies without competition, the result was an inferior product at high cost.

Duncan’s efforts have largely amounted to pouring new wine into old bottles with little to show for them.” In other words, counterfeit. 

And here’s a quote from the Investor’s Business Daily editorial. 

“Duncan also had ties to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, founded and financed through the efforts of ex-Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers. Ayers saw the CAC as a chance to radicalize Chicago public school teachers and students.”

And currently only 17% of eighth graders can read at an 8th grade level in Chicago schools overseen by Arne Duncan, the Obama education secretary designee. 

“In 2007, only 17 percent of eighth graders tested at or above grade level in reading in Chicago Public Schools—the school system administered by Arne Duncan since 2001.
Students in eighth grade are those most likely to have been in the Chicago system for a majority of Duncan’s tenure.”

CNSNews.com used the scores for these students to best determine the results of Duncan’s administration.

And what the president I think is trying to accomplish is a psychological stimulus package. -New York Governor David Patterson

Slight of hand….misdirection….occuring only in the mind…that’s what liberals are best at…dreams and fairytales.

It’s somewhat reminiscent of Jimma Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” Speech in 1979. He “feels your pain” and ” shares your dreams” -This is just a different psychological stimulus package from another liberal loser.

It didn’t work in ‘79.’ It won’t work now.

From Bill Moyer’s interview with New York Governor David Patterson.

BILL MOYERS: You and other governors met with President-elect Obama in Philadelphia recently to talk about this budget crisis. But to help you and the other 42 states that are in such trouble, he’s going to have to go deeply into debt at a time when we’re suffering a crisis because of debt.

GOVERNOR DAVID PATERSON: I think that that is a seeming paradox. But the way I would explain it is that medications you’d never take when you’re well but you take them when you’re sick to help you get well but then you know you can’t keep doing it.

In other words, there’s a point that some of the conservative governors, Governor Sanford of South Carolina, they’re right that there’s a well.

And there’s a point that if you just keep spending and you just keep borrowing, you’re going be in a further crisis.

And what the president I think is trying to accomplish is a psychological stimulus package.

When you see people working again repairing bridges and building train tracks, when you see the dollar available to spend again, then the economy will grow and we can go back to I think a far more pragmatic governing principal.

Obama using the potency of the presidential bully pulpit and the media to convince Americans that up is down, left is right, the earth is flat and gravity—really, truly, cross-their-hearts—simply doesn’t exist.

Do you remember Peggy the Moocher? the Obama voter in Sarasota, Fla., who exulted at a Barack Obama rally that this was “the most memorable time of my life.”

Why? As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands:

“Because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know. If I help [Obama], he’s gonna help me.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Recent data suggests that many borrowers who received help with mortgage modifications earlier this year tended to re-default on their payments, a top U.S. banking regulator said on Monday.

“The results, I confess, were somewhat surprising, and not in a good way,” said John Dugan, head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in prepared remarks for a U.S. housing forum.

“Put simply, it shows that over half of mortgage modifications seemed not to be working after six months,” he said.

From Lance Haynie’s Site

Only two Executive Orders have ever been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, so President Obama’s pen wil bring a “Soft Tyranny” to America.
The left will use their typical Alinskyite tactics and others to pass even more liberalized voting laws—an open invitation to even more fraud that is more creative, easier to hide, and less challengeable in court.

The Obama “thugocracy” will use the Justice Department to stifle dissent. Anybody who complains about vote fraud will be charged with “vote suppression.”

Anybody who complains about DoJ’s actions will be charged with interfering with an investigation.

Anybody who denies having interfered will be charged with perjury.

anybody who peacefully protests abortion clinics or the use of state-sponsored racial quotas will be charged with a civil rights violation.

Even before imposing the Fairness Doctrine, they’ll use the Federal Communications Commission in other ways to put a muffler on their opponents.

And, always, a few carefully calibrated street demonstrations, splashed with just the right headlines across the East Coast newspapers and captured by just the right camera angle on CBS News, will be used any time, on any issue, to make the point that civil unrest would be the price of resistance to the benevolent desires of the Obama regime.

And the accused won’t be able to look to the Supreme Court for help: Anthony Kennedy’s “evolving standards” of justice will evolve to match the new “spirit of the time,” providing a 5-4 majority for the administration.

Meanwhile, of course, Obama’s other appointments will be filling up the rest of the U.S. district judiciary at a rapid clip, with nobody able to stop them.

And, of course, the cheerleading media wil enthusiacticall back all of these lefty maneuvers.

It’s all in the name of one-man/one-vote democracy, dontcha know?

Soft tyranny is an idea first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 work entitled Democracy in America.

In effect, soft tyranny occurs whenever the social conditions of a people hinder any prospect of hope among its members, with soft tyranny comes hope lost and freedom lost for the individual and a movement for the good of the collective.

C.S. Lewis in his work “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” expresses that this soft tyranny is the most oppressive because we as a people are tormented day and night for our own good.

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” -C.S. Lewis from “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.” 

I believe President Obama on January 20, 2009 with the power of his pen will increase the power of the State over the individual implementing a soft tyranny.

Out of this tyranny is a government that believes that it must decide what’s in the best interest of their citizens, as opposed to the people themselves. -LEX REX

The Next Right

The immediate results would be dramatic with respect to Federal taxation; no payroll withholding, no taxing of poor Americans, no more filing tax returns, no more escaping taxes because of loopholes, and a substantial reduction in tax payments for at least 90% of all tax-paying Americans.
   
The longer-term results may prove even more dramatic; Social Security and Medicare would be fully-funded at current levels for the foreseeable future, interest rates decrease, saving rates increase, American exports increase and foreign imports decrease.

The answer to the strategy question of “How can the FairTax be enacted?” is both simple and hard: one Congressional district at a time with each step forward reinforcing the grassroots works of others.

The larger answer is that only the full participation of the American body politic has the power to overcome the entrenched interests in Washington, D.C. that surround the income tax system.

The good news–and bad news– is that the benefits of the income tax system are largely confined to those in and around Congress while the disadvantages and destructive effects of direct taxation affect the entire nation.

Implicit in such strategy questions are two more fundamental questions: can the many overcome the politically powerful few and, most significantly in my view, does our form of democracy still work when the majorities’ interest requires change by the political elite?

The FairTax is, seen in this light, is nothing less than a test of the fundamental promise of the Framer’s vision of a representative democracy. 

Even the potential of the FairTax to solve the current economic crisis by restoring consumer confidence, allowing distressed home owners the increased take home pay to satisfy mortgage obligations and attract a predicted $10-$15 trillion of foreign investment into our economy does not trump the power and profit motives of income tax system defenders.

Fairtax.org

The American Farm Bureau Federation has registered its opposition to an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, asserting it would essentially result in new taxes on livestock operations.

The EPA proposal would establish a greenhouse gas “tax” of $87.50 on each head of beef cattle produced and $175 per head on each dairy animal and $20 for each hog. 

AFBF opposes EPA-proposed tax on livestock

Can it get any more absurd than this?

Barack Obama’s campaign promise not to take away our guns is a lie.

A message from Wayne LaPierre      

“He’s not even in office, yet he’s fired the opening salvos in a war against the future of the Second Amendment, our hunting and shooting traditions, and YOU.
       

Obama’s FIRST attack on YOU: Appointing Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel to be White House Chief of Staff. In Congress, Emanuel earned an “F” rating from NRA, and while working in the Clinton Administration, he was known as the “point man on gun control.”

He is an avowed enemy of the Second Amendment and will wield enormous power in the battle for the future of our firearm freedoms.

       

Obama’s SECOND attack on YOU: If Hillary Clinton is confirmed as Secretary of State, she’ll rip the Second Amendment right out of the Bill of Rights.

She’ll be our nation’s top diplomat with the power to determine whether the United Nations will pass, and Obama will sign, a global gun ban treaty that will surrender our Second Amendment rights and our national sovereignty.

       

Obama’s THIRD attack on YOU: Nominating ex-Senator and former Majority Leader Tom Daschle-an avowed enemy of NRA-to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

NRA was responsible for defeating Daschle when he ran in South Dakota for re-election to the Senate. If Daschle is confirmed, he could hold the ultimate power to declare guns a “public health menace” and regulate away our essential liberties.

       

Obama’s FOURTH attack on YOU: Nominating Eric Holder to be Attorney General. As former Assistant Attorney General, Holder was a key architect and vocal advocate for the Clinton era’s sweeping gun ban agenda.

He supported national handgun licensing, mandatory trigger locks, and ending gun shows as we know them.
       
Just recently, Holder opposed the District of Columbia’s Heller decision that declared the Second Amendment an individual right.

Holder also called for reviving the Clinton gun bans and, as Attorney General, would fight in court to prevent the landmark Heller decision from being made applicable to state and local governments.
       
Worst of all, if Holder is confirmed as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer, he would control BATFE and wield enormous power to harass gun owners and sue America’s arms makers out of existence.

       

Obama’s FIFTH attack on YOU: In the job application for the Obama Administration, he made it clear that gun owners are second-class citizens and told 80 million gun owners not to even bother applying for a job.

In the “White House Personnel Data Questionnaire” he asked:“Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.”

(more...)

"How about a few civics questions? Name the three branches of government. If you answered the executive, legislative and judicial, you are more informed than 50 percent of Americans.”

In 1993, a Department of Education survey found that among college graduates 50 percent of whites and more than 80 percent of blacks couldn’t state in writing the argument made in a newspaper column; 56 percent could not calculate the right tip; 57 percent could not figure out how much change they should get back after putting down $3.00 to pay for a 60-cent bowl of soup and a $1.95 sandwich, and over 90 percent could not use a calculator to find the cost of carpeting a room. But not to worry.

A 1999 survey taken by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni of seniors at the nation’s top 55 liberal-arts colleges and universities found that 98 percent could identify rap artist Snoop Dogg and Beavis and Butt-Head, but only 34 percent knew George Washington was the general at the battle of Yorktown.

With limited thinking abilities and knowledge of our heritage, we Americans set ourselves up as easy prey for charlatans, hustlers and quacks. If we don’t know the constitutional limits placed on Congress and the White House, politicians can do just about anything they wish to control our lives, from deciding what kind of light bulbs we can use to whether the government can take over our health care system or bailout failing businesses. We just think Congress can do anything upon which they can get a majority vote.

Walter Williams

Barack Obama won the Presidency calling for “Change”. But what kind of change, and how will it affect you and your family?

Grassfire.org researchers have analyzed and developed Living in an Obama Nation--a stark, yet compelling booklet that identifies the specific ways an Obama Presidency will impact your family.

From his plan to redistribute your wealth, silencing the conservative voice, to undermining faith, family and liberties through expanded government control, conservatives need to know what to expect and how to respond on the 21 key issues facing our nation.

The Resistance States:

As an American citizen, while I will show respect to President-elect Obama, I oppose the far-Left and socialistic elements that comprise the centerpiece of his agenda. I recognize that it will take a patriotic and resilient Citizen Resistance to block implementation of this agenda and I join with others who oppose these threats to our liberties.





Specifically, I Resist:

Socialistic wealth redistribution including any and all tax increases and big-government welfare programs.

Silencing conservatives through the Fairness Doctrine and other efforts that restrict free speech.

Open border anarchy including amnesty for illegal aliens and promotion of multi nation “unions”.

Government-run health care that weakens our system and imposes more tax burdens on citizens.

Weakening of our military through rapid pullback from Iraq, defunding our troops and overall disarmament.

Social liberalism including radical pro-abortion agenda, the end of marriage and the homosexual agenda.

Liberal court activism that undermines faith, family and liberties while expanding government control.

Post-American globalismthat diminishes our global role and threatens our national sovereignty.V

Environmental extremism, the CO2 tax, undermining coal and nuclear, and bans on exploration. V

Weakening the 2nd Amendment through unconstitutional gun laws that take away or penalize us for owning firearms and our right to defend our family, our property, and ourselves. V



Take a sneak peek by clicking here.

President Bush recently issued 14 pardons and two sentence commutations.

Among those issued pardons and commutations were bank embezzlers, tax evaders and a rapper, John E. Forte, who was convicted of aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

Agents Compean and Ramos were NOT on the list.

Such egregious neglect prompted Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to say:

“The fact that the president has neglected to free these men from their imprisonment while freeing drug dealers, embezzlers and other criminals is insulting to the American people. For the sake of justice, let’s hope this is not the last round of pardons and commutations.”

     
According to Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum:

“The end of President Bush’s final term is quickly approaching. Less than two months remain until he will hand over his White House keys to Barack Obama, but we cannot let him leave office without resolving one very important issue: he must commute the prison sentences of convicted U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean!”

Conservative columnist Doug Patton called this travesty “a stench in the nostrils of every thinking American who loves justice.”

Compean and Ramos were convicted almost solely on the word of a known illegal alien drug smuggler who claimed that Compean and Ramos shot him in the butt while he was attempting to escape.

Incidentally, this smuggler was attempting to transport 743 pounds of marijuana into the United States at the time of the incident.

In exchange for his testimony, the smuggler was granted blanket immunity and allowed to come and go across the border almost at will and was actually caught attempting to transport more drugs into the United States while waiting to testify against Compean and Ramos.

The court WOULD NOT allow this fact to be submitted during the trial.

And, in what may be the greatest irony of this whole case, the smuggler was eventually convicted of the smuggling offenses that occurred AFTER he was granted immunity and was sentenced to LESS TIME than Compean and Ramos.

The Center For Indivisual Freedon
Read the rest….