Supreme Court UPHOLDS Voter Photo ID Law!

In a victory over voter fraud and a triumph of common sense and reason over emotionalism, the Supreme Court refused to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box that opponents of the law claim COULD disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass similar laws, voting advocates said Monday.

The measure passed by an overwhelming 2 to 1 margin - 6-3, in Monday’s ruling.

The ruling lets stand Indiana's law, which took effect in 2006 and requires voters to present a state or federal photo ID card at the ballot box, does not violate the First or 14th amendments. The court said the law served as a justifiable protection to the electoral process.

Currently, more than 20 states require some type of identification at the polls. But only Georgia and Indiana require government-issued photo IDs. That will almost definitely change with this ruling.

Blog of the Month - Poor Girl Zone

My second "Blog of the Month" is Seane-Anna's Poor Girl Zone - http://poorgrrlzone.blogspot.com/

It's a consistently well-written, passionately pro-American and proudly tradionalist/conservative blog.

One of her recent posts, "I Want to be Oppresed Like That" (http://poorgrrlzone.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-wanna-be-oppressed-like-this.html) shows the hypocrisy of Reverend Jeremmiah Wright (Barack Obama's mentor and spiritual advisor) living large in a "Church owned" 10,000 sq ft, $1.6 million shack, while making a living deriding "the US if KKKA."

Sure, it only proves, for about the millionth time that there's money in hatred, but it's interesting prospective on the background of this hate-monger.

Another recent post of Seane-Anna's is "The Dems (Try To) Get God" (http://poorgrrlzone.blogspot.com/2008/04/dems-get-god.html) that chronicles the Democratic Party's outreach to the "Faith-Based community."

Seane-Anna is a true patriot and, of course, an unflinching conservative.

If you check her blog out, I'm betting you'll find yourself hooked on her insights and self-deprecating charm.

Oh NO! Even Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t GET IT!!!

Bill O’Reilly is generally a pretty fair minded commentator in my view and I say that despite the fact that he’s far more Liberal than I am (he opposes the death penalty, supports a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, etc.).

He’s an Ivy League New Yorker, after all, so how “Conservative” is he really going to be?

He has been a stalwart crusader for tougher sanctions against pedophiles, although I surmise he opposes the death penalty for repeat child sex offenders, which I support, and his crusade in favor of Megan’s Law and Jessica’s Law are admirable.

One area that I’ve always had a huge problem with Bill O’Reilly over is his views on “energy policy.” For a long time, he’s advocated American companies selling American oil to U.S. consumers at slightly above cost – it supposedly costs appx. $20/barrel for Energy Companies to take oil from America’s reserves, so Bill O’Reilly would suggest selling it to the American people at $25 to $30/barrel.

What’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong with it is that we exist within a global economy. Should Exxon-Mobil and Chevron be forced to sell U.S. at below world market prices (currently nearly $125/barrel), foreign oil companies would still sell theirs at world market prices, still reap huge profits AND eventually buy out/take-over America’s energy companies!

When O’Reilly interviewed Ben Mezrich this past Wednesday night (4/23/08), the author of the book Rigged about how the oil futures market sets world oil prices, Bill O’Reilly showed a startling degree of ignorance by asking, “OK, so who’s the guy who sets the world price of oil? Somebody has to set it at $125/barrel, it just doesn’t arrive at that number.”

Ben Mezrich replied, “It would be great if there were one such person-”

O’Reilly then stated, “Look, there’s got to be that one person. If you don’t know him, that’s fine, neither do I.”

What Mr. Mezrich didn’t get a chance to say was that there is NO ONE person! Commodities futures markets are an open auction, where the price of various commodities are bid up and down according to various investors/speculators “bets” based on the exiting information at hand.

Commodities futures markets are as open an economic democracy as you can get. Anyone can come in and invest on futures of any given commodity from corn to unleaded gasoline.

People of all kinds, from all economic strata are free to bid, invest, speculate on the price of any given commodity. You can “Buy” or bid, or invest/speculate on the price of that commodity going up, or “Short” and bid, invest/speculate based on the belief that that commodity will go down.

Behind those bids or investments/speculation are the market parameters (supply and demand for each commodity) and those market parameters play the same role in the mercantile exchange/commodities markets as do corporate fundamentals (the fiscal health of a given company) in the stock market. When more and more people believe that the market parameters for oil and unleaded gasoline point to a price rise for those commodities, the price of those commodities is bid upward until such a point, where no one will bid it any higher.

Right now, the U.S. has huge reserves of petroleum in shale oil, oil sands and both offshore in huge underwater deposits and in ANWR in the Artic, that it is not bringing to market.

Over the past decade or so, both India and China have modernized and industrialized and are now using far more oil than they did before.

That growing DEMAND amidst an artificially tightened SUPPLY has created market parameters for oil and gasoline futures that would indicate rising prices.

Even though world oil supply has risen sharply over the past decade, world demand has far outstripped that supply.

In the U.S. outrageously high federal and local gasoline taxes, federally mandated “summer blends” and policies that have (1) made building new refineries both more expensive and less profitable and (2) limited access to our huge supplies of oil and natural gas have all conspired to raise gasoline prices.

And yet, if even Bill O’Reilly, who’s father worked as an accountant for a major Energy Company, doesn’t get how this system works, how can we expect regular folks or even lowly politicians to get it?

Right now the world market is acting exactly as it should. In the face of rising demand outstripping the supply of a given commodity, the price of that commodity rises.

That is GOOD!

What it does is it makes the cost of that commodity so prohibitive that we are forced, as consumers, not to waste any of that commodity we own.

When government moves in to artificially lower the price of a commodity under those conditions, it winds up SUBSIDIZING waste, and ultimately makes the problem WORSE, by further driving up demand!

Ironically enough, the U.S. government could do something to bring down the price of oil and gasoline, by moving to INCREASE global supply, by bringing more of our own oil to market!

But we’re NOT doing that.

Looking for “the one man to blame” for setting the world price of oil so high” is as foolish and fruitless an endeavor as searching to find Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

It's Sort of Heads WE WIN....Tails They LOSE!

And by “WE,” of course I mean those who support Supply-Side, market-based policies, low tax and low government positions.

For small government Conservatives and Libertarians of all stripes, this is a year of relatively slim pickings.

There really isn’t a small government candidate in the field, although McCain is far closer than either of the Democrats running.

With Mrs. Clinton’s decided lack of charm, it’s looking more and more certain of an Obama-McCain contest in the Fall.

While polls show that Conservatives, largely due to the specter of either Obama or Clinton winning, have rallied around McCain, more than a few have wondered aloud whether a “Carter-Redux” mightn’t be just what a complacent America needs right now.

Sure, if Obama embarked on what he’s promised, the largest tax hike in U.S. history (yes, allowing the Bush cuts to expire is a DIRECT tax hike), then it is almost certain that;

(1) government revenues will fall, as higher income Americans place more of their disposable income in tax deferred vehicles, like 457s, 401-Ks, IRAs, etc. While lower income Americas, with LESS disposable income to defer, will be bitten by the tax hikes, that won’t offset the drop in tax revenues coming from the more affluent due to their deferring more of their incomes. Consider that the top 10% of Americans now pay over 70% of all income taxes, their deferring more of their disposable income (tax deferred) not only makes perfect economic sense, but the revenues won’t be made up by higher payments from lower income Americans! The result of falling revenues will be the government (at every level) unable to hire more workers...which is ALWAYS a good thing!

(2) Investors, faced with higher Capital Gains rates and a return to Dividend taxes will retrench on investment, ESPECIALLY Venture Capital investment, leading to fewer new ideas coming to market, fewer new companies and fewer new jobs being created!

(3) Companies, faced with a higher Corporate Tax (Obama wants to raise that to the individual income level) will lay workers off in order to maintain their profitability.

(4) All this would lead to a perfect storm that could easily make the Carter years look positively halcyon by comparison!

Imagine this scenario, sky high interest rates, double digit unemployment, coupled with double digit inflation AND with not only a Democrat in the White House, MORE IMPORTANTLY a Democrat controlled Congress!

It wouldn’t matter if “all” the malaise were the fault of Obama’s policies or not. The delicious thing is that he’d take the blame and “liberal tax and spend” would become the pariah it had long been and richly deserves to be!

An Obama-led economic meltdown might just eradicate the American Left as a political force once and for all, which would be the best thing that could happen to America!

Now, there are going to be some misguided, Leftist dolts who’ll regard such prognostications as “wishing ill for America.”

Believing that “socialism has some good points” is “wishing ill for America!

I’m merely wishing ill for more Keynesian/socialistic policies. Yes, I WANT them to fail, no matter what the cost, no matter how deep the pain.

If we must be taught the painful lessons of WHY socialism CANNOT work, let us hasten to them and profit by them!

Obama’s First Real Policy Statements?...

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Until recently Barack Obama has managed to maintain being the most nebulous of candidates, very looooong on verbiage (yes, “just words”) and very short on substance.

He’s worked hard to resist revealing either his core beliefs OR his policy positions.

That’s why what much of the MSM is now dismissing as a mere “verbal gaffe,” is so revealing. It gives an insight into BOTH Obama’s core beliefs, while showing how little substance his core beliefs hold.

Last week in San Francisco, Obama was taped saying, "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The firestorm was instantaneous and inopportune, given that both the Pennsylvania and North Carolina Primaries are upcoming. In both states, bumper stickers with “I’m not bitter,” have been circulated.

But the real problem isn’t merely the words Obama chose, but the sentiments that he still stands by – that those who don’t embrace the inane, cock-eyed liberalism that he does are motivated by frustration and take those frustrations out by supporting , in his view, "misguided' things like gun rights (the basic right to SELF-defense), the 1st Amendment (freedom of religion) and anti-immigrant sentiments. In short, he pretty much called Red State Americans, “A collection of gun toting, religious zealots and racial bigots.” Hmmmm, not exactly the best tack on which to cull their votes, now is it?

Again, it’s NOT the “words,” it’s the sentiments that Obama admits to still clinging to that ARE the problem!

In those 34 words he expressed a deep-seated revulsion for America’s Constitution. How else can one explain an attack on the 1st and 2nd Amendments, like that? How many other parts of our Bill of Rights does Obama revile?

So the 1st Amendment’s protection of Freedom OF religion is dismissed by Barack Obama as a mere boon to religious zealots and an impediment to everyone else. The Second Amendment that merely affirms the INNATE or Natural Right of ALL free individuals to violent self-defense, when THEY deem necessary, is also superfluous, at least in the eyes of Barack Obama!

But there’s more...MUCH MORE!

He appears to assail all those opposed to open borders and ILLEGAL immigration as “anti-immigrant, when all legitimate opinion polls show that over 80% of those folks (which comprise over 75% of Americans) are motivated by a support for “the rule of law.”

So, any American who supports border enforcement and enforcing even our existing immigration laws, is in the eyes of the Obama’s, “vile racial bigots.”

And what’s with the “anti-trade sentiments,” crack?

That, in fact, is the most quizzical of the Obama policy statements. After all, a misguided liberal who reviles both the First and Second Amendments (and perhaps much of the rest of the Bill of Rights) and supports open borders isn’t all that rare, nor surprising, BUT one who campaigns AGAINST Free Trade, while pandering to Left-wing anti-trade kooks, excoriating that viewpoint, in an apparent throw-away line, certainly is food for thought.

It certainly puts the reports of Obama aide, Austan Goosbee reassuring the Canadian government, back in February, that Obama’s current NAFTA position was just talk, in a much clearer light.

So is Obama merely telling Left-wing anti-Free Traders what they want to hear (LYING) just to get their votes. Why else would he seek to demonize that long-held Leftist viewpoint by attaching to those they revile on the Right?

Is it possible that he really reviles naïve Left-wing Americans as much, if not more than he does all those “gun-toting, religious zealots” on the Right?

That last portion of those 34 words certainly seems to indicate that that is the case!

Christmas in April???

According to the good folks at Stop the ACLU, a Maryland judge on Thursday (April 3rd, 2008) ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.

If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.

Fred Phelps (pictured above in gay-looking cowboy regalia) the cultist leader of the pseudo-religious Westboro Baptist Church has picketed Military funerals and assailed America as “evil” because it “doesn’t hate homosexuals” as much as Fred Phelps does.

Good luck paying off those damages Rev.

http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/04/05/judge-places-liens-on-westboro-baptist-church/


God, it's like Christmas in April!

So, “The Moderate Voice” is Really a Lefty?...What a Shocker!

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom has noted, "At the so-called Moderate Voice, Shaun Mullen (pictured) has an interesting concept of terrorism. Former Sen. Phil Gramm, now an adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign, is a "terrorist in pinstripes" for his sponsorship of the Financial Services Modernization Act. Mullen blames the law for the subprime mortgage meltdown. because Barack Obama says so. You really cannot get more moderate than that. Okay, so maybe Mullen could get more moderate than that. For example, Mullen could have noted that the Financial Services Modernization Act was signed into law by then-Pres. Bill Clinton. Mullen could have noted that Obama, like Hillary Clinton, has taken plenty of campaign cash from the main players in the subprime-mortgage industry. Mullen also could have told his readers that Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee has defended the deregulation of mortgage lending on the op-ed page of the New York Times."

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Mullen chose not to do any of those things because the tagline for “The Moderate Voice” really should be “Moderate, but reliably Lefty.” And once you have chosen to mislead people as to who you are, the rest follows naturally."

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http://proteinwisdom.com/index.php?paged=2

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A "Moderate Voice" spouting hardcore Liberalism, while distorting the facts and engaging in blatant errors of ommission?

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Maybe that SHOULD be more surprising than it really is!

What a Terribly Sad Story...I mean...What a Terrible LIE

The NY Times (of all places) has reported on yet another Hillary Clinton exagger-LIE.

NY Times reporter Deborah Sontag notes; "Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee. The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured. "We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story," said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O'Bleness Health System. Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story"

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/us/politics/05woman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Hmmmm, the Clinton campaign "didn't contact the hospital to check the accuracy of the story."

Are you even supposed to do that any more?

Oh yeah, I guess you are.