Good Job Arizona – What can you expect next?

We in Prince William County Virginia certainly know how the people of Arizona feel.  By 2007 we were overrun by illegal immigrants who were over-tasking our County services, increasing crime, and loitering around our streets looking for work – a courageous board of county supervisors took action.  On July 10^th 2007 they voted in the Rule of Law Resolution that was fully implemented by March 8, 2008. 

Like the good people of Arizona our brave elected officials had to walk through throngs of foreign born people who were carrying signs, waving foreign flags, and chanting “Si se puede” (“Yes we can” – sound familiar?).  The day of the vote there were hundreds of them crowded into the meeting site and loudly demonstrating outside.  We went through then what Arizona is going through now.  So what was the result?

Our County is safer – crime dropped 22%.  Illegal aliens had been responsible for 5 of our 9 murders in 2007.  Following implementation of the Rule of Law Resolution, violent crime dropped 36%.  Enrollment in English as a Second Language classes fell dramatically saving the County School System money.  Our roads are safer as accident rates plunged by double digits.  Over crowding in residential neighborhoods was reduced as well.  There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that the lawful residents – regardless of their race or ethnic background – are happier and more secure. 

You may have some temporary problems.  For example, a house around the corner from me was being operated as an apartment complex.  We suspected that it was full of illegal aliens, but no one knew for sure.  We did know that there were too many cars, too many people, and they didn’t add anything to the fabric of our neighborhood.  Right after the Rule of Law Resolution was implemented, the house was empty.  It stayed empty for a long time, but now it has a nice family living in it.  They are part of the fabric of our community as they have nothing to hide. 

You did the right thing Arizona and if you stick with it, you will see nearly immediate improvements in the lives and livelihood of your citizens and legal residents. 

Conservative Resistance – Day 540

Days until adults are in charge again - 188

I have seen our future – You won’t like it

As you fly into Seattle the thing that impresses one the most is the mountains, the water, and the green. Washington is quite simply one of the most beautiful places on Earth. That is . . . . . when it isn’t raining and you can see. I was born in Washington, I graduated from the University of Washington, and my mother still lives in Washington – but I could never live there. However, we might very well be living like Washingtonians very, very, soon if Barack Obama and his band of merry socialists have their way.

After you get over the beauty of Washington, the next thing that hits you is the prices. Gas is a quarter a gallon more expensive than in Virginia. Tomatoes, milk, cereal, salad dressing, and eating out are all – more expensive. This is a result of taxes plain and simple. While our economically challenged President says that 95% of the people won’t be taxed, the fact of the matter is that 100% of the people will feel the ruinous effects of taxes just as they do in Washington. Obama doesn’t get it nor does the Democrat Party – taxes are passed on directly to the consumer.

I have already written about the draconian measures that you have to go through to put your garbage and recyclables out – absurd. As with the effects of taxes, the additional cost and trouble of ridiculous environmental regulations and procedures are passed directly on to the consumer. No one wants Jiffy-Lube dumping dirty oil down the drain, but we also don’t want and don’t need the environmental Nazis governing every aspect of our lives and businesses.

On my way to the airport for my return trip I was treated to a talk radio show that lampooned the result of the requirement for new schools to all be “green buildings.” Surprise, surprise, they were ruinously more expensive to build and they used 40% more energy than comparable buildings built recently. They went on to discuss the most recent tax assault by a Democrat led government. Bad news for Washingtonians – an income tax is coming your way. They are selling it as a tax on the rich, but you know how that goes. They are also promising a 20% reduction in property taxes, yet only 21% of the current tax is levied by the State – the rest is local. The result is actually a 4% reduction.

The final insult was the return of my rental car. It hurt enough having to fill up the gas tank with regular gas at over $3.00 a gallon. The price of one week with a rental car - $183.83. However the final tally was $286.21!?! How does that happen? Taxes:

Vehicle License Recovery @ $0.31 a day - $2.17 (Levied by the rental company to recover the cost to register, license, and title a rental vehicle – a pass through tax)

Customer Facility Charge - $35.00 (Authorized by the State and imposed by the municipality as a tax to pay for common rental facilities)

Concession Recovery Fee - $21.09 (Levied by the rental company to recover the cost charged by the facility to operate at the airport – a pass through tax)

Sales Tax @ 9.5% - $19.85 (Tax)
Rental Car Tax @ 9.7% - $20.27 (Tax)

Grand Total - $98.38

I always love returning to Virginia.

Conservative Resistance – Day 538
Days until we kick the lying spendthrifts out - 190

We are insignificant

It is amazing when you consider exactly how insignificant we humans are to this planet.  Al Gore and his merry band of socialists are romping around the planet telling everyone how we are destroying the planet – and then along comes a volcanic eruption.  I admit to being an early denier of the Global Warming hoax.  It was never very hard to find natural phenomena that have had much greater effects on the planet than the worst effects of man.  I knew that we could have negative local effects on the planet, but I have never thought that we could create another mass extinction or rival the power of the Santorini volcanic eruption. 

Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes, and the like have devastated vast swaths of the planet.   The Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warming were all caused by natural forces without the slightest assistance from man.  Life on Earth was virtually wiped out twice by what most scientists believe (no one knows for sure) were asteroids striking the planet.  The Earth has a uniquely powerful system for repairing itself.  Indeed, even though these Gore nut-jobs are running around screaming about carbon dioxide, CO2 has had a very positive effect on plant life throughout the world.  There are probably people who would not have been fed without the increase of global plant life created by increased CO2 in the air.

It takes my breath away to think about the world wide chaos being caused by a relatively minor eruption in Iceland.  No one has been killed yet to my knowledge, so we aren’t dealing with anything as serious as Vesuvius or Krakatoa.  However tens of thousands of airplanes are grounded and we don’t yet know the long-term health and economic effects that will result from our planet throwing up a little dust and magma.  Exactly how arrogant are Liberals to think that we can even begin to compete with that kind of power? 

I do not sanction indiscriminate pollution or destruction of the planet – that is the false alternative that Liberals accuse us of – but if we are responsible stewards of Earth our impact will remain every bit as insignificant as it has historically been.   How absurd would it be to destroy the World’s greatest economy for the false promise of reversing Global Warming?  Then – if we did – it could all be thrown away in an instant if an asteroid took a wrong turn at Mars and slammed into the Earth again.  Madness. 

Conservative Resistance – Day 529

If they voted for Cap & Trade, get rid of them in 199 days

 

Flying the stupid skies

I think that we have gotten far too complacent with Americans tormenting Americans in airports. The Take Scissors Away (TSA) guys need to focus. I was departing through Dulles Airport and spent the good part of my morning standing in lines, removing my shoes, putting my toothpaste in a little bag, and getting directed around the security area. There were a good number of foreigners who were getting a tad bit of increased attention for funny looking documents – but other than that all seemed normal. Then a young Marine lieutenant traveling in what we call “Summer Service C” approached the final screening. He was sent back as he had failed to remove his dog tags – I get that. Then for some inexplicable reason he failed the metal detector again. Soon there we were streaming on either side of him as he was subjected to additional screening and wanding. When was the last time an American Marine – in uniform – blew up an airplane? Amazing.

Conservative Resistance – Day 527
Days until we vote sanity back into the government - 201

How many buses do we need?

I hate the census now.  We are being inundated with advertising about it and all of it shows me that my government doesn’t know what the hell it is doing.  Today I was driving North on Highway 1 and noticed a Census 2010 billboard.  It was pointing out that if I didn’t fill out and mail in my census form, they wouldn’t know how many buses we would need.  No kidding?   I don’t remember a bus question on the form.  Since there are two of us on our census form, does that somehow justify some portion of a bus?  I see buses in our area, but I haven’t ever ridden on one.  I don’t want to be used as an excuse for the government to buy a new bus.    

I have an idea.  Why doesn’t one of our rocket scientists in the government actually climb on board a damn bus and see if there are any empty seats.  If there are – then we don’t need any more damn buses.  Government transportation is a financial anchor on a community.  It is a loser for the communities that fund it as it saddles them with a system that they can never walk away from.  Further, Americans generally don’t like public transportation – they want to drive cars – big cars.  Public transportation is another example where the government for all the right reasons, picks a loser of a solution.  If there was a need for such transportation and it could be done economically – someone would do it.  Leaving it to the government guarantees a bad solution every time. 

The census isn’t about buses, hospitals, or “getting our fair share.”  The census is about the apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives – that’s it.  No more, no less. 

Conservative Resistance – Day 524

Clean the House in 204 days

Approaching the tipping point

It has always been true that the overwhelming majority of income taxes are paid by the “rich” (whatever that term means). We are fast approaching the point where half of the population does not pay income taxes at all. Think about that – they can vote, but they don’t pay income taxes. Check out the recent article in The Washington Times: Half of households pay no income taxes; Top earners pay 73 percent

“A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.” Alexis de Tocqueville

As Democrats lead the attack on Wall Street, the rich, and corporate America in general – de Tocqueville’s words ring true. Fully forty-seven percent of Americans make money now on April 15th by voting for liberal candidates who are undermining the very pillars of our market based economy. They are voting to strangle the goose that lays the golden egg.

No doubt we are racing to the conclusion that Alexis de Tocqueville foresaw in the early American republic when he said: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

Conservative Resistance Day – 523
Days until we vote the spendthrifts out - 205

We have to get rid of these guys

My beloved Washington Times had a pretty good story today about Alan Greenspan testifying to Congress about what really caused the crash of the housing market (See: Greenspan Deflects Blame for Crisis).  It terrifies me that the people who caused this crisis are now in charge.  They are going to beat up a succession of business leaders, but government created the circumstances, framed the laws, and made the regulations for the environment that cratered the economy. 

As we continue to watch the inmates run the asylum, I continue to be reminded that there were plenty of calls for changes throughout 2003, 2004, and 2005 to prevent the train wreck of the economy.  What we should remember is that the first high flying mortgage entities to impact the ground were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – both Government Sponsored Enterprises.    

One guy in particular stood up to the Democrats to try and sound the alarm.  The government regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Armando Falcon - was eviscerated by angry Democrats.  Watch the nitwits attack him on Sweetness & Light. 

Democrats want to tell us that Republican efforts to free the financial industry from needless regulation were to blame – that’s a lie and they know it.  Republicans were trying to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase reserves and cool the red hot housing market as early as 2003.  The Democrat minority frustrated them then and the Democrat majority killed any chance of meaningful reform starting in 2006.  We have to get rid of these guys.    

Conservative Resistance – Day 520

Days until we can get rid of these guys - 208

There it is – “Unexpected” Again

It really blows me away every time President Obama speaks about how well he is doing.  In particular the recent jobs figures were trumpeted as evidence of how things were turning around.  The economy was said to have created 162,000 new jobs which was celebrated by knot-heads.  A closer examination shows that since 100,000 people join the workforce in America each month.  Further, since 48,000 of those 162,000 jobs were temporary census jobs – the real net new jobs number is 14,000.  No wonder the unemployment rate didn’t budge.  Pretty awesome Barack.  Some economists expected better performance – I don’t understand how with Obama’s foot firmly on the economy’s brake.

Over the next two months the census will add another 600,000-700,000 temporary workers that will inflate Democrat claims of job growth.  I wonder if they are going to blame George Bush when the census is complete and those jobs go away.

While the sluggish recovery continues to mystify the “experts” – it was widely predicted before the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” (aka Porkulus Bill) was signed.   The Congressional Budget Office Report provided to Senator Gregg on Wednesday February 4, 2009 predicted that the recovery act would be worse than doing nothing at all.  That was reported in The Washington Times reported that same day in CBO: Obama Stimulus Harmful over the long haul.  To have escaped that conclusion you would have had to have your head firmly wedged in the sand. 

Though President Obama continues to insist that he couldn’t find any economists who disagree with him, 200 economists had signed a petition against the stimulus bill.  The names were contained in a full page add posted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on January 28, 2009.  Now the economy is under-performing and prolonging the pain for millions.  It is not a mystery.  It is not unexpected.  It is what Democrats do.   

Conservative Resistance – Day 518

Get rid of the bums in 210 days 

 

How Soon We Forget

Driving home from a business trip to New York, I crossed the Susquehanna River in Maryland over the “Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge.” If you are a product of the public school system it is doubtful that you have heard of Millard E. Tydings. The most radical president to ever live in the White House before Barack Obama was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A combination of FDR’s radical beliefs and the four year period in which the Soviets were fighting a common enemy with us resulted in the US government becoming riddled with communists. In particular, they had infiltrated the State Department and the results had a catastrophic result on the post war world. While there was some resistance to this, one party Democrat Party rule had effectively prevented loyal Americans from doing much about it until Senator Joe McCarthy took up the crusade. The shot fired across the bow of the Truman administration and a wakeup call for America was McCarthy’s Wheeling, West Virginia speech that called out the communists.

The American public was so incensed with the infiltration of their government that it could no longer be ignored and Senator Millard Tydings was assigned to investigate the infiltration of the State Department. What followed was one of the more shameful episodes in Congressional history (at least until now). Rather than investigate the presence of communists, Tydings working in concert with the White House and the State Department worked to hide evidence and protect the communist moles. Long before Barack Obama sought to protect Desiree Rogers from testifying about gate crashers at the White House, President Truman exercised truly imperial authority with a secrecy order that included keeping State Department records in the White House to prevent them from being seen by the Senate panel. This was the very first use of executive privilege by an American President and it was done to protect the Nation’s enemies. Millard Tydings was in the center of this subterfuge and orchestrated the entire lie. Long before the show trials of Henry Waxman, Tydings subverted Senate rules and processes to prevent the public from seeing the depth of Democrat party association with known communists. But Marylanders named a bridge after him – there is no justice. Tydings was a traitor to his country, a fraud, and a serial liar. He must have really brought home the bacon in order to get his name on that bridge.

No doubt we are going to have a lot of housecleaning to do starting in 2012. Barack Obama is merrily placing radicals in the government and they are burying themselves like ticks. Years from now as we marvel at idiotic judges and mind boggling activities by government agencies we will be able to track the origins back to the most radical administration in United States history. Elections do have consequences and we are paying for our National naiveté now. People couldn’t believe that there are modern day communists (we beat them didn’t we?) but they didn’t give up, they just re-made their image and are hiding in organizations like Moveon.org, ACORN (and its 200+ affiliates), many environmental groups, and the SEIU.

If you want to know why we are experiencing National déjà vu, read the fabulous Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies by M. Stanton Evans. You will see the real story of how the traitor party protected communists and sold their country down the river. I can’t help but wonder if we will have the freedom someday to write about rooting out the moles that Obama is planting now, or whether this is the beginning of the end of truth.

Conservative Resistance – Day 516
Days until we start purging traitors – 212