Happy Halloween!

From Higgins ("The Scottie Dog of War"), the infidel's wife, and myself, please have a happy and safe Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Samhain, or All Saints Eve.

Alas, summer has reached its end, but may the chill of fall and winter cripple the current regime and place our country on the road back to the prosperity that is our legacy, as Americans. 

Higgins; the Weeks family's formidable "Scottie Dog of War"



48 Hours

In 48 hours, our nation will decide whether to continue on the road of radical, hard left progressivism or, at the very least, to stem the tide and give voice to those who feel that there is a better way.

President Obama will have you believe that Republicans are ultimately responsible for our current economic troubles, but unemployment has risen and the annual deficit as increased more than three-fold in the nearly two years of the Obama administration. President Obama will have you believe that congressional Republicans are guilty of "obstructionism" and that is the reason for our troubles. The fact is that Democrats have controlled both houses of congress for four years, and the presidency for the last two. President Obama has had the luxury of getting virtually everything he has wanted in that Congress has rubber-stamped his every whim. The fact that he has done all of this without Republican support has been of no hindrance whatsoever.

The "obstructionism" of which the president speaks was no more than a attempt by the minority party to slow the juggernaut but, alas, it was not slowed; it has continues apace.

As Democrats, and President Obama, have had free rein over the government, America's situation and prospects have become increasingly worse. The president announced the "recovery summer" of 2010 yet now, on October 31, we are no better off than we were in the spring, and in many ways we are in far worse shape. They ignored the will of the people in jamming through a massive healthcare overhaul without a single Republican vote. These same Democrats who passed this bill are now running away from it as they realize that it will not only dramatically increase our costs, but it will dramatically decrease the quality of our care.

The reign of Democrat control must end, and it must end now. We have the opportunity to slow, and eventually reverse, the destructive effects we have reaped as a result of leftist, one-party rule. We can ensure that the next two years will be better than the last.

Our situation is dire, but not irreparable. We must, however, begin now. We may not get another chance.

You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

Harry Reid takes credit for saving the world from an economic depression. Yes, that's right, not just the country, but the entire world.

I had no idea he was such a reservoir of power and intellect. Perhaps world peace will ensue as hosannas of thanksgiving are emitted from every corner of the globe.

Henceforth he shall be known as Harry The Deliverer.



Like I said, you just can't make this stuff up.

Union Facism Running Amok

Well, this seems quite the red letter day for unions.

In this instance, a union employee was fired for wearing a Bush sweatshirt and hat. No, this had nothing to do with politics (at least on the part of the fired worker) since it was a sweatshirt and hat from the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, an aircraft carrier on which his son is currently serving. This fact was pointed out to the union that fired him, yet he was fired anyway!

Ironically (or perhaps not) the man who was fired was setting up for President Obama's visit to Los Angeles.

I wonder if there is a union you can join to protect yourself from Unions.

The story:

Obama’s visit to Los Angeles today has stirred controversy even before he arrived.

A stage worker setting up the stage was fired for refusing to remove his hat and turn his sweatshirt inside out and the reason? The shirt hat and shirt both had the name “Bush” printed on them but not just any Bush but, that of George H.W. Bush.

The IATSE (Local 33) union fired the worker even after he explained the shirt to his bosses. The shirt didn’t explicitly support George H.W Bush but that of the aircraft carrier named after the former President and the aircraft carrier his son has served on for the past many years and is currently deployed. The union worker was interviewed on KTLA Channel 5 locally in Los Angeles.

The stage hand was identified as Duane Hammond and a distraught Hammet can be seen during his interview very distraught as his support for his son and his service becoming the center piece to his firing.

The video:

Unions and Government: It's NOT YOUR MONEY!

Wow. If there has ever been a case of a bizarre financial infestation of parasites draining the very life from the American body politic, this must be it.

Public Employees Union Spends Huge to Save Dems


Government Union Thug Wants Your Money

 

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.



The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending.

"We're the big dog," said Larry Scanlon, the head of AFSCME's political operations. "But we don't like to brag."

"Big Dog", indeed. Hubris comes easy to those spending other people's money.

So, we have a public employees union, spending their members' money, made from public taxation, in order to elect more Democrats, so they (Democrats) can spend more of the American people's money (presumably) on behalf of public sector employees.

First, most state and local governments are even in worse financial shape than the federal government, if that's possible. They're literally broke, with some facing default. How are these state and local governments dealing with these shortfalls? Among other measures, they're attempting to curb spending on their largest expenditure; employees (that would be AFSCME members).

Secondly, most of the legislators (those who control the spending) of those state and local governments are Democrats, who the AFSCME is spending $87.5 million to assist on local, state and federal levels. AFSCME seems to be succeeding in not only screwing its own members, but more importantly, the American people.

I would submit that the very existence of AFSCME gives government employees unhealthy influence over their employers - The People.

The idea of public sector employee unions is distasteful to me. After all, these people are public servants, are they not? Governments are not (or should not be) autonomous entities; they are duly elected representatives of The People. All of the money to operate government ultimately comes from The People. The idea of these public sector unions using employee dues to affect the political constitutions of the governments (The People) for which they work seems a form of dangerous political incest, since the money originates not from free enterprise, but from taxation of The People, at large.

If one worked for a private corporation, one would not have a say in how that corporation's money is spent unless one was on the board of directors or was a direct owner of the enterprise. Why should public sector employees be any different? It could certainly be argued that, in a private corporation, employees can belong to unions and those unions can utilize union money (alas) for political purposes. The difference is that in the corporate example, the money is ultimately the result of private enterprise, not public taxation.

The political inbreeding that unions and Democrats have fostered in this country is odious, and particularly so in the case of AFSCME. Union meddling in the affairs of private enterprise is one thing, public employee unions meddling in the affairs of The People is quite another.

If you think I'm off base, just ask France how that public employee union is working out for them.

Bush Gets the Blame, Obama Takes the Credit

Not surprisingly, it looks like the administration is using some of the Bush numbers to pad it's own. I seriously doubt this is unintentional; their pathetic record is not improving and it's becoming increasingly obvious to all, even MSNBC, the source of this story.

It does make one wonder what other numbers these incompetents are fudging, no?

Hot air? White House takes credit for Bush-era wind farm jobs

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is crediting its anti-recession stimulus plan with creating up to 50,000 jobs on dozens of wind farms, even though many of those wind farms were built before the stimulus money began to flow or even before President Barack Obama was inaugurated.

Out of 70 major wind farms that received the $4.4 billion in federal energy grants through the stimulus program, public records show that 11, which received a total of $600 million, erected their wind towers during the Bush administration. And a total of 19 wind farms, which received $1.3 billion, were built before any of the stimulus money was distributed. ( See a list of the projects here.)

Yet all the jobs at these wind farms are counted in the administration's figures for jobs created by the stimulus.

In testimony to Congress earlier this year, the Department of Energy's senior adviser on the stimulus plan, Matt Rogers, touted the wind farm program for creating as many as 50,000 jobs. He acknowledges that these figures were provided by a wind industry trade and lobbying group. The trade group, in turn, cites a government study, which found that most of the jobs are short term.

The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University fact-checked that claim, using the federal government's own documents. Not only were 19 of the wind farms already in place before the first stimulus payments were made, but 14 of them were already sending electricity to the grid.

In a Nutshell; The Politics of 2010

NPR: Unworthy of Taxpayer Support

Well, in all honesty, they have been unworthy of taxpayer support for quite some time. No more than a government-funded mouthpiece of the Left, they have rarely tolerated conservative thought, and thus have been a sanctuary for those who simply do not want to be bothered by opposing views.

Now, in an attempt to cast their intolerance in stone, NPR has chosen to fire long-time Senior News Analyst, Juan Williams. His crime? According to the New York Times:



Juan Williams



The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.” 

Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.

He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. “He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.

Juan Williams is a liberal, but in my mind, he's a commodity that's scarce among liberals these days; a reasonable individual. For that reason, I enjoy hearing his take on Fox News, though I don't always agree. His reasonableness is on display in the views he expressed on O'Reilly and I thoroughly concur. Not surprisingly, NPR saw it differently:

NPR said in its statement that the remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

First, given the long history of worldwide Islamic terrorism, it is difficult, if not impossible to argue with what Juan Williams said. The fact that his remarks were "inconsistent with" NPR's "editorial standards and practices" says more about NPR than Juan Williams.



Secondly, what part of "News Analyst" does NPR not understand? Their claim that he "undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR" clearly illustrates the leftist nature that NPR wants to preserve. He's an editorialist giving his opinion! Again, it appears that any opinion other than that of NPR's management will simply not be tolerated, even though NPR's middle name is "Public":

Mr. Williams’s contributions on Fox raised eyebrows at NPR in the past. In February 2009, NPR said it had asked that he stop being identified on “The O’Reilly Factor” as a “senior correspondent for NPR,” even though that title was accurate.


Alicia C. Shepard, the NPR ombudswoman, said at the time that Mr. Williams was a “lightning rod” for the public radio organization in part because he “tends to speak one way on NPR and another on Fox.”



Ms. Shepard said she had received 378 listener e-mails in 2008 listing complaints and frustrations about Mr. Williams.

378 complaints over an entire year is only one per day! Let's face it, this is not exactly a groundswell of discontent on a national radio network in a country of more than 300,000,000 people. Rush Limbaugh likely gets more death threats than that from disgruntled liberals than that in a given day, and he is not partially funded by taxpayer dollars.

It's the same old story; those who bemoan the lack of tolerance are the least tolerant of opposing views.  In Juan Williams, liberals have a voice of reason; one that can be respected by liberals and conservatives alike.  In the final analysis, Fox News can handle principled, diverse viewpoints, yet NPR can not