Don't take him seriously.

Obama: I used to say 47 million uninsured. Now, it's 30 million.
Byron York

A few weeks ago it was 47 million. Now it is 30 million.

That is not the work of serious man. I am not meaning that he is not serious in his goals. He is dead serious. I believe that. But in his words he is not a serious man. Trust deeds and not words, and read the Thomas Sowell article below again.

Powerline says:

At this rate, if we can wait until November, the problem may resolve itself.

Which I thought was seriously hilarious.

And this also:

JOHN adds: The number of "uninsured" who have suddenly disappeared amount to three and a half times the population of the State of Minnesota. You get the feeling that Barack Obama is a person to whom numbers don't mean much. He's not someone you would put in charge of a business.

He is simply not a serious man. You should not take his words seriously. What other conclusion can you arrive at? Sphere: Related Content

The Obama Speach To Congress: Listening to a Liar

Thomas Sowell is my favorite American.

Listening to a Liar
by Thomas Sowell

Why paraphrase Sowell? Do I have to? Can I sum it up better than he can? Why not just quote the whole damn thing? He is better at this than me. Check the link for the full article.

Also, I have a drinking problem. It agrees with me.

He starts out like this:

The most important thing about what anyone says are not the words themselves but the credibility of the person who says them.

The words of convicted swindler Bernie Madoff were apparently quite convincing to many people who were regarded as knowledgeable and sophisticated. If you go by words, you can be led into anything.

No doubt millions of people will be listening to the words of President Barack Obama Wednesday night when he makes a televised address to a joint session of Congress on his medical care plans. But, if they think that the words he says are what matters, they can be led into something much worse than being swindled out of their money.

I like the analogy of the snake oil salesman and the pyramid scheme. Bernie Madoff had a pyramid scheme. The United States Government and our national debt is one big Ponzi scheme. I hope I die before the whole thing falls. It will fall, and the collapse is going to be spectacular.

Back to the action:

One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess-- for a program that would not take effect until 2013!

Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years-- more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election?

If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election?

If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect immediately, then why don't we have time to go through the normal process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons, accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions? What sense does it make to "hurry up and wait" on something that is literally a matter of life and death?

What is up with that? A month ago we needed to adress this "crisis" before the August recess. It was that important. A thousand page bill that nobody had read was ploped upon the Congressional desks with a Presidential mandate that we need to do this now.

Tonight he talked about how we have years to work out the kinks. What happened between then and now. Why should we pass something this year if we are working out the kinks for years to come, yet alone when the damn behemoth is actually implemented.

Madness. And he wants you to believe him as a serious man. He is not a serious man, not if you take him at his word. This didn't need to be done last month.

Again, back to the Thomas Sowell action:

If we do not believe that the President is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it.

Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be.

Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues.

Thomas Sowell is preaching to the choir here. Can I get an AMEN!

Halleahluya!

Obama was saying this needed to been done now. Inaction would cause us great peril. To not act on such a crisis would betray America! Or whatever, nobody even had a chance to read the bill. Have you heard that story before?

Sowell provides an easy answer to that question:

Consider the "stimulus" legislation. Here the administration was successful in rushing a massive spending bill through Congress in just two days-- after which it sat on the President's desk for three days, while he was away on vacation. But, like the medical care legislation, the "stimulus" legislation takes effect slowly.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will be September 2010 before even three-quarters of the money will be spent. Some economists expect that it will not all be spent by the end of 2010.

What was the rush to pass it, then? It was not to get that money out into the economy as fast as possible. It was to get that money-- and the power that goes with it-- into the hands of the government. Power is what politics is all about.

The worst thing that could happen, from the standpoint of those seeking more government power over the economy, would be for the economy to begin recovering on its own while months were being spent debating the need for a "stimulus" bill. As the President's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said, you can't let a crisis "go to waste" when "it's an opportunity to do things you could not do before."

I am begining to see a pattern here. Maybe Obama is up to something.

There are lots of people in the Obama administration who want to do things that have not been done before-- and to do them before the public realizes what is happening.

...

What Barack Obama says Wednesday night is not nearly as important as what he has been doing-- and how he has been doing it.

I end as I begin.

Thomas Sowell is my favorite American. Sphere: Related Content

Violence in DC Public Schools

I got this link from Jay P. Greene's blog

Maybe they need a voucher program:

Jonetta Rose Barras: School safety in the District
Washington Examiner

The Metropolitan Police Department received 3,500 reports of crime in D.C. Public Schools -- including homicides, sex offenses, robberies and assaults -- during 2007-2008, according an Aug. 24 report by The Heritage Foundation and the Lexington Institute.

That is how the police department reports the crime numbers. Let's see how the schools report the same numbers:

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education, which is responsible for analyzing incident reports, appears to be out of touch or playing with the numbers. Chad Colby, agency spokesman, said there was a decrease in violent crimes reported in DCPS and public charter schools for the same time period "as reported by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department." He provided a chart showing 60 violent crimes in DCPS in 2006-2007 and 40 in 2007-2008.

You need a bablefish to interpret the language of the State Superintendent of Misinformation Education.

Some more glowing facts:

The U.S Department of Education "Indicators of School Crime and Safety," released earlier this year, noted 11.3 percent of D.C. high school students told of " 'being threatened or injured with a weapon while on school property' the previous [2008] school year -- a rate well above the national average." (Anacostia Senior High, Ballou, Cardozo, Coolidge, Dunbar, Eastern, Roosevelt and Springarn had a total of 7,813 students during the 2007-2008, according to audited data used by Heritage/Lexington. Eleven percent comes out to 859 threatened or injured students.)

Those numbers are shocking. I couldn't imagine sending a child to one of those schools.

It doesn't get any better for the elementary schools...

Safety at elementary schools was no better. There were 60 incidents reported at Moten Elementary; with a population of 275, the rate was 21.8 incidents per 100 students. At Webb, the rate of violence was 22 incidents per 100 students, according to Heritage/Lexington.

It is amazing that anyone could make it out alive AND become a productive citizen. Talking about a stacked deck. We need to reinstate and expand DC Vouchers now.

And what is the offical take of the The Office of the State Superintendent of Misinformation Education? "OSSE has not found any persistently dangerous schools."

Incredible. If we were not talking about something as serious as violent acts against children a farcical statement like that would be enough to make you spit out your drink all over the keyboard.

Heritage Study Here

Jay P. Greene's blog here


-----------------------------
Also found through Jay's blog:

So We Can't Have Single Payer for Health Care, But How About Single Payer for Education?

Arianna Huffington embraces school choice under the guise of "Single Payer for Education".

I don't often get a chance to agree with Arianna Huffington, but today I salute her efforts for school choice. Sphere: Related Content

Van Jones, Continued

Jimmie at the Sundries Shack

There are three things that struck me about this story.

1) There wasn’t a single left-wing crackpot conspiracy that Jones didn’t believe, from “Bush knew” to “The CIA is poisoning black people” to “Mumia-Abu Jamal was framed”. Jones showed no independent thought at all. You could get a perfect summary of his political beliefs by reading the signs and banners at an International ANSWER rally. The idea that someone so utterly hidebound in his political thought could ever be in charge of an innovative and dynamic “green jobs” economy is laughable. So how did he end up in the White House? How did he get past the most intrusive vetting questionnaire in the history of vetting questionnaires? Well, it’s pretty clear that the White House thought him perfectly mainstream, which should tell you all you need to know about today’s Democratic Party.

2) Jones picked a really bad time to become a communist. According to Jones, he converted in prison in the early 1990s, not all that long after the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. By that point, communism was a thoroughly and loudly discredited political and economic system which had never been successful anywhere it had ever been tried. People were so eager to flee communism that they tore down a wall with their bare hands to get away from it just a couple years before Van Jones declared it an awesome life philosophy. In other words, Van Jones went running toward a completely failed political ideology at the same time that most everyone who had ever followed it was running in the other direction. His conversion was like someone deciding to become the Detroit Lions biggest fan the week after the team went 0-16.

3) Isn’t it something that the MSM spent less time digging into Van Jones’ background than it did Joe Wurzelbacher’s? If the New York Times and the Washington Post had spilled half the ink the man named to an important and highly visible government post as it did on a plumber who dared to ask a question of a Presidential candidate who showed up on his front lawn one day, Jones would have resigned long before now.

Quoted either for truth or bottom shelf vodka. I can't tell which at this point but I thought that was awesome. If not maybe I have a drinking problem.

----------------------------

Also a link to something else:

Amity Shlaes: The Forgotten Man, a review by C.J. Maloney at the Mises Institute. Sphere: Related Content

Little Green Footballs highlights Cincy Tea Party "Truther"

Cincinnati Tea Party Organizer: A Truther

LGF highlights

One of the main organizers, and a featured speaker, is Jason Rink. Here’s his bio from the official site:

Jason Rink

Jason Rink is one of the founders of the Ohio Freedom Alliance and is the Director of Education and Outreach for the group. “Today’s Ohio Liber-TEA Party is not about partisan politics. It’s not an anti-Obama rally. It’s not an anti-tax rally. It’s a pro-freedom rally. Our goal is to gather together like-minded citizens from around Ohio to promote three ideas: liberty, unity, and sovereignty. We want to empower citizens to enact changes in government through education and political action.”

Jason is a contributing author in the recently published biography of Congressman Ron Paul, Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas. Jason’s work has also been featured on the website LewRockwell.com.

Lovely! A highly placed Ron Paulian, and an associate of racist paleocon Lew Rockwell!

And Rink is also ... you guessed it ... a Truther. 9/11 Equations: The Math of Propaganda « Think Rink.

For the record, I am a moderate “twoofer.” I believe that the 9/11 Commission Report contains some serious omissions and inaccuracies. This troubles me. Is smells like a whitewash. I don’t claim to know who did what, or how it really happened. That’s precisely the problem. I want to know and so do the other 68% of Americans who suspect we aren’t getting the whole truth. We need a new, independent investigation.

No matter where you fall on the issue, you have to admit that the broad brush by which the mainstream media, and frankly a lot of “diggers,” paint everyone within the 9/11 Movement is completely biased. Granted, the zeal of some Truthers can come off as a bit abrasive. And there are some far-out theories concerning holograms and laser beams. But, this does not represent the majority. In fact, the diversity of people who are calling for a new investigation ranges from university professors to structural engineers to members of the FDNY to family members of those who died on that day. It is a vast a varied bunch. They deserve to be heard.

In most cases the ”twoofers” are usually those who have nothing to gain, and everything to lose. Even though prior to being labled a 9/11 “nutjob,” the impeccable credentials of many of these scholars have never been questioned, and their contributions to their respecive fields of study praised. This makes absolutely no sense, unless you factor in the simple equation as I have presented above. No matter who you are or what your credentials, the strategy is always the same. Attack the character of the messenger, not the facts of the message.

I won’t be holding my breath waiting for the same bloggers who are screaming for Van Jones’ head to denounce the Cincinnati Tea Party — even though one of the main organizers is a self-admitted 9/11 Truther. But the hypocrisy is rather stunning.

Jason Rink was a speaker at a Cincinnati Tea Party event. I do not think he is one of the main organizers, as LGF claims.

LGF doesn't care for Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell or Glenn Beck either. I link to Rockwell. Those guys are pretty extreme even for moderate libertarians, but I enjoy sampling it and they make good arguments. I am also a huge fan of "Dr. No". I was for Romney in the last election, but my heart goes out to Ron Paul.

I have attended the Cincinnati Tea Party events. I had no hand in organizing them. I have also denounced Van Jones and rejoiced with glee at his downfall. Should I feel like a hypocrite when it turns out I attended an event where a truther spoke? If not, is that stunning hypocrisy?

There is plenty not to like about Van Jones, and in some ways I might have been considered a "truther" myself. For example, what in the hell was in Sandy Berger's pants? I don't think we got an answer to that. And why didn't the 9/11 commission even investigate if 9/11 was state sponsored? (not the United States) It didn't seem like that was covered.

And the people in the comments section ravage Ron Paul. What about the big tent? Colin Powell is a proud member of the party. So is Ron Paul. We need to reach out to the Powells as well as the Pauls. I don't get how Ron Paul and the people that follow him are so crazy and toxic.

I used to read a fair amount of LGF. It has been a few years. It appears that site has changed a bit. Maybe Ron Paul's defenders were so ardent in posting a defense on the site that they got sick of them.

Since I am a fan of Ron Paul it should be no surprise that I am fine with fans of Ron Paul at tea parties. But what is the rationale at trying to keep them out or to marginalize Ron Paul? Sphere: Related Content

Van Jones Out - Glenn Beck & Gateway Pundit Win

GREEN CZAR VAN JONES RESIGNS!... Communist Leaves White House

Embattled talk show host Glenn Beck scored a victory last night when radical leftist Van Jones stepped down from his post at the White House.

I am a fan of Glenn Beck. He is crazy as a loon but that doesn't mean he isn't right. I think he is right on a lot of things. I don't watch his television spot, but I do catch him on the radio most days. Radio is a unique medium. With TV you watch it and it controls all of your attention. With radio you put it on and go on with your day. You can be driving a car, answering email, or filling out a report and still have it on in the background. After listening to a person for awhile it is like you have let them into your life.

I don't agree with everything Beck says, but I have to confess that I love the man. I think he is funny. I like his sidekick Stu. I like the commotion that they cause and the fun they have. I am also apocalyptic like Glenn Beck. I think at some point the whole system is bound to collapse.

When they came after Beck and started boycotting him it made me upset. He has lost so many sponsors and more continue to cave. Van Jones did play a part in Color of Change, the group that is boycotting Beck. It may make this situation play as a tit for tat retribution. I don't see it directly that way, but I am glad to see Glenn Beck score a knock out punch on Van Jones.

Gateway Pundit was on the case and clearly deserves credit. I have added Gateway Pundit to the blog list.

Ramblings

I also added Robert Stacey McCain, "The Other McCain". The man cracks me up and I find myself checking it every day for a laugh. Might as well add him to my blog list to save me some time.

I added Mickey Kaus as well. Kausfiles is always short and sweet and packs ten pounds of kick-ass into a five pound bag. He cuts to the chase and is worth checking out.

Recently I added The Capitol Tribune, which I stumbled across and like to check out. On the About my blog post, Jeff at the Capitol Tribune says this:

My political views are not entirely easy to categorize. I’m a conservative on most issues, a moderate on some, and a liberal on a few. It all depends on the issue. However, if forced to choose, I consider myself a conservative. Michael Gerson said it perfectly: “I am a conservative because I believe in the accumulated wisdom of humanity—a kind of democracy that gives a vote to the dead—expressed in the institutions and moral ideals we inherit from the past. When those ideals and institutions are causally discarded in the cause of personal liberation, the result is usually personal suffering and social decay. We cannot prosper as a ‘cut-flower civilization’—separated from our sustaining roots.” For those with a classical history background, I’d consider my perspective a cross between Tacitus and Livy. A sort of realistic idealist.

I love the Gerson quote. I can identify with all of what Jeff said there, and I like reading what he has to say.

Getting on my blog list won't get anyone mega-hits or fame, but it is a reflection of who I am checking out. I use this blog as my personal control center for the blogosphere. I check out certain blogs on a regular basis, and having this blog is a neat way of organizing my links. When I find something interesting I can comment and link to it on my blog, and then I know it is here so I can find it again.

I don't do that enough either. I don't know how many times I try to remember an article I read just a few weeks ago, and wish I had linked to it so I could go back and review it. It is a very useful function for a blog, and this blog is obviously more for me than anyone else.

I was initially reluctant to say that I loved Glenn Beck. I have read some intellectuals lament his influence on the right. A friend of mine recently commented that Beck is part of what is wrong with the Republican Party. As far as I can tell, Beck isn't even part of the Republican Party. In my opinion, the Republican Party has been what is wrong with the Republican Party. Maybe if they didn't act like big government Democrats when elected...

And they say that Beck is crazy and a conspiracy theorist. It is true. He is a bat-shit crazy conspiracy theorist. He was right about Van Jones though, and I think he is right about a lot of things. He gets trashed by the other side, so much so that his name has a negative connotation. It made me reluctant to even admit I was a fan, and I don't even use my real name here. How pathetic is that?

If loving Glen Beck is wrong, I don't want to be right. Sphere: Related Content

The Voice Of America Rally - Sept 5th, 2009

Today I will attend the Voice of America Freedom Rally with my family.

Here are the speakers:

Speakers 2:30pm-5:00pm
Meteorologist Rich Apuzzo
Vietnamese Immigrant and Small Business Owner DakLak Do
Honduran Immigrant Harlene Holland
Small Business Owner Greg McAfee
Cancer Survivor, Activist, and Houston Tea Party Member Tracy Miller
Physical Therapist and Small Business Owner Chris Orecchio
Ohio Freedom Alliance's Jason Rink
Dayton Tea Party Founder Rob Scott
Author Thomas Tabback
Cincinnati Tea Party Founder Mike Wilson
Lawyer, Grassroots Activist, and Candidate for Indiana's 9th District Todd Young
East German Immigrant Harald Zieger

Don't know if I will attend all day with kids in tow. I have no idea how they are going to take to it. Should be nice weather for it though.

-----------------

Update: I had a fun time at the tea party and my kids had plenty of snacks and Ice Cream.

My favorite speakers were Rich Apuzzo and DakLak Do. I booed Mean Jean Schmidt.

The Taxman, Gordon Gecko went as well. He put the crowd at around 10,000.

The Cincinnati Enquirer put the crowd at over 6,000.

The offical Cincinnati Tea Party site claims 18,000.

This apparently came from the Sheriff, quoted in the Middletown Journal:

The crowd continued to grow throughout the afternoon, and an estimated 18,000 people had come together at the event’s peak, according to Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones.

Jones said the crowd Saturday nearly doubled that of the Tea Party’s event he witnessed in Columbus, which drew an estimated 10,000 people to the state’s capital in April.

Oxford Press repeated 18,000.

Channel 12: "Largest Tea Party Event in the Region, 18,000.

My brother was there early and had to leave. His estimate was 6000+ and growing. I got there after he left, and I would have put the estimate in around Mr. Geckos at 10k. My wife however claims it was easily 16-20k.

So there you have it, clear as mud. I do understand that politics come into play when it comes to crowd estimates. Supporters want the largest possible number, detractors want the smallest and most insignificant number. Does the Sheriff have an agenda? Does the Enquirer? Do they both.

My honest bet would be the Cincinnati Enquirer was way too low, and that the Sheriff was way too high. But I don't do this for a living, and both of those people would be better than I in acessing crowd size. So why does one say 6k and another 18k. That is a difference in order of magnitude.

And you can tell from the following email that the 18k number is something the Cincinnati Tea Party is going to tout big time.

Update 2:

Email from the Cincinnati Tea Party

Dear Fellow Citizens and Taxpayers,


This is the first of two email that I'll send today. I need to get some information together on the Washington DC rally next week.

First, a wrapup of yesterday's events. The first Voice of America Rally was held at the Voice of America Museum in West Chester. According to Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, the crowd was almost double the 10,000 that attended the Columbus Rally on 8/1. He estimated the crowd size at about 18,000 as more people were still streaming in.

This would make it the largest in Ohio, the largest in the Midwest, and in the top 10 or so nationally so far this year. This is pretty impressive as the ones that I know about are in much bigger cities than Cincinnati and Dayton like Atlanta, Dallas and Houston.

18,000 is a number normally reserved for sporting events and presidential appearances.

To put this in perspective, this is the paid (not actual) attendance at the last Reds weekday home games:

9/2 - 11,541
9/1 - 10,304
8/31 - 9,087
8/31 - 13,051

I struggle to find the words to describe how amazing the event was. However, I can tell you that it was tremendously inspiring that so many people came on a holiday weekend.

They were treated to a great lineup of speakers and a town hall that exceeded all expectations. The representatives and John Kasich were subjected to a series of difficult questions that put them on the spot. Many videos are already up on Youtube and we're looking to get a list together that we can share on our web site.

The media covered it well in general, but some did a very poor job. I didn't see the Fox19 story on the news, but the article on their web site was terrible. The headline said we drew opposition at another event which was true. The problem is that they only got 20 people which meant we outnumbered them 900-1. I wrote a quick blog post last night with screenshots of the article. If you were there, give them a call at 513-421-1919 and let them know what you think of them being so deceptive.

The Enquirer also got it wrong. I am glad they highlighted the tough nature of the questions, but the reporter was clearly deceptive about the size. At one point, he asked our VP - National Affairs and Strategy, Justin Binik-Thomas, for a crowd estimate. Justin provided the 18,000 number given by Sheriff Jones and was told that the reporter did not believe it. Justin then brought the reporter to see Sheriff Jones where he repeated 18,000. Clearly the reporter is entitled to his own opinion, but he failed by not reporting his interaction with the Sheriff and going with his own unsubstantiated number. Again, if you were at the event, I suggest you contact the reporter, Steve Kemme - skemme@enquirer.com.

Sphere: Related Content