Congratulations! We just passed April 9^th! I’m sure you know what April 9^th is, right?  If not, let me tell you:

Taxes amount to 27% of our income for the average American. January 1^st to April 9^th represents 27% of the year. So starting April 10^th, the money you earn is the money you actually get to keep. That’s right, 99 days out of 365 days go to Uncle Sam. And just in time for April 15^th—Tax Day!

But why didn’t Carnahan’s office produce it?  Why not take photos?  Why not let the press see it before you removed it?

What did you say?  There actually was NO COFFIN LEFT ON THE LAWN?  Oh, got it.  You made it.

KTVI has all the info here (scroll down for the video).

Jeff Emanuel at The New Ledger has some insight:

“Far from reducing the cost of health insurance, Massachusetts’s individual mandate has driven costs up at twice the average national rate. This was entirely predictable; after all, what can possibly reduce downward pressure on a price more effectively than a legal requirement to purchase it, whatever the cost? According to the Connector, the least expensive price for an insurance policy for a 50 year old non-smoker in 2008 was $3,599 a year ($299.94 per month), with a $2,000 deductible. Next door in Connecticut, that price was just $1,468 a year ($122.36 per month, with a $2,500 deductible) – and Connecticut hadn’t even spent $1.3 billion on controlling and engineering their state’s health care marketplace!”

So this is what we have to look forward to it nationalized health care passes.  I can’t wait.

via: Ben Domenech at The New Ledger

Read this article for some hope!

The Global Warming pundits took a great hit recently when a server at the University of East Anglia was hacked containing emails and documents from well-known scientists supporting Global Warming.  The University has disclosed that the documents and emails that have been leaked were authentic.

Five points come out:

1. Prominent environmental scientists organize a boycott of scientific journals if those journals publish scholarly material from global warming dissidents.
2. The scientists then orchestrate attacks on the dissidents because of their lack of scholarly material published in scientific journals.
3. The scientists block from the UN’s report on global warming evidence that is harmful to the anthropogenic global warming consensus.
4. The scientists, when faced with a freedom of information act request for their correspondence and data, delete the correspondence and data lest it be used against them.
5. The scientists fabricate data when their data fails to prove the earth is warming. In fact, in more than one case, scientists engaged in lengthy emails on how to insert additional made up data that would in turn cause their claims to stand out as legitimate.

Read the full story here.

-President George Washington, October 3, 1789

Advance Auto Parts
Aldi
Banana Republic
Barnes & Noble
CVS Pharmacy
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Gap Stores
Harris Teeter Stores
Home Shopping Network
Kroger
Limited Brands
Nordstrom
Office Depot
Old Navy
Radio Shack
Staples
SUPERVALU
Victoria’s Secret

For a list of companies that do support Christmas, click here.

-Senator Kit Bond, R-MO, in reference to the government takeover of health care

See also:

Fox News Article

Another Article

If the congressman is going to open it up for questions, then he has got to expect that a question regarding current issues (e.g. healthcare) is going to be asked.

So just answer the question.  If you are going to vote for it (and everyone in the room knew you were going to), then just say so and say why you support it.

I have yet to see (I am sure there is one out that somewhere besides Pelosi or Reid) a congressman or congresswoman openly state in front of their constituents they will vote for the healthcare bill.

–Margaret Thatcher

The AARP has an agenda and if you don’t like it, they’ll just leave.

It’ll be interesting to see what their membership numbers are at the end of this year if they continue pushing national health care.

-Todd Akin, US Representative from Missouri

Tonight ABC World News will be anchored from inside the White House.  They will have a prime-time special “Prescription for America” which is essentially a giant infomercial for nationalized health care.  Then President Obama will have a “town hall” meeting in the White House to further push his agenda.

For the next few days ABC plans to follow-up with a continued push for this proposal.  CBS, NBC, CNN and other stations except Fox are expected to put his proposal in a favorable light and have few, if any, dissenting opinions or proposals.

When the media/journalism becomes bias, it’s no longer true journalism but a giant Op-ed. While we’ve known this for some time, it’s sad when it’s this blatant and people can’t see it for what it is.

Further, NBC has given more than favorable coverage to President Obama. His interviews consist of nothing more than the proverbial “soft ball pitches” that he can slam out of the park. No hard questions.

Of course, this would have nothing to do with the fact that GE owns NBC, and GE is currently seeking billion dollar contracts from the government.

For those keeping track, it would be one more area the Obama administration has taken more control over.  So far Obama has managed more government control for:

Banking
Housing
Auto Industry
Tobacco (if the bill passes the House)

And on the horizon is Health Care.  Today Obama placed an August deadline on Congress to get something passed and on his desk to sign.

*****UPDATE*****
The law was passed and signed by President Obama just days ago.

The American Family Association has called off its boycott of Pepsi.  See more info here.

———————————————————————

Pepsi has taken a number of actions lately to support and promote the gay lifestyle.  It is sad that Pepsi is refusing to remain neutral in the culture war and instead is aggressively endorsing this lifestyle.

Consider these items:

The text of the speech is available at John Piper’s Blog.

Method 1 – The government can raise taxes and thus increase revenue.

Method 2 – The government can borrow the money.

Method 3 – The government can print the money.

There is no such thing as free money.

As Dr. Adrian Rogers notes, “The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.”

It’s like pulling a single hair from a dog and then saying, “Look at the great job we did cutting that dog’s hair.”

According to the video, Clinton doesn’t realize that an embryo is already a fertilized egg.  Hello!

And this man set national policy for eight years!?

Sounds like Rome is burning and Nero has his fiddle out.

George Grant has a list of the anti-life (i.e. pro-choice) decisions and actions that Obama has already made.

January 5, 2009 – Obama picks pro-abortion Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as the chairman of the Democratic Party.

January 6, 2009 – Obama chooses Thomas Perrelli, the lawyer who represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to kill his disabled wife, as the third highest attorney in the Justice Department.

January 22, 2009 – Releases statement restating support for Roe v. Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions and has resulted in at least 50 million abortions since 1973.

January 23, 2009 – Forces taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. Decison to overturn Mexico City Policy sends part of $457 million to pro-abortion organizations.

January 26, 2009 – Obama nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, James B. Steinberg, tells members of the Senate that taxpayers should be forced to fund abortions. Nominee erroneously says limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional.

January 29, 2009 – President Obama nominates extreme pro-abortion advocate David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General.

February 12, 2009 – Obama nominates pro-abortion Elena Kagan to serve as Solicitor General.

February 24, 2009 – Obama nominates Dawn Johnsen, a former NARAL attorney, as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel. Johnsen is a professor at the Indiana University School of Law, but she is also the former Legal Director for NARAL serving from 1988-1993. She has argued that any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is tantamount to “involuntary servitude” because it “requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest in the life of the unborn.”

Thanks for keeping the record straight, George Grant.

–Tom Cole, US Representative (R-Okla.), in response to his voting against the stimulus bill.

$39 billion slush fund for “state fiscal stabilization” bailout
$5.5 billion for making federal buildings “green” (including $448 million for DHS HQ) $275 million for flood prevention
$65 million for watershed rehabilitation
$200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries
$650 million for the DTV transition coupon program
$307 million for constructing NIST office buildings
$1 billion for administrative costs and construction of NOAA office buildings
$100 million for constructing U.S. Marshalls office buildings
$300 million for constructing FBI office buildings
$800 million for constructing Federal Prison System buildings and facilities
$10 million to fight Mexican gunrunners
$1.3 billion for NASA (including $450 million for “science” at NASA)
$100 million to clean up sites used in early U.S. atomic energy program
$10 million for urban canals
$2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars
$1.5 billion for carbon capture projects under sec. 703 of P.L. 110-140 (though section only authorizes $1 billion for five years)
$300 million for hybrid and electric cars for federal employees
$198 million to design and furnish the DHS headquarters
$255 million for “priority procurements” at Coast Guard (polar ice breaker)
$500 million for State and local fire stations
$180 million for construction of Bureau of Land Management facilities
$500 million for wildland fire management
$110 million for construction for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
$522 million for construction for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
$650 million for abandoned mine sites
$75 million for the Smithsonian Institution
$1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth
$412 million for CDC headquarters
$500 million earmark for NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
$160 million for “volunteers” at the Corp. for National and Community Service
$750 earmark for the National Computer Center in MD
$224 million for International Boundary and Water Commission – U.S. and Mexico
$850 million for Amtrak
$100 million for lead paint hazard reduction

• $20 million “for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers.” (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “20,000,000 for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers)
• $400 million for STD prevention (Pg. 60 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “CDC estimates that a proximately 19 million new STD infections occur annually in the United States …The Committee has included $400,000,000 for testing and prevention of these conditions.”)
• $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration”)
• $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce HQ (Pg. 15 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: $34,000,000 for the Department of Commerce renovation and modernization”)
• $70 million to “Support Supercomputing Activities” for climate research (Pgs. 14-15 of Senate Appropriations Committee Report: $70,000,000 is directed to specifically support supercomputing activities, especially as they relate to climate research)
• $150 million for honey bee insurance (Pg. 102 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “The Secretary shall use up to $ 50,000,000 per year, and $150,000,000 in the case of 2009, from the Trust Fund to provide emergency relief to eligible producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm-raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses due to disease, adverse weather, or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary”)

Looks like a pretty close race from this picture.  In fact, it looks like the Republicans might have won.  The problem is that “size” in one sense doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter how big the state is, if not many people live in it.  Likewise, it doesn’t matter how small the state is (e.g. New York) if a lot of people live in it.  Electoral votes are given out based on the population size of each state, not on its geographic size.

So taking this into account, if we reshape the US and make states “larger” that have more electoral votes, and states “smaller” that have less, we end up with this cartogram:

That shows quite a bit of difference.  Here the Democrats clearly won.

But what about by counties?  How did each county in the US vote in the 2008 general election?  Here it is:

Again, looking at just this it would appear there was a convincing victory for the Republicans.  But, alas, this cartogram, fails to take into account the size (not geographic-wise, but population-wise) of each county.  Doing this, gives us the following cartogram:

Again, this shows a convincing victory for the Democrats.

All pictures were taken from here.

–Mike Huckabee

So why does Barack Obama refuse to produce his Birth Certificate?

One of the requirements for the President of the United States is he or she be a natural-born citizen.  Obama has apparently put a image of his birth certificate on his website, but the birth certificate seems to not be genuine, but rather “photoshoped.”

Why can’t Obama simply produce the Birth Certificate?

When John McCain was asked about his Birth Certificate he immediately produced it.  Has Obama?  No.

It is most concerning that Obama doesn’t clear up this mess by simply producing his Birth Certificate?  Why would he not do that?  Unless, of course, he isn’t a natural-born citizen and he really has no US Birth Certificate.

Watch the video and make your own conclusions.

“WOW!” is all I can say.

NY Times on Fannie Mae and the Bailout

At the outset, let me say on of the biggest motivating factors for me in deciding to be “pro-drilling” in ANWR is because of the huge amount of revenue we give to foreign nations in regards to oil. Many of these nations either support terrorists, back the beliefs of terrorists, have a hostile nature towards the US, or disagree with key positions to me as a Christian and as a US Citizen. Many times it’s a combo of the above answers. Thus, we support their belief system financially.

If we were getting oil from Israel or Mexico or some nation friendly to us, it’d be different.

In addition to this, the money we pour into other nations is money we are not pouring into our own. Thus we hurt our economy.

Additional arguments that helped me to decide to be pro-drilling in ANWR:

-revenue would be $150-200 billion lifetime (the North Slope in Alaska, which we’ve been drilling for some time, gave $50 billion in revenue over 27 years; each state was impacted by this money)

-250,000-730,000 jobs created (note: vast majority would not reside in Alaska on the oil rigs/drills/platforms)

-the potential for a gigantic discovery (like other countries have made in the past) best lies in ANWR; we could be sitting on a 100 year supply (100 miles west of ANWR is America’s largest oil field)

-once we started drilling, price-wise it’d be a simple supply/demand model in terms of the worldwide price of oil. If we introduce a new supply and it’s a large enough amount, oil prices will come down (more supply + same demand = lower prices)

-current oil fields/oil areas have growth population in the animals; the caribou (reindeer) have grown from 3,000-32,000 in these regions (including Prudhoe Bay where pipelines exist)

-If ANWR was a state, it’d be larger than ten other states in the US. That’s a lot of ground to simply “shut” the door on.

-most of the area is uninhabitable; if you see pictures of it, the pictures look pretty bleak; it’s not the “beautiful” part of Alaska that is normally shown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_casualties_of_war

The liberal media makes a big deal about the 4,000 lives lost. Yes, every one of those lives is of great value. But to suggest that because we have lost 4,000 lives we should therefore not have gone to war against Iraq is crazy. Some in the media have made that argument. Solely using that criteria would essentially turn you into a pacifistic nation. And nations that don’t go to war aren’t nations for very long.

Furthermore, over 20,000 people die each year from the flu.  That is five times the number of soldiers that have given their lives in Iraq.

Over 40,000 die each year in car crashes.  That is ten times the number of soldiers that have given their lives in Iraq.

We can choose to fight the enemy on his turf or let the enemy bring the war to our own homes.  Personally, I prefer the former.  We can also choose to have soldiers defend us and go to war for our country or we can choose to have them stay at home and instead allow our mothers, wives and children to be innocently slaughtered when the enemy brings the war to our country.

It is cheap and easy to complain and criticize the war in Iraq.  Freedom is never free.

List of Presidents

“Allah, there is no strength but your strength. Destroy, therefore, the Zionist occupation and its helpers and its agents. Destroy the U.S. and its helpers and its agents. Destroy Britain and its helpers and its agents. Prepare those who will soon unite the Muslims of the world and march in the footsteps of Saladin. Allah, we ask you for forgiveness, forgiveness before death, and mercy and forgiveness after death. Allah, grant victory to Islam and the Muslim’s in the coming war.”

A host of questions immediately spring to mind: what did the supreme spiritual leader of Palestinian Muslims know and when did he know it? What war is he talking about? Why would he invoke such virulent hatred against the Western world? Why would he pronounce such fierce anathemas against the nations most responsible for brokering peace between his own people and the Israelis? Why would he reserve such impious enmity for the powers that had insured the transformation of Yasser Arafat from a rogue terrorist operative into a respected nationalist leader and his Palestinian Liberation Organization from a disreputable revolutionary cell into a legitimate regional government? Why would he so openly attack his land’s chief financial and political patrons?

From George Grant’s blog

I am not yet 45 years old but already I have taken the nation by storm.

I am known for my avid love of the outdoors.

I hunt, fish, hike, and camp whenever I possibly can.

I have made my mark in politics as an unlikely Republican reformer.

Of course, I have had to take on the Republican Party establishment.

Not that the Democrats are too fond of me either.

I have a large, happy, but rather rambunctious family.

I have been governor of my large northern state for less than two years.

Nevertheless, I was the surprise pick to be the vice presidential candidate in a crucial national election.

Have you ever heard of me?

Surely you have. I am Teddy Roosevelt.

From George Grant http://www.kingsmeadow.com/2008/09/guess-who.html

McDonald’s has relented and has pledged to be neutral in the culture wars.  The boycott is over!

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that there is a huge spiritual battle being waged right now. This battle revolves around the subject of homosexuality.

Homosexual activists are fighting hard to make their beliefs the law of this country. When I say “Homosexual Activists,” I mean anyone who is pushing the homosexual agenda in our government. These people can be lawyers, judges, lobbyists, people who hold a political office, people holding a gay pride parade or festival promoting the homosexual cause, and even simply people who give a financial contribution to homosexual organizations working to push forward their agenda. Friends, they are fighting hard to make the wishes of a 3% minority the law of the land.

Recently, the American Family Association (www.afa.net) found out that McDonald’s has donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in exchange for membership in the NGLCC and a seat on the group’s board of directors.

The NGLCC lobbies Congress on a wide range of issues including the promotion of homosexual marriage. The AFA asked McDonald’s to remain neutral in this area and to withdraw their name and logo from the NGLCC’s website. McDonald’s has refused. Instead, they openly support the gay agenda and they have accused those who oppose same sex marriage as being motivated by hate (http://boycottmcdonalds.com/detail.aspx?id=102).

I feel like this is an advancement of the ranks of our enemy. I also feel like McDonalds thinks they can do this and get away with it because well, they are only what—the world’s richest fast food chain restaurant? And surely people will never stop patronizing their business! Well, I am asking you to do just that. Would you consider boycotting McDonalds with me? Why not make a statement that McDonalds cannot forget? Why not stop giving them our money so they will not be able turn around and give it to a 3% minority trying to re-write law for the rest of us?

The thing that is disturbing about McDonald’s supporting such a group is that they cater their product in large part to children and portray themselves as a family-friendly organization. This is the outrage. The image they have long fought to establish in our minds is one that is pro-family. BUT not only are they supporting the NGLCC, they are speaking against those who do not support the beliefs of the NGLCC. One of their executives said that those who are against same-sex marriage as filled with hate.

Will we make a difference in this fight? For sure! Will we accomplish our end of persuading McDonalds to stay neutral on this issue? I don’t know, but let’s try.

Here is what I do know: Our country has strayed so far as to allow a vulgar and lewd marching display in what is known as the Gay Pride Parade (not to mention Hollywood’s unashamed promotion of the practice) and several states are considering redefining the institution of marriage. Are we going to fall back? Our enemy advances and we fall back. Our enemy advances more and, again, we fall back. We lie down and let them walk right over us. Remember, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing!

I have included below a link to sign the boycott of McDonalds. You can also call your local McDonalds and, in a polite manner, let them know that you are disappointed in their decision to support the NGLCC and that you will be boycotting their business.

Also, feel free to copy this message and send it out to as many of your friends that you believe will support the cause or you can even write your own!

Thank you,

Michael & Andrea Bond

http://www.boycottmcdonalds.com/

CONTACT McDONALD’s IN ONE OF THREE EASY WAYS:
[I called and emailed. It was easy to do and took about 5 minutes.]

http://apps.mcdonalds.com/contactus/navigate.do?link=socialresp

Call us. Within the U.S., you can call us on our toll-free telephone number at 1-800-244-6227.

Write us.
Our U.S. corporate mailing address is:
McDonald’s Corporation
2111 McDonald’s Dr
Oak Brook, IL 60523