Constitutional Facts at Your Fingertips

Hillsdale College's Political Science 101 focuses on the U.S. Constitution and historical documents connected with its drafting and interpretation. Check out:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/KirbyCenter/resources/constitutionreader/default.asp

This is the same college that publishes Imprimis, a free magazine
"dedicated to educating citizens and promoting civil and religious liberty by covering cultural, economic, political and educational issues of enduring significance."

Mayor Daley Drags Chicago Kicking and Screaming into 21st Century

Hey, this may come from The Onion, but maybe it's not a parody:

"...According to Daley, Chicago's once-great fraudulent institutions have grown obsolete, and City Hall is no longer bilking taxpayers out of as much money as it once did.

"'It's been business as usual for too long in Chicago, and now it's time to find more efficient ways to misuse authority for personal gain,' said Daley, who has served as Chicago's mayor since 1989. 'We must modernize our illegitimate activities right now, today, before it becomes impossible for public officials to act in my best self-interests.'

"Telling City Council members it was inexcusable that Chicago still used such outdated methods as pen and pencil to falsify financial records and conceal kickbacks, Daley called for the purchase of some 10,000 overpriced computers, which he said would allow the city to digitize no-bid contracts, electronically transfer misappropriated funds, and keep better track of who's on the take...."

What You Can Be Doing on the Local Level

A friend of mine took the initiative to start a precinct Web site (for Colorado Springs Precinct 25), and it's in keeping with our policy of encouraging maximum participation in the political process. Here's the address:

http://sites.google.com/site/colospgspct25gop/home

To give you some more ideas, here's one for Colorado State House District 17:

http://housedistrict17.com/

State-Run Health Care, by the Numbers

Check out this easy-to-understand but mind-boggling list of statistics to ponder about ObamaCare, from Doug Ross @ Journal.

State-Run Health Care, by the Numbers

We Do Not Endorse Threats or Violence

The Dinosaur Media have been making a big deal over the rash of threatening phone calls, e-mails, and acts of vandalism that have occurred in the wake of the ObamaCare bill. Bloodthirsty Warmonger does not condone such tactics - they are not the American Way, and we are still committed to the Constitution and the rule of law. Because of the anonymity of these threats and attacks on property, we have no way of knowing whether they came from the Right or the Left. Besides, we are patiently waiting for the verdict of the people, which should come as soon as the November election.

UPDATE: British paper (Daily Mail) reports that almost of quarter of Republicans believe that Obama is the Antichrist.

Erick Erickson sums up the situation better than we can.

NewsBusters chronicles the way in which the news networks dutifully follow the [Democratic] party line.

Rush Limbaugh weighs in with a few pertinent questions: "When is the last time you can recall a bunch of conservatives having a riot? When is the last time you can recall a bunch of conservatives disrupting a congressional hearing? When is the last time you can recall a bunch of conservatives coming out with books and movies on how to assassinate a president? The simple fact of the matter is that this kind of behavior that these people are running around scared to death of and accusing people of, they are the authors of this kind of behavior. These are the people that wrote the book on how to do this. Our side doesn't do this kind of stuff...."

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Government Motors (GM), in conjunction with the same people who brought us the Segway, is working on a concept car they call the EN-V (Electric Networked Vehicle), which will be displayed at an international exhibition in Shanghai, China on 1 May. One nickname for the concept car is "Laugh," which is highly appropriate. Hat tip: Right Wing News.

Did Obama Find Stupak's Price?

NRCC - Code Red reports that "pro-life" Rep. Bart Stupak, who influenced other Democrats to put ObamaCare over the top in the House, was bought & paid for with money for 3 airports as well as a meaningless executive order.

"Three airports in the district of infamous fence-sitting and ultimately kowtowing Democrat Bart Stupak were awarded $726,409 in grants by the Obama Administration just two days before a vote on Obama and Pelosi’s government takeover of healthcare."

One Battle Lost Does Not Equate to Surrender!

We are saddened to announce that the Obama Administration, with the collaboration of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, bribed, cajoled, intimidated, and bullied their way into getting the House of Representatives to pass Obamacare. Read more at:

FOX News, which simply ran an Associated Press article
The Colorado Springs Gazette's editorial response
An article in American Thinker holds up the hope that the Supreme Court may strike back

Yes, we believe in healthcare reform. No, we will not accept legislation that will bankrupt our government, encroach upon the powers reserved to the states or people, provide insufficient safeguards for the mentally ill, restrict innovation, and fail to curb the excesses of trial lawyers.

Need some music to plan the counterattack? Check out:
"The Warrior Song"
"We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister

Are We Trying to Scare You? You Betcha!

Protein Wisdom, another Colorado blog, has run this story that needs to be disseminated far and wide:

Intended Consequences. [JHoward]

Today, Ways and Means Republicans released a new report detailing how the Democrats’ health care bill vastly expands the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and strengthens the heavy hand of the IRS in dealing with taxpayers.

“If the Democrats’ health care bill becomes law, the IRS could have to hire more than 16,000 additional agents, auditors and other workers just to enforce all the new taxes and penalties,” said Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI). “It is a dangerous expansion of the IRS’s power and reach into the lives of virtually every American.”

Highlights of report, which is entitled “The Wrong Prescription: Democrats’ Health Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority,” include:

* IRS agents verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage;
* IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,250 or 2 percent of your income (whichever is greater) for failure to prove that you have purchased “minimum essential coverage;”
* IRS can confiscate your tax refund;
* IRS audits are likely to increase;
* IRS will need up to $10 billion to administer the new health care program this decade;
* IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes from Americans; and
* Nearly half of all these new individual mandate taxes will be paid by Americans earning less than 300 percent of poverty ($66,150 for a family of four.)

The Republicans noted that despite all these new mandates on Americans, the Democrats prohibit the IRS from imposing these same taxes and penalties on illegal immigrants.

"Democracy Denied" Chart

Nothing like a vivid picture to drive home a point. Hat tip: Moonbattery.

Because We Failed to Drill Offshore, the Russians Will Do It for Cuba

Check out this Washington Times editorial:

The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast....

After that depressing news story, we can turn to Ann Coulter's one-page solution to the healthcare "crisis."

Need Motivation? Watch This Video

There's a new YouTube video making the rounds of the Internet lately called "We the People," a list of indictments of the Obama administration. Check it out.

From the "We don't need no stinkin' rules" file: "All of this talk about rules...we make 'em up as we go along." [Rep. Alcee Hastings]

American Jews' Sado-Masochistic Relationship with the Democrats

Roger Simon in Pajamas Media once again brings up the curious love that American Jews have for a party that loves them not and is increasingly drawing closer to their enemies. Have they lost their instinct for self-preservation?

One reader ("mxzptlk") writes:

No, it won’t end, because it’s an abusive relationship.

Abusive relationships are characterized, in part, by raging, verbal abuse, threats, lies, broken promises, power plays and control games.

In such relationships, the abuse is not constant, but cyclical, leading the abused party to believe, in the triumph of hope over experience, that this time was either isolated or really the last.

Abuse victims usually rationalize their way into staying in the relationship, either because they believe they’ll be alone forever if they go out on their own, that nobody decent will want them because they’re damaged goods, or because they con themselves into forgiving the abuser (unwittingly positively reinforcing the pattern of abuse).

This raises a question for Jewish Democrats: Looking over the history between Jews and Democrats, starting from when Roosevelt blocked emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany to the US and later forbade the Army Air Force from bombing rail lines leading to death camps – and American Jewish reactions – does anything about the pattern of abusive relationships sound familiar?

Wow! What a Letter to Nancy Pelosi

Confirmed on TruthorFiction.com.

Launching a New Blog

Effective today, our mental health content will be posted on Up and Down Time, the blog for Rocky Mountain DBSA, a newly-established state organization dedicated to growing and supporting local chapters and support groups.

America's Craziest Cities

You know how we love lists, and this one is based on 4 criteria: psychiatrists per capita, stress, eccentricity and drinking levels. We show you the top 10.

1. Cincinnati, OH
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Providence, RI
4. Milwaukee, WI
5. Las Vegas, NV
6. Philadelphia, PA
7. New York, NY
8. Tucson, AZ
9. San Antonio, TX
10. New Orleans, LA

Salt Lake City, UT ended up in last place. Want to read more? See The Daily Beast.

Happy Birthday, Chuck Norris!

Chuck Norris, martial arts expert, actor, author, and columnist, turned 70 yesterday. In his honor, we run some mind-boggling "facts" about him from the Mirror [U.K.]:

Chuck Norris makes onions cry.

Chuck Norris can slam revolving doors.

When Chuck Norris does a push-up, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the earth down.

Ghosts are actually caused by Chuck Norris killing people faster than death can process them.

Chuck Norris can build a snowman out of rain.

and, among others, a cobra once bit Chuck Norris' leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.

Europe and Japan Lead the Way in High-Tech Toilets

While most Americans continue to use humdrum, conventional toilets, the Europeans and Japanese have been installing bells and whistles on theirs, according to this MSNBC article.

“You walk into a bathroom in Tokyo and the toilets are like the captain’s chair on the Starship Enterprise,” says Kim Terca, a 27-year-old public relations consultant from San Francisco. “There’s a control panel with all these buttons. The first time I saw one, I just burst out laughing. Then I started pressing buttons to see what they could do.”

Terca says she found Japan’s smart toilets both “hilarious” and somewhat perplexing, since not all toilets offer the same snazzy features — including a special deodorizing feature that she says she never figured out.

And then there are the motion sensors.

“Once, I was in a coffee shop and went back to use the bathroom and when I approached the toilet, the seat suddenly went up,” she says. “It stayed for a second and then went back down. So I kind of reached for it and it opened back up again. It was like a Venus flytrap....”

While the Peasants Stumble in the Darkness, the Aristocrats at Colorado Springs Utilities Are Taken Care of

The following story is from the Colorado Springs Gazette's County Seat blog:

The city of Colorado Springs may have turned off street lights, yanked the garbage cans out of parks and laid off hundreds of workers.

But the folks over at Colorado Springs Utilities, the electric-gas-water-waste water monopoly owned by the city, are considering spending nearly $1.1 million to remodel a building that houses energy traders and $240,000 for ergonomic furniture.

(Included in the remodeling costs is $150,000 for a new sanitary sewer line and $150,000 for a new roof.)

An employee who was outraged by the proposed expenditures tipped us off to the project. But it took a Colorado Open Records Act request to get a more complete picture of what’s planned.

Utility officials say the proposed improvements to the Systems Energy Control Center, which is located at 215 North Nichols Blvd. and adjacent to the Birdsall Power Plant, will improve worker efficiency and reduce workman’s comp claims.

“This team of people manages $400 million to $500 million a year in purchased power and purchased fuel,” Gabriel Caunt, project architect and project manager for Utilities’ facilities department, said Tuesday. ”Given the level of revenue they handle a half percentage of improvement equals a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year.”

Caunt emphasized the remodeling project is still in the early stages and may not even reach fruition. But nearly $180,000 worth of contracts associated with the project are already in place, according to one document obtained under the Colorado Open Records Act.

A Pelosi Statement That Shocked Even Me

Addressing the National Association of Counties, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had this to say about the healthcare bill working its way through Congress:

"You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy...."

Politico.com dares ask: Is Nancy Pelosi losing her grip on Congress?

Sean Penn Exercises his First Amendment Rights

According to this FOX News story:

First Amendment be damned . . . If Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had his way, any journalist who called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator would quickly find himself behind bars.

Penn, appearing on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday, defended Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

"Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it" said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. "And this is mainstream media, who should -- truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

It was just the beginning of a busy weekend for Penn. When asked on CBS' "Sunday Morning" about those who question his motives for his humanitarian work in Haiti, he said:

"Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah. You know, but I'm not going to spend a lot of energy on it...."

Hooray!! American Traitor Adam Gadahn Captured!

We are happy to announce the probable capture of the first person charged with treason in an American court in 50 years, Adam Gadahn (formerly known as Adam Pearlman). We use the word "probable" because there is still an element of uncertainty, according to an article in American Thinker. Bloomberg News says the FBI hasn't confirmed his identity yet, and National Terror Alert has reported the person being detained by the Pakistanis is known as Abu Yahya Azam. Stay tuned for any updates to this breaking news.

UPDATE1: Rats! According to an ABC News report, a senior Pakistani official said that the captured American was not Adam Gadahn.

UPDATE2: Robert Spencer has a few choice words for Gadahn in the Jihad Watch column, part of Human Events.

Three Navy SEALs Still Waiting for Justice

Investor's Business Daily has not forgotten about the case of Special Warfare Operators 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, from Perrysburg, Ohio, and Jonathan Keefe of Yorktown, Va., as well as Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Julio Huertas of Blue Island, Ill., who are being court-martialed because McCabe allegedly punched Ahmed Hashim Abed while he was in their custody.

Reality check: We have reported how captured al-Qaida training manuals advise captured enemy combatants to lie about their treatment.

"If you claim that you are tortured or mistreated, that will usually resonate with the hard left in America and around the world and they know it will have an impact," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., said at a Thursday press conference with McCabe.

Jack Lynch, former president of the UDT-SEAL Association who passed away in February 2010, wrote a letter in defense of these 3 warriors.

"Let Them Eat Cake," 2010 Version

Check out this YouTube video clip with Harry Reid announcing that "only" 36,000 people lost their jobs today. Voters of Nevada, you have 8 months to ensure that Sen. Reid loses his job!!!

Remembering a Martyr from 1982

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran the following story:

Vincent Chin was a 27-year-old Chinese American who in 1982 was beaten to death by two Detroit autoworkers. They thought he was Japanese and, thus, somehow responsible for the job losses that accompanied the decline of the U.S. auto industry.

The crime was notable for its gruesome details: One man held Chin as the other struck him with a baseball bat. And for its heart-wrenching timing: Chin died five days before he was to have been married.

But what compelled Curtis Chin to make the film Vincent Who? was the aftermath. The protests that followed Chin's death sparked the creation of the modern Asian American civil-rights movement.

Until then, different ethnicities had fought solo battles, the Chinese against the exclusion laws, the Japanese against World War II internment. But Chin's killing provoked a pan-Asian response toward larger white society.

"They can't tell the difference between us anyway, right?" said filmmaker Chin, 41 and no relation to Vincent Chin. "Before, it would have been annoying. Now, it could get you murdered. It literally could have been any one of us...."

Beware of Imitations

1. Coin Update News has a story that starts with this paragraph:

Recently, the German television station ProSieben ran a news story covering W. C. Heraeus in Hanau, Germany, the world’s largest privately owned refinery. In the story, Wilfried Hörner, the head of the gold foundry, shows a 500 gram bar (16.0755 troy ounces) received from an unidentified bank. The bar had the right physical dimensions to be an authentic gold bar, but one of the Heraeus employees suspected something funny. After the bar was cut in half, you can see that the inside is tungsten, with only a coating of gold on the outside....

2. "Conservative Hideout 2.0" had this to say about the "Coffee Party Movement":

The “Coffee Party Movement” came to our attention last week. I waited to discuss it, as it reeked of a “progressive” astroturf operation, and I was waiting for evidence of that to emerge. Today, Newsbusters is reporting just that.

John Roberts and Kiran Chetry omitted mentioning that Annabel Park, the founder of the so-called Coffee Party, worked as a volunteer for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, during an interview on Wednesday’s American Morning. The anchors also didn’t mention Park’s past work for the liberal New York Times.

The founder denied that her movement was aligned to any party, and actually criticized the longstanding two-party system in the United States as being “incredibly outdated.” In reality, as William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection blog exposed, Park worked for one of the two parties, as an organizer and operator of the United for Obama video channel on YouTube (NewsBuster P. J. Gladnick blogged about Jacobson’s expose on Tuesday evening). As the United for Obama page admits, “We are a network of Obama volunteers from all across the country and from all backgrounds working together to support Obama’s message of unity and change….Some of us are filmmakers and we created this page to amplify Obama’s message on YouTube…The filmmakers include…Annabel Park…”So, this whole “coffee party” idea is nothing more than an extension of Obama’s army of useful idiots.It might be safe to assume that this whole organization is being put together in an attempt to confuse the electorate, and steal some of the Tea Party movement’s thunder. It will fail at this, but they know that the MSM will cover them, and cover up their failure. It might also be assumed that since ACORN is busy renaming their local organizations in an effort to hide their corruption, and the SEIU is well known for being thugs, that their astroturf efforts require a new face that hasn’t been tainted by corruption and violence.

Yes, Atheists Do Proselytize

The Liverpool Daily Post ran an article with the slimy details, of which this is an excerpt:

A MILITANT atheist left allegedly insulting religious images in an airport prayer room in honour of his "hero" [John Lennon, for whom the airport was named].

Harry Taylor is accused of placing a series of "grossly abusive and insulting" photographs and cartoons depicting Christian and Muslim figures in the multi-faith room at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport.

The 59-year-old admits the controversial images were "all his own work..."

NOTE: Because of the slight to the Muslims, Harry Taylor had better watch his back!

For the Brit Who Has Everything: Cashmere Toilet Paper

The Consumerist has this story:

Just in case Charmin isn't doing it for you anymore, UK retailer Waitrose has come up with what it calls a "super soft [extract of] cashmere loo roll," designed to "put a smile on your face."

The "innovative new product" sells for £2.29 ($3.49) for a four-pack, which certainly makes a bargain if the whole idea of wiping with wool appeals to you.

Baby Girl Survives Environmental Wacko Suicide Pact

The Daily Mail (U.K.) has this chilling story:

A seven-month-old baby girl survived three days alone with a bullet in her chest beside the bodies of her parents and toddler brother.

Argentines Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their children before killing themselves after making an apparent suicide pact over fears about global warming.

Their son Francisco, two, died instantly after being hit in the back.

But their unnamed daughter cheated death after the bullet from her dad's handgun missed her vital organs.

Paramedics rushed her to hospital covered in blood when police alerted by worried neighbours discovered the massacre three days later.

The youngster is recovering in hospital in the town of Goya in the northern Argentine province of Corrientes, where doctors say she is out of danger.

Her parents said they feared the effects of global warming in a suicide note discovered by police.

The Man Who Exposed Madoff - and Was Ignored

Here's an excerpt of a recently-published book by Harry Markopolos, featured on the Today show, 1 March 2010:

... could hear the excitement in Andre’s voice as he said, “You were right. The news is hitting. Madoff’s under arrest. It looks like he was running a huge Ponzi scheme. It’s all over Bloomberg. Call me and I’ll read it to you. Congratulations.”

I was staggered. For several years I’d been living under a death sentence, terrified that my pursuit of Madoff would put my family and me in jeopardy. Billions of dollars were at stake, and apparently some of that money belonged to the Russian mafia and the drug cartels — people who would kill to protect their investments. And I knew all about Peter Scannell, a Boston whistleblower who had been beaten nearly to death with a brick simply for complaining about a million-dollar market-timing scam. So I wouldn’t start my car without first checking under the chassis and in the wheel wells. At night I walked away from shadows and I slept with a loaded gun nearby; and suddenly, instantly and unexpectedly, it was over. Finally, it was over. They’d gotten Madoff. I raised my fist high in the air and screamed to myself, “Yes!” My family was safe. Then I collapsed over a wooden railing. I had to grab hold of it to prevent myself from falling. I could barely breathe. In less time than the snap of my fingers I had gone from being supercharged with energy to being completely drained....