Mike Huckabee: "The America I Grew Up In"

How different our debate and America's prospects would be, had this good man become President in 2009.

The America I Grew Up In

By Mike Huckabee

I have been infuriated by TARP and bailouts that messed with our free market by privatizing profits and socializing debts. I have watched both political parties facilitate this folly.

In the America I grew up in we didn’t have Too Big to Fail, we had the Creative Destruction of capitalism. We didn’t keep weak companies artificially alive, we let them go so that more dynamic companies with smarter business models, better goods and services, would take their place, giving all of us a higher standard of living. We let the market, the consumer, decide – we didn’t force people to buy Edsels or drink New Coke they didn’t want. We live without Packard, Studebaker, Hudson, and American Motors – we could live without Chrysler and General Motors. In the America I grew up in, you got a mortgage because you were qualified, not because you had a pulse.

I worry about how America looks to our young people, just out of college or graduate school. Many of them are forced to take jobs that don’t require a college degree, let alone a law degree or MBA. Many of them are up to their eyeballs in private debt, as they watch their government saddling them with public debt that will burden the rest of their lives. We have always sacrificed for the next generation, not stolen from them. Instead of generational theft, we need generational thrift.

Some young people are moving back home, delaying marriage and the start of their own families. Even once they get their careers back on track, their lifetime earnings will suffer. Many will never catch up to where they would have been without the collapse.

The America they have experienced is one of less opportunity and fairness than their parents and grandparents had. They see a country where CEO’s, who were paid about 30 times as much as the average American worker in 1970, are now paid more than 300 times as much. They see a country that had no net job growth in the last decade. In my lifetime, jobs in every other decade grew between 20 and 30%. They see a country where household net worth fell 4% in the last decade. In my lifetime, household net worth in every other decade grew between 30 and 60%.

I worry most that our young people will lose the most precious part of their American inheritance -- the boundless optimism and confidence, the can-do spirit that each generation, whether they built covered wagons or rockets to the moon, has bequeathed to the next. We don’t need more wasteful government boondoggles. We need real innovation like getting rid of taxes on our productivity and having the Fair Tax--a consumption tax that doesn’t punish work and creativity. Otherwise, our young people’s scaled-back ambitions and expectations, both for themselves and their country, will become self-fulfilling prophecies of diminished success and power. That’s my view and I welcome yours.

Obama-Praised Sodomite Says God is a “Sinful Homophobic Bigot”

From LifeSiteNews

Frank Kameny, a “pioneering” homosexual activist who was honored by President Obama and his administration, says the God of the Bible is a “sinful homophobic bigot” who needs to “repent of his sinful homophobia.”

Kameny made the assertions about the Judeo-Christian God in a letter to Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, October 13, 2009:

“Your God of Leviticus (and of the whole Bible) is clearly a sinful homophobic bigot. He should repent of his sinful homophobia. He should atone for that sin. And he should seek forgiveness for the pain and suffering which his sinful homophobia has needlessly inflicted upon gay people for the past 4000 years.” wrote Kameny to LaBarbera. “It is not homosexuality which is always wrong, immoral, and sinful. It is homophobia, including the homophobia of your god himself which is wrong, immoral, and sinful. And so your god is a sinner….”

An astronomer who was fired from his federal government job in 1957 due to his homosexuality, Kameny led the first public homosexual protest in America (over his firing), in 1965. Kameny, who gained notoriety with his aggressive, counter-cultural slogan “Gay is Good,” was a leader of the organized homosexual activist campaign to pressure the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders (which succeeded when the APA capitulated in 1973).

On June 17, 2009, Kameny received the official White House pen from President Obama in a White House signing ceremony enacting Obama’s executive order providing domestic partner benefits for certain federal employees.

Later, at a June 29 White House speech honoring “gay pride month,” President Obama praised Kameny, saying, “we are proud of you, Frank, and we are grateful to you for your leadership.”

Kameny was also honored by John Berry, Obama’s openly homosexual Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in a special ceremony June 24, 2009 sponsored by the OPM “gay” employees organization. There, Kameny received the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the OPM’s highest honor, “For More Than a Half-Century of Leadership in the Struggle for Civil Rights.” Berry also issued a formal U.S. government apology to Kameny for his firing over 50 years ago.

Responding to Kameny’s letter asserting that God needs to repent, AFTAH’s LaBarbera said:

“Of course Frank Kameny’s outrageous statements about God are completely backwards: it is Frank who is the stubborn sinner who needs to repent. Thankfully, it is never too late for sinners to turn away from their sins and humbly accept God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

“However, in one sense at least Kameny is forthright about how his homosexuality-celebrating ideology stands diametrically opposed to God’s plan for mankind, as revealed in the Bible. Unfortunately for Frank, he has no authority to judge sin and morality; that is the province of Almighty God alone.”

Resistance is NOT Futile: SC's History with Nullification

"I hold the duties of life to be greater than life itself, and that in performing them, even against hope, our labor is not lost. I regard this life very much as a struggle against evil, and that to him who acts on proper principal, the reward is on the struggle more than in victory itself."

John C. Calhoun

From the Tenth Amendment Center

by Josh Eboch

Even as calls for nullification of proposed federal health care mandates have intensified on the state level, an almost hysterical effort has arisen to discredit such measures, and paint them as part of an obsolete theory with no bearing on modern politics.

Regardless of its logical descent from our most basic founding principle, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, nullification simply doesn’t work, critics say.

Or does it?

While it’s true that our system of checks and balances has been weakened substantially over the years, federalism itself has not. Divided power remains as viable a structure of government as it was the day our Constitution was ratified. Perhaps a better question is: Can nullification succeed peacefully?

Of course! It already has. For proof, one need look no further than the truth behind a favorite parable of establishment statists, the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33.

Over the years, that crucial victory for the sovereign states has been converted into a cautionary tale by those who wish to discourage taxpayers from ever questioning their federal masters. So distorted is the history that a recent article on modern nullification efforts in the Nashville City Paper declared

In the Nullification Crisis of the 1830s, South Carolina passed a law nullifying federal tariffs, but the state backed down after President Andrew Jackson sent Navy warships to the Charleston harbor.

The only problem with that story is it never happened.

After nullifying the so-called Tariff of Abominations in late 1832, the citizens of South Carolina began making serious preparations to defend themselves with deadly force against any attempt by federal agents to collect the hated tax. What followed was a tense standoff between President Jackson and a relatively small group of determined citizens, that could easily have resulted in secession or war.

But those citizens refused to be intimidated by Jackson’s repeated threats of violence, and they certainly didn’t surrender to warships in Charleston Harbor.

As Wikipedia admits, it was not until the end of February 1833, when “both a Force Bill, authorizing the President to use military force against South Carolina, and a new negotiated tariff satisfactory to South Carolina [emphasis added] were passed by Congress,” that “the South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance.” From that point on, right up until the War Between the States, the tariff rate declined steadily.

In other words, after putting the federal government on notice that they were prepared to defend their sovereignty, with force if necessary, the people of South Carolina agreed to abide by a new “negotiated tariff,” that they felt was fair, rather than fight a war or leave the Union; neither of which they wanted to do in the first place. A clear victory for nullification, and for peace.

In fact, the entire episode is more or less a perfect demonstration of how robust federalism and divided power once protected liberty within our voluntary Union, by keeping the ambitions of the central government in check.

So why the modern spin on this event as some kind of heroic, unilateral militarism by President Jackson, and a watershed moment for centralization? Well, for one, that interpretation fits with what statists would have us all believe anyway: that there is no force on Earth (including public opinion) capable of resisting orders from the national government.

It also makes for a neat segue into the conflict that erupted 30 years later along the same fault lines of federal vs. state authority, providing a convenient way to dismiss, without debate, those who call for nullification today, by linking them with slavery and the antebellum South. At least in the eyes of an historically ignorant public.

Yet, from the Fugitive Slave Act to REAL ID, American history is replete with examples of states successfully asserting their sovereignty in constitutional disputes with the federal government. And there is every reason to believe that they could do so again with regard to health care, should it prove necessary.

If the proposed federal mandates are so unpopular in any given state that a majority of its people support legislation or a state constitutional amendment to nullify them, that should be a clear indicator to President Obama and Congress that the governed have withdrawn their consent. Any attempt to assert federal power in the face of such opposition will inevitably be seen by the citizens of those states as illegitimate and unjust.

At that point, it will be up to those in Washington to decide whether they want to respect the natural laws on which our nation was founded, or whether they would prefer to wager their lust for power against the full electoral fury of the sovereign people’s wrath.

Josh Eboch is a proud “tenther”, freelance writer, and activist originally from the Washington, D.C. area. He is a blogger for TAC’s Tenther Grapevine and the State Chapter Coordinator for theVirginia Tenth Amendment Center.

Blagojevich: 'I'm Blacker Than Barack Obama'

We'll accede to Governor Blagojevich's point that he is "blacker than Barack Obama," but when it comes to sleaze, Barack Hussein Obama sits at the front of the bus.

Former Illnois governor, referring to the president as "this guy," says Obama was elected based simply on hope.

From Fox News

Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he's "blacker than Barack Obama" and tells Esquire magazine that he was a real person in a political arena dominated by phonies.

Blagojevich, referring to the president as "this guy," says Obama was elected based simply on hope.

"What the (expletive)? Everything he's saying's on the teleprompter," Blagojevich told the magazine for a story in its February issue, which hits newsstands Jan. 19.

"I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived," Blagojevich said. "I saw it all growing up."

Read the rest of this entry >>

A Homily by Father Franklyn M. McAfee for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Homily of Reverend Franklyn M. McAfee, D.D.

Pastor Emeritus

St. John the Beloved Catholic Church

McLean, Virginia

January 13, 2008

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus - "Messiah: And the Glory of the Lord" - G. F. Handel

Understanding the Democrats' Scheme

From American Thinker
By John F. Gaski

Poor Bill O'Reilly and Brit Hume. There they were on the O'Reilly show a few weeks ago, puzzling over why Barack Obama and the Democrats are doing so many things that are damaging to our country. Bill and Brit agreed that they couldn't possibly be harming the nation intentionally, because negative voter reaction would redound to them politically and electorally. Can't the Democrats see this? Did they suddenly get stupid politically? This is so unlike them. How to explain this anomaly?

Poor Bill and Brit, and many others, indeed. It is time to think the unthinkable and speak the ineffable. Apart from the troubling question of intent, or whether Obama-Pelosi-Reid just have a novel view of the public interest, the national Democrats are unnaturally and mysteriously sanguine despite growing backlash by the American people. Why? One reason: The Dems don't believe they will ever have to face a real election again. Is their plan not becoming obvious? It is very straightforward:

(1) Grant amnesty to the illegal aliens (the correct term for lawbreaking invaders, regardless of their natural and rational motives) which will create up to 30 million reliably Democrat voters -- especially after being registered at least once each by ACORN. That is cushion enough to carry any national election. Why else could Dems be so fixated on this agenda item?

(2) Speaking of which, between ACORN and the SEIU, the Democrats will be stealing all the elections they really need anyway, starting next November. (The New Jersey and Virginia governorships aren't quite as big a prize as control of the U.S. Congress, are they? And one wonders what the real margin of Republican victory in New Jersey was, absent ACORN's intervention.)

Many laymen still don't understand how the ACORN scam works. To them, ACORN's excuse that they are merely committing voter registration fraud, not vote fraud, seems plausible. Here's the deal: Register 100,000 phony voters such as Mickey Mouse and the Seven Dwarves, thus expanding the nominal voter rolls, and the Democrat vote counters then have the latitude to create 100,000 extra votes out of thin air on election night. This is what "community organizer" really means, and Barack Obama is forever stained by his ACORN background. Not that it matters to him.

America should brace for the biggest vote fraud and election theft caper of all time on election night 2010 -- and in the months following. We now know as well that the Dems are guaranteed to win any statewide recount where there is a Democrat Secretary of State. And who, we must ask, is there to enforce the election laws now?

What of Florida 2000? It is easy to correct the prevailing misconception. One can usually tell what offenses against the commonweal the liberal Democrats are committing by what accusations they make against others (into which they project their own tendencies). In November 2000, Democrats did everything they could to try to steal a national election for the second time in forty years, right before a nation's very eyes, with local partisan functionaries inventing Gore votes out of those dimpled chads. Still, the Democrats have claimed since Y2000 that George W. Bush stole that year's election, even though every Florida recount, including those sponsored by the media, demonstrated that Bush 43 really won under the law. Republicans have been so ineffective in publicizing these true results in answer to the Democrat mantra that the propaganda has largely taken hold in the public consciousness.

(3) As if they need it, the Dems will be secretly encouraging (maybe even hiring) third-party candidates wherever they need them, because they know that is the way to split the opposition vote. It almost always happens that way to the Democrats' benefit. If people such as Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck don't realize this soon, instead of talking up the third-party route, they will only help to ensure a permanent Democrat stranglehold on Congress and the presidency -- although any one of this litany of methods would probably be sufficient for that. So the Dems are actually conservative in the sense of wanting some built-in redundancy!

(4) What do we suppose the extra trillion dollars of "stimulus" money to be spent from 2010 to 2012 is really for? Just a coincidence, or a ready-made election slush fund? How much has already been committed to ACORN and SEIU?

(5) Then there is the "universal voter registration" plan that the Wall Street Journal's John Fund has spotlighted, granting automatic voting privilege to anyone who has ever registered for practically anything, anywhere, anytime. The Democrats and their henchmen could work with that, couldn't they? Or why are they so eager to enact it? Their entire history has been to oppose laws that prevent vote fraud, after all. (What could be their motive for that particular laxity?)

These five strategies should be enough to ensure permanent Democrat control of our federal government -- a virtual dictatorship. For them, it is a royal flush. But another part of the scheme may be the most pernicious of all. The worst is yet to come.

(6) When you become dependent on the decision of a Democrat bureaucrat for crucial medical treatment -- after the health care takeover -- how much power does that give the Democrats over you? Elderly voters tend to vote more conservative than younger voters, so letting the elderly dies because care is "too expensive" can reshape the political profile of the electorate. But can we reasonably foresee that party registration or political contributions might enter the bureaucrat's calculus? Might it occur to the intense partisans of the Obama administration to grant lifesaving treatment to those they regard as "their people," but not to others? What a neat way to eliminate the opposition! Party registration is already public information. And if they can overturn the secret ballot for union elections via "card check," how long before they try to impose the same more generally, so they will always know how you have voted? Do not trust the judiciary to save us, either, after President Obama packs the courts with more ultra-leftists.

Chilling, isn't it? But not extreme: Obama himself has notoriously displayed his disregard for human life by the stated willingness to sacrifice "grandma" to a pain pill and his coarse support for unrestricted abortion -- even opposition to the Infant Born Alive Act, which he has tried to subvert.

When the Democrats achieve literal death-grip power over the lives of all our citizens, that's when they also achieve their long-cherished dream of absolute power in a virtual one-party state. Now is it becoming transparent (so to speak) what the real scheme behind their mania for "health-care reform" is? Now does it all make sense? This is not your father's Democrat party.

This issue is not about health care, ultimately. It is about raw political power and the long-promised radical takeover of the United States. For anyone who hasn't thought of all this before, I guarantee that Obama and his party's other leaders have.

Dictatorship in a one-party state indeed seems to loom for us. As one prominent commentator has pointed out, the normal order of the human condition is tyranny, subjugation, and dictatorship, with only a couple of respite periods throughout history, including our time in the West over the past two centuries or so. It just took that long for the totalitarian types to gain near-total power in our country, which they are now consolidating over the coming year. What are the betting odds that they will ever let it go voluntarily?

No wonder the national Democrats aren't concerned about having to face the electorate again. Pity the naïve, hapless Republicans who actually imagine they have a fair chance later this year and in '12!

The long-time president of my university, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, used to say, "At our school, we ask all the questions, even the tough ones." How'd I do, Father?

The most troubling aspect of my analysis is that it represents the logical extension of irrefutable, objective facts. At least five of the six premises are no more and no less than observable Democrat behavior, and the other is a mild extrapolation at most. This is not good.

It's over, America. We are now living under a proto-dictatorship in the United States. In less than a year, the full reification of it will be apparent to all. Have a nice day. R.I.P., U.S.A.

John F. Gaski, Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, and is author of the recently-published Frugal Cool: How to Get Rich-Without Making Very Much Money (Corby Books). He is also a specialist in social and political power and a long-time registered Democrat.