Right Minded Online

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases emitted from motor vehicles amount to air pollution. That was all the Environmental Protection Agency needed to issue a report that may lead to the federal government taxing smelly farm animals who emit too much methane. Methane, of course, is a greenhouse gas. Cows and hogs give off lots of it. They always have. It’s part of their natural biological function. So leave it to the federal government to consider taxing it.

It’s all part of the global warming hoax. Since the beginning of time, created beings have given off methane, with the planet suffering no side effects. But now, suddenly, in the 21st century, what has always occurred naturally is destroying the planet.

There are two things you need to know about global warming. First, those who espouse the theory that man is altering the climate adhere to global warming with religious-like faith. You have to have faith in global warming, because factual analysis destroys it. Second, global warming is nothing more than a hoax that liberals and bureaucrats are using to grow government and raise taxes.

To illustrate just how global warming alarmists would micromanage our lives, let’s look at a few examples:

In Great Britain, where the global warming hoax has become far more ingrained than here in the U.S., the Energy Saving Partnership has taken out a patent on Heatseekers, thermo-imaging vehicles which, at full potential, have the capacity to identify 1,000 properties an hour, or 5,000 properties a night, that are leaking carbon. Once the property has been scanned, a dedicated team of energy advisers will visit householders to show them the thermal image scan of their homes.

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, asserts that people should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change. Dr. Pachauri said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.

And if the addition of carbon police and eating less meat weren’t enough, we would see carbon crimes if the left ever had its way. You see, Stephen Hockman, a deputy High Court judge, has proposed a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to be the supreme legal authority on issues regarding the environment. The court would enforce international agreements on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, fine countries or companies that failed to protect endangered species or degraded the natural environment, and enforce the “right to a healthy environment.”

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Airport Commission has recently authorized a program that would enable enviro-nitwits to assuage their guilt over making too big a carbon footprint. The general idea, officials say, is that a traveler would approach a kiosk resembling the self-service check-in stations used by airlines, then punch in his or her destination. A computer would calculate the carbon footprint and the cost of an investment to offset the damage. The guilt-ridden traveler could then swipe a credit card to help save the planet. Travelers would receive a printed receipt listing the projects benefiting from their green “investment.”

Really, what kind of an idiot would fall for such a scheme?

Despite the hysteria, 2008 will end up the coolest year of the decade. If you’re worried about the environment, this should be good news. Indeed, everything liberals have told us is a lie. We enjoy such a high level of prosperity that we’ve had the time and the luxury to create our own crises, and global warming is an invented crisis. Global warming is a political movement built upon changes in the weather, and “global warming” has even morphed into “climate change” to cover any and all meteorological changes. Whether it’s hotter, colder, wetter, or drier, it can all be blamed on human activity now. The global warming alarmists have stacked the deck so they cannot possibly be wrong, even when their entire premise is a hoax.

It is supremely arrogant to believe that man can alter nature by eating meat, driving cars, and using incandescent light bulbs. It is just as arrogant to believe we can cool the atmosphere by switching to hybrids, taxing smelly farm animals, using curlicue light bulbs, and buying carbon credits. (You’re actually better off throwing your money away on the lottery, because with the lottery, you at least have a one-in-a-million shot at a payoff, whereas global warming is a 100% hoax.)

Likewise, politicians who endeavor to “save the planet” do so out of an inflated sense of self-importance. Democrats (and some Republicans, too) honestly believe they can change the climate merely by passing legislation that micromanages the lifestyles of everyone else. In reality, global warming alarmists would loot the wealth of individuals and private businesses who stand falsely accused of contributing to global warming. Indeed, looting wealth produced by others is a hallmark of liberalism.

It has been said that ignorance is the most expensive “commodity” we own. Global warming proves it, because if the left ever gets its way, the global warming hoax is going to cost taxpayers a great deal of money and loss of individual liberty.

On the night Jesus was born, a star shone in the sky such as had never been seen before. We know the star could be seen from afar, as the Gospel of Matthew tells us that Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and inquired, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

King Herod heard of the inquiry and was disturbed that there was another King of the Jews. So he called together the chief priests and teachers of the law, asking them where the Christ was to be born.

“In Bethlehem in Judea,” he was told, “for this is what the prophet [Micah] has written: ’But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”

King Herod then summoned the Magi in secret, asking them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent the Magi to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, the Magi went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

We don’t know a great deal about the Magi, except that they came from the east. We often refer to them as the three wise men or three kings, but they were probably nothing more than superstitious astrologers who knew nothing of the Jewish faith or the prophecies that told of a coming Messiah, which makes their appearance at Joseph and Mary’s front door all the more remarkable.

Most nativity scenes depict the presence of the Magi bearing gifts, but the Magi weren’t present at the manger on the night Christ was born. They only began their journey then or shortly thereafter, and their journey probably lasted a couple of years, as the Christ is here referred to as “the child,” and not “the baby,” as he is called in the Gospel of Luke on the night he was born.

At any rate, when they arrived at the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. The Magi then presented the child with their gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh (referred to as ”treasures” in the Gospel in Matthew) – not exactly practical gifts for a peasant Jewish family, but when you’re giving gifts to the Messiah, no gift is ever too good.

Afterward, having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, the Magi began their journey home, back to their own country, taking a different route. By all implication, the three Magi were all warned separately, in different dreams, suggesting a divine revelation.

Once the Magi had departed, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying “Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

By this time, angels of the Lord had established a pretty good track record with Joseph, and so he did not wait. He took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where they remained until the death of King Herod, thus fulfilling a prophecy of Hosea, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Meanwhile, when King Herod discovered that he had been outwitted, he became furious, and issued his famous decree that all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity aged two years and under be killed, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Thus, what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was also fulfilled: ”A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

After King Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt instructing him to “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

Once again, Joseph did as he was told. He took the child and his mother back to Israel. But when Joseph heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back. Having been warned in yet another dream, Joseph instead withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he, Mary, and the Christ lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

No one can be exactly sure why the Magi play such a prominent role in the birth story of the Christ. They were unlikely characters, having come from a different country, with a different culture, a different language, and a different religion.

Despite this, they were still able to find the Christ child after merely following a star and asking a few questions. King Herod, on the other hand, had the Christ child right under his nose in Judea, yet was never able to get his hands on the real King of the Jews.

Perhaps the irony of this unlikely series of events is the reason for its inclusion in Christ’s birth story, that the Lord God wanted to add one more wonder to a story that was already filled with miracles and the fulfillment of prophecies that were made centuries before.

There is no way the Magi could have known that their journey, their encounter with King Herod, and their presentation of gifts from the East to the Christ child would be preserved in the most-printed book of all time, to be read by persons in many languages, from all over the world, across two millennia.

George Washington was not the first President of the United States. He was only the first President under the Constitution that was adopted in 1788. The new United States had already been in existence for twelve years when our current governing document was ratified. Most of us can probably name the document that was replaced by the Constitution: the Articles of Confederation.

As such, a national government had been in place since 1774. It was known as the First Continental Congress. A year later, the Second Continental Congress was formed, and it governed the loose confederation of colonies that rebelled against England, ultimately breaking away in 1776 as a separate nation. The Second Continental Congress was the governing body until the Articles of Confederation took effect in 1781.

The Articles of Confederation ultimately provided too weak a government to sustain the United States. At first, our national leaders had sought to overhaul the Articles, but the first governing document was so flawed that a Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787 and scrapped the whole thing.

At any rate, the United States was governed by one legislature or another until the Constitution was ratified. Each legislature elected a President, just as present-day legislatures elect Speakers. Thus, the United States actually had fourteen different “Presidents” prior to George Washington, although not as chief executives.

The first “President,” whose title was President of the First Continental Congress, was Peyton Randolph, whose service began on September 5, 1774. He was succeeded by Henry Middleton on October 22, 1774, but served only five days.

Peyton Randolph became the first President of the Second Continental Congress on May 10, 1775, and served two weeks. He was succeeded by John Hancock on May 24, 1775, who was succeeded by Henry Laurens on November 1, 1777, then John Jay (December 10, 1778), and Samuel Huntington (September 28, 1779), who served until the Articles of Confederation were adopted on March 1, 1781, then served as the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled until July 9, 1781.

It must be noted that the title of President of the United States in Congress Assembled was often shortened to President of the United States. The remaining pre-Constitution Presidents were Thomas McKean, who assumed office on July 10, 1781, John Hanson (November 5, 1781), Elias Boudinot (November 4, 1782), Thomas Mifflin (November 3, 1783), Richard Henry Lee (November 30, 1784), John Hancock (November 23, 1785), Nathaniel Gorham (June 6, 1786), Arthur St. Clair (February 2, 1787), and Cyrus Griffin (January 22, 1788). Griffin’s term ended on November 2, 1788.

Randolph (1721-1775) was a lawyer from Virginia who served as the state’s Attorney General, then several terms in the Virginia House of Burgesses. His first cousin once removed was Thomas Jefferson.

Middleton (1717-1784) hailed from South Carolina, and ultimately resigned the Continental Congress to prepare for war.

Hancock (1737-1793) was a businessman from Massachusetts who is most famous for his large signature on the Declaration of Independence.

Laurens (1724-1792) was a merchant and rice planter from South Carolina and later served as a diplomat.

Jay (1745-1829) came from New York City, and enjoyed a long, distinguished career in politics. Recognized as one of our founding fathers, Jay was also the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Huntington (1731-1796) was a self-educated revolutionary leader from Connecticut, and a signer of the Declaration.

McKean (1734-1817) was a lawyer from Pennsylvania who served in the Revolutionary War, signed the Declaration, and later served as Governor of Pennsylvania.

Hanson (1715-1783) began as a self-educated planter from Maryland who ended up holding several government positions, and proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving holiday while serving as President.

Boudinot (1740-1821) was a lawyer from Philadelphia whose father was a friend of Benjamin Franklin’s. During the war, he became one of the focal points for rebel spies. He later served in the U.S. House of Representatives, then became Director of the U.S. Mint.

Mifflin (1744-1800) also hailed from Philadelphia, and served as a major general during the war. He held numerous political positions, and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Lee (1732-1794) was a Virginian who was educated in England and became an early supporter of independence. He was also a states-rights advocate who opposed a powerful central government, and became one of Virginia’s first two senators.

Gorham (1738-1796) came from Massachusetts, and held several public offices before making a fortune in real estate.

St. Clair (1734-1818) was born and educated in Scotland, and originally served in the British Army. He later settled in Pennsylvania, where he became a prominent landowner. He rose to the rank of general in the U.S. Army during the war, but died in poverty, having given or loaned away much of his fortune.

Finally, Griffin (1749-1810) was born in Virginia, but educated in England, and held several public offices.

So when Barack Obama takes the oath of office next month, he will become the 44th President under the U.S. Constitution, but will also be the 58th man to have assumed the title of “President of the United States.”

What began as a pre-election government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has become a soup line for the American financial industry, the car manufacturing industry, and quite possibly state governments. It seems as though every private and public institution in the U.S. that is feeling a financial pinch has turned  to the taxpayers for either a bailout or a financial guarantee.

After listening to Democrats complain about deficit spending during the eight years of the Bush presidency, Barack Obama says economic recovery efforts will trump deficit concerns. Boy, I’ll say. The current-year deficit is expected to hit an astounding $1 trillion, far and away the largest in our history, far larger than any deficit during the Bush presidency, and most of that $1 trillion is due to the Democrat Congress’ giddiness in handing out bailout money to the private sector, spending money that we absolutely do not have.

To put the bailout into its proper perspective, Barry Ritholtz, who runs a blog called “The Big Picture,” pointed out on November 25 that the total cost of all the bailouts exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. And that was two weeks ago. That’s more than the combined inflation-adjusted costs of: the Marshall Plan ($115.3 billion), Louisiana Purchase ($217 billion), race to the moon ($237 billion), S&L crisis ($256 billion), Korean War ($454 billion), New Deal ($500 billion, estimated), invasion of Iraq ($597 billion), Vietnam War ($698 billion), and NASA ($851.2 billion). All those add up to only $3.92 trillion.

The federal government was never intended to guarantee the success or prevent the failure of the private sector. The free market has a marvelous way of rewarding efficiency and good business practices, while punishing inefficiency and poor business practices. What bailouts do is reward companies that are on the verge of bankruptcy, thereby allowing them to perpetuate the same business practices that got them in a mess in the first place without the negative consequences that are built into the free market.

Granted, the federal government does shoulder some of the blame for the hardship faced by the mortgage and automobile industries. By forcing mortgage companies to make high-risk loans beginning during the Clinton administration, that industry was set up for a meltdown once interest rates climbed and defaults started pouring in. The U.S. Congress has also mandated CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards that have forced automobile manufacturers build smaller, lighter cars that consumers don’t want to buy. And the market share enjoyed by the U.S. automobile industry has, unfortunately, decreased over the last several years.

Therefore, we don’t need bailouts. The most effective way for Congress to handle this mess is to cut taxes and get out of the way of the private sector by removing burdensome regulations. Yet the president-elect has instead promised to raise taxes on companies, and increase energy regulation to fight the global warming hoax.

And so we have bottomless bailouts. Once the Congress bailed out Fannie and Freddie to the tune of $700 billion, the floodgates were opened, and the private financial sector came asking for a handout, then it was the automobile industry, and now state governments that are facing budget deficits are knocking on that door, and so one has to ask where this actually ends.

Anytime the government starts meddling in the private sector, we get the Law of Unintended Consequences. For example, we had to have that bailout of the mortgage industry, and we had to have it right now. Yet many of the banks that benefited from the infusion of taxpayer money aren’t doing what the government wanted them to do with it.

On October 28, it was reported that the White House was prodding banks and other financial companies to stop hoarding billions of dollars flowing into their coffers from the taxpayers and start making more loans. So the bailout money was intended to flow back into the economy, yet the banks simply hoarded it. We should have learned from Hurricane Katrina that you don’t throw a big pile of money at a crisis and solve the crisis.

The economy shrank during the third quarter of this year, and unemployment is rising. Granted, we are not yet officially in a recession, defined as two or more consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, but fewer people working means fewer taxes being paid, which increases the size of the deficit without corresponding cuts in spending. But rather than cut spending, the U.S. Congress is spending money more recklessly than ever before.

The current federal debt stands at $10.7 trillion. We’re adding more than a trillion dollars to that just this fiscal year alone. The Congress is spending wealth that hasn’t even been created yet, and the objective is to avert an economic crisis. Folks, what Congress is doing IS the economic crisis. If companies are facing bankruptcy, let them go bankrupt. It doesn’t necessarily mean an end to that company, just that it will have to reorganize under bankruptcy laws. The worst thing the Congress can do is put the taxpayers on the hook for even more debt. But that is exactly what our lawmakers are doing.

What a shame that the people we regard as heroes are usually entertainers and athletes, who are often reprobates who have done absolutely nothing to earn their hero status. The real heroes, the ones who get buried on page 5 of the newspaper, are our service members who sacrifice their lives so the rest of us can enjoy freedom — a freedom that we all seem to take for granted.

Since self-appointed global warming prophets can make weather predictions a hundred years in advance and have them accepted as fact by their faithful global warming religionists, I have a pontification of my own to make. Global warming is real, and we are so deep into it that there is nothing we can do about it anymore. No amount of emissions reductions or carbon offsets can reverse the effects of global warming. It’s like terminal cancer. That being the case, there is no need to make any economic sacrifice on behalf of the planet, so party on and enjoy life to the fullest during the few years we have left.

I have come to the realization that the broadcasters who announce sporting events on television don’t know any more about sports than I do or any other avid sports fan. They get paid to do what they do simply because they have good voices and are able to keep the decibel meter moving between plays. Likewise, the sports analysts who make predictions don’t know anymore about outcomes than my nine-year-old. After all, words don’t win games. It’s all decided on the field of play, and not in television studios.

The NBA draft lottery is a sham, and must be scrapped immediately.

For the first time since 1976, neither a Bush nor a Clinton was on the presidential ticket this year.

The older I get, the shorter that list of “People I Need to Impress” becomes.

For entertainment, I would pay money to see a president nominate Ann Coulter to some government position that requires Senate confirmation. She’d never get enough votes, but the exchange between her and some of the pompous blowhards in the Senate would be side-splitting.

During the second semester of my junior year in college, I made a “24″ on my first test in differential equations. One person told me I was stupid if I didn’t go ahead and drop the class and retake it the next semester. (Nobody told me I was stupid for making a “24,” though.) I hadn’t dropped or retaken a class up until that time, and I wasn’t about to start then. I figured the absolute worst that could happen would be to end up failing the course and retaking it the next semester. I stuck with it, studied like crazy, and made a “97″ on the next test. (A careless mistake kept me from earning a perfect score.) I passed the third test, and did well enough on the final examination to earn a “B” in differential equations. Shows what everybody else knew. I don’t remember much about differential equations some 15+ years later, but I did learn an important lesson from that experience.

I used to give blood through the Red Cross, but the last time I tried, perhaps 4 or 5 years ago, I discovered they had added the question “Have you lived in Europe for at least six months since 1980?” as a disqualifier. I have, and I must say that I was inwardly relieved to have a legitimate excuse for not giving blood anymore.

Multi-lingual people amaze me. I lived in Italy for 2½ years, studied the Italian language for four semesters in college, and still never became fluent.

One of the best bargains I’ve found on the Internet is a subscription to Rush 24/7 for $6.95 a month. Not only does this give you access to a wealth of information on Rush Limbaugh’s website, but you can also download the podcast from each day’s show. Working shifts, I don’t often get to listen to the program live, but it has been years since I missed a show because of the podcast.

I have pledged to not buy any more books for the next year. I have at least a year’s worth of reading to do, and it seems as though for every book I read, I buy and/or am given two more.

Is it not amazing that we now have more computing power in our cell phones than the old ENIAC that weighed 27 tons?

Speaking of cell phones, I remember growing up in the 1980’s when I had to wait for the newspaper to see if the Phillies had won the previous night. Now I can hook up to the Internet using my cell phone to see what the score is at any moment. How did we survive all those years of hardship?

The more I read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, the more I realize that human nature hasn’t changed one scintilla since man was created.

Showing indignation toward others who make moral judgements is contradictory. By exclaiming “How dare you make moral judgements,” a person, in essence, makes moral judgements about those who make moral judgements.

The things liberals say about God. First, Jesus Christ was a community organizer, and now, according to State Representative Tommie Brown, God is a socialist. Next thing you know, the Holy Spirit will be a registered Democrat.

At any rate, Representative Brown was discussing cuts in the state’s budget in order to balance out an estimated $800 million deficit. Here’s the full quote: “I will be there doing battle for children and poor and middle-class families. We have to try to protect them. Maybe that’s socialism, but I suspect God might be a socialist, particularly Jesus Christ when he stopped to feed the multitudes.”

Representative Brown apparently falls for the thinking that government, and not families, is the sole guarantor of our children’s well-being. Government has no such role. If she really wanted to do something for the children, the poor, and the middle-class, Representative Brown should have joined ranks with the GOP years ago to lower or eliminate the state’s sales-tax on groceries. The Legislature had that opportunity during Governor Bredesen’s first term, when the state ran annual surpluses adding up to more than a billion dollars, and it wouldn’t have taken much to eliminate, or at least reduce the food tax by a significant amount. This was something Senator Mae Beavers attempted to do, but to no avail.

Instead, the Democrat-led General Assembly and our Democrat governor used those surpluses to grow government, rebuffing repeated attempts by Republican members to cut the food tax, and the Democrats even raised taxes on cigarettes to accommodate even more spending. And, just as we conservatives predicted, when the lean economic times came, the state would find itself in a mess, just as we did during the ill-fated second term of turncoat, disgraced Governor Don Sundquist. We taxpayers learned from that experience. Our lawmakers didn’t.

The budget deficit could have been much worse, though. Earlier this year, state lawmakers whacked $468 million off the governor’s proposed budget for FY 2008-09, but the budget that was passed still exceeded the Copeland Cap by $723 million. (The Copeland Cap limits budget increases to economic plus population growth, but can be — and routinely is — overridden by a simple majority vote in the Legislature.) It is therefore not a coincidence that the budget deficit is proportional to the amount that the state government overspent. Had Governor Bredesen and the General Assembly stayed within the cap, we wouldn’t be talking about a deficit.

To remedy the shortfall, Governor Bredesen earlier ordered state departments to cut their budgets by 3%, but recognizes that “we’re going to have to go beyond that.” Governor Bredesen has set things like prisons and education off-limits to cuts, but other departments are going to have to swallow cuts of 10% or larger.

State Representative Gerald McCormick (R-Chattanooga) echoed the governor’s pragmatism. “I’m sure there’s no sentiment out there to increase taxes. We’re just going to have to make choices and make cuts.”

Governor Bredesen says the budget will be partially balanced by drawing from the state’s rainy day fund, which currently sits at around $750 million, in addition to some $500 million in the TennCare reserve fund. He also acknowledges that some of the cuts will have to be made permanent in order to balance the FY 2009-10 budget.

Back to Tommie Brown’s remark, Christ only fed the multitude because he was able to multiply fish and bread loaves. Socialism affords no such miracles, because socialists don’t feed people. Capitalists do. If you look at all the places where socialism has actually been implemented (the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, North Korea, Cuba), you will find that people commonly go hungry and lack other basic items and services that we in capitalist nations take for granted.

It’s amazing how liberals, who demand strict separation of church and state for evangelicals, have no problem using God to justify their own political positions.

I hope we have not seen the last of Sarah Palin. She was the one bright spot in an otherwise dim campaign season for the Republican Party. Governor Palin has already made it clear that the door to a presidential run in 2012 is open. Let’s hope so. She was the only true conservative on the ticket, and if there’s one thing the GOP sorely needs, it’s a conservative at the top.

The left despises Sarah Palin. The mainstream press and Democrats were relentless and merciless in their attacks on her and her family. True, when you enter the political arena, you certainly open yourself to scrutiny and criticism, but what Governor Palin endured was far more grueling than the public examinations given Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Her critics said she was inexperienced, even though Sarah Palin has more executive experience than John McCain, Obama, and Biden combined. They went after her family, at one point spreading the rumor that her baby Trig was not her son, but her grandson. They exposed the Palins’ teen-aged daughter Bristol and her pregnancy, sneering about the hypocrisy of a family-values conservative having a daughter pregnant out-of-wedlock. They went after Todd Palin and his associations. They made an issue out of Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe. They hung her in effigy and hacked her e-mail account.

They tried to pass her off as a dumb blond, a cheerleader-type who was chosen for her appearance rather than her substance. They questioned whether she could handle the job of vice-president and still raise a family, which is odd given that the staple of liberal feminism has been to convince women to eschew families and pursue careers. In short, the candidacy of Sarah Palin transformed the party of women’s rights into the party of male chauvinism.

But what really stoked the left’s outrage was the fact that Sarah Palin gave birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. You see, abortion is the sacrament of the Democrat Party. There have been nearly 50 million unborn children sacrificed on the altar of choice under Roe v. Wade, and the left’s callous disregard for unborn human life is just as rife as ever. That Sarah Palin did not abort Trig hit them squarely between the eyes. The image from the GOP convention of the Palins’ 7-year-old daughter wetting and smoothing the baby’s hair during Governor Palin’s speech endeared pro-family conservatives, but frosted the left.

For example, Canadian Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Ottawa, expressed concern that such a prominent role model as Sarah Palin completing a Down Syndrome pregnancy may prompt other women to make the same decision against abortion because of that genetic abnormality, and thereby reduce the number of abortions.

About 9 out of 10 Canadian women given a diagnosis of Down Syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies. But Dr. Lalonde worries that Palin’s decision may cause abortions in Canada to decline as other women there and elsewhere follow suit.

Barbara Walters said on The View (October 6) that Sarah Palin having her baby at the debate “bothered her.”

And the day before, Liz Trotta was on Fox News Live to discuss the Palin-Biden Debate, and remarked “One other note…the image of dragging that handicapped infant around and having it on stage has caused consternation in some quarters as to how tasteful this is.”

Folks, this is how liberals see unborn/newborn life that is less than perfect. The Democrat Party just nominated and got elected a politician who has supported infanticide for abortion survivors. On the other hand, Sarah Palin carried a Down Syndrome pregnancy to term, and she is despised for it.

Remember, Democrats are supposed to be the party of the little guy, the downtrodden, the oppressed. And yet when it comes to the littlest and most defenseless of us all, liberals have shown themselves to be completely devoid of compassion. Their behavior toward the Palin family, especially 7-month-old Trig, was classless and shameful.

While the GOP got its clock cleaned on a national level a week ago, the opposite was true here in Tennessee. John McCain received 57% of the vote while winning 89 of the state’s 95 counties. Lamar Alexander was also returned to the U.S. Senate for a second six-year term, getting 65% of the vote.

But in the Tennessee General Assembly, the GOP exceeded expectations by winning a majority in both the House and Senate for the first time since Reconstruction. Republicans picked up the four House seats they needed to earn a 50-49 majority, while picking up three seats in the Senate for a comfortable 19-14 majority.

This was no small feat. The legislative districts have been so heavily gerrymandered by the Democrats that Republicans have for years won a majority of the cumulative popular vote in the 99 House races, but could never quite get that reflected in the actual balance of power in the House.

Jimmy Naifeh’s Reign of Terror as the longest-tenured Speaker of the House is over, assuming all 50 Republican House members vote for their own candidate, who will probably be Jason Mumpower. Believe me, this is not the slam-dunk that it should be.

In the Senate, the Republicans will also finally have the majority, four years after winning the majority. You see, back in 2004, the GOP made history on Election Day by winning an 18-15 majority. But their majority was thwarted by two turncoat Republicans, Tim Burchett and Mike Williams, who voted to retain longtime Democrat Lt. Gov. John Wilder as Speaker of the Senate. (The Speaker of the Senate also assumes the role of Lt. Gov.) Wilder went on to appoint Democrats to a majority of the committee chairmanships, and made Senator Williams the Speaker Pro Tem. Republicans across the state, having toiled for years trying to win a majority, were livid.

Two years later, the GOP lost a seat to the Democrats, but still retained a 17-16 majority. Somewhere along the way, Senator Burchett had an epiphany and voted for a member of his own party, Ron Ramsey, to the Speakership, but the jury was still out on Senator Williams. Thankfully, Rosalind Kurita, the former Democrat Senator from Clarksville, crossed party lines and voted for Senator Ramsey over Lt. Gov. Wilder, thereby handing the gavel over to the GOP. With Ramsey’s 17th vote now assured, Senator Williams went ahead and cast his now-meaningless vote for Ramsey, but it was widely believed that he would have voted for Wilder had Kurita not tipped the scales to the GOP.

Lt. Gov. Ramsey, having relied on a patchwork of support, as was often the case with John Wilder, appointed Senator Kurita as Speaker Pro Tem, and appointed some Democrats to committee chairmanships.

By now, Senator Williams, completely alienated from his own party by virtue of having become more Democrat than Republican, switched to Independent, thereby plunging the GOP back into the minority at 16-16-1.

Last week, attorney Mike Faulk, also known as “The Right Mike,” as he is an actual Republican, defeated Mike Williams by a scant 0.4%, at long last giving the turncoat former senator his just desserts. The GOP picked up two other seats, and can now actually act like the majority. Senator Kurita lost her bid for re-election, and so Lt. Gov. Ramsey is beholden to no Democrat, and will require no patchwork of support to retain his position.

In the House, things are a bit trickier. For some reason, a handful of Republicans have heretofore decided to vote for Jimmy Naifeh for Speaker the last few elections instead of their own party’s nominee. To date, Jimmy Naifeh has yet to throw the GOP a bone even once, instead running the House in total lock-step partisanship.

That’s fine.

If the GOP has any backbone, and let’s hope it does, all 50 Republican members will unite behind their candidate, loosen Speaker Naifeh’s iron grip away from the gavel, and plug Republican members into every position of leadership and every committee chairmanship.

Republican members have already promised to fill the state’s constitutional officers — Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Comptroller — with Republican members, since these positions have long been occupied by Democrats. It is heartwarming to see the GOP counter with some partisanship of their own.

And when it comes time to re-draw the state’s legislative districts, the GOP will hopefully do what the Democrats have done and gerrymander the districts heavily in its favor in order to help ensure a GOP majority well into the future.

Congressional Democrats are after your private retirement accounts. In an attempt to use the recent stock market drop as a power grab, Congressman George Miller (D-CA), wants to end $80 billion in tax savings for higher-income people enrolled in a 401(k).

According to an October 7 article at InvestmentNews.com, Congressman Miller explained “We’ve invested $80 billion into subsidizing this activity,” referring to tax breaks allowed for 401(k) contributions and savings.

With savings rates going down, “what do we have to start to think about in Congress of whether or not we want to continue and invest that $80 billion for a policy that is not generating what we … say it should?” Mr. Miller said.

Congress should let workers trade their 401(k) assets for guaranteed retirement accounts made up of government bonds, suggested Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at The New School for Social Research in New York.

When workers collect Social Security, the guaranteed retirement account would pay an inflation-adjusted annuity under her plan.

“The way the government now encourages 401(k) plans is to spend $80 billion in tax breaks,” which goes to the highest-income earners, Ms. Ghilarducci said.

In those paragraphs, you have pretty much everything you need to know about liberalism.

Those of you who invest a portion of your income in a 401(k) know that money is considered non-taxable. It encourages personal savings and personal initiative. Democrats consider this a “subsidy.” They don’t particularly care for personal savings and personal initiative, because those things lead individuals to personal freedom, thereby avoiding government dependence. Liberalism is designed to lure (or force) people into government dependence. That $80 billion tax break is considered a “subsidy” by Democrats, because they view our paychecks as property of the State, and whatever shows up as our net pay is what lawmakers have graciously allowed us to keep.

Also, notice how Democrats would use the stock market drop to lure people away from personally-owned 401(k) accounts and into government bonds. Notice how government bonds are linked to Social Security, the mother of liberal government entitlement programs. Of course, anybody who can do math knows Social Security is headed for a train wreck as a shrinking percentage of workers is going to be expected to fund the retirement of an increasing number of older Americans. Rather than use the impending doom of Social Security as evidence that the government does NOT belong in the retirement business, Democrats want to lure even more Americans into giving up their private retirement assets and accepting government bonds as an alternative.

Liberals honestly believe the average American is too ignorant to be trusted with handling his own retirement, so they have to do it for us. In reality, there are a great number of Americans who are smarter than the people they elect to Congress, which is why it would be foolish for us to turn over our private retirement accounts to them.

Although Democrats want to give Americans the choice of giving up their personal retirement savings and accepting government bonds, they never offer the choice of giving up our “government accounts” (i.e., Social Security) and moving that money into the private sector. Such is the authoritarian nature of liberalism.

If you need more evidence that Democrats have absolutely no business meddling in the financial market, look no further than Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the mortgage crisis, which is entirely the result of Democrat policies.

The fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is the concept of personal freedom. Conservatives believe in empowering individuals. Liberals believe in empowering government at the expense of individuals. That’s why the Democrat-led Congress has its eye on our private 401(k) accounts. This has nothing to do with protecting Americans. It has everything to do with giving even more power to government, and more control to the Democrats.

You may be feeling anxious about the election that takes place one week from today. It’s hard not to, with polls having shown Barack Obama maintaining a consistent lead for most of the past month, Nancy Pelosi proclaiming a 250-seat Democrat majority in the House, and Harry Reid salivating over the prospect of a filibuster-proof Senate.

The stakes are enormous, as they usually are on Election Day. An Obama-Pelosi-Reid trinity would mean higher taxes for everyone, re-implementation of the Fairness Doctrine, massive expansion of government, appeasement of terrorists, and a parade of new liberal justices to the federal courts. Four years of Obama would be every bit as painful as four years of Carter were.

Do yourselves a favor. Turn off the news this week. Don’t read the polls. Don’t read the papers (except for Right Minded). The press is squarely in the tank for Obama, and will do everything within its power to get him elected. The good news is that the liberal media no longer have a monopoly on the news. They bad news is that they are still quite powerful.

All those polls that show Obama with a lead are designed for one purpose, not to reflect public opinion, but to shape it. If you read the fine print, most (if not all) of these media-generated polls are heavily weighted toward Democrats, meaning that they are statistically skewed to reflect a Democrat constituency that is larger than it really is. (A recent CBS/New York Times poll that showed Obama up by 13 points sampled Democrats over Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.)

The reason is to depress you, fellow Republicans, to make you believe the election is already over and the Democrats have won. The media want you to stay home on election day. They are doing everything except wearing Obama/Biden buttons on their lapels. You can tell it by their “reporting.” They will dig up dirt on Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, but you don’t hear them mention Obama’s domestic terrorist friend Bill Ayers or his racist, America-hating pastor Jeremiah Wright. You also won’t see the press go after Obama-friendly ACORN, a far-left organization accused of fraudulently registering who-knows-how-many voters in various states. But they’ll certainly go after Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter.

They will call you a racist for not supporting Obama. They will call you an imperialist for supporting the war. They will call you greedy for not supporting Obama’s tax increase. They will call you a liar for bringing up the fact that Obama supports fourth trimester abortions. They will call you angry, that you cling to guns and God out of bitterness. Don’t let them get away with it.

Since 1976, the presidential polls have almost always shown Democrats with larger leads than they actually won by, or Republicans with smaller leads than they won by. With few exceptions, the major polls have always been tilted toward the Democrats, so it’s not surprising that the polls in 2008 would show Obama with a consistent lead. It’s par for the course.

Just four years ago, the media proclaimed John Kerry the winner, based solely on exit polling, before the polls had even closed on Election Day. Of course, those exit polls proved woefully inaccurate, as George W. Bush won the election.

So you’re going to have to endure a barrage of anti-McCain, anti-Republican bias for one more week. Given that Barack Obama has the entire mainstream press in his back pocket, he should be up 20 points by now, even in an authentic poll. But he isn’t, which demonstrates that the American people are smarter than we’re given credit for. We know who John McCain is, we know who Barack Obama is (an inexperienced senator with America-hating, terrorist friends, a socialist ideology, and a messiah complex), despite the media’s attempt to portray him as just a friendly community-organizing icon of hope and change. And, of course, we know who the media are, too.

Get off your duff and vote. It doesn’t matter if the major media report Obama up by 50 points, because those polls are designed to intimidate you into drawing the shades and staying in bed on Election Day.

Mark my words, if John McCain wins this election, you are going to see American liberals unhinged like you’ve never seen them before. You are going to hear racist accusations like you’ve never heard them before. Sneering that the GOP stole the election will dwarf the Florida 2000 fiasco. Imagine the satisfying prospect of a McCain/Palin victory while at the same time watching the left implode under its own anger and rage. Let’s go vote and make this a reality.

To quote Rush Limbaugh, “A united, committed, enthusiastic, can’t-wait-to-get-to-the-polls, grassroots willing-to-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-out-the-vote, Republican conservative base does not lose. They only lose when they are dispirited and don’t show up.”

Meet Joe the Plumber.

Last Sunday in Ohio, Barack Obama was confronted by Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber, who asked Mr. Obama “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” Mr. Wurzelbacher rightfully complained that he is being taxed “more and more for fulfilling the American dream.”

Senator Obama retorted “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

It was a very telling statement that the McCain campaign has since used to drive home the point that Barack Obama is a socialist. (From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.) Senator Obama talks about the American dream, but he’s a liberal, so he believes the American dream can only be achieved with the help of government. Mr. Obama is also promising tax increases on those who earn $250,000, so you could say that he really only believes in the American dream up to a quarter million dollars, then you must be punished.

(For the record, Senator Obama has actually voted to raise taxes on those earning as little as $42,000 a year.)

A subsequent interview took place on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on October 16 between Diane Sawyer and Joe the Plumber:

Sawyer: “Well I just want to ask you now about the issue that was raised because it’s been a little confusing to me as I tried to sort it out here. To get straight here, you’re not taking home $250,000 now, am I right?”

Wurzelbacher: “No. No. Not even close.”

Sawyer: “And you were you asking — about the prospect, the hope that someday you would make $250,000, and you were saying you didn’t want that to be taxed?”

Wurzelbacher: “Well, exactly. Exactly. I mean not that I don’t want to be taxed. You have to be taxed. But to — just because you work a little harder to have a little bit more money taken from you, I mean, that’s scary. You know as opposed to other people. I worked hard for it. Why should I be taxed more than other people?”

Sawyer: “Well if people making $250,000 should not be taxed additionally — by the way, it’s 3% from 36% to 39% under Senator Obama’s plan. If those people should not be taxed additionally, even though they’re in the top 5% of America, what about people who make $1 million? Or $5 million?”

Wurzelbacher: “Well, I mean, quite honestly, why should they be penalized for being successful? I mean, that’s what you’re telling me. That’s what it sounds like you’re saying. That’s wrong. Because you’re successful, you have to pay more than everybody else? We all live in this country. It’s a basic right. And Obama wants to take that basic right and penalize me for it, is what it comes down to.”

Well said, Joe. You see, liberals believe our paychecks belong to government, and whatever shows up as our net pay is what they have graciously allowed us to keep. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is Congress given the power of wealth redistribution, yet it is a common practice among liberals, and has been since the New Deal.

So Obama believes a person’s path to success involves taxing the rich. At no time has it ever been demonstrated that taxing the rich helps anyone at the bottom. You do not make the poor rich by making the rich poor. You do not elevate those at the bottom by bringing down those at the top.

What has been demonstrated is that tax cuts work every single time they’re tried, and not just tax cuts aimed a low-income earners. Tax cuts work when applied to everyone, right up to the top income bracket. This was demonstrated by JFK, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, all of whom advocated and won tax cuts for taxpayers even in the marginal rates, and those tax cuts were all followed by prolonged periods of economic expansion.

Furthermore, a Tax Foundation study back in 2005 pointed out that “Despite the charges of critics that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the ‘rich,’ these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers. Tax Foundation economists estimate that for tax year 2004, a record 42.5 million Americans who filed a tax return (one-third of the 131 million returns filed last year) had no tax liability after they took advantage of their credits and deductions. Millions more paid next to nothing.”

The Obama campaign is promising tax cuts that would benefit 95% of all working families, which is sort of hard to do given that one-third of those who file returns already pay no income tax. Obama calls it a “middle class tax cut.” Joe Biden describes it this way: “Our tax plan would take that tax cut of another $130 billion that John [McCain] wants to give to people making over $250,000 next year, not let it go forward and give it to the middle class, the very people who desperately need it to stay in their homes, to buy food, to take care of the gas to fill up their tank, to be able to go out and buy a toaster, to unemployed people.”

If Barack Obama wins the election next month, he’s going to soak those making $250,000 so that the rest of us can have a greater chance for success. How will that success manifest itself? We can buy a toaster with the windfall! And only then will the American dream be within reach.

Mt. Juliet has been taking a beating, as usual, from those who are beset with property tax envy here in Wilson County. The latest to take the county’s largest city to task is William Farmer, who is running for mayor of Lebanon.

Mr. Farmer makes the years-old argument about the supposed tax inequity in Wilson County, whereas Lebanon has its own fire department, while Mt. Juliet does not, instead relying on the county for fire protection. The argument is that the taxpayers of Lebanon are paying for their own fire protection, and Mt. Juliet’s, too. Of course, Mt. Juliet is part of Wilson County, and we in Mt. Juliet do pay county property taxes, yet Mr. Farmer believes it is wrong for us to receive this county service. He’s not the only Lebanon politician to run a campaign on fire protection in Mt. Juliet.

Says Mr. Farmer, “The citizens of Lebanon are funding their fire service with $3 million in city tax dollars. Whereas the citizens of Mt. Juliet are not funding their fire services with their city tax dollars, it is being funded by tax funds from the county, which includes taxes paid by the residents of Lebanon. That is simply not fair.”

“As the county increases taxes over time, whether through impact fees or property taxes, the tax inequity for fire service between Lebanon residents and Mt. Juliet residents will increase as well.”

When a Lebanon politician complains about Lebanon taxpayers funding fire protection for Mt. Juliet, he is really complaining about funding the Wilson County Emergency Management Agency (WEMA). WEMA, of course, is the agency that provides fire protection for Mt. Juliet. In fact, WEMA provides an array of emergency services for all of Wilson County, incorporated and unincorporated. WEMA even provides emergency services for — gasp! — Lebanon. WEMA operates eight stations countywide, including one in Mt. Juliet, and one in Lebanon.

WEMA provides fire assistance in Lebanon when asked to help, performs a majority of the vehicle extrication calls throughout the county, and provides all of the ambulance service in the county. It is also worth noting that less than 6% of all calls WEMA has received this year have been fire-related, whereas nearly two-thirds have been ambulance calls. Therefore, as the percentages go, the taxpayers of Lebanon are getting very nearly the same level of service from WEMA that we in Mt. Juliet receive.

This issue, as always, boils down to property tax envy. Lebanon has a city property tax. Mt. Juliet does not. This really irritates the powers-that-be in Lebanon. Lebanon has a city fire department. That’s all well and good, but nowhere is it written that Mt. Juliet has to do whatever Lebanon does. We pay county property taxes in Mt. Juliet, and receive county services in return. For some reason, we are supposed to feel guilty about this.

Unfortunately, the attitude of some of Lebanon’s leaders seems to be “what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours.” Indeed, Mr. Farmer argues “Like many local governments, Lebanon has a serious challenge funding our budget, which includes our fire department. We cannot afford the inequities in the current system. If we cannot resolve this issue, then we need to eliminate the expense to the citizens of Lebanon of providing free fire protection to Mt. Juliet residents.”

I agree with William Farmer on his last point. The citizens of Lebanon should no longer be expected to provide free fire protection to the freeloading citizens of Mt. Juliet. So here’s my solution: WEMA’s annual operating budget is roughly $7 million. Since Lebanon makes up about 20% of Wilson County’s population, Lebanon’s taxpayers contribute some $1.4 million toward WEMA’s annual operations. So let’s give the taxpayers of Lebanon an aggregate $1.4 million cut in their county property taxes and pull WEMA completely out of Lebanon. After all, if Lebanon taxpayers don’t want to fund WEMA, which provides Mt. Juliet with its free fire protection, they shouldn’t have to. We will have achieved “tax equity,” and Mt. Juliet would still be without a city property tax.

This would get Lebanon completely out of the fire protection business outside its own city limits. Lebanon politicians would no longer have to be preoccupied with Mt. Juliet’s lack of a fire department, since fire protection outside Lebanon would no longer be of any concern whatsoever to anyone living in Lebanon. And never again would a Lebanon politician have any reason to run a campaign on fire protection in Mt. Juliet.

Two years ago, Greg McDougal, a Mt. Juliet resident, launched a project called “A House for My Kids” (ahouseformykids.com). The McDougals have four children, three of whom have cystic fibrosis, and his oldest son struggles with the mold aspergillus. Greg is a musician, and recorded a CD he called “The Work of a Carpenter.” His goal was to raise enough money to build an allergen-free home for his family.

Last year, the McDougals’ oldest son, then eight, had surgery on his right lung and was hospitalized nearly 40 days. During that time, McDougal explains, “I began praying for what else could be done to generate funds, to get this house built once and for all. Again, I had some real time with God and He led me to make a few phone calls to some new friends I met at the Christian Country Music Association. … Before I knew it, we had studio time set up, musicians booked, and the ball was rolling.”

What resulted was a second CD Greg entitled “Try a Little Kindness.” As the snowball continued to roll downhill, Greg ended up with help from Tommy Brandt, Tommy Cochran, The Oak Ridge Boys, and The Bellamy Brothers, among many. Explains Greg, “There is a special story about how each of the artists on this record went out of their way to contribute. There are also stories of the ones who bent over backwards to help, but the logistics of getting so many together in the studio at different times, from different places just could not be worked out.”

Like “The Work of a Carpenter,” ”Try a Little Kindness” is a mesh of Country, Bluegrass, and Gospel, and the songs are mostly sentimental stories that center around God and family.

So here we are in 2008. The McDougals have finally raised enough money for their new home. They recently held a ground-breaking at their Mt. Juliet lot, so Greg’s two-year, two-CD project has been a huge success, both financially, and artistically. He has received quite a bit of press both here and internationally, been nominated for awards, taken his music to other states, and had positive reviews of his work.

Greg’s story is certainly unique. Really, most musicians write and record music in search of riches and fame. All the McDougals have wanted is an allergen-free home. In the process, however, Greg has also turned out some really good music, acoustically and vocally pure, songs that each have a positive message.

But he isn’t finished yet. Greg has decided to spread his idea to assist others in similar circumstances by founding A House for My Kids Foundation.

One of the things I’ve observed in life is that there are doers, and there are complainers. Complaining is one of the easiest things you can do, but it really doesn’t accomplish a whole lot. You really couldn’t blame the McDougals much if they did complain about their children’s illnesses and hospitalizations, and the emotional and financial strain that brings. But rather than claiming defeat, the McDougals have turned the tables on their circumstances. These are truly happy people, and their kind of happiness only comes from enjoying a close walk with Christ Jesus. It’s a joy that is sustained regardless of earthly circumstances.

It was exactly two years ago that we learned of Congressman Mark Foley and suggestive text messages he had sent to a congressional page. And Senator George Allen became embroiled in a scandal of his own after making his now-famous offhand “macaca” remark. The media, firmly in the tank for the Democrat Party, latched onto the scandals, turned them into headlines, kept them there for six weeks, and put the GOP on defense. And so, the Democrats won the House because of Mark Foley’s text messages, and won the Senate because of “macaca.”

This year, the press is campaigning for the Democrats and their presidential candidate even more furiously. There is a scandal underfoot that actually does have considerable bearing on the future of the nation, and the media are ignoring it. The financial markets have been rocked by a mortgage crisis and numerous bank failures. At the center of the storm are two federal organizations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Listening to the media and Democrats, you would think the mortgage crisis is solely the fault of the Bush administration and the capitalist private sector. But the real scandal, the part you won’t hear from the mainstream media (MSM), is that the crisis is the result of Democrat policies and over-regulation by the federal government.

In fact, Glenn Reynolds, who runs Instapundit, which is one of the most-read Internet blogs in the country, posted on September 29 that he had received an e-mail from a journalist at “a major newsroom” conceding that “Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi summarized the prevailing wisdom, blaming the mortgage crisis on President Bush and the “right-wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no discipline, no regulation.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Going back to the Clinton administration, the federal government for years exerted pressure on the private mortgage industry to make high-risk loans — loans to low-income families who could never afford to repay them. The idea was to get them into homes of their own. It was a noble idea. But, like a lot of noble ideas constructed by the left, it proved disastrous when actually applied.

President Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno, began to combat “red-lining” with threats of prosecution. (Red-lining is a practice whereby banks loan money to some communities but not to others, based on economic status.)

According to the Cybercast News Service, “The Clinton-Reno threat of vigorous enforcement pushed banks to make the now-infamous loans that many blame for the current meltdown. One economist told the Cybercast News Service, banks, in order not to get in trouble with the regulators, had to make loans to people who shouldn’t have been getting mortgage loans in the first place.”

And then the banks could sell the loans off to Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) or Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), who could buy them with little regard for negative financial outcome.

Contrary to the rantings of Nancy Pelosi, President Bush tried to overhaul both Fannie and Freddie back in 2003 by creating a new agency to supervise the two behemoths. The New York Times wrote back then that “The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.”

The plan was an acknowledgment by the Bush administration that oversight of Fannie and Freddie — which, at the time, had issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — was broken. A report by outside investigators in July, 2003 concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors.

(Enron’s Ken Lay was prosecuted and convicted for less than this.)

So what happened? Congressional Democrats prevented any type of outside oversight from becoming law. Republicans have tried to reform the system, and Democrats have stood in the way every time. They now have the gall to blame Republicans and the private sector for the financial mess resulting from their own policies. (And these are the people who want to run our healthcare.)

Enter Clinton crony Franklin Raines, who took the helm at Fannie Mae in 1999. By the time he left Fannie six years later under an ethical cloud, he had looted it for nearly $100 million in compensation. Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn large bonuses. (Remember, Democrats are the same ones who rail against large CEO bonuses.)

In the end, Fannie Mae had to pay a record $400 million civil fine, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.

(According to the Washington Post on July 16, Franklin Raines has also served as an advisor to Barack Obama on mortgage and housing policy.)

On Friday, Congress passed a taxpayer-funded, pork-laden bailout of the mortgage industry that will cost us some $700 billion. An initial bailout package failed in the House due to overwhelming constituent dissatisfaction. (As is often the case, we, the people, know better than those we elect to Congress.)

One thing is clear. The real roots of the mortgage crisis are being ignored by the media, who are complicit in allowing the Democrat-led Congress to shift the blame from themselves and onto the Bush administration and private sector, while we taxpayers get stuck with the tab of Democrat mismanagement. Ironically, the ones who broke the mortgage industry, the Democrats, now propose to be the ones to “fix” it.

Senator Joe Biden is a gaffe machine. He’s the gift that keeps on giving. The man who would be vice president has made some whoppers that make Dan Quayle look like Charlton Heston.

For starters, just last week in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis, Senator Biden tried to score political points by reminding the voters “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’”

Problem is, FDR didn’t have the benefit of television. He was instead famous for his fireside chats that were delivered over the radio. But more notably, you’d think that since the Democrats trot out the “worst economy since Hoover” line every election they’d actually know that Herbert Hoover was president at the time of stock market crash of 1929 — not FDR.

Speaking of people in wheelchairs, at a campaign rally earlier this month, Senator Biden instructed a man in a wheelchair to “Stand up, Chuck, so people can see you.” Oops.

Just the week before, Senator Biden illustrated the elitism of the Obama/Biden ticket when he proclaimed “All this stuff about how different Barack Obama is, they’re just not used to somebody really smart. They’re just not used to somebody who’s really well educated. They just don’t know quite how to handle it, ’cause if he’s as smart as Barack is, he mustn’t be from my neighborhood.”

Senator Biden isn’t exactly a candidate who exudes confidence, either. Back on September 11, he conceded “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend. She is qualified to be president of the United States of America. She’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America. And, quite frankly, um, it might have been a better pick than me.”

And this is the man who would be second in command, or, as the cliche goes, one heartbeat away from the presidency, conceding that he isn’t the best man for the job.

Joe Biden also has a strange way of defining patriotism. In Canton, Ohio on September 18, the senator proclaimed “We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people.” Of those who would pay more, he said “It’s time to be patriotic…time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

This comes from a guy whose party has rooted against its own country during a time of war, besmirched the troops, and trashes the U.S. at every opportunity. His idea of patriotism is instead to pay higher taxes.

On a recent episode of NBC’s Meet the Press, Senator Biden appealed to the 13th Century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas to cast doubt on the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion. In fact, the Catholic Church has consistently taken a pro-life position, and Senator Biden was publicly chastised by the Church for misrepresenting its position.

But the Catholic Church isn’t the only one to publicly chastise Joe Biden. Even Barack Obama, Biden’s own running mate, has dumped on the senator from Delaware. Just last week, Senator Obama criticized John McCain for his opposition to a government bailout of AIG. When it was pointed out that Senator Biden had taken the same position, Obama remarked “I think Joe should have waited, as well.”

What makes this exchange so comical is that Joe Biden has publicly chastized Obama at least twice. The Obama/Biden campaign recently ran a commercial claiming that John McCain is out of touch because he can’t even use e-mail. In fact, as a result of injuries he sustained while a POW in Vietnam, McCain has limited use of his arms and cannot use a keyboard.

Senator Biden went after his own campaign for “making fun of John McCain’s inability to use a computer,” stating “I thought that was terrible by the way,” and that “I didn’t know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it.”

And last week while making a campaign appearance, Joe Biden warned “Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey. If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.”

And then there’s a little issue with coal. Senator Biden informed an environmentalist at a campaign rally just a few days ago ”No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them, over there [in China]. Make them clean. We’re not supporting clean coal.”

But the Obama/Biden campaign does support clean coal. In fact, Joe Biden is on record himself asserting “Imagine…what Barack and I can do taking that $4 billion…and investing it in coal gasification, finding out what we can do with carbon sequestration, finding out how we can burn the coal that you dig that can free us from being dependent on foreign oil countries and at the same time not ruin the environment. That’s within our capacity to do it, if you give me $4 billion I promise you, I promise you we will find the answer.”

The man who would be next in line to the presidency isn’t the sharpest knife in the box. As a voter, you’d like for your vice presidential candidate to know his history, know what his positions are, be on the same page as his running mate, and sincerely believe he is the best person for the job. Joe Biden is none of these. Senator Biden is simply an empty-suit politician who panders to whatever group he happens to be speaking to, and relies on the ignorance of others in order to score political points. At the moment, however, the candidate Joe Biden seems to be helping the most isn’t Barack Obama, but John McCain.

Back on September 4, a liberal reader at a Washington Post blog called ”The Fix“ commented that “Mrs. Palin needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.” This came as Barack Obama’s supporters were trying to assure the American people that a community organizer was someone of great importance and stature, even qualified to lead the free world.

Before Obama, most Americans had never heard the term “community organizer.” Even liberals never made it a part of their campaign lingo before now. But “community organizer” is a huge bullet on Obama’s brief resume, yet the Obama campaign has never really defined “community organizer.” As it turns out, that’s how Senator Obama describes the work he did for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a left-wing organization known primarily for voter registration fraud.

It’s been funny watching Obama supporters go out on the stump to assure the voters of the solemn importance of community organizers, and with a straight-face, no less.

At any rate, the religious comparisons didn’t stop at “The Fix.” The mainstream press picked it up, and Democrats began to engage in the groupthink that is typical of liberalism. Within days, we had at least three prominent liberals repeat the metaphor.

Actress and liberal activist Susan Sarandon: “Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor. That’s all I have to say.”

Donna Brazile: “Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor, and perhaps they should understand the role of a — a community organizer to help people in distress.”

Congressman Steve Cohen, on the floor of the House of Representatives: “I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the parties have differences, but if you want change, you want the Democratic Party. Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor.”

There are many wonderful things you can say about Jesus Christ, but “community organizer” is not among them. The Scriptures give us many names for the Christ, such as Wonderful, Counselor, Prince of Peace, Messiah, Savior, Emmanuel, Son of Man, Son of God, etc. But nowhere is Jesus described as a community organizer.

Liberals are so funny whenever they start trying to make points about Christianity. You see, these are the same people who demand separation of church and state from evangelicals, telling us in no way can we mix religion and politics, and become irate whenever we invoke the name of Jesus Christ in a reverent way. (Remember how they reacted to The Passion of the Christ?)

But Democrats have no problem mischaracterizing Jesus Christ to further their own political agenda. Indeed, liberals don’t like Christ when it comes to their own sin, but they love Christ when they can twist his image into that of some distorted political activist.

Leave it to the left to elevate their candidate to a deity — this is why we call him the Obamessiah — while at the same time reducing the one, true Messiah to a left-wing political activist. And leave it to the left to compare the GOP’s vice presidential candidate to the Roman governor who signed Christ’s death warrant when it is, in fact, all of us who have committed the sins that Christ went to the Cross to redeem.

There’s almost always an irony when liberals step in it, and this one is no different. Back in the spring, Senator Obama ridiculed small-town voters when he remarked “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

So here we are just a few weeks before the election, and it is Obama’s supporters who are clinging to religion, in a false and perveted way, in order to deify their candidate.

For the first time, I am excited about the candidacy of John McCain. By choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, we actually have a conservative on the GOP ticket. What a relief! John McCain is no longer merely the anti-Obama. We conservatives now have a legitimate reason to vote for McCain, instead of just against Barack Obama.

We know John McCain made a wise choice, because the left has tied itself in knots trying to discredit Sarah Palin and bring her down. This means they are scared to death of this woman.

The Democrats had every opportunity to nominate a woman for president. They then had every opportunity to nominate a woman for vice-president. They instead chose an inexperienced black man with socialist views and a messiah complex, who then chose a white male as his running mate, leaving women shut out.

John McCain then one-upped the party of women’s rights by nominating a pro-life conservative Christian woman as his running mate, and the Democrats have become everything they accuse the right of being: namely, male chauvinists.

Within days of the Palin announcement the mainstream press, which is unabashedly campaigning for Obama, as well as the left-wing kook blogs, had concocted a wild array of rumors and conspiracy theories about Sarah Palin.

One left-wing blog, DailyKos, insisted that the youngest of Palin’s five children wasn’t her son but that of her oldest daughter.

In a separate op/ed, the left-wing Ellen Ratner asserted that “I’m afraid that all that McCain’s done is select a ‘Trophy VP’ the way some rich older guys marry a trophy wife: much younger, looks good on your arm, wears jewelry really well and can hold her own at cocktail parties.”

Alan Holmes, sidekick to Sean Hannity in Fox’s Hannity & Colmes, wrote on his website “Did Palin Take Proper Pre-Natal Care?” in connection with Palin’s pregnancy and childbirth earlier this year. Trig Palin was born with Down’s Syndrome on April 18. (This may the first time in recorded history that a liberal expressed concern for the unborn.)

Yes, the Sarah Palin chose life in her Down’s Syndrome pregnancy. Believe me, this absolutely frosts the left.

A few days after Governor Palin burst on the national scene it was revealed that her eldest daughter, Bristol, is five-months pregnant. (So much for the underage children of political candidates being off-limits.)

In a rare lucid moment of moral clarity for the left, liberals went Jerry Falwell on us. Even Baptist preachers usually don’t get this worked up over sin.

The fun part of Republican scandals is watching the morality-free left suddenly get religion. Their 2004 VP nominee (not underage daughter of the nominee) just had his adulterous affair exposed, the left yawned, and the media gave it scant coverage.

Indeed, the left sets its morality bar so low that a snake couldn’t crawl underneath. They excuse any and all form of misbehavior by their own people. But should a Republican slide, they make us out to be hypocrites. I guess it’s because we Christian conservatives proclaim there is a standard of right and wrong for all people, for all-time. The left really hates that about us, so when we sin, they hold us to a much higher degree of morality than they hold themselves. There’s your hypocrisy.

At any rate, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News trashed female supporters of Palin, remarking “She is not appealing to the same women who were really voting — or supporting Hillary Clinton on ideological issues, but they think that they can peel off some of these working-class women, not college educated, who — the blue-collar women who were voting for Hillary Clinton and may be more conservative on social causes.”

And Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post proclaimed “I wrote about what Governor Palin was thinking when she knew her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant and decided to accept the vice presidential nomination, and my first comment was: “How could you go ahead and do this? You’re exposing this poor child, who’s already in a terrible situation — not, probably, of her own choosing, to a lot of attention. You don’t need to focus like that at a time like this.”

This is really odd, because the mantra of liberal feminism is more or less to avoid children and pursue a career, or, if you have children, put them second, and pursue a career. So we have Sarah Palin, mother of five, who is pursuing a position that has never been attained by a female, and a liberal woman insists that Palin shouldn’t be climbing that ladder because of her pregnant daughter.

Not only is Sarah Palin a substantive conservative Christian who is pro-life and pro-gun, she is also a former beauty queen. That’s what gets the feminists. Sure, the left wants to elevate a woman to high office, but they want her to be a dreary, left-wing Nurse Ratched. The Republicans are offering a happy, conservative mother of five, and the left has recoiled like Dracula from the Cross.

But you have to love the left and their identity politics. With Barack Obama, the left sees a black man. Conservatives see a pro-abortion socialist. Yet we are the ones accused of racism when we criticize his views. With Sarah Palin, the left sees a former beauty queen. Conservatives see a pro-life conservative Christian. Yet we are the ones accused of sexism for rallying behind her.

You’d think that the nomination of Sarah Palin as candidate for vice-president would mollify the party of women’s rights. Yet the nomination of Sarah Palin has served to turn liberals into male chauvinists instead.

So while liberals and liberal feminists celebrate their male candidates, it is the GOP that offers voters a dose of real change.

Here go the drum beats for another tax increase in Wilson County. This time, it’s a property tax hike to benefit the school budget, although the county commission is also considering a wheel tax increase or a sales tax increase.

According to an August 26 news story in the Lebanon Democrat, the county’s Financial Management Committee has recommended a 20-cent property tax increase to help fund the school budget. Even then, the school budget would still be an estimated $3.1 million short. An increase of about 34 cents would be needed to fully fund the $7.5 million shortfall.

You have to pay close attention to the lingo used by government officials. A 20-cent property tax increase would infuse the school system with an extra $4.4 million. But they want $7.5 million. Tax increase advocates would not view a 20-cent hike as an increase of $4.4 million. They would view it as a $3.1 million dollar cut. Even though the budget would grow from one year to the next, anything less than a fully-funded proposed budget would still be construed as a cut, so you have to be wary whenever government officials start throwing around the word “cut.”

Director of Schools Mike Davis said of the proposed 20-cent increase “We’d be short $3.1 million. That’d impact everything from school busses to books to personnel.”

“We can suspend the athletic program … and not pay coaches. We can discuss [cutting] nurses, teacher aides and assistant principals. We could put [assistant principals] back in the classroom and dismiss some teachers.”

“In seven years we’ve increased 400-plus students every year. That’s 2,800 students. Over the same seven-year period there hasn’t been a tax-increase to fund [student growth].”

Actually, the county levied an adequate facilities tax five years ago for the specified purpose of funding growth. That tax was subsequently increased.

Also, the tax base has not remained static. This is why, to cite a popular cliche, growth pays for itself. You don’t need to keep increasing tax rates in order to fund growth. Every person who moves to Wilson County pays into the tax base. True, population growth places greater demands on government, but population growth also puts more tax money in the coffers to meet those demands.

This is a popular tactic employed by governments when they start demanding tax increases. They take a high profile budget item and say we are going to have to cut that. The Tennessee government did this several years ago while trying to wring an income tax out of us. Governor Sundquist shut down several state parks for a season, and threatened to close interstate rest areas and visitor centers. Why? To make the budget “shortfall” as visible and painful as possible.

You won’t hear government officials try to win a tax increase by threatening to cut from the bureaucracy, or any other function that’s transparent to the average taxpayer. The only cuts that can be made are from those functions that are most visible.

But two can play the game of hysterics. Let’s turn the tables on the tax increase advocates this time. If we are stuck with a tax increase, it will force us to make cuts to our family budgets. But we won’t cut the satellite TV, or the cell phone, or the restaurant budget. We’ll cut from the grocery budget, which means that a tax increase would take food off the tables of Wilson County families. Children will go hungry. Or we’ll cut from the medical budget, meaning that we won’t be able to go to the doctor when we get sick. Or, if we can afford a doctor, we still won’t be able to get our prescriptions filled. Children will have their illnesses prolonged. The elderly will have to choose between medicine and dog food if our taxes are raised.

Really, if we were to rank all the functions of county government in terms of importance, would school busses, books, athletic programs, school nurses, teacher aides, and assistant principals rank at the bottom? If so, then let’s call the bluff. Go ahead and cut them. If not, and if cuts absolutely must be made in order to balance the budget, then let’s reach a little farther down that list of importance and cut some things that will have less of an impact.

For some reason, governments believe they should never have to do with less. The burden of budget-cutting is always shifted to the taxpayers and their personal budgets. Governments also can never get enough of our money. Whether or not there is a tax increase this year, the county government will be back sooner or later wanting another one. We know this from experience. We therefore may as well tell them “no.”

Will the county government have to cut from its proposed budget? Maybe so. But it’s something families do all the time to accommodate their most pressing needs. Most of us do not get everything we want. Government should be no different.

On July 15, President Bush lifted the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. At a news conference the following day, the President repeated his position while slamming the Democrat Congress for not lifting the congressional moratorium on drilling offshore and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August plunged $9.26, or 6.3%, almost immediately as President Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.

Oil prices have not stopped dropping since. As of this writing, the price of oil was $116 per barrel, down more than 20% since President Bush’s July 16 news conference. Some of the additional decline may be attributable to a slight decrease in demand, but the fact remains that President Bush sent the pendulum swinging the other way.

Wrote Larry Kudlow at National Review Online, “Democrats keep saying that it will take 10 years or longer to produce oil from the offshore areas. And they say that oil prices won’t decline for at least that long. And they, along with Obama and McCain, bash so-called oil speculators. And today we had a real-world example as to why they are wrong. All of them. Reid, Pelosi, Obama, McCain – all of them.”

Indeed, President Bush proved in one day what Democrats said would require ten years: that increasing the supply of oil will lower prices. Even the prospect of drilling for more oil caused the price to drop.

Given repeated opportunities to allow more drilling, especially along the outer continental shelf, Democrats have refused. The Democrats say we need to end our dependence on foreign oil. Their solution? Completely transition from oil to renewable energy. Al Gore has set the bar at ten years to make that transition. So ten years is too far off for drilling, but not for renewable energy.

The American economy is by far the largest in the world. Oil is fuel that drives this economy. Yet Democrats display more vitriol toward oil than Osama bin Laden. Oil has become the enemy of the Democrat Party.

When Democrats became the majority party in Congress in January, 2007, the average gas price was $2.32 a gallon. Last month, the price peaked at $4.10 a gallon — a whopping 77% increase in just 18 months.

Imagine a typical family that uses, say, 100 gallons of gas every month. Now imagine that we did open more areas for drilling and the price were to come back down to $2.32 a gallon, which is not an unreasonable expectation. That would translate to a savings of $178 per month, or $2,136 per year. That’s the equivalent of a robust tax cut similar to the Bush tax cuts. Of course, we know how the Democrats feel about tax cuts. Except the Democrats couldn’t spin this one as a tax cut for the rich. As far as percentages go, rising gas prices hurt the poor the most, and so a reduction in gas prices would similarly help the poor the most. And Democrats are all about helping the poor — except when they stand to lose politically, then the poor become irrelevant.

You see, Democrats don’t want the price of gas to come down as long as President Bush is in office. They need to be able to pin the blame for high gas prices on President Bush and the GOP, because on the left, politics trumps the good of the country and the good of the consumer. So Democrats must make the American people suffer just a little while longer while they go pandering for votes. Despite their witless “we can’t drill our way out of this” rhetoric, they know that increasing supply, which is the GOP’s solution, would be the most effective means for lowering gas prices. We know they know because Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have both called on President Bush to release a portion of the strategic oil reserve in order to lower gas prices in the near-term. In other words, they want to increase supply in order to lower gas prices. But they don’t want to drill, which illustrates why liberalism is so bereft of logic and common sense.

To quote a Tennessee GOP bumper sticker, your wallet is the only place Democrats want to drill.

Last month, Barack Obama, remarking on his hypothetical presidency, prophesied “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal….”

I couldn’t have made this one up. If elected, Barack Obama is going to lower the sea levels. We all knew he was the Messiah, but at least he stopped short of claiming he would part the water, turn it into wine, walk on it, or calm the stormy seas.

Of course, Senator Obama insinuates that by adopting his global warming policies, we can alter the earth’s climate, which will supposedly put the brakes on the rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps.

Not to be outdone, a couple of weeks later, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi explained that she won’t allow more drilling in the outer continental shelf because “I’m trying to save the planet.” Democrats have gotten so full of themselves they actually believe they can change the weather, not just here in the United States, but on the other side of the world, where they don’t even have legislative jurisdiction.

The primary global warming bill being considered by the Democrat Congress — the one that is going to alter the climate — is known as “cap-and-trade.” Fortunately, it was killed back in June by Senate Republicans. Had the bill passed, it would have capped carbon dioxide coming from power plants, refineries, and factories, with a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 71% by mid-century.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a prominent coal-producing state, referred to cap-and-trade as “a huge tax increase,” maintaining the proposed system of allowing widespread trading of carbon emissions allowances would produce “the largest restructuring of the American economy since the New Deal.”

Since refusing to allow more oil drilling will ostensibly help save the planet, Senator Obama has just the plan. On July 30, the Obamessiah instructed “We could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and — and — and getting regular tune-ups, you can actually save just as much.”

Inflate your tires and get tune-ups? That’s Barack Obama’s energy policy in a nutshell. This is the guy who’s going to lower the seas. It’s the sort of thing you learn from your father when you get your first set of keys, but it passes for deep thoughts over on the left. Whatever would we do without meddlesome liberals telling us how carry out even the most rudimentary tasks in life?

Really, if the majority party in Congress could actually affect the weather by passing bills (not to mention inflating tires and getting tune-ups), why don’t they outlaw flooding, like they recently endured in the Midwest? Why don’t they ban hurricanes from striking the U.S. mainland? Imagine no more Hurricane Katrina’s. Why don’t they stop killer tornadoes like the one that struck Macon County back in February? Why don’t they ban severe cold snaps and deadly heat waves? Mudslides and tsunamis? Heck, why not go ahead and ban earthquakes, too, if Democrats can govern Mother Nature the same way they govern the American people?

It is the height of arrogance and conceit to claim you can alter the earth’s climate by merely passing a piece of legislation and then expecting the atmosphere to comply, yet that’s exactly what Democrats are telling us they can do. At the same time, it is the height of gullibility to believe they can actually do it.