President Obama says that he wants to nominate a Supreme Court Justice who has “empathy” as opposed to a jurist who makes decisions based on “some abstract legal theory.” Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one troubled by his selection criteria. Thomas Sowell has written an excellent 3 part series “Empathy” Versus Law” (Part 1, [...]

Many Republicans, having discovered that Bush’s policies are tyrannical, are making noises about wanting out of the fascist state that they were cheering on a few months ago. While we may wonder why it took the trivial matter of having people who have the letter D appended to their names on news reports executing Bush’s [...]

For years, activists have been trying to pass federal legislation which prevents the feds from arresting patients (or doctors, growing clubs, etc.) when they’ve been prescribed medicinal marijuana by a physician in the states where such prescriptions are allowed by law.  Libertarians have often made valid points about Republican hypocrisy regarding federalism when it comes [...]

In light of the uproar that we’ve seen over the report that Stephen Gordon brought into the public light earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security has issued this press release: Release Date: April 15, 2009 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 The primary mission of this department is to [...]

Last night, I uploaded a document I had received by e-mail and wrote the following: According to this new Homeland Security report, all it takes to fit the terrorist profile is to have general anti-government feelings or prefer local/state government to federal control over everything. The federal Homeland Security Department document entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current [...]

Big-government Republican hypocricy knows no limits, it seems.  Here’s the latest tweet from Mike Huckabee: Pls support HPAC today, my 3 reasons for $3: rising taxes, deficits, massive exp. of govt http://tinyurl.com/cwpy6t Plse RT #tcot Let’s see if I understand this correctly: Tax Hike Mike wants us to give money to the Huck PAC because [...]

Andrew Sullivan gets it right, and wrong, at the very same time.  He scribed: The remarkable thing about today’s partisan Republicans is their capacity to forget instantly and entirely anything that went on for the past eight years. And so suddenly we are rushing toward socialism, even though by far the biggest jumps in state [...]

Speaking of astroturfing Republicans, Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus told folks in Trussville, Alabama that there “are exactly 17 socialists” in the House of Representatives.  The  National Taxpayers Union just gave Bachus a failing grade of 56% (which they upgraded to a C+ on their liberally-curved grading scale) on spending issues.  Perhaps Bachus should realize that [...]

Here’s the wording (no direct link available yet, but here’s the latest cut-and-paste source) from one of the April 15th Tea Party notifications. To further insult people with an I.Q. over 80, they threw a new Gingrich video on the page.  They ask: Are you fed up with a Congress and a president who: * [...]

As I have said here before, I am a senior technical executive at a large bank. As it happens, a bank that was forced at gunpoint, by the secretary of the treasury and chairman of the federal reserve, to accept TARP funds (as all the top surviving banks in the U.S were). Let me be [...]

The following government conference on openness and transparency is CLOSED to members of the public and the press.  The information below comes from this URL:  http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2009foiapost6.htm. Upcoming Conference Providing Guidance on President Obama’s and Attorney General Holder’s Memoranda on the Freedom of Information Act On March 26, 2009, the Office of Information Policy (OIP), Department [...]

Language matters. When you call a gigantic pork sandwich a “stimulus”, it becomes a very difficult thing to oppose. When your version of “campaign finance reform” is a big slap in the face of free speech and only increases the ability for moneyed interests to protect their incumbent investments, it is still seen by the [...]

In a 2001 article entitled “The Virtue of Greed,” noted economist Walter Williams wrote: “YOU CAN CALL IT GREED, selfishness or enlightened self-interest, but the bottom line is that it’s these human motivations that get wonderful things done. Unfortunately, many people are naive enough to believe that it’s compassion, concern and ‘feeling another’s pain’ that’s [...]

Writing that “Calling Barack Obama’s plan socialistic lacks any class,” Albor Ruiz argues that “fear mongering over a ‘class war’ and an Obama conspiracy to turn the U.S. into a ‘socialist’ country is reaching a fever pitch.” He then cites “Tax Hike Mike” Huckabee as an example: Huckabee, no doubt, takes the cake. “Lenin and [...]

What would they call this, then? A new Citigroup deal has finally been announced by the Treasury. The government will convert $25 billion in preferred shares to common shares. The move could give the Treasury close to a 36% stake in the company. The government’s influence is becoming apparent. Citi will eliminate its dividend and [...]

From Ezra Klein: Over the weekend, I asked Henry Aaron, an economist at Brookings, whether it would be fair to say that the definition of fiscal responsibility had changed. Where once it meant entitlement cuts, now it meant an attention to health reform. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s exactly right.” Ahh, I see… Instead of trying [...]

Michigan’s in some trouble, and as usual, when government starts threatening budget cuts, it’s always to the programs people like: Under Granholm’s proposal, this year’s Michigan State Fair, which runs Aug. 28 to Sept. 7 at the corner of Eight Mile and Woodward Avenue in Detroit, would be the last after 160 years. The state [...]

Move over McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy and McCain-Lieberman.  We’ve now got the Limbaugh-Obama Bipartisan Economic Recovery Package (AKA LOBERP, pronounced like “low burp”).  Here’s the description provided over at The Next Right: Mine is a genuine compromise.  So let’s look at how the vote came out, shall we?  Fifty-three percent of voters in this country — we’ll [...]

From WaPo: The George W. Bush Presidential Center will include a “Freedom Institute” focused on a broad portfolio of topics, including the expansion of democracy abroad and education reforms of the kind Bush implemented during his presidency, according to organizers. Aside from a few really minor issues which defined the Bush presidency (i.e. torture, Gitmo, [...]

“As I’ve said before, the United States does not torture,” said President Bush in 2006.  “It’s against our laws and it’s against our values.” The AP brings us the latest episode of the other half of the story: “We tortured Qahtani,” Crawford said, making her the first senior Bush administration official to say that aggressive [...]