Good or bad...I'm still the guy with the shotgun.

Wednesday 26 May 2010

My friends, (and my enemies), I am writing to let you know that my time here at Political Integrity Now is coming to an end.  Today is truly my last day as contributor and Conservative Troublemaker here at PIN.

It has been nothing short of an amazing privilege, honor, and blessing to be allowed to opine as freely as I have, and to hopefully cause people to stop and think.  Our Nation needs Patriots, and I am hopeful I fed or created a few of you!

I wish to extend my deepest gratitude and thanks to Chet and Natalie.  They offered me the chance to contribute here and have always stood by me, even if they didn’t always agree with me!    They have been awesome “bosses” and showed a great deal of faith in even inviting me here to join their team.  I shall always regard them with fondness and warmth.

Thanks to all the followers, casual guests, visitors, and critics who have made PIN what it is today.  PIN could not have done it without you!  I also would like to extend my thanks to those who challenged me, berated me, and praised me via private emails.  I heard every word you all said, believe me!  (I may not have agreed with them all, but that’s what makes America the greatest nation on Earth!)

God Bless America, and as always, Long Live the Republic.  The pleasure has been all mine.

Sincerely, and without regret,

Donald Borsch Jr.

Bethel, CT 26 May 2010 Wednesday  donaldborschjr@yahoo.com

I will be concentrating on my walk with Jesus, and making observations thereof, over at Christian Commentator on WordPress.  It is a “politics-free” blog, and moreso a Spiritual Warfare blog, if you can dig what I’m sayin’.  It’s time.

I saw this on Facebook, from Pamela Deanne, and wanted to share it here.

Long Live the Republic, and truly, God Bless America.

Paralyzed Veterans of America: Essay and Poster Contest 2010

Well, at least for President Obama, it is.

Eschewing again his traditional role as Commander in Chief to cater to his people, President Obama opts out of laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, instead choosing to send Joe (gaffe-machine) Biden there in his place.  Obama is not the first President to do such a thing.  But he is the first President to do such a thing who also has no respect for, or from, our military members.  Perhaps it is too painful for Obama to even step foot into Arlington, as it reminds him of all the Socialists, Communists, and America-haters that have been killed by our heroes and Veterans.

You have done a great many unjust things, President Obama.  You have apologized for America being the strongest damn Nation on Earth to weaker countries.  You have done your best to bankrupt us.  You have lied, manipulated, and coerced your way into office.  But this.  Wow.  You might just as well spit on Veterans.

You are the.  Worst.  President.  Ever.  You’ll realize this in November 2012.

From RedState:

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Tonight: President Obama orders troops to our border with Mexico, 1,200 National Guard. Now, is that enough? Arizona Governor Brewer fired off a statement reading, in part, “Today’s media report represents a very significant and important shift in the president’s immigration and border security policy. My signing of senate bill 1070 has clearly ignited the talk of action in Washington for the people of Arizona and other border states.” Arizona governor Brewer goes on to say, “I am anxious to hear the details that have not been disclosed of where, how and for how long additional forces will be deployed. With the accountability of this election year, I am pleased and grateful at long last, there’s been a partial response from the Obama administration to my demands that Washington do its job.” Now, that was Arizona Governor Brewer!

So what about Arizona’s U.S. senator, John McCain? Senator McCain and Senator Kyl have demanded 6,000 troops. That’s 4,800 less (SIC) than what the president is now sending.

Read the rest of Greta’s article here.

Michelle Malkin has this to say:

The most glaring sign that President Obama’s announcement of border funding and National Guard troops is one big, phony charade? He apparently didn’t even bother to let the governor of besieged Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer, know about it. Via Yahoo News:

The Obama administration plans to announce Tuesday that it will send as many as 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to improve border security, an Arizona congresswoman said.

Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords also said in a statement released Tuesday that President Barack Obama will request $500 million in funding for border security.

Part of Giffords’ district borders Mexico.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s spokesman said the governor hadn’t been told of the move prior to her office being contacted by The Associated Press and had no immediate comment.

I called out the Bush administration and Republicans countless times when they used border security as a campaign ploy and performed Get Tough Theater only to flake out on systemic immigration enforcement reform — and then drop the shamnesty shoe.

This is no different. Both political parties in Washington reek on the issue.

The only thing worse than open-borders Obama exploiting our illegal immigration woes is open-borders Johnny-come-lately John McCain continuing to do the same.

Until politicians with proven integrity and commitment to securing this country against invasion step into the leadership vacuum, Arizona’s DIY policy on border security is the only trustworthy one:

Do It Yourself.

Apparently, according to this AP article, President Obama is tired of how the US Constitution allows Congress to spend money, and Obama wants this changed.  So, he is seeking to introduce new legislation to make it so he has more control.  Nice.

It seems to always come down to that pesky Constitution of ours.  I wonder if Obama shouldn’t just shred it and let us all know how he really feels about it, instead of skirting this issue as he does.

I also find it deliciously odd that he is seeking to force Congress, his Democrat-controlled Congress, mind you, to stop wasteful spending when he was so hot-to-trot on spending trillions we simply do not have.  (But which can be printed, easily, of course.)  I’d hate to see how he balances his own personal checking account.  This man’s grasp of money and fiscal responsibility is at the fourth-grade level.

Anyhoos, here is AP article.  Please to enjoy.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Monday is sending legislation to Congress that would allow him to force lawmakers to vote on cutting earmarks and wasteful programs from spending bills.

The legislation would award Obama and his successors the ability to take two months or more to scrutinize spending bills that have already been signed into law for pork barrel projects and other dubious programs. He could then send Congress a package of spending cuts for a mandatory up-or-down vote on whether to accept or reject them.

Senate Democrats filibustered the idea to death just three years ago, and so Obama’s move would seem like a long shot. But the plan could pick up traction in the current anti-Washington political environment in which lawmakers are desperate to demonstrate they are tough on spending.

The White House move also comes as Obama’s Democratic allies in Congress are trying to pass a tax and spending bill providing $170 billion for programs such as unemployment benefits, aid to state governments, and help for doctors facing a big cut in Medicare reimbursements. The Senate is also taking up an almost $60 billion war funding bill, and a vote looms on an administration-backed plan to add $23 billion to help school districts avoid teacher layoffs.

Under the Constitution, the president has to either sign a bill — forcing him to take the bad along with the good — or veto it, which can be impractical. That allows Congress to pad spending legislation with items a president does not like.

The White House says Obama would use the new power to try to weed out earmarks such as water and sewer grants and road projects not requested by the administration.

See the rest here.

Ah, forget it.  Here are the articles, folks.  You read and decide for yourselves.  Long Live the Republic.

Firstly, from The Newsroom, our opener about what Paul originally said Wednesday the 19th:

Tea party candidate Rand Paul won Kentucky’s GOP Senate nomination in part by bucking the establishment, but could his unconventional beliefs hurt him in the general election?

Paul is under fire today for saying Wednesday, first in an interview with National Public Radio and then to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, that he opposes part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race,” Paul told Maddow, saying discrimination and segregation was a “stain on our history.”

But he said he doesn’t agree with a provision in the bill that makes it a crime for businesses to discriminate on the basis of race.

It’s a philosophical difference, Paul told Maddow: He doesn’t believe the federal government should be able to intrude on how a private business operates.

If “you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says, ‘Well, no, we don’t want to have guns in here’?” Paul said. “Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?”

It’s a tricky argument that GOP officials have declined to comment on. But Dave Weigel over at the Washington Post defends Paul and tries to explain the point the candidate is trying to make.

Paul is articulating “a philosophical and legal stance” and refusing “to dissemble in a way that would, you know, get people to stop accusing him of some archaic form of racism,” Weigel writes.

Weigel continues: “Paul believes, as many conservatives believe, that the government should ban bias in all of its institutions but cannot intervene in the policies of private businesses.”

LATE UPDATE: Paul has now reversed himself and says he does support the Civil Rights Act.  (See next link!)

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And now, let’s look at Rand Paul and Civil Rights, today, Thursday the 20th.  Also from The Newsroom:

After an intense 24 hours, tea party darling Rand Paul — Kentucky’s new Republican nominee for the Senate — is stepping back from his criticisms of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  He tells conservative radio host Laura Ingraham that he does in fact support the historic legislation. And he tells CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he would have voted for it if he were in the Senate.

That statement came after he declined to say he supported the act in interviews Wednesday on NPR and “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC. In both those exchanges, Paul said that though he personally abhorred discrimination and believed it should be banned from government-funded programs, he disagreed with the provision in the Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination by private businesses. Paul, along with many libertarians, believes that the federal government should have a very limited role in the everyday lives of Americans.

But after a firestorm Thursday, Paul told Ingraham that it was a “poor political decision” to go on Maddow’s show and declared that he supported both the ban on public discrimination and the ban on private discrimination.

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NOTE: If you follow the links to their original postings, there are some nifty videos to watch as well.

“If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it.  Let me repeat that:  If you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep it.”

This is heady reading, so be prepared to get your brain stretched.  Mr. Clemente is, of course, spot-on.

Please to enjoy.  Article follows—h/t to CSteven over on Facebook!

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On July 21st of last year, President Obama made a promise to the American people.  In a televised speech, the president gave us his word:

If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it.  Let me repeat that:  If you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep it.

On December 9th, I wrote a blog in which I quoted a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that refuted Mr. Obama’s claim:

We estimate that between 9 million and 10 million other people who would be covered by an employment-based plan under current law would not have an offer of such coverage under the proposal.

Now it appears that skepticism regarding the president’s ability to keep his promise was in fact warranted.  In an op-ed written for this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Dr. Scott Gottlieb writes:

President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It’s clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama’s plan.

That is because the new law places caps on how much insurance companies can spend on expenses.  Beginning next year, insurers will be allowed to spend no more than 20 percent of what they take in in premiums on running plans sold to small employers and individuals; and, they will be allowed to spend no more than 15 percent of what they take in on plans sold to large employers.  These new regulations will have the greatest impact on those who purchase their insurance directly rather than receiving through an employer.  Gottlieb writes:

…individual policies have high start-up costs. If insurers cannot spend more of their revenue getting plans on track, fewer new policies will be offered.

That means that some policies currently being offered will be no longer be available and even if patients “like their current plan,” they will still lose it.

But the Democrats’ reform bill will not only affect the coverage offered by insurers; it will also affect how doctors administer care.  The new regulations will raise operating costs, making it more difficult for doctors to own their own practices.  In fact, many have begun selling their private practices to local hospitals.  In 2005, over two-thirds of medical practices were privately owned by doctors.  But as of next year, over 60 percent of physicians will be salaried employees with about a third working in hospitals.  This shift away from privately owned practices will undoubtedly cause some patients to lose the doctors and the care that they currently enjoy.  According to Gottlieb:

Consolidated practices and salaried doctors will leave fewer options for patients and longer waiting times for routine appointments.

Routine appointments aren’t the only places that Americans can expect longer wait times.  According to Jay Heflin of The Hill, the Democrats’ healthcare reform bill will force 32 million newly insured patients into the already overused emergency rooms.  Although one of the goals of reform was to alleviate some of the pressures felt by ERs by providing preventative medicine for those who typically end up in them, America does not possess the infrastructure to accommodate tens of millions of new patients.  In Heflin’s article, Rich Dallam, a healthcare partner at the architectural firm NBBJ, states:

Everybody expected that one of the initial impacts of reform would be less pressure on emergency departments; it’s going to be exactly the opposite over the next four to eight years.  We don’t have the primary care infrastructure in place in America to cover the need. Our clients are looking at and preparing for more emergency department volume, not less.

In fact, the Academy of Architecture for Health predicts that hospitals will have to spend at least $2 trillion over the next 2 decades to keep up with the rising demand.

The fact of the matter is that in place of the real reforms promised by President Obama and the Democrat-run Congress, Americans should expect less care, fewer options and longer wait times.  Fortunately, the fight to take back America and repeal this healthcare nightmare has already begun.  And November is just a few short months away.

Calderon says the guns that his drug cartels are using to kill, torture, rape, and torment are our problem.  We are to blame.  Such arrogance.  Obama refuses to rebuke him, and Congress applauds him.  Enough.  Send this guy back to his own country to hang out with the other donkeys and profit from our tourism.

From AP:

WASHINGTON – Mexican President Felipe Calderon took his opposition to a new Arizona immigration law to Congress Thursday, saying it “ignores a reality that cannot be erased by decree.”

The Mexican leader also told lawmakers reluctant to take up the immigration issue this year that comprehensive immigration reform is crucial to securing the two countries’ common border.

Calderon, the first foreign national leader to address Congress this year, said he strongly disagrees with the Arizona law that requires police to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they are in the country illegally.

“It is a law that not only ignores a reality that cannot be erased by decree but also introduced a terrible idea using racial profiling,” he said to cheers, mainly from the Democratic side of the chamber.

Racial profiling?  Oh, for pete’s sake, someone send this guy a memo in Spanish that he can understand, and explain to him that his country racially profiles and demands documentation and is known for kidnapping wealthy folks to hold for ransoms.  And it is because of his inability to do anything about the drug cartels, *cough*, who are probably funding his poor country behind the scenes, that cities in Arizona are dangerous and known for having high kidnapping rates.  Enough.

And broaching another highly sensitive issue, he urged Congress to restore a ban on assault weapons, saying easy access to high-powered weapons is contributing to drug-related violence along the border.

Calderon also took up the Arizona law in a meeting Wednesday with President Barack Obama, who referred to the law as a “misdirected expression of frustration.”

The Mexican leader said his country was doing its best, by promoting more jobs and opportunities at home, to reduce the flow of immigrants to the United States.

But he stressed the “need to fix a broken and inefficient system … the time has come to reduce the causes of migration and to turn this into a legal, orderly and secure flow of workers and visitors.”

Obama is pressing lawmakers to take up legislation that would deal with border security, employment and citizenship. It is questionable whether Congress, in an election year, has the fortitude to tackle such a highly sensitive issue.

Calderon also got a standing ovation from Democrats when he asked the United States to stop the flow of assualt weapons and other arms across the border and reinstate the ban on many assault weapons that was enacted in 1994 but allowed to expire during the George W. Bush presidency.

He said there are more than 7,000 gun shops along the border where almost anyone can purchase weapons.

Speaking in English, he warned of the risk when “core values we all care about are breached.”

The only breach I see, Senor Calderon, is you coming here to a superior and stronger Nation and acting like a pompous ass.  You have had plenty of time to get your act together and make Mexico a world power.  Enough.

See fantastic article from Greg Halvorson over at Red State.  He has an interesting development to report on.

Read.  Digest.  Decide for yourselves about this.

From AP: [bold emphasis mine]

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani government blocked access to YouTube on Thursday because of “sacrilegious” content in a growing Internet crackdown against sites deemed offensive to the country’s majority Muslim population.

The move against the video-sharing website came a day after the government blocked access to Facebook amid anger over a page on the social networking site that encourages users to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Islam prohibits any images of the prophet.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority did not point to specific material on YouTube that prompted it to block the site, only citing “growing sacrilegious contents.” The government acted against both Facebook and YouTube after it failed to persuade the websites to remove the “derogatory material,” the regulatory body said in a statement.

It welcomed representatives from the two websites to contact the Pakistani government to resolve the dispute in a way that “ensures religious harmony and respect.”

The regulatory body said it has blocked more than 450 Internet links containing offensive material, but it is unclear how many of the links were blocked in the last two days.

Access to the online encyclopedia site Wikipedia also was restricted Thursday, but it was not clear if the government had intended to do so. The head of the Pakistani telecommunications company Nayatel, Wahajus Siraj, said the restriction resulted from a technical glitch.

The government blocked Facebook on Wednesday after a group of Islamic lawyers won a court order requiring officials to restrict access to the site until May 31. It was unclear if the ban against YouTube also would be temporary.

The Facebook page “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” encourages users to post images of the prophet on May 20 to protest threats made by a radical Muslim group against the creators of the animated American television series “South Park” for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.

The page sparked protests from radical students in Pakistan, with some holding signs urging Islamic holy war against those who blaspheme the prophet.

Seniors are being asked to provide their birthdates, Social Security numbers and citizen status to the Secret Service so background checks could be performed. Such a check is required for anyone who gets within an arm’s length of the president, students were told at their senior breakfast Friday.

I can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air nails this issue nicely.  h/t to Allison H. for this awesome expose!

Check it:

Barack Obama has spent the last few weeks offering baleful warnings about the consequences of Arizona’s new immigration law, warning of the potential discrimination that could occur if law enforcement officials start asking about legal residency and checking papers. Apparently, that’s something of which Obama is already keenly aware — and in which students in Kalamazoo, Michigan just got a crash course. In order to be personally greeted by the President, they were told, the government needs to check on their citizenship status, emphasis mine:

The White House appears to be laying the groundwork for President Barack Obama to shake the hand of each senior at Kalamazoo Central High School’s commencement ceremony next month.

Seniors are being asked to provide their birthdates, Social Security numbers and citizen status to the Secret Service so background checks could be performed. Such a check is required for anyone who gets within an arm’s length of the president, students were told at their senior breakfast Friday.

Of the fact that the White House is requesting information on all the graduating seniors, K-Central Principal Von Washingon Jr. told the students, “I’ll let you figure out what that means,” said senior Simon Boehme, who was at the breakfast.

What it means? It means that the White House is preparing to profile these patriotic American citizens!  They’re going to be just like a police state, demanding “papers” from ordinary folks just to go about their business!  Or, more likely, the Secret Service is just doing their job — as the Arizona law-enforcement officers will do theirs, and the Obama administration won’t.