This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated because Steve is enjoying the extra hour tonight. This is not a test, though you can either pass or fail this situation.

For those of you in the US (and not in those parts that don’t observe Daylight Saving), Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 am local time tomorrow, 11/7/2010. If you have a WordPress blog (whether it is on WordPress.com, a WordPress stand-alone, or WordPress MU – this includes Blogivists and Conservablogs), and you had the time changed for Daylight Savings, you need to change it back to Standard Time (Central UTC -6, Mountain UTC -7, Eastern UTC -5, Pacific UTC -8, and check your clock for other locales). To do so, go into your wp-admin panel, select “Settings”, and under the “General Settings” page that pops up, select the right time zone. Don’t forget to hit “save” when you’re done.

Again, this is not a test. Had this been a test, you wouldn’t have been given official news, instructions or information. This concludes this broadcast of the Emergency Blogging System.

Earlier today, I sat down with Jess Ripp, the Republican nominee for the 7th Senate District seat. The seat is currently held by Democrat Jeff Plale, but he will be leaving after being defeated by fellow Democrat Chris Larson in a brutal primary.

We discussed why he got into politics, various issues including transportation, taxation, the major role the Milwaukee area has in the state’s economy, and a couple of surprise endorsements from the mayors of Oak Creek and South Milwaukee.

Click here to listen (and forgive the low quality; Starbucks is not exactly conducive to good sound quality).

I know it is a longshot because the district contains both the most-liberal part of Milwaukee (the East Side and the UWM campus) and traditionally-Democrat union cities such as Cudahy, St. Francis and South Milwaukee. However, I remember that the 2002 taxpayer revolt against the corruptocrats in Milwaukee County that put Scott Walker in as County Executive began in Cudahy, and there can’t be a larger divide between two candidates than there is between Ripp and Larson.

Related: Rick Sense of The Inside Scoop also interviewed Ripp today.

If, for some odd reason, you haven’t already received the invite, Leah Vukmir, who is running against Jim Sullivan for the 5th Senate seat, invites you to Mama’s Italian Cuisine, 7718 W. Burleigh in Milwaukee, for a pizza party tomorrow evening starting at 5:30 pm. There is no charge for the event, but if you want to bring along your checkbook and haven’t already maxed out on your donation limits, her campaign would be happy to take some more money.

Barack Obama?

Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend (You will note that on occasion, I do not endorse the opinions of the author and may point that out. Despite my disagreements, I still feel the piece is worth a read).

Democrat candidates play down party

“One New York Democrat proclaims that he proudly opposed the federal government’s health care overhaul plan. Another one pledges, in the finest Tea Party spirit, to oppose any future financial bailouts. Still another has rolled out three Republicans in three separate commercials, all vouching for his credentials. But there is one word you will not hear mentioned in any of these campaign advertisements: Democrat. ”

The fired Congress

“Some companies have a policy that once someone is fired, they aren’t allowed back on the premises out of fear they might do further damage to the company. It’s too bad Congress doesn’t have the same policy. Because before they’re replaced in January, all of the Democrats who are put out of a job in November will be able to come back and rob the nation blind.”

The rise of black Republicans

“One might think the resurgence of black Republicans, coming as it does at a time when a black Democrat is president, would rate more than a feature story or two in the national media. But that would conflict with the liberal meme that Republicans are racist.

Many liberals also say Republicans are anti-immigrant, even though Hispanic Republicans are poised to win a Senate seat in Florida (Marco Rubio) and gubernatorial races in New Mexico (Susana Martinez) and Nevada (Brian Sandoval).”

A letter from a Republican to Hispanics

“First, a message to those of you here illegally: You may be very surprised to hear this, but in your position, millions of Americans, including me, would have done what you did.”

Regulatory tsunami hurts job growth

“Regulations coming out of Washington, D.C., are impeding job growth and moving the United States away ‘from a government of the people to a government of the regulators,’ the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says.”

Five Societal Trends That Signal Our Nation’s Decline

“Each of these five trends taken separately could be viewed as a serious problem but not necessarily a signal of national decline. However, when these problems are considered collectively with their cause and effect and interrelationships, it becomes apparent why we are facing a society-transforming tsunami that our nation as a free market democracy is nearly powerless to stop — no matter how many millions of dollars our government throws at these problems.”

Is hate speech protected?

“The Supreme Court is now hearing the Snyder-Phelps case and the outcome is important for all Americans. With the rise of the internet, cyber-bullying and threatening behavior has become a plague upon the land. Kids are committing suicide because they are humiliated on the net and anyone can be targeted by sick individuals. Inflicting emotional distress on another human being is just a mouse click away.”

Shocking: Bigoted White Tea Party Woman Beats Petite Black Female Reporter

“I’m sorry, I got that wrong. Stupid me. I’m never going to make it in this business. It was actually a big black liberal woman who whaled on a petite white conservative female reporter last weekend.

Whew, thank God I corrected myself because we all know that if a hulking honky Tea Party mama with dragon nails had smacked down a svelte progressive black female reporter (and on film, no less) it would have caused a media firestorm.”

Here is the Appleton Post-Crescent article I discussed on WISN today while filling in for Mark Belling:

“Federal law makes sewage overflows illegal. Yet they frequently happen and mostly without the public knowing.

In all, about 9.1 billion gallons of untreated sewage-contaminated water — enough to fill 457,000 backyard swimming pools — were released into the environment by 276 villages, cities, counties and sewage districts on 1,198 occurrences statewide since Jan. 1, 2006, according to data collected by the DNR and analyzed by The Post-Crescent. The wastewater overflows happened in 58 of the state’s 72 counties, including throughout the Fox Valley.

The state’s biggest by far came from one source: the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District, which provides sewage service for 28 municipalities, including Milwaukee, through a shared pipe system. The district reported nearly 8.5 billion gallons of overflows, mostly into Lake Michigan, since the beginning of 2006, when the DNR began organizing the data electronically.”

And here is the CRG news release mentioned on today’s program:

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release                                                                            
October 3, 2010
For Further Information Contact:

Chris Kliesmet, 414-429-9501

Unelected Boards Create Campaign CashBarrett Example Yields Over $150,000 in Board Contributions

Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) has long analyzed and reported on the drawbacks of unelected boards, particularly those with the power to unilaterally impose taxes.  The CRG audit and online database of Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) Board spending and the well-publicized shortcomings of the Metro-Milwaukee Sewage District (MMSD) Board highlight a lengthy list of perceived problems with unelected boards given broad regulatory power as well as taxing power without direct voter representation.

CRG began an investigation and analysis of MMSD due to citizen outrage over recent flooding and basement sewage back-ups.  Initial findings suggested that these failures are largely due to governance issues at the City of Milwaukee and on the MMSD Board level rather than operational issues at MMSD.  Further investigation of political actions and involvement within MMSD revealed significant contributions from MMSD Board members to the politicians that appoint them.

For example, MMSD Board members contributed almost $10,000 to Tom Barrett campaigns with $4,000 being contributed in 2009-2010 election cycle alone.  Every MMSD Board who contributed gave at least $100, six gave at least $250, five gave at least $500, and three gave over $1000 with one donor exceeding $2000 and another exceeding $3000.

As a result, a pilot project was undertaken to analyze and understand the relationship between political contributions and appointments to boards such as MMSD. The City of Milwaukee and Mayor Barrett were chosen as the initial study example based on the large number of appointed boards the City has jurisdiction over as well as the large number of mayoral appointees to those boards.

The study methodology required compiling a partial list of mayoral board appointees by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to 92 boards during his tenure as mayor (list is partial as a complete list of past appointees do not exist – spouses were included on list). This list was cross-indexed against contributions to Barrett campaigns from 7/1/2000 to 6/30/2010 obtained from databases maintained by the City of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.  The entire tabulated data set may be downloaded at www.crgnetwork.com/shared/Barrett Board Appointee Contributors Worksheet.xls.

The following are selected statistics from the analysis

 Project leader Chris Kliesmet commented, “The numbers yielded by our analysis were quite surprising and perhaps more than a little disturbing.  Given that the total contributions are well into six figures and the average total contributions per donor crosses the one-thousand dollar mark, it does suggest at least a perception of impropriety that should be addressed, particularly when reviewing compensated boards.  Additionally, one must not discount the imputed value of the regulatory power wielded even by uncompensated boards.  For those seeking appointments, and there are many who covet such appointments, the regulatory power may be more highly valued than any monetary reward.  Whether by design or sheer happenstance, it is safe to say that the power to make unelected board appointments can be used as a tool to raise campaign cash and creates yet another strong argument against unelected boards.  CRG will issue updates to our investigations should our analyses continue to yield noteworthy results.”

UPDATE:While I was on the air today, Chris Kleismet of CRG tried to phone in, but couldn’t because the lines were jammed.He wanted to pass along important information.

CRG’s analysis of campaign cash contributions showed that one person, Ronald S. San Felippo gave six contributions on or about the 22^nd of each month to Tom Barrett with the last contribution made on 6/22/10. Here are San Felippo’s donations to Barrett:

1/22/10: $1,500

2/22/10: $1,500

3/22/10: $1,500

4/22/10: $1,500

5/22/10: $1,500

6/22/10: $1,500

Note the last contribution on 6/22/10

Just six days later, San Felippo was appointed to the Business Improvement District Board #2 by Barrett.

A coincidence? I don’t think so.

Kleismet also offers that a video and transcript of MMSD Kevin Schafer’s remarks saying that 2 of 4 previous sewerage overflow dumps could have been avoided by a change to legislation can be found here.

Kleismet wrote to me:

“By law they (MMSD) must start dumping in ANTICIPATION of separated sewer flows IN CASE they MIGHT come in. That means they start dumping with the tunnel often less than half full. On two occasions the suburban flows DID NOT COME IN AS PREDICTED and they dumped sewage that didn’t need to be dumped.

Why are politicians like Barrett unwilling to crusade for this change? This is outrageous they COULD have eliminated half of the overflows last year without so much as the cost of the ink for their signatures on a piece of legislative paper.

This is a huge campaign issue that Scott Walker needs to hammer on. He could use your help doing so. Please consider sending a contribution.

Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:

Compare and contrast: Karl Marx 10-point program of Communism and Democrat agenda

“No federal government has damaged the American free market more than this one. No federal government has stolen more employment, more freedom, more private property — from this and future generations — than this one. No government has created more regulations, more unconstitutional dictates, more — dare I say it — slavery than this one.”

Don’t show all your cards

“If all goes well for Republicans in the midterm elections, they’ll capture the House and maybe the Senate, having revealed few specifics of what they might do in the next Congress. This makes sense. It’s the Chris Christie strategy.”

When blacks attack Obama

“I am forbidden to critique BHO and his boys on anything they say or do. Yes, if I do utter anything derogatory regarding his holiness it is immediately dismissed because of four primary reasons. Herewith are the raisons d’être of why I cannot decry señor Hussein.

Reason #1: I am white. How do I know I’m white? Well, aside from my skin color, one telling mark of my Caucasian-ness is that I have Hall & Oates on my iPod (I always set the treble up higher than the bass) and, of course, my Florence Henderson tattoo. If that ain’t white, I don’t know what is. Since I’m white I’m not allowed to disagree with Obama because that’d be hatred. It’s true. It’s science.

Reason #2: …”

The Ted Pledge

“What Republicans owe the American people is a hefty dose of plain-speaking, bold pragmatism that clearly articulates the GOP’s vision for America. Even I, your humble Motown guitar slayer, remain steadfastly locked on the vision of our Founding Fathers and am prepared to ride to their rescue with the Ted Pledge. My crowbar of logic and truth does not gently weep.”

The Five Biggest Lies about Liberalism

“Every now and then liberals like to claim that they’re patriotic. Usually around an election. Of course they’re not patriotic in the ‘wear a flag on your lapel’ kind of way. They’re more patriotic in the ‘point out everything wrong with your country and then threaten to move to Canada if you don’t win the election’ way. Which is fine. America has seen patriots like that before. They used to wear green coats and moved to Canada, right around the time the last British troops left New York on Evacuation Day.”

Quietly racking up the abortion toll

“While Planned Parenthood continues to sit on its annual report for 2008-2009, new documents found hidden on its labyrinthine website give taxpayers an insider’s look into the beleaguered abortion monopoly it is helping fund.

The shocking thing about these numbers is that they are finally dispelling the ubiquitous Planned Parenthood lie that the organization is about something other than abortion.”

Finding Reassurance for America in Baseball

“Anyone who says America is broken, dysfunctional and doomed hasn’t been to a ballgame lately. The people who come out to such sporting events aren’t just the superrich or the privileged few: They represent every economic and ethnic segment of the society. When 20,000 enthusiasts can still find the money to come out to cheer a last place team, it’s inappropriate to peddle apocalyptic visions of a nation made up primarily of the destitute and desperate.”

Toys from our youth that would be illegal today

“A while back I wrote about the Johnny Seven One Man Army rifle (a toy from the sixties that Chuck Schumer would personally ban). What other toys from our youth would the Party of Weakness outlaw in this politically correct day and age?”

Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend: 

Velma Hart: Citizen Journalist

“Shaming the White House press corps, a regular American named Velma Hart recently asked President Barack Obama the toughest question he has heard since being elected to the Oval Office.

Devastating.

The president was taken aback ..”

Top 10 Failures of Obamanomics

“Simply put, candidates who propose job-creating policies and show how their opponent’s policies are killing jobs will win decisively in 2010……so let’s examine the top 10 job-killing policies of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine.”

The Tax Hikes Cometh

“Let’s examine what the 111th Congress has accomplished so far. There was a $1 trillion stimulus bill that failed to jumpstart the economy. There was a $1 trillion health care overhaul that the public did not want. There was a financial bill that gave huge amounts of power to unelected regulators. And now, for their final trick, the Democrats who run Congress have decided to leave Washington without doing anything to prevent the largest tax increase in history. God only knows what they are planning for an encore.”

House Democrats Pass Bill to Grill School Children about Sexual Preference

“Introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), H.R. 6109 requires HHS to obtain, retain and analyze sexual identity information from patients who seek healthcare, including children.”

A two-step process to fight poverty

“Everybody wants to make themselves feel better by throwing someone else’s money at the problem, but what many people don’t seem to notice is that it seldom improves the situation. Yes, it will cost money to fight poverty, but there’s a smart way and a dumb way to do it. The dumb way to do it is our current system. Here’s the smart way to do it.”

The waste of recycling

“Green evangelists believe that recycling our trash is ‘good for the planet’ — that it conserves resources and is more environmentally friendly. But recycling household waste consumes resources, too.”

Happy Smelly Cheese Day

“These early autumn months are filled with some ‘holidays’ that are worth paying attention to.”

Revisions/extensions (8:44 am 9/21/2010) – Had to change the second recommendation because Internet Explorer automatically disallows cookies on sites put in the “Restricted Zone”. Fortunately, the mobile version of Twitter is unaffected, and can be accessed by actual computers.

TechCrunch reports that there is an exploit going on with the Twitter web interface involving how it renders tweets that contain JavaScript code. Specifically in this case, on those tweets that contain the “onMouseOver” code, mousing over that tweet will cause, among other things, the exploit to be tweeted out.

It is not affecting third-party clients at this point, but if one opens a profile with the hacked “tweet” visible on a browser, that can (and probably will) affect that person as well.

At this point, I recommend the following:

• If you are able to install a third-party Twitter client (like TweetDeck or Seesmic), do it and use it exclusively until Twitter gives the all-clear.
• If you cannot install a third-party Twitter client, use the mobile site – http://mobile.twitter.com. At this point, it does not appear to be compromised, at least on my computer.

If you ended up as a victim, once you either installed that third-party client or switched to the mobile interface, use that to go back over your Twitter timeline and delete anything that includes “onMouseOver”.

R&E part 2 (8:54 am 9/21/2010) – Twitter is patching this now. If you were a victim, do run a full anti-virus/anti-spyware scan.

Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:

9/11, a 2061 memorial

“On the 60^th anniversary of 9/11 memorial service, president of the United States of America, Hussein Ali, delivered an uplifting speech at the Cordoba House mosque at ground zero in lower Manhattan. New York City mayor Mohammed Ahmed Abdullah as well as many other dignitaries and a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands filling the surrounding streets with their prayer rugs, also joined to commemorate the 60 year old tragedy.

Below is the text of President Ali speech:”

How Obama Thinks

“Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back. Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government’s control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy. The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama’s approach as omnipotence at home, impotence abroad.”

Like, is Sarah Palin totally conceited?

“’Sometimes when she went out in public, people were unkind. Once, while shopping at Target, a man saw Palin and hollered, ‘Oh my God! It’s Tina Fey! I love Tina Fey!’ When other shoppers started laughing, the governor parked her cart, walked out of the store, and drove away.’ (That jackass was lucky Sarah didn’t have her moose rifle with her.)

A random encounter with a rude, abusive jerk in public is supposed to make her look bad? Liberals have really lost their minds about Palin. They’d laugh if someone hit her with a baseball bat.”

The evolution of the Tea Party movement

“The Tea Party movement is broad-based with wide support. Over half of the electorate now say they favor the Tea Party movement, around 35 percent say they support the movement, 20 to 25 percent self-identify as members of the movement, and 2 to 7 percent say they are activists.

The data is particularly clear, and some polls have shown that the Tea Party movement is the most popular force in American politics … and is increasingly been recognized as such by a media that was, at the very least, late to the party”

Throwing the bums out is harder than it looks

“Before everyone succumbs to election season delirium, it’s worth taking a moment to remember that no matter how peeved the American population fancies itself, no matter how dramatic a change of partisan control in one or both houses might seem, one thing is certain: The vast majority of the current Congress can count on returning to Washington and business as usual.”

Lessons of the Koran’s non-burning

“While it’s fashionable in some precincts to smear America as a nation of Islamophobes whose bigotry plays into the hands of extremists, the reverse is closer to the truth.”

Money is not what schools need

“U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently claimed: ‘Districts around the country have literally been cutting for five, six, seven years in a row. And, many of them, you know, are through, you know, fat, through flesh and into bone … .’

Really? They cut spending five to seven consecutive years?

Give me a break!

Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, writes that out of 14,000 school districts in the United States, just seven have cut their budgets seven years in a row. How about five years in a row? Just 87. That’s a fraction of 1 percent in each case.”

American priorities out of sync

“Because our so-called news media is focused on telling us what they think we want to hear instead of what we need to hear, we are deluged with celebrity sludge stories. Americans know Lindsay Lohan spent time in jail, that Paris Hilton was recently busted for possessing cocaine, and that Mel Gibson left some angry messages on his former girlfriend’s phone. If these stories were food they would be junk food.”

State’s vehicle testing program emits no common sense

“Making people drive cars of any age to a special emissions testing center is a colossal waste of time and money.”

Recession?

What recession?

I bet ol’ Michelle  is proud to be an American now!

From  Charlie Sykes’ blog: 

Scott Walker

Milwaukee County 74%

Ozaukee County 80%

Racine County 68%

Washington 78%

Waukesha County 77%

Rebecca Kleefisch

Waukesha County 71%

Racine County 66%

Ozaukee County 65%

Milwaukee County 67%

Washington County 69%

Turnout gap: GOP votes for governor: 614,231. DEM vote: 233,119.

Mark Neumann lost the primary by 20 points…. but still got more votes than Tom Barrett: Neumann 237,755; Barrett 210,866.

Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:

Why We Treat Obama Like a Dog

“The only person who has ever likened President Obama to a dog is President Obama, who once declared that he was a ‘mutt’ and a member of a ‘mongrel people.’

In reality, there’s a reason nobody has compared Obama to a dog: dogs are likeable. They are friendly and loyal. They are man’s best friend, as opposed to King Abdullah’s best friend.”

Why we miss Bush

“Various polls report that George W. Bush in some states is now better liked than President Obama. Even some liberal pundits call for Bush to weigh in on the Ground Zero mosque or the Arizona anti-immigration legislation.

Suddenly, Bush is missed. Why? Let me list 10 likely reasons.”

2011: Major tax shocks coming

“Guess what could be coming to a paycheck near you?

Some of the largest tax increases in American history, by almost all objective analyses, unless Congress acts.

Federal tax hikes set to take effect in 2011 would hit virtually every working American, regardless of the level of household income.

Because of the protracted health care debate this past year, many citizens missed the words and actions – in some cases, inactions – of the Obama administration and Congress on taxes, so here’s a summary of the changes scheduled to take place next year.”

What Liberals Say vs. What They Mean

“Many of us have been raised to think that words mean things. Then there’s Democrats. From those infamous phrases like ‘It depends on what the definition of what ‘is’ is’ of yore to the newfangled ‘man-caused disasters’ of today, Democrats have so abused the English language as to make it completely unrecognizable to Mr. Johnson.

Here are a few words and phrases that liberals use all the time that are conundrums in as much as the words themselves actually say just the opposite of what liberals mean by them.”

Voter rolls. We see dead people. Does the DOJ?

“America’s voter rolls are a mess. But you can’t count on the Deparrtment of Social Justice and corruptocrat Attorney General Eric Holder to clean them up. It’s another job the feds won’t do. Time for ordinary citizens to step up to the plate. Thanks to a provision in federal law, you can pick up the slack.”

Smartest President in History Botches Oval Office Rug Quote

“The botched Oval Office rug becomes a precious symbol of the Obama presidency, based on an image fabricated out of symbols rather than substance and misappropriating valuable elements of America’s history. The only question remaining is whether or not President Obama will choose to keep the rug in his office.”

Wait, Pay, Cough

“In an effort to pass a ridiculous regulation and then declare a victory in the drug war, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering a rule that would require a physician’s prescription for your favorite off-the-shelf cough medicine.

Yes, I know; I can’t believe it either.”

Cities increasingly turning to ‘trash police’

“Beware the green police. They don’t carry guns and there’s no police academy to train them, but if you don’t recycle your trash properly, they can walk up your driveway and give you a $100 ticket. 

They know what’s in your trash, they know what you eat, they know how often you bring your recycles to the curb — and they may be coming to your town soon. That is, if they’re not already there.”

Robert Stacy McCain went hunting and bagged a 6-point buck. Unfortunately, instead of using either a gun or a bow-and-arrow, he used his car, and 2004 Kias aren’t made for hunting whitetail deer. The ugly news is he had just spent $700 to fix the engine on said car.

I wish I could hit the tip jar myself, but the funds aren’t there for me right now. So do it, and tell him Egg sent you.

Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:

Seriously, you people have a problem with restoring honor?

“The venom-mill has been churning in regard to this event for weeks now, but it’s been in overdrive today, and Glenn Beck and those who turned out for the rally are being mocked. No real surprise there.  Personally, I think anyone who can find anything to mock in the sentiment of restoring honor to our country and its leaders must be one sad sack of a person.”

Beware of the Obama tax increases

“Democrats want Americans to believe that by letting tax rates rise they have discovered religion as deficit cutters. But after a two-year assault on the federal trough in which Congress passed the notoriously wasteful stimulus and added a new health care entitlement, few Americans are even bothering to listen. In reality, the harm this tax increase will inflict on jobs and gross domestic product will strongly outweigh any presumed boost in tax revenues.”

How ‘brilliant’ can Obama be?

“What and where is the proof that Obama is such a sharp fellow? The recorded evidence is unavailable since his academic records, and test scores from three universities are sealed at his demand. Sure, he graduated from Harvard, But so did George Bush, who earned an MBA but is still pilloried by some as dumber than dirt. We shall have to examine Obama’s performance and make our own assumptions based on observations.”

Obama’s Achilles Hell: He’s not African-American

“When Obama declared himself African-American, and not mixed race or biracial as some had hoped, the African American community celebrated with jubilee. To us, Obama’s bold assertion meant that he identified with the African-American experience.  It was proof that he’d accepted the chivalrous invitation of the African-American community and would soon glide into our open arms to meet our soft far embrace.  So far, much to our dismay, he’s proven to be a bit of a playboy.”

Our failing immigration courts

“One month ago – without notice to Congress, without a word to the American people – the Department of Homeland Security began dismissing from U.S. immigration courts the cases of thousands of illegal aliens. The department says it will focus its efforts on removing criminal aliens. Aliens without serious criminal histories – 250,000 by some estimates – will be left alone. This policy closely follows last August’s announcement by the department that it would not deport fugitive aliens – aliens who skipped court or disobeyed orders to leave the United States. These policies assure that more illegal immigration will follow – with illegals confident that the administration, which refuses to secure this nation’s borders, will not remove those who enter and remain illegally.”

Liberals losing the cultural wars

“Beginning in the 1960s, God was driven out of American public life because liberals said the Constitution demanded a separation of church and state.

Planned Parenthood was part of a campaign that convinced many Americans that killing unborn babies was really a defense of a woman’s constitutional right to choose.

The ACLU sued to define ‘free speech’  to include vandalism, sacrilegious art, and spitting on returning veterans of the Vietnam War.

Even more depressing, the drive for equal rights for liberated slaves, begun by Republicans during and after the Civil War, morphed into a liberal affirmative action program which reintroduced privilege based on skin color.

In 2010, the tide has turned.”

In campaigns, entrepreneurs get busy

“In his campaign for Congress, Wisconsin Republican Chad Lee bought cut-outs of Nancy Pelosi and other politicians he opposes from VictoryStore.com. Some of the signs have been stolen.”

A slower Labor Day road trip

“I’m planning a road trip this Labor Day weekend, along with as many as 34.4 million of my fellow Americans. I just hope I can get out of town.”

Your love and respect for our troops is REAL!

President Obama addresses the nation tonight about the war in Iraq.

I strongly suspect he will not use the word “victory.” He will not admit he was wrong about the surge he adamantly opposed with other leading Democrats. He will not give credit to President Bush.

Our arrogant, egotistical Commander-in-Chief has already begun touting his successes. From his weekly radio address Saturday:

“As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war.  As President, that is what I am doing.  We have brought home more than 90,000 troops since I took office.  We have closed or turned over to Iraq hundreds of bases.  In many parts of the country, Iraqis have already taken the lead for security.

In the months ahead, our troops will continue to support and train Iraqi forces, partner with Iraqis in counterterrorism missions, and protect our civilian and military efforts.  But the bottom line is this: the war is ending.  Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course.  And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home.”

Earlier this month in Atlanta, the president told disabled veterans he was keeping a campaign promise to end the war “on schedule.” The problem is, the timetable for ending the war was scheduled long before he took office. It occurred on President Bush’s watch. CNS News reports:

“The timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops in Iraq was decided during the Bush administration with the signing of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) by U.S. and Iraq officials on Nov. 16, 2008. The Iraqi parliament signed SOFA on Nov. 27, 2008.
 
The agreement, which had been in negotiations since 2007, set a timetable calling for most U.S. troops to leave Iraqi towns and cities by June 30, 2009, with about 50,000 troops left in place until the final withdrawal of all U.S. military forces by Dec. 31, 2011.”

Stephen Hadley writes in today’s Wall Street Journal:

“The U.S. effort in Iraq is not over. Some 50,000 U.S. troops, together with a robust diplomatic presence, continue to train and assist Iraq’s security forces and support its democratic progress. The American people, our coalition allies and especially the Iraqi people have paid an enormous price. It is important to remember why.

For over two decades, the regime of Saddam Hussein had threatened the national security of the United States, its key allies and the stability of the Middle East. It had invaded some of its neighbors (Iran and Kuwait) and threatened others (including Saudi Arabia and Israel). It had produced weapons of mass destruction, used them on its own people and the people of Iran, and threatened to use them against others.

Perhaps the most critical moment was President Bush’s decision in January 2007 to add over 20,000 American combat troops and change the military strategy. He was actively opposed by a majority of the Congress and a commentariat that argued for everything from withdrawing immediately to partitioning the country.

Following Mr. Bush’s decision, U.S. military forces and diplomats forged an unprecedented partnership to implement the new strategy and break the back of an insurgency that threatened to tear the country apart. Their success permitted the United States to begin withdrawing its troops in December 2007. By December 2008, Mr. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could sign agreements providing both a long-term U.S.-Iraqi partnership and the withdrawal of all American troops by the end of 2011.”

President Obama deserves no credit for the current developments in Iraq. He opposed the war, and until recently, has shown little regard for our troops. Don’t be fooled by anything he pontificates tonight.

Every Sunday morning on my blog at FranklinNOW.com, I post a list of highly recommended columns from the previous week.  Here is this week’s compilation that should keep you busy:

Cheapskating to victory

“(Scott) Walker is running for governor hoping to galvanize what he calls a ‘Brown Bag Movement.’ He visits workplaces around the state during lunch hour and after a short speech takes questions from the workers who show up to hear him. Every seat has a brown paper lunch bag with a short saying. ‘I have to brown bag it so I can pay Wisconsin’s taxes’ or ‘I’d be eating out if government wasn’t gobbling up all of my money’ or ‘Wisconsin is Tax Hell!’

It’s cheesy, but, like the salary ad, it seems to be working. When I mentioned to a Washington-based political reporter that I was headed to Wisconsin to profile Walker, he said: ‘Oh, the Brown Bag guy’.”

Is it time to listen to Paul Ryan’s economic prescription?

“Who is this guy? It would be no surprise if he turned out to be a wealthy financier who had taken up budget policy as a retirement hobby (like Peter G. Peterson) or a professional forecaster whose views on consumer spending are bearish (like Gary Shilling). The surprise is that Ryan is an elected official. He’s running for election to a seventh term in Congress, representing a district with a razor-thin Republican edge south of Milwaukee.

Mess with Social Security? Are voters ready for this? Maybe they are. Those trillion-dollar deficits can’t go on much longer.”

Democrats betrayed us

“Wonder why voters will hand the GOP a crushing victory in November? It’s the trust, stupid.”

It’s the stupid season, stupid

“If you vote for Tom Barrett because you think Scott Walker gleefully employs racists at the highest levels of his campaign, you’re stupid, and shouldn’t be voting. If you vote for Russ Feingold because you think Ron Johnson will make it even slightly harder for you to kill animals and people with barely regulated deadly weapons, you’re stupid.”

The last refuge of a liberal

“Now we know why the country has become ‘ungovernable,’  last year’s excuse for the Democrats’ failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities — often lopsided majorities — oppose President Obama’s social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.

What’s a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card.”

Women behaving badly

“I hereby present—with full chromosomal immunity—a rundown of things women have been doing to totally screw themselves since winning the right to vote.”

Where are the new jobs?

“The problem today is that the economy is not being left alone. Instead, it is haunted by uncertainty on a hundred fronts. When rules are unintelligible and unpredictable, when new workers are potential threats because of Labor Department regulations, businesses have little confidence to hire. President Obama’s vaunted legislative record not only left entrepreneurs with the burden of bigger government, it also makes it impossible for them to accurately estimate the new burden.

In at least three big areas—health insurance, financial regulation, and taxes—no one can know what will happen.”

Public pensions and our fiscal future

“Few Californians in the private sector have $1 million in savings, but that’s effectively the retirement account they guarantee to public employees who opt to retire at age 55 and are entitled to a monthly, inflation-protected check of $3,000 for the rest of their lives.”

Pols clueless on Ground Zero mosque

“The angry national debate over Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s intention to build a mosque two blocks north of the horror of 9/11 at Ground Zero has been further fueled by supporter Nancy Pelosi declaring, ‘I join those who have called for looking into how … this opposition to the mosque is being funded.’ If one of her sleuths knocks on my door, this opponent will readily state that I need no outside funding as a reporter who is deeply investigating the motivation of Imam Rauf’s choice of this site of mass murder for the mosque.” 

The real radio hatemongers

“The hypocrites. Leftists say outrageous things on the radio routinely, things they truly mean, too, and those remarks never see the light of day on ABC, CBS and NBC. Talking about the N-word is wrong but wishing death on political enemies is OK when the rhetorical bombs are dropped on conservatives. The

Media has a new report chronicling who the real radio hatemongers are. Research Center

Start with …”

Once again I’ve let the Feed Reader of Doom™ overgrow everything. Let’s see what’s inside:

• Lawhawk found that even the tiniest of profits in Philadelphia get whacked with a $300 “business privilege license”. That sound you hear is Benjamin Franklin increasing the revolutions of his corpse.
• Randall Hoven asks and answers the question, “Which was higher between FY2003 and FY2008 – spending on the Iraq War or federal spending on education?” Hint – the cumulative FY2003-FY2010 deficits would have been between $4 trillion and $5 trillion with or without the Iraq War.
• Related (H/T – Fausta) – The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the “baseline spending” by the federal government (what the government is expected to spend if the laws that are in effect at the time continue, with any scheduled expirations happening on-time) for FY2008-FY2018 has increased by $4.4 trillion (including actual spending in FY2008 and FY2009) between January 2008 and August 2010. Bonus item #1 – instead of spending a projected $4.2 trillion in 2018, the federal government is now expected to spend $5.0 trillion in 2018.
• Bonus item #2 – The Heritage Foundation has some startling figures from that CBO report – the deficit nears $2 trillion in 2020 (and that’s with no more Bush or Obama tax cuts), the publicly-held debt of $23 trillion will exceed 100% of GDP by 2020, and over half the above-the-historical-average tax revenues (with or without tax-cut extension) will go to servicing interest on said debt.
• Jim Geraghty raises the GOP House predictions. Wisconsin interests include the 7th as a “GOP has a good chance of winning”, the 8th as a “GOP chances about 50-50” and the 3rd as “GOP should win with luck or wave”. Speaking of the 3rd, Dan Kapanke is on Geraghty’s Bakers’ Dozen low-profile upset potentials.
• James Wigderson found the “normal Feingold supporter”. I’m shocked, SHOCKED to find it is a DC lobbyist.
• Even the Associated Press is noting that neither rain nor gloom of failed international relations (well, I put the second part in) is keeping Teh Won from his appointed rounds of golf.
• CDR Salamander has the graph of the day – the total national defense spending between 1947 and 2011 in both inflation-adjusted numbers and as a percentage of GDP. Question number 2 for you the gentle reader – which is higher – defense spending as a percentage of GDP in 1979 or 2009? Hint – the Commander’s exit quote is, “I call them the ‘Terrible 20s’ for a reason.”
• Eric predicts what will happen in the latest Israeli/Palestinian “Peace” talks. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

If this were morning, it would be a Scramble. However, I had to sneak these past the egg inspectors.

Shortly after Rand Paul won the Kentucky Senate primary in May, he found it necessary to revisit the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  In particular, he questioned whether the part of the law dealing with racial discrimination by private businesses that are deemed “public accommodations” might be a violation of private property rights.  This is clearly a legitimate question to entertain in a law school constitutional law class.  During a political race, not so much.

Last week President Obama found it necessary to weigh in on the mosque near Ground Zero controversy.  Professor Obama schooled us all on the First Amendment as seen by the Founding Fathers.  And according to Obama, the mosque would have been a “go” for James Madison and the boys.  He might be correct as a constitutional matter.  But as a political matter, not so much.

Just like Paul appeared to be giving intellectual cover to racially motivated actions, Obama appeared to be giving intellectual cover to those who want to build an ostentatious structure honoring Allah within a stones throw of the site where nearly 3,000 Americans were incinerated by followers of Allah, in the name of Allah.

Earth to the President.  I have a constitutional right to put my toilet in the living room instead of the bathroom and use it while entertaining guests.  Guess what?  I don’t.

Every rational person knows that the decision to construct a mega-mosque near Ground Zero is a political statement.  The President is America’s politician-in-chief.  His failure to understand the impact of his words on the people of New York (and all of America) is yet another example of Obama’s academic, above-the-fray view of the world.  His Party is going to pay dearly in November.