VP's Car Kills Pedestrian

Vice President Joe Biden's Secret Service vehicle struck a pedestrian early this morning. The pedestrian was taken to Prince George's Hospital and died shortly thereafter. The Vice President was not in the vehicle at the time of the accident, and the name of the pedestrian has not been released. READMORE>>

One thing's for sure. If this administration is foolish enough to push for more restrictive laws on firearms, I can guarantee we'll see an old bumper sticker reworked...
"Joe Biden's Car Killed More People Than My Gun."

CA Lawmakers to Debate MJ Legalization Tomorrow

So California lawmakers will begin hearing testimony tomorrow in favor of legalizing marijuana which would put marijuana on the same legal standing as schedule 1 alcohol...

Personally, I'm all in favor of it. There's no good reason why tax payers should be paying $30,000+ a year to jail people that recreationally use marijuana.

NORML's Post on it.

House Passed Healthcare Bill: Project HELP WANTED.

The House of Representatives have passed the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" (H.R. 3962). For the most part it was a completely partisan bill. The majority of Democrats supported it (only 39 out of 258 Dems voted against it) and only one Republican voted for it. (See how they voted.)

I, like many other concerned Americans, agree that we need health care reform; however, we agree that this bill is not the way to do it. This bill failed to address some of the easiest solutions to reduce the cost of health care. Additionally, I called my congressman multiple times and received the same answer each time. Basically, it went like this: The congressman understands your concerns but he will support the bill regardless.

The last few times I called my congressman I've laid out an ultimatum stating that if he supports this bill I will work tirelessly to destroy his aspirations of a political career. On a matter of principle alone I will support any and all candidates that run for his seat.

That got me to thinking. Even though it has already passed the House we can still stop this bill.
Call your Senators! Lay down an ultimatum. If you support this bill, I will never rest until I ruin your political career.

Additionally, we need to thank the Representatives that have voted against this bill and encourage Senators that have publicly stated that they will oppose this bill.

Project HELP WANTED.
I encourage everyone that has a Representative that voted for this bill to start sending your Representative a copy of the local Help Wanted pages with a short note stating "I found some jobs that you'd be better suited for... You'll probably want to get started sending out resumes before the election in (insert year for his/her seat)." You should also start circling jobs which are considerably lower than what he/she is qualified for.

For instance, my Representative, Patrick Murphy, worked as a security guard in high school and has a law degree. Ideal jobs to circle would be administrative jobs working at law firms (i.e. paralegal, legal secretary) and security guard jobs (i.e. parking lot attendant, security guard for local hospital).

This will do two things. It will send home the message that we mean business and have every intention of ruining his/her political career and most importantly it will send a strong psychological blow.

Lastly, this will help blow off some steam and keep the USPS from going completely bankrupt.

2009 Municipal Election

Tomorrow's election day, and I though you'd all benefit by knowing a little about the candidates that will be on the ballot tomorrow.

You can find the on going election results here: http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?FunctionID=12&ElectionID=33

The positions up for election and/or retention this year include:

• Justice of the Supreme Court
• Superior Court Judge (chose 4)
• Judge of the Commonwealth Court
• Superior Court Judge (Retention)
• Judge of the Commonwealth Court (retention)
• Judge of the Court of Common Pleas
• District Attorney
• Sheriff
• Prothonotary
• Recorder of Deeds
• County Controller
• Jury Commissioner
• And a whole slew of others.
  

I'll give you my recommendations for my county (Bucks County) to the best of my ability. I'm primarily using three voter's guides and minor research for my recommendations. I'll be using the FOAC's (Pennsylvania's offical 2nd Amendment PAC) endorsements; the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation PAC's endorsements; and the League of Women Voters (just understand that the LWV is not impartial) election guide.

Justice of the Supreme Court
Joan Orie Melvin - Joan Orie Melvin is recommended by both FOAC and the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. The endorsement by these two organizations indictates that Joan Melvin would be a good candidate because she will defend the innocent and stand up for our rights. Joan Melvin also was quick to speak out about the Luzerne Co. judicial corruption scandal.

Superior Court Judge (Pick 4)

• Temp Smith - Endorsed by both PA Pro-Life Fed & FOAC.
• Judy Olson - Endorsed by both PA Pro-Life Fed & FOAC.
• Sally Mundy - Endorsed by the PA Pro-Life Fed, but not by the FOAC.
• Paula Ott - Endorsed by the FOAC, but not by the Pro-Life Federation.
• Kevin McCarthy - Endorsed by the FOAC, but not by the Pro-Life Federation.
• Marakay J. Rogers - She's the only Libertarian candidate on the ballot for Superior Court Judge. Since there'll be some compromise on at least two of the candidates, she might be a good wild card especially for Libertarian leaning voters. However, she was previously a Green Party candidate, so take that into account because she obviously isn't "hopelessly devoted" to the Libertarian Party. By this I mean, she doesn't believe in the LP principles so strongly that she wouldn't dream of changing her party membership to be elected. In her race for Attorney General her priorities were: "Stop prosecution of victimless crime, Put moratorium on death penalty, Protect citizens' rights from government abuse." Sounds all pretty good except for her position on the death penalty, but the fact that she changed party membership to get on the ballot for at least one election should be an indicator that she may value the possibility of being elected over her party values. Therefore, one could conclude or make the assumption that the party is more a vehicle to her political career than political party that describes her personal beliefs and priorities.
  

I haven't read anything good about these candidates. It may mean they'd be horrible choices, but it might just mean that they're neither pro-life nor pro-rights nor pro liberty.
Not Recommended: Robert J. Colville; Anne E. Lazarus; Teresa Sarmina

Judge of Commonwealth Court:
Kevin Brobson - Endorsed by the FOAC & The PA Pro-Life Federation
Patricia McCullough - Endorsed by the FOAC & The PA Pro-Life Federation

Judges for Retention
Kate Ford Elliot - Endorsed by The PA Pro-Life Federation for retention.
Dan Pellegrini - Endorsed by The PA Pro-Life Federation for retention.

District Attorney
David W. Heckler - Endorsed by the FOAC.

Sheriff
Not enough information present to make a recommendation.

The rest of the positions are iffy (School Board, county controller, recorder of deeds, prothonotary, jury commissioner, and the rest) as I don't have any real information about them.

You can do your typical very sophisticated "eeny-meeny-miney-moe" and "my mother hit your mother in the nose--What color was the blood?" methods of deduction for the best candidate or check your local (think very local i.e. Souderton Independent, News Herald-Oct28&Nov3rd edition) newspaper for information on these smaller local elections.

Obama Hates Your Bill of Rights

Alright, so I got your attention. I guess it would've been more accurate to title the post "Obama (and Bush before him) Hates Your Bill of Rights"

What am I talking about, you say? The supposed Health Care Reform? Nope. The out of control growth of government? Nope. The rapid inflation rate and the rising price of gold? Nope.

The Washington Post published an article today talking about Obama wanting to renew three provisions in the Patriot Act that are about to expire. The three provisions that Obama wants renewed include: permission for 'roving wiretaps'; seizure of certain business records; and the monitoring of 'lone wolf' terrorists. All of these would require no warrant.

This is a dangerous license we'll be handing the government. Believe me. I hate evil doers as much as the next guy, perhaps even moreso, but for that one case in 1,000 where the 'evil doer' is innocent we NEED provisions that protect the accused.

Skirting the constitution in the name of security is a dangerous and slippery slope. Let's not grease our feet and start down it.

Can You Teach a 1st World Nation 2nd World Tricks

From The Observer

The article tells a poignant story that sounds all too familiar.

..."Last year three of my friends were caught smoking a spliff in a park and were treated like traffickers," he said. "They went to court, which took six months. One went to jail alongside murderers. The others were sent to rehab, where they were treated for an addiction they didn't have, alongside serious heroin and crack users. It was pointless and destroyed their lives."....

It's a story that I have witnessed first hand, and but for the grace of God it would've been true for myself.

The court's ruling was based on a case involving several men caught with joints in their pockets. As a result, judges struck down an existing law stipulating a sentence of up to two years in jail for those caught with any amount of narcotics. "Each individual adult is responsible for making decisions freely about their desired lifestyle without state interference," the ruling said. "Private conduct is allowed unless it constitutes a real danger or causes damage to property or the rights of others."

Is the "war on drugs" ending? The Argentinian ruling does not stand alone. Across Latin America and Mexico, there is a wave of drug law reform which constitutes a stark rebuff to the United States as it prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of a conflict officially declared by President Richard Nixon and fronted by his wife, Pat, in 1969.

That "war" has incarcerated an average of a million US citizens a year, as every stratum of American society demonstrates its insatiable need to get high. And it has also engulfed not only America, but the Americas...

Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

We've seen this story before in the early 20th century when groups had deemed alcohol unsafe for public use. This illegalization allowed unsavory entrepreneurs to transform into highly powerful gangsters.

The same is true today. We've taken a marginally harmful, although not useless plant, and made it illegal thus giving those that would produce and sell it a large profit margin.

In my opinion, just let the people have their weed but set reasonable restrictions on it much like we have for alcohol. If you want to reduce the amount of use look at the deeper reasons behind it's use and not the use itself.

PA-Rep on PA Budget Crisis

Just got this update from Pennsylvania State Rep. Katherine Watson.

There's one of two important bits that should be seen.

Representative Democracy: One More Casualty of the Budget Impasse
By Rep. Kathy Watson (R-Bucks/144th)

The number of personal impact stories caused by the Pennsylvania budget impasse grows by the day: parochial school students without new textbooks; college students without their PHEAA grant or loan payment; social service agencies unable to pay staff or being forced to turn away clients; or low-income families without day care subsidy payments forced to find alternative child care or stay home from work. The list goes sadly on. All of this misery and it didn’t have to happen.

To be sure, there are fundamental philosophical differences on how to best survive a deep recession and the loss of $3.5 billion in revenue, underpinning this deadlock. However, this current “budget crisis” is not a function of government, nor the result of the lengthy deliberations of the majority of the General Assembly members elected by their constituents.

Rather, it is man-made in the truest sense. Gov. Ed Rendell, when he signed Senate Bill 850, the stop-gap budget, chose to blue-line (veto) funding for schools, both public and non-public; vital human services including subsidies for day care, drug and alcohol counseling, and PHEAA grants and loans; funding to counties for daily operations; and the line items go on and on.

As he explained to the Harrisburg Patriot-News reporter in an interview he gave on Aug. 5, “The reason I line-item vetoed everything is to make sure there is still pressure. For example, the county governments are screaming bloody murder because all of their lines are out. The universities, the PHEAA grants...none of the PHEAA grants can go out... The providers like Pre-K Counts and the Head Starts, they’re going to run out of money by the end of August, so there’s still plenty of pressure to get this done.”

Using Pennsylvania families, college students, school children, social service agency workers as leverage to get an agreement from one side in a budget dispute is wrong and definitely not what William Penn envisioned for his “grand experiment” of government. Added to this “the ends justify the means” strategy, has been the fact that, in the Pennsylvania House, at nearly every attempt, the 188 rank-and-file members have been thwarted from full public debate through the manipulation of the House rules and calendar. This means that almost 11.5 million Pennsylvanians were denied having their representative publicly debate any budget proposal, either before the June 30 deadline or after. Couple this with the fact that the joint House-Senate Conference Committee consists entirely of members of leadership, decisions will be in the hands of a few.

Even more troubling is the notion that even with substantive input from any member of the General Assembly into the contents of a final budget, this could have – and should have – been done in May, long before the budget deadline and the countless games that follow that have caught Pennsylvanians squarely in the middle.

Some would argue that there was considerable public debate on Senate Bill 850 – the document that eventually became the bridge budget to triage state employees and which was stained in blue ink by the governor’s line-item vetoes. But it was never anyone’s intent to have that bill become the final budget document. Senate Bill 850 was a starting point by the Senate. It was a tool to get where we needed to go in early June, setting the stage for negotiations.

Yes, we know that revenues were way below projections. Yes, we know that state government has to live within its means. Yes, we recognize that we must know revenue levels so we know how much we can spend. I do not believe that we needed to create a crisis to solve the problem. My colleagues and I wanted real input into a budget document and to participate in real discussions – whether at public meetings or on the House floor – to the state’s spending priorities.

For many years, this was the case. Rank-and-file members examined the budget document, drafted amendments to prioritize spending and were the voices of the 60,000 people they each represent.

We worked from that exercise, and we knew where each of us stood on our spending priorities. Instead of following years of precedent and procedures that worked to get a budget done on time and without hurting the very people who depend on state government services, budget documents were introduced late; amendments hundreds of pages long were added at the last minute; and the leaders of the controlling party have had final say on the contents of budget bills.

As a result, this budget has become a partisan game in which everyone is a loser. Every individual, every family, every business, every organization and every governmental body within the Commonwealth has become a very public victim of this budget crisis. It’s time to bring a real piece of legislation to the House floor, discuss our spending priorities and enact a budget once and for all.

Representative Katharine M. Watson
144th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives

This all sounds like the thuggish tactics that we have come to expect from the people of the left.

Let's put a stop to these politics that sound more like what you'd expect from a union boss or perhaps a Gotti.

Let's elect a conservative in 2010!

Rasmussen: 57% Say Send ALL of Congress Packing.

A new Rasmussen poll is out and has some interesting findings.

If Americans could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 57% would throw out all the legislators and start over again. Just 25% would vote to keep the Congress.

Daily Mail: Prisoners Have Better Diet Than Hospital Patients

From the Daily Mail...

Patients in Health Service hospitals are far more likely to go hungry than criminals in jail, scientists warned yesterday.

They say frail and elderly patients do not get the help they need with meals, and nobody checks whether they get enough to eat.

Despite years of Government promises to tackle poor hospital nutrition, food still arrives cold, and patients often miss out because meal times clash with tests and operations.

Meanwhile, prisoners are enjoying carbohydrate-rich, low-fat foods which in many cases are better than they would have been eating on the outside.

The Daily Mail has been highlighting the scandal of old people not being fed properly in hospital as part of its Dignity for the Elderly campaign.

Hospital meals are often taken away untouched, because they are either unappetising or are placed out of patients' reach.

The latest figures show 242 patients died of malnutrition in NHS hospitals in 2007 - the highest toll in a decade. More than 8,000 left hospital under-nourished - double the figure when Labour came to power.

Read More>>>

This in light of the claims that "England has great medical care..."

Don't listen to the lies flying out of your politician's mouth.

Healthcare reform needs to start with tort reform, medical savings accounts, moving back toward Medical Insurance (i.e. major medical coverage)... Not with so-called Obama care, a government owned 'insurance company', or government paid coverage of "40 million uninsured".

Healthcare Emergency (now with analysis)

Alan Korwin's blog has made a special post for this health care bill. He posted some commentary and Peter "Fleckenstein's" analysis of this monstrosity.

There's much too much to post here on my blog. I recommend you go to his blog (blog.flecksoflife.com) and read the original post.

Pg 241: SEC. 1121. SUSTAINABLE GROWTH RATE REFORM Line 6-8 HC Bill – Doctors, doesn’t matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.

Pg 429: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 13-25 – The Government will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

[NOTE: Read carefully, it doesn't have to be a doctor, it can be an undefined "physician assistant" appointed by an unelected federal bureaucrat. --Alan.]

Also check out the Liberty Counsel's compiled analysis of this bill. (http://www.liberty.edu/media/9980/attachments/healthcare_overview_obama_072909.pdf )

And LASTLY.... PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!

Call AND Visit your Senators and Congressmen while they're home for the August recess and let them know that you DO NOT support this monstrosity and if they do they'll be out of a job come next election cycle.