…Earlier this year, when a Republican tried to reprimand Murtha for indisputably breaking the Democrats’ new earmarking rules, all but two Democrats voted to kill the measure without even debating it….At the beginning of the year, Murtha called the Democrats’ ambitious ethics-reform proposals “total crap.” Thanks to guys like him, that’s what they’ve amounted to.  ~corner.nationalreview.com

How did Murtha know that, “the Democrats’ ambitious ethics-reform proposals,” were, “total crap?” I guess he just knew.

This article at NewScientist mentions just such stimulation in relation to sleep deprivation, “Lack of sleep is a lot like mental illness,” perhaps this is what Democrats have in mind, using traditional cult indoctrination practices to finally persuade voters that they are indeed our saviours, hee hee!

The money quote from the article:

Volunteers were asked to miss a night’s sleep and stay up until 5 pm the following day. Next came a session in which their brains were scanned as they viewed gory images, such as mutilated bodies or children with tumours. Compared with controls, the sleep-deprived group showed increased activity in the amygdala, an area of the brain involved in processing fear and other emotions (Current Biology, vol 17, p R877).

The heightened activity is no surprise, since tiredness and emotion are known to be linked. But the reason the amygdala was more active appeared to be because connections with the prefrontal cortex – an area of the brain that normally damps the amygdala down – were disrupted. Similar disruption is seen in patients with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, says Matthew Walker of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study.

“It is thought that psychiatric conditions create sleep problems,” he says. “We should entertain the possibility that it is a sleep disorder that is creating the condition.”

Perhaps we should also entertain the possibility that it is liberalism that is creating the condition as well.

What is a Cult?
Every cult can be defined as a group having all of the following five characteristics:

1. It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
2. It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
3. Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
4. It believes ‘the end justifies the means’ in order to solicit funds recruit people.
5. Its wealth does not benefit its members or society. ~cultinformation.org.uk

Molly Ball of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that Senator Harry Reid’s favorable rating in Nevada has “plunged dramatically,” according to a new poll. Currently, Reid’s favorable rating is at 32%, while his unfavorable rating is at 51%, a net 23-point drop from the last poll taken in early May when Reid scored a 46/42 favorable/unfavorable rating.

Ball reports this is the first time Reid’s unfavorable rating has eclipsed his favorable rating. It also puts him below the favorable ratings recorded by President Bush and radio host Rush Limbaugh, among others:  ~time-blog.com

Perhaps the precipitious drop is the difference between the reality-based community and reality. Perhaps progressive policies are not as wildly popular as liberals seem to think they are.

Is this what Nancy Pelosi meant by ‘ethical?’ Apparently she was using the loose definition of the term in order to encompass all the manifold variants of nuance that the word could possibly contain. Kind of a multi-interpretational approach.

In this case ethical means lying, cheating, and stealing votes on the House Floor in addition to your basic public theft. (See here as well.)

Two Democrats changed their votes to ensure that the measure would fail, but then three Republicans did the same. The vote total was 215-213 in favor of the Republican motion to recommit. At that moment, Rep. Mike McNulty ( D-N.Y.), who was in the Speaker’s chair, gavelled out the vote, thinking that it was a tie and the motion had failed. But he had miscounted — the motion had actually passed. The Democrats were only able to change this by cheating and changing more votes after the gavel.

Although they did not do so for hours, the House clerk’s office finally did put a record of the vote online this morning, with the measure failing by a vote of 216-212.

McNulty, still in the chair, had to explain to Minority Leader Boehner (R-Ohio), during the parliamentary procedure that followed, that “the machine is down” — the machine that tells members what they are voting on and how they’ve voted. This drew groans, of course, since it was not hard to infer that it had been turned off after the crooked vote. Hoyer came back in the morning with a speech devoid of apology, but full of “tearful self-justification,” calling for an Ethics Committee Inquiry. Boehner replied that the Ethics Committee is a “black hole,” but maintained a conciliatory tone. ~corner.nationalreview.com

This is what Democrats mean by the ‘democratic’ process. It looks suspiciously like Venezuelan ‘democracy’. When you don’t get the results you like, cheat.

But then Democrats have always been on record for recounts when the vote doesn’t go in their favor.

On a positive note McNulty did apologize for not executing the vote stealing more smoothly.

McNulty took to the floor Friday morning to apologize for his action.

“I want to express regret that I gaveled the vote too early,” McNulty said and apologized for his role in the confusion that rocked the House floor last night.

McNulty gaveled the motion to recommit closed at 214 to 214, when the final vote tally on the board was 213 to 215 after Florida Republican Reps. Mario Diaz Balart, Lincoln Diaz Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen changed their votes from a “no” to a “yes.”

“We went to the front of the House [to change our votes],”Rep. Mario Diaz Balart said, adding that the board had changed to the count of 213 to 215 in favor of the motion to recommit, and that the gavel went down but McNulty hadn’t seen the change.

“It stayed there for several minutes …then the votes started to change again,” he said, causing the vote to flip. “That’s when there was the meltdown.”

Diaz Balart said of McNulty, “It wasn’t done in malice that’s why he apologized.” ~thehill.com

House Erupts in Chaos (as Democrats fix vote.)

The liberal definition of censorship is not balanced by any means. You see, Democrats and the left view censorship as something that they cannot commit. They are the champions of free speech after all. By their definition, censorship relates only to any infringement or disagreement to liberal opinions and liberal viewpoints. When conservatives refute liberal ideology that is the definition of censorship. When liberals attempt to pass laws and use the government to silence conservatives it’s called ‘fairness’ and done in the name of combating ‘hate speech’.

The Fairness Doctrine is a blatant vehicle for suppressing and regulating conservative political speech on all broadcast media. It is yet another example of the hypocrisy of liberalism which champions the cause of terrorists, demonizes America, and then claims to be defenders of the good.

The latest assault on the integrity of free speech is being perpetrated by Democrats in Congress who are thinking that they’ve found a loophole in their self-appointed role as champions of free speech. They appear to believe that labeling conservative speech as, “messages of bigotry or hatred, creating a climate of fear and inciting individuals to commit hate crimes,” will then allow them to silence and infringe the speech of their political foes.

But, according to a release from the commitee issued Monday, they also said they are also “particularly” interested in studying “uses by broadcast facilites licensed on behalf of the public by the FCC, and whether such uses convey messages of bigotry or hatred, creating a climate of fear and inciting individuals to commit hate crimes.”

A committee source would not say what had engendered that particular concern about broadcasters’ conveying “messages of bigotry and hatred,” adding that it was a general query rather than targeted at any one group. But some Democrats and media activist groups have been highly critical of conservative talk radio, labeling it hate speech.

A new hate crimes bill passed the House last month that would allow law enforcement to prosecute speech that led directly to bodily injury. Some religious broadcasters are concerned the law, if passed, could prevent ministers from speaking out against homosexuality from the broadcast pulpit. The American Civil Liberties Union supported the bill, the first hate crimes bill it has been able to give its seal of approval, pointing out that the legislation protected speech and association “unless it specifically relates to a violent crime.” ~broadcastingcable.com

Yes, the same folks who routinely incite and fuel the hatred of America wish to now begin silencing the opposition with the big hammer of government with the excuse that those they disagree with politically are inciting others to ‘hate’.

The ultimate goal is, of course, to control the public debate. A free market, even the free market of ideas, is prone to failure in the minds of liberals. Leaving public opinion up to chaotic and unregulated market forces goes against everything liberals believe in. The government is obviously a better arbiter of whose opinion is closer to ‘the truth’ and how balanced the coverage is on any given show or media outlet.

Incredibly, the left argues that having a free press requires the government to mandate the balance of political opinion and viewpoints on formats where their favored liberal viewpoint is ‘underrepresented’. Nothing is said of other media outlets where often +90% of the newsroom is liberal or support Democrats. (There’s no public interest in forcing ‘balance’ in media where the imbalance is slanted in their favor after all.)

Does the government “own” free speech?

Perhaps the most insidious and empty argument justifying the left’s use of government power to regulate speech is that the airwaves are, “owned by the government.” Therefore the government not only has the right to regulate political content but an over-riding, “public-interest,” in doing so. Their arguments are hollow and deceptive to say the least.

Democrats and the left are headed in the same direction as Hugo Chavez. Indeed, many on the left are already there. The intolerance for other points of view clearly drives liberal causes like the fairness doctrine. Control of every facet of media is the long term goal here as some Progressive Democrats have admitted.

BILL MOYERS: So when the fairness doctrine went down in 1986, that was the first year you came to Congress, what was the consequence of it? What happened as a result?

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: AM radio rose. It wasn’t even gradual, Bill. I mean, almost immediately. And I should point out to you that when we tried to reinstate [the fairness doctrine] again in ’93, one of the reasons we couldn’t was that Rush Limbaugh had organized this massive uprising against it, calling it “The Hush Rush Law.” Which again said that while Rush can speak and anybody that he wants to can speak on those stations, the rest of us can’t. But he aroused his listeners so that they contacted their members of Congress and killed the bill, and that’s not the first time we’ve seen that.

I don’t know if you remember, but I believe it was Massachusetts I think where they were doing seat belt law? And talk radio was against it and killed that bill. I mean we’ve seen this before.

BILL MOYERS: Well, you know some serious people, including some liberals have said that one reason Rush Limbaugh has succeeded is because he is good entertainment.

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Exactly. He doesn’t make any pretense of being a news person or even telling you the truth. He says he’s an entertainer.

BILL MOYERS: And you’re saying that kind of discourse is dominating America right now.

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Dominating America and a waste of good broadcast time and a waste of our airwaves.

BILL MOYERS: Not to the people who agree with him.

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Well, they don’t hear anything else. Why would they disagree with him? ~pbs.org

The blindness. The blandness. There’s a kind of Soviet gray in her words as if she yearns for the kind of equality you get from mixing all the colors of the rainbow together… gray goop. But what is more telling is the clear hypocrisy. Free speech isn’t free if the government has to be there countering it every moment. That’s the true definition of censorship. And I’m saddened that those who call themselves liberals don’t even see it.

Representative Slaughter goes on to say that she would like to impose her views on every form of communication no matter what medium.

BILL MOYERS: Are you proposing the fairness doctrine for Fox News or MSNBC?

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: You bet.

BILL MOYERS: You are?

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Yes. Fairness isn’t going to hurt anybody. I just can’t imagine these people who want to fight against fairness. ~pbs.org

“Most ethical congress in history?”

“The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history,” Pelosi said.

…Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid of Nevada told supporters, “All across America tonight . . . there is in the air a wind of change.” ~washingtonpost.com

I’m confused…

WASHINGTON – After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress’ pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify “earmarks” — lawmakers’ requests for specific projects and contracts for their states — in documents that accompany spending bills.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them. ~news.yahoo.com

Confusing? Not really. I never imagined for a minute that Democrats would clean up their act. After all Republicans weren’t creating congressional corruption they were following 40 years of it. Democrats practically invented corruption in congress.

“Tonight is a great victory for the American people,” Pelosi said in a late-night speech in Washington. “Today the American people voted for change, and they voted for Democrats to take our country in a new direction.” She described the vote as a mandate “to restore stability and bipartisanship” in Washington and for “a new direction” in the war in Iraq.

Democrats really aren’t good at lying. Though they are quite practiced at it. Balancing the budget? Correcting Republican fiscal irresponsibility? Spending cuts were never part of the plan. Raising taxes, yes. Passing more complex, arcane, and encumbering regulations for all Americans, yes.

WASHINGTON — Defying veto threats, House Democrats are proposing a more than $10 billion increase above President Bush’s budget request for health, education and labor programs in the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Virtually all domestic agencies will receive more than the White House proposed, but the commitment to health and education, two core issues in the 2006 congressional campaign, is …  ~online.wsj.com

Jetsetting

Tax increasing

Pork Spending

These are the kind of clueless and arrogant statements that mark a true liberal elitist:

OTTAWA — Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to Washington, referred to the United States on Friday as “a theocratic state” in which Christian evangelicalism plays a big role in the Republican administration.

“Right now the United States is in many ways a theocratic state, not dissimilar to some of the other religious states in the world where religion has a huge part to play in government.” ~canada.com

This is more a statement about the small mindeness and exclusionary aspects of secular humanism and liberalism (small minded liberalism.) The heart of this kind of thinking is not the all-inclusive rainbow of multi-color/multi-ethnic togetherness and sharing that liberals tend to fantasize about their ideology– instead it is dogmatically hateful, exclusionary and anti-religious.

So what is McKenna actually saying here? His point is that anything less than a strictly ‘secular state’, meaning one which completely represses and stigmatizes any religious input, impulses, or influence, is a “theocracy.” Because, *GASP*, we can’t have people who are religious in government… everything they do is invalid by definition. (Unlike, let’s say, someone basing all their political decisions on progressive ideology bordering on religion.)

Essentially McKenna prefers his state to be ruled by an anti-religion. “Canada is truly a secular state. Religion and politics do not mix in this country.”

Which becomes problematic when you realize just how much of life folks like McKenna believe the government should control. Virtually all of it in fact. There is nothing off limits for quasi-socialist nanny states. Everything is subject to legislation. All areas of economic life, all areas of public life, all areas of private life are potentially subject to control for the common good. But, religious people need not apply to hold the reigns of government because they don’t have valid beliefs. Which brings up an interesting question for McKenna, since he obviously believes religious people should be ruled by people like him in charge of “stricly secular states,” one wonders if he feels they shouldn’t have the right to vote either because obviously religion shouldn’t have anything to do with politics.

I’ve got an idea, let’s substitute any other group for, “Christian evangelicalism,” and see how it sounds.

OTTAWA — Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to Washington, referred to the United States on Friday as “a black state” in which colored ‘African-Americans’ play a big role in the administration.

Very forward thinking don’t you think? Is it now valid liberal thought to say an entire segment of society should have no participation in government at all?

What is a theocracy?

The reality is that a theocracy is a very different thing from how McKenna wants to define it.

Answers.com defines the word theocracy as, “A government ruled by or subject to religious authority.” The Brittanica excerpt goes on to say:

Government by divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. In many theocracies, government leaders are members of the clergy, and the state’s legal system is based on religious law. Theocratic rule was typical of early civilizations. The Enlightenment marked the end of theocracy in most Western countries. Contemporary examples of theocracies include Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Vatican. ~answers.com

The key aspect here is in bold. If we merely said that every government which was popularly thought of as being merely led by divine guidance, or had elements of religious law embodied in their legal system then America was indeed founded as a theocracy. But this is not enough to label a country a theocracy.

Today we have a whole political class who view true theocracies, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, as lesser evils in contrast to their true chosen enemy: Republicans and Christians in America.

They question the very notion of a war on terror because they don’t believe the threat from Al Qaeda rises to the level of ‘war’ status. No matter that Al Qaeda is a truly radical theocratic religious terrorist organization which has already destroyed the World Trade Center buildings killing 3,000 Americans and declared war on the United States, the West, and all religions besides their taliban version of Islam. Yet the left is alarmed about American Christians, not Al Qaeda. So alarmed that they are writing books about the, “Clear and Present danger,” to America posed by these ‘radical extremists’, “that together threaten the future of the United States and the world.”

In the much lauded book (among liberals), AMERICAN THEOCRACY, Kevin Phillips explains the equivalent danger posed by both radical Islam and radical Christianity/Judaism:

The excesses of fundamentalism, in turn, are American and Israeli, as well as the all-too-obvious depredations of radical Islam. The rapture, end-times, and Armageddon hucksters in the United States rank with any Shiite ayatollahs, and the last two presidential elections mark the transformation of the GOP into the first religious party in U.S. history. ~americantheocracy.net

The premise of his book is nothing if not all-too familiar: Iraq is a War for Oil started by the Republican theocracy. Where have I heard that before?

Then there are the Jews.

The path that liberals and progressives are on isn’t new, and it isn’t pretty. Liberalism isn’t about inclusion. In fact, it’s central premise is exclusion and demonization. Like the Borg on Star Trek they see any deviation from their proscribed ideology as a threat and a menace to their utopian dreams of a fair society equitably distributed by an all-knowing and all-caring government. That can’t happen when people exist who completely disagree with your premise and argue that the practice of egalitarianism runs counter to the theory every time it’s been tried.

Higher taxes: one more repercussion of the 2006 election.

No sooner are Democrats elected than the talk of taxing everything under the sun begins in earnest. It seems that there isn’t anything which can’t be made better with a tax attached to it…

The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful.

State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail.  ~zdnet.com

Democrats believe that taxing something is akin to sanctifying it. Pro-tax advocates seek to make the land holy through the baptism of taxation.

But with Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress, the political dynamic appears to have shifted in favor of the pro-tax advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill. The NetChoice coalition, which counts as members eBay, Yahoo and the Electronic Retailing Association and opposes the sales tax plan, fears that the partisan shift will spell trouble. ~zdnet.com

The biggest corporation of them all

I find it amusing to note that liberals castigate corporations for having only one goal: profits. Supposedly companies who focus on making a profit through selling goods and services are exploiting workers and customers. Demonizing corporations is an essential plank of the leftist platform and yet according to their own definition of why corporations are bad government is the biggest corporation of all.

In pursuit of profits, the government and it’s pro-tax allies, see every activity as an opportunity to meddle and ‘improve’.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, proposed in his budget (click here for PDF) that “downloaded music and videos” be taxed starting Oct. 1. The state tax agency expects legislation to be introduced in June.  ~

There’s nothing more aggravating than do-gooder know-nothings having the power of law to enact complex systems of taxation and regulation on activities they know nothing and care nothing about except for the money it will bring them.

These particular politicians have been at it for some time. This article from 2001 discusses Enzi (R) and Dorgan’s (D) tax scheme to bring yet another area of commerce under the rigid thumb of the tax man. I can’t think of any more onerous way to go about interfering with interstate commerce than what these guys have put together.

There are basically two ways to deal with taxation of Internet sales in a reasonably consistent way: make them essentially tax-exempt like catalog sales, or create a level playing field where all sales are taxed equally, with the consumer’s residence being treated as the point of sale.

The Dorgan-Enzi bill points in the latter direction. It calls on states to develop a centralized, multi-state reporting, submission and payment system that relies on software that sellers can use to efficiently determine sales and use tax rates and taxability, as well as collect and remit the taxes (as recommended by the Progressive Policy Institute in 1999). In addition, it calls on states to develop uniform definitions of goods and services and one rate for each state (prohibiting separate additional local rates) to simplify the process.  ~dlc.org

The two points here that concern me the most are in bold:

1. …the consumer’s residence being treated as the point of sale.
2.  …a centralized, multi-state reporting, submission and payment system that relies on software that sellers can use…

Do we seriously want the government treating our residence as a point of sale? Since we have no constitutional protections when it comes to commerce, in the minds of liberals, the home is no sanctuary is it? Secondly, what stupid fool would believe that the government will come up with a ‘centralized software system’ that all online sellers will be forced to use that will not screw up entirely the process of buying anything online? Imagine for a moment what this might mean…

Everyone seller online would be required to use government software, either developed or approved, which would treat your residence as a point of sale for the purpose of taxing whatever you buy, download, or perhaps just use… and who says that only sales will be involved here? Online advocacy is already being treated as campaign contributions by the the campaign police, who’s to say that other activity which benefit you but for which you do not necessarily pay shouldn’t also be taxed?

Some taxing quotes:

• “When there’s a single thief, it’s robbery. When there are a thousand thieves, it’s taxation.” ~Vanya Cohen
  
• “It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for.” ~Will Rogers
• “The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away.” ~John Coleman

Overall, 22% of all voters believe the President knew about the attacks in advance. A slightly larger number, 29%, believe the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. White Americans are less likely than others to believe that either the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. Americans are more likely than their elders to believe the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. ~rasmussenreports.com

In fact, the poll says that 35% of Democrats believe Bush knew about 9/11 in advance! Perhaps I should repeat that because it is evidence of the apparent mental incompetence ideological hatred of an entire swath of the electorate:

35% of Democrats believe Bush knew about 9/11 in advance!

On a side note I’d say that Segolene Royal is definitely a Democrat, or has read the official liberal playbook, or has the same ideological psychosis…

PARIS (Reuters) – Socialist opponent Segolene Royal said on Friday that France risks violence and brutality if her opponent right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy wins Sunday’s presidential election. ~yahoo.com

I can recall many such instances of Democrats warning that “there’s going to be violence” if this or that doesn’t happen… I believe it is just part of the unhinged nature of liberalism’s disconnect with reality. How else could so many believe that socialism could actually work and should be the ultimate goal of society?

Next we will find out that liberals believe that President Bush really is trying to kill Hugo Chavez and that, “Radical Christianity,” really is, “just as threatening as radical Islam.“

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty. ~toledoblade.com

Yeah, that’s about how it would need to be done. Except I’m not sure that the author, who is obviously “a crazed liberal zealot,” wanting to take my gun from my cold, dead hands,” has failed to recognize that such an effort would be rightly viewed as the first step to revoking democracy and instituting a totalitarian state.

And why are such drastic measures necessary? Why because guns kill.

LAST week’s tragedy at Virginia Tech in which a mentally disturbed person gunned down 32 of America’s finest – intelligent young people with futures ahead of them – once again puts the phenomenon of an armed society into focus for Americans. ~toledoblade.com

And because guns kill, we need to send armed men out to search every home and building to seize every weapon. Can you say police state?

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm. ~toledoblade.com

And what about anyone who resists the effort to pry these guns out of law abiding citizens cold dead hands?

Only under Democrats can this possibly be imagined.

Lyrics to the song Imagine, by John Lennon

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one