E!!

LOL

Harry Reid said the following in a newsletter to his constituents yesterday:

“In his budget request for 2010, President Obama will announce plans to devise a new strategy to find another solution to deal with the nation’s nuclear waste that does not include storing it in Nevada.”

This is a shame if so.  The Yucca Mountain project currently employs hundreds of people and stands to employ thousands more, not to mention the nearly $100 billion it would bring into the hurting state economy.

The operation of nuclear energy plants and the transportation, recycling, and storage of spent nuclear fuel can be done quite safely these days - in fact is done safely all over Europe - but apparently Harry Reid is not going to let the facts get in the way of politics-per-usual and a Wednesday press release.  (More on the latest with Yucca here.)

This is the second time in less than three weeks an Obama agenda item has dealt a heavy blow to Nevada’s economy.  What was the first, you ask?  This offhand comment recently made at a townhall meeting:

“You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you’ve paid taxpayers back, you can’t get corporate jets, you can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers dime.”

Rich Becker wrote an excellent piece on the fallout of that comment, which summed up is this:

Companies are now scrambling to avoid the “stigma” of holding company functions in Las Vegas and millions of dollars have been lost due to cancelled rooms and convention events.  (These organizations aren’t really cancelling the events; they’re just relocating them.  To sunny California, mostly.)  And the tremendous loss of room revenue, convention business, enertainment dollars, and gaming revenue is going to lead to even more layoffs than Nevada’s already seen.

So where are Harry Reid (and Dina Titus) with their outrage and big press releases when Nevada’s economy really needs them?  Busy rubbing elbows with a president who clearly doesn’t give a damn about the what’s best for the Silver State.

I guess Nevada is now “blue” in more ways than one.

But don’t just stand there and cry, good citizens.  You can do something:

http://dumpreid.com/

From the Tennessee GOP:

Hat Tip:  Jonah Goldberg

A reader has brought this interesting Alaskan annual creative event to my attention.

The current contest is still underway, so here are some photos from last year.  (Click on the numbers at the top of the page to view each one.)  This one is my favorite.

Human creativity and ingenuity is one of our best qualities, don’t you think? 

I believe it points to what it means to be created “in God’s image,” the Almighty being the First, greatest creative force in the universe.

I wouldn’t normally congratulate myself, but “40″ is a milestone and invites comment.  Or so I rationalize…

In the tradition of self-indulgent celebration, a few of my favorite quotes by some of my favorite thinkers:

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”

— Samuel Adams

“I will not cede more power to the state.  I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.”

— William F. Buckley, Up from Liberalism (1959)

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

— C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), p. 292

“Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.”

— James Madison

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

 — Thomas Jefferson

“Gentlemen may cry, “Peace, Peace” — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

— Patrick Henry

“I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind.”

— David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. VII, p. 372

“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”

— Samuel Johnson

“Courage is the first of human qualities, because it is the quality that guarantees all the rest.”

— Winston Churchill

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children (America), the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

— Ronald Reagan

Blessings to all…

E!!

If you saw this, you’ll understand why – along with a gazillion other reasons - we now have this.

“Now THAT’s change we can believe in!!”

Independent Nevadans for Change and www.DumpReid.com make me happy.

(Apologies for neglecting you, good Readers!  There IS good reason, which I will explain later…)

For now, this, from Michelle Malkin.

@ the Telegraph.

Check out this short video promo on the biggest prizes (and the most cash!!) for doing good stuff in the political activist blogsophere.

Nominate someone (or yourself) today!!

**Nic:  That was the most awesome Sam Adams impression EVER!!

A reader sent the following true account from his small rural town.  Names have been changed and some details have been edited out to protect privacy.  Here’s the story:

Several years ago, Marvin and Veronica moved here from a nearby state and told everyone they met that they were “so excited” to live in “such a beautiful place” full of “such wonderful, friendly, caring people.”  Marvin soon got a job with the County and began “working to improve things” using government monies and volunteer help and contributions.

So today he tells me, “I can’t wait to get out of this place.”

Why?  Because the town is now full of obstinate, backward, stupid people who don’t know anything about government and who obstruct his agenda at every turn.

A liberal?  You betcha.

I always laugh to read his articles in the paper, extolling this project or the other.  A perfect example is a new “tree barrier” along a roadside adjacent to one of our municipal facilities.  The trees were intended to block the unsightly row of cars and trucks parked between the road and the buildings.  To read about it in the articles he has put into the local newspaper extolling “community efforts,” you’d expect to find a verdant forest.   When you drive by, however, you find a row of very small, withered trees, spaced too far apart, which, if anything, make the site look even more run down and neglected.  In 25 years, should they survive, they might partially filter the view.  A fence would have made more sense.  Why didn’t they do a privacy fence?  Because it would “block the distant view.”  Of course, the large facility buildings already do that.

Currently he is involved in a fight with the City over a maintenance issue that damaged one of his properties.  The City says it isn’t responsible because there is no ordinance covering such maintenance, and for that reason, the government agency that insures the City denied his claim.

What would a conservative (i.e., native) do?

Pay for the damage, do the due diligence on the maintenance himself, and write a letter to the Editor letting others know of this issue so that those who wished to do so could pressure the City to update its ordinances.  And attend City Council meetings, keeping the issue alive until resolved.

A liberal?

He moves away in disgust.

Because, ultimately, it was always “all about him” and had nothing to do with us.

You may have heard that the phones are off the hook in many Congressional offices in D.C.? Apparently some of your representatives and their staffers are tired of hearing how much you don’t like the Porkulus bill.

So now Erick Erickson @ RedState is offering this little gift to concerned citizens:

RedState is launching CapWiz today in partnership with Human Events.

If you go here: http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/02/12/call-congress-redstate-human-events-make-it-easy/

you can follow the link, plug in your zip code, and it will take you to your member of Congress’s local office phone number. (Bypass the busy signal in Washington.)

CapWiz makes it very easy to send emails, faxes, letters, and make phone calls to members of Congress from the web.

It is offered at no charge to right of center activists.

This story out of TN has cheered me up considerably.

Apparently Representative Kent Williams sold out conservative Tennessee voters and his own party when he  stole the House Speaker’s chair at the last minute – with the help of Democrats with whom he has been secretly conspiring.  And apparently the TN GOP decided not to take it lying down.  From a resolution of their Executive Committee:

Whereas the supporters, voters and donors of the Tennessee Republican Party have a right to expect that, having collectively campaigned for and won a majority in the state House for the first time since 1868, both houses of the legislature would be lead by loyal Republican leadership; and

Whereas the evidence shows that Representative Kent Williams had been planning his betrayal for eight weeks and conspiring with Democrats to crown him Speaker in exchange for betraying his fellow Republican caucus members; and

Whereas Representative Kent Williams rewarded his Democratic allies with committee chairmanships, putting at risk the Republican agenda the majority of Tennessee voters voted for; and

Whereas Kent Williams’ actions and words provide indefensible evidence to the 30 written challenges questioning the Bona Fide status as a Republican; and is entitled to its constitutional right of Freedom of Association; and

Whereas the Tennessee Republican Party seeks to disassociate with Representative Kent Williams;

BE IT RESOLVED:

1. That state Representative Kent Williams of Carter County, Tennessee, be forever barred from seeking elective office in Tennessee on a Republican ballot; and

2. That the Tennessee Republican Party immediately request all media outlets in Tennessee to cease referring to Representative Kent Williams as a Republican.

3. That Kent Williams receive no support, endorsements, or financial backing by those affiliates of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Can they DO that?

Yes.  As the resolution notes, the Republican Party enjoys the constitutionally protected right of Freedom of Association.

Hmmm…

Have the state parties in Pennsylvania and Maine – home to RINO (Republican In Name Only) sell-out Sens. Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins – heard about this pithy little resolution out of Tennessee?

Maybe the GOP in every state should start disassociating themselves from Republican legislators who sell out conservative values, the voters, and the party that got them elected.

I can think of one state, in particular, in which at least one prominent Republican seems to be conspiring with Democrats to give “bi-partisan” support for tax hikes in the middle of a huge recession.

I’ll give you one guess which state – and which Senator – it is.

Steve Forbes chimes in.

(That header’s a Transformers movie reference, for all you old folks.  And hermits.  And monks.)

(And I refuse to add a “Stimulus” subject category on my blog because this is NOT a stimulus bill.  I will not bow to the Label Lords of the Left!!)

On the cabinet appointment scandals.

(Everyone who failed to nominate and vote this guy Best Humor Blog should be ashamed.)

Everyone at NR is on fire today.  Rich Lowry adds fuel.

Like this:

Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill:  I won.

That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy.

As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power—provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in October to double federal domestic discretionary spending in a matter of weeks—including increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by a third, spending hundreds of millions more on federal buildings and throwing tens of billions on every traditional liberal priority from job training to Pell Grants—he’d have been hard-pressed to win at all.

The president should read the transcript of the third presidential debate. He claimed his program represented “a net spending cut.” He called himself “a strong proponent of pay-as-you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” He added, “We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don’t work.”

 And this:

Obama writes that the bill “is more than a prescription for short-term spending—it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity.” Fine. A long-term strategy deserves long-term deliberation, the committee hearings and other processes meant to exercise a check on the heedlessness of hasty legislating in a panic.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will have a stimulative effect in the short term but a negative one in the long term, although it stipulates that “large fiscal stimulus is rarely attempted” and its effects “are very uncertain.” The stimulus bill is basically a $1 trillion bet on an utterly unproven theory—that scattershot government spending is a magic elixir for an economy in the grips of a financial crisis.

When Barack Obama ran last year, he didn’t say he’d engage in faith-based economic policy on a grand scale. He didn’t say he’d toss aside the normal processes of governing. He didn’t say he’d quickly act to add waste to the federal budget. And he didn’t say he’d try to brush away criticism with the mere assertion of his victory. On the stimulus, when Obama says “I won,” he’s out of better arguments.

Jonah is especially funny today.  What can I say, I’m a sucker for Star Trek references:

Moreover, many actually believed Obama’s own hype. This was the moment for this, that and the other thing. This was the time when we, as Americans, were going to have our cake and eat it too. Future generations were going to look back and remember how Republicans and Democrats, cats and dogs, Klingons and Romulans came together and marched to the sunny uplands of history, where shopping carts have no wobbly wheels; airplane food is free, delicious, and filling; and we get all of our energy from 100 percent renewable Loch Ness Monster poop.

…is like giving whiskey, guns, and the car keys to your teenage son.”  — P.J. O’Rourke.

Apparently it’s also like giving him a whole fleet of new cars.  After he spends way more than needed – and then LOSES – the one you helped him get last year.

How could anyone do this?

So says Charles Krauthammer today in his not-to-be-missed WaPo column. 

(I love Charles.  He has a real knack for making me laugh as he delivers scores of sad-but-truisms.)

If you missed it, here’s the transcript from Obama’s speech from last night. 

What you won’t get from reading it (that was obvious when watching) is how angry he was:  dark eyes, tense jaw, stiff neck, and a light mist of sweat ‘cross his furrowed brow.  At times he all but fumed as he turned from left teleprompter to right.

I must admit, I took some pleasure in watching Obama rail against the forces that would impede his mighty (and wrong-headed) will.

What a proud and foolish man he seems.

He always seemed so, to me – but I tried to believe it was the ecstacy of adoring crowds and the headyness of the historical import of his impending victory.  I hoped the smug and self-congratulatory air would leave him a few days, or a few weeks, into office.

Not so.

Vanity, thy name is now President.

New Hampshire has the best state motto, don’t you think?

And now four of its state legislators are living up to it.  HCR 6, a bill borrowed mostly from “Jefferson and Madison’s Kentucky Resolutions of 1798,” is quite an interesting piece of work.

Here’s one of my favorite parts (emphasis mine):

That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress….

Stephen Spruiell & Kevin Williamson @ NRO list and detail the 50 most outrageous items in the stimulus package.  This is the best, most comprehensive sum-up I’ve seen.  Read it and weep call your senator today.

Yesterday 18 free market and limited government leaders released a letter urging the Senate to reject “the Bill.” 

And Rasumussen reported that more Americans oppose the $1.2 trillion (including intest) bill than support it.   Here are some blurbs:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure.

Two weeks ago, 45% supported the plan. Last week, 42% supported it.

Opposition has grown from 34% two weeks ago to 39% last week and 43% today.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Democrats still support the plan. That figure is down from 74% a week ago. Just 13% of Republicans and 27% of those not affiliated with either major party agree.

Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans oppose the plan along with 50% of unaffiliated voters and 16% of Democrats.

Meanwhile Congressional Republicans doubt whether the bill will save or create the 3 to 4 million jobs Obama and the Dems claim.

The bill is full of pork and nonsense and needs to be scrapped.

Quite a few readers have asked me if I read “the CATO ad/letter.” 

I did - and now you can, too.  (Can someone count the signatures, please…?)

Peter Wehner has a good post up on The Corner.

He quotes from the WaPo and then says this about the Daschle, Killefer, and Geithner picks:

Team Obama apparently knew about the tax issues but ignored them because, they thought, they were minor matters. This speaks to a surprising tone-deafness and insulation on the part of Obama & Company. Do they really think it’s possible for, say, Joe Biden to say during the campaign that those who don’t want to pay higher taxes are not fulfilling their patriotic duty—and then offer up three (so far) nominees who didn’t pay the taxes they owe? Apparently so.

And, as Wehner points out, the Obama Team’s choice to try to hide these things from the public eye is hardly an example of the government “transparency” Obama said he was committed to during the campaign.

As Dickens’ Mr. Micawber would likely say:

Not

A

Very

Good

Start

Sir

Remember in the Bible in Genesis 18 when God informs Abraham that he plans to destroy Sodom because of its really wicked wickedness? 

And Abraham pleads with God not to rain down fire and brimstone if 50 good people can be found in the city? 

And God says “ok,” and then Abraham lowers the quota to 40, then 30, then 20, and finally, to just 10 goodly folks?

And God still says “ok” but then the angels can only find FOUR decent people living in Sodom so the city is destroyed?

Do you think Obama can find even 10 good people…to help fill his 15 cabinet positions…?

Update:  This just gets better and better.  Now the WSJ is reporting there are problems with Panetta, too.

Erick Erickson @ RedState wrote an inspiring piece the other day.  If you follow politics and you’re a little (or a lot) discouraged, take a few minutes to read it and cheer yourself up.

Guess not.

On a happier note, baseball season starts in just 8 and 1/2 weeks.

And Varitek IS staying with the Red Sox!

They are up by 3 with two minutes to go.  I am very excited right now.  (I’m a Patriots fan, but I always root against the Steelers.  And the Cowboys.)

It is now the eve of the 75th convening of the Nevada Legislature.  But don’t get too excited, kids!  Tomorrow will be a day of glad-handing and back-slapping and silly grinning.

Anyone waiting for actual state business to be done will have to wait (at least) until Tuesday.  Longer, probably, since the the Dems still have not put forth a comprehensive budget proposal, and it’s going to be more than a 5 minute job to solve our $600 million budget shortfall.

Even then, with the Dem super-majority in the Assembly, the best that minority leader Heidi Gansert will be able to do is convince her team that supporting tax-and-spend policies is bad for their electoral futures.  And if they don’t believe her and choose to join the Dems in a “bi-partisan” action, I’m guessing it’ll be D-Day for them in 2010.

Update: Steve Sebellius has the Democrat “plan” – all two vague-sounding, double-spaced, extra large font pages of it – here.