Friday, January 30, 2009

Oh, What A Tangled Web...

"Do you know what the best stimulus to the economy would be right now? Doing nothing!"

-Rush Limbaugh-

Earlier this week the Democratic National Congressional Committee encouraged their members to write them with messages for Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Limbaugh had earlier stated that he wanted to see President Obama's liberal policies fail. Of course, the liberal mainstream media and Democrats were offended by this. It was okay for them to excoriate President Bush on a daily basis, but no one should be able to oppose their Messiah, Barack Obama. So the Democrats encouraged their base to let Mr. Limbaugh know of their contempt and disdain regarding his remarks and then promised to deliver their messages to Mr. Limbaugh.

Only, it backfired on them. They were pummeled with messages, but the vast majority were in favor of Mr. Limbaugh's statements. As one commenter on their site stated: "… it's crazy that a conservative Republican would want liberal Democrats to fail. WEIRD."

More comments can be found at this link:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87431

Rush's brother, David wrote an article outlining how Rush is being targeted in an effort to silence any dissent of the Obama presidency. "The goal is to single Rush out and pick him off." Click on the link below to read the entire article.
http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2009/01/30/targeting_rush_saul_alinsky_would_be_proud

Rush and his listeners are too smart for the democrats. Let's continue to counter any effort to be silenced, and let's make sure our voices are heard. It's driving the dems crazy.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Pork, heroes, and hypocrites... oh my!

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives voted on President Obama's more than $800 billion stimulus package -- which is only about 10% stimulus and 90% spending. We have to applaud the Republican congressmen and women who voted 'nay' on this package -- not one Republican voted for this plan and eleven Democrats joined the Republicans. We cannot understand why anyone would vote for this. It will not stimulate the economy and while it may create some jobs, the jobs do not have unlimited funding. Since the jobs are not part of the free market they will not be generating any revenue. That means that they are government jobs being paid by taxpayers. And, eventually, that money will run out, leading to increased taxes.

Glenn Beck, speaking about the stimulus package, stated on his program yesterday that "the interest alone will cost us as much as the war in Afghanistan... times two." It doesn't take a college-educated economist to realize that the math doesn't add up. More government-funded jobs take away from jobs in the free market; the free market generates revenue -- government jobs generate more taxes and fines.

The following items are some of the things included in the so-called "stimulus" package:

$20.0 billion to increase the maximum benefit under the Supplemental Nutrition Assurance Program (i.e., Food Stamps)

$18.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs

$20.4 billion for programs administered by the Department of health and Human Services

$20.0 billion to renovate elementary and secondary schools

$17.6 billion for Pell grants and other student financial assistance at post-secondary institutions

$29.1 billion for other elementary and secondary educational programs

$30.0 billion for highway construction

$13.1 billion for other transportation programs

$11.2 billion for housing assistance programs administered by HUD

$19.5 billion (minimum, could be higher, as per Title XIII) for education grants to states

$27.1 billion for increase unemployment benefits

$13.3 billion to increase health insurance for unemployed workers

$11.1 billion for “Other Unemployment Compensation”

$20.2 billion for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments to encourage providers to improve healthcare IT

We were led to believe during the campaign that Obama was going to be bipartisan, but Democrats wouldn't even entertain Republican input on this stimulus package. By the way, the Republicans countered the Democrats package with a package of their own that would have created 6.2 million jobs -- two to four million more jobs than the Democrats are promoting. Now the Democrats are going to target the states of the 'nay' voters to let the voters know that their congressmen and women didn't support creating new jobs. We think that strategy will backfire on the Democrats because so many of the voters who will be targeted are the same people who weren't for the stimulus package. They called their U.S. representatives and their representatives responded to their pleas by voting 'nay'. What will happen to the Democrats who voted 'yea' when their constituents find out that the Democrats wouldn't listen to a plan that would cost half as much and provide more jobs?

This link will take you to a list of who voted 'yea' and who voted 'nay' in the House yesterday. http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/house/1/46

We encourage you to call or write your representative and let him/her know that you appreciate their stand. It will help them to have the courage to stand against Democrats again in the future.

By the way, Rush Limbaugh is proposing his own stimulus plan. You can read about it here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123318906638926749.html

Speaking of hypocrites, many people will recall that, during his campaign, Obama called on the American people to be the leaders in energy conservation. “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said. “That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

Once again we're being subjected to the Democrat's motto of "do as I say, not as I do." President Obama has raised the thermostat in the Oval Office. According to David Axelrod, advisor to President Obama, "you could grow orchids in there." So while orchids are growing in the Oval Office, we're being told to lower our thermostats. This link will take you to the article: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/29/the-age-of-obama-heat-for-me-but-not-for-thee/

It still blows our minds that 54 million people voted for Barack Obama. It was obvious to us during the campaign that he could never achieve what he promised -- the math never added up on his plans. He's either very deceitful or clueless. To give him the benefit of the doubt, we'll call him clueless. He never did define the change on which he based his campaign, yet people were captivated by the promise. He never served a full term in the U.S. Senate and most of that one term was spent campaigning for president. He votes 'present' more than actually voting for or against anything. We just want to say 'thanks a lot' to those 54 million people (that was a sarcastic thanks, in case they didn't get it) -- we're now seeing the change he pledged. We just hope that we can survive it -- it doesn't look good.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Battle of Wits with an Unarmed DCCC

Several days ago Sean Hannity interviewed Rush Limbaugh for Sean's television show on the Fox News channel. Sean asked Rush if he wanted Obama to succeed as president. Rush replied (and we're paraphrasing) that he did not want Obama's left-wing, socialist agenda to succeed. Now the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is sponsoring a petition for people to write Rush Limbaugh regarding their outrage over Rush's remarks that President Obama fail. They say they are going to make sure that Rush gets the remarks.

Rush Limbaugh is never to be outdone. The following is on his website:

Rush Responds to Democrat E-mail Petition Against Him: "I am greatly puzzled. Why would the Democrats petition against me if I am doing such terrible damage to the GOP? "

Reverse Petition: Click here to tell the DCCC and all other Democrats it is time to stop lying about and distorting Rush's comments on Barack Obama's War on Prosperity.

Using Rush's online petition, both of us sent our comments to the DCCC. Below are Edie's comments:

Dear DCCC:
I find it absolutely disgusting that you would attack Rush Limbaugh, a private citizen, for exercising his freedom of speech. You must be scared to death of what he can do to your president to go after him in such a way. Quite frankly, I'm scared to death of what Barack Obama is going to do to this nation. Like Rush, I too hope that President Obama fails in putting through all his socialist plans. And Rush didn't tell me to feel that way -- I thought of it all on my own before Rush ever expressed his feelings. During the campaign, Americans were excoriated for disagreeing with Barack Obama. We were told we were racists, as if we couldn't possibly be smart enough, or maybe just simple enough, to just disagree with his policies -- and, unlike Rush, Obama is a public figure, open to our judgments and criticism. So, because you can't stand the heat of exposure to the light of truth, you're going to shout down the rest of us and try to silence our concerns. So much for the Democrat's campaign of bipartisanship and open politics.


And these are Sandy's comments:

I'm sending these comments in response to the petition the DCCC has started to send to Rush Limbaugh. Rush stated that he hopes Obama's left wing, socialist agenda is a failure. I agree with Mr. Limbaugh. If Obama will temper the items that he hopes to accomplish while president for the next four years to more closely align with the Constitution, then I would hope that he would succeed with those goals. However, as his stated goals stand now, I'm with Mr. Limbaugh. The Democrat party should take a lesson from what happened when Harry Reid tried to distort Rush's words. Rush proved he is much smarter than Harry, and Harry looked like a fool. The DCCC can expect the same fate if they decide to have a battle of wits with Mr. Limbaugh.

If you have a few extra minutes, please click on the link above and send your own comments to the DCCC.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

We The People...

"Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence." -Thomas Jefferson-

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." -Thomas Jefferson-

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." -Thomas Jefferson-

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." -Thomas Jefferson-

During our summer vacation last year, we stopped and toured Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Virginia. It sits on a beautiful site; you can see miles of valleys and mountains. After all that Thomas Jefferson had risked to fight for personal liberty, we can only imagine the satisfaction he felt when looking at his property and the surrounding countryside. He could have lost everything, even his life, if the British had defeated the Americans. The founding fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence would have been treated as traitors under British rule, with the ultimate punishment being death by hanging.

Apparently, freedom was worth any price for Mr. Jefferson and his fellow signers. The founding fathers were learned and well-read men who studied ancient and then-current governments to see what worked and what didn’t work. They wanted the people to govern themselves but understood that a pure democracy is little more than mob rule. So they formed a federal republic of states, believing that the majority of the power should lie within the state and that representation of the people would work best to insure that mob rule wasn’t the law. Certainly it was a divinely inspired plan.

The government we have now has strayed down a dangerous path from the one that the founding fathers created. The American people are ill-informed about their government and blindly vote for politicians who end up not having their best interests at heart while greedily allowing lobbyists to line their pockets.

Fortunately, there are indications that many Americans are waking up to the reality of their government and they are starting to fight back. Hopefully, it won’t be too little too late.

The speakers at church this past Sunday reminded us about the importance of having the right to make our own choices and then using that agency wisely. We have a government now who wants us to relinquish our agency to them. They no longer even listen to us. It has been reported that the American people were nine to one against the bailout, but our politicians voted for it anyway. These politicians are our representatives. They serve in Washington, D.C., with our permission. We can revoke that permission at any election.

We believe that our freedom of choice is given to us by the God of all of us. He will hold us responsible if we misuse the gift. Many people in this nation are waiting for hand-outs from the government, willingly letting the government feed and clothe them, while hoping that more government hand-out programs will come their way. The social programs and government hand-outs are no better than slavery because we are surely enslaved to the government for our existence by allowing them control over our lives.

If the founding fathers were willing to risk their very lives as the price for freedom, then shouldn’t we, who enjoy the fruits of their labors, be willing to fight our current government to keep those freedoms. We may be separated by 230 years from our founding fathers, but what has really changed? They were people who wanted to be free of oppressive government and we are people who are witnessing government become more oppressive. The fight is the same. We should be about our Father’s business and make sure we don’t lose our right to choose.

"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." -Thomas Jefferson-

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive." -Thomas Jefferson-

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct." -Thomas Jefferson-

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." -Thomas Jefferson-

Monday, January 26, 2009

Arrogance or Ignorance...You Decide

News from last week:

In a meeting Friday with Obama and Senate and House leaders, Republican House Minority Leader, John Boehner, questioned the effectiveness of yet another multi-billion-dollar stimulus package. Mr. Boehner offered a stimulus package that would include tax cuts for Americans. Obama replied that the House's plan as opposed to Obama's plan outlines the differences between the Republican and Democrat party. Obama then went on to say, "...but I won the election." Way to work in a bipartisan manner, Obama.

******

According to the New York Post, President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration. Time to start calling your elected representatives and instructing them to put the kibosh on the so-called Fairness Doctrine. We fear it won't be long now before the Dems move to bring it back, so there will be no dissenting voice to the new royalty in office.

******

During an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK, Nancy Pelosis stated that birth control will stimulate the economy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

Do we live in communist China?

We can't believe that Comrade Pelosi is the best that San Francisco has to offer. Surely, there has to be someone else they can elect.

******

Obama held a press conference to highlight his signing of several executive orders. During the conference, he read a part of each executive order and then he would try to explain to the reporters the impact of the executive order. We noticed that several times during the press conference, Obama had to ask his advisors for clarification on his own executive orders. Can he really be that clueless? We fear the answer is yes.

Along these same lines, check out an article written by Austin Hill for townhall.com. The article is entitled President Obama And The Era Of Elite Governance.

http://townhall.com/columnists/AustinHill/2009/01/25/president_obama_and_the_era_of_elite_governance

Friday, January 23, 2009

Laziness... The Virtue of Socialism

As Congress and Obama prepare to take this country further into socialism, there are a few sane voices coming from the elected representatives. One such voice is Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana, who is chairman of the House Republican Conference. He understands the direction in which this country is being led, and has the courage to stand up for his convictions against all of the bailouts that are coming out of Congress. Every dollar of every bailout buys the government's ownership of the company receiving the bailout. That's not free enterprise, folks--that's socialism. We've heard and read about people who say, "What's wrong with socialism?" They like the idea of government "taking care of them." Socialism is not about government taking care of the people; it's about more money for those in power and more government control, which in turn leads to more power.

Merriam Webster's definition of socialism is below:

1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property; b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Take especial note of definition 3. Socialism is the bridge between capitalism and communism, and America is on the brink of socialism. God's intent for the people in the United States of America was for us to be a productive, self-providing, entrepreneurial people--not a nation of beggars looking for handouts.

On January 23, Congressman Pence gave the following speech from the floor of the U.S. House today to oppose further funding of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The link below will take you to the text of his speech:

http://mikepence.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=109254

The descriptions below explains very simply how different governments operate. We wish we knew who came up with this description, so we could give him or her credit.

Socialism is when you have two cows and the government takes one of your cows and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism is when you have two cows and the government takes both of your cows and sells you the milk.

Nazism is when you have two cows and the government comes along and shoots you and the cows, too.

Capitalism is when you have two cows and you take one cow and sell it and buy a bull!

Redistribution of the wealth is a step toward socialism, which in turn leads to a step towards communism. Let's not be deceived--what Obama is preaching is socialism. It's the same old axe head--just a new handle. The handle is called redistribution!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

God Bless America... Please

How many more freedoms will we lose before we finally say "enough is enough?" The liberals have arrived in Washington and they are there for at least four years. What will America look like when they are done? Will we still be able to pursue happiness and choose for ourselves, or will global warming and tolerance legislation take away our right to choose? John Stossel wrote the following article detailing what liberals hope to take away from us:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/anything_thats_peaceful.html

We hope for the sake of the American people that President Obama keeps this country safe for the next four years. Considering that he wants to close Gitmo and abolish water boarding, we're not optimistic about Obama's commitment to our safety. It seems like the feelings of the terrorists are more important than the safety of Americans. People can say what they want about Bush (and they do), but he kept us safe after 9/11. Here's another good article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012103215.html

This past election showed us that people are short-sighted. When Bush declared war on terrorists, most of the country was behind him. But because the war took longer than several people thought it should (we're not sure how they figured how long it was supposed to take in the first place), and mistakes were made, those same people withdrew their support of Bush. It appears that we live in a world where people not only expect and get instant messaging and instant potatoes, they now want instant war.

We just hope that Obama's presidency doesn't bring the battle to our soil, but we're not real optimistic about it.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Pray Without Ceasing

Now it's time to see just what kind of a president Obama will be. He had the most liberal record in the Senate, yet he gives lip service to the conservatives. He claims to want to work toward solutions to our country's woes in a bipartisan manner, yet his immediate agenda items include federal funding for worldwide abortions, closing Guantanamo Bay, and enacting tougher "hate crimes" legislation, just to name a few. Just a side note: Would members of the LDS church be included as a protected group under the tougher hate crimes laws, considering the threats they received after using their Constitutional rights to support Proposition 8? But we digress.

This Country already has one foot in the door toward socialism. If Obama is allowed to carry through with all of his plans, we can kiss capitalism goodbye and say hello to big government and higher taxes with which to pay for that big government. There will be more social programs like socialized health care, but the wait for services will be months--just ask any Canadian, Britain, or Australian. Can anyone think of a government program that has been run well? The latest statistic we heard regarding medicare is that it has a 30% fraud rate--one of every three persons who use medicare is using it fraudulently. We would bet that those statistics would be true for many other social programs.

Dick Morris wrote an excellent article for Realclearpolitics.com addressing these issues. This link will take you to that article:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/the_obama_presidency_here_come.html

We've heard many people say that we need to pray that Obama is a successful president, but we agree with Rush Limbaugh. We don't want Obama to be successful with his far left ideas and programs. We'll pray for this country and hope that too much damage isn't done before its citizens become weary of the arrogant representatives who sit in Congress now. We will pray that the people will say "enough is enough" and throw the bums out. We will pray that somehow the people will be able to turn this country back to its Judeo-Christian belief system.

******

Now for something to smile about and speaking of Christian beliefs, one Sunday Edie was teaching her six-year-old Primary class about how Jesus taught us to be forgiving and the example of forgiveness that He gave us. To emphasize this point, Edie asked the class what Jesus said when He was hanging on the cross. One energetic little boy responded loudly and fervently to the question with this reply: “The last supper will be mine!”

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

We All Have A Dream

Yesterday we celebrated the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., the 60's civil rights activist who fought for civil rights in America. We agree that all people should be treated equally and that all are children of God.

Unfortunately, while every January brings a celebration of Mr. King's birth and a remembrance of his civil rights achievements, most people are unaware that Martin Luther King was a Republican who was fighting the Democrat party's stranglehold on segregation and bigotry. According to the National Black Republicans website, it was "the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs."

See the entire National Black Republicans article by clicking on the below link:

http://www.nationalblackrepublicans.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=pages.DYK-Why%20MLK%20was%20a%20Republican

In light of today's inauguration and a reflection of Mr. King's own dream, our dream is that we stay safe for the next four years, keep our freedoms intact (maybe even gain back some of our lost freedoms) under the new administration, and elect honest, unselfish politicians in 2010.

Friday, January 16, 2009

To Infinity and Beyond

On Monday of this week, we posted the link to an article written by John Hawkins for Townhall.com. The article was entitled "A 'You Suck' List." Today Mr. Hawkins has written a follow-up article entitled "A 'You Suck' List Part Two." Part two is just as entertaining and true as Part One--the link is below:

http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2009/01/16/a_you_suck_list_part_two

We decided to compile a "You Suck" list of our own. The list grows daily, hence the reason for the infinity title:

Harry Reid - If you've been reading our blog for a while, no further explanation is needed.

Liberals - Same explanation as above

Tailgaters - This is especially annoying in inclement weather

Bill Keller of LivePrayer - very anti Mormon

Global Warming Conspirators - Global warming is a hoax perpetrated by people (politicians) who want to make money off of so-called carbon emissions and who also want to exert more control over the common folks. More than 650 scientists now agree that there is no global warming.

People with working Metabolisms - Please! If we hear one more skinny person say, "I can eat anything I want--I don't have to diet," we're going to drown our sorrows in a box of Double Stuff Oreos with a Haagen Daas chaser and then throw the empty cartons at the skinny person.

People in charge of keeping public restrooms clean - Worst public restroom ever award goes to a Flying J Quicky Mart somewhere in the vast wastelands of Nebraska. Best public restroom awards go to El Jefe Restaurant in Las Vegas and to Wegman's grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

Bosses who throw employees under the bus for mistakes that the boss made - Even though these folks are very annoying, they're also very pathetic for being so insecure. Grow a pair and man up. (This applies to male and female bosses.)

Thursday, January 15, 2009

The Final Curtain Call

President Bush will be giving his farewell speech later today. In less than a week we will have a new president. We haven't agreed with everything that President Bush has said or done; in fact, we were horrified at the seemingly unchecked spending binge that Washington has been on, and that was before the socialistic bailouts were approved.

However, it cannot be ignored that there have been no attacks on American soil since 9/11. That doesn't mean there have been no further attempts; it just means that Bush has been proactive and done all that he could to keep us safe. For that, we are grateful. History will probably be kinder to Mr. Bush than are many currently alive Americans. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and once all facts are known and a couple of more presidents have come and gone, many people will look at Bush's presidency with clearer vision.

This article further illustrates Mr. Bush's legacy: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4241865/History-will-show-that-George-W-Bush-was-right.html

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Fourth Reich

We received the following statement in an e-mail from the National Republican Senatorial Committee:

"Last week we witnessed the swearing-in of the 111th Congress. As newly elected and recently re-elected members took their oaths of office, they put aside the partisanship of the fall campaign season and turned their attention to working together on behalf of their constituents.

Unfortunately, not everyone demonstrated a willingness to rise above the bitter partisan rancor. Despite telling Politico that he was "planning to trade in the fiercely partisan tirades against Senate Republicans" and would be "rolling out the new feel-good Reid model," Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid continues to rule the Senate with an iron-clad, ultra-partisan fist.

For the past few weeks, Senator Norm Coleman's office has remained open for constituent work under a good-faith agreement between Senators Reid and Mitch McConnell, as the unprecedented and still-unresolved Minnesota Senate election has wound its way through the lengthy legal process.

Allowing the office to remain open for a short period of time to conclude outstanding constituent cases ensures that the people of Minnesota do not suffer as a result of the ongoing election dispute. One of the most important responsibilities of Senate offices is to help citizens navigate the maze of the federal bureaucracy.

Regrettably, on Tuesday, in a blatant act of partisanship, Harry Reid broke his word. He locked Senator Coleman's office and denied his staff access to urgent and ongoing casework.

Notably, this came just hours after Senator Coleman's campaign requested a fair and nonpartisan legal review of the counted ballots as is their right under Minnesota law.
It's hard to believe those two actions are not connected.


By going back on his word and locking Senator Coleman's office, Harry Reid is advancing his partisan agenda at the cost of the people of Minnesota. He's putting politics above principle and punishing Minnesotans for partisan gain.

The American people deserve better treatment from their elected representatives. "

We hear that Harry has already begun the process of choosing a campaign manager for his 2010 reelection bid. Could that be because his approval rating is at an all-time low in Nevada? Yet he doesn't seem to understand that it's tactics like the one in the above statement that further erode any last morsel of credibility on to which he may be trying to cling.

In addition to Reid's partisan antics, it appears that Nancy Pelosi believes that she is the female Lenin. On Glenn Beck's program today, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota said this about Comrade Pelosi: "There are very, very few Democrats who are gutsy enough to not vote with Nancy Pelosi. This woman rules with a titanium fist, a very tight ship, and she just threatened the, quote, conservative Democrats that if they don't vote for this stimulus plan that she will take away from them their one-week recess that they have to be back in their district in February."

Reid, Pelosi, and their proteges in Washington are what the American people are up against. If we don't fight them now, we might not have the freedom to fight them later.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Hey Mister... Can You Spare A Dime?

Barack Obama wants to redistribute our wealth. Ironically, it took a plumber to dig out that tidbit of information because the mainstream liberal media didn't want to be the ones to expose Obama's plan. They are, after all, Obama's biggest fans.

Wealth redistribution is welfare. It's a handout, not a hand-up -- and it's not the government's job to make sure the people are equal. We've said before that it's not the government's job to be charitable. Their job is to keep us safe so that we can spend time being charitable if we so choose. Certainly, some people wouldn't choose to be charitable, but there are plenty more who do. The founding fathers wrote the constitution so that it would be our choice. That's one of the problems with government-mandated wealth redistribution -- our choice is taken away from us.

Additionally, there are entities that the government funds with our money that would never gain our approval, if we were given the choice to approve. There are several charities, however, that we would give to freely, if we we were free to give our money away as we choose. We, like most other Americans right now, are just trying to not become charity. We wouldn't have to worry about that so much if the government would allow us to keep more of our money. There's no doubt that we would do a better job of distributing our money than the government is currently doing with their failing bailout schemes.

Maybe the government thinks that we are selfish and they can't trust us to do the right thing with our money. We suppose that could be true, but we really think that it's not a matter of trusting us to do the right thing -- it's more a matter of not trusting us to do their thing. They want our money to take care of their issues and build more government jobs. We wouldn't need government czars for any government office if we cut out the middle man and just gave directly to the poor.

This link will take you to an article that says exactly what we are trying to say about wealth redistribution: http://liberty.pacificresearch.org/press/why-cant-i-redistribute-my-own-wealth

Interestingly, a liberal wrote an editorial calling on other liberals to give more. He even cites statistics that show that conservatives give more to charity than liberals. Hmmm... that means that conservatives actually walk their own talk while liberals believe that everyone but them needs to support their liberal agendas.

This link will take you to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

Monday, January 12, 2009

The Constitution Hangs by An Unraveling Thread

We love an article written by John Hawkins for Townhall.com. It's entitled "A 'You Suck' List" and pretty much sums up our feelings. We recommend reading the comments at the end of the article as well. The article and comments would be funny if they weren't so true.

http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2009/01/09/a_you_suck_list?page=full&comments=true

We would also add Harry Reid to the "You Suck" list. The oil drilling ban expired in October, and Harry and the dems in the Senate figured out a way to effectively reinstate the ban without raising too much of a red flag and without using the word "ban." Yesterday Reid and the other lowlifes in the Senate pushed through a bill that would set aside energy rich lands as federally protected lands, thus effectively reinstating the ban and keeping America in bondage to foreign countries for our oil supplies. Reid refused to allow amendments to the bill from the Republicans. The bill passed and it will now go to the House for approval. Pelosi has passed new rules in the House that neuters the minority party's right to debate legislation and to add amendments. The bill will likely pass in the House as well. The link below will take you to an article on this same topic.

http://townhall.com/blog/g/0f028c25-c1fe-4be8-8c10-b46bab497793?comments=true&commentsSortDirection=Descending

For what it's worth, which doesn't seem to be a whole lot, the constitution doesn't allow for the federal government to have federal lands to the extent that we are seeing now. There are very few instances cited in the constitution that the federal government can seize a state's land -- and Reid's latest land grab isn't one of the cited instances.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Some Pigs Don't Wear Lipstick

The following link is to a really good article about Washington's involvement in the current financial crisis.

http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2009/01/06/pigs_at_the_trough

On election day in Philadelphia, two members of the New Black Panther Party stood outside of a polling place and intimidated voters in their efforts to make sure a black won the election. It's nice to know that, occasionally, the federal government actually stands up for the American people instead of against them. Feds have filed suit against the New Black Panther Party for violating The Voting Rights Act of 1965. This link will take you to the article:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=85626

Apparently, the federal government wants a monopoly on intimidation practices. They didn't appreciate the New Black Panther Party's competition.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

United We Stand...

We haven't really blogged about politics for a few weeks, probably because thinking about it gives us an aneurysm, but it can't be ignored any longer. The schemers, crooks, liars, and idiots (aka politicians) hand us blog fodder on a silver platter.

Much has been said of Illinois politics lately and how its way of doing business isn't much different from when there was mob rule in the state. It's just a little more covert now than it was then. We don't hear anymore of gangsters driving by a restaurant where patrons are exiting and riddling them with bullets from their machine guns; however, it seems to us that Illinois politics are business as usual. Harry Reid has been adamant that the Senate would not seat Roland Burris, who was appointed by the scandalized governor of Illinois to fill Obama's Senate seat. (By the way, the appointment is legal, but either Harry doesn't think the rules apply to him, or he's just ignorant.) Evidently a phone call from Obama changed his mind. John Kass wrote an excellent article about this for the Chicago Tribune. The link is below:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-08-jan08,0,6293839.column

Another topic that just keeps rearing its ugly head is socialized medicine, or the more politically-correct title, universal health care. We've blogged about this before. It isn't working in other countries that have enacted laws providing for it, but Americans seem oblivious to those facts. Politicians are anxious to see it implemented in the United States, because the more programs the government controls, the more power the politicians have. And politicians have excellent private health care, better than any of us can get, and it's paid for with our tax dollars. They'll never be in a position to use universal healthcare, but evidently it's okay for the little people. The link below will take you to an article written by Thomas Sowell for the National Review Online. In it he refers and links to another article written by Sally C. Pipes. We recommend reading both articles.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTVhYTEyMWRmOWIyMGI0M2U0NTVhNmE0NjQ0M2JiZmQ

While the government may not be run by the Chicago mob, the current "mob" in Washington, DC, may have learned their politics from the original mob. Beat up, beat back, beat down the people who are in the way of their goals while offering us deals we seem unable to refuse. This spring Harry Reid is planning to push through an amnesty program for illegal aliens, even though the majority of American people are opposed to it. Congress is going to try to shove universal healthcare on us whether it's good for us or not. Even the liberal media is on their team, pushing Barack Obama as the best presidential candidate while telling Obama's dissenters that they're racists for voting against him. They might beat us up, they'll try to beat us back and beat us down, but they can't knock us out completely unless we choose not to get back up and continue the fight. Let's stand together and fight for our God-given right to choose for ourselves.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Hope Springs Eternal

Today's post would probably have been more appropriate for the last week of December, but we were without Internet access then until January 4. We are going to take a look back at 2008 and reminisce.
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At the beginning January 2008, Sandy's new grandson was a little more than two months old.
Kobe, Jonas & Isaiah shortly after Jonas' birth

Jonas sleeping on the couch - approximately two months old

All three of the boys grew like weeds last year, but a baby's first year of growth is much more noticeable.

And now he's just a little boy playing in his brothers' bedroom while they're at school.

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We and our siblings were blessed with a wonderful mother. She passed away in May of 2001 after breaking her neck in a tragic accident in December 2000. We miss her very much, but we are also very grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the knowledge that we'll be with her and our father again someday. Edie wrote a tribute to our mother, and it was published in a book entitled "Mother's Wisdom." It was published in time for Mothers' Day.

Our mother's tribute begins on page 10.

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In July we embarked on an adventure that we constantly look back on with fond memories. We loaded up the car and took a 17-day, cross-country, 6600 mile trip to New York and back. We wish we could take similar trips every year, only for an entire month. Since we blogged our way across the United States, we won't rehash the whole trip again, but we are going to post a few of the pictures that we didn't post in July.

July 4 - We took this picture in Beaver, Utah. Evidently we planned our trip during the highest gas prices on record ever.

July 7 - This marker is by the creek in Kirtland, Ohio, where many of the early members of the LDS church were baptized.

July 14 - This staircase is in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and it's the same staircase that is shown in the movie National Treasure. In the movie, the sign at the bottom is imprinted with "Do Not Enter."

July 15 - This is a drive-by picture of the Pentagon. We didn't realize what it was until we were right on top of it. We also didn't realize that it was so close to major freeways.

July 19 - We received a comment from one of our readers asking us why we didn't take any pictures of non-denominational Christian churches, since we took pictures of every LDS temple we could and even one Catholic Basilica. Well we did take a picture of a non-denomination Christian church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but we didn't see the name of the church. It looked like brand new construction and may not have been open for business when we took this picture. It was across the street from the LDS temple in Albuquerque.

That was such a great trip. We can't wait to do it again.

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At the end of October we, our sister and brother-in-law, our brother and sister-in-law and two little nieces, Sandy's son, daughter-in-law and three grandsons all went to Disneyland. That was a fun trip also, and we hope to be able to do that trip again someday soon. The trip home was a little slow, however. Traffic came to a standstill as we were approaching the Glen Helen freeway (we think that's the name).

This is what we could see from our car.

And this is what caused the very long delay.

Evidently, the trailer from a large truck caught fire and burned to a crisp. We don't know if it was caused by an accident with another vehicle, or if the trailer just spontaneously combusted. We didn't particularly care for sitting still in traffic for an hour, but we're glad we weren't involved in whatever happened that caused the fire.

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And then there's the politics of 2008. This isn't such a fond memory. In fact, thinking about it makes our heads explode. We can't believe that Al Franken was elected to the Senate in Minnesota (it is being contested, so we're holding out hope for a different outcome). We plan to do whatever we can to ensure that Harry Reid isn't reelected in 2010. We're hoping that Obama doesn't mess this country up so badly that we'll never recover. We now have a better understanding as to why our founding fathers left England to start somewhere else anew.

But we still have hope:

hope that people will realize that their right to choose for themselves is more important than anything the government has to offer -- and that those same people will fight for their rights before willingly giving them up.

hope that there will be many more trips and many more opportunities to see this great country, and perhaps a few other countries, before our time on earth is done.

hope that we'll be reunited with our parents someday.

hope that the generation being born and raised on this earth now are the best that the Father has to offer.

hope that the people of Minnesota really aren't going to elect Al Franken as their senator.

hope that the people of Nevada really aren't going to elect Harry Reid as their senator in 2010.

and hope, that no matter how bad things seem on earth sometimes, there is Someone who is better than the bad, greater than the evil, and more merciful than justice.

As long as we have hope, 2009 is looking good.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Ringing in the New Year

We had such a nice time at our home in Utah. We left Henderson on December 27 to head up north. We had heard that our little home town had received quite a bit of snowfall. If not for one of the townsfolk plowing our driveway, we wouldn't have been able to get to our house. The picture below was taken from our front porch. You can see the deer tracks in the snow in our front yard. The next picture was again taken from our front porch looking in another direction.The picture below was taken looking out our kitchen door. We couldn't get the screen door open because the snow was too deep, but the deep snow didn't deter the deer from frolicking in our yard at night.
Our brother and his wife and our two little nieces stopped by on the 28th on their way out of town. They were visiting with our sister-in-law's mom and dad. Her dad was our good Samaritan driveway-plower. Many thanks to him again. Our two little nieces are so darn cute. In our church, small children go to the nursery class from the time they're 18 months old to the January following their third birthday, and then they go to the Sunbeams class . Camille, our 3 1/2 year old niece, didn't want to leave the nursery program. She told her mother, "I'll be a lot of things for Jesus, but not a Sunbeam." When it was time for them to leave to head farther up north to their home, Camille told her mom that she wanted to stay with her Aunties forever, and she hid in the kitchen in hopes that her parents would forget about her. Her mom found her, of course, and told her to kiss and hug her Aunties goodbye. Camille told her mother, "I said I wanted to stay here forever; not kiss and hug them goodbye." We've got to admire her spunk. Her younger sister, McKenna, is every bit as adorable as Camille, but she doesn't talk as much to us. We pilfered the picture below of the girls from their mother's blog. It was taken this summer while we were in Disneyland.
Most of the days we were in Utah were spent working on our hobbies: Edie crochets and Sandy quilts. Below is a picture of the baby blanket that Edie finished while we were in Utah.

And this is a picture of the quilt and dust ruffle that Sandy made for her bed in our Utah home. She finished this quilt when we were in Utah over Thanksgiving. She started working on another quilt during this visit.

We did take a break from our crocheting and quilting to go outside on Tuesday to break up the ice at the bottom of our driveway. We had a little difficulty getting up our driveway when we arrived in town the evening of the 27th. The tires on Edie's car spun on the ice. She had to put the car in reverse and then gun it to get over the very slick ice. Fortunately, our driveway isn't too short, so we didn't gun the car through the back of the garage. We also wanted to make sure the driveway was as ice-free as possible, because on Wednesday we were planning to go up north a ways to a larger town that actually has stores so we could do a little shopping. Other than those two brief excursions out of our home, we just relaxed and sewed and crocheted (and did a little cleaning--very little, and not our idea of relaxation). We weren't looking forward to coming back to Henderson, but we're here nonetheless, and we're looking forward to the next time we visit our other home.