Observations from a conservative in a blue state. Where your comments are encouraged.

It was announced that Sarah Palin will not be seeking re-election as governor of Alaska. Within minutes it was announced that she’s resigning by the end of the month.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) stunned political observers Friday by announcing she will resign the governorship after just two and a half years in office.

The first-term governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee made the announcement at her home in Wasilla. Some political observers had expected Palin to forgo an opportunity to seek re-election, but few expected Palin to resign office. Her reason for stepping down was not immediately clear.

Fox News just reported that they spoke to Todd Palin who said she will be resigning to focus on issues that are important to her and the nation.  

I don’t know what to make of this. Bizarre to say the least. Quitting her job mid-term doesn’t seem to be the way to further her political career. We’ll surely hear more about this in the days to come.

Update: As I write this Sarah’s brother is on the phone with Fox News. No video available yet. He said that she’s spent so much time defending herself against all of the bogus ethics complaints filed by her political enemies that she wasn’t able to focus on her duties as governor. Makes sense. He also said she will be working on the things she is passionate about: limited government, etc.

Video via Political Carnival (Sarah’s speech starts at about 2 minutes into the video) It’s starting to make more sense now.

Popularity: 2% [?]

It was nice to see that the US is willing to defend itself against a North Korean missile.

But then this.

As diplomats prepare for the G8 Summit, many are working toward a resolution to impose additional economic sanctions on Iran. There is one country working hard to prevent new sanctions, the United States.

Apparently Europe feels that Iran’s continued development of its nuclear weapons program, its crackdown on their own people and the arrest of British Diplomats is worthy of new sanctions.

President Obama’s myopic pursuit of his engage the Islamist terrorist regime policy is making him reluctant to upset the Iranian government, with new sanctions. Its Neville Chamberlain time in the oval office: Read the rest at Yid with Lid.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I’ve posted this before, but in honor of Independence Day I’m posting it again. The original was removed by You Tube, so watch this one while you can. It’s a tribute to the founders of what was once a great nation and a condemnation of today’s politicians. Not to mention that it’s very well done! Grab a tissue and enjoy.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Our Constitution was made for only a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. -John Adams

Thank you to Andrew Colvin at The Constitution of the United States for the John Adams quote above.

*****

The following is an excerpt from David McCullough’s book, John Adams. It takes the reader through the events of the two tense days when the weight of liberty weighed heavily on our Nation’s founders. Much was at stake. Every vote counted. The rains pelted down. Caesar Rodney from the Delaware delegation was missing and his vote for the new republic was sorely needed. British warships were just off shore…

Read the rest at Maggie’s Notebook

John Adams

Popularity: 4% [?]

This is just too sick.

Infant mortality rates are often cited as a reason socialized medicine and a single-payer system is supposed to be better than what we have here. But according to Dr. Linda Halderman, a policy adviser in the California State Senate, these comparisons are bogus.

As she points out, in the U.S., low birth-weight babies are still babies. In Canada, Germany and Austria, a premature baby weighing less than 500 grams is not considered a living child and is not counted in such statistics. They’re considered “unsalvageable” and therefore never alive.

Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world — until you factor in weight at birth, and then its rate is no better than in the U.S.

In other countries babies that survive less than 24 hours are also excluded and are classified as “stillborn.” In the U.S. any infant that shows any sign of life for any length of time is considered a live birth.

A child born in Hong Kong or Japan that lives less than a day is reported as a “miscarriage” and not counted. In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby is not counted as a baby if it is less than 30 centimeters in length.

In 2007, there were at least 40 mothers and their babies who were airlifted from British Columbia alone to the U.S. because Canadian hospitals didn’t have room. It’s worth noting that since 2000, 42 of the world’s 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 pounds) were born in the U.S.

It must be embarrassing to Canada that a G-7 economy and a country of 30 million people can’t offer the same level of health care as a town of just over 50,000 in rural Montana. Where will Canada send its preemies and other critical patients when we adopt their health care system?

This is the sort of thing that happens in societies that don’t value life. Do you know anyone who was born premature? Imagine if that child had never been given the chance to live?

Please don’t say it can’t happen here, because it can, and it will.

H/T to reader Micaela

Popularity: 6% [?]

The best thing President Obama can do for freedom and liberty is to stay in the limelight. The more exposed he is the quicker the American people will start blaming him for the economy. In fact, it’s happening already. And why shouldn’t Americans blame him for the lousy economy? He’s doing his best to take it over. Sooner or later the buck’s going to stop with him. Since he has no understanding of economics it’s not going to end well for him or for America. But he’s darn sure going to give it his all.

This afternoon he appeared before the cameras (yet again) to inform us he met with energy executives who are going to create millions of jobs and clean energy. (Gee, where have we heard that before?) It was the usual: “It took years to get into this mess. It’s going to take extraordinary measures to get out of it.”  “We have to act now to build a new foundation.” You know, same old, same old. Blame it on Bush.

But there was one telling line.  He opened by saying “As our economy adapts to the challenges of the next century” we must find “new ways of producing and saving and distributing energy.”

Does an economy really need to adapt to a new century. Or must it adapt to a new administration hell bent on centrally planning the economy? That line seems to have been an admission - that he knows his policies are creating massive job loss. Capitalism must be destroyed before progressive policies can be implemented. And he naively believes that his progressive policies are somehow superior to capitalism. It doesn’t look so great now, but hey, give it time. Sure, another half a million Americans lost their jobs last month, but he’s meeting with industry leaders, so trust him.

Don’t trust him. The only reason Americans are pining for “change” is that capitalism has spoiled us. Americans want it all: sports, flat screen televisions, iPods, new cars, new homes, new clothes. You name it, we want it. For the most part we’re able to obtain much of what we want. That’s all going to change once the economic system that made it all possible is destroyed. Rather than set your own priorities, the government is going to set them for you. It might sound nice in theory, but history tells us it’s anything but.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Stuart Varney filled in for Neil Cavuto this afternoon and interviewed Dan Weiss, of the lefty Center for American Progress. Weiss looks like he literally stepped out of Atlas Shrugs - one of those beady eyed bureaucrats that you just want to slap.

Varney calls the provision requiring homes to meet energy standards in Nancy Pelosi’s Crap and Tax energy bill “the biggest case of government intrusion in history.” Weiss pretty much just kept repeating himself - something about saving $500 a year. Finally Varney told Weiss he’s researched him: a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in Public Policy. He has worked on presidential, senatorial and House campaigns across the country since he was old enough to vote. Then came the money line:

You have never been on the receiving end of a government inspection, have you? You have never run a business which was going to be inspected by regulators in government, have you? Have you?

Sweet!

Weiss replied that he’s had his car inspected and something about home inspections.

Popularity: 7% [?]

What on earth did the other 49 states do to deserve Barney Frank? What? WHAT?!?

His latest proposal is to take the profit on TARP loans that should go to reduce national debt and use it for his pet housing projects. As if this man should ever again have anything to do with housing or taxpayer funds.

But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers.  Last Friday, Frank introduced the “TARP for Main Street Act of 2009,” a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.

In exchange for receiving TARP money, financial institutions were required to hand over shares of preferred stock that paid a dividend for the government.  In theory, if a financial institution paid the dividend faithfully, and then repaid the TARP money, then the government would turn a profit.  Last month, the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, through June 12, 2009, the government had received $6.2 billion in dividend payments.  The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program “shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt.” 

Frank, however, wants to spend the money before it can be used to pay down anything.  First, the “TARP for Main Street” proposal would take $1 billion “from dividends paid by financial institutions that have received financial assistance provided under…the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act” and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing.  (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year’s bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)  Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called “neighborhood stabilization” fund.  Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN.

The “TARP for Main Street” bill would also spend $2 billion, apparently from remaining TARP funds, to subsidize people who are delinquent on their mortgages, and another $2 billion to “stabilize multifamily properties that are in default or foreclosure.”

Barney Frank believes the United States Treasury is his personal piggy bank from which he can grab whatever funds he wants to spend however he sees fit. And his democrat colleagues think the same thing! No wonder we’re broke. We’ll never dig out of this debt hole with the likes of Barney Frank holding power.

The Republicans need to get vocal about the bill they introduced requiring all TARP funds be used to pay down debt, before it’s too late.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Saddam Hussein violated numerous UN resolutions after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Why? If he did, in fact, destroy his stockpiles of WMD’s, why didn’t he allow UN inspectors to witness the destruction of the WMD ? If what he told interrogators prior to his hanging is to be believed, he was afraid of Iran and thought if Iran believed he was in possession of WMD it would be a deterrant to an invasion by the Iranian regime.

[Read more →]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Politico uncovered a Washington Post flier announcing lobbyists could pay $250,000 for dinner and access to Post reporters as well as officials from the Obama administration.

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive “salon” at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to “those powerful few” - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

With the Post newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli both said today that they were not aware of the flier or the specifics of what it offered.

Unaware? Yeah right!

Brauchli said in an interview that he understood the business side of the Post planned on holding dinners on policy and was scheduled to attend the July 21 dinner at Weymouth’s Washington home, but he said he had not seen the material promoting it until today. “The flier, and the description of these things, was not at all consistent with the preliminary conversations the newsroom had,” Brauchli said, adding that it was “absolutely impossible” the newsroom would participate in the kind of event described in the solicitation for the event.

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders.”

And we’re supposed to believe that the press isn’t in bed with Barack Obama? Please!

Here’s Robert Gibbs’s somewhat evasive response when questioned about the whole affair.

Popularity: 8% [?]

John Boehner sent a hound dog to go looking for stimulus jobs. The poor little Ellie Mae came up empty!

H/T Townhall

She couldn’t find any jobs because they’ve all vanished! Poof! Another 467,000 American jobs lost in June. Thanks to the idiots who believe they can control the economy, we have the worst unemployment in 30 years. And it’s only going to get worse!

Employers in the U.S. cut 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose and hourly earnings stagnated, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.

The payroll decline was more than forecast and followed a 322,000 drop in May, according to Labor Department figures released today in Washington. The jobless rate jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since August 1983, from 9.4 percent.

Unemployment is projected to keep rising for the rest of the year just as the income boost from the stimulus package fades, undermining prospects for a sustained rebound in household purchases, analysts said. As companies from General Motors Corp. to Kimberly-Clark Corp. cut costs, the lack of jobs will restrain growth.

“This will be another jobless recovery,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We may get positive economic growth driven largely by federal spending, but people on the street will say, ‘Where are the jobs?’”

“Where are the jobs?” Good question.

Popularity: 11% [?]

I did a quick post about this yesterday, here’s the video.

CNS News caught up with Helen Thomas after the meeting (via Townhall) and she had more to say on the subject of President Obama’s handling of the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.”

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.” [...]

“I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well–for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

Ouch! Helen Thomas thinks Obama’s worse than Nixon! Too bad nobody listens to her.

Popularity: 10% [?]

We all know politicians lie, but none are better than President Barack Hussein Obama.

President Obama is now open to taxing your health care benefits. In case you’ve forgotten the many ads he ran against John McCain for a similar proposal, Guy Benson has taken the time to post a few of Obama’s nastiest campaign ads blasting Senator McCain for that idea.

Have no doubt, the man is a big fat liar. (And he has big boobs, too!)

H/T Hot Air Headlines

Popularity: 13% [?]

Interesting theory. Beware the progressives from either party.

H/T Conservatives 4 Palin

Popularity: 9% [?]