If there is one person who knows energy in this country it is Sarah Palin.  She has taken the gloves off and has come out swinging against cap and trade in her latest Op-ed in the Washington Compost.  I love her subtle digs at Washington, DC, Obama, and this piece of legislation.  She starts out calling it cap and trade but quickly moves into our beloved term; cap and tax.

Let the games begin!

I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president’s cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America’s economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

Absolutely BRILLIANT!  – read the entire piece here.

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Today is yet another sad day for our public education program, our entitlement mentality in America, and our media.  Tom Brokaw, a new member of the White House fellows board, is pushing the idea that paying children to attend school is brilliant.

If I were to take some of the statistics used in Glenn Beck’s latest book “Common Sense” I would see a very stark picture of our education system.  Glenn states the following:

• • Only 34.6% of kids in Baltimore city’s public school system received a high school diploma in 2004;
  • The Indianapolis public school system handed out diplomas to just 30.5% of students;
  • Detroit’s public school system struggled to have 25% of its students qualify for a high school diploma;
  • 45.2% of New York City public school kids graduated with a high school diploma.

What about our nation’s capital?

On-time high school graduation rates for the D.C. area are not improving according to an Education Week study released Tuesday.

[In actuality the On-Time High School Graduation Rate is Declining]

Fewer than 50 percent of high school students graduated within four years from D.C.’s public schools in 2006, according to the study. That’s down almost 9 percent from 2005, the Washington Post reported. The figures didn’t include public charter schools.

The true rate wasn’t provided for in the biased NBC article however, it still says a lot if liberal media outlets can’t spin the story to a better statistic of over 50%.

What about our education system as a whole when compared with those of other countries?

In a 2003 study conducted by UNICEF that took the averages from five different international education studies, the researchers ranked the United States No. 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of its educational system.

So excuse me if I’m just a tad skeptical about the latest idea coming out of Washington, D.C.; the incentive to pay children to go to school.  A couple months ago we were paying young women to avoid pregnancy and now we are planning on paying children to get an education!

A July 1 “NBC Nightly News” segment detailed a new use of tax payer dollars in one of the worst performing, financially struggling school systems in the country – the Washington, D.C. public school system. They are paying school children with taxpayer funds, part of a social experiment to improve school participation at the middle school level.

“Keeping the exuberant sixth graders of Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson in line on a sunny Friday is a challenge for principal Brian Betts,” former “Nightly News” anchor-turned-correspondent Tom Brokaw explained. “But this is not an assembly, it’s payday. It’s called Capital Gains – paying students for good grades, behavior and attendance, part of the massive restructuring of the D.C. schools by a 38-year-old Korean-American woman, who as chancellor, wants to transform what is by many measures the worst-performing public school system in the U.S.”

Brokaw credited Washington, D.C. Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee for being instrumental in making this program a reality. He explained the Capital Gains program was the invention of a Harvard think tank that came with a $1.35-million price tag for taxpayers.

I am very disappointed that this idea was hatched by Michelle Rhee who, beforehand was doing an excellent job at changing the DC public school system.  She has taken tenure away from teachers, fired others, and has increased salaries among other measures I personally agree with.  However, this idea that America should pay children for an education is despicable and will only cause worse standards among our graduating youth.

My thought on paying children is very similar to the concept of the children’s book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”  When you give the mouse a cookie, he continues to stick around asking for more and more.  He got away with the cookie, so why not ask for more goodies and entitlements until the people doling out the cookies and additional perks are broke, tired, and annoyed?  This is the enabling concept.  If children do not learn maybe we should be looking at the teachers, the parents, or the curriculum!  Why should we give incentives for children to just sit in a classroom?  What happens when that incentive is gone and a college that admits them does not continue handing out “cookies?”  My guess: they will be left with the mentality of a drug addict.  Students will now be addicted to money and benefits and will become lazy and complacent if they do not receive their immediate gratification or, in this incident, cash.  They will become spoiled and even more uneducated.

What good does paying a child to attend school do, if the curriculum and the teaching is so incredibly horrid?  Teachers are not even giving an accurate representation of American history let alone capable of making children smarter via remuneration.  What happened to the days when it was fun to go to school?  When teachers were interesting and engaging?  Where free thought and opinion was allowed and not dissuaded?  If we cannot teach our youth and encourage their brains, imagination, dreams, and knowledge to grow – then what good will that really do us in the end?

Meanwhile India, China, Russia, and various other countries are way ahead of us on the learning curve.  Their children are engineers, scientists, doctors, and the like.  America worries too much about feelings and emotions, and pushing their political agendas on students rather than caring about truth, facts, logic, and wisdom.

I was fortunate to have teachers who believed in free thought and not indoctrination.  I was lucky enough to look forward to school, taking electives that fired my synapses, like English Sarcasm 101 (no joke); Graphic Arts, Call of the Wild [an English course where you went camping, dissected poetry/short stories, and studied human nature], etc.  I wasn’t stuck in a government mandated curriculum that didn’t engage my brain or hindered my thoughts to the point where I could only think inside a small box.  Unfortunately, that same public school that I attended has changed for the worse (and that was since 1999).

As they say when students receive poor grades as a whole – it’s more a sign of the teacher than those being taught.  I could say the same regarding graduation and attendance rates – it’s more a sign of the government agenda than those being taught.

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Via FoxNews: “At least two people were shot at the national Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, an official told FOX News. Other media reports said a man walked into the museum and shot a security guard. Another guard returned fire, wounding the alleged shooter.

At least 3 have been shot.  More to come…

UPDATE:

At least three people were shot today at Washington’s Holocaust Museum, after an 89-year-old white supremacist entered the building and opened fire “indiscriminately”.

Emergency services said that two adult males were taken to hospital suffering from “serious gunshot wounds” after the gunman opened fire in the museum, situated in central Washington, about one mile from the White House.

The gunman, believed to be James W Von Brunn, is in custody. Police said that he was shot by one of the museum’s guards, and sources said he was hit in the head.

UPDATE II: 

Guard shot at the museum earlier today has died.  Please keep his family, friends, and loved ones in your prayers.

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After an emotional debate, the D.C. Council gave final approval Tuesday to legislation that recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

The vote is considered the first step toward eventually allowing gay marriages to be performed in Washington. Congress, which has final say over the city’s laws, will get 30 days to review the bill assuming Democratic Mayor Adrian Fenty, a supporter, signs it.

If Congress takes no action, the bill will become law automatically. President Barack Obama and congressional leaders have not signaled where they stand on the D.C. bill. Obama generally supports civil unions but has said marriage is between a man and a woman.

“The march toward equality is coming to this country, and you can either be a part of it or stand in the way,” said David Catania, one of two openly gay D.C. Council members.

Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa already allow gay marriage and lawmakers in several other states are considering whether to do the same. New York recognizes gay marriages performed in other states.

The D.C. Council vote was 12-to-1, with former Mayor Marion Barry casting the lone opposing vote. Barry, a longtime supporter of the gay community, called it an “agonizing and difficult decision” that he made after praying and consulting with his constituents and the religious community.

Gay-marriage supporters greeted the vote with applause, but they were outnumbered at city hall by outraged opponents, including many black ministers.

Marion Barry originally voted for gay marriage but quickly sobered up and asked to change it to become the lone nay vote on the council:

After the D.C. Council voted unanimously to recognize same-sex marriages Tuesday morning, Councilman Marion Barry asked for his vote back, according to Washington Post reporter Tim Craig.

Apparently Mayor for Life, an opponent of the legislation, voted yea without knowing what he was voting on, but he woke up in time to ask that the bill be reconsidered, and the debate that was expected took place, to the relief of all the council members who wanted their two cents on the matter on record.

After an emotional debate, a second vote was taken, and it passed 12-1 with Barry as the lone opponent. Now it’s up to Congress, which has final say over the city’s laws and will subject the bill to a 30-day review after Mayor Adrian Fenty signs it as expected.

D.C. is almost 99% Democrat, but that does not necessarily that they are supportive of gay marriage…

The majority-black district is overwhelmingly Democratic, but public support for gay marriage is unclear. Exit polls in California indicated about seven in 10 black voters there weighed in against gay marriage in a November vote.

Don’t forget that there are many Hispanics who live in D.C. as well (similarly California) and they too oppose gay marriage because of their strong catholic backgrounds.

However, leave it to the liberals to lay the blame elsewhere, as they did in California.  They complained, berated, and shouted down Mormons; although the overwhelming majority who voted against gay marriage, were minorities.

The Rev. Anthony Evans, a pastor at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Washington, vowed to make sure the legislation dies in Congress and said he will work to unseat every D.C. Council member who voted for it.

“They just kissed their political careers goodbye,” he said.

The congressional review could be the new Congress’ first opportunity to signal its appetite for re-examining the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages and allows states to do the same.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is openly gay, said he expects Congressional opponents of gay marriage to rally to repeal the city’s decision, but doubts they’ll get very far.

“For this to be overturned, it’d have to pass both houses and be signed by the president, and that’s highly unlikely,” Frank said.

An overflow crowd filled city hall ahead of the vote, and more than 100 opponents from churches in the Washington region held a rally across the street on Freedom Plaza. Among them was the Rev. Derek McCoy from the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.

“Once you redefine marriage, you redefine family,” he said.

So at any point will politicians and judges actually practice some type of federalism or give up some power and control to allow their constituents the decision/vote on issues that will affect their lives and surroundings?  If the locale or state votes in favor then so be it but, if not then it does not become law.  Can we please use our Constitution which has allowed us to get as far as we have as a country?

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As many are aware, times are tough not only in the states, but worldwide.  What accompanies times of uncertainty and turmoil is usually not pretty and not sane.  There are many things that can cause a person to snap, whether it’s a history of psychiatric problems, the unknown, the loss of a loved one, a break-up/divorce, the loss of a job, the loss of tons of money in the market, etc.

Well, with everything that is occuring in and around us, there has been an increase in mass murders, homicides and suicides.  Yes, guns were involved in many of these cases, but not all.  Guns, also are not the cause of a person snapping or being able to cause harm to people.  Guns can also save lives and they save more lives per year than they kill. 

We have various states and now congressmen and women jumping the gun, pun intended, to pass more restrictive gun rights.  I’m not so sure that would be smart at any time to do, let alone a time when people need more protection, with the possibility of greater turbulence ahead of us.  Statistically, when there are economic downturns there is more violence, robberies, burglaries and criminal activity.  I wrote previously about the laws that Switzerland has when it comes to national security and every citizen who is able bodied and of a certain age, is required to own a gun and the Swiss have the lowest murder rate in the world.  That to me, is no coincidence.

However, Nancy Pelosi has recently come out swinging and she wants guns registered nationwide.  She swears that they do not want to confiscate guns from average, responsible citizens, but many gun owners would beg to differ, knowing that this has been a goal of the left for some time.  This would just be considered one step closer to achieving that goal.

Many people missed Nancy Pelosi’s statement on Good Morning America last week when she said she wanted all guns registered.  People believe that once registered, this will allow the government to have more control over the citizens of the country and ultimately allow the government to track and confiscate guns.  Liberals will say that this is just right-wing paranoia, but what they tend to forget is that gun registration was followed by gun confiscation in various countries and in myriad societies before ours.  History does in fact repeat itself as it is now with the economic crisis, among other domestic and international policy aims concurrently being reached and attempted.

New Zealand has had some form of firearms registration since 1921. In 1974, all revolvers lawfully held for personal security were confiscated.

In May of 1995, Canada’s Bill C-68 prohibited previously legal and registered small-caliber handguns. Current owners of such guns were “grandfathered,” which means the guns are to be forfeited upon death of the owner. Bill C-68 also authorizes the Canadian government to enact future weapons prohibitions.

On 10 May 1996, Australia banned most semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic and pump shotguns. Prior to this law, many Australian states and territories had firearms registration. Owners of these newly outlawed firearms were required to surrender them (with some monetary compensation). All such firearms are to be confiscated and destroyed after a 12-month amnesty program. Roughly 600,000 of an estimated 4 million Australian guns have been surrendered to authorities and destroyed.

“Since 1921, all lawfully-owned handguns in Great Britain are registered with the government, so handgun owners have little choice but to surrender their guns in exchange for payment according to government schedule…The handgun ban by no means has satiated the anti-gun appetite in Great Britain.”

Even in the United States, registration has been used to outlaw and confiscate firearms. In New York City, a registration system enacted in 1967 for long guns, was used in the early 1990s to confiscate lawfully owned semiautomatic rifles and shotguns. (Same source as previous paragraph) The New York City Council banned firearms that had been classified by the city as “assault weapons.” This was done despite the testimony of Police Commissioner Lee Brown that no registered “assault weapon” had been used in a violent crime in the city. The 2,340 New Yorkers who had registered their firearms were notified that these firearms had to be surrendered, rendered inoperable, or taken out of the city.

More recently, California revoked a grace period for the registration of certain rifles (SKS Sporters) and declared that any such weapons registered during that period were illegal. (California Penal Code, Chapter 2.3, Roberti-Ross Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 section 12281(f) ) In addition, California has prohibited certain semi-automatic long-rifles and pistols. Those guns currently owned, must be registered, and upon the death of the owner, either surrendered or moved out of state.

Some faulty reasoning and arguments on behalf of the democrats who want to ban gun rights is the following:

Politicians and bureaucrats routinely claim that registration helps solve crimes. If a registered gun is used in a crime and left at the crime scene, registration supposedly lets the police trace the gun back to the criminal. Though this turn of events might work on fictional TV crime shows, it virtually never occurs in real life. Criminals’ guns are rarely left at crime scenes. When guns are left behind, it usually is because a crook has been seriously injured or killed and the police are poised to catch him anyway.

The few guns left at crime scenes rarely – if ever – are registered to the perpetrator. If they are registered at all, it is to someone else, whose piece was stolen. Despite what Mrs. Pelosi might think, those who use guns to commit major crimes such as robbing and killing are unlikely to respect her request to file paperwork so the government can catalog the tools of their trade.

If Liberals really think that taking guns away will solve the problem and violent crime will decrease, they really need to see someone and work on their delusions.  Just like the ban on alcohol during prohibition, there was still plenty of booze to go around, it’s called the black market, and criminals right now use the black market and illegal vendors to obtain guns – what’s to stop them when they ban guns from responsible, law-abiding citizens?  It will just make their jobs that much easier.

Gun sales have been on the rise since Obama’s election, and no, it isn’t due to “racists” in the country.  The race card needs to be chopped up and thrown away.  This has more to do with Liberals (not blue dog Democrats), having the White House, the House and a lot of the Senate, running amok, and knowing that part of their agenda is an eventual gun ban, and that the CIC is a huge proponent of radical gun restrictions per his record.

The leading legislation by which the Democrats in Congress and the White House want to register your guns is HR 45, commonly known as the Blair Holt bill or simply Blair Holt’s. The measure, introduced January 6 by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) (That same Bobby Rush who hailed Fidel Castro as a great man, the same Bobby Rush that just went down to Cuba with other members of the CBC, that same Bobby Rush who was a former member of the Black Panthers) from Michelle Obama’s Real Chicago, includes – but is not limited to – the following restrictions:

* It will be “unlawful” to own a firearm without a license.
* Be required to submit a picture and thumbprint.
* Provide certification that the firearms are properly stored.
* Pass a written firearms exam which tests a persons knowledge of the safe storage of firearms in the presence of children, safe handling of firearms, risks associated with firearms, legal responsibilities of a firearm owner, and anything else the Attorney General deems fit.
* A release of any mental health records.
* Makes private sales illegal.
* Establishes a Federal Record of Sale system which records make, model, serial number, license of the transferee and name and address of the transferor.
* Provides for inspection of your home
* Reporting of lost or stolen firearms
* Notice of change of address

Kiss your constitutional rights goodbye if this type of legislation passes.  Gun registration and restriction has already failed in predominantly Liberal areas like D.C.:

DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier inadvertently admitted that the District’s gun registration program was a failure. According to the Chief, “Honestly, there are thousands of handguns that were registered in the city and I don’t know whether those handguns are still in the city.” Of the 41,000 handguns registered, the police department cannot account for 36,000.

The handguns in question were registered back in 1976 when the District’s near-total handgun ban became law. The law grandfathered handguns that already existed in the city, but required the owners to register them. The owners of 41,000 handguns dutifully registered the guns. Yet now, 32 years later, the District does not know where 88% of those handguns are.

The other issue that is conveniently occurring, which is feeding into the fear-mongering and persuasion on the left, to make people believe that guns are bad (based on the most recent gallup poll), is the Mexican ordeal.  Mexican Ambassador, Autoro Sarukhan, is stating that 90% of the guns and weapons in Mexico come from the United States.  This conveniently works both ways.  It allows for an already overly, America blaming, apologetic, progressive, anti-gun administration to agree and kowtow to yet another country to get their agenda through and it also allows for a corrupt government to lay the blame on someone else for their own inability to deal with corrupt police officers, government officials and their own drug problems.

During an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, Sarukhan said on the Arizona and Texas borders with Mexico alone, roughly 7,000 licenses for federal firearms had been granted.

“And a lot of the weapons that are being bought by the drug syndicates, either directly or through proxy purchases, are coming from those gun shops,” he said.

Sarukhan isn’t the only one to cite this myth. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, California Sen. Diane Feinstein and Willliam Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have all said that 90 percent of weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the U.S.

But his statements do not add up and there is a lot of data that counters his argument in a very succinct and comprehensive fashion:

According to the figures obtained from ICE and ATF officials by Fox News, only about 17 percent of the weapons recovered from cartel-related crime scenes in Mexico actually originate in the United States.

Well one reason is, it’s basically the sampling issue. Number one, Mexico is finding guns at the crime scene which may have no markings at all. They may be clearly Chinese or Russian weapons, and so they are not submitting those to the United States for, quote, tracing. A U.S. weapon has a serial number on it, a manufacturer on it, it says where it is made. So clearly, Mexico is not going to give over weapons to the U.S. for tracing which clearly don’t come from here. We had an ICE official, special agent in charge here in Phoenix tell us, and I’m quoting from him, “Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number. Those are not submitted. Only we trace weapons with U.S. markings.

Sarukhan has claimed that Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States, or 730,000 a year. But the official statistic from the Mexico attorney general’s office says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Many of these guns are not “personal” guns either, they are guns that would be obtained only by the Mexican government for their defense department.  There are grenades, mortars, and AK-47s that have been confiscated in Mexico as of late – those are not guns or weapons that people own.  Those are weapons that are being sold on a black market or sold by corruptocrats in their own government.

Join the NRA – I just did – and actually went to my first shooting range a couple of weeks ago! The NRA has some great facts on guns that you will not see reported in the media.

To best sum up what is going on with the gun wars is the following statement:

Sun Tzu was never wiser than when he said “All warfare is based on deception.” So when Ben Tracy (CBS News), Andrea Mitchell (NBC News) and myriad hosts from CNN all claim that the Mexican drug war is the fault of lax gun laws in the United States, you know they’re all reading from the same playbook.

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Washington, D.C. is a bastion of liberalism and it is one of the most criminally active and unsafe areas in the nation.  However, the city’s mayor would like to release up to 80% of the city’s inmate to save some money.

I think the obvious question would be how much money would technically be saved if there were more murders, robberies, assaults, etc.?  I’m glad that liberals live in la-la land but I prefer to be realistic.  I think this would actually cause a loss of money due to the criminal activity that can and will result from releasing this many inmates that were obviously put behind bars for good reason.

Washington, D.C. also has some of the strictest gun laws and last time I checked, regular law abiding citizens could not get guns, but criminals somehow still have them at their fingertips.  Good job liberals!  I say release the inmates and let them room with Mayor Fenty and any other politician or bureaucrat that agrees with this insanity.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty wants to help balance the District’s recession-squeezed budget by allowing as many as 80 percent of the city’s inmates to qualify for early release, borrowing a tactic that has stirred controversy elsewhere in the nation.

The city hopes to save $4.4 million in fiscal 2010 under the plan, which would reduce the prison population by 2 percent from its current daily average of 3,000 inmates.

Current law permits sentenced inmates to earn up to five days off their sentences each month by completing specified academic and vocational programs. The new proposal would extend the program to pretrial inmates and allow them to earn time off simply by participating in the programs.

Officials said about 2,400 inmates would be eligible to receive good-time credits under the proposal. If each eligible inmate earned an average of five days of good time, it would reduce the average inmate population by about 65 people.

The plan has drawn at least initial concern from a key D.C. Council member, who stressed the importance of ensuring it would not be detrimental to public safety if enacted.

Please tell that logical Council member to stop making so much sense and pipe down… that just gets in the way of liberal policies.

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