California is bankrupt. Ten weeks after a nasty budget fight concluding in a compromise everyone hates, the state is broke. They’ve legalized gambling and the state is still broke. They’ve raised the alcohol tax and the state is still broke. They’ve raised the tobacco tax and the state is still broke.

So the new push: Legalize pot, tax it and we’ll all be saved.

Don’t get me wrong: if you want to legalize Mary Jane, go ahead. I don’t have a problem with the drug or people who smoke it. But if you think this will be the magical fix-all, give me a break.You want to legalize pot and tax it so the state can make money? Why would I do that when I can grow it in my basement for almost free? Most potheads are doing this already. Making it legal will only make it legal.

You also have to factor in that the minute you make it legal, the price of marijuana is going to DROP. The only reason it’s expensive now is because it’s a controlled substance. Most of the cost on the street comes from the rarity of the product and attempts to keep the cops out of the deals. Once pot is available at every 7-11 it’ll be a lot cheaper.

The second question that comes to my mind is where are you going to smoke this stuff? California has some of the  strictest anti-smoking laws in the country. Bars, restaurants, airports, offices – all smoke-free. Some California cities have banned smoking in parks. You can’t smoke in a car if there are children under 18 in the passenger seats. A few towns have even gone so far as to prohibit smoking everywhere within the city limits. All of these laws have been passed under the same battle cry: “It’s for the kids.”

Pot smoke is just as bad as cigarette smoke. Maybe worse. Any teenager knows it’s possible to get a second-hand high if you’re around a pot smoker. And when you take that stuff into your lungs, you’re getting all those particles that have been in the stuff in your lungs. At the very least you’re taking a dose of carbon dioxide with every puff…and carbon dioxide is now listed as a pollutant by the EPA.

Most potheads I know are all for the environment – interesting that they don’t have a problem with it when their favorite hobby is involved.

Remember when the states sued the tobacco companies for smokers jacking up health care costs? What do you think a bunch of potheads are going to do to health care?

You cigarette smokers must feel pretty stupid now, eh? For years you’ve been demonized and some of you surrendered to the rhetoric. Ironically, the same left that’s been skinning you alive for decades is the same bunch pushing for pot.

The last question I have to wonder about is the idea that this will make California a place that people want to travel and live. The latest census data shows that people no longer want to live in California. When surveyed, taxes, excessive regulation and unemployment are the biggest reasons listed for the exodus. Marijuana isn’t going to change the minds of people who are being ground into the dirt by government red tape.

The people who will move to California for the dope aren’t the types of people that the State of California is going to want. California wants successful people who don’t mind having their incomes confiscated by an overbearing state that uses the money to undermine said private individuals. The potheads who show up will be (for the most part) unskilled and uneducated. They’ll put a drag on the system and make California’s problems worse.

But these people can be counted on to vote liberal Democrat. So that makes it all the more likely.

Sudan is a failed state, much like Somalia. Sudan also has a rather blatant split of a Christian/Animist South and Muslim North. Salva Kiir, leader of Southern Sudan, is making a case for the country striking out on its own. What may prevent that from happening, and what would probably lead to more bloodshed, is the fact that the south is rich in oil.

Cross-posted at RudyCarrera.com.

Our Mainstream Media sucks. They rooted for Obama. They voted for Obama. And they’re carrying the administration line without the slightest bit of curiosity.

Obama even said it himself:

“Most of you covered me… All of you voted for me.” (May 9, 2009) And the journalists in the room chuckled and applauded.

Probably shouldn’t have laughed so fast because people are catching on. Press jobs are dying out with the rest of the economy. Ad revenues are slumping. Reporters are finding themselves out of work more and more.

Most people (outside of the media think tanks themselves) blame the quality of the media product. They point out that our media made an unholy alliance with the administration and it’s paying off, figuratively. You can see journalists towing the liberal line almost everywhere – from the Tea Party Coverage to meetings with Olbermann and Maddow.

The media has become so predictable that some are actually setting journalists up and playing them for the chumps they are. Andrew Breitbart proved this when he helped documentary film makers James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles release their undercover videos of going into an ACORN office, where they got advice on how to skirt/break the law. Breitbart’s trap amounted to releasing the videos one at a time. ACORN, unaware of how many videos were coming, responded with their usual charges of racism, then entrapment, then assurances that the couple had been asked to leave other offices. And after each defense came the next video, debunking the day before’s ACORN lie.

The media was even more predictable. At first, they ignored the story, claiming it was unnewsworthy. Then they went to get ACORN talking points. Only after many days did they take the story seriously, and their only action at that point was to investigate Giles and O’Keefe!

Suddenly they’re lecturing us about “journalistic ethics.” “Real journalists” don’t videotape without their knowledge – which is a funny argument coming from a bunch of people who love to use quotes from people who spoke when they were assured the mic was off.

Does the mainstream press think that we’ve forgotten the last eight years? Journalists dumpster diving at Sarah Palin’s house? The illegal means they went to digging up the dirt on Joseph “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher? Suing to get pictures of dead Americans coming home from the War on Terror? Using FOIA in their quest to get communications between Bush and his lawyers?

Meanwhile, stooges like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are taken at face value. Groups like PETA and ACORN (still) are treated as ironclad in their credentials. Liberal Democrat quotes and factoids are never worthy of a second look before being reported.

The result of all of this? Most people no longer trust our media. It’s gotten so bad, most Americans now visit British news sites for stories about what’s going on in the U.S.

Hey, liberal journalists: your partisanship is showing (anyone else remember the Republican Youtube Debates?) The only people buying your arguments about how “unbiased” you are is the Administration and your coworkers. It’s doubly funny that you’re going down the toilet because every economic story you’ve run for the past three months is about how the recession is over. Leaves me wondering where your problems are coming from now, and why you’re complaining about job losses. If we’re really on the road to recovery, why do you need the money?

And now comes the next insulting chapter in this pathetic drama: the media is now asking for a big government bailout. Yes my friends, our media thinks they deserve millions (if not billions) to keep pumping out the same worthless talking points that they all bring to us each and every day. Call me cynical, but I think the White House is fully capable putting out its own propaganda. It really doesn’t need the help of media puppets.

But don’t take my word for it. Check out what Leonard Downie, Jr., Washington Post VP wrote:

American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting – as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation…

“Collective responsibility”? After all the irresponsible reporting, stunts and crap you and other media outlets are shoveling out? You really think your arrogant, condescending aura of entitlement is really going to win over John Q. Public, and make him want to fork over more extorted money to keep you in a 6-7 figure job? And now consider this is the same newspaper that was selling access to “those powerful few” a couple of months ago. Having the media lecture us on “responsibility” is like having Iran lecture us about human rights.

Ironically, the inspiration for the snide little piece above came from the other place of expensive, irresponsible, elitist entitlement: the universities, Columbia University Journalism School, specifically.

And the real kick to the crotch comes from the suggestion that media taxes be cut. So after all the media’s calls for raising taxes on everyone, they want themselves exempted. And if they’re told the U.S. government can’t afford to bail them out, I’m sure that there will be lots of arrogant columns demanding taxes be raised on everyone else so that journalists can have their taxes cut. Not that any of us should be surprised: it’s just more “rules don’t apply to us” liberalism on the march.

So in the end after all this hypocrisy, after all the clumsy, irresponsible storytelling and outright lies, after all the bad attitudes and condescension, we’re all supposed to just quietly sit back and pay for it. Too bad it won’t be cheap and they won’t ask us for our opinions. This is truly crass. This is something I would expect from a lazy, spoiled teenager who wants to party all night while mommy and daddy pay their bills. It’s a slap in the face.

If average people did their jobs this way, they could expect termination, not tenure. The fact that they’d even ask us is truly galling. The fact that they don’t even ask nicely is just another sad sign of how the people at the top are completely out of touch.

(Instead of arguing over particulars of the health care bill, let’s just go to the core of the debate.)

So now that the fifth bill on health care reform is out, here comes the next round of arguments. This means conservatives will have to restate everything we’ve already said, because all the stuff we opposed in the first four bills has been combined into the new legislation.

Personally, I’m tired of giving liberal idiots sources they never read, reminding them of political promises now being broken, and pointing out the gross hypocrisy of the liberal Congress. Lefties don’t care. They heard the word “free” and they’re sold. Which is kind of interesting when you consider that they dub anyone opposed to the health care reform “greedy” and “selfish.”

Talk about “greedy” and “self serving.” Conservatives aren’t the ones out there demanding that someone else pay for their health care/school/retirement/whatever. Conservatives aren’t the ones out there demanding that the government use threats and coercion to force their neighbors into systems their neighbors might not like.

Libs want to defend themselves by claiming that they’ll tax “the rich” who “already have enough.” That’s funny when you consider that the left marches around with that smug, holier than thou glow as they lecture the rest of us about being nonjudgmental and not relying on stereotypes. Nice that they leave out a definition of “rich” so that poor, blue collar, working class Joes like Michael Moore can join their mob without having to feel bad.

A more obnoxious argument is “You don’t like government? Then you should pull out of fire and police, then.”

Yeah right, there is no difference at all between a 1900-page socialized medicine law which will affect all people inside the boundary of the United States and local law enforcement. Not one single difference. None at all. Thank you for pointing that out.

I’ve got a better challenge: name ONE THING that is better because the federal government got involved. We constantly hear about how Social Security and welfare are underfunded. There are all these federal projects that are slow, coming to us with poor service. And even liberals think so. Remember the FEMA response to Katrina? They want to blame Bush for that. If that’s true, then the bigger lesson would seem to be that the quality of federal service depends on who’s running the show.

And now they want the same bunch with a long, sad history of failure running our health care? Does that really sound like a good idea?

I can’t help but wonder if these are some of the same attitudes that white Europeans had during the Age of Discovery: they came across stone age cultures and decided to teach them a better way. And all those Europeans asked for in return was a little work done on their farms. If anyone wanted out of this system, that was too bad. Everyone was locked in, and all the workers were treated the same.

But we in 2009 are so much better than the ignorant explorers of yesteryear. They weren’t actually motivated by the desire to help others; that’s why they forced a system on the people they met. Of course, no one will be able to opt out of supporting the system we’re about to impose, but our motives today are pure. See how good and virtuous we are now?

I’ve argued with tons of lefties. Trust me, they don’t listen, try to understand or care. Everyone who disagrees with them is an evil racist, sexist, homophobe driven by intolerance – and that’s why it’s okay for them to go on narrow-minded rants: teabaggers, evil white males, racists, etc., without even trying to understand the arguments of the other side.

They’re going to try to impose their system on the rest of us… doesn’t matter what we think or want. Never try to get in the way of liberals and what they think they’re owed by virtue of their existence.

The Telegraph has what may be the most shocking story of the year! Iranian resistance groups organized under The Green Umbrella are set to apologize for the siege of the American Embassy in Tehran which lasted 444 days. The regime ruining Iran committed this atrocity 30 years ago. It will be a wonderfully poignant act these brave souls plan to undertake, but they should beware of the regime’s reaction to the announcement.

Cross-posted at RudyCarrera.com.

(Why can’t I have a cushy life like a lib? Conservatism is the tougher way.)

I can’t help but wonder what it’s like to be a lib. Especially a lib sitting at the top. What’s it like to never be questioned about anything? What’s it like to preach one thing, live another and still be called an “expert”? What’s it like to never have your methods, your morals or your technique ever examined or looked in to?

As a blogger, a radio host and a film maker, I can’t make a comment without some snarling lib attacking me. I could compose an entire column about what a beautiful day it is, and my email would stuff with hate filled-letters telling me that I’m wrong.

I was hanging out with some friends with left wing views last week, and they started talking about global warming. I pointed out that even though Obama and Gore are lecturing us about our “carbon footprints,” they’re flying around in private, big jumbo jets. Their response almost made me fall out of my chair: they stared blankly at me.

“Well, that’s just one plane,” one stated as if he’d made an earth-shattering observation.

“Oil executives fly around in private jets all the time,” sneered another.

My entire point had sailed over their heads! My friends are not stupid people; so, how is it that they could miss something so painfully obvious? And why do leftists across the whole spectrum seem so prone to it?

Shining example: Michael Moore. He goes out and gathers money to put a movie together called “Capitalism: A Love Story.” People give him money because he’s Michael Moore and they know that millions of idiots will pay 10 to 15 bucks a head to get in and see it. Moore then turns around and makes millions in his own personal pocket off the showing. And the moral of the movie is how evil corporations feed greedy fat cats in an unjust system. The world would be such a better place if we lived under a system where everyone was a faceless nobody.

Why hasn’t anyone asked Moore to explain his hypocrisy? He seems unable to figure out on his own the irony of using his name recognition to make millions of dollars condemning the very system that allows him to make millions of dollars. And why aren’t his zealous followers demanding to be let in for free? After all – didn’t Moore teach them that greed was evil?

But Moore is typical of Hollywood. How many actors and actresses love to get in front of a microphone and lecture us about “being open minded” and “looking at other points of view”? Hollywood is a land of exclusion. There are “blacklists” and “graylists” out the wazoo. “You’ll never work in this town again!” is an all-too-familiar battle cry of the Hollywood executive. How many more anti-war, anti-gun, pro-abortion, white-males-are-always-evil films are we going to have to sit through before they start mixing it up a little? And why isn’t anyone asking the open minds up there when we’re going to see something different?

(And while they’re asking, can someone ask them why they’re so willing to forgive a group that slaughtered 2900 innocent people when they’re still fuming about the Joe McCarthy hearings of the ’50s? That was 50 years ago and no one lost their life!)

We know the truth: it’s just symbolism over substance. It’s just a bunch of meaningless words. It is just a bunch of emptiness and false promises.

But it’s very typical of Obama’s America. I’m still trying to figure out why they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. The man hasn’t done anything. Not even his supporters can list anything noteworthy. They just begin rambling in platitudes about fighting global warming (even as he holds the record for presidential travel in a gas-guzzling jet) and his desire to end nuclear proliferation (even as Iran, Venezuela and North Korea are testing missiles and enriching uranium with Russian support).

If all you need is good intentions to win awards, then I’ll take my Marconi and Academy Award now, please. Bet that doctor in Africa risking his life to help rape victims feels pretty stupid. Just as I’m sure that Obama’s election campaign was a lot tougher than running a backwater African clinic.

And it gets so much better. Breaking news this week: Obama now claims he’s willing to talk to the Sudan i.e., he’s abandoning Darfur. I’m betting that if I mentioned this news on the liberal blog sites, it would either be ignored or dismissed. Either way, it wouldn’t be considered a big deal even by the most rabid activists amongst that crowd.

Or how about this one: the media condemning the hidden footage taken by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in the ACORN office? The new media explanation is that it’s “unethical” to take hidden footage of someone and then release it. This coming from the media notorious for using remarks taken from people who accidentally talk in to hot mics? This coming from the same media who sent reporters to dumpster dive at Sarah Palin’s house less than a year ago? This from the same media who went to illegal means to dig up dirt on Joe “The Plumber”?

I’m sorry, my journalist friends, but your partisanship is showing. It’s just too bad that no one seems to notice or is even curious about the glaring equivocations you or Michael Moore or Hollywood or the President are uttering.

Geez, I’d love to be a limo lib. Make seven figures while looking down on the idiots beneath me. But since my views don’t fit in to their tolerant viewpoints, I don’t think I’ll ever know.

Fr. Barron is one of the most engaging interviews I’ve seen from a clergyman. He talks on vampires as archetypes for people longing for a proper interpretation of immortality in a secular world. He mentions Anne Rice and Bram Stoker, who use Catholic themes inside of their vampire stories. Perfect for Halloween!

Cross-posted at Pravoslav in America.

The increased politicization of American education has, in the Emperor’s words, “fundamentally transformed” American history. Gone are the days of teaching the reasons for the great migration to the new world. Instead, the Pilgrims and other settlers from Europe are painted as evil invaders who stole land from the native peoples and brought disease to the North American continent. The European settlers have been demonized as massive polluters who came to this pristine land with the goal of corrupting the planet.

The Pilgrims and Puritans weren’t escaping an increasingly oppressive government seeking a place where they could practice their religion free from the heavy hand of the King. Oh no. We can’t teach that. That victimizes the Pilgrims and the Puritans and not the ethnic group we wish to patronize for votes.

The American school house has become a den of indoctrination where extremely liberal teachers inject the lesson plans with more opinion than fact. This is the reason why we have school children singing songs to “Barack Hussein Obama Mmm Mmmm Mmmm” as if he were some sort of deity.

But where did it begin?

It began at the point where the teacher became a public employee deriving his/her salary from the taxpayer with no responsibility to produce a quality product. In this case that product is an educated child.

It began when it became increasingly difficult to terminate an under-performing educator who became nothing more than a glorified baby sitter instead of teaching facts, figures, and dates.

It began when we allowed the teacher’s explanation of life to overshadow the parents.

Parents have the primary responsibility of raising their children. No other occupation is as important as being a parent. But as a society we have abdicated our responsibilities to nature and our children by allowing others to frame the minds and spirits of our youth.

In 1963 a Congressman from Florida named Herlong read into the Congressional record of the House of Representatives a list of 45 goals of the Communist Party in the United States as outlined in the book “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen. Among these was #17…

Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

Well campers, they have control. Our schools are in fact transmission belts for socialism and the new Communist Propaganda. With videos like “The Story of Stuff” and “An Inconvenient Truth” being included in the curriculum that goal has been effectively achieved.

The propagandist nature of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” has been well documented. The 9 inaccuracies have been publicly identified by a British court for the world to see. But “The Story of Stuff” slipped under the radar of most parents. Most didn’t even know it was being shown in their child’s classroom. The video was funded by the Tides Foundation. Tides is funded by the radical socialist George Soros but we aren’t supposed to question the motives of the left. But what if we did.

Adolf Hitler said,

He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

Hitler, on this point, was correct. Once you poison the minds of the youth, through attrition you will gain the foothold that you need to control all others. That is what they are doing.

Back on point of the 45 goals of the Communist Party in the USA, #31 states…

Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

Isn’t that the real goal of showing propaganda films such as “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Story of Stuff”?

To be fair, I don’t believe that most teachers are in fact attempting to “give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over” however there is an aspect of this that is correct. Teachers are teaching that Che Guavara was someone who is to be looked up to. Anita Dunn is addressing graduating classes telling them that the political figure she looks up to the most is Chairman Mao. This shouldn’t be a surprise to you. Between journalists, teachers, and college professors, enough people had their minds polluted about Barack Hussein Obama that this nation elected its first Communist President.

#21

Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

For America’s Communists 2 out of 3 ain’t bad apparently. Especially when you have news anchors who talk about thrills up their legs or bowing to their Imperial Sovereign. Movies they’ve had since the 60’s. Now they want radio and the internet.

#29

Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

The Emperor himself has stated that he thinks the Constitution is too restrictive. That it says what government cannot do but nothing about what it can do.

#26

Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

Hmmm, it seems to me that the Emperor just signed a defense appropriations bill which was adopted to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that had an amendment in it that includes homosexuals in the hate crimes legislation. How it is possible to amend one piece of legislation through the adoption of another unrelated piece of legislation seems a bit off to me in the first place, but the goal was to get it through with no opposition.

I can go on and on about what this Infestation is doing and how public educators and journalists are helping it along. But you can read. Read it for yourself and think about each and every line. If you take an honest appraisal of the content of the goals see how they are being applied today, it will leave little doubt that the Communists have come to town and YOU allowed it to happen.

When you are finished with your reading assignment ask yourself one question…

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Gribbit Reporting for YCG Radio – OHIO

[NOTE]

This post is a cross-post from Gribbit’s Word.

Edward Gibbon has much to answer for. His portrait of the Byzantine Empire as an effete, decrepit empire shows a betrayal of his favor of Rome over Greece. Politically, the Byzantines were far more astute, knowing when to fight hard and when to negotiate. Stuart Koehl posts an article that, hopefully, our current administration and the Republican ones that will follow after 2012, will be seen as mandatory reading on statecraft.

Cross-posted at RudyCarrera.com.

I almost wanted to laugh, as President Medvedev’s regime, controlled by the puppet master Vladimir Putin, is looking more and more Stalinist as the days pass. At least Russia’s president has the decency to pretend to be shocked, shocked at Russian’s love for their greatest mass-murderer, Josef Stalin.

Cross-posted at Mappa Mundi.