Month: April 2009

Tragedy in New York: shooter enters Immigration Center opens fire

This is a horrible tragedy 🙁  :

Via Press Connects:

At least twelve people are dead after a gunman went on a shooting spree inside the American Civic Center in Binghamton, according to preliminary information from state police.

A federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press the shooter has been found dead in the building.

The law enforcement official said the gunman entered the building through the front while firing. He had already blocked the back door with his car.

At one point more than 40 hostages were being held in the building at 131 Front Street — 15 in a closet and 26 in the boiler room. At 2:40 p.m., Binghamton Police indicated the situation was over and that a SWAT team was making sure there were no people inside the building.

At 3 p.m., Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said no one taken from the building is a suspect, including two men who were removed in plastic handcuffs. A report of a man fleeing the building was false, Zikuski said.

The building is currently secure, although the dead remain within it, Zikuski said. He would not say where in the building the bodies were located.

Sharpshooters from the Binghamton SWAT team were poised outside the building during the crisis, and the Endicott police bomb squad was also at the scene.

Scanner reports just before 1:30 p.m., indicate police were asking 26 people in the Civic Association to lie on the floor with the hands above their heads.

Police and ambulance crews began staging at Oak and Main Street, the site of the Binghamton High School, shortly after 10:30 a.m. today. Local apartments were evacuated and businesses, including a nearby nursing home, were placed under lockdown. The high school was also locked down.

I am writing about this to appeal to all political bloggers on all sides of the aisle. Please, let’s keep politics out of this, for the time being. This is not the time to engage in political dogmatic nonsense. This is a time of mourning for the families and the people in this area. I don’t think that it would be out of place to offer up a prayer for the familes involved in this horrific tragic event.

My personal prayers go out to all families of the victims. My God be with them all.

Generational Theft Act of 2009 has been passed

It seems that the Liberal Congress and Obama are hell bent on devaluing our dollar:

Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly embraced President Obama’s ambitious and expensive agenda for the nation yesterday, endorsing a $3.5 trillion spending plan that sets the stage for the president to pursue his most far-reaching priorities.

Voting along party lines, the House and Senate approved budget blueprints that would trim Obama’s spending proposals for the fiscal year that begins in October and curtail his plans to cut taxes. The blueprints, however, would permit work to begin on the central goals of Obama’s presidency: an expansion of health-care coverage for the uninsured, more money for college loans and a cap-and-trade system to reduce gases that contribute to global warming.

The measures now move to a conference committee where negotiators must resolve differences between the two chambers, a prelude to the more difficult choices that will be required to implement Obama’s initiatives. While Democrats back the president’s vision for transforming huge sectors of the economy, they remain fiercely divided over the details.

via Congress Approves Budget – washingtonpost.com.

$3.5 trillion dollars; That’s more money than I’ll ever see in this lifetime. Spending that much money will do nothing more than devalue our dollar to the point where the simplest things will cost more than most can afford.  Ron Paul said it right in this video here; the Liberal Congress are simply trying to recreate the bubble that burst and they are simply going to try create another.

This of course will create another burst somewhere down the road that will be greater than this one. Our only hope is that someone like Mark Sanford will get in there and order the fed audited and possibly closed. Also maybe Sanford would put us back on the Gold Standard and back Austrian Economics and put this silly Keynesian economics to pasture, where it belongs.

One can only hope.

Others: Sweetness & Light, , Fausta’s Blog, Donklephant, Hot Air, Right Wing News, Dr. Sanity, , QandO and Wake up America

Iowa Supreme Court rules gays can marry

I know you all are expecting me to give a horrible comment on this one:

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning unanimously upheld gays’ right to marry.

“The Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution,” the justices said in a summary of their decision.

The court rules that gay marriage would be legal in three weeks, starting April 24.

The court affirmed a Polk County District Court decision that would allow six gay couples to marry.

The ruling is viewed as a victory for the gay rights movement in Iowa and elsewhere, and a setback for social conservatives who wanted to protect traditional families

via Unanimous ruling: Iowa marriage no longer limited to one man, one woman –  The Des Moines Register.

Well, Surprise. I have zero negative to say about “Gay Marriage”…..and Here’s why; I believe that morally, Homosexuality is wrong, the Bible speaks against it. If you got a problem with that, take it up with God. I’m just a messenger. However on a Constitutionality viewpoint; because I am a federalist, I believe that ALL moral issues, like Gay Marriage, Abortion, and all the rest of those “Hot Button” issues should be decided at a State level and never, ever at a Federal level.

I’m a libertarian, when it comes to this sort of stuff.  Barry Goldwater said it best, when he said, “You cannot legislate morality.” I personally believe that the WORST thing that ever happened to the Republican Party, was when the social Conservatives AKA the Conservative Christians or as Goldwater called them, the “goody two-shoes” took control of the party in 1980 under Reagan.

Do not misunderstand me here, I believe that there is a “Gay Agenda”, that is being by radical gays to change the shape of the Government. However, I also am aware of the radical “Theocratic” movement in this country as well. Both are equally as dangerous.  If it were left to the far rabid right in this country, Homosexuals would be shot dead in the streets, atheists would be hung publicly in the streets, witches would be burned at the stake, and so on.  Here’s the problem with that sort of thinking; that is exactly what is happening in Iran right now. Well, maybe not the witches part, but Homosexuals are being hung in Iran. If you ever speak out against the Koran in Iran, you could be killed.

Where am I going with all this? Here’s where; The United States of America is a tolerant nation, any sort of radicalism should not be tolerated, at all. If any of these radical fringe groups got their way, the United States of America would become just like Iran. Gay Marriage, like all issues of this sort, should decided at the state level, that is the way our Government was set up. If someone wants to become a Homosexual or wants to live that sort of a lifestyle; fine, let them. But keep the federal government out of it, please. The less centralized Government in my life, the better.

The Southern Avenger on "Steadfast Sanford"

When hundreds of protesters showed up at the South Carolina statehouse to protest Gov. Mark Sanford’s refusal to accept $700 million in federal stimulus, it was worth noting how Sanford doesn’t represent economic disaster – but perhaps the only chance we’ve got.

The Article referenced in this Video is found here

The Southern Avenger’s Blog

The Southern Avanger @ Taki’s Magazine

Palin to Begich: Resign – Begich to Palin: Piss Off, Bitch!

Well, it was not exactly like that, but you get the picture:

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) called on Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska ) Thursday to step down from his seat and run in a special election in the wake of the Justice Department’s decision to drop corruption charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Begich narrowly defeated Stevens in 2008, a contest overshadowed by Stevens’ October conviction.

Palin’s call came after a reporter at the Fairbanks News Miner emailed her a copy of a statement by Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich calling for Begich to step down.

Asked for her response, Palin simply wrote back: “I absolutely agree.”

When the reporter wrote back to confirm that Palin meant she’d like to see Begich resign in order to hold a special election, the governor responded: “Yes.”

via Palin calls for Begich’s resignation – Andy Barr – POLITICO.com.

The woman is wasting her breath anymore. She has lost so much credibility. The Democrats are not going to listen to her:

Begich issued a statement Thursday insisting that he will remain in his seat, despite Republican calls for his resignation.

“Today, with our country in a severe recession, it’s more important than ever that we have a senator focused on fixing our economy so Alaskans have the jobs they need to support their families,” he said. “That is my job in the Senate, and I’m honored to serve Alaskans for the next six years.”

Begich spokeswoman Julie Hasquat did not directly respond to Palin’s call for the senator’s resignation, instead pointing to Begich’s statement as a clear enough indication of his reaction.

“We’re not going to respond to her,” Hasquat said.

Democrats 1 –  Republican Harpy Governor with zero creditability 0

Now I see why John McCain is not endorsing her for a 2012 run.

Others: Hot Air and The Volokh Conspiracy

Quote of the Day

The “forgotten depression” of 1920-21 was caused by a huge increase in the money supply for President Wilson’s war. When the Fed started to tighten at war’s end, production fell 20 percent from mid-1920 to mid-1921, far more than today.

Why did we not read about that depression?

Because the much-maligned Warren Harding refused to intervene. He let businesses and banks fail and prices fall. Hence, the fever quickly broke, and we were off into “the Roaring Twenties.”

But, the Fed reverted, expanding the money supply by 55 percent, an average of 7.3 percent a year, not through an expansion of the currency, but through loans to businesses.

Thus, when the Fed tightened in the overheated economy, the Crash came, as the stock market bubble the Fed had created burst.

Herbert Hoover, contrary to the myth that he was a small-government conservative, renounced laissez-faire, raised taxes, launched public works projects, extended emergency loans to failing businesses and lent money to the states for relief programs.

Hoover did what Obama is doing.