Short Bio: I started blogging about politics in 2006, as a populist, skeptical left of center type, with a blog called simply, "The Populist."I suspect, but cannot prove; that my blog might have been hacked by some evil neoconservatives. I cannot prove that at all and also too, around the same time. Hackers from China where attacking wordpress blogs. I believe either the Neocons or the Chinese got my site. I don't know honestly know which.Either way, by 2007, I began to see that I really did not fit within the Democrat Party and liberal circles and after my blog was hacked; I created a blog called "Political Byline" and I kept writing; first as a Centrist and then as a Conservative PopulistFor my long bio, see the "About Me" section on this blog.
Television showed chunks of flaming fuselage scattered in a bare forest near Smolensk, where the president was arriving for a ceremony commemorating the murder of more than 20,000 Polish officers by the Red Army as it invaded Poland.
The governor of Smolensk region, Sergei Antufiyev, said the plane did not reach the runway but instead hit the treetops and broke apart. An official with the Russia’s Investigative Committee said possible causes were bad weather, mechanical failure and human error.
The crash came as a staggering blow to Poland, killing what may be a tenth of country’s top leadership in one fiery explosion. In the numb hours after the crash, leaders in Warsaw evoked the horror of the massacre at Katyn, which stood for decades as a symbol of Russian domination of Poland.
Why this is so horrible:
Photo from the crash site In Russia
“It is a damned place,” former president Aleksander Kwasniewski told TVN24. “It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport.”
“This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal,” he said.
Former president Lech Walesa, who presided over Poland’s transition from communism, cast the crash in similarly historic terms.
“This is the second disaster after Katyn,” he said. “They wanted to cut off our head there, and here the flower of our nation has also perished. Regardless of the differences, the intellectual class of those on the plane was truly great.”
Poland is a good friend of the United States, and President Kaczynski went out of his way to honor Ronald Reagan for the fight to free Poland from communism when he visited the United States in 2007 (photo above right from Reagan Library).
Kaczynski also worked to acknowledge the Holocaust and the extermination of millions of Polish Jews during World War II, including honoring Poles who risked their lives to save Jews, and just recently giving a Polish national medal to the head of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel:
On January 27, 2010, during a ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day held at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, Polish President Lech Kaczy?ski awarded Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
During the ceremony, which marked this year 65 years since the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army, speeches were delivered by the President and Prime Minister of Poland, the Prime Minister of Israel, international delegates and figures, and Holocaust survivors. Polish President Kaczy?ski also awarded decorations during the ceremony to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Director Sara Bloomfield and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywi?ski.
The three decorations were awarded for “eminent services in educational and museum work commemorating the victims of the Nazi German labor camps, concentration camps, and extermination centers, and for their accomplishments in the development of the Polish-Jewish dialogue.”
I can only fathom what the people of Poland are going through this day. My prayers are with the families, and with the people of Poland this evening. If there was ever a time, for President Barack Obama to show some class and leadership; this would be that time.
More information will be posted, as it becomes available.
A special message to the people of Poland:
Do dobrych ludzi Polska.
Uprzejmie informujemy, ten pisarz serce jest podzielone na wie?? o swoje straszne straty. Prosz? wybaczy? z?e t?umaczenie, jak ja jestem przy pomocy Google Translate.
Mam nadziej?, ?e ten komunikat ma sens dla mieszka?ców Polska.
Nie mog? tu siedzie? i wyobra?a? sobie co to smutek przechodzi. Jednak wiem, ?e jest to tragedi?.
Uprzejmie informujemy, ?e modl? si? za was wszystkich i ?e modlitwy, Comfort, Wszechmog?cego Boga i Jego Syna Jezusa Chrystusa b?dzie z wami wszystkimi. To jest moja nadzieja i wyrazi? moje osobiste modlitwy, ?e pokój, który pochodzi od Boga tylko w niebie, b?dzie tam komfort was wszystkich, w momencie utraty.
Niech Wszechmog?cy Bóg w niebie, Bless i przechowywa? ka?dego z was.
-Patrick
W?a?ciciel
politicalbyline.com
English Translation:
To the good people of Poland.
Please know this writer’s heart is broken at the news of your horrible loss. Please excuse the bad translation; as I am using Google Translate.
Hopefully this message makes sense to the people of Poland.
I cannot sit here and imagine what sort of sorrow you are going through. However, I do know that this is a human tragedy.
Please know, that I am praying for you all and that I prayer that the Comfort, of the Almighty God and his son Jesus Christ would be with you all. It is my express hope and my personal prayer, that the peace that only comes from God in Heaven; would be there to comfort you all, in your time of loss.
May the Almighty God in Heaven, Bless and Keep each and every one of you.
If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious
diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up, what with
walking twenty-five miles to school every morning….Uphill…
Barefoot…BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda.
Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd
—-
See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too
easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in
1980 or any time before!
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I
was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and
how easy they’ve got it! But now that I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I
can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so
easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in Utopia!
And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know
something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the
card catalog!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen!
Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox,
and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!
Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of
fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere
was safe!
There were no MP3’s or Napster or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you
had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would
usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players!
We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when
finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless.
Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby! Dig?
We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone
and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it!
There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just
didn’t make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of
touch with your “friends”. OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror… not being in
touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea
who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your
drug dealer, the collection agent… you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it
up and take your chances, mister!
We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution
3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and
‘Asteroids’. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your
imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one
screen… Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder
and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You
were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and
walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what’s the
world coming to?!?!
There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on
Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for
cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!
And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to
use the stove! Imagine that! And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long.
Oh no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside…
you were doing chores! And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.
If you were luckily, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last
moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!
JEFFERSON — In the ongoing financial crisis in Ashtabula County, the Sheriff’s Department has been cut from 112 to 49 deputies. With deputies assigned to transport prisoners, serve warrants and other duties, only one patrol car is assigned to patrol the entire county of 720 square miles.
“I did the best with what they (the county commissioners) gave me. If it wasn’t enough, don’t blame me, don’t blame this department,” said Sheriff Billy Johnson.
Johnson said he is suing the commissioners to get a determination of whether he should use his limited budget to carry out obligations defined by law or put more patrol cars on the streets.
“I just can’t do it anymore,” he said. “I have to have the court explain to the commissioners and to me what my statutory duties are.”
The Ashtabula County Jail has confined as many as 140 prisoners. It now houses only 30 because of reductions in the staff of corrections officers.
Signs of the times indeed. I believe this recession and economic downturn are going force people to fend for themselves and no rely on the Government. Best way to do that, is to own a gun.
I just wonder, is this a sign of things to come in America? It is to wonder.
I cannot believe that AllahPundit did not think of this, when he wrote this posting about Obama’s poll numbers among the Jewish community.
This is not a sarcastic posting or a tweak at AP or the Jews; this is quite serious business. So, listen up.
There is a historical reason why the Jewish people tend to move towards the Democrats.
Think about the period between 1941 and 1945, Think about Germany.
Which party was the party of FDR? The Democratic Party. Think about the G.O.P. during that time period. Anyone ever heard of TAFT? Taft, for those who do not know, was the one of the founder fathers of the Paleo-Conservative movement. Taft was against every thing that FDR did, during his tenure in office. Including World War 2. Hell, if it had been left to the Republican Party; at the time of World War 2 —– We would be a Country ran by a Japanese – Nazi German coalition Government! Hell, Pat Buchanan himself is a damned Hitler sympathizer. Ever read his books? One of his little quips in a column of his, is what turned me against that bunch of damned haters. There’s also two words to remember about Paleo-Conservatives: Ron Paul. Paul and Buchanan are, in fact, the standard bearers of the Paleo-Conservative movement; and Rand Paul is apple of the old man’s eye too. Don’t let the polished act fool you. They share much with the Moonbats, this is why Buchanan is on MSNBC all of the time. — Anyhow, I’m not fan boy of Wilsonian foreign policy, not by a long shot, but when you hate people monolithically, because of their race or you even consider someone inferior to you; because of a skin color or racial makeup. I tend to not want to side with you.
So, there, there is your answer AllahPundit and the rest of you at HotAir.com. They side with Democrats, because it was their President who saved their bacon from a nutty dude from Germany.
Via Tea Party Patriots Live (Which seems to be having hosting issues): (Cribbed from Malkin’s Blog)
On Thursday, April 8th, 2010, Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat in Florida’s 8th district, interrupted a district meeting of the local Orange County Republican Executive Committee. The meeting was being held at Perkins, a family restaurant.
…Matthew Falconer, candidate for Orange County Mayor, quickly challenged Alan’s rudeness. Grayson demanded not to be interrupted, but Falconer quickly reminded the congressman that he is in fact interrupting their meeting.
Linda O’Keefe, member of the Orange County Republican Executive Committee and extraordinary patriot volunteer with the Orlando Tea Party said, “I’m wondering if Grayson realizes that we do still, for now, have the right to assemble! But can’t we have a meeting without being interrupted by our congressman?”
Currently, there are 12, Republican candidates looking to send Alan Grayson to the unemployment line in November.
Tom Tillison of the Tea Party Patriots Live radio show and the Orlando Tea Party, had quite a lively discussion with Alan afterwards for 10 minutes. Tillison said, “I let him know that he’s a congressman and he needs to act like one. I reminded him that these are his constinuents.” Tillison asked Grayson, “Don’t you feel that you at least owe them an explanation for your recent votes?”, to which Alan replied, “I don’t owe them anything, they’re trying to defeat me.”
Tillison followed, “You are a U.S. Congressman and you approach these people acting like a thug.”….to which Grayson responded that he was “being attacked.”
and this:
Matthew Falconer, early Friday, released this statement:
“On Thursday April 8th I was attending a meeting of the Orange County Republican Executive Committee at a Perkins Family Restaurant in Windermere. About 30 Republicans were meeting when Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson barged into our meeting ranting about how we put spies into an Organizing for America meeting.
As I was sitting with Orange County Republican Chairman Lew Oliver, I stood up to Grayson and demand he apologize to Lew for the vial (sic) comments he made recently (Grayson said “Lew Oliver could not find a $20 bill if it was stuck in his A**”). Grayson yelled at me for interrupting him when I reminded Grayson he was interrupting our meeting.
The conflict was caught on video showing Alan Grayson, a U.S. Congressman, standing in the middle of a family restaurant screaming at his constituents. Politics aside, I do not think the man has the emotional stability or integrity to represent us in the U.S. Congress.
Grayson pledged to use his own personal funds to defeat me in my race for Orange County Mayor (supporting his Democratic friend Bill Segal). He then told me to get my “a** out of his face.”
I am in awe of the lack of respect he showed for the customers of this restaurant and his constituents.”
I would say something rather snarky about him being a demented Jew, but I am afraid Debbie the psycho from Southfield, might file stalking charges against me and Pamela the Arab hater would bad mouth me, so I shall refrain. 😛
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who had a central role in the health reform fight as the leader of anti-abortion Democrats, plans to announce Friday that he will not run for reelection, a Democratic official said. Without Stupak on the ballot, the seat becomes an immediate pickup opportunity for Republicans.
“Now with health care done, he’s retiring,” a friend said. “He has thought about retiring for the last three cycles, but was always talked into staying: to elect John Kerry to help end the war, to elect a Democratic majority to get health care done.”
President Barack Obama called Stupak on Wednesday and asked him not to retire. Stupak, 58, also resisted entreaties from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the dean of the Wolverine State delegation.
“After selling his soul to Nancy Pelosi, it appears that Bart Stupak finally found the courage to tell her no,” said Ken Spain, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “The political fallout over the Democrats’ government takeover of health care has put the political careers of many Democrats in jeopardy thanks in part to Stupak’s decision to abandon his alleged pro-life principles.
Heh.
As to what headaches this might cause for the Democratic Party, they might just have a problem getting that seat back. Now Ed over HotAir says that the U.P. is not deeply Conservative; which is partially true. However, I happen to be from Michigan and I can offer a different perspective. For the record, I have lived here all of my life and I happen to know the people around these parts and I can tell you what I do know. Now Detroit proper? Liberal/Progressive/Whatever you wanna call it as heck; now as for the ‘Burbs? The further South and North you get of Detroit, the less Liberal or Democratic Party leaning it gets. The only reason John McCain lost Michigan, was because his stupid President Campaign advisers chose to abandon this State, which left many Michigan Republicans quite peeved. When it comes to choosing Presidents around here, people vote, usually, the personality and the Person, and not the Party. I can tell you, from personal experience. Most Michiganders are NOT happy with Jennifer Granholm. It is not uncommon to hear that name and the term “Stupid Bitch” attached to it; and no, I do not mean from me! 😉
As most of you most likely already know; Michigan has been hit with one of the worst, if not the worst one state recessions ever. Many people here in Michigan voted for Barack Obama (NOT ME!) hoping he would bring change to the employment situation here in the Detroit area and in Michigan as a whole. So far? Nothing. We still have the highest unemployment problem in the United States, last time I checked, it was 75% in the city of Detroit. Based upon conversations that I have had with people around here in the last few years, there are people here in the State of Michigan, who are just fed up with the Democratic Party in general. The people of Detroit and largely the people of Michigan as well, are sick and tired of political speeches and empty rhetoric, they want results and so far, the token political Party of this area has not produced anything at all; but rhetoric and political speeches.
Having said all of the above, Democrats might just find themselves struggling to fill this seat again and many of the Senatorial seats in Congress and the House come November. There has also been talk that the Governor’s office might just flip back to the Republican for the first time since to the term of Governor George Romney. (Mitt’s Daddy…) Now that my friends would be feat in itself!
Again, it should be a very interesting thing to follow. Hey, at least it’s content, something I’ve been struggling to find here in the last few days! 😀
Update: Looks like the folks over at FireDogLake, which is a liberal blog, are not to keen on this guy either:
If you’re a politician not inclined to deliver under “intense political pressure,” you have no business being a politician. And if death threats were a factor in resigning, there pretty much wouldn’t be a member of the Democratic caucus left. Stupak sought the spotlight. He wanted to lead the pro-life Caucus and hijack the health care debate. He refused to quit even when he essentially won by getting the Nelson compromise, which functionally did about everything he wanted. He made the debate a living hell and went out of his way to punish half the US population. And in the end, everybody hated him, left and right. Well played.
What is this retirement Friday? Must be nice to clock out on the best day of the week!:
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court’s oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, says he is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.
Stevens says he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July.
His announcement Friday in Washington had been hinted at for months. It comes 11 days before his 90th birthday.
Stevens began signaling a possible retirement last summer when he hired just one of his usual complement of four law clerks for the next court term. He acknowledged in several interviews that he was contemplating stepping down and would certainly do so during Obama’s presidency.
The timing of his announcement leaves ample time for the White House to settle on a successor and Senate Democrats, who control 59 votes, to conduct confirmation hearings and a vote. Republicans have not ruled out an attempt to delay confirmation.
Now, I will be first to admit, that my knowledge of this whole process, is rather limited. So, If my analysis of this; is not like professional, please excuse that. 😉 Now Ed and AP over at HotAir both agree that they both doubt Obama is going to try and do anything radical, as some of the News Sources are writing in their articles. They also both agree that the G.O.P. will most likely not try and play the role of obstructionist. That is because of the elections coming up. However, their old boss, Michelle Malkin says to hold on to your hats, because there could be a protracted battle up there on the hill for the control on the SCOTUS. So, I guess at this point, it is whom you believe. Personally, I really do not know. I somehow doubt myself that either the Democrats or the Republicans have the heart for some sort of huge, epic, battle this close to the elections. That is because if the Democrats go for the throat and try something crazy, the Republicans are going to use it in the campaigns against them. Likewise, if the Republicans go for broke and block everything, the Democrats could do the same thing. So, either way, both sides are going to be screwed, no matter what they do.
Either way, it should be very interesting to follow. 😀
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