Who Runs it?
Senators: Barack Obama & Dick Durbin
Representative: Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Illinois Governor: Rod Blogojevich (arrested)
Illinois House leader: Mike Madigan
Illinois Attorney General: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Chicago Mayor: Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)
The leadership in Illinois ? All Democrats.
Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago .
Body count in the last six months: 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago
221 killed in Iraq
State pension fund - $44 Billion in debt, worst in the country.
Cook County ( Chicago ) sales tax - 10.25% highest in country. (Look it up).
Chicago school system - rated one of the worst in the country.
Of course, they’re all blaming each other. They can’t blame Republicans because there aren’t any.
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois .
And he’s going to ‘”fix” Washington politics for us?
I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War Two. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.
“Very few people were true Nazis” he said, “but, many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”
We are told again and again by “experts” and “talking heads” that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unquantified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is, that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars world wide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is, that the “peaceful majority” is the “silent majority” and it is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The Average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of Killing that included the systematic killing of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were “peace loving”.
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by the fanatics. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Bosnians, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others, have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
By Paul E. Marek
Filed under: US Politics
Who could have predicted that when Joe and Jan O’Neill invited their two single friends, George Walker Bush and Laura Lane Welch to a backyard barbecue in the summer of 1977 their efforts at matchmaking would end up making history? Who would have known the couple would not only be attracted to each other, but that sparks would fly and ignite so quickly into flames, that they would marry in a mere three months? And who could ever have imagined that eventually God would lead this same young couple to become the President and First Lady of the greatest country on earth.
……………………
George W. Was admittedly “smitten” by the lovely young Laura. He said that she was “gorgeous, good-humored, quick to laugh, down-to-earth, and very smart.”
Laura thought that young George was “kind of cute, and funny” and liked how he made her laugh.
Though they were opposites in personality–he outgoing and sometimes outrageous, athletic and from a boisterous, energetic family, and she a calm, quiet and thoughtful reader, and beloved only child–they found they shared the same beliefs and values–”West Texas” values of an individual’s worth and of personal responsibility. They discovered they had common interests–they both loved to read and spend time with friends. They fell so quickly in love that they married on November 5, 1977.
According to Laura, “It was a small wedding, just about 75 people. It was in the church I’d been baptized in as a baby. So it was really a wonderful way to start a new marriage.”
That was thirty-one years ago, and we are here to celebrate the 31st anniversary of a most amazing couple–George and Laura Bush!
Their marriage began with a honeymoon in Mexico , followed by a congressional campaign trip throughout Texas . It wasn’t politically successful, but both have said it was a good way to start their marriage because they got to spend every minute with each other and loved it. Rumor is, they still do!
After years of trying to have the family they so desired, the Bushes became proud parents in November 1981, of lovely twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, both named after their grandmothers. The family was deeply involved in church and community and in developing loving relationships with each other that have stood the test of time…through difficulties and triumphs, through a not too successful oil exploration venture, a very successful Texas Rangers baseball team, the Governorship Of Texas, long and difficult campaigns, and finally to the White House.
As President, First Lady, and beautiful, mature and gracious first daughters of the United States of America.
The story of George and Laura Bush is a wonderful love story…..a song of delight and passion, humor and fidelity, steadfastness and grace. The President has said, “I saw an elegant beautiful woman who turned out not only to be elegant and beautiful, but very smart and willing to put up with my rough edges, and I must confess has smoothed them off over time.”
There really aren’t that many couples who after 30 years display so openly their deep affection for one another–in their embraces, kisses, whispers, playful pats from well-placed hands, touches, and looks that could melt the coldest heart. When they are together, they can be alone in a room full of people. They have allowed us to observe their love and to love them even more because of their adoration for each other, and even at times to be “twitter pated” and inspired by what we see in them…the intimacy, the trust, and even the passion of mature love.
One can easily see how much fun they have together and how much they enjoy each other’s company. The delightful interaction between them can erupt at any moment in time, and the joy of the Lord and enjoyment of each other radiates in their faces.
Observers have noted that when Laura walks into a room, her husband is visibly calmed, while she has said that he has brought excitement into her life. But above all, they provide for each other comfort and refuge in times of need.
Laura has said, “We have a very sustaining relationship. It’s always been that way and we’re lucky to have that relationship.”
George has said, “Laura brings me great comfort. It’s very helpful to know that in this wonderful job, that I am not alone.” And, “My wife is a rock.” We can tell, Mr. President! The President, ever more effusive in his manner, has declared what we have all come to understand: “Laura is a beautiful person, inside and out.” She is to him, “mi esposa…mi amore”… my wife, my love, and “the great love of my life.”
And in moments when she needed assurance and encouragement, he has been known to say, “You look beautiful, babe!” What a gift it is to the leader of the free world to have a woman by his side who has covenanted to be with him always in love and support! Laura has observed that in politics you have many enemies, so it’s better if it’s not your spouse. It’s not difficultto see that these two are not enemies!
In a rare unguarded moment when asked about the President’s appearance, Laura expressed that “After nearly 30 years of marriage, I still think the President is the most handsome man I know.”
There is no obligatory political handholding between them…it is the handholding of lovers; of two people who communicate that love through touch. Even the kisses on campaign stages can be filled with passion, and the embraces intense and electric. And, oh, the joy of seeing them holding each other close as they danced at the Inaugural Balls, sometimes gazing lovingly, sometimes teasing, but always enjoying the magical moment together!
What a blessing it has been for the past eight years to observe this exemplary relationship! It is so extraordinary and exciting, yet so normal…just like us, but not. This marvelous couple has been subjected to some of the ugliest abuse in the country’s history — false and vile rumors and unmitigated hatred — and yet they have endured with an abiding peace and joy. They have endured through the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, and because of their faith and prayer–and the prayers of people all around the world who understand what a blessing God has given us in these two. They have endured because of the love of family…including those two lovely young ladies they brought up in faith and love…and the love of millions of Americans who see who they really are.
………………….
President and Mrs. Bush…In January 2009, the millions of us who love you will grieve that you will be leaving the public’s view, but we will rejoice with you that you will finally be able to be truly refreshed and renewed as you spend time at your beloved, peaceful Prairie Chapel Ranch, where you can take long, hand-holding walks around the ranch, talk endlessly with your very best friend, take romantic rides in your pickup truck (and maybe not have a Secret Service agent close enough to know what you’re doing!),and enjoy the scenic Texas view from your “favorite room” with its presidentially mandated king-sized bed!
Or you can enjoy your new home in Dallas as you begin your private life together again. There you can go to bed early, as you are wont to do, without having the very weight of the world on your shoulders, and just savor the company of the beloved mate whom God has graciously and lovingly given to you. How blessed you are…and how blessed we have been to have you leading us and providing such a wonderful example for us all!
We will miss you more than words can say. This country will not fully realize what you have done for us until you are gone from public view, but some of us do understand what we have had, and we will mourn what we have lost when you are gone. We can never fully describe what you have meant to us, but know that we admire and respect you in a way that is inexpressible and rare. You have blessed and enriched our lives, and we will be forever thankful to God for loaning you to us for these past eight years.
Happy 31st Anniversary, President and Mrs. Bush!
Filed under: US Politics
Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2008 Presidential election:
ü Number of States won by: Democrats: 20; Republicans: 30
ü Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000; Republicans: 2,427,000
ü Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million; Republicans: 143 million
ü Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2; Republicans: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in rented or government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare…” Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the “complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
It is hard to imagine how the country got itself into
a system that allows this to happen.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s home district includes San Francisco.
Star-Kist Tuna’s headquarters are in San Francisco, Pelosi’s home district.
Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods and is a major contributor to Pelosi.
Star-Kist is the major employer in American Samoa employing 75% of the Samoan work force.
Paul Pelosi, Nancy’s husband, owns $17 million dollars of Star-Kist stock.
In January, 2007 when the minimum wage was increased from $5.15 to $7.25, Pelosi had American Samoa exempted from the increase so Del Monte would not have to pay the higher wage. This would make Del Monte products less expensive than their competition’s.
Last week when the huge bailout bill was passed, Pelosi
added an earmark to the final bill adding $33 million dollars for an ‘economic development credit in American Samoa’.
Pelosi has called the Bush Administration “CORRUPT” ?
Filed under: US Politics
Butte, Montana November 5, 2007
Two illegal aliens, Raphael Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower home-alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home.
It seems the two crooks never learned two things: they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine.
Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father’s room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.
Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buckshot from the 11-year-old’s knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals.
When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.
It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. That victim, 50-year-old David Burien, was not so lucky. He died from stab wounds to the chest.
Ever wonder why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, & MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news……..an 11 year old girl, properly trained, defended her home and herself……against two murderous, illegal aliens …….and she wins, she is still alive.
Now that is Gun Control!
Thought for the day: Calling an illegal alien an ‘undocumented immigrant’ is like calling a drug dealer an ‘unlicensed pharmacist’
With the 20-foot statue of Abraham Lincoln gazing from the Lincoln Memorial across the National Mall, I wondered, what would the Civil War president think about Barack Obama being sworn in as America’s 44th president? Lincoln is obviously Obama’s favorite president. But would America’s 16th president return the same sentiment?
There’s no doubt these two presidents from Illinois share some similarities. As Australia’s Herald Sun noted, “Both were derided as too young and inexperienced to be President; both wrote best-selling books before running for the White House; both were lawyers and extraordinarily gifted orators; both came to power during a national crisis; and both were tall, lanky, self-made men determined to maintain contact with the citizens they served.”
But some retort by saying every president since the 16th president has felt some sense of his legacy. Lincoln scholar and historian Harold Holzer, who has written 31 books on the Great Emancipator, said: “They all feel it. Everyone finds something in him.” And, I would add, everyone finds their contrasts, too. “I think it is time to claim Lincoln as one of our own,” Franklin Roosevelt said in the spring of 1929. “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln,” Gerald Ford once said. Obama even recently confessed, “There’s a genius to Lincoln that is not going to be matched.”
Obama and Lincoln, however, do share one gigantic thing in common above all others: a rare and historic symmetry. One served as a catalyst to end slavery, and the other demonstrates just how far that freedom has advanced in almost 150 years. There cannot be enough said about the historical magnitude of this presidential moment — a true fulfillment of the American experiment, spirit and dream (an achievement embedded long ago in the equality clauses of the Declaration of Independence).
In the end, our 16th and 44th presidents have not only some positives but also some negatives in common. The latter includes:
– They both believe imposing more taxes is the way to economic recovery. (Lincoln was dependent upon Southern taxes and initiated the first income taxes, which eventually would become law, in 1913, through our 16th Amendment.)
– They both believe in regarding the Constitution as a living document (allowing them more flexibility and power for preferred political decisions and presidential autonomy).
– They both believe in big government solutions. Lincoln once said, “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot so well do for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.”
So where do these similarities and contrasts leave us in considering what Lincoln’s view of Obama’s inauguration might have been? About this we can be absolutely certain: Lincoln and his contemporaries couldn’t even have imagined a day when America would elect a black man as president. Such an elevated position was simply out of sight from the social paradigm of their time.
Case in point: On the one hand, in August 1858, Abraham Lincoln affirmed the equality in humanity of blacks: “I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas; he is not my equal in many respects — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man.”
On the other hand, just one month later, Lincoln questioned blacks’ social and political equality: “I will say then that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races — that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the Negro should be denied everything.”
Of course, as some propose, Lincoln could have had a change of heart over the next seven years, after experiencing the Civil War and his presidency. Others say, however, that the Emancipation Proclamation was merely a wartime measure and political document with no personal reflection.
No matter what the final verdict of Lincoln’s degree of prejudicial blood, blacks were freed. And 144 years later, Obama is president. And those bookends in social history happened despite the fact that Abraham Lincoln, like many of us, retained some biases and still had room to grow.
What’s most important now is not how Obama’s and Lincoln’s lives connect but how all of ours do. Any way you look at it, triumph or travesty, Obama’s presidency is a colossal and culminating event according to any historical criteria. And all Americans would do well momentarily to drop our partisan politics and rigor and follow the advice given by Lincoln in his second inaugural address, which also is etched on his memorial:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Chuck Norris
The British passed anti-handgun laws in recent history… and are now paying the price for such reckless thinking.
Watch and listen to them tell you about it!
