A growing trend:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday he planned to reject $555 million in federal stimulus money that would expand state unemployment benefits.

Perry, an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill, accepted most of the roughly $17 billion slated for Texas in the plan.

But the governor turned down the unemployment benefits because he said they would require the state to increase the tax burden on Texas businesses to fund an expanded program.

“During these tough times, Texas employers are working harder than ever to move products to market, make payroll and create jobs,” Perry said at a news conference. “The last thing they need is government burdening them with higher taxes and expanded obligations.”

Perry said the requirements attached to the federal stimulus money would require a change in the state’s definition of unemployment. He said such an expansion would counteract the package’s objective of job creation by leading companies to limit hiring and raise prices.

It must be kept in mind that Obama is using our grand-children’s money to bribe us to become socialist. Obama is willing to pour out cash to the States, but with strings attached which will turn the States into the merest tools of the federal government – transmission belts for orders from on high. Democrat governors should take note – even if you support Obama’s basic ideas, you still might want to rethink programs which will diminish the independent power of the States.

Another day, another corrupt Democrat:

Top federal regulators say they were taken aback when they learned that a California congresswoman who helped set up a meeting with bankers last year had family financial ties to a bank whose chief executive asked them for up to $50 million in special bailout funds.

Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, requested the September meeting on behalf of executives at OneUnited, one of the nation’s largest black-owned banks. Ms. Waters’s husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the bank’s board until early last year and has owned at least $250,000 of its stock…

… Ms. Waters declined on Tuesday to comment on the meeting, or to say whether her husband still owned shares of OneUnited. Her staff released two letters that showed the meeting had been initially called to discuss industry concerns broadly.

Ms. Waters, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, did not disclose her ties to OneUnited to Treasury officials, who said they learned of them only later.

Anyone on the left see anything wrong here? I mean, a powerful member of the House majority sets up a meeting where an attempt is made to get federal cash to a financial institution she has a stake in – is this the “hope and change” you liberals were hoping for?

I don’t expect much from you on the left, of course. Waters is one of the kooks who thinks that the CIA started the crack trade in the United States in order to deliberately harm the black community – with that sort of lunacy in her record, the fact that she keeps getting re-elected shows just how impervious liberals are to reason.

Shootings in Alabama, gun control fanatics come up with the usual litany:

“This man needed the firepower of assault weapons to execute his plan of mass carnage. Alabama, and our nation, must take action to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons,” said PaulHelmke, President of the Brady Campaign.

I wonder what a “non-assault” weapon would look like? Aside from the inanity of using the term “assault weapon” as if there were any other type, there is the basic folly of gun control, per se. Banning something doesn’t mean you won’t have it anymore, it just means that when someone does/has what is banned, you can put them in jail over it.

In the general sense, none of us particularly care if a criminal has 100 guns stored in his house – we do care if he uses them to commit a crime…and we’re not more offended if he shoots someone with a .45 as opposed to a .38. Heck, we’d be pretty peeved if his weapon of choice was an 18th century dueling pistol. The gun control fanatic turns this on its head – he’s not particularly concerned with the gangster, but very concerned with the guns…but the guns he’s mostly bothering with are those guns not in the hands of gangsters (after all, confiscating a weapon from a law-abiding person is much, much safer than asking a gangster to hand over his firearms).

In practical terms, the main argument against gun control is that it doesn’t work. Here is the latest gun massacre in the Land O’ Gun Control:

The whole of Germany was coming to terms with the tragic killing of pupils and teachers in a school in Winnenden yesterday, after a teen gunman went on a bloody rampage killing 15.

The teen gunman, Tim Kretschmer, went on a shooting spree at his former school, Albertville Realschule, in the small town of Winnenden near Stuttgart. After killing nine pupils and three teachers he fled the the scene, killing a further three people before shooting himself in the head during an exchange of fire with the police.

I do wonder how an “exchange of gunfire” resulted in Kretschmer shooting himself – shouldn’t that be put down that he cooperated with law enforcement to end the tragic event? That aside, one must pay attention to the fact that German gun control is so strict that when they ran out of ways to control guns, they went on to control knives – you can’t carry a knife with a blade greater than 12 centimeters in Germany. My carving knife is about 8 inches long, a bit more than 20 centimeters. In other words, if I bring my carving knife over to your house in Germany to assist in carving up the turkey (no, not Al Gore – we do that with chain saw. ‘Cause he’s wooden. Like a tree. Get it?), I could get fined 10,000 Euros. And there is that concern about just what Germany will do if someone offs a guy using an 11 centimeter blade…

And just about now will come out the “argument” from the left – “well, if that’s the way you feel, why not allow people to have tanks and nuclear weapons in their homes”. To which I answer – sure, if you can figure out a way to safely store a nuclear weapon in your home and figure out a way that, if used, it does no harm to my property, then have at it. I answer that way because, “what a *&%@!i stupid argument to make” is rather rude.

Don’t ban guns – put people who use guns to commit a crime in jail. Its really all you can do.

This is an exceptionally serious challenge – an arrogant attempt by China to single-handed re-write long standing maritime law:

China’s Defense Ministry has demanded that the U.S. Navy end surveillance missions off the country’s southern coast following a weekend confrontation between an American vessel and Chinese ships.

In its first public comment on the Sunday episode, the ministry repeated earlier statements from the Foreign Ministry that the unarmed U.S. ship was operating illegally insi de China’s exclusive economic zone when it was challenged by three Chinese government ships and two Chinese-flagged trawlers.

“The Chinese side’s carrying out of routine enforcement and safeguarding measures within its exclusive economic zone was entirely appropriate and legal,” ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said in a statement faxed overnight to reporters.

“We demand the United States respect our legal interests and security concerns, and take effective measures to prevent a recurrence of such incidents,” Huang said…

…The U.S. says that Navy mapping ship USNS Impeccable was operating legally when it was harassed by Chinese boats in international waters about 75 miles (120 kilometers) off China’s southern island province of Hainan.

The “exclusive economic zone” is a term from the UN’s “Law of the Sea Treaty” which holds that a nation has exclusive right to economic exploitation for 200 nautical miles from its coastline – so, under the treaty, our ship was inside China’s “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ), but the EEZ does not in any way give a nation the right to halt passage of ships on otherwise legal business. Had we attempted to put an oil rig there, China would have had a case, but what it is trying to do is say that the EEZ means we can’t even send a ship through waters 200 miles of China’s coast without Chinese permission. This is absurd – and as we have yet to ratify the treaty, doubly absurd.

Furthermore, as the ship was 75 miles south of Hainan, a large island off China’s south coast, it could easily have been within 200 nautical miles of Vietnam…showing that there is much to dispute about not just what the EEZ covers, but who owns what part of the EEZ’s of neighboring coastal States. What China is doing is attempting to intimidate the United States (as well as Japan and all other nations with maritime interests along China’s coast) into essentially allowing China to conquer the South China Sea (which appears to have very large oil reserves) without firing a shot. This would be as absurd as the United States staking a claim to the whole of the Gulf of Mexico.

We cannot allow this to stand – while we don’t want to needlessly provoke the Chinese, we should start the regular passage of US warships within 50 miles of the Chinese coast in order to re-emphasize the fact of freedom of the seas, a doctrine the United States has fought for in many wars. It might seem like an arcane thing, but such an overturn of maritime law by China invites complete chaos on the seas and the prospect of nations like Turkey, Spain, Cuba, Malaysia and others starting to charge tolls for ships to pass through their coastal waters.

It is the US Navy, in succession to the British Royal Navy, which ensures that all vessels on lawful voyages are able to freely use the world’s sea lanes. This includes Chinese ships, which are protected by American naval might as they go about their business upon the seas. This impertinence by China must be knocked down swiftly – I only hope that someone in the Obama Administration realizes what is at stake.

Seems that a lot of GOPers are starting to grow a backbone:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is expected Wednesday to become the first governor to formally reject some of the federal stimulus money earmarked by Congress for his state.

The move will cement Sanford’s growing reputation as a political powerhouse among Republican party stalwarts nationwide — though how much of the estimated $8 billion in stimulus funds destined for South Carolina will be affected is unclear. The law allows state legislative leaders to accept funds the governor rejects.

“Our objections to the so-called stimulus bill have been well-chronicled for the way it spends money that we don’t have and for the way this printing of money could ultimately devalue the American dollar,” Sanford said on Tuesday, even as he acknowledged that he’ll accept some.

“Those of us opposed to this package lost the debate on these merits, and I now think it is important we look for creative ways to apply and use these monies in accordance with the long-term interests of our state,” he said.

Obama and his Democrats are bent on bribing us with our grand-childrens money to become socialists – and it is up to us GOPers to say, “no”, loud and clear. We can’t be bought and we won’t be bossed.

The pressure on any GOPer who shows courage will be intense – Obama will set out his goons to smear; get the MSM to slander; do end-runs around GOP officials; do everything he can to make life difficult both as a means of punishing Republicans who stand up to him as well as intimidating any other GOPers or moderate Democrats who are thinking of challenging his vision for a United Socialist States of America.

All we have to do is stand fast – the wheels are already coming off the Obama Express and as things tank, the American people will start to cast about for a lifeline, and it will be those people who defied Obama who will be holding out the hope for a better future.

Interesting take on our moral collapse:

“What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!” “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility.” All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” Matthew 27:22-25 …

…The proud and powerful Land of the Free and Home of the Brave has become so stingy, so narcissistic and hard-hearted that we celebrate the killing of our children as though we had won some glorious victory over a brutal enemy. We have sunk to the unthinkable low of rejoicing over the “right” to murder a helpless baby. We are at once the crowd screaming at Pilate that Jesus be handed over to them to be killed, and Pilate himself, who ignored Jesus’ innocence and washed his hands of the guilt.

“It is our right!”“We have a law and according to that law I have the right to kill the baby!” “It’s my body, my life, my choice!”

“But why would you do this to an innocent child? The baby has done nothing wrong. Why must he die?” But with loud shouts they insistently demanded their right to choose, and so the courts granted them their request. Then the leaders washed their hands and said, “We are innocent of this bloodshed. It is your responsibility.” And the people shouted, “Let our children’s blood be on us and on our children…”

At least the children we haven’t killed. Truly, their innocent blood is upon us.

We have become a nation of Pilates.

Over the past year or so two bit of wisdom on abortion have been brought to me – one by a reader of this blog:

Abortion is a permanent solution to a temporary condition (thank you, dear reader).

Abortion is the enemy of hope.

It is all about life – and the cold, mean life of the pro-choice side of the argument currently has the upper hand. In their way of thinking, aborting that un-intended pregnancy means that the mother gets to live her life. As if that 20 year block of time is the entirety of her life. The woman might live to be 100, or be killed in a car accident on the way home from the abortuary – to raise a concern about how someone might have to spend their time and opine that killing another human being on the supposition that said human being will be too bothersome is all that needs to be said about the depravity of modern times. People are being definitely killed because they might become inconvenient.

And those who stand aside, refusing to either be pro-abortion or pro-life, they are the worst of the lot in this debate. At least those who are advancing the cause of legal abortion are doing something – those who are “personally opposed” but refuse to work up the moral courage to be “actually against” are the spineless swill of the body politic which goes far towards explaining why a society once decent now debates (debates, mind you!) whether or not sexualization of youngsters is a bad thing. In this these vaporous souls who have turned us into a nation of Pilates – washing our hands of the blood of the innocent, even though we darn well know what is right, and what is truth.

Duh.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.

The economists’ assessment stands in stark contrast with Mr. Obama’s popularity with the public, with a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll giving him a 60% approval rating. A majority of the 49 economists polled said they were dissatisfied with the administration’s economic policies.

On average, they gave the president a grade of 59 out of 100, and although there was a broad range of marks, 42% of respondents rated Mr. Obama below 60. Mr. Geithner received an average grade of 51. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke scored better, with an average 71.

Doesn’t shock me one bit. The entirety of Obama’s young presidency can be described as an epic failure… He’s proven that he wasn’t ready for the job.  You liberals should have listened to us.

The news story:

Lower tax revenue and massive government spending on the bank bailout pushed the federal deficit to $765 billion in the first five months of the budget year, well on its way to hitting the Obama administration’s projection of a record annual imbalance of $1.75 trillion.

Guess saddling the kiddies with debt is ok, as long as a Democrat is doing the saddling, huh?

Oh, you can smell the hypocrisy.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

“We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him,” Greenberg admitted.

The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: “They don’t want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails.”

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: “Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!”

Additionally, according to a poll taken is 2006, a majority of Democrats wanted Bush to fail.

And you better believe I want Obama to fail. For the good of the country I want Obama to fail.

Mark has informed me he is taking his father to the hospital. Please keep him in your prayers.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Thanks to all for your prayers. Dad has internal bleeding in his bowels and will be receiving a transfusion. This is all related to his other health issues and so the current outlook is unknown, but exceptionally serious. I’ll know more by tomorrow.