Seems the spirit of rebellion is spreading:

Hundreds of people turned out on a cold and windy Saturday morning for an anti-tax protest outside U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore’s office in Overland Park.

The rally, which was promoted by Americans for Prosperity’s Kansas chapter and other groups, was directed at Moore for his vote for the $787 billion stimulus package.

Just imagine how angry people will be when the actual Obama plan makes a mess of everything…this flame of liberty could end up becoming a wildfire of freedom spreading across the country in 2010 and 2012.

The odd thing is that with Obama being the semi-socialist we all feared he would be, he’s actually setting up a situation where we really will get change we can believe in…it just won’t be from him.

UPDATE: Revolt of the Kulaks

From the Book of Matthew, Chapter 5:

¹¹Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

¹²Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Blessed are you, Biship Naumann:

Denver, Colo., Feb 20, 2009 (CNA).- In a startling defense of legal abortion supporter Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Catholics United has attacked Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, accusing him being more interested in trying to score political points against the governor than in crafting effective abortion policy within the reality of politics.

The salvo from Catholics United comes as advisors to President Obama have told the press that he has decided on Sebelius as his next secretary of Health and Human Services nominee.

Kathleen Sebelius, who professes to be Catholic, has a problematic record on abortion.

In the Spring of 2008, Archbishop Naumann met with Gov. Sebelius to ensure that she understood the gravity of her position. After meeting with her, Archbishop Naumann asked her to stop receiving Communion.

As Archbishop Naumann explained to CNA, he requested that Gov. Sebelius stop receiving Communion because of her “30-year history of advocating and acting in support of legalized abortion.”

The Thursday statement by Catholics United, which is mostly dedicated to rebuffing the president of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, marks the first time that the organization has targeted a specific Catholic bishop by name.

Catholics United is but a front for the democrat party, pure and simple. Their website states:

Catholics United is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the message of justice and the common good found at the heart of the Catholic Social Tradition. 

Apparently, to C.U., the lives of pre-born babies do not figure into their vision of “justice and the common good.”

Hypocrites.

It is my hope that, like Bishop Naumann, more bishops take their role as shepherds of the flock seriously, and fearlessly speak out against Catholics who abandon the sacredness of life in their lust for power.

Ouch.

Today marks the one-month anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration. In his brief time in office, the president has overseen three massive new spending initiatives — the $787 billion stimulus bill, the trillion-dollar financial stability initiative and, most recently, the $275 billion mortgage assistance program.

That’s a lot of activity, and a ton of money, but so far the reaction to the new administration’s programs has been decidedly negative. Investors, among others, have panned the plans; the stock market is off nearly 10% from the day before the inauguration, or more than 800 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

I was quite heartened to hear that the illegal muckety-mucks from Mexico were unsuccessful in their lawsuit against a south-Texas rancher who allegedly held them under gunpoint until the border patrol could pick them up. Quite, heartened, until I read this:

MALDEF and its attorneys lost track of three of the plaintiffs entirely, Hardy said. The organization hired nine attorneys for the illegal aliens. Three were from big commercial firms in New York City.

The group also flew a psychologist to Arizona from Chicago to testify that the illegal aliens suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We don’t know where they’re getting their money, but it’s a lot,” Hardy said. “They dropped $19,000 on the psychologist for his examination and $150 an hour to show up for trial.”

He continued, “We tore him up pretty good, though. We tore up all of the other witnesses, too.”

The rancher was held liable for limited damages involving assault and emotional distress. Two illegal aliens were given $1,000 plus $10,000 in punitive damages each. Two more received $7,500, plus $20,000 in punitive damages each.[$77,000 total–ed]

“It’s interesting since most of them don’t speak English, but they claim that Roger, who has almost no command of Spanish, was able to use full sentences like, ‘If you go, my dog is hungry, and he’s hungry for your butt,'” Hardy said. “Roger couldn’t put that sentence together.”

And these scum-sucking illegals didn’t get enough:

He said the judge left out one part of instruction to the jury that should have been included, and it will be the basis of their appeal.

“The law is skeptical of infliction of emotional distress because everybody gets their feelings hurt at times,” he said. “So one of the requirements was that whatever is done must be so severe that the average person would be physically disabled by the distress – suffer a complete mental breakdown. The judge wouldn’t put that in the instruction. That’s straight Arizona law.”

Now before anyone goes off half-cocked that I’m just another WASP against immigration, know this: I am totally FOR immigration, as are most of my like-minded brethren. It’s ILLEGAL immigration and total disregard for our sovereignty and our laws with which I take umbrage. If I were the rancher, I’d counter-sue every one of those illegal a**-hats (not to mention their scum-sucking, bottom-dwelling a**hat lawyers and MALDEF) for tresspassing and/or accessory to illegal trespass, time away from work, and emotional distress.

Also, two of the plaintiffs received $1,400, and two were awarded $1 each for assault. The term “assault” is legally applied when a person has simply put someone in fear of a harmful contact. According to the attorney, Barnett did carry a gun, but the judge did not include their self-defense argument in the instructions to the jury – another basis for appeal.

All together, the illegals received only $77,804 of the $32 million they requested – and Hardy believes that award will be thrown out in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

With the “9th Circus” hearing that case, I wouldn’t be so certain of that..

Many of the aliens are residents of Michoacan, Mexico. Four live in Illinois, one resides in Georgia and another in Michigan. All of the plaintiffs currently living in the U.S. listed pseudonyms in the lawsuit due to “fear of adverse action based on immigration status.”

Ten of the illegal alien plaintiffs didn’t show up to the trial, but the remaining six said they were given permission to re-enter the United States and testify against Barnett.

“That was a shocker to me. All the ones who testified said that they were here legally and that their attorneys had done the paperwork,” Hardy said. “There’s nothing like your government backing you.

Indeed.

All sorts of accusations flew around regarding the missing emails of the Bush Administration.

So, one has to ask, why is Mr. Hope-and-Change siding with Bush on it?

The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.

Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush’s eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama’s Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration’s bid to get the lawsuits dismissed.

So, my liberal friends, what is your excuse for Obama on this?

Gee, the American GULAG, isn’t:

Obama’s Government Report: Guantanamo is Humane and Abides by Geneva Conventions

President Obama in one of his first actions in office ordered the closure of the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. He also ordered an in-depth study of the prison camps to decipher whether the terrorists and alleged terrorists at Gitmo are properly treated and that U.S. troops are abiding by the Geneva Conventions.

The report, part of which was leaked today, shows that Gitmo “complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions” and that the prisoners are treated with dignity. A Pentagon official, who spoke anonymously, said that it showed that the Bush administration created a humane detention camp that has been unfairly characterized by critics. Speaking of the remaining 245 detainees there, this official said the report underscored that if the men are moved, they may “go from a humane environment to a less humane environment,” according to the New York Times.

Just what made you liberals out there even think for a moment that Gitmo was inhumane?

It can only be explained by a knee-jerk hatred of anything America does, especially if the President is Republican at the time.

This should get liberals foaming at the mouth:

Look, I don’t always agree with Coulter. She sometimes seems to scream black whenever the media screams white (a strategy that works only about 85 percent of the time). I’m pretty sure we really did evolve from apes—myself within living memory. And I enthusiastically endorse any and all non-bloodletting sex acts done in private between consenting adults—as long as you don’t then ask me to pay for the resulting child, abortion or course of medication.

But the whole way liberals work is to redefine manners and morals in such a fashion that conservative common sense automatically becomes hateful. If you note that women and men are different, you’re misogynistic. If you denounce the destruction of marriage in black communities, you’re racist or moralistic. If you call for the defense of America against the world-wide Islamist menace, you’re a bigoted warmonger. If we take this garbage seriously even for an instant, we spend our whole lives playing catch-up, saying sorry, going on defense.

Coulter’s answering strategy is to blow all that foolishness away. She says the unsayable thing, does it with intelligence, humor and style and gets the world exactly right far more often than not.

I have to admit, Ms. Coulter has got me laughing quite a few times, too. Anyone can be a rhetorical bomb thrower, but to do it with style takes talent, and Coulter has an abundance of that. Its all about how to stick the knife in where it does the most damage, and doing it with a smile:

(Sing to “Jingle Bells”)

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!

Kwanzaa itself is a nutty blend of schmaltzy ’60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven “principles” of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. (“Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.”)

This sort of thing just makes liberals go ballistic – they shout that Coulter is a racist, that she’s mean, that she’s hateful…yadda, yadda, yadda. It gets tiresome, these liberal accusations. Coulter is what Coulter is. Love her, hate her; whatever floats your boat. But don’t try to demonize her or dismiss her via a bit of junior-league Leninism where people become “unpersons” for having strayed from the party line.

The “Tea Party” spreads:

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter was greeted with jeers at a press conference in Cranberry Township.

Conservatives are fuming after Specter cast the deciding vote that led to the passage of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.

Specter, 79, acknowledges his run for re-election will be tough.

He says he’s not completely happy with Obama’s plans but he points out that he was able to cut the price tag by over $100 billion and he says he was able to increase the amount of tax cuts.

Even so, Specter acknowledges the Republican Party’s conservative wing will attempt to unseat him in next year’s primary race.

Yeah, no kidding. S. M. G. Specter Must Go!

I’m sick of having to carry around people like Specter – they take our money, take our votes and then when we really need them, they invariably jump to the other side. Did any of us ever really doubt that Specter would do something like this? Do any of us doubt that he’ll do it again? I’m sure Senator Specter is a nice guy and there are areas of agreement between him and the larger GOP, but it is when Democrats are planning on blowing through a trillion dollars of pork that we really need the GOP to stick together.

Specter should become the 60th Democrat, or become an Independent; he shouldn’t even seek the GOP nomination for Senator. Better to have an Independent or moderate Democrat we can work with from time to time than an alleged GOP Senator always available to throw us over when the chips are down. For Specter to use the alleged $100 billion he trimmed from the spendulus to garner GOP support is an outrage – if we’re wasting a trillion, telling us that we’ll now “only” waste $900 billion doesn’t really help matters. Either you think the spendulus is what is needed, and thus vote for it in total, or you think its a crock of feces, and you vote against it entirely.

I’ll be sending donations to any conservative – or even moderate GOPer who will stick by us when really necessary – rather than support Specter. And I hope the RNC and the NRSCC are reading things properly here – if there is a primary challenger, stay out of it this time and allow the GOP voters to decide who gets the GOP nomination.

The news story:

Israeli President Shimon Peres chose hard-line Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to form a new Israeli government, giving Netanyahu six weeks to cobble together a coalition.

The question now is whether Netanyahu will form a narrow government with his hard-line allies or a broad government along with his centrist rival, Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni. His choice will have serious ramifications for the Mideast peace process.

Peres made his announcement early Friday afternoon after holding meetings with Netanyahu and Livni. An official ceremony appointing Netanyahu was to be held shortly afterward.

Peres had been meeting political leaders as he decided which candidate would be given the task of forming a new coalition in the aftermath of Israel’s national election last week.

The choice of Netanyahu was cemented on Thursday when Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, endorsed the Likud leader.

Israel girds for war – I wonder if Obama is fully paying attention to this? Israel feels its life is at stake, and isn’t going to patiently wait while Obama has State dinners with the leaders of Iran.

Larry Kudlow takes it to task:

Reporting from the Chicago commodity pits, my CNBC colleague Rick Santelli unleashed a torrent of criticism against this scheme. Santelli said: “Government is promoting bad behavior. . . . Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgages! It’s a moral hazard.”

All this took place on the air, to the cheers of traders. Santelli called for a new tea party in support of capitalism. He’s right.

Obama’s so-called mortgage-rescue plan amounts to $275 billion in new debt that will have little if any lasting impact on deeply corrected housing prices or the mortgage-default problem that stemmed from the insistence of government to throw home loans at lower-income people. A modest reduction in mortgage rates will have little impact on home prices, as Harvard professor Ed Glaser has shown. And by the way, re-default rates on modified mortgages have been running 50 to 60 percent. This is not going to change. So why should we throw more good money after bad?

All very correct – but we do need to do something to deal with the fact that a lot of people who are maintaining their mortgages are now sitting on houses which have lost 50% of their value. The incentive, right now, is to go out and figure out some way to purchase one of the foreclosed houses for half the mortgage a person is carrying, and then let the other house drop into foreclosure. And don’t think no one is thinking along these lines…its the logical thing to do when you’ve put $130,000 into a house which has a 400K mortgage and couldn’t sell for 200K if one’s life depended upon it.

Such, anyways, is my situation – but, of course, I won’t do such a thing. The temptation was there, and the temptation was resisted…and now after much cajolery I managed to get my lender to see a bit of reason and we’ve worked out an acceptable deal, albeit one which still has me short the $130,000 I’ve put into the place. Not everyone will be able to resist such a temptation – and if a two income family loses one source of income (something which is becoming more common as unemployment rises), it might become a financial necessity to go the route of buying a new home and allowing the old one to drop away.

Unfortunately for us, Obama seems to be concentrating most of his effort on people who are at or near default on their existing loans. I’ve got no particular problem with helping people stay in their homes – both morality and practicality decree that I be in favor of keeping people in their homes (having someone become homeless is something we must, as believers, work hard to prevent…on the other hand, even a non-believer doesn’t want yet another foreclosure on the market to drag down housing values even further). Given that Obama is a liberal, it is a natural that his plan mostly involves throwing good money after bad.

What should we do? Essentially go into bankruptcy re-organization of our housing and mortgage markets – rework loan balances to reflect current market values…the banks will lose some of their outstanding receivables, but lots of home owners will lose a lot of money they have put into houses, even if all they’ve put in is interest-only payments for two or three years (this still adds up to quite a lot of money). Everyone loses, but then we’ve got a market where house prices match house values, and thus we can start to rebuild from there. The real beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t require a taxpayer fund to cover other people’s bad moves.

Of course, we should be open for suggestions – I certainly don’t hold my idea as the be-all and end-all of existence, but I do like the factors of human solidarity and mercy it reflects. Anyone has other ideas, they should be brought forward…maybe one or two good ideas will eventually get to Obama, and then we might actually have a recovery in the housing market.