Some of the data for the last census has been released and the numbers are not good for Democrats. Red states picked up 6 Congressional seats and Blue States lost them. The interesting thing about the census is that states that have no income tax saw the largest increase in population:

This leads to a second point, which is that growth tends to be stronger where taxes are lower. Seven of the nine states that do not levy an income tax grew faster than the national average. The other two, South Dakota and New Hampshire, had the fastest growth in their regions, the Midwest and New England.

Altogether, 35 percent of the nation’s total population growth occurred in these nine non-taxing states, which accounted for just 19 percent of total population at the beginning of the decade. Michael Barone – Washington Examiner

People do not want to be taxed to death so they are moving to states where taxes are low or income is not taxed at all. People will only stand for so much before they take action. In this case, people voted with their feet.

This should be a lesson to politicians but they will fail to learn anything.

Taxes are a necessary evil but for a long time we have been taxed to pay for things that are not required to run our government and are not spelled out in the Constitution. When politicians learn to stop using the American public as an ATM machine and scale back government and its out of control spending then we will be able to prosper as a nation.

The idea that government must do everything for all people has failed in every society in which it has been tried.

We are on our way to that death spiral.

Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.

Looks like Obama is not so keen on following his rules about lobbyists:

Despite the job title, McLaughlin wasn’t a registered lobbyist. Still, ethics rules created by an Obama executive order prohibit McLaughlin from “participat[ing] in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to” Google. But the e-mails show McLaughlin has been involved with formulating policy that directly affects Google, regularly trading e-mails with Google’s “evangelist,” and lobbyist.

~snip~

And only when I followed up with a question about the e-mails with lobbyist Davidson did Weiss admit “they did violate the President’s Ethics Pledge,” and note that McLaughlin had been reprimanded. [emphasis mine] Washington Examiner

Well so much for the no lobbyists lobbying for their special interests. How’s that transparency thing working out for ya?

Iran blinks after much bluster:

Iran will not be sending a blockade-busting ship to Gaza in defiance of Israeli warnings, an Iranian lawmaker said Saturday, citing Israeli “restrictions.” Yahoo News

Iran was going to send the blockade buster to help get “humanitarian” aid ships through. Perhaps the idea of being sunk by the Israeli Navy did not appeal to Iran. Imagine the humiliation if that happened.

Maybe the Islamic radicals don’t care who is leading our country:

As for the revolutionary Islamists–be they al-Qaida, Hamas, Hizballah, the Taliban, and the Muslim Brotherhoods–or the radical regimes–be they Iran, Syria, the de facto Islamic Republic of Gaza, or others–all the U.S. governments are definitely the same. Indeed, they make this point explicitly in their declarations and media every day.

To them, the American people are “all the same” and the American governments are “all the same.” The argument between liberals and conservatives on this point is irrelevant. They hate the United States because of its values and they also hate the United States because of its policies. Gloria Center

While liberals love to exclaim that George Bush made the world, particularly the world of Islam, hate us, the reality is they hated us long before Bush was president. They bombed the WTC the first time under Clinton, attacked the Cole and other targets under Clinton and planned 9/11 under him. They do not like us no matter who is elected to lead us and they will continue to attack us until they are defeated.

How is that citizen of the world plan working out?

Another broken Obama promise? Gitmo remains open.

Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

~snip~
“The president can’t just wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking on a sensitive issue. The New York Times

Obama can’t wave a magic wand and make things happen but he sure acted like it when, with much fanfare, he signed the Executive Order to close it within one year of him taking office. That pen was his magic wand and he waved as if his deeming it so would make it happen.

This is what you get when you put someone with no leadership experience in charge.

Joe Biden Admits they can’t recover the jobs.

Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, “there’s no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.” CBS News

Biden goes on to do what has become the main theme of this regime, blame it all on Bush. That excuse is getting old. Hey Joe, the mess belongs to you and you and Obama got it because you convinced America you could fix things.

Now you admit that you can’t.

Is ACORN running the Census?

Two Census Bureau managers from a Brooklyn field office were fired after their bosses found they faked household surveys to meet deadlines, the Daily News learned.

Instead of pounding the pavement and knocking on doors, the corner-cutting people-counters mined the phone book and Internet to make up answers to questionnaires, regional director Tony Farthing said. NY Daily News

This census has been poorly run and has cost billions more than any previous census. Perhaps that is because the Obama regime is using numbers of census employees to artificially lower the unemployment rate. These people are counted as new jobs but will be gone in a few months.

The folks who did this should be prosecuted for falsifying a government record. This is what happens when a corrupt regime runs things.

Biden calls store manager a Smart ass. Custard’s last stand:

Joe Biden, VP of the Obama regime, was out getting a frozen custard (he thought he was getting ice cream) and when he asked how much he owed the manager said not to worry about it, “It’s on us.” Then the manager told Biden to lower our taxes and we will call it even. Biden told the man to say something nice instead of being a smart ass. I thought the request for lower taxes was saying something nice.

This is the disdain the regime has for the average guy on the street. If you think you are paying too much in taxes and express that thought you are being a smart ass. This is because the regime, with people like Biden who have NO business experience, think they know better than you. Shut up you serfs and quit being smart asses. We know what is best for you.

Video at Real Clear Politics

Extending an open hand to Iran:

CIA Director Leon Panetta says Iran probably has enough low-enriched uranium for two nuclear weapons, but that it likely would take two years to build the bombs.

Panetta also says he is doubtful that recent U.N. penalties will put an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Yahoo News

It would seem as if the Obama doctrine of bowing to all the world leaders and extending an open hand to the bad people of the world has not paid off.

The Iranian leadership knows Obama is weak and they are pushing the limits. They have enough nuclear material for two bombs and will have those bombs in the near future (and probably sooner than the estimated two years).

How is that world experience working out for ya?

Never surrender, never submit.

Barack Obama warned against jumping to conclusions when terrorist Nidal Hasan shot and killed members of the US Army. This from the guy who jumped to conclusions when a police officer arrested his buddy for being disorderly. The warning signs were there and Army officers report that they were afraid to report the issue because of political correctness. One claimed his concerns were ignored for that very reason.

The communications with an al-Qaeda cleric, the rantings about Islam, the threats to infidels, the poor performance are all out there now and we are warned not to jump to conclusions.

Hasan might claim insanity and he might be on to something. One would have to be insane to follow the teachings of the radical faction of Islam.

But where were the liberals warning about jumping to conclusions when a part time census worker was found hanging from a tree in Kentucky, allegedly with the words FED scrawled on his chest? The left immediately jumped all over the case and indicted the right wing in America. The blame was placed squarely on so called hate speech from the right. Michelle Malkin detailed, at the time, all of the liberals who were blaming conservatives. Here is a sample from the Democratic Underground (as reported by her):

We need to absolutely expose Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Michelle Malkin, CNN’s Lou Dobbs, Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh and the legion of others parroting right-wing lies for trumping up this nonsense and getting people to now commit murder in a hideous fashion.

HuffPo, Radio Equalizer and New York Magazine all put the blame on conservatives. There was even a picture of a hanging body with the words FED on the chest and the names of conservatives printed behind it.

It would seem that this was a bit premature because the official finding in the case is that the worker, Bill Sparkman, committed suicide.

It would seem that all of the conclusions as to whom was responsible were quite a bit off the mark. None of the liberals espousing restraint with regard to Nidal Hasan opened their mouths to caution restraint. There is plenty of evidence in the case against Hasan but there was not one shred of evidence in Sparkman’s death that pointed to conservatives talk being the cause of his death. The left jumped all over it nonetheless. Where were the trusty liberal mouthpieces when this was taking place? They were agreeing with the accusations of their echo chamber roommates. While they might not have publicly expressed the same sentiments, they were thinking it because they all believe that conservatives are violent.

Who can blame them for thinking this? The botox bimbo, San Fran Nan, told them that conservatives were violent. She teared up at a meeting to discuss the anger from the tea party protesters and stated she had seen this before in her home state and it led to violence. She was referring to Harvey Milk who, by the way, was murdered by another state employee over a job dispute. His murder had nothing to do with “angry mobs.” But Nancy had to make people believe that the tea party people are violent. The left looks at the tea parties as conservatives but the movement has people from all political ideologies and all walks of life. But the left has to focus on conservatives and isolate them in order to carry out Alinsky’s rules.

It is quite evident that this whole idea of violence is a fabrication because there has been no violence perpetrated by tea party members during all of the heated town hall meetings. The only violence came at the hands of union thugs who were acting as the enforcement arm of liberals. Those jackasses beat the hell out of a man. Those jackasses threatened the elderly. Those jackasses were the ones there to demonstrate a show of force. The tea party people know how to demonstrate peacefully. Another bit of evidence of the desire to pin violence on the conservatives appeared when the media reported that a number of people were arrested in DC at the rally Congresswoman Michele Bachman called for prior to the House vote on health care. The media neglected to indicate that those arrested were from the left. Those arrested were Code Pinko members who were protesting Lieberman’s decision to block health care. The media referred to them as tea partiers and failed to make any distinction when reporting the story.

This is a desire to pin it all on conservatives. Those who admonish against jumping to conclusions when there is mounting evidence are all too happy to sit around doing the first digit rectal interface when their side is indicting people who do not advocate violence and who do not incite violence.

Every time there is a death or violence the left is quick to point fingers at Malkin, Beck, Limbaugh and other conservatives and they point reflexively with no evidence whatsoever. Obama is an extension of that and demonstrated it with the Cambridge cop.

Let the conservatives point when there is a mountain of evidence and we are jumping to conclusions.

This liberal double standard is why they have no credibility (well one reason among many).

Michael Moore has new movie out and it is a movie that is anti capitalism. Moore adds to his list of distorting films, F911 and Sicko (how much money did the anti capitalist make off them), with this movie about the evils of capitalism. But Moore will earn money from the movie. How is it possible for a person against capitalism to make money off his work? Yes, some folks will see it for free but Moore is in business to make money. He owns Halliburton and oil company stocks. Moore also does his post production work in Canada to avoid having to use union workers in the US and thus pays less for the service. Something tells me that his movie will not include these tid-bits about him.

Barack Obama said that we had to pass the stimulus bill now or we would get in a spiral from which we might not recover. We had to do it NOW.

Obama has been saying that we must pass health care reform (his takeover bill) NOW. He had a deadline of August but that came and went but he continues to say that it is imperative that we do this now. There is no time to wait, we must do it NOW. If it is so important to do NOW, why does it not take effect until 2013?

Interestingly, Obama took longer to decide on a family dog than he wants to allow for debate on the issues that he says we must do now.

The one thing that needs to be done NOW is resourcing our troops in Afghanistan. Health care takeover – NOW, read and respond to the troops request, not right now. Obama will push that off for a while as he takes time to study it. Can anyone explain why we don’t have time to read bills and why we must vote on them NOW but that we can delay the request of combat leaders until Obama has a chance to study it?

It has been 9 months since he took office. He talked about Afghanistan for several years before that. One would think he would have already put a plan in place but now, the man who said he would listen to commanders on the ground, is putting his request for more troops on hold.

Seems to me Obama is giving people a tobacco smoke enema. He has his priorities out of order.

Did you notice that a few thousand left wing morons protesting in Pittsburgh were unruly and had to be confronted by police? Did you notice that this small number of people made a mess and vandalized things? Did you notice how Obama said that compared to past G20 summits this one was tame and not well attended?

Did you notice that hundreds of thousands of protesters were in DC on 9/12 and none of them were arrested? Did you notice they left no trash and cleaned up after themselves? Obama did not notice them either claiming that he did not know about the protests. For that matter, the MSM ignored them. The MSM sure gave the G20 protesters a lot of air time though.

Left wing protesters and the 9-12 crowd. One group is good for America, the other is a bunch of lawbreakers who should be in jail. The people at the G20 should have been rounded up and sent to Gitmo (not because they protested but because they engaged in civil unrest that involved breaking the law and vandalized things while throwing rocks at police). They are fortunate they were not shot. Which means they are fortunate I was not in charge of the police there.

Did you notice that the Obama backed Pittsburgh Steelers are 1-2 so far this season?

The Census has added a question this year. They want to know if you and the people in your house are covered by insurance (and they list several kinds for you to indicate). Since Obama will fine or jail you for not having insurance, is it smart to answer this? Also, what does it have to do with the census and the provisions of the Constitution? For that matter, why do they need to know how many bathrooms I have?

I intend to answer only the questions that deal with the number of people in my family. The Constitution allows for the census to determine numbers of people for apportionment of representatives. There are no other provisions in there for all these other questions. If they want to know my income they can ask the IRS. If they want to know how many bathrooms (or other rooms) are in my house they can check with the county clerk who issued the building permit. If they want to know if I have health insurance they can suck wind because it is none of their business.

Anyone who answers all those questions is allowing them to usurp the Constitution.

As for census takers, they should be very careful about the questions they ask and about leaving when they are told to.

On January 24^th Nancy Pelosi was asked if the stimulus bill was going to fast and if it would be ready by the President’s Day recess. Pelosi explained that there was no time to waste and that each month it is delayed 500 million people lose their jobs.

There are only about 306 million people in this country and roughly 127 million have jobs. It is mathematically impossible for more people to lose jobs than the number of people that exist. Maybe she is including the people from the extra eight states that Barack Obama found when he was campaigning (I’ve been to 57 states and have one left to go).

I am sure she meant to say 500 thousand. But thousand is such a small number when one is use to working with million, billions, and now trillions. Pelosi made the mistake because a million is not a big number to her. This is why we have problems with government spending; politicians have no concept of the size of things.

I have written before about how big a trillion is and this package, if passed, will cost more than a trillion dollars once the interest is figured in. The Senate has it up to 900 billion without interest.

I read today that if you spent a million dollars a day since the day Jesus was born the amount of money would not reach the amount of the stimulus package. The total would be around 734 Billion dollars which is below any number given for the package.

While I might concede that Pelosi probably made a mistake because she could not possibly be that stupid, I have to admit that since she believes that spending money on birth control will stimulate the economy, one cannot rule out stupidity.

The whole Obama administration and this Democratic majority has been a comedy carnival.

By this time next year the Democrats will be on the verge of a nervous breakdown and Obama will have a full head of gray hair. He will probably be smoking 2 packs a day trying to figure out why he can’t just shout Hope and Change and get things done.

This guy is a rookie and he is making rookie mistakes. He is in way over his head (Pelosi has been in way over her head since she got to Congress) but most of his supporters won’t figure that out for a year or so, if at all.

By then Hope and Change will be replaced by Depression and Despair.