Breaking news from Columbia, South Carolina, where the #1 ball cap in town says "Cocks".

An early morning run for breakfast at the Waffle House on Paxville Highway in Manning turned terribly wrong for Crystal Samuel.

"I thought I was gonna get me an All-Star," says Samuel. A popular meal on the menu. "Grits, sausage, toast, eggs and a waffle," says Samuel.

She didn't get what she came for. Instead, she says while she waited for her order, her friends started eating. That's when Samuel says she was told they couldn't eat from carryout trays inside the restaurant.

"I said what is your fuss about. I said we haven't paid for our food. She (Ward) said well you all got to leave. How you want us to leave and we ain't paid for the food yet," says Samuel.

That's when it got ugly. Samuel says she threw a waffle at the waitress. "I did actually throw some food but it didn't hit her," says Samuel. "That's when she (Ward) jumped across the counter and we got into it," says Samuel.

Clarendon County Sheriff Randy Garrett says the altercation continued outside where he says Ward got a gun from her car and a gun magazine from her trunk.

"It's poor judgment on her part trying to settle this matter with a weapon. either way she had time to think about what she was doing when she was walking to her car," says Garrett.

Investigators say Ward's gun discharged during the altercation. They say a bullet fragment struck Samuel in the arm.

"Deputies were close by when they rolled up in the parking lot the victim and the suspect were still engaged in a fight," says Garrett.

Before it ended, authorities say Ward struck the victim in the head with the gun.

"She got the last lick,"says Samuel. Meanwhile Ward has bonded out of jail. 

Additional information from independent research:

Waffle House signature hash browns come six ways:

1. Traditional: scattered and smothered (onions)
2. scattered;
3. smothered;
4. covered and chunked (onions, cheese and ham);
5. chunked and topped (onions, cheese, ham and chili);
6. topped and diced (onions, cheese, ham, chili and diced tomatoes).

 The floor is now open for your comments.

The Oklahoma legislature has been in the news for more than a year now with its sovereignty resolution. See story here.  It seeks to undo overreach by the federal government in violation of of the 10th amendment.

Now comes the legislature of Montana which just passed a bill in both its house and senate, and got the governor's signature as well.  The bill -- in brief -- says that guns both manufactured and sold in Montana are exempt from federal laws, based on the "commerce clause".  Knowing that you'll want the facts, and not merely my take, the text is below.  I'll comment below the text.

HOUSE BILL NO. 246
INTRODUCED BY J. BONIEK, BENNETT, BUTCHER, CURTISS, RANDALL, WARBURTON
AN ACT EXEMPTING FROM FEDERAL REGULATION UNDER THE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES A FIREARM, A FIREARM ACCESSORY, OR AMMUNITION MANUFACTURED AND RETAINED IN MONTANA; AND PROVIDING AN APPLICABILITY DATE.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:

Section 1. Short title. [Sections 1 through 6] may be cited as the “Montana Firearms Freedom Act”.

Section 2. Legislative declarations of authority. The legislature declares that the authority for [sections 1 through 6] is the following:
(1) The 10th amendment to the United States constitution guarantees to the states and their people all powers not granted to the federal government elsewhere in the constitution and reserves to the state and people of Montana certain powers as they were understood at the time that Montana was admitted to statehood in 1889. The guaranty of those powers is a matter of contract between the state and people of Montana and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889.
(2) The ninth amendment to the United States constitution guarantees to the people rights not granted in the constitution and reserves to the people of Montana certain rights, as they were understood at the time that Montana was admitted to statehood in 1889. The guaranty of those rights is a matter of contract between the state and people of Montana and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889.
(3) The regulation of intrastate commerce is vested in the states under the 9th and 10th amendments to the United States constitution, particularly if not expressly preempted by federal law. Congress has not expressly preempted state regulation of intrastate commerce pertaining to the manufacture on an intrastate basis of firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition.
(4) The second amendment to the United States constitution reserves to the people the right to keep and bear arms as that right was understood at the time that Montana was admitted to statehood in 1889, and the guaranty of the right is a matter of contract between the state and people of Montana and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889.(5) Article II, section 12, of the Montana constitution clearly secures to Montana citizens, and prohibits government interference with, the right of individual Montana citizens to keep and bear arms. This constitutional protection is unchanged from the 1889 Montana constitution, which was approved by congress and the people of Montana, and the right exists, as it was understood at the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889.

Section 3. Definitions. As used in [sections 1 through 6], the following definitions apply:
(1) “Borders of Montana” means the boundaries of Montana described in Article I, section 1, of the 1889 Montana constitution.
(2) “Firearms accessories” means items that are used in conjunction with or mounted upon a firearm but are not essential to the basic function of a firearm, including but not limited to telescopic or laser sights, magazines, flash or sound suppressors, folding or aftermarket stocks and grips, speedloaders, ammunition carriers, and lights for target illumination.
(3) “Generic and insignificant parts” includes but is not limited to springs, screws, nuts, and pins.
(4) “Manufactured” means that a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition has been created from basic materials for functional usefulness, including but not limited to forging, casting, machining, or other processes for working materials.

Section 4. Prohibitions. A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Montana and that remains within the borders of Montana is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce. It is declared by the legislature that those items have not traveled in interstate commerce. This section applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured in Montana from basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state. Generic and insignificant parts that have other manufacturing or consumer product applications are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition, and their importation into Montana and incorporation into a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured in Montana does not subject the firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition to federal regulation. It is declared by the legislature that basic materials, such as unmachined steel and unshaped wood, are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition and are not subject to congressional authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition under interstate commerce as if they were actually firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition. The authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce in basic materials does not include authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition made in Montana from those materials. Firearms accessories that are imported into Montana from another state and that are subject to federal regulation as being in interstate commerce do not subject a firearm to federal regulation under interstate commerce because they are attached to or used in conjunction with a firearm in Montana.

Section 5. Exceptions. [Section 4] does not apply to:
(1) A firearm that cannot be carried and used by one person;
(2) A firearm that has a bore diameter greater than 1 1/2 inches and that uses smokeless powder, not black powder, as a propellant;
(3) ammunition with a projectile that explodes using an explosion of chemical energy after the projectile leaves the firearm; or
(4) a firearm that discharges two or more projectiles with one activation of the trigger or other firing device.

Section 6. Marketing of firearms. A firearm manufactured or sold in Montana under [sections 1 through 6] must have the words “Made in Montana” clearly stamped on a central metallic part, such as the receiver or frame.

Section 7. Codification instruction. [Sections 1 through 6] are intended to be codified as an integral part of Title 30, and the provisions of Title 30 apply to [sections 1 through 6].

Section 8. Applicability. [This act] applies to firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition that are manufactured, as defined in [section 3], and retained in Montana after October 1, 2009

---

With this bill, Montana has thrown down the gauntlet, and declared judicial war with the federal government.  It, I predict, will not take long before this show debuts at a U.S. Supreme Court with revolutionary implications.

The Constitution's "commerce clause" enumerates the federal government authority to "regulate commerce among the states."  First, it does not enumerate the power to prohibit, merely to regulate.  Second, it does not enumerate the power to regulate intrastate commerce, just interstate.  Third, "commerce" (original meaning) was defined as the trade or exchange of goods, including the means of transporting them (including payment, since that's an exchange of goods as well).  Clearly, the federal government has, de facto, stretched and expanded "commerce" beyond recognition.

Any proscription or restriction of behavior between or among consenting parties is, by definition, a violation and infringement of their unalienable right to liberty.  Any proposed proscription must be screened through the "necessary and proper" clause.  A law or regulation must first be really necessary, because the consequences of not having such an a priori prohibition or limitation would be dire.  It is why some highway speed limits are constitutional.  It is why most federal taxes are not.  Even if necessary, the remedy must be proper.  A federal speed limit on a state or county road would not be proper, because the jurisdiction isn't federal.  Also, to be proper, the remedy must be the least infringing proscription possible.  Banning possession of a firearm by convicted violent felons might be proper.  Banning guns per se would not.

Manufacturing guns in Montana is not a federal case.  Buying guns in Montana is not a federal case.  Possessing guns in Montana is not a federal case.  Shooting guns in Montana is not a federal case.  If the federal government intervenes in Montana, that state vows to secede.  The legislators and governor of Montana have rendered Tea Parties child's play.  They've supersized the resistance and put it on steroids. Ladies and gentlemen of Montana, what you see is me standing and what you hear is my applause.

What are grits? a guest column by JT.  JT Stevens is a retired paramedic (previously a professor of music) from Douglasville, Georgia, a few miles west of Atlanta

As what is known in these parts as a “Damn Yankee,” I have given some thought to what grits are. (Parenthetically, thus the brackets, the question might more accurately be “What is grits?” since “grits” is probably a collective noun.)

 Before going any further, those new to the area, no doubt from up north (above Cartersville), should know that there are two kinds of Yankees: Damn Yankees and Dumb Yankees. The Dumb Yankees go back north.

 To return to the subject, I had the pleasure recently of reading a piece in the Chapel Hill News & Views by Frank Parham. His answer to the title question: Nobody knows. Well, thanks to my friends at the Douglas County Fire Department, particularly Chief Ed Daniell, I believe I do.

 I have only been a Damn Yankee for a little over 30 years, so I don’t actually personally know a real-live moonshiner. But I know a few who do. From them I have learned a little of the honorable, if illegal, art of distilling corn likker. It takes skill and patience. And corn. And water. And time.

 First, take the corn and soak it in water. The cobs can go over to the outhouse. Eventually, you end up with a wet mush that you then must separate into the good stuff (fermenting golden water) and the “slag.” The slag is (are?) the grits.

 Done right, all of the value is in the liquid. What is left over is a completely tasteless, Chemically inert white powder. Unfortunately, chemists (as we shall refer to them to protect and honor these “spirited entrepreneurs”) found that if they left this useless slag lying in the open, when it rained, the water would re-hydrate this slag, it would grow and spread exponentially, and eventually mark them as afoul of the Treasury Agents. (I came to see this phenomenon one morning when a pot of grits was left boiling on the stove. The contents not only filled the kitchen but the engine bay at the Fire Department!)

 What to do with the slag. Moonshiners eventually started putting it in barrels. But what to do with the barrels? (They, too, were a dead giveaway, especially if a T-man asked what was in them.) We don’t know exactly who it was that decided to label the barrel, identifying the contents as GRITS. It eliminated that awkward question, but when asked what he was going to do with the Grits, he is reported to have answered, “Sell them, of course!”

 And so he did. Cheap. 49 cents a barrel.

 Don’t know who first taste-tested the new stuff. Probably hoped for some leftover taste from the fluid so carefully separated from the slag. But if you were hungry enough, you could put some fatback drippings on them and fill your gut until some food became available. Nowadays, we just add a lot of butter, salt and pepper, and then mash ‘em all up with the runny eggs on the plate, sopping them up with the biscuits. Don’t know why we don’t just eat the food!

 Better question: Why Are Grits? I propose a contest. Let us see who can come up with something more useless than grits. (Can’t be Kudzu; it keeps the soil in place.)  

The biggest difference between Barack Obama today and Napolean, Mussolini, Lenin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hitler and most-recently, Arafat of yesteryear is that none of the others had a teleprompter.  The named leaders of yesteryear all devastated the masses who worshipped them.  Much of the jury in the "Masses v. Obama" case has yet to begin deliberations.

All, it is generally conceded, advanced on the wings of great oratory skills.  All are/were pragmatic opportunists, advancing themselves and their agendae amid the manufactured chaos of crises.  All do or did manipulate the most-mass newsmedia of their day, whether, massive rallies, fire-side radio chats, newsreels at the movies, broadcast of the 1936 Olympics, Palestinian news feeds carried by the gullible and compliant outlets wordwide, televised speaches and "news conferences" along with intimidation of opposition talk radio.

All are/were either radical socialists, radical liberal fascists, or both.  All do/did eschew logic, facts, truth and rationality in favor of emotion and stirring passion in the masses.  All replaced religions with faiths that were this-wordly and political, and led by this-world people rather than exta-wordly [G]od(s).  The hisorical are well-known to most.  The latest iteration is "Black Liberation Theology".

All came to realize that having the people they lead/led, not only impassioned, but scared, made the followers more compliant.  All are/were transformational, creating new societies with new paradigms, while impugning everything past.  All do or did subordinate the individual to the collective -- the state or nation, the worker class, the race, the party -- and subordinate the rule of law to the rule of an oligarchy of "leaders".

All came to believe that truth is unimportant.  Whatever the people believe to be truth is what is important, because it is that which guides them.  Leaders, then, need to create a truth which moves the masses.  It is no wonder, then, that George Will recently opined, "For conservatives seeing is believing while for liberals believing is seeing."  It is why on this blogsite I earlier characterized what the President was doing as "misdirobfuscation".

If what we're witnessing is not new, but rather deja vu, -- and that's how I see it -- the ending is clear, and not pretty.  What remains of the story to be written is what and who will be devastated before the final chapter, and how badly.  If we use post-revolution France, a dying and shrinking Italy, post-war Germany, the Soviet Union, Palestine, and the New Deal legacy as clues and predictors, the prognosis is bleak.

The hue and cry that the truth just cannot get out, given the obvious liberal bias of the "mainstream media", is ubiquitous among Townhall bloggers and commenters.  Then, there is also the more-recent phenomenon of "leg tingling" and the like over President Obama.

Below, I offer hope, that because there is change.

The top 25 U.S. newspapers daily circulation from October 2008 through March 2009. The percentage changes are from the same year-ago period.

1. USA Today down 7.5 percent.

2. The Wall Street Journal up 0.6 percent.

3. The New York Times down 3.5 percent.

4. Los Angeles Times down 6.6 percent.

5. The Washington Post down 1.2 percent.

6. Daily News of New York down 14.3 percent.

7. New York Post down 20.5 percent.

8. Chicago Tribune down 7.5 percent.

9. Houston Chronicle down 14 percent.

10. The Arizona Republic of Phoenix down 5.7 percent.

11. The Denver Post newspaper took over subscriptions from Rocky Mountain News when that newspaper folded with the Feb. 27 edition.  Comparison not possible.

12. Newsday of Long Island, N.Y. down 3 percent.

13. The Dallas Morning News down 9.9 percent.

14. Star Tribune of Minneapolis down 0.7 percent.

15. Chicago Sun-Times down 0.04 percent.

16. San Francisco Chronicle down 15.7 percent.

17. The Boston Globe down 13.7 percent.

18. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland down 11.7 percent.

19. Detroit Free Press down 5.9 percent.

20. The Philadelphia Inquirer down 13.7 percent.

21. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.down 16.8 percent.

22. St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times down 10.4 percent.

23. The Oregonian of Portland down 11.8 percent.

24. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution down 19.9 percent.

25. The San Diego Union-Tribune down 9.5 percent.

Re: network evening news: CBS and ABC together lost nearly 2 million viewers, or a combined 10 percent, during the Iraq war period, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Whether daytime or primetime, Fox News Channel has more viewers than CNN, MSNBC and CNBC combined.

U.S. News & World Report has effectively abandoned the print news magazine format in favor of producing monthly guides, leaving news coverage to its website.  In 2009, according to Pew Research, when asked specifically about news magazines, 12% reported reading one “regularly,” down 2 percentage points from 2006 and down 6 percentage points from a similar survey in 1994. 

Circulation for all of the three biggest news magazines declined in the first half of 2008, the latest period for which comparable data are available.

Newsweek and U.S. News both had substantial losses in total sales (subscription or single copy sales). Newsweek fell to 2.7 million copies per week in the first six months of 2008, down 13% from the same period in 2007. U.S. News fell to 1.8 million, or 10% (bigger changes came later in the year). Time had a negligible decline, down three-tenths of 1 percent, to 3.4 million.

A brand-new Pew Research Poll -- widely circulated and publicized -- informs that approval ratings for President Obama have an historic partisan gap.  The approval-percentage gap is wider between Republcans and Democrats on Obama than for any prexy in the last forty years.  So much for our new era of cooperation.

The gap is 61%, with 88% of Democrats approving the presidents job performance to date and a mere 27% of Republicans.  What caught my attention immediately has apparently not raised anyone else's eybrows, much less the hair on the backof their necks.

Parlaying the solid-leftist work of President Carter in the late '70s and the contributions of President Clinton in the ealy '90s (before the Republican Revolution of 1994); following and building on the subversion in the early and mid oh-ohs by Rains, Waters, ACORN, Obama, Dodd, Frank, and Cuomo; Rahm Emanuel orchestrated and choreographed, while Charles Schumer lobbed the first grenade in the 2008 October Surprise to end all October surprises; all of that leading to "a crisis is an opportunity not to be wasted." Now in the first two months of the Obama Administration, the federal government has gone from 67% unconstitutional to 75% with a trajectory to achieve more than 80% by year's end.  The Declaration of Independence has de facto been repealed.  The President has spoken, and America has renounced its sovereignty.

And 27% of Republicans approve of the President's job performance.  Between a quarter and a third of Republicans are cheering . . . and want more.  My posture is slumped.  I'm blowing profanity outa one orifice and smoke and flames from the other end.

It is my conviction that the Founders of these United States of America possessed collective genius. They somehow understood, for example, that human rights come not from a king or a government, but from the Creator and, thus, are unalienable.  The Constitution they -- as "We the People of the United States" -- crafted prohibited the federal government from exercising any power or authority not explicitly enumerated.

 

Those Founders with their collective genius rightly feared that the Constitution could, and would, not survive without a moral people.  The 16th amendment, ratified in 1913, must have shaken the Founders' graves.  Then, in the 1930s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt single-handedly "trashed" our Constitution more than all of his predecessors combined . . . a hundredfold.

FDR's Federal Reserve Bank Chairman -- a former Macy's ceo -- supersized 1913 by forcing all employers to withhold income taxes rather than taxpayers stroking a check each March 15.  Thus, taxes were no longer paid; they were taken.  Government is constantly working to expand itself, never to limit itself.  The "expansions" of Presidents William Taft in 1910s and Roosevelt in the 1930s, along with all who've followed their precedents, all remain with us today.

We at GetAmericaRight seek to cause the federal government to not only limit itself, but to shrink itself.  We seek nothing less than to save America . . . from itself.

We at  GetAmericaRight have become convinced both that Tom DeLay was spot on when he said, “Demagoguery beats data”, and that Democrats/Liberals/Leftists/Socialists/Fascists (Was that redundant?) are masters of this wordsmithing.

 Democrats employ demagoguery because their ideas are based on no data, no logic, no history, and no rationality.  Despite having data, logic, history and rationality all on their side, conservatives, we’re convinced, need to out-demagogue their opponents because it works.

 We over at GetAmericaRight would like your help.  Let’s do some brainstorming here.  This is second in a series of queries.

 Should the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” (aka “”card check”) be called the

a.       “Union-Thug Intimidation-Enhancement Act”?

b.      “Democrat Unions Payback Act”?

c.       “Thanks for the Campaign Contributions Act”?

d.      “Even More Campaign Contributions Next Time Act”?

e.       Other _________________________?

 

I wanna GENTLY move y'all justa

tad toward demagoguery and a touch away from data. As conservatives, what we try to do is present ala Sgt. Friday, LA Police, badge 714, i.e., "Just the facts, ma'am."

The so-called "Fairness Doctrine" maybe just oughta be referred to by conservatives as the "Better Dead than Right Doctrine." I mean, if a conservative tree falls in the woods, and there's no talk radio, will the falling tree make a sound?

A stack of one dollar bills equivalent of what Bernie Madoff’s clients lost, laid on its side would stretch from Miami to San Francisco, indeed across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County . . . and from South Beach.   A stack of one dollar bills, equivalent of what President Obama and Congress have bilked from us,our children and grandchildren in just the last two months would reach the moon . . .  ten times . . . to the far side. 

 And not all of what Madoff bilked could have been spent by him.  A guy has a pretty tough time running up bar tabs that run into the billions, you know.  Heck, if Madoff’s clients had invested in regular 401ks, they’d have lost about a stack of bills from Miami to Dallas thanks to the Democrats and President Obama, and what's recoverable might be a stack from Dallas to, say, Santa Fe, so maybe Madoff wasn’t such a bad guy after all.  Perspective. 

 Yet, I’m pretty sure  President Obama’s favorable poll numbers beat the snot out Bernie Madoff’s. These money guys from New York just can’t catch a break.  Wass wit dat?

 

This morning I received a market update from a New York City large investment bank pro, also a member of GetAmericaRight.  He said,
"My opinion: We have now entered a very dark and scary hole, which is likely not very conducive to increasing investor confidence."  He was referring to President Obama's latest pronouncements vis-a-vis General Motors and Chrysler.  I immediately published the line as a second Quote of the Day on GetAmericaRight.

The financial pro popped me a follow-up e-mail, "Other people on the desk don't seem to think it as scary, given it's not exactly like the 90% tax debacle.   I understand someone giving loans on stipulations, but it's one thing to answer to investors; it's another thing when you have to answer to Uncle Sam.  Theoretically, firms work in their best interest... and with that, GM would have fired Wagner a long time ago, if they thought it to be in their best interest... and the Chrysler/Fiat deal would already be done."

The "dark and scary hole" to which he referred, I think, is the "black hole" that is radical socialism and radical fascism.  GM and Chrysler leaders -- and everyone else in the private sector -- have just had it made crystal clear to them that it matters zip what is their best interest or they believe their customers want.  The only thing that matters is what the federal government wants.

Many of us have for at least six months questioned only when, not if, this day would arrive and this line would be crossed.  We now have much more than the camel's head under the tent.  The camel herd is in and ruling the tent.  There is no longer even any pretense that we are a "nation of laws".  We are a nation of men, radical, Saul-Alinsky-inspired, socialists-fascists all.

We at GetAmericaRight have become convinced both that Tom DeLay was spot on when he said, “Demagoguery beats data”, and that Democrats/Liberals/Leftists/Socialists/Fascists (Was that redundant?) are masters of this wordsmithing.

 Democrats employ demagoguery because their ideas are based on no data, no logic, no history, and no rationality.  Despite having data, logic, history and rationality all on their side, conservatives, we’re convinced, need to out-demagogue their opponents because it works.

 We over at GetAmericaRight would like your help.  Let’s do some brainstorming here.  This is first in a series of queries.

 Should the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” be referred to by conservatives as the

a.       “conservatism gag order”?

b.      “duct tape doctrine”?

c.       “rationality rationing”?

d.      other ___________________________?

 

The U.S. Postal Service in my memory has raised the price of stamps about 30-fold.  They use predatory pricing for package shipping versus UPS, FedEx, et al.  Illegal?  Sure, but if you're the government . . .   So, USPS is still losing money, since fewer and fewer people continue to use them, and those who still do, do so less.  I saw a survey question last week on Townhall that asked something like, should the postal service be required to (a) continue delivery six days or (b) be allowed to cut back to five?

I wondered where (c) was.  How about (c) Give 30-day notice it will close and cease all service?  Hey, two-thirds of what the federal government does and spends it has no enumerated power to do.  The post office is enumerated, but what the heck.  Nobody in Washington pays any attention anyway.

Then, there's Miguel Tejada -- major-league baseball all-star -- who was convicted of "misleading congress".  Excuse me, but if I'd been Tejada, sitting before the congressional committee, I'd have sat there with a copy of the U.S. Constitution before me. When asked the first question, I'd have sat silently reading from page one.  When the question was repeated by the impatient congressman, I'd have looked up and said, "Please give a few minutes, congressman.  I'm trying my best to find in this document where it says that you or anyone on this panel has the constitutional authority to even require my being here, much less asking me such a question."

And I can name about 350 congressmen and 42 senators who've lied to congress, and that was just when they took the oath of office.  Never mind that they continue to lie daily.  And I'll throw in President Obama, who lied twice when taking his oath of office, once on January 20 and again the following day.  And he has also continued daily.

• If increasing the size and scope of government while reducing the size of the private sector improved an economy, please explain North Korea. 
  
• Please explain why Hong Kong is prosperous while France is not. 
• Please explain why the Great Depression lasted the whole of the 1930s.
  
• Please explain why a man taking buckets of water from the deep end of a pool, then pouring the buckets of water back at the shallow end to make it deeper isn't stupid.* 
  
• Please give me your top-ten-favorite-economic-success socialist/fascist countries of all time.

* I stole the essence of this line from the great Walter E. Williams.

Dear Editor:

So many letter writers have based their arguments on how this land is
made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one, suggests we should tear
down the Statue of Liberty because the people now in question aren't
being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and
other ports of entry.

Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like
Mr. Lujan why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind
of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all
areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a
ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented . Some
would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They
made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good
and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new
American households and some even changed their names to blend in with
their new home.

They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a
new life and did everything in their power to help their children
assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed to them.   No free
lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were
the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a
future of prosperity.

Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My
father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from
Germany , Italy , France , and Japan . None of these 1st generation
Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had
come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the
Emperor of Japan . They were defending the United States of America as
one people.

When we liberated France , no one in those villages were looking for
the French-American or the German- American or the Irish-American. The
people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that
represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have
thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to
represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their
parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly
knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot
into one red, white and blue bowl.

And here we are in 2008 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the
same rights and privileges, only they want to achieve it by playing
with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card
and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I'm sorry,
that's not what being an American is all about. I believe that the
immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve
better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising
future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those
legally searching for a better life I think they would be appalled
that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country
flags.

And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of Liberty , it
happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are voting on the
immigration bill. I wouldn't start talking about dismantling the
United States just yet.

(signed) Rosemary LaBonte
Orange County, California

 I used to pose the following to my college-student graduates from government schools:  I contend that there are three categories of k-12 teachers.  The first (A) has teachers who should immediately be given a 100 percent salary increase and driven to and from school each day in a chauffeured limousine.  The second (B) has teachers who should receive no raise, receive no ride, but should be mentored by Category A. The third (C) has people who should be treated as a liquor store or porn shop, i.e., never again allowed within 500 feet of a school.

            I surveyed college upperclassmen because they now had some distance and perspective on the subject.  The students would think about it, jot some notes, review their school years and the two-dozen-plus teachers each had had.  I’d then call on them individually, asking how many of each category they’d had.  Almost all said that they’d had some of each.

            The range for A’s was ten-to-thirty percent.  The range for B’s was twenty-to-sixty percent.  The range for C’s was fifteen-to-fifty percent.  So, everyone had had at least three great teachers during the thirteen years and many subjects.  And everyone had had at least five-ish awful teachers and some as many as fifteen.  At the end, I’d ask if the students agreed with my categorization and characterization.  They all did.

            If a hospital emergency room had fifteen-to-fifty percent of its nurses and anesthetists Category C, would you go there for care?  If a bank had that many tellers Category C, would you bank there?  Heck, if your meat market had that many Category C butchers, would you shop there?  If your car dealer service department had that many Category C mechanics and technicians, would you take your precious SUV there?  If the hospital or bank or market or dealership gave huge raises to their Category C personnel, would they then become Category A?  If the hospital or bank or market or dealership reduced the number of customers per employee, would the quality of performance by its C’s become A-class?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’re a dunce, but could still have a very comfortable life and career as a Category C teacher in our government schools.  Just pay your KEA/TEA/NEA dues.  If you answered “no” to all of these questions, then we seem to be communicating.  If you answered “no”, but you keep sending your children to the governments’ schools for indoctrination and PC-mania anyway, however, maybe I’m just not communicating well enough.

Any Category A teacher at your child’s school can list the school’s Category C teachers alphabetically, chronologically, by grade level or by hair color, but most wouldn’t.  All principals could do likewise, even for other schools, but none would.  The superintendent could list them for the entire system without notes, but won’t.  When asked at a public meeting about the problem of bad teachers by a parent, Knox County (Tennessee) schools superintendent said that the real problem is when a child has two bad teachers in a row.  So principals are instructed to avoid that.

When asked why he didn’t listen to and respect parents and students more, the president of the national teachers union said that, when parents and students pay union dues, he will.  Retired lifelong union members – UAW, AFL/CIO, Teamsters – are complaining loudly at their retirement homes about the unionized staffers.  The retirees whine that staffers don’t listen to and respect them.  Paybacks are tough.  Finally, can any of you out there rattle off a list of government bureaucracies with quality customer service?

Save the children.  Kill the government schools.  Also please read and respond to SL Gordon's  Townhall blog post of today   about schools and being a teacher.  Finally, also be mindfull of the fact that "economic stimulus" moneys in billions of dollars will shortly be "invested" in government schools.  Another way of explaining that is that Democrats in the House and Senate, along with the new prexy, are really indebted to the NEA and AFT for all of their usual help this election cycle.  While the teachers remind the children to "wash your hands", they was the politicians' hands and the pols return the favor.