It Must Be Said

Sounds Like Gwinnett: California Built Its House on the Sand

Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation is criticizing a report on the money woes of ten states by the Pew Center. His assessment of California’s problems could apply, in principle, to Gwinnett’s situation:

A big cause of California’s budget crisis was spending commitments derived from overreliance on volatile revenue sources, particularly taxes on high-income earners, corporate profits, and capital gains revenue. These revenue sources soared during the boom, and legislators made spending commitments as if that soaring would never end. It did, and that’s where the budget hole came from…

Here, county leaders banked primarily on two revenue sources to fuel growth in government—property taxes on both commercial and residential development; and the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) to build infrastructure.

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Guns at Obama Events: Can I Point Out the Obvious?

Would it be the epitome of hubris for me to point out, despite the fact that a dozen protestors showed up at Obama’s Phoenix event on Monday armed with handguns, rifles and even an AR-15, that nobody was shot and nobody died?

Wouldn’t that be proof, even in a situation where a liberty-loving American might be tempted to pop off a few rounds in anger and frustration, that the guns themselves are not dangerous? That you can actually take them out in public and nobody need die?

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday’s event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn’t need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest | ajc.com

Thank God for Carrie Prejean

Good for Carrie Prejean, who understood that her answer to Hollywood scum blogger Perez Hilton might cost her the Miss USA crown. Carrie answered according to her faith and conviction. But it is how she has carried herself since the pageant, which she was expected to win, that has made her my newest hero:

“I have no regrets about answering [judge Perez Hilton] honestly,” she said in one of her first interviews following the show, where she answered that she was against gay marriage becoming legal in California. “He asked me for my opinion and I gave it to him. I have nothing against gay people and I didn’t mean to offend anyone in my answer.”

FOXNews.com Exclusive: Carrie Prejean Says ‘God Was Testing My Faith’ With Gay Marriage Question

Janis Gold Must Die

Okay, Opie, I gave you a tentative pass when you replaced Chloe O’Brian with washed up, gutter comedienne Janeane Garofalo on my favorite TV show, “24.” Sure, I understand that CTU has been disbanded and the responsibility for defending the nation against domestic and foreign terrorists has been turned over to the FBI.

But Janeane Garofalo? Her reputation has an out-spoken, ultra-left wing liberal is well known. Yeah, I knew that there wouldn’t be much opportunity for her to spout her leftist drivel from behind a computer monitor, but if we must rely on a dour sourpuss to save the nation, give me Chloe any day. At least, she’s a nice tree hugger.

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Barack Obama: This Emperor Has No Clothes

Like the young boy who spoke the truth to power in the Hans Christian Andersen folk tale, London Telegraph columnist Gerald Warner sticks a critically-needed needle in the Obama Hysteria balloon. This is a must-read, especially if you have any inclination at all that Obama will be good for America:

It is crucial to recall the reality that lies behind the rhetoric. Denouncing "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents" comes ill from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents.

Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears :: Gerald Warner

If the ends truly justifies the means…

Like a federal bailout, the county’s plan to eliminate competition and take over what has been a private enterprise simply ignores the Constitution and the rule of law, in favor of expedience. The new sanitation plan is, by all definitions a step toward socialism, which is an economic system in which the basic means of production are primarily owned and controlled collectively, usually by government under some system.

If private ownership, entrepreneurship and free enterprise are no longer cherished characteristics of our country to be jealously guarded and defended at all costs, then any form of government interference is plausible.

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