Rep. Paul Ryan is one of the most articulate, intelligent conservative voices in Washington, DC.  His voting record is impeccable.  His performance in the so-called “Health Care Summit” was superb.  And this past week, Congressman Ryan delivered an absolutelystunning speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.  This is not your normal, run-of-the-mill speech.  This address made Barack Obama sound like a seventh-grade speech student.

I’d have to republish the entire thing to capture the highlights. So here are some choice snippets, starting with this:

It raises a subtle but real threat to self-government when the few are paying more and more of the bill for government services and subsidies to the majority: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” The next chapter is the rule of “crony capitalism,” where those who pay most taxes get the privileges, and government by and for the people is replaced by government by and for the few. The end of this story is soft despotism.

At this point, I’m not sure I would have used the adjective “soft”.  But the point is well-made.

A government that expands beyond its high but limited mission of securing our natural rights is not progressive, it’s regressive. It privileges the powerful at the expense of the people. It establishes the rule of class over class. The American Revolution and the Constitution replaced class rule with a better idea: equal opportunity for all. The promise of keeping the earnings of your work is central to justice, freedom, and the hope to improve your life.

“keeping the earnings of your work” – The Democrats are all for that, only it’s them who wish to keep our earnings.

But wait – there is much, much more…

The Constitution and the consent of the people are all that stand between limited and unlimited government power. Zealous ideologues with the best of intentions brush aside the limits on power in order to get whatever they believe is good for the people … no matter what the people believe. Our system of freedom can survive an assault, but it won’t survive if the people are frightened, or angry, or asleep at the switch. A great Democrat, President Andrew Jackson, once said: “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty.” We can thank our current leaders at least for this: they have awakened the nation to the danger of taking self-government for granted.

Congress is not only enacting a social welfare state agenda over the objections of the people. It is failing to address the problems that threaten to engulf our country, principally economic decline and entitlement-driven debt crisis. The coming election will be a referendum on the agenda of our current leadership. Either it will give them a mandate that says “more of the same,” or it will end the abuse of power and put America back on the path of growth and freedom.

Paul Ryan obviously understands what is wrong with the current regime.  These two paragraphs encapsulate my feelings about the Democrats in power better than just about anything I’ve read in the past year.  Read those paragraphs again.  And again.

Furthermore, Ryan understands the REAL issue behind the financial crisis we are faced with:

The problem in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress’ spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.

Today, Medicare is $38 trillion short of its promised benefits. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family’s share of this gap is $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt.

Social Security’s surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Unless its finances are strengthened, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent.

Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to be candid about this. And we have only postponed the crisis by shaking a tin cup at China and Japan.

Amen, brother.

And Ryan finishes with a flourish:

My party challenges the whole basis of the Progressivist vision of this country’s future. We challenge their attack on American exceptionalism. We challenge their claim that bureaucratic centralization is the only way the US can meet the economic and social challenges of our time.

Those leaders have underestimated the good sense of the American people. They broke faith with independents, Republicans, and their own rank-and-file. They walked away from the foundational truths that made America the wonder and the envy of the world. The price of their infidelity will be high.

I pray that the price of their infidelity will be an overwhelming GOP victory in 2010.  That is indeed where we must be placing our emphasis for the rest of 2010.

But beyond 2010, we must think about how to re-take the White House from the primary culprit in this governmental hijacking of the Constitution: Barack Hussein Obama.  Congressman Ryan clearly understands the problem and the solution.

A speech like this is not the typical fare we hear from Congressional representatives.  Be sure to read the whole thing. Words like this are seldom heard today, in DC or anywhere else.  These are the kinds of words we hear from a statesman…the kind of words that come from a President.  Now I’ve heard the case from some of my friends and colleagues that we must elect someone with executive experience, or we’ll wind up with another disaster like Barack Obama.  But the problem with Obama has nothing to do with a lack of experience; it has everything to do with a neo-Communist ideology that has lurched this nation’s policy-making far, far to the left.  I am much more interested in a President who has the ideas that can move this country in the right direction.  And Congressman Ryan possesses these ideas.

But, you say, Ryan says he doesn’t want to run for President.  Well, maybe after another year or so of Barack Obama, he’ll be convinced.  I know I am.

(Also posted at Redstate.com)

Classic.

The Census has sent me a letter telling me that they’re going to send me a letter.  Brilliant!

I’m having a difficult time deciding if this letter is:

1. Supposed to be helpful or informative in some way.
2. A joke.
3. Some sort of Obama stimulus plan for the postal workers
4. My imagination.

I’m betting on option 3.

I think the gubmint probably figures that us rubes out here in the hinterlands will just say to ourselves “hey, it’s just funny money – the U.S. Census is a gubmint entity, and the USPS is kinda sorta part of the gubmint, too, so it probably didn’t cost them anything”  Well, except for the time that the mail dudette had to spend sticking all those envelopes in mail boxes and the gas it took to run the mail truck, the trees they had to kill for all of those letters and envelopes, etc.

I suppose the environmental aspects of this never occurred to anyone.  A letter, telling me I’m going to get a letter.  I hope the enviro-wackos are having fun with this.

I think I’ll send them a letter telling them I got their letter about their letter.

Watch Redstate.com for updates starting on Thursday.

1. “The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”
   

   a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics.

2. Conservatives are either manipulated or stupid:
   

   And speaking to a roomful of Democratic donors in 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama offered a similar (and infamous) analysis when he suggested that residents of Rust Belt towns “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations” about job losses. When his comments became public, Obama backed away from their tenor but insisted that “I said something that everybody knows is true.”

3. Conservatives are RACISTS!
   

   It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants.

4. Conservatives are emotion-driven, liberals are logic- and evidence-driven.
   

   Former vice president Al Gore made this case in his 2007 book, “The Assault on Reason,” in which he expressed fear that American politics was under siege from a coalition of religious fundamentalists, foreign policy extremists and industry groups opposed to “any reasoning process that threatens their economic goals.” This right-wing politics involves a gradual “abandonment of concern for reason or evidence” and relies on propaganda to maintain public support, he wrote.

Alexander captures perfectly how Barack Obama exemplifies liberal condescension:

These four liberal narratives not only justify the dismissal of conservative thinking as biased or irrelevant — they insist on it. By no means do all liberals adhere to them, but they are mainstream in left-of-center thinking. Indeed, when the president met with House Republicans in Baltimore recently, he assured them that he considers their ideas, but he then rejected their motives in virtually the same breath.

“There may be other ideas that you guys have,” Obama said. “I am happy to look at them, and I’m happy to embrace them. . . . But the question I think we’re going to have to ask ourselves is, as we move forward, are we going to be examining each of these issues based on what’s good for the country, what the evidence tells us, or are we going to be trying to position ourselves so that come November, we’re able to say, ‘The other party, it’s their fault’?”

This article illustrates why the GOP has no business responding to Obama’s overtures to meet with him and the Dems to discuss healthcare socialization. Republican/conservative ideas will be disregarded and condescended, just as every other idea and thought from Republicans have been since his coronation.

READ the article.  Now.

pwned – A corruption of the word “Owned.” This originated in an online game called Warcraft, where a map designer misspelled “owned.” When the computer beat a player, it was supposed to say, so-and-so “has been owned.”

Instead, it said, so-and-so “has been pwned.”

This week, Missouri’s Senator Kit Bond massively pwned Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Last week, Gibbs revealed in a press conference that the FBI had been receiving more cooperation from The Christmas Pantybomber (Umar Farouq) Abdulmutallab.  Senator Bond is the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and received this information from FBI leadership.  According to Bond, the FBI instructed the committee to not disclose Abulmutallab’s cooperation.  But Gibbs did just that.

Yesterday, Bond discussed his exchange with Gibbs on St. Louis radio station KMOX.

Bond, on the Mark Reardon Show on KMOX, called Gibbs a “clown” and said it’s the White House that should apologize because the F.B.I. told everyone to keep the information quiet.

“They said it is absolutely critical that this information not come out because it will hamper our ability to follow up on all the leads the underpants man (Umar Abdulmutallab) gave us on the terror activity being planned in Yemen.” said Bond.

When asked where Bond thought the information originated he told KMOX it had to have come from the White House.

Bond has sent a letter to the President outlining his concerns.  He has not received a reply from the president.

Press Secretary Gibbs has proposed a debate with Senator Bond.  Bond told KMOX “I don’t debate Press Secretaries.”

That’s gonna leave a mark.

It’s been fun to watch the leftist bloggers lament about how their man-god has betrayed them.  Earlier this week, Robin Carnahan expressed her “disappointment” in Obama’s “lack of fiscal discipline”, and the Huffington Post was right there to document it.  HuffPo quotes Robin:

“From where I stand here in Missouri, I’m disappointed in the President’s budget recommendation. Budgets are about setting priorities and it’s time Washington started making fiscal discipline and tackling the long-term budget deficit higher priorities.

As you might expect, the HuffPo blogger was none too pleased with her newfound opposition to their Fearless Leader

But for an Obama White House that is touting the deficit reducing measures it has thrown into the budget (from spending caps, to prospective cuts in defense programs, to “restoring some balance to the tax code”) comments like Carnahan’s don’t help.

Now you might think that we fiscal conservatives might welcome statements of this kind.  If it came from someone we could trust, that might be the case.  But those of us in Missouri are accustomed to politicians who try to talk a good game, yet plant themselves firmly in Barack Obama’s lap.  Senator Claire McCaskill is a pro at trying to sound tough but she always returns to her leftist voting ways.  Claire makes statements that pretend to be “independent” or “moderate”, yet always manages to vote with the Left, displayed by her none-too-stellar 14% lifetime rating from the ACU.  And Robin Carnahan seems to be following suit – trying to sound moderate…but who believes it?  Surely not those who witnessed her speaking under the Obama Logo

Ms. Carnahan’s rebellion begs the question:  ”what exactly do you oppose from President Obama’s budget?”  She is very nondescript in her opposition. Can she identify specific areas of the budget where she’d like Obama to cut back? What does she find objectionable?  She has yet to oppose any of Obama’s initiatives, such as the failed “stimulus” spending or the near-deceased ObamaCare initiative.  And Robin, have you talked to your bro, Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan, about this?  I fully expect Robin would be as “low maintenance” as Russ, and certainly she’ll be persuaded to change her tune once Rahm, Robert and the gang hear how she’s wandered off the ranch.

I don’t think that HuffPo’s Stein has much to worry about with respect to Robin Carnahan.  Despite her tough talk, she’ll be back in the fold eventually.  She’s terrified to tell Missourians what she believes because she knows they won’t like it.  That’s why she chooses not to talk about health care or terrorism or any of the policy positions that sunk Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.  She knows that Roy Blunt is far closer to Missourians’ attitudes about fiscal responsibility, with his support for bills such as 2005’s Deficit Reduction Act and his opposition to bloated budgets even during the Bush administration.

But most importantly, we must keep in mind this worth-a-1000-words picture:

It’s a reminder:  the $1.85T deficit is OBAMA’S DEFICIT and Robin Carnahan will support every major Obama program that is generating these massive deficits that are going to bankrupt the United States and burden your children, your grandchildren and their grandchildren for decades to come.

It appears that these things weren’t legal here until 2009.

You know, this idea of half-gallons of draught beer to go is change I can believe in. Where’s my Schlafly Winter ESB?

The install itself was pretty smooth…the install process did what it was supposed to – until the end.  After the progress bar finished its trip across the screen, it prompted me to click “Restart”.  So I did.  It restarted, and got to a blue screen.  And there it stopped.  And it sat there for a couple of hours (while I cursed at it periodically).  Convinced I was going to have to restore my backup, I disgustedly hard-powered it off and on.  And lo and behold, it rebooted (twice) and then came up to the normal login screen.  Wow.  It actually WORKED.  So, being the glutton for punishment, I went into Software Updates to try to update to 10.6.2.  And again ran into problems – it wouldn’t update.  So I went to apple.com and downloaded the combo updater and installed it by brute force.  This time, no blue screen stall.  It rebooted and came up fine.  So now – which apps are broken?

I have a Line 6 POD XT for my electric guitar and had installed the software that’s used to connect it to my Mac, and it is not SL compatible.  When I finished the install, it prompted me that it had moved that to some special folder for incompatible software.  I tried a bunch of other stuff that pretty much seems to work.  My Evernote install has lost all my notes (!!!!).  I need to boot from my backup and recover those.  Safari doesn’t support my extensions in 64-bit mode (1Password, AdBlock), so I had to go back to 32-bit, which works fine, although it’s slower to start up.  And Lotus Mobile Connect didn’t work at first, but a reinstall fixed that.  So far, everything else seems to work OK.  I installed a new release of Lotus Notes, since I was on a roll.  It, too, seems to work fine.

There are some interesting new features in SL.  I did buy back about 10GB of disk space, which paid for the $25 SL upgrade.  Now my touchpad supports 4-finger swipe…it’s pretty cool to be able to invoke Exposé using swipe instead of having to move my mouse to a “hot corner”.  I am anxious to try the built-in Cisco VPN, but haven’t gotten to that yet.

Overall it seems like a decent upgrade, even if there isn’t a lot of obvious on-the-surface improvement.

1. What exactly does he mean by “freeze?”  Does it mean “freeze the level of spending at the bloated 2009 numbers”?  Or does it mean “don’t increase these programs any more in 2010 than we did in 2009?  Or does it mean “stick to historic growth levels, rather than Obama-caliber spending increases”?  Inquiring minds want to know.
2. Discretionary spending means non-entitlement spending.  When you subtract out entitlements:  Medicare & Social Security, and then you subtract defense-related spending, there is precious little left.  In fact, it comes out to less than fifteen percent of the federal budget.*  Barack Obama’s so-called “stimulus” program totaled around $750B – that’s almost 50% greater than the entire non-defense discretionary budget for 2009. Freezing 15% of the federal budget is a drop in the bucket.  (see page 8 of this PDF)

Note one other key item in that Federal Budget PDF document.  As of the year 2017, “Net Interest” – the interest paid on the national debt – exceeds ALL non-military discretionary federal spending.  If Barack Obama wanted to have a real impact on the federal budget, both now and in the future, he would cease and desist from these so-called “stimuli” that are doing little or nothing to fix the Obama Recession.

To propose a spending freeze of any sort is good political theater for Obama, but it will have virtually no impact on the financial standing of the United States of America.