Social Security recipients will get a raise in January — their first increase in benefits since 2009. It’s expected to be about 3.5 percent.
Some 55 million beneficiaries will find out for sure Wednesday when a government inflation measure that determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment is released.
Hadenough.us has to ask: lucky timing for seniors and Washington “leaders”, or a transparent attempt to swing votes in 2012?
image courtesy of yahoo images and gimmejustice.com
As published on examiner.com
Today was the day we were to remember and honor America’s fallen.
Just a few months ago Democratic House members chose to disgrace that noble body they sit in as well as our fallen heroes by taking a big slice out of the spirit of the Constitution from which our leaders get their authority.
Each of us owe our liberties to the Constitution. That inspired document is the thing our fallen have given their lives to preserve and protect.
On this Memorial Day I fear for my nation and our Republic if the spirit of a resolution introduced by House members regarding anti Muslim speech and bias is accepted by Congress (or by the people).
Representatives John Conyers, Jr., Andre Carson, and Hansen Clarke chose in March to introduce a resolution in the people’s House of Representatives that stinks of authoritarianism, tyranny, and censorship.
Congressional Resolutions define the sense of life of that body.
H. RES 283 states that the members who sign on to it are
expressing the sense of Congress that the federal government should take steps to counter anti-Muslim sentiment
that this anti Muslim sentiment
should be addressed by official government policy
which would
take steps to counter the growth in anti -Muslim sentiments, targeted rhetorical attacks
expressing the sense of the House of Representatives.
If accepted by Congress, our leaders will be acknowledging that they believe that the Federal government of the United States may, as it deems necessary, use the force of government policy and the mechanism of law to counter the sentiments and rhetoric of the people of the United States.
In other words, Congress would be stating in this resolution that speech by individual citizens of a free republic may be countered (of course no clarity is given as to what ‘countering’ would entail) simply because some in Congress (or anywhere) might not agree or approve of the speech in question.
When a free nation has degenerated to such a point that Representatives of the people expressly declare that they believe that they can and should ‘counter’ the sentiment or speech of that people, I worry for my nation.
When my leaders do not grasp that they are violating the very document that they themselves derive their power from, and that they are shutting down voices of people who have chosen them , and yet are doing so in the name of ‘free speech’, I fear for my Republic.
Conservative and liberal “commentators” (read: opinion hacks who pretend they are journalists) love a good scandal, controversy, or public disagreement. When they can’t find one, they make one up with the old stand by of “X is raising eyebrows”, all the while conveniently failing to identify any actual individuals whose eyebrows have been set high upon the forehead. The Left is aghast at Conservatives at Fox and other outlets who are atwitter over what Conservatives view as the latest in a long line of poor reasoning and outright poor taste from the White House. Of course, one must ask when aren’t Conservatives incensed over the actions of liberals?.
The political and media Left wishes to have the public believe that First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House invite to hip hop artist Common, and his subsequent visit, is just one of those ginned up controversies.
The Liberal left insists that Common’s visit is a non sequiter. Online supporters of this view go so far as to suggest that the invite was a baiting game: invite the most innocuous black artist one can find so as to drive those big old bigots on the Right into a tizzy.
Reviews by a critic with the caliber of Roger Ebert, half of what was the most noteworthy film critic team of the past twenty-five years; venerable critic of the Chicago Sun Times, these reviews are not a small matter. The opinions of critics such as these are not to be taken lightly, nor treated as if they have not occurred.
Roger Ebert and his fellow critics can make or break a film. They are the moderating voice and minds for America’s movie attendees, helping movie pickers sift the chaff from the wheat to determine the best film on which to lay their ten bucks. They also help movie goers understand, amid the din of post film theater chatter and concession stand sticker shock, just what they saw up on the screen.
Such worshipful views of professional criticism are held only by those who read reviews and expect enlightenment and a release from the responsibility of making informed, rational judgments. Such are positions usually held by those who accept at face value a critic’s coronation (or execution) of a film, and are unwilling to express or experience independent thought.
Today is April 15th. It is Tax Day, 2011 [tax day actually moved up a few days, but you get the picture]. With it comes the release of Atlas Shrugged The Movie Part One.
I’ve been a fan of the novel Atlas Shrugged and a student of Ayn Rand’s philosophy for nearly twenty years.
Objectivism has allowed me to shrug off what should have been a completely debilitating illness. Without Objectivism it is doubtful I would have maintained full employment, written a book, maintained a home, or be writing this or anything else. My ability to manage a foot and a half in reality and reason – via Objectivism, mitigates against much of the effects of my schizophrenia. Read the rest of this entry »
Official Atlas Shrugged The Movie (part one) movie poster
as published on examiner.com
Fifty years plus have passed since Ayn Rand published her masterpiece of philosophy and Romantic literature. Fifty plus years later and Conservatives still do not get Atlas Shrugged, nor do they apparently care to. To paraphrase the epithet that Conservatives love to apply to the anti Palin mentality, a label that has already become a worn out cliche — the traditional Right has spent the past fifty plus years wallowing in “Rand Derangement”.
This derangement takes the form of the typical Conservative’s pathological need to distance themselves from Rand while simultaneously recognizing her influence, her prescience, and her grasp of ethical and ideological truth. Fifty plus years of history validating Ms. Rand’s premises and prophecy cannot be evaded, even by the Masters of Evasion within Conservative circles.
No one today can, with either a straight face or with intellectual honesty, fail to acknowledge Mr. Rand’s achievements. Those achievements can be and are still, however, misrepresented, appropriated, and maligned — particularly by those threatened most by the ideas themselves.
I’m speaking of course of Religious Conservatives who evade the reality of Ayn Rand’s ideas so as to hide from themselves their own ideological bankruptcy. I speak also of Conservatives who know full well that traditional Conservatism is as dead as the ghosts and corpses it tries to worship.
One week from tomorrow (4/15/2011) part one of a three part film version of Atlas Shrugged will be released to a movie going public. That public has been saturated in treacle, terror, timidity, and toneless banality for so long it mistakes rehashed comic book plots and overly redone thirty year old classic films as original, entertaining, and risky.
Those who attend such inane films (usually in vain attempts to find in these movie’s moderately romantic style of story telling some form of original thought and some heroes to admire and aspire to be) will finally have the opportunity to enter Galt’s Gulch.
True to form for Conservatives, the reviews, near reviews, reviews of reviews, and non review hatchet jobs are in — and ain’t they pretty? Read the rest of this entry »
Once again, the Left’s attack dogs in media and entertainment continues their campaign against female conservatives (and women in general) by substituting misogynistic schoolyard name calling for reasoned debate and skipping genuine criticism for the sake of elitist, nitpicking faux outrage over verbal gaffes.
In response to the messiness of recent misogynist ad hominems against Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, and others by an illustrious line up of reasoned, critical political scholars that include second rate comedians and fifth rate nearly unemployable wannabe journalists (Bill Maher, George Lopez, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, leading Conservatives miss the big picture.
Many Conservatives are baffled by what has become known as Palin Derangement; a bizarre fixation by the Left on all things female and Conservative. many cannot grasp the reason that intelligent, beautiful, Conservative women fill the Left with dread.
In their columns for Fox News.com writers Penny Young Nance and Angela Tantaros offer the usual Conservative talking points — a mixture of bewilderment, genuine insight, and evasive sidestepping of the main issue. Read the rest of this entry »
Did I miss the memos from the White House and Congressional Quarterly in which Democrats admitted that their philosophical Emperor of progressive taxation has no clothes? Did Christianity’s Holy See forget to send out their letter of resignation in the last issue of Guidepost? How could there have been a second Renaissance and yet the Enlightened New York Times fails to report it? Have the alleged defenders of values — Progressives and Religionists — not heard that their preachers and prophets have admitted defeat, have admitted they’ve been promoting a mirage, and have acknowledged that their agenda is dead? Read the rest of this entry »
As this is being written, a partial revolution is happening in American politics. A once in a lifetime, clearcut repudiation of a party’s agenda occurred in the midterm 2010 elections. I say partial, not because there were not enough House wins for Republicans to provide a mandate undoing the Obama – Pelosi – Reid “hope and change” trifecta; not because the Senate remains in Democratic control, offering our Republic a gridlocked Congress; certainly not because spot light Tea Party candidates failed to win key races. It is a partial revolution because the message that was sent to Washington, to the “mainstream” (and thus clueless) media, and the two main parties has apparently not been heard, if the reactions of the media, the pundits, and the parties are any indication. Read the rest of this entry »
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