2 Helena Handbaskets

You have to wonder just what he’s been doing for all those years…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, facing a tough re-election bid in one of the states hardest hit by the recession, said today that the economic downturn was not his fault. “I had nothing to do with the massive foreclosures here,” Reid said during an appearance on the ABC News/Washington Post “Top Line” program, adding that he also had no part in contributing to the state’s dismal unemployment figures. At 14.3 percent, Nevada’s unemployment rate ranks the highest in the country.

So I guess if he isn’t responsible for any of the bad stuff, he doesn’t get credit for any of the good stuff either. Which leaves the question – why is he even there?

Hopefully the voters of Nevada will elect a RESPONSIBLE senator this year!

Back in March of 2008, the growing phenomemen that became Barack Obama was described by one of his soon-to-be followers, Glynnis MacNicol, with a prescient sense of foreboding:

Here’s the thing. I like Barack Obama. What I’m increasingly liking less, however, is the evangelical nature with which his supporters are trying to convert me to the cause. Lately it’s begun to feel a tad abusive and on more than one occasion I’ve felt like some sort of atheist at a Pentecostal service, or a meat-eater at table of vegetarians. Recently it’s been my experience that it’s not enough to say that I like Obama, the sense I get is that I must LOVE him. I must fully and completely believe that he is the biggest and greatest gift to American political life ever. There are no shades of grey where Obama is concerned.

Even before that, one black columnist, MIchael Fauntroy, at Huffington Post lamented:

It’s hard out here for Black pundits/analysts/commentators who haven’t come around to drinking the Democratic presidential nomination front-runner Barack Obama is the best-thing-since-sliced-bread-how-did-we-ever-exist-as-a-nation-without-him-this-is-our-last- best-chance-to-elect-a-Black-president-so-we-better-support-him-see-I-told-you-racism-is-dead Kool-Aid. In too many segments of the country — black and white — to express any skepticism about Barack Obama is considered political heresy. I’m blown away by this discovery, because it suggests a dangerous group think: Obama is the only agent of change and to not praise him at every opportunity is to support the status quo.

Now, just two scant years later, the hopium seems to be wearing thin, if not out.

Independents – that ever-so-deeply-rooted-in-jello (politically speaking) group of voters – who slurped the Obama Kool-Aid like wanderers lost in Death Valley for 40 days and 40 nights are now madder-than-hell and demanding their money votes back. Republicans who never much liked The One, but who thought “teaching that RINO McCain a lesson” seemed like a great idea at the time, have re-evaluated that brilliant move and have come back from the dark side. And, in what may be considered most surprising of all, Democrats – the Professional Left as well as the Rank Amateurs – are losing their enthusiasm for the object of their former affection too.

I suspect that Obumbles wasn’t quite thinking along the lines of this kind of recovery when he wound Joe (the Gaffmeister) Biden up and turned him loose banging his little drum and tooting his trumpet about the “Recovery Summer”. Turns out, that’s exactly what we’re experiencing, though.

The American people are no longer drunk on the empty promises of a new kind of politics, and all the other folderal and fiddlefaddle that was wrapped up and sold as the Elixir of Hope ‘n Change by the snake oil peddler-in-chief.

All it took was: Continued high unemployment; a falling stock market; a couple of trillion dollar stimulus bills; a bunch of bank bail-outs; nationalizing General Motors and billions of tax dollars in union hush money; propping up Freddie and Fannie; a 2,500 page health care bill complete with all sorts of bureaucratic red tape, higher costs, and death panels; an ill-conceived legal attack on a sovereign state trying to control rampant illegal immigration, drug smuggling, kidnapping, and murderous Mexican gangs; astronomical federal deficits and out-of-control Washington spending; bowing and scraping to foreign kings; friends like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charlie Rangle, Barney Franks, and Maxine Waters; and, now, a Victory Mosque at Ground Zero.

Amazing what a good 12-step program will do to sober up a bunch of Kool-Aid drunks, isn’t it?

And, in case you are still under the delusion of Obumble’s motives:

Obama ignores the wishes of the American people, something neither FDR nor Clinton would ever do…Obama sees the public as his enemy, a stumbling block that he needs to get around if he is ever to reach his goals. For Obama, the public is an entity to deceive and manipulate if possible, and he regards it contemptuously rather than respectfully. He no longer needs to inspire people. He just needs to exercise power over them.”

How’s that Hopey Changitude working out for you now?

Three preschoolers. Minimal supervision. A can of baby powder.

White powdery fingerprints abound at the crime scene.

Busted!

Cutest miscreant ever!

At a time when most of us are focused on vacations, enjoying the beauty that is a Montana summer, and the upcoming November elections, one man may be looking a little further down the road – to November 2012. And all Americans may owe much to him come this December for his foresight and timely actions.

THE MAN.

Steve Daines. Fifth generation Montanan. Family man. Businessman. You can read his biography here, but trust me – he’s the real deal. Genuinely nice guy. Smart. Articulate. Wise. A strong fiscal conservative who understands what it takes to do business in a global marketplace. An entrepreneur who creates jobs. A proven leader.

THE MESSAGE.

America and Montana cannot afford to continue down the path we have been traveling. We have to live within our means and we have to put government spending on a serious diet. The formula is simple: Smaller Government = Stronger America. Steve put it even more astutely, “As it’s been said…prior generations operated under the principle of ‘work hard, pay off the mortgage..and give the ranch to the kids’. We live in a generation that’s mortgaging the ranch, and handing the debt off to the kids. That is flat out wrong. ”

THE MISSION.

Most political sages are agreed that the mid-term elections will devastate the Democrats’ majorities in both the House and Senate, and while that initially seemed like it would put the brakes on the runaway socialist agenda of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi cabal, recent word from Washington shed new light on the President’s plan for his lame-duck Congress: Ram through Cap-and-Trade, Immigration Reform, Card Check, and God-only-knows-what-other-redistributive crap Obumbles can think of. The theory being that this will be their last and only chance to enact their anti-American agenda and the congress critters who came up short on November 2 don’t have anything more to lose, so what-the-hell, go-for-broke. It’s not an unrealistic theory. Scary as hell though.

Enter brave, forward thinking leaders like Steve Daines. The momentum for his entrance into the 2012 race against Jon Tester is growing and puts our junior senator on notice that his votes on these issues WILL cost him his job in 2012 if he goes against the will of his MONTANA constituents.

Jon-Boy has already demonstrated clearly that he was more committed to representing the liberal-socialist agenda of Washington rather than the clear and unambiguous will of the majority of Montanans when he voted for Obamacare last year and failed to hold open townhall meetings around the state. He’s got at least two strikes against him now; one more and he’s OUT. Having an announced opponent may be sufficient to take Jon’s vote out of the sure-thing column during the lame duck session.

It’s a numbers game for the Progressives. They’ve thrown the dice and found that their agenda is not quite as popular as they thought it was, so they have only one option: act while they have the votes. The President needs every D vote he has and then some. And that’s the reason that Steve’s possible candidacy is so exciting. Our 41-vote firewall in the Senate doesn’t give us much comfort: One renegade republican and voila! – Progressives win again. Keeping the Republican caucus intact is no easy trick. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine are never sure things. Lindsey Graham has shown wonky tendencies on Climategate/Cap and Trade and immigration.

If there’s one thing that we have learned since January, 2009 it’s that Hope is not a great strategy. We can’t just hope that the lame-duck congress doesn’t pass all this bad legislation. Taking some of the votes out of the D’s column because the Senators who will stand for election in 2012 are more invested in their own future employment than Obama’s is a good strategy. Four vulnerable senators – both Ben Nelsons (Nebraska – “Cornhusker Kickback” and Florida “Gator-Aid”), Claire McCaskill (Missouri), and Kent Conrad (North Dakota) are already nervous about their chances, so the nose-counters have been factoring a couple of defections there. Conventional wisdom didn’t put Tester in that boat, so Reid has been counting on his vote. A strong challenger, not just waiting in the wings, but out there talking to the voters, sharing a positive pro-jobs/economic vision for Montana is not only a good political strategy, it’s a great message for a successful campaign.

It’s not time to lose our focus on the 2010 elections, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be strategically keeping an eye on 2012 too. Take a minute from your busy summer activities to become a fan and send our message to Jon Tester:

MONTANA IS WATCHING.

And just remember – the person who wrote this probably drives and votes – and may have already reproduced.

This is supposedly from a San Francisco newspaper. I can’t vouch for the authenticity, but I can’t imagine anyone being able to make this up either.

Happy 234th birthday, America! Pretty awesome that this never-before tried experiment has lasted through wars, recessions, good times and bad. No other country in the history of the world has ever guaranteed her citizens such precious freedoms. No other nation has ever welcomed the disenfranchised from all over the world with open arms and the promise of a brighter future as has America for more than two centuries and is still going on the foundation originally put in place by a group of ordinary men called to greatness.

A co-worker shared an experience he had last Friday in the checkout line of the grocery store. As he completed his purchase, he wished the checker a Happy Independence Day. The woman behind him scornfully chastised him as one of those TEA Partiers and proclaimed that the celebration was “the Fourth of July”. This is illustrative of exactly what America is – a country where we are free to have our own perspective on the blessings we have been given.

Whether you are celebrating the “4th” or “Independence Day” is totally up to you. Have a good one – and sometime during the day, take a few minutes to ponder the wonder that is this great country, and remember to ask God to continue to bless the USA!

There’s something inexplicable that happens to a woman when she becomes a mother. I guess it’s probably best explained as an instinctive response to protect their young. But, I’ve found that this instinct or whatever it is doesn’t diminish or go away when the kids grow up. Even if your baby is six feet tall, when he is under attack the old mama grizzly rears up without even thinking.

That’s what happened when I saw that #1 Son twittered about this Republican Party Platform plank:

Homosexual Acts
We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal.

Here comes the she-bear.

What the hell were they thinking? More to the point – who the hell came up with this piece of vile, hateful stupidity? And what, pray tell, might this “legislation” be that is so clearly supported by the people of Montana? No specific reference is mentioned in the Platform. Might it be a Koopman plan (whispered directly into his ear by God, of course) to round up all the gays in the state and ship them off to concentration camps ala Hitler? Gosh, Roger – are you sure that’s such a popular proposal? Or could it be something equally bizarre and sinister that’s being shared only by the chosen few homophobic, uneducated, religious zealots who still think that the Spanish Inquisition was a great time in the annals of Western history and Torquemada a real swell guy?

And how many otherwise rational conservatives thought that criminalizing a whole class of people was such a cool idea that they supported and voted in favor of this abomination that would have our government willy-nilly breaking down bedroom doors?

I am a Republican, and generally speaking, proud of my party and what it stands for. Not this. This is beyond unacceptable. As a conservative, I’ve always felt that what any consenting adult does in private is none of my business and certainly nothing that “small government” needs to regulate. As long as you don’t do it on Main Street and scare the horses, I really don’t need to know about it. And I sure as hell don’t need to have my tax dollars pay to police it.

In a time of serious economic crisis, this kind of absurd posturing is not only unnecessary, it’s completely counterproductive. When our candidates should be carrying a message of fiscal responsibility and job creation, sound energy and resource development, the mental midgets behind this idiocy have now offered the Democrats a huge weapon with which to deflect the debate and wage a successful attack focusing on an issue that has no place in the arena of conservative ideas. In an election where our party should have the upper hand on the issues that matter, we could end up losing some swing seats simply because of this one sentence.

This statement of our party’s official position is breathtakingly offensive to many good republicans; I am not the only one who objects - ” This is the criminalization of the private lives of consenting adults. I am embarrassed such language was approved.”

Yes, I am ashamed of my party. Very ashamed. And angry. And hurt. There is no room in my party for this kind of short-sighted, hypocritical, mean-spirited, asinine activism. As the parent of a gay child, I have witnessed, first-hand, the unwarranted, bigoted attacks from small-minded, loud-mouthed jerks, and I have no intention of participating in an effort to promote or condone any legislation that is intended to endorse or support such attitudes.

I certainly never expected that the Montana Republican Party would become a branch of the Westboro Baptist Church and I, for one, won’t be a party to it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

First it was the dotcom bubble. Then the Wall Street and housing bubbles. Is the education bubble next?

To be honest, I hadn’t realized there was such a thing as an “education bubble”. As the parent of three young adults, I can personally attest to experiencing the inflationary trend in higher education. Heck, we’re still helping our youngest pay back her student loans. But something I read last week got me thinking about it, and then I did a little more research. Just Google it yourself – over 57 million hits. Obviously there’s something out there, even if it’s still flying mostly under the radar.

Okay – so exactly just what is this “Education Bubble”? Basically, it refers to the concept of the increasing cost of higher education that has been nurtured by a societal belief in the unarguable value of a college degree at any cost compounded by the availability of easy credit. If you’ve spent any time surfing the net, you’ve seen the ads offering thousands of dollars in student loans to low-income adults and even homeless people. Like that’s a real smart risk on its face.

The chart above certainly illustrates the cost component of the equation. “How high can it go?”, you may be thinking? Who knows – but that’s not the part that should concern you most. Oh, no – it’s the Department of Labor’s one sentence prediction that should raise the red flags about the coming collapse – “Over the next decade, there will be fewer new jobs requiring college degrees than there will be new college graduates.” Dang. That old supply/demand thing rears its ugly head.

From Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

The money and time you spend on college matters. College education is so universally viewed as such a great investment that the cost and its return on investment get too little scrutiny. The statistics that trumpet the value of college are generalized in ways that tend to obscure the reality. A typical statistic cited is “the expected life time earnings of a bachelor’s college graduate are $2.1 million and the expected lifetime earnings of a high-school (only) graduate are $1.2 million (Day and Newburger, 2002)”. This statistic, while impressive, ignores many other factors. When a student borrows large amounts of money to finance a poorly planned education, he or she can be put at a big disadvantage for many years to come. The availability of student loans, grants, and other financial aid has made college education possible for many more people than ever before. However, the availability of this money has created a large group of people who borrow carelessly with little or no planning, and without setting realistic goals or objectives.

It’s not unusual to hear of recent college graduates with $100,000 and more in student loans unable to find a job that pays more than $10-15/hr., with little prospect for advancement anytime soon. The average cost of a degree from U of M, MSU, or MSU-B in 2009 was over $75,000. And there aren’t a whole bunch of high-paying entry level jobs just waiting around for a new grad to step into. It’s tough to live on even $30 grand a year when the student loan payment is over $500 per month.

So why has the cost of a college education gotten more expensive?

A recent Money magazine report notes: “After adjusting for financial aid, the amount families pay for college has skyrocketed 439 percent since 1982. … Normal supply and demand can’t begin to explain cost increases of this magnitude.” Consumers would balk, except for two things. First — as with the housing bubble — cheap and readily available credit has let people borrow to finance education. They’re willing to do so because of (1) consumer ignorance, as students (and, often, their parents) don’t fully grasp just how harsh the impact of student loan payments will be after graduation; and (2) a belief that, whatever the cost, a college education is a necessary ticket to future prosperity.

Bubbles burst when there are no longer enough excessively optimistic and ignorant folks to fuel them. And there are signs that this is beginning to happen already.

Here’s the real question for us – what does this mean for Montana’s university system and for our current crop of high school students? Should the Board of Regents start trimming back some of the “Do you want fries with that?” college courses and focus on the degree programs that offer a reasonable return on investment for the cost of the education? Should we, as taxpayers, start getting serious about demanding our K-12 schools actually teach students the basics so that colleges aren’t forced to include remedial classes as a standard part of the freshman curriculum? Should we, as a society, begin to admit that not every kid has the aptitude or mental ability for college? Should we, as adults, finally admit the the purpose of a basic education is to provide students with the skills necessary to earn a living and provide for themselves and their families – and maybe start evaluating our investment in public education not in terms of cost, but rather in terms of value – to the student and to society?

Should we, as Montanans, maybe do something proactive to prevent the bubble from bursting and ruining the future for a generation of our kids?

This idiot is the product of the American public school system. From her official biography:

Peggy West was elected 12th District Supervisor in 2004 and, after being reelected in 2008, is serving her second term representing 50,000 residents on Milwaukee’s south side. She currently serves as 2nd Vice-Chair on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. Supervisor West also has the unique distinction of being the first Latino/Hispanic American to be elected to the Milwaukee County Board.

Supervisor West grew up in Milwaukee and graduated with a degree in Human Services from the Milwaukee Area Technical College.

The taxpayers of Milwaukee’s south side should demand a refund on their taxes.