Evelyn at the lake
Gunnar and Thomas at the lake
Sanford and Sin
Below is a portion of my weekly column in the Telegraph:
When the story broke that the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, had disappeared, I was willing to lend a hand to help neutralize the story. What a line of bull he fed and lived in.
I am convinced the default behavior for politicians is unchaste. A friend points out it is the default for everyone. We live in a fallen world and we ourselves are fallen. I am disappointed in Sanford and sorry for his family.
I have noticed in the past years Democrats and Republicans elevate politicians to an insular level of no accountability. There is no support group, no group of friends, and no authority that can guide, admonish and correct politicians privately.
I have a good, dependable group of friends in a Bible Study who I surround myself with. They keep me humble, distracted as needed, and grounded as best they can. Sanford probably has none of that. I am sure John Edwards did not. Nor Bill Clinton. Nor John Ensign.
To be sure, Sanford and Ensign are in the same “Bible Study,” but anyone how knows about the C Street Group understands it is not what it purports to be.
Sanford is known as a fiscal conservative, not a social conservative. In the hours after his press conference, liberal pundits raced to the nearest keyboard and microphone to declare Sanford the second coming of James Dobson and a typical hypocritical social conservative. In their zeal to score points, they portrayed Sanford as someone he is not. They could have wounded the fiscal conservative movement that will ultimately undermine the president’s abilities to push his agenda. They, like Sanford, failed.
It is also worth pointing out that in Sanford’s absence, the state of South Carolina did not crumble and the government did not collapse. That is a feature, not a bug.
What Sanford did was wrong. He must rehabilitate himself. Blessed is the Lord who brings forth bread from heaven, water from rocks and men like Sanford from the dust of the earth. His will be done. Who knows what God has in store for Sanford.
Cool Music Video
But I bet she had some serious chafing.
What kids learn
It is amazing what Evelyn has picked up on at three years old.
A few weeks ago, she told Christy that she loved Christy very, very much and when she was big she was going to have a baby in her tummy that she would love too.
Then she told Christy that living in Christy’s tummy was her favorite place to live. Why? Because unbeknownst to Christy or me, Evelyn said there’s a slide in there.
Yesterday and today, we took Evelyn to Vacation Bible School at our church. Both days she insisted that she wear a dress. After all, she was going to church. We explained that VBS was different. Nonetheless, she is insistent that she at least wear a skirt instead of shorts.
We have no idea where she gets that from. Christy and I both will wear pants to church. But funny.
The Greatest Car Review Ever Done
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the greatest car review ever conducted. Ever. Watch the whole thing. It gets better and better, then reaches a glorious crescendo of badassness.
The Return of the Politics of Personal Destruction
During the Clinton years, Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr were household names vilified as Republican Torquemadas. During the Bush years, the Democrats turned the Republicans into the party of Trent Lott, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Mark Foley. It was this type of politics that candidate Barack Obama campaigned to end. In fact, Obama was often quoted saying we need to get away from ideology and work together. But that must have been the teleprompters talking. Not yet into his first hundred days in office, Barack Obama and his political advisors have proven themselves to be a most ideologically liberal administration practicing the politics of personal destruction against anyone who dares to challenge them — even their own. They would have us believe they are defending the country from Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Eric Cantor, and a relatively unknown private citizen named Rick Scott.
Sustained attacks on character as proxies for assaults on policy are a consistent left-wing construct. Conservatives have lately pointed out these attacks are derived from Rules for Radicals, the book written by leftist agitator Saul Alinsky, of whom both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are students. Alinsky wrote “the greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself” and encouraged radicals to “go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)”
That Barack Obama would participate in attacks against Rush Limbaugh and Eric Cantor shows how much a student of the left he is. In less than one hundred days, Barack Obama has proven himself to be the most ideological President in American history — far more ideological than his predecessor who dabbled in liberal pablum like “No Child Left Behind” and the prescription drug benefit. Obama has yet to propose and pursue any policy that is not a bedrock leftist idea. Use of the word “and” is necessary because Obama tends to propose some moderate policies, but he only pushes for those on the left.
Please keep reading below the fold . . .
Barack Obama Wants to Increase Your Taxable Income By Taxing Your Phone Usage
This is how the Obama administration is going to raise your taxes without actually increasing the tax rates — they’re going to kill you with a thousand little tax bills.
The latest? If you use your company cell phone to make personal calls, the IRS will consider it a taxable fringe benefit.
The Internal Revenue Service proposed employers assign 25% of an employee’s annual phone expenses as a taxable benefit. Under that scenario, a worker in the 28% tax bracket, whose wireless device costs the company $1,500 a year, could see $105 in additional federal income tax. The IRS, in a notice issued this week, said employees could avoid tax liability if they showed proof they used personal cellphones for nonbusiness calls during work hours. The agency also could decide on a set number of phone minutes as “minimal personal use” that would be untaxed.
The burden is on you to show the IRS that you use a personal cell phone to make your personal phone calls. The law has actually been on the books since 1989 — put there by Democrats — but the IRS has never actually enforced it until now.
This is exactly what Obama is going to do — find rarely or never enforced provisions under the existing nebulous tax code and stick it to people who have jobs, while then turning around and funneling workers’ money to non-workers.
Is it Chicagoland Politics or Creatures From the Third World Lagoon?
One must wonder these days if the Democrats are wrapping themselves around Chicagoland rough and tumble politics, or are they wrapping themselves around the politics of hyper-inflation experiencing third world thugocracies.
In Chicagoland politics, like third world thugocracies, opponents of government get gunned down, thrown in jail, threatened by the powers of government, etc. We saw this happen a few months ago when a bank executive wrote a letter to the editor in his local newspaper criticizing TARP. Barney Frank demanded he appear before Congress to answer questions unless he recanted his position.
We see it again today, very starkly,
Roll Call reports Senator Max Baucus, the Democrat leading the fight for socialized healthcare, is threatening businessmen that appearing with Republicans will be harmful to their business interests.
Please keep reading below the fold . . .
Help!
It’s raining on my lawn. And it’s all flowing into a creek behind my house.
Nonetheless, the government wants to tax me because of it.