The Washington Post reports outrage on both sides of the aisle at failing insurance giant AIG’s payment of nearly $165 million in bonuses. Leading the charge of indignation is none other than His Highness, King Barry the Hopeful One.

King Barry’s anger is pretty hollow, however, since AIG would be contractually obligated to pay these ridiculous bonuses to these failing giants. We all know how dedicated he is to the rule of law (see: people who blew up innocent American’s must be released from Gitmo & are hereby called Unicorns of Happiness rather than “enemy combatants”). Since no one thought to renegotiate the contracts before we handed a failing, fiscally irresponsible company billions of tax payers dollars, AIG is legally bound to honor them. It’s a similar situation as that in the still failing auto industry bailouts late last year. After taking billions of dollars, GM is back, asking for more than they got last time. You can throw money at companies of all stripe, but unless you fix the problem (in the Auto situation a major problem was the exorbitant UAW contracts that weren’t renegotiated, in AIG’s case, the bonuses are such a negligible part of the whole need, that the outrage is mostly symbolic. Not misguided, just not amounting to much that would make a real difference).

What chaps my chorizo most is that George Bush and Hank Paulson, Secretary of Economic Destruction and Chaos were the masterminds of this. AIG is firmly on Dubya’s tally board. We were told they were “too big to fail,” and it turns out that they’re still failing. AIG is just the latest indication that bailouts don’t work. Here’s what I learn from this.

1. Government intervention kills the free-market - if AIG hadn’t received billions of OUR money, this would simply be another story in missing the point. We would be mocking their foolishnes, guffawing as they fiddle while Rome burns, then we would watch the competition swoop in and fill the gap left by the defunct entity. As it stands now, however, my kids and grandkids who aren’t even born yet have a tax payers stake in a failing corporation. If we don’t let the weak or foolish ones die off, the very fabric of our economy is weakened, as it is right now. Rather than already beginning the recoverp process from AIG’s failure, we’re still on the wrong side of it .
2. The government is incapable or unwilling – The government won’t handle this because their greatest value is political expediency. Government doesn’t have the chutzpah to make the hard decisions that will make this work, because they aren’t motivated by profit, but by position. They think in terms of election cycles. What we need is a few greedy players who sustained this crisis by making good decisions who will make the hard decisions and bring fresh capital. As it stands now, AIG (Fanny & Freddie too) will forever be government entities at best. If this were private capital that swooped in and “bailed out” AIG (buy buying out AIG), I guarantee those execs wouldn’t be getting bonuses, they’d be getting new jobs.
3. King Barry is all locked up, and change is coming - he’s stuck. He needs to inject more capital to keep the mess afloat, but he can’t do it because he’s burned political capital. His anger and that of those closest to him (Geithner, in particular) will only fuel the fire. He pins the problem on Bush, and rightly so, and then turns around and does similar (although not exactly the same) things by propping up companies that shouldn’t be propped up (i.e. He practically begged G.W. Bush to bailout the Auto Industry, and if Dubya had listened to me, he’d have let Barry do it himself.)

President Obama is expected to sign an executive order on Monday to loosen Clinton era restrictions on Embryonic Stem Cell research. An embryo is any multi cellular animal in a developmental stage preceding birth or hatching. A human embryo contains a totally unique DNA code, created from the union of a male sperm & female ovum. Left alone it would multiply, grow, and eventually become a human being with limitless potential to do good in the world. Using embryos for stem cell research destroys them, thereby ending human life.

President Obama has vowed, with blatant appeals to Americas moral reputation, to close down Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where he claims “enemy combatants” are tortured. What the President calls “enemy combatants” or “insurgents,” many others call terrorists who are known to play significant roles in terrorist operations around the world, including but not limited to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and the attacks of 9/11.

Embryonic Stem cells aren’t known to offer any greater hope for curing disease than adult stem cells, which wouldn’t require the destruction of a human embryo. The issue in Obama’s order isn’t simply embryonic stem cell research, but government funded stem cell research. If embryonic stem cells offered hope to cure cancer or AIDS or some other gruesome disease, I wonder why the private sector wouldn’t jump on it, develop it, and make a bunch of money. If embryonic stem cells were the hope of the universe, why would the government have to fund the research? Could it be that embryonic stem cells don’t offer any greater hope medical hope than adult stem cells do, and the research isn’t really about medical science?

The “enemy combatants” (read: terrorists) at Gitmo are avowed enemies of the United States. During their detention at Gitmo, they have been given (at tax payers expense) three meals a day (which many weren’t receiving in their home country) and complete religious freedom. Detainees have been portrayed as nearly sympathetic figures by Senator Dick “Turban” Durbin and his ilk who likened Guantanamo Bay to Auschwitz. The difference was that the Jews at Auschwitz were innocent citizens persecuted by an evil dictator leading a regime of evil. The terrorists at Guantanamo Bay are members of an evil regime of terror who have persecuted, murdered, and sought to control by fear innocent citizens around the world.

President Obama’s impending order for Embryonic destruction can’t be separated from his clearly demarcated position as the most radical pro-abortion president in history. Each embryo (life) that President Obama destroys has not had the opportunity to make a positive impact on the world. In Florida,  a doctor set to perform an abortion (on an embryo) showed up late to take the life of the unborn child. Before he arrived, the baby was born alive and the medically unlicensed owner of the clinic cut the umbilical cord and deposited the dying baby in a bio-hazard bag, and discarded it to die. There was, rightfully so, an uproar from both sides of the abortion debate. If, as the pro-abortion camp says, the baby that died was simply a mass of flesh, why the uproar? At what point in the baby’s trek through the birth canal did it change from a “mass of tissue” to a baby, worth fighting for? If the baby was going to be terminated any way, why was what the clinic owner did any great travesty?  I would say that the outrage the abortion rights groups displayed was what they should feel every time a life is terminated. They should have been outraged.

The detainees that President Obama will pardon have used the life they were given to bring terror and destruction to the world. As adults, they have chosen, and continue to choose to bring terror, mayhem, and evil to a world already struggling against atrocity. By their own volition, they use shame and fear to conscript their own countrymen to become suicide bombers and knowingly take the life of innocents. That is the path they have chosen.

President Obama is not restoring America to the place of moral world leader. He has not increased our ability to speak to the nations of the world about moral issues, he has lessened it. These conflicting orders do not bring clarity to what it means to be an American, they bring confusion. They place the lives of murderers and terrorists over lives of the unborn. By President Obama’s government sponsorship of the destruction of unborn American lives, while releasing our enemies who have and will do us harm, he is propagating a culture of death in America. A generation is coming that will be further hardened and calloused to the serious implications of abortion, even in the name of (pseudo)science. Also coming is a generation that will be hardened and calloused to the news that terrorists live and move and breathe in our world.

Terror and abortion are issues of life and death. Killing stem-cells is voluntarily terminating a unique DNA strand created by two gametes. Embryo’s, through all forms of termination, are punished for no fault or choice of their own, while terrorists are released as the leaders of the people they have brutalized cow-tow, apologize, and send them back to the places they came from. Stem cell research isn’t the answer to all of our medical problems or it would have been developed & researched in the private sector long ago. The executive order on stem-cell research isn’t about scientific research, it isn’t even about “choice,” it’s about who defines life.

If we are to be a country that loves and believes in the value of human life, even for those who would take it (terrorists), then that same right must be extended to the most helpless and innocent among us.

It’s on Drudge, Red State, the Chicago Tribuneand pretty much everywhere on the conservative blog-o-sphere, but Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was taken into custody and charged on issues stemming from Federal corruption statutes. Basically, the easiest way to be a politician in Illinois is to grease some palms… allegedly.

Fortunately there aren’t any influential politicians from Illinois who have even a hint of suspicion about their legitimacy.

Wait a tick!

Now, I’m not saying Barry bought his way into the Illinois state senate. I’m saying that Illinois politics are notoriously shady and suspect at best. There’s a well established culture of crony-ism and good ol’ boy networking going on. The Governor cum millionaire got popped , but he’s not the first suspicious guy to hold office there.

The reason this is significant to me is because I firmly believe, and will hotly contend that the real change we need is going to come from the right, and it’s going to come in the form of a grass-roots revival of conservatism. I already believe the values are there, I just believe we on the right are less inclined to make a fuss and more inclined to live our lives. It’s what we do, it’s why this country is great.

However, it’s time to do both. We must not stop being the party of action. By that I mean that we can’t stop being the responsible citizens and purveyors of strong American culture. We must still do all the things that we’ve done to make America great. Now, we have to take the next step.

We’ll never control the main stream media. We’ll never get equal time on CNN or MSNBC. Being heard on Hannity or Rush won’t do much to convince those in the middle because I think those guys are largely charicatures to the undecideds and moderate leftists.

You and I, however, aren’t charicatures. We’re the ones that sit next to them at the office and on the bus. We’re the ones who sit next to them on the bleachers at Little League games. It’s time that we start engaging in the conversations at that level. This is just the kind of stuff to start the conversations. Here are a few tips:

1. Talk values – a great thing to establish is that the ends don’t always justify the means. Corruption is corruption, and the corrupt need to be punished. Whether the person is Republican or Democrat, accountability matters. That means that we need to be as ruthleess with Ted Stevens from Alaska as we do with Gov. Blagojevich. Build on the idea that the people don’t exist to serve the governnment, but government exists to serve the people… not babysit the people, but serve them. That can lead naturally into a conversation on the great conservative principle of Limited Government.
2. Talk about the issues that matter – by that, I mean talk to them about why they vote for the candidates they do. At this point, just listen. Learn what compels the people in your circle. You may find that the person you’re talking to believes like you do and they just don’t know where the candidates stand. Stay off of the defensive and look for an opportunity. Find out what matters to the people that matter to you (especially those across the aisle) and find out what conservative values speak to those issues.
3. Write your elected officials - The Governor of Illinois is going to choose the Senator that will replace Barack Obama. There are enough questions surrounding the whole mess right now. The choice is still an Illinois state matter (as it should be) but it’s always good to let your Senators & Representatives know that your paying attention. Let them know that it matters to you!

I believe there’s no wrong way to be involved. If something occurs to you, post it here. If you have another suggestion about how to engage, let it fly. Let’s get the momentum going!

RNC Chair candidate Katon Dawson’s call for transparency here.

Yesterday I posted about Harry Reid’s idiotic comments about not having to smell the tourists. Thankfully, this seems to be getting the political attention it deserves.

Chuck DeVore is a name I hope you get familiar with. He’s a young conservative guy chasing down an entrenched liberal in California. What’s significant is the fact that he’s starting his bid to steal Barbara Boxer’s seat… now. The guy’s got chutzpa, and I think he’s the kind of guy that’s worth getting behind. I most definitely am not eligible to vote in California, but I (like you) can raise awareness about his race and help get the word out about Barbara Boxer.

So I was tickled pink today when I stumbled on this sweet piece on the Hot Air blog:

You can read the whole article here.

This is significant stuff, because it clearly indicates several things:

1. Their actions speak so loudly, I can’t hear what they’re saying. Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Nanci Pelosi & their ilk do not care about you or I or anyone else. They care about their position, their power, and themselves. That’s it.
2. When you hear talk about wanting to take America in a new direction and all of that, remember that on the record they classified the tourists in general as smelly. So the first thing they want to change is your showering habits. If you’re even a quasi-clean person, they must not speak for you. Why re-elect them?
3. Don’t let the numbers on the visitor’s center slip by you either. Late & overbudget. Yesterday, Senator Jim Demint spoke out against the Congressional Visitors Center for other, I believe more significant reasons. Don’t kid yourself, this is what happens when Congress runs things. This is what we can expect from Government run banks & Insurance firms. This is  what we can look forward to if they take stock in the Auto Industry.

Chuck DeVore is challenging a titan. He’s making valid points about Boxer’s associations with Harry Reid (how significant as Obama’s success at connecting Bush to McCain?), and he’s using the Congressional Visitors Center as a talking point to raise awareness about what’s going on. Keep it up Chuck. That’s change I can pull for and believe in.

You can learn more about Chuck Devore here.

Representative Louie Gohmert from the 1st Congressional district of Texas has proposed an alternative to spending the remaining $350 billion dollars in the bailout package from a few months ago.

Erik Erikson’s blog over at Redstate does a better job of explaining than I do, but the long & short of it is that Gohmert’s plan is to give a two month tax holiday in January and February ‘09. Not salex tax, that’s FEDERAL INCOME TAX & FICA tax. That means for the first two months of 2009, there would be no deductions from your checks (insurance etc not withstanding). The supposition is that tax payers who make about $50,000 per year will be able to save about $2000. That would cost the government about $332 billion, which is still less than the proposed $350 would have cost. What do we gain from that?

1. That’s $2000 (for a $50,000/year income) to put directly into the economy, rather than giving it to the government to mismanage. People who are having mortgage issues? How would an extra $2000 help? What about an extra $2000 toward credit card debt, or to help stave off unemployment or to put toward a new car.
2. It rewards the American worker, the producers of the economy, rather than offering a handout to those who are simply consumers. This is different than Obama’s tax cut to 95% of America, where 40% of those people don’t pay taxes at all. Those who don’t have an income, they don’t get a break..
3. It doesn’t require beaurocracy or governmental oversight at all. It simply requires that people take their $2000 and do something with it.

Some will say, but that will end up costing the government billions if they don’t get tax dollars. Keep in mind, they already approved giving out an additional $350 billion. This will be less than that. The government will actually SAVE money with this plan.

So, what do you do? First, fill out this petition…

Then, write your congressman and ask them to support Representative Gohmert’s plan.

This is easy to do, it costs nothing, and you’ll be flexing your democratic muscle. What do you have to lose? Let’s go!