JG55

post a pic if you have time

You know chocolate is a aphrodisiac . Just Saying

But it will be the best tasting way !

[h=3]Just found this recipe and they look so delicious. I can't wait to try them. Not going to think about the caloric intake which will blow my New Year's Resolution UP ! Slutty Brownies[/h] Now I don't want to over sell this, so I'm going to be conservative and simply say, that these are... The Best Brownies In The WORLD. I know, big statement. They're called Slutty Brownies because they're oh so easy, and more than a little bit filthy. They're best served warm from the oven, with good quality vanilla ice cream (devastatingly I didn't have any in the freezer this time, so I guess I'll just have to make them again). They take about 45mins to make, including baking time. The ultimate comfort food, whipped up within the hour. You will need... 1 Box of cookie mix, 1 Box of brownie mix, 2 Eggs, 2 Packs of Oreos (double stuffed ones are even better if you can find them) Some oil & your favourite ice-cream (optional) Preheat your oven to 350°F, 180°C, gas mark 4. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper. Follow the instructions on the cookie mix box & stir furiously until you have gooey cookie dough, I usually add a little extra water and oil to what they suggest, it just keeps it moist as you'll be baking it for longer than suggested. An extra teaspoon of each is just right. Squidge (technical term) the cookie dough into a lined baking tray, until it covers the bottom. Cover this layer with your Oreos. Don't use the broken ones, eat them as you go. This recipe is too glorious to use substandard Oreos. Mix up your brownie batter. Just stick to the recipe on the box for this one. & pour over your Oreos. Bake for 30mins. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. When its still a little bit warm, use the paper to lift your creation out of the tray and rest it on a chopping board. Use a large, sharp knife to cut it into manageable chunks, sections, slabs... depending on how many calories you think you can handle in one sitting. Drop onto a plate and scoop on your ice cream. Enjoy, and don't forget to lick the bowl! [/url] If you're feeling particularly domesticated, you could always make these with real cookie mixture and home made brownie batter, but as far as I'm concerned, life's just too short! Ps, if you like these, you might like my Mars Bar Melts recipe, 4 ingredients, 7 mins... gooey cookie heaven!

Here' s another explanation of Sopa & Pipa http://web.gbtv.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=20061227&topic_id=24584158

video that explains Sopa & Pipa Anything that X-Senator Chris Dodd supports Can't be Good for us. http://www.heavy.com/action/action-videos/action-video/2012/01/sopa-breaks-the-internet/

SOPA, Guns, and Freedom You do not protect honest online content producers from pirates by breaking the internet for the innocent. by Paul Hsieh Bio January 19, 2012 - 12:00 am Q: What does the proposed SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) legislation have in common with gun control? A: Both would punish the innocent for the bad acts of a guilty few. Under the guise of combating online copyright piracy, the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation would have given the government unprecedented power to shut down a website for hosting “infringing material,” even for something as minor as an online comment from a 3rd-party linking to pirated content. Although the goal of protecting intellectual property rights is a legitimate one, the proposed SOPA law would not have solved that problem and it would have disrupted all manner of legitimate internet activity in the process. Steve Blank offered this analogy: “It’s as if someone shoplifts in your store, SOPA allows the government to shut down your store.” But even though SOPA proponents in Congress appear to be backing down in the face of public pressure, the legislation is not yet dead but merely temporarily “shelved.” The Senate version, Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), is still very much alive. Furthermore, the U.S. government has repeatedly sought greater control over the internet, most notably with the proposed 2010 “internet kill switch” (“Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act”) which would have allowed it to shut down the internet at its discretion during “emergencies.” Like all technologies, computers can be used for good or for evil purposes. But the fact that bad people can misuse a technology does not justify restricting the freedoms of honest users. As Cory Doctorow notes, we would never let the government restrict the use of wheels because bank robbers sometimes use wheeled vehicles to make their escape. Gun control advocates have adopted similarly flawed logic for decades. In essence they argue, “Some people will do bad things with guns; hence we should restrict law-abiding Americans’ ability to own guns.” Over the years, they have enacted numerous local, state, or federal-level restrictions such as mandatory gun registration, bans of certain types of dangerous-looking rifles, and (in some localities) complete bans on handgun ownership. Some gun control advocates have even proposed requiring that all new guns include technology that would allow only approved users to discharge the weapon, for instance, by requiring that a microchip in the gun recognize the owner’s fingerprint or a special ring on the owner’s finger. The government would also have the ability to override these chips remotely and render the gun unusable if it deemed necessary — i.e., the gun control version of the “kill switch.” Internet control and gun control are not the only examples of government infringements on our liberties in an attempt to stop a few people from acting badly or irresponsibly. We must now show photo IDs to buy Sudafed at the drugstore because someone might use it in an illegal meth lab. Under ObamaCare, we must purchase government-approved health insurance because some people can’t or won’t pay their medical bills. Honest political advocacy groups must abide by campaign finance laws that mandate burdensome spending restrictions and reporting requirements, because some people might theoretically attempt to “buy influence” in an election. To fight these bad laws, it’s not sufficient to fight merely the individual issues. We must also fight at the level of broader principle. In other words, we should not fight merely for internet freedom or firearms freedom or medical freedom, but for freedom as such. This means promoting the concept of limited government. The proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as our rights to free speech, property (including intellectual property rights), and contract. Only those who initiate physical force or fraud can violate our rights. A properly limited government thus protects our rights by protecting us from criminals who steal, murder, rape, and so on, as well as from foreign aggressors. But it should otherwise leave honest people alone to live peacefully. If someone uses a computer to violate individual rights, say, by disseminating pirated material, then he should be punished. Admittedly, it may be sometimes difficult to enforce intellectual property rights against overseas copyright thieves. But in the process of seeking to stop the bad guys, the government should not violate the rights of innocent people engaging in legitimate internet activities. This is just a variation on the basic principle of Western jurisprudence, “Better let ten guilty men go free, rather than convict one innocent man.” You do not protect honest online content producers from pirates by breaking the internet for the innocent. You do not protect innocent people from criminals by disarming the good guys. You do not stop the guilty by punishing the innocent. You do not protect individual rights by violating individual rights. The successes of gun-right activists and of anti-SOPA activists also show how to create positive political changes. In both cases, academicians, think tanks, and grass-roots activists all worked hard to shift public opinion in the right direction. As a result, gun control is now “a movement without followers.” Similarly, most previously pro-SOPA politicians have backpedalled furiously, at least for now. When Americans demand their freedom, the politicians will follow. Let’s make sure these two positive examples are just the beginning — and not the end — of the fight for freedom in America.

13 Politically Incorrect Gun Rules By Doug Giles Gun lovers. Herewith are thirteen things to remember when carrying your weapon. BTW- this list is not original. I’ve Google up the bullet points but alas …I got nada in regards to who penned it. If and when someone schools me on who the author is you can rest assure that I’ll give him or her proper praise. Enjoy. 1. Guns have only two enemies rust and politicians. 2. It’s always better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. 3. Cops carry guns to protect themselves, not you. 4. Never let someone or something that threatens you get inside arms length. 5. Never say, “I’ve got a gun.” If you need to use deadly force, the first sound they hear should be the safety clicking off. 6. The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes; the response time of a .357 is 1400 feet per second. 7. The most important rule in a gunfight is: Always win – cheat if necessary. 8. Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets . . . You may get killed with your own gun, but he’ll have to beat you to death with it, because it’ll be empty. 9. If you’re in a gunfight: - If you’re not shooting, you should be loading. - If you’re not loading, you should be moving. - If you’re not moving, you’re dead. 10. In a life and death situation, do something . . . It may be wrong, but do something! 11. If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid. Nonsense! If you have a gun, what do you have to be paranoid about? 12. You can say ‘stop’ or ‘alto’ or any other word, but a large bore muzzle pointed at someone’s head is pretty much a universal language. 13. You cannot save the planet, but you may be able to save yourself and your family.

Barewoolf, You already already have one, it's called a FNP-45

Glock is the first one to produce it and it's available as a special order. Glock XXXXL

Fat Man seems to be easy as it it just a matter of vaporize him so you live. The Thin Man is problematic as you don't really know his intentions towards you but you do know he will miss for now, But what if he becomes a Fat Man ? If you have time Take a moment and read the whole article how it can apply to real life

But is what we are doing truly self-defense? Consider one of the most famous hypotheticals on the subject of self-defense: the Fat Man puzzle. In Fat Man, you find yourself in a small boat at the bottom of a chasm. Although there are many versions,[5]what they have in common is that an enormously fat individual is hurtling down from the cliff. You have no idea why he is falling—whether, say, he jumped or was pushed. All you know for sure is that if he hits you, you die. You have no space to maneuver, and no time to escape. Fortunately, you are armed with your trusty Fat Man gun. You can pull the trigger and vaporize him, thereby saving yourself.[6] Theorists of self-defense usually posit that killing another to protect the self must be based either on the status of the attacker (e.g., enemy soldier in war) or what the attacker is doing (e.g., actively shooting at you). The Fat Man problem usefully divorces the justification for violent self-defense from the motive of the assailant. Robert Nozick’s original version of the problem stipulated that Fat Man has been pushed, and is therefore morally innocent; thus theories of self-defense that depend on what the attacker is doing (e.g., is he engaged in aggression?) cannot justify the use of the vaporizer.[7] And yet the Fat Man problem is in other ways too easy. Augustine, to take an example, would surely have rejected the use of the vaporizer gun, on the ground that your life is not intrinsically more valuable than the Fat Man’s. Liberalism’s refusal to weigh lives against each other also makes calculation difficult. Yet I find that my students have little difficulty with the problem, answering as Nozick intended: they are by and large perfectly willing to blow Fat Man to smithereens to save themselves. The problem my students find harder is what I like to call Thin Man. Thin Man is too skinny to do us harm unless he chooses to, but he comes hurtling down off the cliff nevertheless. If he hits us, we die. But he is so thin that the odds are he will land nowhere near. We know that Thin Man means us ill. He fully intends to do us harm. We just don’t know when. It might be now—that might be why he is falling—or it might be next year. Or he might change his mind. If we do nothing, chances are he will miss us (he is thin), fall into the water, and be washed away by the current. Later, he will fetch up on shore and can go back to plotting. We could try to pull him from the water, but we would probably fall in. Thus the present opportunity to vaporize him with our Thin Man gun might be our only shot at him. On the other hand, I believe I mentioned that we do not know his current intention. He might just be going for a swim. Read full article @ Stanford Law Review http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/iraq-war-next-war

http://web.gbtv.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=20057995&topic_id=24584158

[h=3]"Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S." (And, of Late, the Dumbest)[/h] Gallup has some news that should be reassuring -- Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S. Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. It "should be reassuring" if only many of those online that pass themselves off as "conservative" weren't currently demonstrating to all and sundry that, like too much perfectionism, too much conservatism is a mistake. Yes, nothing is damaging the "Conservative Brand" lately more than the rolling stupidity that is lumping itself around the failure of the Republicans to come up with a viable candidate that is more "Conservative" than Mitt Romney. This "failure", which was predictable as long as four years ago, is causing many online 'conservatives to drop into premature political menopause with whining, hot flashes of anger, and the grinding of dull, old, axes. They are pissed, it would seem, because nobody other than Romney can carry the fight to Obama in the coming election. The more demented among them are declaring, shades of McCain/2008, that they will take their retracted balls and go home on election day rather than vote against Obama. These people are deeply stupefied and confused. Ideology will do that to you. They seem to think, to actually believe, that this coming election is about only voting if you can vote for a candidate you like. Let me disabuse these kids of this silly notion right away. The election of 2012 ain't a conservative popularity contest. It's a war to, first, last, and always, destroy any possibility of a second term for Barack Hussain Obama. This is not a "Vote-For" election. This is a "Vote-Against" election. This is not a "Sit-It-Out-And-Pout" election. This is a "Get-Obama-Out" election. That is what it is about and that is all it is about. If people can't understand, at this point, that very simple concept their minds are much too simple to be conservatives and they might as well go off and sit at the kiddy table and write in "Vermin Supreme" with a blunt pink crayon. If true conservatives want to have a truly conservative candidate in a truly conservative party they will have to commit to the long march. You know, "the long march" like the one the left took through out political, academic, religious, and media institutions. The one they spent decades on. The long hard road to political supremacy. The one that takes work and money. That's the one thing I don't see erstwhile conservatives actually doing from election to election. Instead they run their lives and their businesses off on the side and they show up every three years or so to watch the little red hens of politics take the nomination away from their conservative flavor of the week. The way the Republican party is set up in the primary system means that to even have a shot at winning it you have to be running for it years and years and years before the actual elections. That's what Romney's been doing. That's the game and he's got the pieces in place to win it. You may not like it, but, hey, change it or play it. But if you're beat because your "choices" are late to the party like Perry, or not really in it to win it like Mitt, don't start blaming Romney the little red hen. It's just not dignified to hold your breath, stamp your feet, and threaten to take your retracted balls and go home. So suck it up and remember this: This is not a "Sit-It-Out-And-Pout" election. This is a "Get-Obama-Out" election. Go now, my conservative friends, and sin no more. "Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S." (And, of Late, the Dumbest) @ AMERICAN DIGEST

[h=2]NYC Gun Charges Dropped. Now I Can Speak Out.[/h] On December 15, 2011 at approximately 5:15 a.m., I was at LaGuardia International airport preparing to check in for a flight out of the city. During a routine check-in, I requested a firearms declaration form from the ticket agent. It was my intent to declare and check my unloaded firearm. I purchased this firearm legally, and I have a valid concealed carry permit for it issued in California. The unloaded gun was locked inside a TSA-approved travel case, and the case was locked inside my checked luggage. I carry the firearm for my personal safety, having received numerous threats due to my role in the Tea Party Patriots. I have checked this firearm at airports dozens of times before, all across the country. As I traveled through LaGuardia that morning, I passed TSA signs telling me I had the right to check this unloaded firearm in my luggage, and that I am required by law to declare the firearm to the ticketing agent. This is exactly what I did. The ticketing agent provided me with the declaration form, and I signed it and returned it to her. She advised me that she would need to call Port Authority police to inspect. This is not unusual when traveling with a firearm. Procedures vary from airport to airport, from airline to airline, and even from day to day, and as a law-abiding citizen, I have always been happy to cooperate. Unfortunately, that day, I didn’t realize that I was about to cross paths with New York City’s anti-Second Amendment stance. Upon showing my case and the weapon to the officer who arrived on the scene, and after a few brief questions, she advised me that she was placing me under arrest for violating New York City’s firearms laws. To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. I am from a law enforcement family. My mother is a retired correctional officer, and I have spent my life around folks from the law enforcement community. I have always considered myself a law-abiding citizen. I have never been arrested before. I have never been in police custody. I can never say those things again. On December 15th, 2011, I was arrested, handcuffed at the ticket counter, and taken to a waiting squad car for transport to the Port Authority Police station at LaGuardia. I was subsequently transferred, in handcuffs, to the Queens Central booking facility in New York City. I was charged with felony possession of a firearm with intent to do harm. I spent the day in Queens…in jail. It was a nightmare that I can scarcely describe to you. Until you have felt the handcuffs on your wrists, and until you have heard that cell door close behind you, it is impossible to understand what it means to actually lose your liberty. And since that day, my liberty has been at stake, and because of that threat, based upon the advice of counsel, I’ve been unable to publicly speak about this case. Today the silence ends. I am pleased to announce that the criminal case against me has been dropped. Although I was originally charged with a violent felony, the case against me was resolved with a plea to “disorderly conduct. †Disorderly Conduct is not a felony or a misdemeanor, or even a crime. The facts underlying my plea are that I declared a legally purchased, properly licensed and unloaded firearm at an airport counter. Apparently, much to my surprise, in New York City, it is considered “disorderly conduct†to exercise your constitutionally guaranteed, Second Amendment rights. Strangely, now that the case against me is over, the authorities refuse to return my firearm. There is no law that allows them to confiscate a weapon in this manner. They simply say “no†when you ask for your weapon back. This is apparently their “policy.†It is done regularly in New York. This is government robbery. Not only is New York City anti-Second Amendment rights, but they are depriving citizens of their legally owned property. My lawyer has advised me that I can attempt to pursue the return of my firearm, but that to do so would cost me more than the firearm is worth. I am not alone in facing this tyranny. It has happened to hundreds of people in the New York metro area. My lawyer, Brian Stapleton, has handled over 400 of these cases himself, so he is an expert on the subject. While the end of this case is the end of a horrible nightmare for my family and I, it is not the end of this fight. It is just the beginning. Since the original incident, I have received more emails, phone calls, texts and tweets of support than you can possibly imagine. To those people, I want to say heart-felt thanks on behalf of my entire family. We have come to know that we are not alone in this particular fight. Apparently, this happens to hundreds of people per year in New York City. And New York City is not alone in its attack on our rights. This sort of Constitutional abuse, Second Amendment and otherwise, is taking place all over the nation. And we as citizens must stand against it. We must protect our rights, or we will lose them. Many of you know me as someone who is willing to stand and fight for self-governance in this country. I’m no politician, and I’m not from a powerful or connected family. I’m an average American citizen. And I stand shoulder to shoulder with millions of other Americans who, despite enormous obstacles, and despite the politicians and ruling elite who oppose us, intend to return this country to the bounds of the United States Constitution. The politicians and ruling elite will try, but we must not let them label us Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal. We cannot let them make us fight against each other. Too much is at stake. We the People are losing our sovereignty to the government. We the People, must stand and fight for our inalienable rights. I’m not alone in this fight. There are so many laws, that no one can possibly know or understand them. We are all affected. From the inner city to the farm, from the heartland of America to the coasts, people are under pressure from a government that no longer serves them. From my home in California, to the farmland of Kansas… from the small towns of South Carolina to the metropolis of New York, every year the legislatures pass thousands of laws and regulations that do not serve the people. The legislators don’t read the bills they pass, and even if they did, they couldn’t understand them. Our criminal justice system is terribly broken, and no longer serves the people and the communities it was intended to serve. Our regulatory system is broken; small businesses and the communities that rely on them crushed under the weight of unnecessary regulation. We are, step by step, destroying the heart of America. And we are doing so because we are not governing ourselves according to the Constitution. It’s up to us…the People. It’s time to stand for self-governance. It is time to stand for the plain meaning of the Constitution. Every word of the Constitution is important, and we must fight for them all. We must fight for every inch of this country, from the inner city to the smallest rural town. We are, all of us, first and foremost, American citizens. We’ve always governed ourselves…and we always intend to. And we’ve always been willing to stand when freedom is at stake. It is time to stand…time for all of us, every race, every religion, every gender, every American to stand up and fight for liberty and take responsibility for governing ourselves. No one should ever have to go through what my family has been through, simply for exercising a fundamental right, specifically enumerated in the United States Constitution. I am committed to making sure no one does. And I’m willing to work with anyone…anyone, who agrees that it’s time for the people to govern themselves once again. Will we as citizens fight for our inalienable right to govern ourselves, or will we quietly allow ourselves to be “governed†into submission by a ruling elite, disconnected from our citizens and our communities? Only history will tell, but I intend to fight. (Note: Every law enforcement officer I dealt with through the process was polite and professional. They are not to blame for NYC’s unconstitutional or tyrannical behavior. From my experience, they seem to be good people, just doing a difficult job.) NYC Gun Charges Dropped. Now I Can Speak Out. | Across the Fence with Mark Meckler

Dear Mr. Buffet, I’ll never claim to be as smart as you. If I were, my net worth would probably be something more than .000001% of yours. You’re also a fine man who demonstrates the benefits of a free capitalist system. But regarding your recent offer to pay extra taxes, I fear that you may be missing the central theme. When we said you could pay extra taxes should you wish, we weren’t talking about some sort of marathon charity to benefit muscular dystrophy. If we were, then maybe your idea of matching other people’s contributions might make sense. But the idea here would be for you to lead by example, you see. You need to go first. Who knows? Then perhaps others might jump on the bandwagon. Then again, maybe not. Some of us, you see, aren’t just obsessed over the marginal rate or how much the government takes, but rather with how they spend it once they get it. Some of your wealthy colleagues might be a bit more inclined to kick in a few extra bucks if Washington could demonstrate some level of restraint and responsibility when it comes to managing the public purse. Also, if it’s not too bold of me to say, you’re turning this into something of a dog and pony show. What you’re proposing to do really is charity of a sort… charitable contributions to an out of control government. And you know what the Good Book has to say about charity, right? We can turn to Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.†See? You don’t need to go on TV and talk about it. If you feel compelled to write a check, just write it. Everyone will feel better. Regards, Jazz Warren Buffet puts other people’s money where his mouth is « Hot Air

As one athesiest put it if Brady throws for 666 yards, etc then maybe he might change his mind.

Same here, That would be so Hilarious funny to see the talking heads Shi--ing theirselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMK9FKMG3Nc&feature=player_embedded

The New Authoritarianism A firm hand for a “nation of dodos” 6 January 2012 “I refuse to take ‘No’ for an answer,” said President Obama this week as he claimed new powers for himself in making recess appointments while Congress wasn’t legally in recess. The chief executive’s power grab in naming appointees to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board has been depicted by administration supporters as one forced upon a reluctant Obama by Republican intransigence. But this isn’t the first example of the president’s increasing tendency to govern with executive-branch powers. He has already explained that “where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead and do it ourselves.” On a variety of issues, from immigration to the environment to labor law, that’s just what he’s been doing—and he may try it even more boldly should he win reelection. This “go it alone” philosophy reflects an authoritarian trend emerging on the political left since the conservative triumph in the 2010 elections. The president and his coterie could have responded to the 2010 elections by conceding the widespread public hostility to excessive government spending and regulation. That’s what the more clued-in Clintonites did after their 1994 midterm defeats. But unlike Clinton, who came from the party’s moderate wing and hailed from the rural South, the highly urban progressive rump that is Obama’s true base of support has little appreciation for suburban or rural Democrats. In fact, some liberals even celebrated the 2010 demise of the Blue Dog and Plains States Democrats, concluding that the purged party could embrace a purer version of the liberal agenda. So instead of appealing to the middle, the White House has pressed ahead with Keynesian spending and a progressive regulatory agenda. Much of the administration’s approach has to do with a change in the nature of liberal politics. Today’s progressives cannot be viewed primarily as pragmatic Truman- or Clinton-style majoritarians. Rather, they resemble the medieval clerical class. Their goal is governmental control over everything from what sort of climate science is permissible to how we choose to live our lives. Many of today’s progressives can be as dogmatic in their beliefs as the most strident evangelical minister or mullah. Like Al Gore declaring the debate over climate change closed, despite the Climategate e-mails and widespread skepticism, the clerisy takes its beliefs as based on absolute truth. Critics lie beyond the pale. The problem for the clerisy lies in political reality. The country’s largely suburban and increasingly Southern electorate does not see big government as its friend or wise liberal mandarins as the source of its salvation. This sets up a potential political crisis between those who know what’s good and a presumptively ignorant majority. Obama is burdened, says Joe Klein of Time, by governing a “nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive,” as the title of his story puts it, without the guidance of our president. But if the people are too deluded to cooperate, elements in the progressive tradition have a solution: European-style governance by a largely unelected bureaucratic class. The tension between self-government and “good” government has existed since the origins of modern liberalism. Thinkers such as Herbert Croly and Randolph Bourne staked a claim to a priestly wisdom far greater than that possessed by the ordinary mortal. As Croly explained, “any increase in centralized power and responsibility . . . is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition” and the fact that “the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.” During the first two years of the Obama administration, the progressives persuaded themselves that favorable demographics and the consequences of the George W. Bush years would assure the consent of the electorate. They drew parallels with how growing urbanization and Herbert Hoover’s legacy worked for FDR in the 1930s. But FDR enhanced his majority in his first midterm election in 1934; the current progressive agenda, by contrast, was roundly thrashed in 2010. Obama may compare himself to Roosevelt and even to Lincoln, but the electorate does not appear to share this assessment. After the 2010 thrashing, progressives seemed uninterested in moderating their agenda. Left-wing standard bearers Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation and Robert Borosage of the Institute for Policy Studies went so far as to argue that Obama should bypass Congress whenever necessary and govern using his executive authority over the government’s regulatory agencies. This autocratic agenda of enhanced executive authority has strong support with people close to White House, such as John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, a left-liberal think tank. “The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and implement policy,” Podesta has written. “These authorities can be used to ensure positive progress on many of the key issues facing the country.” Podesta has proposed what amounts to a national, more ideological variant of what in Obama’s home state is known as “The Chicago Way.” Under that system, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune explains, “citizens, even Republicans, are expected to take what big government gives them. If the political boss suggests that you purchase some expensive wrought-iron fence to decorate your corporate headquarters, and the guy selling insurance to the wrought-iron boys is the boss’ little brother, you write the check.” But the American clerisy isn’t merely a bunch of corrupt politicians and bureaucratic lifers, and the United States isn’t one-party Chicago. The clerisy are more like an ideological vanguard, one based largely in academe and the media as well as part of the high-tech community. Their authoritarian progressivism—at odds with the democratic, pluralistic traditions within liberalism—tends to evoke science, however contested, to justify its authority. The progressives themselves are, in Daniel Bell’s telling phrase, “the priests of the machine.” Their views are fairly uniform and can be seen in “progressive legal theory,” which displaces the seeming plain meaning of the Constitution with constructions derived from the perceived needs of a changing political environment. Belief in affirmative action, environmental justice, health-care reform, and redistribution from the middle class to the poor all find foundation there. More important still is a radical environmental agenda fervently committed to the idea that climate change has a human origin—a kind of secular notion of original sin. But these ideas are not widely shared by most people. The clerisy may see in Obama “reason incarnate,” as George Packer of The New Yorker put it, but the majority of the population remains more concerned about long-term unemployment and a struggling economy than about rising sea levels or the need to maintain racial quotas. Despite the president’s clear political weaknesses—his job-approval ratings remain below 50 percent—he retains a reasonable shot at reelection. In the coming months, he will likely avoid pushing too hard on such things as overregulating business, particularly on the environmental front, which would undermine the nascent recovery and stir too much opposition from corporate donors. American voters may also be less than enthusiastic about the Republican alternatives topping the ticket. And one should never underestimate the power of even a less-than-popular president. Obama can count on a strong chorus of support from the media and many of the top high-tech firms, which have enjoyed lavish subsidies and government loans for “green” projects. If Obama does win, 2013 could possibly bring something approaching a constitutional crisis. With the House and perhaps the Senate in Republican hands, Obama’s clerisy may be tempted to use the full range of executive power. The logic for running the country from the executive has been laid out already. Republican control of just the House, argues Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., has made America ungovernable. Obama, he said during the fight over the debt limit, needed to bypass the Constitution because, as in 1861, the South (in this case, the Southern Republicans) was “in a state of rebellion” against lawful authority. Beverley Perdue, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, concurred: she wanted to have elections suspended for a stretch. (Perdue’s office later insisted this was a joke, but most jokes aren’t told deadpan or punctuated with “I really hope someone can agree with me on that.” Also: Nobody laughed.) The Left’s growing support for a soft authoritarianism is reminiscent of the 1930s, when many on both right and left looked favorably at either Stalin’s Soviet experiment or its fascist and National Socialist rivals. Tom Friedman of the New York Times recently praised Chinese-style authoritarianism for advancing the green agenda. The “reasonably enlightened group” running China, he asserted, was superior to our messy democracy in such things as subsidizing green industry. Steven Rattner, the investment banker and former Obama car czar, dismisses the problems posed by China’s economic and environmental foibles and declares himself “staunchly optimistic” about the future of that country’s Communist Party dictatorship. And it’s not just the gentry liberals identifying China as their model: labor leader Andy Stern, formerly the president of the Service Employees International Union and a close ally of the White House, celebrates Chinese authoritarianism and says that our capitalistic pluralism is headed for “the trash heap of history.” The Chinese, Stern argues, get things done. A victorious Obama administration could embrace a soft version of the Chinese model. The mechanisms of control already exist. The bureaucratic apparatus, the array of policy czars and regulatory enforcers commissioned by the executive branch, has grown dramatically under Obama. Their ability to control and prosecute people for violations relating to issues like labor and the environment—once largely the province of states and localities—can be further enhanced. In the post-election environment, the president, using agencies like the EPA, could successfully strangle whole industries—notably the burgeoning oil and natural gas sector—and drag whole regions into recession. The newly announced EPA rules on extremely small levels of mercury and other toxins, for example, will sharply raise electricity rates in much of the country, particularly in the industrial heartland; greenhouse-gas policy, including, perhaps, an administratively imposed “cap and trade,” would greatly impact entrepreneurs and new investors forced to purchase credits from existing polluters. On a host of social issues, the new progressive regime could employ the Justice Department to impose national rulings well out of sync with local sentiments. Expansions of affirmative action, gay rights, and abortion rights could become mandated from Washington even in areas, such as the South, where such views are anathema. This future can already been seen in fiscally challenged California. The state should be leading a recovery, not lagging behind the rest of the country. But in a place where Obama-style progressives rule without effective opposition, the clerisy has already enacted a score of regulatory mandates that are chasing businesses, particularly in manufacturing, out of the state. It has also passed land-use policies designed to enforce density, in effect eliminating the dream of single-family homes for all but the very rich in much of the state. A nightmare scenario would be a constitutional crisis pitting a relentless executive power against a disgruntled, alienated opposition lacking strong, intelligent leadership. Over time, the new authoritarians would elicit even more opposition from the “dodos” who make up the majority of Americans residing in the great landmass outside the coastal strips and Chicago. The legacy of the Obama years—once so breathlessly associated with hope and reconciliation—may instead be growing pessimism and polarization. Fred Siegel, a contributing editor of City Journal, is scholar in residence at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. Joel Kotkin is a contributing editor of City Journal and the Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University.

[h=1][/h] Posted on January 7, 2012 by John Hinderaker in Obama Administration Scandals [h=1]:tinfoil:Obama As Pharaoh[/h] The movie The Ten Commandments came out when I was in elementary school. The Pharaoh would issue edicts and conclude with, “So let it be written. So let it be done.†One of my Mellette Grade School classmates, in later years a notable criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles, loved that line and repeated it often. Here it is in the movie: I hadn’t thought of that line for many years, until Michelle Malkin recalled it in connection with Barack Obama’s latest lawlessness: Here’s the operating motto of the Obama White House: “So let it be written, so let it be done!†Like Yul Brynner’s Pharaoh Ramses character in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,†the demander in chief stands with arms akimbo issuing daily edicts to his constitution-subverting minions with an imperious wave of his hand. His entourage of insatiable usurpers never rests. Can’t delude legislators into adopting a $1.5 billion Kabuki summer-jobs boondoggle? Create an unfunded program through executive fiat. Can’t muster up a filibuster-proof majority for radical nominees? Czar-ify ‘em. Can’t get Congress to approve vast wild lands designations? Grab them under cover of a holiday lame-duck session. Can’t get the illegal alien bailout DreamAct passed on Capitol Hill? Executive-order it. “So let it be written, so let it be done!†In keeping with the dark and defiant habits of this administration, the new head of the half-billion-dollar Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was sworn in behind closed doors last Wednesday night. The nomination of former Democratic Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to serve as Dodd-Frank regulatory enforcer had been soundly defeated in the Senate before Christmas. … White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday that the administration expects no retaliation for the end-run around the deliberative process. Playing the pharaoh’s helper, Carney dismissed widespread bipartisan questions about the legality of the power grab as “esoteric discussion.†That’s a wonderful phrase: criticism of Obama for a blatantly unconstitutional appointment is “esoteric discussion.†Tom Friedman must be smiling! Nate Beeler makes the point in cartoon form: One difference between Barack Obama and the Pharaoh, of course, is that the Pharaoh didn’t have to run for re-election. Obama As Pharaoh | Power Line