Sarah Palin or Jeb Bush could still win the Republican nomination in 2012 and become the next president of the United States.  Really.  In fact, Paul Ryan, Jim DeMint, Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie still have a chance too.  How could this be?  Well, it has now become clear that there is a very real chance that no Republican candidate will hold a majority of the delegates by the time the Republican convention rolls around.  If that happens, that would mean that we would have the first "brokered convention" in decades.  The truth is that the Republican establishment does not want this, but they are also scared to death of having someone like Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul as the nominee.  So exactly what is a brokered convention?

The following is how Wikipedia defines a brokered convention....

A brokered convention is a situation in United States politics in which there are not enough delegates 'won' during the presidential primary and caucus elections for a single candidate to have a pre-existing majority, during the first official vote for a political party's presidential-candidate at its nominating convention.

Once the first ballot, or vote, has occurred, and no candidate has a majority of the delegates' votes, the convention is then considered brokered; thereafter, the nomination is decided through a process of alternating political horse-trading, and additional re-votes. In this circumstance, all regular delegates (who, previously, were pledged to the candidate who had won their respective state's primary or caucus election) are "released," and are able to switch their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round of balloting. It is hoped that this 'freedom' will result in a re-vote resulting in a clear majority of delegates for one candidate.

Usually by this time in the election cycle, a clear frontrunner has emerged.  But in 2012 this has not happened.  Mitt Romney was presumed to be he frontrunner, but he just can't seem to rise any higher than the mid-20s in the polls.  A whole host of candidates have filled the role as the "anti-Romney candidate", but each has faded.  First it was Michele Bachmann, then it was Rick Perry, then it was Herman Cain and now it is Newt Gingrich.

For a while it looked like Newt Gingrich was going to become the clear frontrunner, but at this point he is clearly fading.

The conservative backlash against Newt Gingrich has been enormous.  Glenn Beck can't stand him.  Rush Limbaugh has come out against him.  And now conservative commentators all over the nation have jumped on the anti-Newt bandwagon.  The following comes from a recent article in the Washington Post....

As Andrew Sullivan pointed out today, you’re already seeing the anti-Gingrich mobilization among conservative thought leaders: Here’s George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tom Coburn and Ann Coulter, just for starters. There’s this Politico story about all the Washington Republicans who hate Gingrich.

So what we have is a situation where there are 7 candidates and none of them can seem to break out in the polls.

There are three candidates that are pretty much guaranteed to go all the way - Gingrich, Romney and Ron Paul.

The rest seem fairly likely to stay in it until at least Super Tuesday.  Michele Bachmann is rising in most polls, Rick Perry seems to be bouncing back a bit, Rick Santorum is gaining a significant amount of traction in Iowa and Jon Huntsman is seeing his numbers move up in New Hampshire.

Sure, one or two might drop out in January, but the field would still be very muddied even if that happens.

In addition, a big factor in candidates wanting to stay in longer this year is the fact that proportional representation will now be used in all the early Republican primaries.

In the past, "winner take all" rules made it very easy for a frontrunner to lock up the nomination very, very early.  But now the rules have changed.  Delegates in the early states will be distributed among all the candidates.  This is going to extend the nomination fight and it is going to give weaker candidates an incentive to stay in and rack up delegates.  Those delegates may not win them the nomination, but it will give them leverage.  And in politics, leverage means a whole lot.

A recent article posted on Real Clear Politics described the rule changes that have been implemented by the Republican Party....

Basically, the Republican National Committee looked enviously at the lengthy Democratic primary from 2008 -- which strengthened the Democrats by forcing candidates to conduct registration drives and set up infrastructure in all 50 states -- and decided that a longer primary system would benefit the GOP as well.

So, it decided to require primaries and caucuses held prior to April 1 to allocate delegates through a proportional representation system. To greatly oversimplify, a candidate who receives at least 25 percent of the vote in any given state will receive that same percentage of the delegates (some states have a 20 percent viability threshold, and some states will have “mini-races” in each congressional district). A total of 1,277 delegates will be awarded prior to April 1, so it is nearly impossible for a candidate to rack up the 1,145 delegates needed to win the nomination outright by the end of March.

Proportional representation is the key to a brokered convention.  In the past, if someone won a state with 30 percent of the vote, they would get all the delegates.  Now a candidate with 30 percent of the vote will only get about 30 percent of the delegates in the early states.

Plus there is the Ron Paul factor.

Even if Ron Paul does not do well in the early states, he is going to stay in the race for the long haul.  His supporters are the most committed and he has shown that he can continue to raise money no matter where his poll numbers are at.

And at this point he has raised a ton of cash.  For the quarter ending September 30th, Ron Paul raised more than $12 million.

But the Republican establishment would do just about anything to keep him from winning.  The odds of him becoming the Republican nominee are not real great.

But it is very realistic to think that Ron Paul could be sitting there with 20 or 25 percent of the delegates by the time the convention rolls around.  If two other candidates such as Gingrich and Romney counterbalance one another the entire time, there is a real good chance that neither one of them will have accumulated 50 percent of the delegates by the convention.

Plus, remember, there will be other candidates sitting out there with their own chunks of delegates.

In addition, the growing dissatisfaction with the Republican field is making it much more likely that we could see a late entrant into the field.  Late entrants would not be on any of the early ballots, but they could get on lots of ballots in April, May, and June.

In such a scenario, the late entrant would have a very hard time locking up the nomination by convention time, but it would help to ensure that nobody else locked it up either.

In fact, there are rumors that some in the Republican establishment are already pushing for a late entrant or two to enter the race.  The following comes from a recent Wall Street Journal article....

Efforts are underway by some wealthy Republican donors and a group of conservative leaders to investigate whether a new Republican candidate could still get into the presidential race. The talk is still preliminary and somewhat wishful, but it reflects dissatisfaction with the two leading candidates, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Conservative leaders are looking into whether it is feasible for a dark horse to get on the ballot in select states. The deadline to qualifying for the ballot has passed in Florida, South Carolina, Missouri, and New Hampshire. But a candidate could still get on the ballot in states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Michigan and Texas. At the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, voters write in their choice, so there is no formal filing deadline.

The chatter about potential new entrants include former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, businessman Donald Trump, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint.

The truth is that a late entrant that gets into the race on February 1st could still potentially compete for more than 50 percent of all the delegates.

A brokered convention would be really strange, but this is the way that it was always done in the old days.

As William Kristol recently pointed out, brokered conventions have nominated some pretty famous names in the past....

In 1860, the second convention of the Republican party met in Chicago and nominated, on the third ballot, after considerable deliberation, our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. In 1932, the Democrats convened in Chicago and nominated on the fourth ballot—after a few days in which the balloting was suspended for deliberation—Franklin D. Roosevelt.

So yes, there is actually a very real possibility that Sarah Palin or Jeb Bush could win the Republican nomination in 2012.

It would be really weird, but stranger things have happened.

Hold on to your hats folks - this is going to be one wild election season.

It is absolutely mind blowing that any Republican would ever consider casting a single vote for Newt Gingrich.  The truth is that Newt Gingrich is not a real conservative.  He isn't even close.  After he left Congress, he spent years portraying himself as a "progressive" and he devoted a lot of time and resources to promoting liberal causes.  But now that he is running for office as a Republican again, all of a sudden he is trying to sound like a conservative.  And it is fooling a whole lot of people.  One recent poll had his support up to 38 percent.  But a Gingrich administration would be a total disaster for America.  A Gingrich administration would essentially be just about the same as a second Obama administration.  That is how liberal Newt Gingrich is.  Gingrich is a big time RINO ("Republican in name only") that is so liberal that he should actually be in the  other political party.  If you believe that Newt Gingrich is a real conservative and you plan to vote for him, then you are being incredibly foolish.

So what is so wrong with Newt Gingrich?

Well, for one he is for an individual health care mandate.

Republicans are supposed to be against Obamacare, and yet a huge percentage of them are supporting a candidate that was pushing an individual mandate way before Obamacare was ever even invented.

In June 2007, Gingrich made the following statement....

“Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.”

That doesn't sound very conservative.

Gingrich says that he will repeal Obamacare, but back in 2008 Gingrich wrote a book entitled "Real Change" in which he endorsed an individual health care mandate.

The truth is that Newt Gingrich is not a real conservative.

He just plays one on TV.

Gingrich has reaffirmed his commitment to an individual mandate over and over.  The following is an excerpt from an exchange between host David Gregory and Gingrich during an interview earlier this year on NBC's Meet The Press....

MR. GREGORY: You agree with Mitt Romney on this point.

REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. GINGRICH: ...or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable.

MR. GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH: It's a variation on it.

If you are against Obamacare, you must be against Newt Gingrich.

There is no middle ground.

But this is not the only issue where Gingrich has been showing his liberal tendencies.

For example, before he was running for president, he was running around the country with Al Sharpton promoting the socialist education policies of the Obama administration.

Also, back in 2008 Gingrich actually did a television commercial with Nancy Pelosi in which he declared that "our country must take action to address climate change".

The following is the sickening video that he did with Nancy Pelosi....

Not only that, Gingrich also has promoted the idea of a "cap and trade" carbon trading scheme.  Back in 2007, Gingrich said the following....

“I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.”

In addition, as we have seen during the recent debates, Gingrich openly supports amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

So how in the world is Gingrich still leading in the polls?

Are Republicans this stupid?

It is almost as if they don't even care about all of the corruption that has been revealed.

For example, according to Bloomberg, Gingrich earned somewhere between $1.6 million and $1.8 million lobbying for Freddie Mac between 1999 and 2008.  He was supposed to lobby Republicans in Congress and convince them that Freddie Mac was doing a good job....

Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with his work in 2006 say Gingrich was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.

He was expected to provide written material that could be circulated among free-market conservatives in Congress and in outside organizations, said two former company executives familiar with Gingrich’s role at the firm. He didn’t produce a white paper or any other document the firm could use on its behalf, they said.

But now Gingrich says that he was not doing any lobbying.

The truth is that it is really hard to know that if we can believe anything that Gingrich is saying these days.  Just check out the amazing video posted below.  You have got to see this....

So why are so many Tea Party activists supporting Newt at this point?

Newt represents everything that they are supposed to be against.

For example, In 2008 Newt Gingrich declared that he would have voted for the TARP bailout if he was still a member of Congress.

Isn't the Tea Party supposed to be against bailouts?

The Tea Party is supposed to be against higher taxes too.

But Newt Gingrich voted for higher taxes on numerous occasions.

In fact, while Newt was the Speaker of the House the amount of taxes collected by the U.S. government soared from $1.001 trillion to $1.511 trillion.

Does that sounds conservative to you?

In addition to everything else above, Newt Gingrich has shown that he does not have the character to be president.

The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of "family values", but they are getting ready to send someone to the White House that has a track record that would make Bill Clinton blush.

The following is how a recent Business Insider article described the "skeletons in the closet" from his personal life....

Newt's personal baggage is either weird or scary. He married his high-school geometry teacher. He cheated on her and divorced her while she had cancer. So he married Marianne Ginther six months later. But that wasn't to last.

Gingrich conducted a tawdry affair behind her back with one of his staffers while making political hay out of Clinton's affair with a White House intern. He then divorced Marianne and married the staffer. 

How in the world can Republicans be supporting this guy?

The following video has more about Newt's marital issues....

If the Republicans nominate this guy, Christians should leave the party in droves.

For much more on the skeletons in Newt's closet, just check out this shocking website.

The sad truth is that Newt Gingrich is not a real conservative.  He is not even close.

His tough talk about Obama is just an illusion.  It is just a trick to get elected.

Yes, four more years of Barack Obama would be a complete and total nightmare for America.

But so would four years of Newt Gingrich.

And then after Gingrich failed as president we would almost certainly get Hillary.

Is that what you want?

Please share this information about Newt Gingrich with as many people as you can.  There is still time to turn this election season around.

***The following is a guest article for The Truth by Left Coast Rebel.  I think that you will agree that Left Coast Rebel has definitely knocked the ball out of the park with this one.***

The Washington Post has it that "GOP Leaders Rebuked on Spending;" Politico has it that "Vote shows Boehner's Lack of Control."

Per usual, the lamestream press is missing the point.

I'll put it simply here: John Boehner and Eric Cantor think that they can "get along" with the Democrats, quietly pushing through destructive legislation that aids and abets the statist agenda.

They don't even put up a fight.

They just roll over and expect conservatives in the House and the Tea Party grassroots to go along.

No. And they must go.

CNS News has the real reasons behind House conservatives voting down the Boehner/Cantor continuing resolution (a fancy way of saying short-term) budget:

(CNSNews.com) - The Republican leadership tried to pass a continuing resolution through the House of Representatives on Wednesday afternoon that would have permitted funding for Obamacare implementation, Planned Parenthood, the United Nations Population Fund, and the Palestinian Authority to continue in the new federal fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.

The bill was defeated 195 to 230 when 48 House conservatives joined with 182 House Democrats in voting against it.

Sweet. Attaboy for standing by your principles, House conservatives.

Republican leadership is known for saying one thing and doing the precise opposite. Limited government! Taxes! Ooohh, those wascally Democrats!

Then, they don't even put up a fight. How's this for throwing social conservatives under the bus:

An analysis of the CR published by the conservative House Republican Study Committee, said that it “continues funding for the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), the UN agency known for its involvement in China’s brutal one-child policy. It also continues $300 million in annual funding to the Title X family planning program, which is a prime funding source for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.”

And fiscal conservatives, too:

The failed CR, promoted by House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R.-Va.), was a temporary measure designed to fund the entire government through Nov. 18.

During that time, it would have funded the government at an annualized rate just $7 billion less than the level of federal spending for fiscal 2011--but $24 billion more than the Republican-controlled House approved in the budget resolution they passed earlier this year.

How about throwing all limited-government conservatives, independents, libertarians et al. under the bus?

Obamacare -- the same Obamacare that Boehner/Cantor rode into House majority status with, promising to repeal/replace/de-fund gets funded in Boehner/Cantor budget:

“Some conservatives may be concerned that the legislation does not block funding for Obamacare during the period covered by the legislation,” said the study-committee analysis.

Imagine that there isn't anyone railing against this abomination over at Memeorandum. "Conservative" bloggers and talking heads are too busy waving their 'R' red-white-and-blue flags to consider that they are being used and bamboozled by the very leadership that they put into power positions November of last year in the first place.

Boehner and Cantor have no interest in promoting or furthering the righting of our financial ship. Can we afford that right now?

Another question: What happens when we have a President Rick Perry or Mitt Romney and these two guys are still the leaders in the House?

Think about it.

***The following is a guest post for The Truth by Alisha Venetis, co-founder of The Prep Room - an online store specializing in emergency preparedness supplies.***

America the Beautiful

Probably like most of you, our family spent this past July 4th celebrating the official birthday of the United States of America’s Independence. We were fortunate enough to go on a friend’s boat on Lake Michigan in Chicago to watch an amazing fireworks display. Unlike previous years, Chicago did not host this celebration. Similar too many other cities across the nation, Chicago cancelled their fireworks due to being financially broke.

As we watched the celebration and listened to patriotic music playing in the background, I found myself covered in goose bumps. I looked at my children, as they oohed and aahed, wondering if they understood the unique greatness of this country and how God has blessed it so. And, more importantly, if we fail to educate them on how we gained the freedom we celebrate every year, will it one day be no more?

The greatest concept in the history of civilization is that man should be morally free (not free without morals) and that no man, or anything else for that matter, should take that away from him. The further we get from this ideology the further we get from truth and freedom.

A recent Marist survey revealed that only fifty-eight percent of those polled knew that the United States declared its independence in 1776, and three out of four knew from which country we gained our independence. Not surprisingly, the younger the respondent, the less likely he or she was to know the answer.

A similar question is being raised by many, including a recent Time Magazine cover story, which asked whether or not our Constitution still matters? When Americans were asked how much they knew about the U.S. Constitution, sixty-seven percent responded that they only knew “some”.

Is it just a sign of the times and we are no longer interested in how we became a great nation? Or has there been an intentional “dumbing down” effort, carried out by the leaders of our educational system? Is it possible that, when we took God out of our schools, we also began taking away any remnant of God's handiwork? After all, if you can't teach about God, how can you teach about a God-inspired document, such as the US Constitution?

Rewriting History

In 2006, State Senator Obama visited Europe and the Middle East, where he made a series of speeches. Before his final speech, Obama stood next to Turkey's President and stated that in the US, "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." Perhaps this is what recently led Michelle Obama to say that President Obama ”knows we are going to have to change our traditions and our history”. I wonder if some of that history-changing has to do with denying that our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles created by God-fearing men?

As cities decide to do away with Fourth of July celebrations we give rise, once again, to not celebrating what God has done for our country. The signing of the Declaration of Independence is arguably one of the greatest days in our nation’s history. These are not just my words, but the words of John Adams, a Founding Father. In anticipation of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”.

Inherited By Our Creator

The United States Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and gave rise to the United States Constitution. The Declaration announced that the thirteen original Colonies (then at war with Great Britain) were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire.

The Declaration had 56 signers, which included a “Committee of Five”, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were an intelligent, religious and ethically-minded group. Half of the men held seminary or Bible school degrees and four of the signers were current or former full-time preachers

One of the best-known sentences in American History is the preamble. This section states the ideas and ideals of the Declaration; that everyone has certain rights given to them by God. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The next section of the Declaration is often called the “right of revolution". It states that the government can only get their power from the people. If the government violates the rights of the people; then the people have not only the right, but the duty to "alter or abolish" that government and provide a new one for future security.

The next two sections are a list of charges against King George III. The Declaration states that he violated the people’s rights and was therefore unfit to be their Ruler. The King no longer made laws for the public good and got rid of those that did. He created a

multitude of new offices, officers and laws to harass the people and he imposed taxes without consent. The signers described their unsuccessful attempts to appeal to the Parliament of Great Britain.

The document’s last sentence ends just as powerfully as it begins, demonstrating the signers reliance on God, the Supreme Judge of the world, to know their moral conscience in creating this document. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

God Shed His Grace on Thee

The Founding Fathers were not all Christians or conservative in their theology, however they were all God-fearing. To take God out of the equation would in essence change our history.

As Patrick Henry once stated, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians”. John Adams reiterated this sentiment when he wrote to the Officers of the First Brigade, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

Lastly, for many that believe that the separation of Church and State was to keep God out of the schools, let us read the prophetic words from the “Father of our Public Schools”, Benjamin Rush. “Let the children be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of removing Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind it was improper to read the Bible in our Schools.”

The signers knew how powerful the Declaration of Independence was; so much so it may cost them their lives. After Congress signed the Declaration, John Hancock supposedly said they must now "all hang together" and Benjamin Franklin replied, "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

If our nation turns away from our founding documents, we turn away from what God ordained. Only God can give people the freedom to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not the government (no matter how big it is). Our Founding Fathers were willing to hang for this truth. At the very least, we should be willing to hang onto this truth as well.

Free Money

by Tucker Scofield

An acquaintance of mine had an opportunity this week to make as much as $25,000.00…she turned it down.

She is a property owner on the Gulf and she received a phone call from a friend regarding BP. They are settling damage claims with anyone who may have been affected by last summer’s oil spill and the caller, who knew others affected by the spill, was passing along the fact that the money was available and ripe for the picking.

There it was…free money. Was BP really going to audit every claim before paying it out of their $20 billion slush fund? Not in a million years. All she would’ve had to do was exaggerate the facts, maybe tell a little white lie or two and POOF, the Oil Fairy would grant a wish that could make the struggles of the past two years disappear. One small bit of paperwork and it would be dead presidents raining down from Heaven! Get that money, dollar-dollar bill, y’all!  But she wouldn’t do it. For her, this was a matter of principle.

I asked why she turned it down. “It’s not right,” she said. She didn’t feel as though she’d been negatively affected by the spill at all, despite having received numerous phone calls from concerned renters regarding conditions on the beach. Her rental income was pretty much unchanged from the previous year and she felt as though filing a claim would have been fraudulent.

Not too many people could have turned down such a temptation. Right or wrong, money talks and everything else walks, at least for most. Obviously, our politicians are very aware of this and use their powers to pass various entitlement programs – “free money” – in return for votes. For the moment, put aside your opinions regarding the necessity of such programs and focus instead on this: A large percentage of our population now depends, to some degree, upon entitlement programs and the money to fund those programs is rapidly disappearing. The recipients of entitlement programs don’t want the free money to stop so they continue to vote for the whores – sorry, I meant to say politicians – who gave it to them in the first place. That is, of course, unless someone else promises them more free money.

Margaret Thatcher was right – eventually, you run out of other people’s money, and that is precisely the position in which we now find ourselves. So how do we escape this death spiral of ever-increasing entitlement programs?

Fiscal responsibility. Somebody – or more accurately, a group of somebodies – has to grab a clue, wake the hell up, and smell what the dog just plopped down...we are in trouble and our current path is unsustainable! Any other assessment is just pure and total nonsense. The electorate recognized this and made a statement, loud and clear, on November 2^nd; fiscal responsibility is the mandate given the 112^th Congress and I’m relieved to see them following through, at least for the moment.

In your personal household you have two options when faced with “deficit spending” (spending more than you make, as with running up your credit cards) and/or budget crunches (not having enough money to pay the bills): You either make radical adjustments to your lifestyle by curtailing most of your activities and watching every single penny, or you file bankruptcy. You cannot bring your budget under control by spending your way out of it, and borrowing only delays and exacerbates inevitable financial collapse.

Since filing bankruptcy is not a national option, our only recourse is to buckle down and make the hard choices necessary to save our country. That means cutting spending with a chain saw and ridding ourselves of many of these entitlements.  It won’t be fun and it’ll make a lot of people mad but that’s just the way it needs to be.

Oh sure, there will be those who blame conservatives for being a bunch of racist bigots who believe that entitlement recipients are lazy and they just need to get a job. Whatever. I hate entitlement programs, I really do. And frankly, I can’t stand the bleeding hearts that continually whine in their support. But it may shock you as to why I hate them.

Entitlement programs, in my opinion, reduce human beings to little more than government pets. Like a dog eagerly snatching up whatever crumbs may fall from the table, recipients of entitlements surrender control over their own destiny and become subservient to the system established to “help” them. The acceptance of entitlements robs the individual of a chance at exceptionalism and turns them into slaves of the system. Think I’m being unreasonable?

Riddle me this, Batman: Cite me just one success story out of the millions of success stories this country has incubated since our inception in which a person has succeeded without countless trials and tribulations. I’ll wait. Thought of any? You won’t, either. It is the trials that tempered the individual’s desire to succeed; without the trials, there IS NO SUCCESS STORY.

Entitlements blunt the pain of trials; recipients accept mediocrity and are never forced to find the best in themselves. Right now, the ghettos, the housing projects, and the trailer parks are filled with potential Oprah Winfrey’s and Warren Buffetts who will instead remain John and Jane Does because they are receiving just enough to prevent them from channeling their exceptional potential. And that’s a damned shame.

Turn off the free money. Obviously it can’t be done overnight but create a deadline and then stick to it. Let people feel the pain, let them discover their own potential, let them recover their dignity. It’ll be good for the country but it’ll be better for the individual.

And that “acquaintance” who chose not to file the claim with BP? That was my wife. I’m proud of her.

Tucker Scofield’s writing is shaped by his extensive business travels in the manufacturing sector. He is also a musician, a daddy, and a husband. His articles appear weekly at www.TheDCPost.com.
--
Tucker Scofield



It turns out that a lot of pro-Obama organizations ended up receiving a lot of "economic stimulus" money.  For example, it is being reported that the Obama administration gave General Electric $24.9 million in grants under the stimulus law.  Keep in mind that General Electric was the corporate owner of NBC, MSNBC and CNBC during the 2008 election.  These various news outlets were absolutely shameless when it came to promoting Barack Obama during the 2008 election.  In fact, MSNBC was more radically pro-Obama than even CNN was (and that is saying a lot).  Apparently Barack Obama was quite grateful for all the help.  25 million dollars is one heck of a tremendous thank you gift.  General Electric was the primary recipient of 14 separate economic stimulus grants.  In addition, the recipients of four other economic stimulus grants hired GE as a contractor.  So is this the way that the game of politics is played in 2010?  Sadly, the truth is that this is how the game of politics has been played for decades in this country. 

It isn't as if GE isn't doing well.  According to Standard & Poor's, GE had $156 billion in revenue during 2009.  But we all knew that the "economic stimulus" money wasn't really about stimulating the economy, didn't we?

A big percentage of the economic stimulus money went for the pet projects of individual members of Congress and for "payback" to those who helped Obama and other Democrats get elected.

In fact, if you want to get a really good idea of just how much money was horribly wasted by the stimulus law, just check out this great article.

So we shouldn't be surprised that GE was handed 25 million dollars.  This is the way the world works now.

The truth is that MSNBC could be aptly renamed "The Obama News Network".  They are perhaps the most clearly partisan news channel that the U.S. has ever seen....

Here you see Chris Matthews openly admit that his job is to help make Barack Obama's presidency successful....

Even Bill Maher (who hates George W. Bush and the Republicans) admits that the pro-Obama coverage by MSNBC has been way over the top....

Liberals whine and moan constantly about the supposed "conservative bias" on Fox News, and yet they have no problem with the extreme liberal bias on MSNBC, CNBC and NBC News. 

If George W. Bush had tried to hand Rupert Murdoch 25 million dollars the liberals would have yelled and screamed about it for years.

But when Barack Obama hands his friends at General Electric 25 million dollars hardly anyone notices.

The truth is that both political parties are deeply corrupt and the way that the game of politics is played in this country needs to be seriously reformed.