The Common Sense Contest is Officially Over!

That’s right folks, we have our winners!  I will be posting them up later.  In fact, we actually had 11 winners.  In the spirit of the intent of receiving this book - to pass it on - I have decided to pass my personal copy to the 11th winner.  Lucky him!

If you were one of the people who played and did not win - you can still order your own copy:

Make sure you come back later to see who the winners were and to see an appropriate response to the contest question.

The Common Sense Contest

Well, here it is! This is an opportunity for you to get your free copy of Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against An Out-of-Control Government. I only bought 10 books - so - the first 10 people to respond correctly to this common sense question will receive them. I have turned off the comments to this post so as not to give anybody ideas. To respond - send an e-mail to commonsensecontest AT gmail DOT com.

There is a catch to this contest - once you have read the book - YOU MUST PASS IT ON! The idea is to get everyone to read this book. Since you are getting it for free - it’s not like it’s money lost out of your pocket. Okay, I know - it’s not like I can police it or anything - afterall, I’m not part of the Obama administration!!! I just highly encourage you to keep passing this book around. It is inspirational and VERY eye opening. It does indeed make you think.

This is a two-part question. You need to provide the answer, then justify your response. So - here’s the question:

An individual comes to your door and announces they are a representative of the government. The individual then proceeds to tell you that they’ve been trying to get in contact with your neighbor, but, for whatever reason they keep missing them. They ask you if you could answer a few questions about your neighbor, these being:

1. Do you know if your neighbor is married and/or has any children?
2. What kind of car, or cars, does your neighbor drive?
3. Since they keep missing your neighbors, do you know what time they leave for work and what time they get back?
4. Do you know what line of business your neighbor is in and/or do you know where he works?
5. How long has she been living at that location and do you know whether she owns or rents?

This is just a short list. So - what is your response to the questions and why?

Those of you that have been paying attention to the news lately will know where this is going. I will keep this contest at the top until I receive 10 winners. Winners will be chosen based on the order in which the responses were received and whether it is a correct response. Once we have 10 winners the contest will end and I will post the winners here. If you are a blog owner, please include the name of your blog and the URL - that will be posted with the announcement. I will also have the correct response in the announcement post. While there is indeed a correct response, the way in which the response is worded can vary.

So - once again - if you would like an opportunity to win one of the 10 copies of this book - please send your response to the question to commonsensecontest AT gmail DOT com.

My Journey to Millions - A Guest Post - Ricci Reversal Rich!

This is a re-post from My Journey, a Personal Finance Blogger, who sometimes feels the need to voice his poltical views. Whether or not you agree with his views you should check out his site, My Journey to Millions,or subscribe to his Feed.

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Despite writing a personal finance blog, I enjoy chatting up politics and I think I have been very open about my political views, which are basically libertarian in nature. I generally believe the government is a necessary evil and as such I want to keep it as small as possible. The way I look at it I don’t want the government involved in my business affairs as much as I do not want them inhibiting what I (and the founding fathers) consider inalienable rights (by the way I just wrote that Retirement is not an inalienable right).

I dislike the idea of affirmative action in this Country in the year 2009, and truly believe how it is used today is not what Congress and the Supreme Court envisioned those many years ago.

Imagine sitting in a Constitution Law II class with half the room being women, a good portion of them Black, and a liberal liberal Professor – and you are a white Christian Male and you raise your hand to talk about reverse discrimination of white males. It was a scary time for My Journey…but I didn’t care and neither should you. Well today I got some reprieve!

Ricci v. DeStefano – The New Haven 20

Today the United States Supreme Court gave their Opinion (read: Decision) in the case of Ricci v.DeStefano. (opens a .pdf file) The Case surrounds a group fondly known as the New Haven 20, a group of 20 Firefighters who studied their a** off and did well enough on a test to get promoted, but the City of New Haven decided to throw out the exam because no African Americans did well enough on it. Yeah read that over again, seems almost unreal.

The Wall Street Journal wrote today,

Writing for a 5-4 majority in Ricci v. deStefano, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the city of New Haven violated civil-rights law when it threw out firefighter promotional exams because more whites than blacks or Hispanics had passed the tests. New Haven claimed it had to junk the tests because certifying the results would lead to an avalanche of lawsuits by black candidates who hadn’t passed. In other words, the city claimed it had to intentionally discriminate against white candidates out of fear that the tests unintentionally had a “disparate impact” against minorities.

But the Court found no evidence that the tests were flawed or that better alternatives for promotion existed. On the contrary, employment tests are an important tool against the very kind of racial discrimination that civil-rights laws were designed to prevent. “Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,”

Justice Kennedy wrote. The Supremes created this “disparate impact” reverse discrimination incentive with its 1971 Griggs decision, since codified into law, but at least five Justices are still able to object to this kind of blatant racial injustice.

As a brother of a Firefighter (also white Christian Male) I have watched my brother study is butt off for the lieutenants’ test for the FDNY. My Brother has put as much work as I did for the New York State Bar Exam, and if my test was thrown out because some people, albeit minorities, did worse than me, I know I may be a ‘tad upset.’ Meanwhile, all this studying occurs while holding a full time job which includes running into burning buildings (as most law school graduates know – I didn’t do anything while studying for the bar except…study).

How this ruling will play out as we move forward will be interesting. Are we finally seeing an end to affirmative action? Probably not, but thankfully it may end the practice of just promoting minorities because of their ethnicity, color, and/or race (wow, doesn’t this seem like an MLK Speech?).

The Opinions (multiple Justices made statements) total about 93 pages, and were released Monday morning so I have not had the time read them, as such, I am not ready to start ripping on Sotomayor which has been going around the news lately. However, from the news stories I have read thus far, both the majority and dissent have been less than complimentary of the Supreme Court Nominee who was part of the lower court which was reversed.

Notwithstanding this post I don’t think a test would be fair if it only asked questions only whites knew the answer to, but that is notwhat happened in Ricci.

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I would like to take this opportunity to thank MJTM for posting this over here. Great discussion - thoughts people?

Coming Soon! A Guest Post!

Wow, I think it’s been close to a year since I last had a guest post on here.  I haven’t been actively looking - but - I may consider starting that up again.  Coming very soon - a guest post from My Journey To Millions.  He has submitted semi-political related articles to my Carnival in the past.  He is a finance lawyer up in NY and his posts are primarily finance related.  However, he has a great politics related article that he’s just burning to get off his chest. This takes a different turn for him, so where is the best place to just air out your frustrations and vent without inhibition?  Right here of course!  I won’t tell you what it’s about - I’ll just let you come back and see for yourselves.  Stay tuned folks.

White House taking on abortion issue.

Funny, maybe not, this seems to have slipped past the regular media - AGAIN

As White House Readies Abortion Plan, Packaging Emerges as Major Issue

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

As the White House readies its plan for finding “common ground” on reproductive health

issues and reducing the need for abortion, a major debate has emerged over how to package the plan’s two major components: preventing unwanted pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion.

Many abortion rights advocates and some Democrats who want to dial down the culture wars want the White House to package the two parts of the plan together, as a single piece of legislation. The plan would seek to reduce unwanted pregnancies by funding comprehensive sex education and contraception and to reduce the need for abortion by bolstering federal support for pregnant women. Supporters of the approach say it would force senators and members of Congress on both sides of the abortion battle to compromise their traditional positions, creating true common ground that mirrors what President Obama has called for.

But more conservative religious groups working with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships say they would be forced to oppose such a plan—even though they support the abortion reduction part—because they oppose federal dollars for contraception and comprehensive sex education. This camp, which includes such formidable organizations as the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, is pressuring the White House to decouple the two parts of the plan into separate bills. One bill would focus entirely on preventing unwanted pregnancy, while the other would focus on supporting pregnant women.

The libertarian in me says - this is a social issue and the government needs to stay out of it completely.  However, I have to actually say I am in full support of anything that would reduce the number of abortions in this country.  Those idiot “conservative religious groups” need to get off their freakin’ high horses on this one.  Deny contraception and sex education?  Why?  So that we can have more abortions or unwed teen pregnancies?  You guys are way off on this one!  And then, further down in this article - we have this:

Some abortion rights groups have already come out against the Pregnant Women Support Act, the model for advocates of splitting pregnancy prevention and support for pregnant women into separate bills. “For the pro-choice community, that bill has lots of incendiary language and coercive policy,” says Rachel Laser, who directs the culture program at the Democratic-leaning think tank Third Way and is pressing the White House to take a comprehensive approach on its reproductive health plan.

Hey, Rachel - chill out!  This proposal does not reverse Roe v. Wade and it does nothing to stop abortions.  The idea, bonehead, is to reduce the number of abortions through education and contraception.  Why are you so hell bent on making sure there are unwanted pregnancies out there requiring the aborting of a human life?

I can’t believe I’m actually siding with the Obama administration.  But, this just goes to show - you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.  Personally, I think this is a great option for reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions.  While I am still a very strong advocate of limited government, the Public Health scholar in me says this is one to get behind.

But supporters of the all-in-one approach say that passing a support-only plan is unrealistic in Democratic-controlled Washington. “There would be a strong reluctance in the pro-choice community to trust that if Congress moved support-only, that a prevention-only package would also pass,” says Laser. “There’s also a fear that support-only would be defined as the new common ground. For the pro-choice side, the most important part of common ground is pregnancy prevention.”

Laser and some prominent abortion rights supporters are pushing the White House to support the Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act, which is expected to be reintroduced by Democratic Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Tim Ryan in coming weeks. The bill attempts to reduce unintended pregnancies by providing low-income women with better access to contraception and to reduce the need for abortion by giving women who ask for it information about alternatives to abortion, among other things.

For the White House, the decision about which tack to take is largely a question of whom it feels more comfortable alienating: religious groups like the Catholic bishops, which it has been trying hard to win over, or abortion rights groups, a key part of the Democratic base that it doesn’t want to lose.

C’mon people!  Really?  Who the hell cares if you alienate the religious groups and the pro-abortion groups?  This is a comprehensive package that addresses both sides of this issue.  There is common ground, “For the pro-choice side, the most important part of common ground is pregnancy prevention.”  Isn’t this also what the pro-lifers want?  Isn’t this what everyone wants?  How can you not be on the side of this plan?  Me, I’m just waiting to see the implementation plans and the overall costs.

Here comes that Middle-class tax hike we told ya about!

See - and you guys on the left thought Obama was all for the middle-class and the little people

Axelrod: Obama Won’t Rule Out Middle-Class Tax Hike

I think what I like best about this particular article is that it comes from ABC - you know - All Barack Central - the one’s who so graciously turned over their entire day of programming to Obama.  I have a feeling that ABC actually thinks this is a good idea and that is why the covered this story - cuz - it sure isn’t because they oppose ObamaCare.

I’m not quite ready to say “I told you so” just yet.  What I’m waiting for is to have a complete compilation of all of his broken campaign promises in addition to all of the Marxist policies that he has implemented.  When he has finally finished getting everything through that will absolutely destroy this country and creates his ivory tower up on capital hill - THEN I will say it and THEN I will make sure I continue to say it every freakin day - as long as I possibly can.  I’m sure conservative bloggers are somewhere on the radar up there!

UPDATE - From FireAndreaMitchell.com - Robert Gibbs / Obama’s backtracking on taxes now the laughing stock of White House Press Corp - this is a good video of that idiot Gibbs backpeddling.