To take care of Abel.

Here’s Abel Maldonado, the guy who cast the critical vote for a California budget that will raise taxes by $13 billion:

Pay special attention starting around 1:15. Where he rails against new taxes.

What a fraud.

It’s OK. The taxes are only “temporary.” (If there is anyone out there stupid enough to believe that, e-mail me. I have a wager for you.)

Thanks to radio hosts John and Ken.

If we don’t like your message, we’ll just squelch it:

An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle.

The officer misinterpreted the sign as threatening, said Capt. Steve McCool, of the Oklahoma City Police Department, and took the sign, which read “Abort Obama, not the unborn.”

After having his sign taken, there was more:

But his run-in with the law wasn’t over yet.

”The Secret Service called and said they were at my house,” Harrison said.

After talking to his attorney, Harrison went home where he met the Secret Service.

”When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren’t going to ransack my house or anything … they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn’t a part of any hate groups.”

He let them, though he didn’t have to.

I can’t say I admire the sign, exactly — but seizing it is ridiculous.

But some people seem to be implying this is emblematic of the Obama regime. I hate to destroy a good outrage post with a question like this, but: what did Obama have to do with taking the guy’s sign?

I don’t want your money. I want you to recruit more readers.

I’d like every single person who reads this post to think of 1-5 readers who might enjoy this blog, and e-mail them a link to my recent Year in Review. Links from big blogs have been very sparse lately, and I must depend on grassroots efforts to expand the readership. If you’ve ever thought about contributing financially, do this instead. If you send the link to even one person, that would mean a lot.

Think outside the box: relatives, friends, co-workers, etc. Feel free to include a link to a recent post you enjoyed, and/or to say a few words about why you enjoy the site. But make sure to send them the Year in Review link as well.

If you do this, please leave a comment letting me know you did. And thanks for reading.

Jim Treacher gives his Top 10 Reasons President Barack H. Obama Is Nothing Like Travis the Chimp. I’ll just give you one and make you click for the rest:

5. Obama takes more long-term approach to destroying people’s lives.

I think it’s time this country had an honest conversation about what a racist Jim Treacher is.

[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

Mrs. Dunphy and I have lately been toting up our annual obligations to the public fisc, and preparing to write our check for same. It has been a discouraging experience, to understate the matter considerably, as we ponder our contribution to the trillions of dollars soon to be gushing out of great chutes at the White House and the U.S. Capitol, then to be cast hither and yon across the countryside. As best we can discern, not one of those trillions of dollars will find its way into the Dunphy coffers. And by the way, until a few months ago, had you ever heard the word “trillion” tossed about the way it’s been lately? For the innumerate, a trillion is a thousand billions, and a billion is a thousand millions. We’re talking Real Dough here.

But I digress.

Mrs. Dunphy and I are not wealthy, but our balance sheet is in good order as we have been frugal with the money we have. We currently rent, but have been considering buying a home as we observe the downward trend in real estate prices here in Southern California and elsewhere. This downward trend is in large part due to the fact that people who have lived less frugally than we have are losing their homes to foreclosure. But today we are informed that President Obama will soon open up another spigot and bequeath untold billions of dollars on those very people, with the net effect being that the tax dollars of those, such as Mrs. Dunphy and myself, who have made prudent financial decisions will be used to subsidize those who have not and, even more insultingly, artificially prop up the real estate market and thereby discourage our purchase of a home.

With this in mind, I wish to point out a few things to those fortunates being stimulated with other people’s money:

1. The government has no money but that which it extracts from its citizens through taxation under pain of imprisonment.

2. The taking of that money from those who have earned it and then distributing it to those who have not is considered to be, in a different context, robbery.

3. People who are immunized from the consequences of imprudent decisions are very likely to continue making them. And, when their imprudence is once again revealed, they are just as likely to extend the greedy hand once more in expectation of further assistance from their fellow citizens.

It is Mrs. Dunphy’s and my misfortune to live in an area represented at all levels of government by liberals, so we would waste neither the time nor effort to petition any of them with our grievances. But my question, for anyone who’d care to answer, is this: Is there anyone in Washington willing to speak for those of us who are footing the bill for all this blessed stimulation but are left unstimulated ourselves?

–Jack Dunphy