Free kibbles

Iraqis vote again. How awesome is that? I didn't agree with toppling Saddam, but only liberals would so cold hearted not to be happy for the Iraqis and want to help them succeed.

Republicans elect moderate Michael Steele chairman. The last thing Republicans need is a moderate in charge. Contrary to what this article says about Steele being different than Bush, that means more of Bush's big government conservatism to compete against big government liberalism - i.e. the 2 parties are still the same. Nobody is more moderate than McCain, and we saw how well he did. This is bad for the country.

Summing up analysis of Obama's stimulus boondoggle, Cato provides a great analogy showing the futility of it.

If I get up in the morning and drink five cups of coffee and that doesn’t stimulate me, I don’t go and drink another five. I’d recognize my addiction problem and start reforming my bad habits. Federal policymakers should do the same.

Only 11 Democrats joined with every House Republican against the Obama/Pelosi stimulus boondoggle. Even though there was bipartisan resistance to this bill and no bipartisan support, Cato explains that the fiscal conservatism of so-called blue dog Democrats is overrated.

37 out of 43 “Blue Dogs” voted for the spending bill

Chart from Heritage Foundation shows that Federal spending has increased steadily regardless of who controlled Congress. So much for Republicans and blue dog Democrats claims of being fiscally conservative.

NPR says Keynes's ideas are being tried for the first time, but in the same article they ask if Keynes ended the Great Depression. Not only don't they realize neither of these are true, but both can't be true. Our taxdollars fund this propaganda. It sounds like Keynes was a fruitcake with a lot in common with Hitler. And Keynes's ideas weren't new. They were just repackaged.

Nice quote from Ayn Rand: "Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

I drove last evening for the first time since the snowfall Wednesday night. The streets were abominable. It was stunning that 36 hours after the snow fell, major downtown streets had not been cleared. It looked like they had been salted, but except for one, they had not been plowed. They were still slick and dangerous. I saw 2 salt trucks driving, but neither had plows on them. Dayton is no stranger to clearing roads, but the city did not get it done. It didn't even appear to be trying.

When I was a kid, if our city government had been that incompetent, heads would have rolled. The people would have flooded the city council chambers and the mayor at least would have been forced to resign or fire somebody. It's just stunning how Americans have become complacent with incompetent government. Even more stunning is that we keep giving more of our freedom to that same government and make it do more things - which makes it even more incompetent. I don't get it.

Hawaii sets up universal health care for children. 85 percent of enrollees are people who dropped their existing coverage to get government coverage. Duh. Why pay for coverage twice? You're paying with taxes, you take the government coverage. Needless to say, the government couldn't afford it. Obama and Democrats want to do the same thing to the entire country, but unlike Hawaii, when their program fails, they won't shut it down. They'll just steamroll to full socialized medicine. Obama's plan is designed to fail and open the door to socialized medicine.

Charles Krauthammer blasts Obama for telling Muslims that America hasn't respected them in the last 20 years when in fact American troops have fought to liberate Muslims in 5 different conflicts. I don't think this is empty rhetoric on Obama's part. I think he really doesn't know history.

I hadn't heard of this study before. The results aren't surprising to me, but it never ceases to amaze me that something so obvious logically and from experience as that arming citizens reduces crime surprises liberals.

It looks like Obama's stimulus boondoggle might go down in flames. Let's hope so. This was the first major piece of the Obama agenda, and it was dishonest, radically leftist, counterproductive, and hyperpartisan. It was exactly what was to be expected from Obama given his record. This is what we can expect for the next 4 years. It also shows that Obama thought the force of his personality would make things work smoothly. He may or may not get over his narcissism. He thought all he had to do was invite Republicans to dinner and they would cave. He thought Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats would give him the bill he made speeches about. Obama ran a very disciplined campaign, but he has no other executive experience. He doesn't know how to govern. He'll probably learn from this mistake and become more disciplined, but he may not. And Democrats may not listen to him if he tries.

Free kibbles

Obama showed his Marxist stripes yesterday when he went on a rant against corporate bonuses. Obama thinks he's the guy who should determine when companies profit and when they don't and when companies get bonuses and when they don't. We elected a guy who spent his entire adult life seeking out and surrounding himself with Marxists, partnering with Marxists, teaching and working with Marxist organizations, and now that he's in the White House he's talking and acting like a Marxist. What a surprise. What's shameful here isn't the bonuses - corporations have to do what's best for their shareholders - period, and government has no business sticking its nose in it. And what a joke, calling the people who asked for a bailout shameful. When dangling free money in front of corporations and special interests, of course they're going to ask for it. Government has all the power. The corporations and special interests are just beggars. What's shameful is government taking money from tax payers by force and giving it to politically connected companies, including using force to purchase shares in banks who didn't want any money, and special interests.

Unlike Boortz, I'm not outraged that the Dem. head of the Senate Appropriations Committee funneled $2.25 billion to his son's lobbying client, the National Park Service. This is the primary function of our government. It's a favor factory. A corruption factory. A nepotism factory. Our aristocrats have no interest in the people, only in themselves and their families. I'm no more outraged at this one instance of nepotism than I am at the thousands that occurred last year, or the 10s of thousands in the last decade. It's like being outraged that a leopard has spots.

But Boortz misses the more interesting fact in this case. The National Park Service is a government bureaucracy. Government bureaucracies are hiring lobbyists to lobby for more money from Congress. We caught a hint of that when we found out Fannie and Freddie, government sponsored entities, had lobbyists and donated huge amounts of money to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Why do we allow government to use our tax dollars to lobby itself for more money and to buy favors from our representatives?

Obama signs more executive orders limiting the freedom of Americans by limiting the options of federal contractors regarding labor unions. Obama's governing philosophy is to use government force to empower supporters of his radical leftist policies at every opportunity. Contrary to this article, taking away freedom from contractors does not help the middle class. It hurts it.

Zimbabwe opposition party agrees to coalition government. This isn't the first time this has been reported, and Mugabe sabotaged it, so I'm not holding my breath. Zimbabwe abandons price controls and its currency that was destroyed by the government. Meanwhile in America, Ben Bernanke continues to destroy US currency and Barack Obama calls for wage and profit controls. Ohio governor Strickland calls for price controls on college educations. Guess which country is going in the right direction.

Boortz explains that Obama's stimulus boondoggle creates a new welfare entitlement. Supposedly the provision allowing illegal immigrants to capitalize on this welfare program has been removed.

The founder of the Weather Channel explains the history of the great global warming scam. Concise essay with all the relevant history in one place. Everybody in this history is trying to make money off the scam.

Obama and his fellow Marxists, empowered by the Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, Dodd, Frank, Obama, McCain, Clinton $700 billion bailout attack on freedom, are casually discussing whether to grab $1 or $2 trillion more to save troubled banks since the original $700 billion didn't help. TARP was madness. TARP2 is madness squared. Republicans put up only weak resistance to the original TARP. They'll probably unify against this plan like they did against Obama's stimulus boondoggle. But it won't matter. Bush's big government Republicans opened the barn door and the radical Democrats stampeded into power. This is like living in a horror movie. Our government, empowered by both conservatives and liberals, is taking our country down in flames.

Obama's boondoggle stimulus plan calls for not less than $140 million for climate modeling. There are no unemployed climate modelers, so they don't need stimulus, but what does Obama care about stimulus? Do you want to bet that any of that climate modeling will be accurate?

The FBI has known all along that the Council on American-Islamic Relations was linked with Hamas, so why are they just cutting off ties after 5 years? Maybe Obama got this one right, but I doubt it was him.

Child welfare program leads to easy money for con men? Who would have ever guessed?

Here's another great program from the Netherlands, a county liberals want to use as a model for transforming the US - forced sterilization of women. Hey, if you're fit to raise children, you have nothing to worry about, right?

Mises scholar explains why Keynesian economics is good for the aristocrats and bad for the rest of us. Washington is still a boomtown, no doubt as is Columbus and every other big government state capital.

Looong article spelling out the Misesian case against Keynes. Too long for me to read right now.

Free kibbles

Hamas continues to fire rockets at Israel, and Israel retaliates. Hamas hates the people of Gaza and wants Israel to kill them. These people are insane.

Boortz reports that EMTs and other first responders check cell phones for a contacted named ICE (In Case of Emergency), and call that number. I've never heard of that before, but if it's true, it's a good idea.

James Hansen's former boss at NASA is a global warming skeptic and calls Hansen an embarrassment to NASA. He says Hansen broke NASA's policy by promoting man-made global warming because scientists don't know enough to make that claim. He says NASA didn't do enough to muzzel him. I want to know why NASA didn't fire him. This guy was his boss. It sounds like he didn't do enough.

Iraq holding provincial elections this weekend. Every American should be celebrating the accomplishments of the Iraqis with the help of our troops.

Mises scholar lampoons Cato for its newspaper ad featuring the signatures of over 200 economists who oppose Obama's stimulus boondoggle, but he sure doesn't offer a better alternative. More people will read Cato's ad than this post. Cato also talked about this ad and the stimulus boondoggle on Boortz today, and probably other talk radio shows. Talk radio is not dying.

Mises shoots down the notion that Asia created our financial problems by saving and lending too much while consuming too little. As if saving is a vice. The aristocrats will go to any length to cover up their culpability for creating this crisis.

Obama signs law making it easier for women to sue over wage discrimination. Government has no business getting involved in the compensation agreed upon by employer and employee. If both are satisfied with the compensation, then the employee begins work. If either one is unsatisfied, the employee doesn't get the job, quits, or gets fired. It doesn't matter what any other employee is making. All that matter is both parties agree.

Judge refuses Obama's request to delay war crimes trial of Guantanamo detainee. Good for him. We operate under the rule of law, not the rule of Obama. We have far too few victories for the rule of law in America these days. On the flip side, it seems to me the commander in chief can always order them to be halted, right?

The legal process for these prisoners has been widely criticised because the US military acts as jailer, judge and jury.

HOw is that a criticism? That's how military tribunals have always been.

Government at all levels takes up about 36 percent of GDP, and economists have shown that optimal government should take up less than 25 percent of GDP.

I have an alternative plan for economic stimulus - cut government spending in half and cut taxes accordingly. This year's budget is over $3.1 trillion. Add in TARP, and you reach $4 trillion. If the US government cut spending and taxes in half right now, that would be a direct infusion of $2 trillion into our economy. And unlike ineffective government stimulus, that stimulus would be highly effective because it would be ongoing and the money would be in the hands of the people, not the politicians. A $2 trillion stimulus every year would dramatically raise the standard of living in America, pull Americans out of poverty, and make welfare obsolete. That's why government will never let it happen.

Blagojevich ties himself to Rahm Emanuel. Makes sense to me. They're all corrupt. Illinois Senate convicts Blago and removes him from office and bars him from holding elected office in Illinois ever again.

Rush Limbaugh wants to make Obama pay for trying to paint him as extremist, and it's going to work. Obama is a radical, and his radicalism is already on parade on terrorism and domestic policy, while Rush proposes a bipartisan stimulus bill in a WSJ op-ed. Rush's idea comes off as funny, but only because we know the radical Democrats won't accept it - it would expose them as frauds. It's actually a genuine compromise that would be welcomed by the people. Obama screwed up when he attacked Rush personally and elevated him to an even larger audience.

It only stands to reason that after Alan Greenspan destroyed the dollar, plunging us into world-wide recession, that Russia's Putin and China's Wen blast the US. We deserve that. We empower such incompetent aristocrats, they make totalitarians like Putin and Wen look good by comparision.

Shell posts first loss in 10 years. I doubt anybody is crying for the oil companies.

Obama's hubris knows no bounds. Obama hopes a letter he's writing to Iran will solve our problems with Iran. That'll fix everything. The Mullahs are laughing all the way to the bomb.

Aparently leftists, and the enemies of capitalism like Bush, Obama, Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, and Geithner, don't realize that overhauling capitalism is an oxymoron.

Reason explains how politicians define the debate, labeling as radicals anybody who falls outside their boundaries. But their analogy between Obama's stimulus boondoggle and the debate before the Iraq war fails because the Bush never controlled the press like Obama controls the press. The press is invested in Obama's policies. They were never invested in Bush's. Yet even the press thought Saddam Hussein had WMD. They thought that because we all know Saddam had used WMD. If a person shoots at somebody, it's a pretty assumption that they have a gun. But there is no evidence that Keysenian stimulus works. Every time it's been tried, it's failed. It a failure from both a theoretical point of view and from experience.

Stanford University team uses quantum interference pattern to spell out SU at record information density of 35 bits per electron.

Free kibbles

House Republicans to offer bill focusing on tax cuts to compete with Obama's stimulus boondoggle, but Obama's bill is expected to pass in a party line vote. If the Republicans had had this kind of principles when they were in power, they would still be in power. The House vote is today. The House debated the biggest spending bill in history for a week and a half. Why do we tolerate these aristocrats, let alone keep re-electing them? Knowing that the people do not want this stimulus boondoggle to pass and will mount a resistance once they learn of it, Obama says there's not a "moment to spare". Nothing like alarmism to incite panic. House passes $819 billion stimulus boondoggle 244 - 188. No Republicans voted for the bill. Maybe Republicans finally got their act together, but it's too little, too late. Obama learned he can't bribe Republicans with candlelight dinners. He can't get away with empty symbolic gestures of bipartisanism. He'll have to moderate his radical agenda to get any Republican support.

Charts show that the vast majority of the money Obama took from taxpayers to pay for this bill won't be spent until 2010 and beyond. That's no stimulus. That's a historic $819 billion in earmarks to payoff Democrat special interests. Cato explains that the bill is targeted at economic segments with low unemployment, not high unemployment.

Thomas Sowell has a great quote that shows the Democrats don't care about economic stimulus:

Using long, drawn-out processes to put money into circulation to meet an emergency is like mailing a letter to the fire department to tell them that your house is on fire.

If you cut taxes tomorrow, people would have more money in their next paycheck, and it would probably be spent by the time they got that paycheck, through increased credit card purchases beforehand.

And for those people who in a knee-jerk reaction will say Bush used alarmism about terrorism to get stuff passed, I just remind them that it really is alarming when terrorists are flying planes into our buildings and trying to attack us again.

Russia halts deployment of missiles in Baltic.

Sensing American weakness and playing us for the fools we are, Iranian President Ahmadinejad seeks apology from the US. It didn't take the Iranians long to start capitalizing on the opportunity presented by Obama's wimpiness.

Is Obama setting the stage for the Fairness Doctrine with his attacks on Rush Limbaugh?

In regions of the UK, government is responsible for 70 percent of the economy. And in our breakneck race to the left, we're following right behind.

The Heritage Foundation report explains why government spending, and Obama's big-spending boondoggle, won't stimulate the economy, and it offers a proven alternative. Funny how the Democrats' plan has ballooned from $300 billion when this was written on 11/12 to $900 billion today.

Because of government interference in the economy, the economy continues to tank. But it's instructive to remember how we got stuck in the Great Depression. I can't find the darn graph right now, but the recession of 1929 was reasonably short. The private sector quickly overcame the damage that government had caused and began to recover. Hoover's and FDR's policies that drove the country into a several year long secondary depression in the 30s. But the private sector again overcame the damage caused by government, and started to recover. Then FDR's policies drove the country back into a tertiary depression in the late 30s. So the Great Depression was really a recession/recovery/depression/recovery/depression/war process. The first order effect was the most minor, and that's what we're experiencing now. The secondary effects caused by big government interference in response to the initial recession caused the most damage. But as the privates sector begins to recover, like it will this year, the policies of Bush and Obama, like the policies of Hoover and FDR are going to create a secondary recession. In our case though, the Fed's policies will hide the recession behind rapid inflation similar to 70s style stagflation, but probably worse.

Graphs show that our current recession is milder than the median of recessions since WWII.

Even though ACORN is again under investigation for massive voter fraud, Democrats are creating a $4+ billion slush fund for ACORN and other organizations to dip into.

Democrats' stimulus boondoggles are over $1 trillion when you include the interest. But that isn't stopping Obama from considering a new multi-hundred billion TARP program.

PBS commentator claims Obama is the "first true American" president. Funded by our tax dollars.

School board drops Veterans Day as holiday because students don't know what it's for. I guess teaching the students never crossed their minds.

Cyberspace creating amoral generation of teens. I thought Bill Clinton did that.

62 percent of professors are liberal and 19 conservative. Guess what that means for college students.

Some panhandlers making $400 per day. More power to them. I don't have any problem with the panhandlers. It's the people giving them money that are stupid. If you want to help the homeless, find a charity that helps the homeless get back to work and become productive citizens. Don't give them a handout or you're just as bad as government welfare programs.

Cartoonists found it easy to lampoon Bush's looks but not Obama's. What a bunch of crap. They love showing Bush with big ears even though Bush doesn't have big ears, but they don't want to lampoon Obama's huge ears? What about his sticklike arms and legs? This is either liberals who don't want to lampoon their messiah or others who don't want to be called racists for lampooning Obama.

Despite the winter storm that dumped 10 inches of snow at my house, Al Gore tells the Senate that economic problems shouldn't stop the US from oppressive and costly policies to fight global warming. Al Gore is like a comedy show. I can just imagine one of those British sitcoms lampooning a Gore-like figure as he preaches about the dangers of global warming to people buried in snow drifts or running from advancing glaciers. He's using the same technique Obama is. He knows most Americans have seen through is scam, so he's using alarmism to force his agenda through Congress before the opportunity completely disappears. Al Gore changed the name again. Originally it was global warming, but when the planet started cooling, he changed it to climate change. Now that climate change isn't getting it done, he changed it to climate crisis. Prosecute this fraud and put him in prison where he can't hurt anybody again.

The danger from Al Gore isn't over yet as the EU calls for a global carbon market. That's another push for a world government. Between the global warming fraud and this financial crisis created by government aristocrats, the government aristocrats think they can further develop their one world government dreams.

Government subsidies have degraded the value of college a education.

Reason advances a damning indictment of the big-spending, big-regulating, incompetent big-government Bush administration. They went easy on him.

Obama refuses to acknowledge the real costs of his green collor plans.

Reason explains that Obama's election enforces the conservative positions on race.

This is the consequences of socialized medicine - Britain is the sickest country in Europe with worst rates of obesity and teen pregnancy. This is what happens when somebody pays the bills. Don't worry about getting pregnant. Somebody else will pay for the abortion. Don't worry about getting obese. Somebody else will pay the health care costs. Don't worry about smoking. Somebody else will pay for it. Third party payer systems encourage people to ignore prevention because somebody else will always pay for the cure. Until government starts rationing care and letting people die. This is the model liberals want to force on Americans.

Instead of cutting mail service to 5 days a week, we should just privatize the mail service.

Freedom to Criticize

Freedom to Criticize

by Mark Luedtke

I can't imagine how black Americans must feel about Barack Obama's inauguration. I won't know how black Americans feel when Barack Obama takes the oath of office as the President of the United States. But I have no doubt that moment will be one of the most joyous moments in American history, and I'm going to revel in it.

It's a shame that the greatest debate during this presidential campaign was whether or not America was ready for a black president. Most Americans realized that race wouldn't play a significant factor in a presidential election and that no American would be denied the presidency because of race. But many Americans hadn't realized that yet. Now every American understands that race does not disqualify a candidate from the highest office in the country. In that very real sense, Barack Obama has united the nation, and that can never be taken away from us.

But the Democrat primary provides scary insight into what might happen after inauguration.

The race and gender prejudices that dominate liberal ideology almost ripped the Democrat party apart during the primary. Displaying outrageous disrespect of the black community, writers warned of rioting in the streets if Obama didn't win the nomination. Women threatened to boycott the election if Hillary lost. Supporters of Obama immediately labeled critics as racists and released their media hounds on any non-supporter who even mentioned race, including the first “black president". Democrats were exposed as a fragile, volatile alliance.

Few on the right mentioned race during the regular campaign, but Democrats and their mainstream media attack dogs couldn't quit talking about it and attacking based on it. New York Gov. Patterson accused McCain of playing the race card every time he mentioned Obama's work as a community organizer. Attack dogs blasted anybody who brought up Obama's connections to ACORN or Bill Ayers as racists. Susan Estrich wrote that the only way Obama could lose is because of racism. She wasn't very original. Dozens of similar articles appeared in newspapers.

During the campaign, Obama portrayed himself as the Messiah who would heal the planet and stop the rise of the oceans. The media projected an image that Obama would not only stop the rise of the water, but would walk on it. Peggy Joseph thinks she won't have to work to put gas in her car or pay her mortgage since Obama was elected. Obama and the media set expectations so high that he can't possibly meet them. Now that reality has set in, his speeches on his whistle-stop tour seem specifically designed to lower expectations.

Right now Obama's getting a free ride. In 2005, the press attacked George Bush for spending $43 million on his inauguration. But they revel in Obama's $150 million inauguration during a recession. Worse than the amount is that it's 3 times higher than the original budget of $50 million. Obama raised record levels of cash during his campaign, but he spent it even faster. They blasted Bush's deficits but welcome Obama's. Fiscal irresponsibility doesn't bode well given our economic problems, but not a peep from the media.

But that honeymoon can't last. America is drowning in debt. Debt, public and private, and government interference increasingly damage our economy. George Bush was the most financially irresponsible president since FDR, but Obama promises to be even worse. Obama's policies aren't new, they've been tried in one form or another around the world for centuries. We don't have to guess how they will affect the country. We know Obama's policies are going to impoverish America.

Despite a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009, Obama proposes $815 billion in new spending under the guise of economic stimulus. But this is no stimulus - it's nothing but earmarks. And since every dollar government spends must be paid for by taxpayers, that means $815 billion in new taxes. To start. The country cannot get wealthier by paying higher taxes. Modeled after the New Deal, which turned a typical recession into the Great Depression, Obama's new New Deal will harm America and has the potential to turn this typical recession into a new Great Depression.

In a time when we need increased production to create wealth and jobs, Obama promises to use cap and trade policies to shut down coal mines and coal power plants. We get half of our electricity from coal, until Obama bankrupts the industry. Cap and trade policies are designed to increase the cost of energy and destroy wealth. Americans will have less money to spend on other things. That means less production, less wealth creation, and more lost jobs.

But only the most radical liberals will support Obama as our economy tanks. At some point Obama's attack dogs will turn on him. The knee-jerk response of the radical left will be to call anybody who criticizes Obama, even more moderate liberals, a racist. Liberals have called conservatives racists for so long that it's meaningless, but when liberals start calling each other racists again like they did in the primary, the country will either rise above knee-jerk accusations of racism and accept harsh criticism of Obama at face value or the Democrat coalition will disintegrate. Or explode.

Hopefully the country will unite in accepting criticism of Obama as it accepts criticism of any president – with robust and informed debate. If that happens, Obama will have succeeded in uniting the country in a second way, and we'll have taken another huge step in healing the racial divide.

Mises on the enemies of free markets

Once again Mises scholar points out a fundamental truth about American life eloquently and succinctly:

New Rule: neomercantilists, neoconservatives, and statists are no longer allowed to call themselves "free marketers." People who call themselves free marketers such as Bush, Paulson, Greenspan, and Bernanke are the primary threat capitalism faces. These false prophets of capitalism are the greatest friends that proponents of socialism have.

and

Under Bush's watch, private businesses have been the recipients of corporate welfare, sometimes leading to nationalization, on a scale never before seen in American history.

Mises scholar interprets Fed chairman and enemy of free markets Bernanke's remarks about stabilizing the financial system to mean further nationalizing banks. I think Ben Bernanke may have surpassed Al Gore as the most dangerous man in the world.

In short, while speaking in London recently, he cautioned that the proposed funds for the economic stimulus plan — supported by the robbing of American citizens— are "unlikely to promote a lasting recovery unless they are accompanied by strong measures to further stabilize and strengthen the financial system." This means he is priming for a request for more government funds in exchange for government equity positions in the banks.

It is unclear whether this type of scare tactic will ever stop working, but if the recent past is any indicator, Mr. Bernanke will get his wish for more funds. Additionally, Bernanke is calling for global central-bank cooperation. This can be construed to mean global inflation in concert, the bank controllers reaping the benefits while the dollar and other centrally planned currencies are inexorably plundered of purchasing power.

Anyone who has studied free-market economic principles even briefly will have strong concerns regarding these statements. At a deeper level, one hopes that common sense would make it clear to even those who have not been fortunate enough to learn about sound-money principles that these ideas propose a dangerous path.

Perhaps an even bigger problem, however, is that Mr. Bernanke conveys these ideas while professing to be a strong believer in the free markets! It is unclear how this should be taken: is it an outright lie, or does he expect that the average citizen is not capable of understanding the difference between a free market and what we have instead? Indeed, is it Bernanke's wish that the average citizen not understand? This confusion on the citizens' part is, after all, what gives those in power the ability to stay there.

It is hard to imagine a more blatant push towards nationalization of the banks (already a legalized cartel). Further guarantee of the debt of financial institutions — already overburdened with high-risk debt in exchange for the government taking equity positions — is preposterous. The notion of privatized profits combined with losses guaranteed by the taxpayers is usually not what comes to mind when someone touts their strong beliefs in a free-market economy.

The Fed already has more power to derail the US economy than the government. It sounds like Bernanke is laying the groundwork for a world-wide Fed. This would be a world shadow government.

Unfortunately, the general idea portrayed by the mainstream media is that the free market has failed and, as Mr. Bush remarked recently, must be abandoned in order to be saved.

"Faith in free markets can only be established after showing the world what can be accomplished by having true freedom in the marketplace to begin with."

In this light, Mr. Bernanke's conclusion to his recent remarks, reaffirming his strong belief in the free markets, is ludicrous. His actions — supported by the current administration and sure to be supported by the following administration — speak so much louder than his words. But it seems the vast majority do not hear or understand — believing, as they've been told, that our economy is failing because of insufficient regulation. This open attack on capitalism and the corresponding lack of understanding of the truth is a great hindrance to the struggle for liberty.

It is long past time for this to change. As sound economic policies are fundamental to the ideals of freedom, the fallacies inherent in the doctrine preached by Mr. Krugman and Mr. Bernanke, and perpetuated by President Bush, must be brought to light and dispelled. For real change to come to America, this is imperative.

Faith in free markets can only be established after showing the world what can be accomplished by having true freedom in the marketplace to begin with. Mr. Bernanke would do well to keep this in mind as he proposes ever more socialistic measures to correct problems induced by the very organization he is charged to lead.

Showing how the Fed is actually more powerful than the government in affecting our economy, Mises scholar theorizes that the Fed is secretly buying up the toxic assets that TARP originally intended to buy by printing money, freeing the TARP money to nationalize banks. This guy thinks we're not only paying the price for the Fed's irresponsible monetary policy of this decade, but we're about to pay the price for the irresponsible monetary policy of the entire Greenspan era (20 years). He explains how the Fed artificially drove down gold prices with strategically timed gold dumps to reward short sellers and wipe out long investment in gold in order to disguise inflation. Author suggests buying gold along with some other investment advice.

The Fed's risk transfer to the taxpayer is only worsened by its lack of transparency in doing so. The $2 trillion in lending is going to unknown places in exchange for unknown collateral. This leads me to believe the Fed has been busy buying up all of the toxic assets held by banks. This explains why it let the congressional bailout funds be used for equity purchases and not toxic debt. It hides the huge toxic-asset purchases — which it paid for with printed money — in its balance sheet's opacities. Bloomberg recently made a Freedom of Information Act request for details on bailout fund appropriations, but the Fed refused to comply and is being sued. This secrecy by the Fed in its appropriations of taxpayer money and the most-likely worthless collateral it exchanged it for represents inflationary risks the Fed is attempting to conceal.

The Fed's balance sheet suggests it has been cranking the printing presses like mad. Fed liabilities have expanded to $2.26 trillion, up over 140% since September. However, currency in circulation is up only 7% in that same time period. Where is this "trapped" $1.37 trillion? The answer is it's confined in temporary cash pools, whether in the Supplementary Financing Account or excess reserve deposits or in time-sensitive T-bills. The Federal Reserve seems to be sequestering all of this cash to buy time for the Treasury to finish its funding activities.

Bernie Madoff is well recognized as the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, at $50 billion. I beg to differ with that assessment. The United States has financed debt with debt since the late 1980s, when its external debt/GDP broke the 0 mark. Since then, it has risen to over 100% of its GDP (which in itself is quite artificially inflated because of manipulated hedonics-adjusted inflation figures), and now stands at $13 trillion. That is what's called a debt bubble. Bernie who?

But the debt bubble appears ready to collapse. The pyramid scheme is finally running out of investors, and many Treasury ETFs (like SHY, TLT, IEF, and IEI) are showing classic parabolic topping patterns and the next few weeks should confirm or deny my suspicions. Interest rates are at an obvious floor at zero, so there is nowhere to go but up. That means bond prices have nowhere to go but down, and the falling prices will cascade into more selling until the debt bubble deflates and all the spending is financed by quantitative easing. Judging by gold backwardation (discussed later) and the bearish charts on the bubbly debt ETFs, I think the debt monetization and dollar devaluation will begin within the next six weeks. The ProShares UltraShort Lehman 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TBT) and ProShares UltraShort Lehman 7–10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (PST) are good ways to play this debt-market collapse.

With an insolvent public and no foreign demand for Treasuries, the Federal Reserve will monetize debt to finance its continued bailouts and economic stimulus. This is purely created capital pumped right into the system. This is not anything new for the Fed — for the past two decades, it has kept interest rates artificially low and created massive artificial wealth in the form of malinvestment and debt financing. In the past, the Fed has been able to funnel the inflationary effects of its expansionary monetary policy into equity values with its low rates, which discourage saving, causing bubble after bubble. The excess liquidity was soaked up by the stock market, which gave the appearance of economic growth. With inflation being funneled into equity and real estate over the last two decades, illusory wealth was created and the public remained oblivious to the inflationary risk and the great disparity between real returns and nominal.

Now that the "artificial-wealth bubble" of the past two decades is finally collapsing, one of two scenarios can occur: capital destruction or purchasing-power destruction. Capital destruction occurs when the monetary supply decreases as individuals and institutions sell assets to pay off debts and defaults and savings starts growing at the expense of consumption, otherwise known as deleveraging. This is deflation and the public immediately sees and feels its effect, as savings accounts, equity funds, and wages start declining. Deflation serves no benefit to the Federal Reserve, as declining prices spur positive-feedback panic selling and bank runs, and debt repayments in nominal terms under deflation cause real losses.

Purchasing-power destruction is much more desirable by the Fed. Its effects are "hidden" to a certain extent, as the public doesn't see any nominal losses and only feels wealth destruction in obscure price inflation. It breeds perceptions of illusionary strength rather than deflation's exaggerated weakness. The typical taxpayer will panic when his or her mutual fund goes down 20% but will probably not react to an expansion of monetary supply unless it reaches 1970s price-inflationary levels. In addition, the government can pay back its public debt with devalued nominal dollars, which transfers wealth from the taxpayers to the government to pay its debt. Inflation is essentially a regressive consumption tax, which the government wants and the Fed attempts to "hide." Not only is the Treasury's debt burden reduced but the government's tax revenues inherently increase.

This gold-price expansion, set off by the massive short squeeze, will continue until gold prices reflect gold supply and Federal Reserve liabilities in circulation. The "intrinsic" value of gold today (called the Shadow Gold Price), calculated dividing total Fed liabilities by official gold holdings, is about $9,600/oz, compared to the actual spot price of around $850/oz today. This gold-price calculation essentially assumes dollar-gold convertibility, as is mandated by the US Constitution and was utilized at various periods of American history.

I leave you with this, a quote from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1934 Gold Reserve Act, which was the greatest theft of wealth I'm aware of in American history:

The finding that leaving the gold standard was the key to recovery from the Great Depression was certainly confirmed by the U.S. experience. One of the first actions of President Roosevelt was to eliminate the constraint on U.S. monetary policy created by the gold standard, first by allowing the dollar to float and then by resetting its value at a significantly lower level … With the gold standard constraint removed and the banking system stabilized, the money supply and the price level began to rise. Between Roosevelt's coming to power in 1933 and the recession of 1937–38, the economy grew strongly.

My predictions: gold at $2,000/oz by the end of the year and $10,000/oz by 2012 and silver at $30/oz by the end of the year and $130/oz by 2012.

These 3 essays together paint a picture of conspiracy between the Treasure and Fed to nationalize banks and create a supra-national central bank. If the people go along with this tremendous socialization of finance at the world level, basically created a world shadow government much like the Fed acts as a shadow government now, don't be surprised if speculators and short sellers are soon classified as terrorists, much like drug dealers have been.

Free kibbles

Showing once again that Obama is just like Bush, only worse, the Senate confirms Paulson's partner in crime from the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, as Treasury Sec. despite his responsibility for the failed TARP program and being a tax cheat. Geithner's first act is to limit the freedom of Americans for lobby for some of the TARP funds we are paying for. You don't use government force to stop lobbyists - that's anti-freedom and unamerican - you take the power to sell favors away from government. Then the lobbyists will disappear because they provide no value. Then Obama appoints another Goldman Sachs alumni to head the New York Fed. He's just kicking us while we're down.

After unidentified bomber kills Israeli soldier, Israel launches attack into southern Gaza.

Obama proposes space weapons ban. That's a fantasy. The reality is that Russia and China will put, or already have put, weapons in space and we'd be idiots to concede that strategic battleground to them.

Can you imagine what having to meet 50 different sets of emission standards would do to the auto industry? The auto companies would be forced to meet the lowest common denominator, meaning that the most radical environmentalist state would effectively set emissions standards for the entire country.

Boortz explains that Obama has renamed earmarks as "ready to go" projects so it can appear like he's reforming earmarks.

Snow storm causes cancellation of Al Gore's testimony on global warming before the Senate. As funny as this sounds, Al Gore is not a joke. He's as bad as Bernie Madoff, but more dangerous. He's a fraud. He lied for personal gain. He's a criminal, and he should be prosecuted. How lucky are we that global cooling happened when it did. If global cooling had waited another 2 years, Al Gore might have been able to push through the most dangerous collectivist agenda since communism. We're not out of the woods yet, Congress keeps moving forward despite the will of the people, but every day that agenda becomes weaker and less likely.

Schwarzenegger wants to tax golf course, veterinarians, auto mechanics and amusement parks to raise money to pay for California's outrageous budget. It's always easy to convince the many to raise taxes on the few. We should figure something out to put an end to that. Of course government uses sales tax exemptions to buy votes, so some businesses and business sectors are exempted.

The Heritage Foundation explains why tax rate reductions are powerful stimulators of the economy and tax rebates, what Democrats are misleading Americans into believing are tax cuts, even for people who don't pay taxes (welfare), are not.

Supporters of rebates argue that they “inject” new money into the economy, increasing demand and, therefore, production. But every dollar that government rebates “inject” into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. It is merely redistributed from one group of people to another. (Even money borrowed from foreigners brings a reduction in net exports.)

59 percent of Americans think government spending will grow too much under Obama compared to 17 percent who think Obama will cut taxes too much. Then how come the media keeps telling us that Americans are united behind Obama's plans? Oh, yeah. They're the media.

Big, irresponsible government isn't limited to the federal government. It's a disease infecting state and local governments too.

McDonald's profit soars during recession. This is important to remember. People will still find a way to eat out. They just will spend less money doing it.

The $825 billion so-called stimulus has already ballooned to $900 billion. Why do we tolerate these aristocrats?

Financial writer wonders why for all Bernanke's failures, few criticize him, let alone call for his resignation.

Cato takes out full page newspaper ad exposing Barack Obama's lie that "There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will jumpstart the economy," signed by over 200 economists. Democrats learned this trick from Al Gore - keep saying "there is no disagreement" enough times, let the accomplice press print it as truth enough times, and liberals will believe it.

Cato rejects the idea of special National Security Courts to try terrorists. Absolutely. This is the kind of fundamental change to our legal system that would quickly be turned against the people. Unfortunately, Cato doesn't like military tribunals either. They want to use civilian courts. That would require our troops to become evidence technicians and provide Miranda warnings to terrorists while in the heat of battle. Every platoon would have a lawyer passing judgment before warfighters could fire. It's interesting that this guy doesn't want the terrorist to be able to grandstand, but that's exactly what would happen in a civilian court or full military trial. No way. This is a war, and it's about time we started fighting it like a war, so we can win and end it. Military tribunals based on the Nuremberg model is the way to go, not the goofy Bush tribunals that tried to emulate a criminal trial. The tribunals would not allow the terrorists to grandstand. Expose the war crimes then execute those terrorists who committed war crimes like Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Hold the rest until the war is over. Just like WWII. All these ideas that grant legal rights to terrorists prolong the war and keep us in a state of perpetual war. I think that's what Americans dislike most.

Free kibbles

Incomplete list highlights some of the pork barrel projects that make up Obama's so-called stimulus bill. This is not a stimulus package. This bill is nothing but an $825 billion list of earmarks to buy votes for Democrats so they can solidify their hold on power using our tax dollars. The sole motivation for this bill is to limit the political freedom of Americans.

Boortz reminds us that the FairTax is the most powerful economic stimulus ever, but he fails mention several of the reasons why. Adopting the FairTax would bring $13 trillion currently working overseas back to America to stimulate our economy - far greater than Democrats' proposed $825 billion earmark bill. Every Fortune 500 company in the world would either open its next plant in the US or move its headquarters to the US. Every American would keep 100 percent of his or her paycheck, empowering the people who know best, earners, how to stimulate our economy to do so. American companies would instantly play on a level playing field against foreign competitors, dramatically increasing US exports and domestic consumption of US products and services. Tax compliance costs would go down, tax compliance would go up, and the government spending would go down as the IRS is replaced with a much smaller entity. It's a win, win, win, win, win. There is no question - if economic stimulus is the real goal, adopt the FairTax.

Citibank buys private jet from France with taxpayer funded bailout money.

Major corporations cut 74,000 jobs. Because the government keeps interfering in our recovery, the economy is getting worse, not better.

Because of government's intervention, auto companies are building green cars that Americans don't want. Obama wants them to build more. When companies dance to the whims of politicians instead of serving the marketplace, everybody loses. Naturally they auto companies need another $25 billion bailout to make this happen.

In yet another crazy case of hypocrisy, the French, who attacked Bush repeatedly over Guantanamo, propose bringing some Gitmo detainees to Europe. Why didn't they offer that seven years ago? Or last year? And what's the difference between holding them in Gitmo or a prison camp in Europe (except they'll be more likely to get released and the Europeans, and Americans, will be in more danger)?

Have ordered your pocket Obama yet?

Man who paralyzes himself by jumping into shallow river on a dare wins $76.6 million judgment. This judge should be fired and the ruling overturned.

Good for most Republicans for opposing Geithner and his desire to use government force to solve (not) the banking crisis.

Free kibbles

Sri Lanken forces capture last Tamil Tiger rebel stronghold. Congratulations to the people of Sri Lanka. This should remind everybody in the world there is no substitute for victory.

Ethiopia pulls out of Somalia to be replaced by UN peace keepers. Look for the resurgence of al Qaeda in Somali.

Penguin won't go in the water. This is one of nature's rare exceptions to its rules, but it doesn't invalidate the rule that penguins are water birds. I doubt we'll see anti-swimming activists trying to use this example to say it's perfectly natural for penguins to avoid the water. There's no more universal rule in nature than heterosexual sex which created every complex life form on the planet and has done so for 600 million years.

Obama plans fast action restricting the business options of financial firms, limiting the ability of our financial markets to recover.

Iceland's prime minister and minister of commerce resign because of financial crisis. If only we could get the Republicans and Democrats who teamed up to cause the problem to resign. At least Paulson and Greenspan are gone. Now we need to get rid of Bernanke, Dodd, and Frank - to start.

Hamas has gained credibility by surviving the Israeli assault. I would like to know the real reason Israel pulled back. It certainly wasn't because they'd achieved their goals like they said.

Displaying his hubris and lack of intelligence, Obama invites Republicans to dinner then tells them to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. That's a pointed insult to Republicans, accusing them of not thinking for themselves, it elevates Rush Limbaugh, and hints of censorship. Obama's gaffes during the campaign made Dan Quayle look smart by comparison. The evidence that Obama isn't very smart continues to grow. Anybody who thought the most radical leftist president in history was going to be bipartisan is an idiot. Obama partnered with Bill Ayers. He spent his entire life surrounding himself with Marxists. He's a student of Saul Alinsky taught Alinsky's techniques at the University of Chicago. He worked for and trained ACORN. He had a radical Muslim with terrorist ties write a letter recommendation to Harvard on his behalf and befriended a Hamas spokesman. It's not possible for somebody this dangerously radical to suddenly become bipartisan. What really wants is for the critics to just leave him alone while he transforms American into his personal vision of a socialist utopia. It ain't going to happen.

61 of the Guantanamo detainees that liberals pressured us into releasing have returned to terrorism so far. Now Obama has ordered the prison where we held them closed. 2 former Guantanamo inmates make new al Qaeda video. Capitalizing on Obama's dangerous weakness, al Qaeda ramps up anti-Obama rhetoric. They're going to hit us soon. Thanks liberals. Maybe you can work with your buddy Obama and Bill Ayers and bomb America yourselves instead of just freeing terrorists to attack us again. At the very least liberals should volunteer to keep the terrorists in their own homes. Murtha took the first step.

The aristocrats have sucked another corporation into their corrupt game of political favors. Google to capitalize on its powerful support for Obama to stifle competition. Just 3 years ago, Google didn't even have a lobbying arm. With Obama's inauguration, it becomes one of Washington's power players. I'm sure Obama will handsomely reward Google.

Severe winter in Europe leads to shortages of some crops. Snow falls in United Arab Emirates for only second time in history. This is what we can expect from the coming cool period due to sun and earth's natural climate cycles. In the mean time, Obama has nominated a socialist to push his global warming agenda. But who are we to complain? We elected him. We are our own worst enemies.

Woman prosecuted under Patriot Act for spanking her kids on an airplane. She should be given a medal. She subsequently lost her children. 200 people have been convicted for similar non-offenses. Hopefully Obama will repeal the oppressive parts of that law, but I doubt it. Freedom, except for terrorists, is not on his agenda.

CNN lays the groundwork to call Obama critics racists. They ask if Obama will have to be better than a white president because he's black. As time passes, the press will distract the people from the substance of every issue by either hinting or outright calling Obama's critics racists. They will not allow Obama to be judged on his merits. Rush Limbaugh will be target #1.

Apparently the Bush administration doesn't have a nice complete set of files on all the Guantanamo detainees. That's ridiculus. They're telling us these are the deadliest of the deadliest of terrorists, but they have no system for documenting it? At best, that's really stupid. Why doesn't the Pentagon have such files? Or the CIA? This highlights how broken our government is - that different bureaucracies refuse to share information. I can fully understand why Obama wants to review the file of every individual held in Guantanamo. It's good to get a fresh perspective on whether or not certain individuals should be held. But ordering the prison closed before any review was done was even more stupid.

A constitutional amendment blocking governors from appointing Senators is an overreaction to Blagojevich's scandal. The better solution is to quit electing corrupt politicians, which means quit electing Republicans and Democrats. You know, if we repealed the 17th amendment, it wouldn't be an issue.

More on Obama's unprecedented centralization of power in the White House. Liberals complained about Bush increasing the power of the presidency, but they're not complaining about Obama doing far more. I have no idea how liberals rationalize their cartoonish double standards. That level of self-delusion has got to be a mental illness.

John Stossel proposes that we're not in a financial crisis at all - just a recession.

Tiny country bans tobacco.

Free kibbles

Rumor has it that Caroline Kennedy is having an affair with the publisher of the NYTimes, and that's why she withdrew from consideration for a Senate appointment. This is just another example of what I keep saying. All these aristocrats, Democrats, Republicans and the accomplice press are in bed together both figuratively and literally, destroying America for their personal gain. Along the way, Republicans and Democrats fake animosity and the accomplice press fakes independence and lack of bias. It's a big game to them, a game they always win and we always lose.

Obama plans to grandstand in front of Congress in a State of the Union style performance even though it isn't a State of the Union address. The president grandstanding in front of Congress like this is nothing but a way to elevate the president and subordinate the Congress, and it should never happen. After Jefferson ended the practice as too monarchical in nature, Woodrow Wilson, a tyrant wannabe, revived the practice of appearing before Congress to increase his own stature. Roosevelt gave it the name State of the Union to increase his stature even further. The American people should put an end to this monarchical grandstanding.

Author brings up an excellent point about dealing with terrorists. We all know that Constititional protections are inconsistent with fighting this enemy, but what if Obama and Democrats change the Constitution protections to allow us to deal with them. Using standard Democrat demagoguery, they could claim they're following the rule of law (Bush also followed the rule of law during war) to drum up support, but those weakened Constitutional protections would apply to all of us as well as terrorists. We've debated the danger of treating terrorists like criminals - empowering terrorists, but we have not the debated the danger of treating criminals like terrorists - a police state - which might be the goal of the Obama administration. This is an excellent article explaining why military detention and tribunals by any other name - the legal framework for which has existed for centuries - are the only reasonable way to deal with terrorists. It's just absurd to have federal judges reviewing the actions of our troops.

Congressmen interfere with regulators for political gain. Duh. This is the nature of government and illustrates why concentrating power in the hands of a few is so dangerous. But that won't stop liberals for calling for more corruption - I mean more regulation. Barney Frank, the guy who protected Fannie and Freddie from regulation while his lover worked there, promoted the subprime crisis and who wrote much of the TARP legislation, is interfering with regulators for political gain too.

The Marines have been trying to get out of Iraq for a while. They feel they are being used as army forces, not their marine specialties. I'm all for transferring them to Afghanistan as quickly as possible without endangering Iraq.

US intercepts Iranian ship carrying weapons to Syria, most likely ultimately to arm Hezbollah. Even though international law prohibits Iran from shipping weapons, there's no enforcement in the law, so the US allows the shipment to continue. You have to be kidding me.

John Boehner lists 12 important facts that the media won't tell you about the Democrats' phony $825 billion stimulus boondoggle. Congressman provides scary insight in the mentality behind Obama's stimulus boondoggle - get the money to the people with best lobbying campaigns ASAP.

Mises scholar and Lincoln historian eviscerates the legend of Lincoln. Wow.

Radley Balko exposes the tremendous costs of the war on drugs?

In a big boost to the free media crowd, Monty Python's DVD sales skyrocket after the material appears on YouTube.

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals attack conservatives with such classless ferocity, then claim that conservative are intolerant. Democrats are mean and divisive in their attacks on Republicans, then they turn around and demand Republicans work with them. Bush held out an olive branch to Democrats for 8 years, and the Democrats spit on him and called him names, but they call Bush divisive. It's ridiculous.

Free kibbles

Obama Treasury Sec. nominee Geithner attacks China for artificially devaluing yuan. This is a joke. The Fed devalues our dollar every day, printing money out of thin air, but we complain that the Chinese link the yuan to the dollar, and if this was unfair. The low currency subsidizes China's exports, meaning American consumers buy Chinese exports for less than they really would cost, at the cost of its imports, meaning the Chinese pay more for products than they otherwise would. This is wonderful for Americans because Americans can buy a Chinese product and have money left over to buy other things as opposed to if they bought the product at regular price. This benefits the US economy, creating jobs in America, at the expense of the Chinese. Yet our government wants China to stop because of political pressure. We're our own worst enemy.

I hope everybody sleeps better now that scientists say black holes created by the Large Hadron Collider should shrink faster than they grow. Let's risk the entire planet on should.

Pat Buchanan is giddy like a school girl over Barack Obama's speech. Maybe he's forgotten that actions, in this case radical leftist policies matter, not hot air.

When Joe the Plumber hadn't paid his taxes, liberals set him up in front of a firing squad. When Obama's Treasury Sec. nominee Geithner hadn't paid taxes, liberals called it an innocent mistake that shouldn't stop him from being chief tax collector. Double standard? Not as far as liberals are concerned. This story would have more merit if Republicans hadn't sat on the sidelines while liberals attacked the Joe the Plumber then welcomed Geithner to the above the law aristocrat society. This is a fine example of the big government corruption of both parties.

Free kibbles

It's a sad indictment of Obama and liberals in general that Obama's first priority upon taking office was protecting terrorists and endangering the American people. It's even more important to him than his imminent redistribution of wealth. In Obama's America, terrorists come first at the expense of Americans. Frankly, this is nothing but a PR stunt, he doesn't have a clue or a plan on how to actually close Guantanamo, to help him push his radical leftist domestic agenda. I hope the American people are angered enough to rise up and put an end to Obama's radicalism. Congress declared war on al Qaeda and its affiliates, just as it declared war on the Germans in WWII. We should execute al Qaeda's top terrorists just like we executed top Nazis, and we should hold al Qaeda's enemy combatants until the end of this war just like we held German enemy combatants until the end of WWII.

We like to think of security as some vague federal program, but security is always intensely personal. Terrorists are stopped by people, not manuals, white papers or debates. Obama's smack in the face of our security personnel who have sacrificed their lives figuratively, and many literally, by ordering the close of Guantanamo will hurt our security. The professionals will do their best not to let if affect their jobs, but at some level, it will affect them. For all President Bush's failures, he had one major success - he kept us safe. In contrast, Obama has already weakened our security forces.

Obama's inauguration ceremony was the most watched since Reagan's in 1981. Even given the historic event of a black man becoming president, Obama cannot rally the American people like Reagan. That's because he advocates terrible socialist policies that will harm America.

Caroline Kennedy withdraws from consideration for Senate appointment. Could she be more of a flake? Apparently Patterson was appoint this flake to a Senate for his own selfish motives, so she saved the country that embarrassment. Tax and housekeeper issues may have derailed her bid. Everywhere you look, corrupt aristocrats abound.

Layoffs at Microsoft, Intel and IBM. My buddies at AMD are taking a 10 percent pay cut.

The Congressional Budget Office says Obama's stimulus package won't stimulate jobs right away. It should also say that for ever job it creates, it will destroy a more efficient job in the private sector, but it doesn't. The goal should not be to create jobs. It should be to increase production through improved efficiency because that will create the most valuable jobs.

Iraq ambassador Crocker says pulling out of Iraq too soon may allow al Qaeda to have a resurgence. Obama knows that, he knew that when he promised to pull out in 16 months over a year ago. He just doesn't care. But he ought to.

Just days after Israel stopped it's assault, Gazan's already have their smuggling tunnels operational so they can rearm Hamas. It seemed from the news I read that Israel had Hamas on the ropes, then let them off again. Why couldn't Israel use troops to thoroughly shut down the tunnels? Maybe that's wrong. Maybe Israel wasn't near to crushing Hamas. But I don't see how that could be. I think Israel is just derelict in in its duty to protect Israelis. I bet Hamas's weapons come by tunnel and sea.

Congressmen are using their positions to pressure the Treasure Dept. to funnel funds to their favorite donors. I hope nobody is surprised by this. I hope everybody understand that ever dollar we send to government gets used to increase the power of the aristocrats against us. This is the nature of government.

Woman having trouble making car payment tells collection agency that this years she's going to be rich because of Barack Obama.

As low as Bush's approval ratings are, Truman and Nixon left office with lower approval ratings.

More Americans watched American Idol than watched Obama's inauguration. This inauguration was hugely over-hyped, and I should have known better. It's a shame more Americans weren't excited by the inauguration of the first black (even if only half black) president. Obama failed to even unite the nation for that one, truly fabulously historic moment, and that's as good for Obama as it will ever get.

What good will freezing the pay of White House staff for a year do? Most people have the same salary for a year at a time, now so will White House staff (over $100,000). This is absolutely meaningless. If they're overpaid, lower their salaries. If they're not, don't use them as pawn to make meaningless symbolic gestures.

GM to run out of money by March. Good thing we didn't waste taxpayer money by guaranteeing any loans to it. Oh, wait...

Dutch prosecutors try filmmaker for anti-Islamic statements. When liberals talk about change, they're talking about changing America like this.

Book claims that WWII was the second phase of the New Deal and Roosevelt undermined German resistance movements to keep the war from ending before the 1940 election, fearing he would otherwise lose. This is pretty amazing stuff, and quite an indictment of Roosevelt.

George Bush will include a Freedom Institute in his presidential library. You've got to be kidding me. Is he just stabbing us in the eye one last time?

Cato reminds us that government regulation and Fed policy created this financial crisis. A second analysis shows that government spending make the problem worse, not better. I wish these experts would add in the effect of the income tax. I'm sure they're looking at what changed, the CRA rules, federal housing regulator lending policies, Fannie and Freddie, and the Fed's interest rate, but the income tax is a persistent perverter of our economy, punishing savings and investment and rewarding debt, and it played a role in the bubble as well.

Executive summary of the House stimulus boondoggle.

White House won't use tracking cookies for users who visit its site unless the page visited has a YouTube video embedded. Why?

Cato scholar explains that our efforts in Afghanistan, much like our efforts in Iraq, are hampered by our myopic devotion to central power. Just like the central government in Iraq couldn't stop the insurgency, neither can the central government in Afghanistan. US forces teamed up with local sheiks in Iraq to defeate the insurgency, and it looks like we'll have to work with tribal leader in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban.

But to anybody except a government aristocrat, this is obvious. Power flows from the grassroots up. Our plan to impose democracy in Iraq from the top-down cost lives and nearly cost us victory. We're losing the war in Afghanistan because of the same failed idea, and have been from the beginning. Why didn't we start by working at the grassroots level, build up infrastructure and institutions at that level, and allow the countries to build upwards to a central government of their own devising? The aristocrats in Washington have been so corrupted by the power we've surrendered to them for so long, they think power flows from the top down. That's our mistake, giving them too much power, and it's costing lives.

Author shows that Barack Obama has surrounded himself with people with ethical and corruption problems. Coming from Illinois, that's what makes Obama comfortable.

Walter Williams explains how Lincoln used the Emancipation Proclamation to pretend the civil war was about freeing slaves because the war was going poorly for the North and he was afraid Europe might begin trading with the South. Obama has picked Lincoln, who started the bloodiest war and stomped on the Constitution more than any president in history, and FDR, who got us in the second bloodiest war and was second only to Lincoln in stomping on the Constitution, as his role models. That's just scary.

Dick Morris aptly describes Obama's stimulus package as a trojan horse for radical liberal policies.

I have a feeling this blackberry is going to become a real issue in the future. Is Obama's blackberry email archived the same as other email? I wouldn't be surprised if one of the reasons Obama is addicted to his blackberry is he used it to keep questionable exchanges private. I wouldn't be surprised if he does it with this one too. How was President Bush's personal email separated from non-personal? What if the president sends email to another official and mentions that some lobbyist is good looking? What if he calls Osama bin Laden an dirty name? Is that archived?

Supreme Court upholds search, seizure and subsequent conviction of man even though arrest warrant had expired. Government negligence negates the Bill of Rights. Then why put an experation date on them? Why not just make them permanent? I'd like to know which justices voted with Roberts. I can guess.

Reason advocates replacing government's monopoly on schools with schools run by teacher-entrepreneurs.

Reason gives a us funny but telling list of all the economic wisdom that has been turned upside down during this crisis.

Reason says it's time to stop the cycle of spending. I'm sure that will stop Obama and Democrats and their trillions in new debt in their tracks.

Reason provides a great essay explaining why I say Obama is like Bush on steroids, doubling down on Bush's failed policies. Increased government spending and debt helped drive this crisis. Democrats want to further increase spending and debt. Irresponsible policies to put people into homes they couldn't afford created an oversupply of housing. Obama and Democrats want to invest more in housing, even though that started this economic crisis. Bush dramatically increased regulation of the economy, helping create this crisis. Democrats want even more regulation of the economy.

Canadian students owe $13 billion in loans. When government subsidized education, people who don't really want it will go for it and most won't succeed. The result is debt for them and for taxpayers.

College student arrested for participating in huge snowball fight with 200 other students. Give me a break.

The US coast guard is operating in waters near Columbia to capture nacro semi-submarines.

We pay ridiculous expenses to retired presidents, especially Bill Clinton.

Obama nominee Geithner advocates "most forceful course"

This headline from Treasury Sec. nominee Geithner's confirmation hearings might be the best example that Obama will say and do anything to get his radical liberal agenda passed: Geithner pledges swift, bold fix to financial system. Barring freeing the financial system from government coercion and returning to a free market financial system, there is no swift, bold fix, and that certainly isn't in Geithner's plans. Making sure he's all things to all people, Geithner also promises to limit government spending. Ha!

In fact, Geithner provided scary insight into Obama's theory of governance with this quote, "The most prudent course is the most forceful course." We all know government is force, and Obama intends force his broken policies on us. In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek explained how government intervention in our economy always fails, and the result is always calls for more government intervention. Eventually the call comes for the strong man to use force to make the system work. In his testimoney, Geithner explains that other government interventions have failed because government didn't use enough force. Hayek laid out a roadmap to serfdom in tyranny, and Obama is intent on taking us there.

“The most prudent course is the most forceful course,” Geithner said to members of the Senate Finance Committee.
He said the history of financial crises is one of governments responding too slowly and with too little force.
He also said that short-term stimulus and stabilization were not the only key ingredients for economic recovery. Also vital, he said, are longer term policies to promote new industries and budget plans that will steer the federal government away from big deficits toward fiscal sustainability.
“We as a nation will return to living within our means,” he said, citing the need for an exit strategy from the extraordinary commitments of federal dollars to rescue the financial system during the current recession.

Give us a multi-trillion blank check to implement the most radical leftist agenda in American history, and right after we're done, we'll be fiscally responsible. What kind of idiot would buy this crap? The things these radical leftists are throwing around would be absolutely astounding if they weren't serious. If you think I'm joking about the multi-trillion blank check:

“Fiscal stimulus and other measures likely will require the Treasury to issue $4 trillion or more in additional federal debt,” Mr. Berner writes in a new research report. “For now investors are buying.”

I just can't help but laugh at the millions of people and all the moderate talking heads who assured us that Obama was moderate. Laughing all the way to the food lines. We can thank Bush, Democrat lies, and the lies of the media for this radical nutjob.

Free kibbles

The stock market took its worst inauguration dive in history.

Many people, including liberals, were disappointed with Obama's pedestrian speech because the speech was about lowering expectations, which he sorely needs, instead of being uplifting. Obama takes the oath of office a second time because Chief Justice Roberts messed up the wording the first time. I guess some loons were saying he wasn't really president because they flubbed the oath. Hopefully this will put that to bed. Too bad Obama wasn't as forthcoming with his birth certificate, and you can't help but wonder why he wasn't.

Funny how liberals were up in arms about Rick Warren leading a prayer at Obama's inauguration, but they don't seem to mind Joseph Lowery's racially charged prayer.

Why each session does this Democrat propose a constitutional amendment repealing the 22 amendment so presidents can serve as many terms as they want? He must want the US to become a dictatorship.

I'm glad Teddy Kennedy is doing well after his seizure.

Obama presidential website takes shot at Bush over Katrina. That's no class. He could promise to help the people of New Orleans without taking a personal shot at Bush.

At least somebody in Britain understands that Barack Obama has no clothes and the effect his policies will have on America and the world economy. People dying of starvation in the streets, like the Great Depression but worse, seem an exaggeration. I don't think that much damage will happen until the entitlement crisis happens. The only way Obama could do that much damage in one term is if the Fairness Doctrine and net neutrality are passed, allowing government to quash all media but their mainstream media allies, then dragging us into the looming entitlement crisis.

Wonderful analogy by Mises scholar explains how saving and investing in increased production strengthen the economy why spending and printing money can't. This is a great essay to teach the basics of economics. The analogy works so well because it is based on a barter system and removes money from the analysis.

Alabama governor wages war against bingo.

Trying to create a bioweapon, al Qaeda terror cell dies from the plague and spreads it to other terror cells. Obviously non-terrorists will catch it as well.

Hillary Clinton is now Secretary of State. She was approved 94 to 2 despite Bill's conflicts of interest. These crooks running Washington parade their corruption right in public, and we don't just sit back and take it, we keep re-electing them. We're our own worst enemy.

Cato scholar lists 14 times Bush increased government involvement in our lives, showing that Bush was never a supporter of free markets or anything with the word free in it despite his rhetoric.

John Stossel points out that liberals are almost always against choice.