Free kibbles

US and Russia agree to reduce nuclear weapons. That's excellent. We should also try to negotiate a freeze from all other nuclear powers.

US troops killed in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda isn't there any more, and we shouldn't be either.

China cracks down on protesters. China claims protesters were violent. Protesters claim they were peaceful until Chinese military fired on them.

Incumbent party takes a beating in Mexico. Outright warfare in the streets will do that. At least the leftists took a worse beating.

Cato explains that GM will suffer more than other car companies under Obama's CAFE standards, but I expect GM to get a waiver for those. He also calls for higher taxes to change people's behavior. That's the opposite of libertarianism. What is wrong with Cato?

Succinct summary of the science of politics:

"The main science of political economy is the science of obtaining and retaining power. As far as expertise goes, the pollster, the fundraiser, and the media expert are all fundamental to the operation. The public policy expert is for decoration. If you want to be an economic policy adviser when you grow up, then my advice is to learn to rationalize the methods used by leading politicians to obtain power.

Is health care reform about health care? No, it is about seizing and retaining power. Was the stimulus about stimulus? No, was about seizing and retaining power. Is cap and trade about global warming? No, it is about seizing and retaining power. Was TARP about saving the financial system? No, it was about seizing and retaining power."

Absolutely.

US budget history receipts, outlays and GDP.

States raise taxes on tourists to balance budgets. This will backfire by reducing tourism.

This is sums it up nicely: Tax and trade costs a lot and does little. Some details on the tree planting section of the tax and trade bill. List of 50 most outrageous reasons why the tax and trade bill is bad.

"Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison."

Lovely.

Crony capitalism has grown in Washington for a century at least. It just reached new a new level during the Bush/Obama administration.

Victor Davis Hansen gives a primer on how to be a murderous, leftist dictator and win the hearts and minds of western so-called liberal elites. Funny because it's so accurate.

Describing Obama's explosive growth in government, Mark Steyn shows his skill with words.

"The Congressional cap-and-trade shtick would be tired even if it weren’t the familiar boondoggle of tax hikes, big-government micro-regulation, and pork-a-palooza pay-offs to preferred clients of the Democratic party. Granted that carbon credits were already a dubious racket equivalent to the sale of “indulgences” in medieval Europe, the decision by Congressional power-brokers to give away credits to well-connected Democratic party interests surely represents the environmental movement’s formal Jumping of the Endangered Great White Shark."

He quotes the EPA, which is foaming at the mouth to get more money and power to regulate CO2, but apparently is occasionally forced to still be honest:

"Fossil fuel and cement emissions increased by 3.3 percent per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.3 percent per year in the 1990s. Similarly, atmospheric C02 concentrations increased by 1.93 parts per million per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.58 ppm in the 1990s. And yet, despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there’s been no net warming in the 21st century, and more accurately, a decline."

As Europeans shrink their governments, we're growing ours.

"The Swedes have reduced government spending (as a fraction of GDP) by almost a third in the last 15 years. Their corporate tax rates are lower than ours. And that’s before Obama’s raised them. Last week, the donut chain Tim Hortons, which operates on both sides of the border but is incorporated in the state of Delaware, announced that it was reorganizing itself as a Canadian corporation to take advantage of Canadian tax rates."

President Obama knows what he's doing will harm the country just like it harmed Europe and Canada. His goal is to harm the country bad enough to spark Marxist revolution.

Cato outlines the basics for free market health care reform. It sounds a lot like McCain's plan, which was a pretty good, incrementally improved plan.

El Paso has one of the lowest crime rates in America because it's packed with immigrants. This doesn't surprise me, and while it does debunk hysteria about immigrants and crime, it's not an argument for legalizing illegal immigrants.

Economist predicts 14 percent unemployment in the near future because of declining investment. This quote really sums up the ineffectiveness of government stimulus:

""Stimulus" is based upon the superstition that government borrowing and spending creates "demand". In reality, it does no such thing. "Stimulus" is like trying to raise the level of the Hudson River by dipping out a bucket of water, walking five feet downstream, and pouring it back in. The only difference between the Bush and Obama plans is that Obama's bucket is bigger (and will create more debt). Ironically, the July 2 jobs report prompted calls from leftist economists for Obama to go back to the river with an even bigger bucket.

While doing nothing to boost demand, Obama's "stimulus" will depress PBI, and therefore employment. This is because the "stimulus" plan requires selling an additional $787 billion in government bonds. The money to buy these bonds will have to come from somewhere, and much of it will come from people who would otherwise invest in starting or expanding businesses. Indeed, the bonds will have to be priced so that this risk-free investment is more attractive to investors than their other alternatives."

But Obama's stimulus was never intended to actually stimulate the economy. It was to strengthen his power base for the worse times he's bringing down on us.

Graph shows that domestic investment is lower than it was after 9/11. Ouch. There is no recovery without investment.

The Service Employers International Union is going after Bank of America. The SEIU is starting to sound a lot like ACORN. No wonder the head of the union has unusual access to Pharaoh Obama. Of course, if BofA had just gone bankrupt like it should have, this wouldn't be happening.

I love this quote from George Will's essay highlighting the gubernatorial candidacy of ex-eBay CEO:

"California's cascading crises prefigure America's future unless Washington reverses the growth of government subservient to organized labor. The state cannot pay its bills, poorly educates its young, and its taxation punishes whatever success that its suffocating regulatory regime does not prevent."

This SEIU guy is pushing to make the entire US like California as fast as possible.

It's ironic that Obama, who ran as the change candidate, has spent so much of our money from stopping change, like the collapse of AIG, BofA, Chrysler and GM, in America.

"Obama and his team seem sharply opposed to the view that creative destruction is a valuable economic force. They seem happy with what might be called destructive destruction – the obliteration of value and wealth without any resulting positive change."

Tell me about it. In some cases Obama is trying to freeze us in the collapsed present, and in others he's trying to take us backwards with proven failed policies, but in no area is allowing the people to move forward.

"Socialist states emerge over time because entrenched interests like organized labor achieve a position from which they can extract extra sustenance from successful firms. Workers who have won a higher wage than their productivity would rationalize do not want old things to die, or new things to be created.

Whether he is socialist or not, by embracing the idea of destructive destruction, Obama is giving such stakeholders exactly what they want, and threatening to suck the vibrancy out of our economy."

This is exactly Obama's plan. Why are people so loath to say he's doing it on purpose? Fear of Obama's media attack dogs? Fear of retribution from the government? Every intelligent person knows the consequences of Obama's plans. The press knows it. Obama's army of czars knows it. He knows it. He's doing it on purpose.

Lots of charts show just how bad our economy really is. One good sign is people are paying off household debt at record levels. Funny this comes from the Daily Kos.

This article on food stamps is ridiculously biased, proving the contention that the Wall Street Journal's news division is liberal. It just assumes that food stamps help the economy because it enabled farmers to hire assistants. But it doesn't explain that the taxes to pay for the food stamps cost jobs elsewhere. The article doesn't even provide one paragraph for dealing with the costs. Like Economics in One Lesson makes clear, in economics you have to examine the seen (farmer's assistant) and the unseen (lost jobs elsewhere).

China allows companies to trade in yuan in an attempt to become less dependent on the dollar.

US history of labor unions starting in colonial times.

Judge denies journalist shield laws to blogger.

Pretty good arguments for secession. We already see how states differentiate as they compete for people, jobs, wealth, etc. Just imagine how much better our lives would be if the 50 states competed without the overwhelming burden of the Federal government. Because the Federal government is so burdensome, state income taxes seem small by comparison. But without that Federal income tax, states with no income tax would powerfully thrive while states with income taxes would suffer tremendous population loss and quickly slide into destitution. It would be impossible for a state to survive if it had an income tax. Same with other taxes, regulations, mandates, subsidies and every other burden of government. People would be phenomenally richer, healthier and happier, our environment would be far cleaner, our children would be the best educated in the world all because of the dramatic effects of competition between the states. Every state would have a small military that would be useless for sending overseas on its own so we wouldn't be fighting foreign wars.

For her book deal, Sarah Palin negotiated exclusively with a publishers owned by Rupert Murdoch. After the way the other news organizations treated her, who can blame her?