Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Student loan companies cut jobs because Obama seized control of student loans.

FASCISM:

I'm not the only one who sees America has reached the fascist phase on the Road to Serfdom. This author, Naomi Wolf, a progressive and feminist, also recognizes that Obama is worse than Bush because he's building on the power grabs of Bush. She gets it unlike anybody on the left I've heard of. Libertarians get it. Some conservatives get it, and that's how the tea parties started. But liberals don't get it yet.
"In her bestselling End of America, Naomi Wolf outlines the 10 warning signs that America is headed toward a fascist takeover. Using historical precedents, she explains how our government is mimicking those of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin through practices like surveillance of ordinary citizens, restricting the press, developing paramilitary forces and arbitrarily detaining people."
Italy and Germany collapsed at that phase in WWII. Russia obviously went further down the road into communism - leading to even more murders and war. I vote for turning around now.
"It’s not just her message. She speaks their language, referring to the Founding Fathers and American Revolution as models, admitting to a profound sense of fear, warning of tyranny, fascism, Nazism and martial law. When Glenn Beck warns of these things we laugh. When Wolf draws those same connections, we listen. How can both sides be speaking the same language, yet see things so differently? Or are we just not listening to each other?"
This is easy to explain. Government is inherently divisive - it divides people into winners and losers at the point of a gun, looters and lootees - and the bigger government gets, the more divisive it becomes Our government is the biggest government in human history, therefore it's hyper-divisive. It prompts racism and political violence. It creates secret police. Because of that conservatives refuse to acknowledge right-wing fascist policies and liberals refuse to acknowledge left-wing fascist policies. Each administration and Congress expands on the power grabs of the previous one, further dividing the country. This isn't rocket science. The two party system which excludes other political ideas, adds to the division. The two parties are dividing us, conquering us and turning America into a fascist country. This is a fantastic interview, and I strongly recommend everybody read it - especially liberals - although how she justifies her double-standard between her rhetoric and Glenn Beck's is comical.


The federal government is investigating death threats posted in comments of anti-health care oppression blog. This is classic fascism - intimidating the opposition into silence. Of course government violence on the scale of Obamacare prompts people to respond with threats. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to rant. It includes freedom to say stupid things in frustration about the violence government is perpetrating on the people. It doesn't include freedom from consequences. If somebody incites another to murder, he can be held accountable after the fact, but only after the fact. As the IRS spokesman makes clear in this article, the IRS agents are armed and dangerous, not the citizens. But the simple fact is, the more oppressive government gets, the political violence it will inspire. The solution is simple - embrace freedom.

ECONOMY:

Congratulations to Obama, Bernanke, Geithner and Democrats. They've managed to convince Americans to stop saving money so our economy won't rebound.
"The pickup in purchases has caused the household savings rate to drop to the lowest level in more than a year, underscoring the need for more jobs to ensure the recovery is maintained."
We're heading for a second big collapse of the economy, and Democrats have put me in the position of hoping it happens before November instead of after. I hate that they put me in that position.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Peter Schiff says Bernanke has never gotten anything right. Good for him.

TAX AND SPEND:

Liberals aways say that we need more taxes, but none of them donate more of their money to Virginia's tax me more fund.

Democrat dominated states like New York, New Jersey and California about to collapse under the debt liberal policies created. Democrats in Washington know this, and they know their policies will do the same to the Federal government. They're doing it to us on purpose.

New York considering legislation that would make it impossible to fire a union employee - ever. I'm telling you, they're doing it to us on purpose.

EDUCATION:

Another terrible consequence of government schools that warps people for life and degrades society.
"The unfortunate byproduct of all of this is the fact that studies have shown that for many children, their peer groups are more influential to them, and more important for them, than their families. This is a strictly recent and modern development, and is the result of so many parents simply abandoning their prerogatives as parents to the schools."
What do you expect when children are forced at the point of the government's gun to attend these disciplineless, cookie-cutter government schools run by bureaucrats? Great quote from the Onion.

HEALTH CARE:

Study shows Obamacare will raise rates on young, healthy people by 17 percent. That's the change they voted for. But this analysis is not complete. Young, healthy people will quit buying insurance, causing a bigger problem than we have already. Another report of rising premiums.

Prudential takes a write-down because of Obamacare expenses. As much as Waxman and Democrats would love to silence these corporations, they have a fiduciary responsibility to inform their shareholders of these expenses, so they'll probably continue.

The pro-life Democrats who suddenly switched their votes at the last minute to pass Obamacare are requesting $3.4 billion in earmarks. They drove a hard bargain. That's how Pelosi and Obama used our money to buy those votes.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Despite the spectacular exposure of the global warming fraud over the last six months and the Obamacare debacle, Lindsay Graham is helping Democrats pass global warming legislation.
"Three senior US lawmakers are piecing together a sweeping bipartisan energy and climate bill, which looks set to include sweeteners to galvanise support among Republicans and industry groups."
You know other Republicans are going to jump on board.

President Obama says he's open to the idea of offshore drilling. That a buck will get you a cup of McCafe. He didn't say he supported offshore drilling (even if he had, you couldn't believe him). Obama's playing word games again. Don't fall for it. This is just a ploy to get Republican Senators to vote for tax and trade.

POLICES STATE:

Criminals aren't known for their brains, ideologue's especially, but this story about the yahoos in Michigan is absurd.
"The indictment said Hutaree, a small, armed militia group based in rural southeast Michigan, had practiced attacks and other military maneuvers for more than a year, and had planned to use homemade bombs like those used against U.S. forces by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bombs were the key part of the alleged plot to attack the funeral of a law-enforcement officer, the indictment said.
After that attack, the group planned to retreat to a remote "rally point" from which members would resist an expected response by the government, sparking what Hutaree's alleged leader, David Brian Stone, hoped would be a wider uprising against the government, the indictment said. FBI agent Andrew Arena called Hutaree "an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society.""
You could make it your entire life's mission to find nine Americans to do this, and you never would. It's baloney. This is a group of yahoos rightly upset about government oppression who entertained fantasies inflamed by federal agents but never intended to act on them, but after a long courtship, one of them was stupid enough to be seduced by the federal agents into trying to obtain an IED. It's a crock. It's part of an orchestrated campaign to make Christians, limited government activists and tea party groups look like Bill Ayers except that Bill Ayers hangs out at the White House with Barack Obama.
"The group used tiger-striped camouflage uniforms, the indictment said."
OMG! Anybody wearing camo must be a bomb throwing lunatic. The only people who can be trusted are the ones wearing the Che Guevara T-shirts.
"Some of the same conditions that last led to a surge of militias in the early 1990s—a tough economic environment and a Democratic administration in the White House—prevail today, investigators said."
Wait a minute. I thought the 90s was a time of great peace and prosperity. I guess that narrative bit the dust as soon as Obama needed an enemy to physically point his gun at. This is pure Alinsky again.
"The election of Barack Obama as the country's first African-American president has galvanized some white supremacist in parts of the militia universe. Domestic terrorism from armed groups not connected to Islamic ideology is possible, said Lydia Khalil, a counter-terrorism researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York."
Of course. The white, Christian tea partiers are the ones we have to fear terrorism from, not radical Muslims, says the Muslim quoted by the paper.
"Hutaree has a MySpace page listing more than 300 "friends," some of which are members of other militia groups."
300 "friends"! Let's all panic! This article makes me want to puke.
"Authorities came in with their guns out, she said, and spent about three hours searching the premises, taking, among other things, Bibles, her cell phone, notebooks, a camouflage military jacket and a belt buckle reading, "God, Guns and Guts.""
Bibles, notebooks, a camo jacket and belt buckle? Get a rope. Wait. Hangin's too good for'em. They might even have had.... firearms. Maybe we should feed them to the pigs.
"Mr. Piatek frequently wore Army fatigue pants and combat boots, "but I never suspected he would do anything dangerous. It just seemed like he had a hobby of military stuff." She trusted Mr. Piatek enough that she felt comfortable working night shifts alone because he pledged to keep an eye on her."
Keeping an eye on a working alone at night is evil.
"This is the real deal, this is scary."
Yes it is. I think Eric Holder saved his job.

FOREIGN POLICY:

If Russia's priority was to eliminate the Chechen terrorists, it would free Chechnya.

POLITICS:

As I predicted, now that Obamacare is passed and Democrats have cut their own throats, they're going to the far left and trying to ram through Karl Marx's wish list.
"Democrats are counting on this fall's elections to be a battle of the bases -- enthusiastic liberals against inflamed conservatives.












The party may take a beating at the ballot box, but an enthusiastic liberal base will hold losses down and leave the president with a governing majority. Or so the argument goes.
Now that Obamacare is the law of the land, Democrats promise to take on global warming, card check, immigration and a regulatory crackdown on banks."
This shows how government is inherently divisive, and big-government is extremely divisive. They want to do as much damage as possible before the election and hope to excite the Bill Ayers wing of the party enough to stay in power. Barack Obama is winning. We're losing. The problem is that moderate Democrats will get creamed and the leftists won't. Maybe some of them will lose too. Look at Massachusetts.


Obama's recess appointments are another example of how Obama has split his own party but the press makes it out that this is all partisanship. No. Republicans didn't have enough votes to block any appointments. Democrats joined the Republicans in blocking them. The media refuses to point that out.


When I want to know about the tea partiers, I don't go to Barack Obama.


Obama Medicare nominee claims our health care system is racist. This self-serving baloney would be funny if it wasn't so dangerous.


MEDIA:


New York Times columnist compares the Fed's printing press to magic. People who believe in magic should be in padded rooms, not writing about economics. Remember the Fed is private bank controlled by government. It's a fascist institution that has a monopoly on the production of money. Newspapers are supposed to be skeptical of government and big corporations. I haven't noticed much skepticism lately.


MISC:


List of outrageously oppressive actions by the British government.


China shuts down Google. Let's see how this plays out over time.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Free kibbles

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

As concealed carry permits have expanded, the number of people killed by others with guns drops. Duh.

TAX AND SPEND:

How animals benefit from private welfare because the government hasn't seized control of animal welfare and ruined it. The same would be true for human welfare if the government hadn't seized control and ruined it.

Here goes Boortz blaming our debt problems on Democrats again.
"There was a time .. all the way back when George Bush was president in 2008 .. when the CBO outlook projected a $247 billion SURPLUS for 2009 through 2018. Now we are looking at a $7.4 trillion deficit."
All that shows us is the CBO is worthless. It shows that even in 2008 the CBO couldn't predict the crash of 2008 any more than the Fed, government economists, or any of the preeminent economists. The only people who predicted it were the Austrian economists. But the Fed is continuing the same actions, only bigger and more destructive, that created this crisis. Obama is continuing the same big-government philosophy Bush did, only bigger and more destructive. Democrats are doing everything wrong, but Republicans did too, so quit pretending only Democrats are at fault.


HEALTH CARE:


Despite all the companies reporting their costs will rise dramatically because of Obamacare, Obama administration claims companies will be far better off under Obamacare. This seems like ignorance to Boortz. He's wrong. Along with Waxman's intimidation of the companies that announced write-downs and the efforts by the left-wing press, this is part of an orchestrated campaign by Democrats and their allies to convince Americans companies will be better off even though they know it's not true. They expect their subpoenas to silence any corporations who would speak out. They expect the media to ignore such reports and only report the Obama mantra. The expect that in a couple of months nobody will remember these write-downs because the press will have propagated the Big Lie on their behalf. They expect by November, the Big Lie will have convinced a bunch of voters that Obamacare is a good thing.

EDUCATION:

Dealing with bullies is a part of growing up, but kids are supposed to have adult help with it. One of the myriad things that government fail at is providing that help. But this girl and her parents are solely responsible for her suicide. Criminalizing kids for taunting another kids is nuts. The school administrators should have shut the bullies down or expelled them, and they should be fired for failing to do so, but the bullies shouldn't face charges.

POLICE STATE:

Now they have cops decked out in full military gear patrolling New York City subways. I'd find another way to travel.

POLITICS:

Sarah Palin is campaigning for big-government, Republican establishment candidate John McCain. Does she support the tea party ideals? Does she support the big-government, establishment Republican corruption? Does she know the difference? Is she just an opportunist?

Super-long list of Obama lies and when he broke them.

Video debunks claim that tea partier intentionally spit on black Congressman at the health care oppression protest on March 20th at the Capitol.

MEDIA:

In a further attempt to diminish the tea party movement, the New York Times compares it to the Weather Underground. Obama has to hate that the New York Times brought Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground, people who bombed their own country, back into the political debate. Obama is working for Bill Ayers's agenda, not the American people's. This is probably the opening salvo in another coordinated attack which included busting that militia group. The press will probably claim that militia group is representative of the tea parties and compare it to the Weather Underground.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Free kibbles

LIBERTY:

Mises scholar attempts to address that point I keep making about anarchy: it's a fiction because no matter what, there's always a government.
"Now the anarchists believe you can have private institutions provide law, justice, defense, without necessarily engaging in systematic and institutionalized aggression–that is, without being a state. Whether you want to call such institutions “government” or not seems to me to be purely semantic, esp. if we grant there is a distinction between state and government. The remaining question is simply what type of government the “minarchists” (?) favor: do they favor a government that has the authority to commit institutionalized aggression, or not? If they do, then they are pro-state, since such a government is a state. If they do not, they are anarchists, it seems to me, since private, non-state, non-aggressive institutions of law, justice, and defense is exactly what we anarchists favor."
This is why I continue to advocate we take away the government's power to tax which is aggression. We should also get rid of eminent domain and limit laws to those who have committed aggression against others. But that doesn't take away government. There's still going to be an entity that captures, tries and punishes criminals. There's still going to be an entity that provides for the common defense. That's government.

SOCIALISM:

US to sell shares of bailed out Citigroup, ostensibly at a profit. This will encourage government to bailout and socialize more companies. This is not a good thing. Worse yet, the profit is an illusion created by inflationary monetary policy. We'll have to pay for it through the inflation tax.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Government intimidating corporations which talk about the costs they'll suffer because of Obamacare into silence. Behind closed doors at these hearings, Congress will threaten to nationalize the companies if they continue to point out the problems with Democrat policies.

ECONOMY:

Even Ben Bernanke doesn't believe government's phony economic growth statistics.
"The revised news from Washington is that the economy grew at a 5.6% rate in the 4th quarter of 2009. The folks who grind the numbers at the Commerce Department credit huge inventory adjustments, robust business investments and recovering consumer spending for the fastest pace of economic growth in six years.








This is one day after Fed Chief Ben Bernanke testified that he needs to keep rates low to help the economy recover. In prepared testimony for the House Financial Services Committee, he said, "the economy continues to require the support of accommodative monetary policies." And responding to questions, Bernanke reaffirmed that the high level of unemployment and low rate of inflation will continue to justify very low rates "for an extended period."

So evidently the Fed chairman either doesn't believe the phony numbers produced down the street from his office, or he has something to "support" with interest rates just north of zero."
What a charade.

TAX AND SPEND:

Once again Boortz pretends that our financial problems are all caused by Democrats, completely ignoring the role Republicans played in orchestrating the economic crises we're sinking deeper into. Yes, Democrats are doing everything wrong, but Republicans did too, if on a smaller scale.

REGULATION:

Regulators make it hard on banks.
"“David Bridgeman, CEO of Pinnacle Bank in Orange City, Fla., described his last examination in November as ‘overwhelming.’ Twenty-one examiners from both the FDIC and the state showed up at his tiny 28-employee bank for the month-long review, spilling into two conference rooms. Typically, he says, about eight examiners complete a review in two weeks."
It's kind of hard to make any loans or money in that environment.

HEALTH CARE:

New study shows fatty foods affect the brain like cocaine and heroin. Of course this study is intended to prompt Democrats to start telling us what we can and can't eat, but the real message behind this story is that the bad effects of cocaine and heroin have been crossly overstated. Tens of millions of Americans have used them with no ill effects. Addiction has been grossly misrepresented. The people we call addicts are responsible for their own choices like everybody else.

This is the British model for health care that Democrats are foisting on us. This is our future.
"Tens of thousands of NHS workers would be sacked, hospital units closed and patients denied treatments under secret plans for £20 billion of health cuts.







...
The sick would be urged to stay at home and email doctors rather than visit surgeries, while procedures such as hip replacements could be scrapped."
As I said explained last year, the profit motive in the United States lifted up every health care system in the world. Because of the profit motive, we created most of the new equipment, new drugs and new procedures and exported them overseas. Now that Obamacare has passed and limits profits and procedures must be government approved, the US will no longer perform that function. The US will no longer be able to lift up our own health care system, let alone others around the world. The world will fall into a new dark ages of health care, and Britain is leading the way. We're right behind. Between the destruction of our economy by government and Obamacare, Americans have yet to grasp how deadly US government policies are to Americans and people all over the world.

Ron Paul talks about rights and Obamacare.
"Americans, he said, have misunderstood the definition of "rights," which are God-given and include "life, liberty and the right to keep the fruits of our labor." Those rights include neither education nor health care."
Unfortunately the Constitution doesn't  protect that last one. That's the most important change we need to make to the constitution.


Long essay advocates repealing Obamacare. Not while we keep electing Republicans and Democrats.


Health care spending by country.

WAR:

Now today the government says the militia members they arrested wanted to kill a police officer then kill other police officers driving in his funeral procession using IEDs. That's a remarkably different story than yesterday and is very hard to believe. This sounds more like a fantasy than a conspiracy. I agree with Rockwell here. These guys were drinking and spinning yarns about overthrowing the government, and some undercover government agent talked them into buying so fake IEDs, then the army descended on them. Evidence?
"David Brian Stone obtained information about IEDs over the Internet and e-mailed diagrams to a person he believed could manufacture them." Bold mine.
Why phrase it that way? Because that person was a government agent.

This Krauthammer speech sounds like he was drunk on power.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Chechen terrorists bomb Moscow subways. Maybe Russia should get out of Chechnya. Occupying countries of people who don't want you there seems to prompt a lot of violence.

POLITICS:

Boortz sees through the smear campaign against the tea partiers, but it's inevitable they're going to get the one clip of video or sound that will from one person that they'll use to paint the entire movement as racist or violent.

I have a feeling this Marco Rubio is pandering to the tea parties to get elected, but once elected, he'll be just like all the other Republicans.

Frank Rich takes the gold medal in smearing the tea parties.
"The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House -- topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman -- would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play."
In other words, the tea partiers really like Democrats policies, but because they're racist, mysogynist, gay bashers, they resisting Democrats. Frankly, you can see where this comes from. Where were the tea partiers when George Bush was doubling the size of government? The lack of principles on the right opens them up to this kind of attack. If they had been actively opposing George Bush's expansion of government, if they had supported a small government candidate instead of John McCain or Mitt Romney, they would be immune from this kind of attack.

Because conservatives have no principled opposition to big-government, they're like the frog in a pot of water. As long as Bush turned the temperature of the water up slowly, they just sat in the water on its way to boil. But now that Obama has turned up the heat so fast, they're fighting the temperature hike. Conservatives need to get out pot of entirely by embracing freedom from the pot and join libertarians.

I don't blame Nancy Pelosi for telling her caucus to go on offense. It's smart politics. Some people will fall for it.

Tea party candidates face realities of campaign - it's hard. Running primary candidates against incumbent Republicans is the way to go though. They don't have to all win either. They just have to drag the incumbents toward small government principles. If the incumbents fail to move, challenge them again next time. Congress can't be fixed in one election. But the presidency can by voting for the only small government candidate from either party - Ron Paul. I think we can thank the tea party movement for Republicans uniting against Obamacare. Without it, some would probably have compromised.

White males fleeing the Democrats' sinking ship.
"Polling suggests that the shift was not because of Obama but because of the financial meltdown that preceded the election. It was only after the economic collapse that Obama's white male support climbed above the 38 percent ceiling. It was also at that point that Obama first sustained a clear majority among all registered voters, according to the Gallup tracking poll.






It looked for a moment as though Democrats had finally reached the men of Bruce Springsteen's music, bringing them around to the progressive values Springsteen himself has long endorsed. But liberal analysts failed to understand that these new Democrats were still firmly rooted in American moderation."
With all this talk about white males, I'm reminded how all during the nineties we heard about angry white men. It went away during the Bush years. Now it's back with a vengeance.

Graphic illustrates how Obama has bypassed the legislative process and representational government to implement his destructive agenda.

With all the hype about threats against Democrats, a man was charged with threatening the life of Rep. Cantor.
"Norman Leboon, 38, was charged after he allegedly recorded and posted on YouTube a video in which he threatened to kill the congressman and his family. 
"My Congressman Eric Cantor, and you and your cupcake evil wife," the video said, according to the complaint. "Remember Eric ... our judgment time, the final Yom Kippur has been given. You are a liar, you're a Lucifer, you're a pig, a greedy f---ing pig, you're an abomination, you receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer's abominations." "
Note to any other deranged murder wannabes - don't put your threats on You-Tube. It's good to see this guy implicated himself in the shooting and didn't just speak threats.

Essay about Frum's criticism of the gold standard reminds us the two parties are really one party and neither one supports free market capitalism:
"For the present piece, I just want to make an observation: isn't it ironic that David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks that it is common knowledge that deficit spending is the way to fix a depressed economy?[1] To his credit, Frum is consistent: he actually criticized conservative Republicans for opposing Obama's stimulus package."
It's not ironic. Republicans don't support freedom or free markets any more than Democrats. They only pretend to when Democrats are in power. What's twisted is that despite a hundred years of evidence proving this, people still think Republicans support capitalism. They're delusional.
"In my younger days, when I was even more naïve than I am now, I couldn't understand how "right-wingers" could be so good on domestic issues like taxes and business regulations, but so awful on foreign-policy issues. I couldn't understand how self-described conservatives could detest and fear big government when it came to the Department of Health and Human Services, but not when it came to the CIA and the Pentagon.




Now I realize that there's no hypocrisy or inconsistency at all, at least not among some of the top neoconservative theorists: They are quite consistent in believing that politicians in Washington, DC, have both the ability and the desire to make the world a better place, whether in foreign lands or in American inner cities. All it takes is several trillion dollars and a few experts like David Frum advising them."
That's exactly right, and the same thing is true of the left. Anybody who thinks it's OK to use violence against another either foreign or domestic, will also use violence against the other. The two parties are fundamentally the same except for their insane desire to wield power over each other.


The RNC recalls reimbursement to member for $2,000 trip to bondage themed club. The DNC continues to reimburse for the same entertainment.


This might be the greatest disconnect between Washington and the people of all.
"According to a recent Rasmussen Poll , only 21 percent of American voters believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed. On the other hand, Rasmussen notes, a full 63 percent of the "political class" believe that the government enjoys the consent of the governed."
Oops.
"Even among the rulers, only 63 percent -- triple the fraction of the general populace but still less than two-thirds of the political class -- regard the federal government as legitimate by the standards of America's founding document. The remainder, presumably, are comfortable being tyrants."
How did they get our aristocrats to answer this?
"In fact, when I think of the federal government's brand now, I think of Schlitz beer. Schlitz was once a top national brew. But, in search of short-term gains, it began gradually reducing its quality in tiny increments to save money, substituting cheaper malt, fewer hops and "accelerated" brewing for its traditional approach.
Each incremental decline was imperceptible to consumers, but after a few years, people suddenly noticed that the beer was no good anymore. Sales collapsed, and a "Taste My Schlitz" campaign designed to lure beer drinkers back failed when the "improved" brew turned out not to be any better. A brand image that had been accumulated over decades was lost in a few years, and it has never recovered."
That comparison cracks me up.
MISC:

Another leap forward for print on demand. Government hasn't managed to derail progress there yet.

Good essay dvocates a peaceful revolution of ideas.

Lord Acton on federalism and the Civil War.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Free kibbles

FREE SPEECH:

Corporate spending elections in Illinois has still left the state unfriendly for business.

Court of Appeals unanimously strikes down another campaign finance restriction.

Court rules that Mike Adams's columns are not protected speech. What?

ECONOMY:

Five lies about the US economy. These are biggies. Democrats are just hoping the next crash doesn't hit before November. The myth of economic recovery.

Personal income drops all over the country. Tell me about it.

TAX AND SPEND:

I'm all for repealing the sixteenth amendment, but not for requiring states to pay the federal government. That's just another kind of tax, and while better, it's not good enough. Government should be funded through voluntary contributions and charging for services.

Another way government loots taxpayers on behalf of unions.

Obama's new mortgaged handout is effectively another bailout for banks.

My original thinking on Social Security and Medicare being constitutional was flawed. I compared them to welfare programs, and since everybody pays in and everybody received benefits, I concluded they were not welfare programs. I mistakenly leaped from that conclusion to the conclusion they were constitutional. They are not constitutional because the Constitution enumerates no power for government to to implement them. It cannot be said that taking money from people by force while they work then giving back a significantly smaller sum than they would have received if they had saved the money on their own is in anybody's general welfare.

This presents a challenge to a hypothetical presidential candidate who wanted to nullify all unconstitutional laws when he goes into office to bring the executive branch at least in compliance with the Constitution - he could never get elected on the platform of shutting down Social Security and Medicare. So our principled candidate will have to make an exception for those programs because seniors have been trapped and impoverished into relying on them. But if seniors do not vote for Social Security and Medicare reform, their checks will stop coming. That's an indisputable fact. He must make seniors understand that to win a mandate to reform entitlements so those checks will continue and future generations are not trapped into dependency and have their money stolen from them by Congress like today's seniors have.

I still think this is a winning campaign agenda - obeying the Constitution - for 2012 if anybody out there would follow it.

REGULATION:

Louisiana licenses florists.

Corrupt Chris Dodd's new financial regulation bill continues bailouts as a matter of policy.

Government regulators approve 15 of 20 phony products submitted by investigators. Those are the same guys who will give the thumbs up or thumbs down on your health care.

HEALTH CARE:

Seven myths about Obamacare.

Cato quotes Bastiat on the nature of government and the law.
"Without the rule of law, property, economic opportunity and liberty cannot be protected, so we have been taught to revere the law. One hundred and sixty years ago, the brilliant French political and economic theorist Frederic Bastiat warned us in his classic, "The Law," that the rule of law would be perverted. As he noted, the law "has acted in direct opposition to its proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has been employed in annihilating that justice which it ought to have established, in effacing amongst Rights, that limit which was its true mission to respect; it has placed the collective force in the service of those who wish to traffic, without risk and without scruple, in the persons, the liberty, and the property of others; it has converted plunder into a right, that it may protect it, and lawful defense into a crime, that it may punish it.""
Government has twisted the rule of law into a weapon against the people. This is violence, and Obamacare is the single most violent piece of legislation the Congress has passed since the Civil War.
"If it is signed into law, the American people will lose part of their self-defense against disease by not being allowed to go to those who can best care for them, and they will be denied by the new government regulations those procedures, devices and drugs that would save lives, because they will not be developed."
I pointed out that the right to life is dependent on the right to pursue the health care of our choice, and Obamacare takes both those rights from us.
"There have been many articles recently about the fact that most government workers make far more than their private-sector counterparts. My colleague Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute has calculated that when all of the employee benefits are properly included, federal government employees, on average, receive more than double their private-sector counterparts, who, unlike federal workers, can be fired. Again, hardworking taxpayers are being plundered to subsidize an overpaid federal work force."
Our government makes the mafia look benevolent and moral by comparison. It's organized crime and naturally refuses to investigate and prosecute itself.

Estimates of the cost of Obamacare go as high as $3.5 trillion over 10 years.
"In fact, for millions of Americans who get their insurance through the individual market, rather than from an employer, this bill will raise premiums by 10% to 13% more than if we do nothing. Young and healthy people can expect their premiums to go up even higher."
Thanks, government.

I didn't know this:
"Democrats did manage to frontload the bill with some changes that will take effect within the next few months, and are likely to prove popular. For example, the federal government will mail a $250 check to every senior in America. Now that may not have much to do with health care reform, but after all, there is an election coming up."
Loot. Loot. Loot.

Great cartoon.

Health care 2020.
"March 23, 2020—At the beginning of the last decade, there was great excitement about the future of medicine. Advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, diagnostics, information technology, stem cell treatments, vaccines, and organ transplants were poised to radically improve the health prospects of Americans. Looking back from 2020, we can see that most of these major biomedical advances failed to materialize. What happened? Three words: health care reform."
That's right. Obamacare just brought medical progress to a virtual standstill. The result will be stagnation, declining longevity, and more painful lives.

How Obamacare would loot Americans on behalf of the evil insurance companies. What's missing from this analysis is recognition that Americans won't follow the mandate, the government won't allow the insurance companies to raise rates, and it forces insurance companies to rebate money to policy holders if it makes too much profit. All of this is designed to put the insurance companies out of business. They just recently figured that out and turned on Obamacare because of it.

Ron Paul understands Obamacare.
"Following months of heated public debate and aggressive closed-door negotiations, Congress finally cast a historic vote on healthcare late Sunday evening. It was truly a sad weekend on the House floor as we witnessed further dismantling of the Constitution, disregard of the will of the people, explosive expansion of the reach of government, unprecedented corporate favoritism, and the impending end of quality healthcare as we know it."
That's it in a nutshell.
"Hefty fines are due from anyone found to have committed the heinous crime of not being a customer of a health insurance company. We will need to hire some 16,500 new IRS agents to police compliance with all these new mandates and administer various fines. So in government terms, this is also a jobs bill. Never mind that this program is also likely to cost the private sector some 5 million jobs."
I don't think we've yet grasped just how damaging this law will be for all Americans.


Indiana governor describes the damage Obamacare will do to his state.


Check out this lying essay:
"This has been a familiar pattern since New Deal days: Government programs from Social Security to Medicare that were launched amid incendiary arguments within a short time became sacrosanct — protected by a bipartisan consensus that was nowhere to be found at passage."
I guess this guy really wants it to be true, but it's not. Both Social Security and Medicare passed with a significant number of Republican votes. Obamacare not only got zero Republican votes, it split the Democrats.


GLOBAL WARMING:


El Nino has warmed the planet which will give the global warming frauds new openings for draconian regulation.
"Expect the administration to use 2010 global-temperature data as backup for the EPA's regulatory power grab. Global temperatures shot upward around the beginning of this year thanks to El Niño, a warming of the tropical Pacific that takes place every few years. The average global temperature has a reasonable chance of beating the last high, set back in 1998 (also an El Niño year).
Meanwhile, a number of studies point to sources other than greenhouse gases as explanations for the modest warming trend of the late 20th century. This could doom the EPA's finding. But do not expect it to go quietly."
Not a chance.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Undercover drug cops kill innocent pastor.
"The complaint alleges that Officer Harrison, the cop who shot Ayers, wasn't even authorized to arrest him. On the day Ayers was killed, Harrison had yet to take a series of firearms training classes required for his certification as a police officer. More astonishing, Harrison apparently had no training at all in the use of lethal force.
These allegations have since been confirmed by local TV station WSBTV and, after the fact, by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Despite the fact that Harrison had killed a man suspected of no crime months earlier without having undergone lethal-force training and certification, the officer was still carrying his badge and gun up until the time of the WSBTV report. Once the publicity hit, Harrison was suspended. Abigail Ayers' civil suit also alleges prior disciplinary problems with both officers Oxner and Harrison, including alleged drug use.
...
But the kicker has to be that the subsequent police-led investigations of this high-profile case failed to turn up such a critical piece of information. It ought to cast more doubt on the already dubious notion that police shootings should only be investigated by other police officers."
This is what we've done to ourselves.

We can end the insane violence caused by drug prohibition by ending drug prohibition.
"Mexico is the biggest supplier of cannabis to the United States. Control of that market is one of the things that Mexican drug cartels are willing to kill for.









Legalizing weed in this country would be their worst nightmare. Why? Because it would offer Americans a legitimate supply of the stuff.

Criminal organizations would no longer be able to demand huge premiums to compensate for the major risks that go with forbidden commerce. If the referendum passes, some 39 million Californians will have access at lower prices, from regulated domestic producers."
Legalizing all drugs would end the drug violence overnight. It doesn't say anything good about Reason that Chapman is calling for regulation by government instead of regulation by consumers in a naturally competitive marketplace.
"By now, it should be clear that using force to wipe out the drug trade is a task on the order of bailing out the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon. Law enforcement can interdict shipments and imprison dealers, but the success is invariably short-lived.
Each seized cargo is an opportunity for another seller to fill the gap. Each arrested trafficker is an invitation for a competitor to grab his business. The more vigorous and successful the law enforcement campaign, the higher the prices drug suppliers can command -- and the more people will be enticed to enter the market. It's a self-defeating process."
That's because it's an immoral process. Other than parents to minor children, no person or group has the moral authority to use force to stop another from eating, drinking or smoking anything he or she chooses. Because we've ignored that fundamental moral truth, the war on drugs is killing people all over the world in droves, empowering drug gangs and turning America into a police state.

POLICE STATE:

Fusion centers tracking political activities of Americans.

I wrote about this before, but it's still terrifying.
"To hear them tell it, the five police agencies who apprehended 39-year-old Oregonian David Pyles early on the morning of March 8 thwarted another lone wolf mass murderer. The police "were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation," announced a press release put out by the Medford, Oregon, police department. The subject had recently been placed on administrative leave from his job, was "very disgruntled," and had recently purchased several firearms. "Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers," the release said. Fortunately, Pyles "voluntarily" turned himself over to police custody, and the legally purchased firearms "were seized for safekeeping."













This voluntary exchange involved two SWAT teams, police officers from Medford and nearby Roseburg, sheriff's deputies from Jackson and Douglas counties, and the Oregon State Police. Oregon State Police Sgt. Jeff Proulx explained to South Oregon's Mail Tribune why the operation was such a success: "Instead of being reactive, we took a proactive approach."

There's just one problem: David Pyles hadn't committed any crime, nor was he suspected of having committed one. The police never obtained a warrant for either search or arrest. They never consulted with a judge or mental health professional before sending out the military-style tactical teams to take Pyle in."
You could be next, or maybe some libertarian blogger.

An army of FBI agents arrest seven militia members in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.
"Sources from the Michigan militia community said one of the FBI raids took place Saturday during a wake for a Hutaree member who had died of natural causes. A Hutaree leader was arrested during the wake while at the same time agents were conducting raids at other locations."
Our troops won't attack Muslims at weddings or funerals, but the FBI will raid Americans at them.
"Lackomar said he heard from other militia members that the FBI targeted the Hutaree after its members made threats of violence against Islamic organizations."
Speech now invokes army-style raids against Americans. And charges for exercising the constitutionally protected natural right to keep and bear arms. We live in dangerous times.

WAR:

Afghanistan is not Vietnam II. We won the war in Vietnam before Democrats lost it. The war in Vietnam was against an external enemy that could be defeated, and the south Vietnamese had developed the capability to defeat it until Democrats cut off their supplies. The war in Afghanistan isn't against an external enemy or a foreign power, it's a war against the Afghan people, and it cannot be won. I'm not saying we should have got into the Vietnam war, but the comparison to Afghanistan is inaccurate.

Nice chart showing how US defense spending dwarfs the rest of NATO defense spending combined and that US spending keeps going up while defense spending in the rest of NATO keeps going down. This supports my contention that NATO is security welfare for Europe and funds Europe's welfare states.

Cato welcomes the nuclear weapons deal with Russia, but this essay sounds more like cheerleading than analysis. There are no facts or details in the essay. I get the feeling this author would have welcomed any deal.

US deaths in Afghanistan double.

Party of ex-interim PM and secular Sunni Allawi wins majority in Iraq election. Since Sunnis still considered themselves the odd man out, this might lead to some progress on issues that were previously stuck.  If Obama removes troops from Iraq this summer on schedule, he could really boost Democrats in November.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Palestinians attack and kill two Israelis, but the media is upset that Israel responded, not that the Palestinians attacked. What's wrong with this picture?

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

Argument against birthright citizenship.

POLITICS:

Slimer compares tea partiers with the KKK. This is a part of a slime campaign to de-legitimize the limited government movement so people don't have to examine their arguments. Unfortunately for these slimers, the tea partiers refuse to fall for their provocations. If one tea partier made one racist comment, his or her picture, video and quote would be all over the internet smearing the entire movement. It would be on TV 24-7 until November. But it hasn't happened, so the slimers just keep making false accusations counting on weak-minded people to fall for them.

Ken Blackwell pretends the tea party movement is a reaction to Obama in hopes of gaining their support for the same big-government Republicans who enabled Obama.
"Agents of big government and their boosters in the mainstream media seem determined to throw cold water on this growing grassroots movement that is a reaction to the Obama administration’s power grab of the growth and expansion of this country’s central government."
He's dreaming. The anti-Republicans sentiment is still strong, if dwindling.


Leftists have a cow because Sarah Palin used the term reload.


CNN extreme low-ball estimate of Nevada tea party. MSNBC call tea party "amateur politics". Isn't that what all grass-roots movements are?


Socialist programs enable tea partiers who lost jobs. I love this. I can't think of anything better to do with government handouts than protest to put an and to them. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. For decades welfare recipients have been able to protest for more welfare because they didn't have jobs, and the press championed them. Now that government has cost hardworking people their jobs, some of them have the opportunity to organize in support of freedom. The more people government programs put out of work, the bigger the tea party protests will grow.

In my latest essay, yet to be published, I warned that because Obamacare was a classic fascist program, it would make political violence commonplace as fascism always does. That's already coming true. The provocations will increase. It used to just be the radical leftists who were violent at political rallies. Now violence is going mainstream. Man accuses tea partier of running into his car because of Obama bumper sticker.

Everybody, not just white men, should shun Democrats. And Republicans.

Liberals and Marine threatening to roll tanks down American streets. I'm telling you, we're depression era Italy now.

Michelle Bachmann needs to get off the crack.
""And what we saw this Tuesday, once the president signed the health care bill at the 11th hour in the morning on Tuesday, that effected 51% government takeover of the private economy," Bachmann said on Wednesday, during an interview with North Dakota talk radio host Scott Hennen. "It is really quite sobering what has happened. From 100% of our economy was private prior to September of 2008, but as of Tuesday, the federal government has now taken ownership or control of 51% of the private economy.""
This is nonsense. I think this woman's a loon.

After Democrats have attacked Republicans mercilessly and often irresponsibly for 10 years, they ask Republicans to sign a civility pact. You've got to be kidding me. They don't even know what the word means.

Democrats get popularity boost after Obamacare. After passing this, leftist intensity is up. They love fascism almost as much as socialism. But intensity is up on the right too. That's how fascism works. It's virulently divisive and inevitably sparks violence. It also inevitably sparks racism. This is going to get real ugly, real fast.

Great quote:
"It’s a sad day when the President of the United States uses taxpayer dollars to travel around the country ridiculing and provoking those taxpayers with whom he disagrees, but this is what we get when the “cool” guy wins."
It is sad how Obama makes George Bush look good.

74 percent of tea party activists are either Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. That means that 26 percent are independents or liberals.
"Feehery's assessment of Tea Partiers' political leanings was buttressed this week by a new national poll that found that 74 percent of voters who identify with the movement consider themselves Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.
The Quinnipiac University survey also found that 88 percent of the movement's adherents are white, 77 of them voted for GOP candidate Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential contest, and 15 percent voted for future President Obama."
12 percent are non-white and 15 percent voted for Obama. Democrats are fools to attack these people. That's why they've orchestrated a campaign to bait tea partiers into hurling a racial epithet or violence. It's pure Alinski. A third party tea party movement won't work. They could vote Libertarian or Constitution party if they wanted to do that. Picking a different name won't help. The tea partiers need to stay independent and make Republican politicians come to them.

MISC:

How government is killing cities.
"While Indianapolis privatized services, Cleveland prefers state capitalism. It owns and operates a big grocery store, the West Side Market. Typical of government, it's open only four days a week, and two of those days it closes at 4 p.m. The city doesn't maintain the market very well. Despite those cost savings, the city manages to lose money running the market. It also loses money running golf courses—$400,000 last year.













Another way that cities like Cleveland cause their own decline is through regulations that make building anything a long drawn-out affair. Cleveland has 22 different zoning designations and 673 pages of zoning guidelines.

By contrast, Houston has almost no zoning. This permits a mix of uses and styles that gives the city vitality. And the paperwork in Houston is so light that a business can get going in a single afternoon. In Cleveland, one politician bragged that he helped a business get though the red tape in "just 18 months.""
Oh my gosh. You can't make this stuff up.

Fire at courthouse supposedly holding Edwards sex tape as evidence seems like a crazy coincidence. But it was undergoing renovations, so who knows? You can't trust the government to tell the truth.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Praise of socialism from somebody who obviously can't tell the difference between the government and the marketplace. Libertarian alarm clock sets him straight.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Fears of a Chavez-style media crackdown in the US.
"Free Press’ curious stance on media reform can best be summed up by McChesney who suggests that, “Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself."

Such radical hyperbole coming from the founder of a group called “Free Press” drips with irony. But it’s a rhetorical flourish that Dr. McChesney is apparently quite comfortable with. He has employed it repeatedly to argue that his version of media reform is the first step in the struggle to remake American society in a socialistic fashion. In his attack on the existing media “power structure” in the U.S., he calls for a “class struggle from below…In the end there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”
If any of this sounds eerily familiar, it should. It’s right out of Hugo Chavez’s playbook. Like Chavez, Free Press’ call for “media reform” harkens back to a bygone era when the radical left’s doctrinarian opposition to a genuinely free press was rooted in the totalitarian political theories of Marx, Lenin, Hitler and others.
All of this could be ignored as the comical rantings of a loony leftist professor safely ensconced in the tenured halls of academia, were it not for Free Press’ astonishing -- and growing -- influence on policymaking within the current administration and Congress.
As hard as it may be to believe, McChesney and his indefatigable band of media revolutionaries are being taken seriously by some policymakers in Washington. They are granted regular audiences with those overseeing our nation’s media policy at the FCC and FTC, and meeting regularly with members of Congress.
Their latest plan to defacto nationalize the media calls for the federal government to bail out newspapers with $60 billion in new government subsidies. As anyone familiar with Washington knows, money does not come free: Such subsidies will virtually invite the government into the fourth estate as overseers. Richard Nixon must be rubbing his eyes in disbelief. But Free Press tells us not to worry. Such media reform will have safeguards in place to protect the freedom of the press from government influence. "

Of course the Marxists in the White House are interested.

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Mitt Romney was for the assault weapons ban before he was against it. He signed an assault weapons ban in Massachusetts. This guy is slime and an enemy of freedom, and until conservatives give him the boot, they have zero credibility.

ECONOMY:

The fraudulent actions taken by government and the Fed to re-inflate the housing bubble.

Peter Schiff believe we're heading toward another housing price collapse because of rising long-term interest rates, and taxpayers will be on the hook for bigger losses.

TAX AND SPEND:


$12,670,895,780,689.20: America's public debt as of a few days ago.


Congressman admits that government steals from us.

Ron Paul explains that every action by the Fed is harmful to the economy. That's because every action it takes perverts interest rates from their natural value. It's price fixing.

Jim Rogers calls the federal bond market a bubble. Uh-oh. But a falling bond market might impose some discipline in Washington, but more likely the Fed will inflate to fill the gap.
""I like to buy what's cheapest. Silver is cheaper than gold, on a historical basis; natural gas is cheaper than oil.""
That's because people naturally gravitate to gold and oil.

HEALTH CARE:

Video of members of the Congressional Black Caucus trying to provoke an incident so they could cry racism at last Saturday's health care oppression protest. It's clear in this video that no incident occurred, but that didn't stop them from lying and saying one did.
"That’s how much the Democrats need a racist Tea Party moment. To stop it in its tracks. That’s why on Saturday they used the Congressional Black Caucus to try to manufacture the false appearance of one. And when they didn’t get it, they did what they always do: they lied."
They lied.

Being a healer is another way that government tries to present itself as a god.

The damage from Obamacare is piling up already.
"It's been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.
...
On top of AT&T's $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks."
Obama is one big step closer to his goal of collapsing America under the burden of government.
"Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment "appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.""
So now they're going to publicly flog these companies for telling the truth about Obamacare's costs. The message is clear: Don't speak the truth about Democrat policies or they'll punish you. This is classic fascism.

Mike Pence says, "This law will not stand." I don't think paraphrasing Bush the Elder is any way to win the confidence of the American people.

People who wrote Obamacare exempt themselves from it. That's how bad it is.

Civil disobedience of Obamacare.
"...a fraudulent piece of legislation based on fraudulent thinking backed by fraudulent facts enacted through a fraudulent process."
That's a pretty good description.
"President Obama went for broke using tactics more reprehensible than the "business as usual politics" that he had pledged to change when he came to office."
Like I said, more of the same, but worse.
"The prerequisites for any movement's success are credible leaders and a moral high ground. "
This is wrong. The moral high ground is necessary, but not a credible leader. Look what's happening in Iran where the people are on the verge of bringing down the mullahs because they don't have a leader. This statement illustrates how badly our society has been corrupted into thinking we need central planners to tell us what to do. We don't. All we need is the ability to communicate with each other, and that's why freedom of speech is under unprecedented attack.
"The first means that opponents of ObamaCare cannot--cannot--let Mitt Romney come within sniffing distance of their cause. He is trying to position himself at the forefront of the Repeal ObamaCare movement to further his presidential ambitions. But he couldn't be a worse spokesman given that as governor he was responsible for implementing a universal coverage program in the Bay State that is identical in every essential respect to ObamaCare, including the individual mandate. He has to be banished from every anti-ObamaCare panel, podium and platform lest the movement be accused of partisanship and hypocrisy."
That's a fact. If Republicans and conservatives don't banish him entirely, they're nothing but hypocrites. The problem is Republicans were for Obamacare before it before it became Obamacare, and they can't change that fact.
"But any hint of violence--even inadvertent--will compromise their cause because there are crucial differences between our colonial and current rulers. The colonial rulers were monarchs who used violence to extract taxes from Americans to enrich themselves and their motherland."
Where's the difference? Our aristocrats use violence to extract taxes from Americans to enrich themselves too. Why does being a monarch versus being a career politician matter? We have no option to elect somebody who doesn't do that.
"This can't be done by threatening a civil war--even metaphorically--against them. Gandhi's ahimsa--or nonviolent resistance that seeks to change minds by a firm and calm expression of one's own conscience --is a far better strategy."
I agree.


FOREIGN POLICY:

Ralph Peters blasts Obama's foreign policy, pointing to a failure with the Russians, Pakistanis and Israelis in one week. He closes by calling the Obama administration a surrender cult.

POLITICS:

Barack Obama should change his slogan to "more of the same, but worse."

Republicans compete for tea party endorsement. This is a great thing. Tea parties need to stay independent and make Republicans come to them.

Judge Napolitano tells it like it is:
"I believe we have a one party system in this country, called the big-government party,” Napolitano says. “There is a Republican branch that likes war and deficits and assaulting civil liberties. There is a Democratic branch that likes welfare and taxes and assaulting commercial liberties."
The only problem I have with this quote is Democrats like war too and Republicans like welfare too.

MISC:

The meaning of the commerce clause.
"There’s been a lot of scholarly research on this clause, especially the word "commerce" itself. Without getting into the long details of it all, it means this: Congress is authorized to make uniform national rules on the trade and exchange of goods (and related activities like their transportation) that cross state borders. On top of it, the word "regulate" meant to "make regular" – that is, to specify how these transactions may be conducted. Regulate did not mean ban, prohibit, or mandate. These words have different meanings."
The commerce clause was about promoting trade, not limiting it.


Promoting happiness is not a proper function of government. Government is supposed to protect our right to the pursuit of happiness.


Clint Eastwood turns 80 in May. Wow. And you always knew Clint would be the last man standing.