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POLICE STATE:

TSA to make pat down more embarrassing so fewer people will opt out of nude scan.

WAR:

Yemeni bureaucrats claim to arrest letter bomb mailer suspect.

MEDIA:

David Broder advises Obama to spend the next two years manufacturing a conflict with Iran so he can go to war to win re-election in 2012.

"Look back at FDR and the Great Depression. What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II.

Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve."

You can't make this stuff up. Nor the next part:

"I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected."

That's exactly what he just suggested, but he does go on to rationalize his advice:

"But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history."

I like this analysis of Broder's comments:

"That Broder is the media’s “dean” only proves that Hayek was right: the worst has risen to the top of Washington journalism — and, on inspection, it is pure scum."

The media is the propaganda arm of government. What else would you expect?

Best business model ever?

Internet and tacos.

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FASCISM:

Ownership probably doesn't mean what you think it means:

"Ownership means that you have legal "title" to a resource, good, or commodity. Control means that you have the ability to determine how a resource, good, or commodity is used. While it would seem as though these two always go together, such is not the case. People generally have ownership and control over their labor and personal property (clothing, furniture, canned goods, etc.). But in some circumstances ownership is absent of control and control exists without ownership."

Having a title may exclude other individuals from having control of your property, but the government exercises tremendous control over property. Think about every regulation on the books. That's government control. We have so many regulations on the books, especially regarding business, that the government exercises tremendous control of corporations. That's called economic fascism which we suffer under in the US.

"The essence of fascism, therefore, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people. Think about this. Does anyone in America really believe that this is not what we have now? Are Internal Revenue Service agents really our "servants"? Is compulsory "national service" for young people, which now exists in numerous states and is part of a federally funded program, not a classic example of coercing individuals to serve the state? Isn't the whole idea behind the massive regulation and regimentation of American industry and society the notion that individuals should be forced to behave in ways defined by a small governmental elite? When the nation's premier health-care reformer recently declared that heart bypass surgery on a 92-year-old man was "a waste of resources," wasn't that the epitome of the fascist ideal-that the state, not individuals, should decide whose life is worthwhile, and whose is a "waste"?"

Fascism except where it's classic socialism. Fascism and socialism are closely related collectivist ideologies. The power of taxation makes the government the master, and it must be taken away in order for the people to be free. Government must be funded solely by voluntary contributions from the people.

"From an economic perspective, fascism meant (and means) an interventionist industrial policy, mercantilism, protectionism, and an ideology that makes the individual subservient to the state. "Ask not what the State can do for you, but what you can do for the State" is an apt description of the economic philosophy of fascism."

I hate that Kennedy quote.

"Virtually all of the specific economic policies advocated by the Italian and German fascists of the 1930s have also been adopted in the United States in some form, and continue to be adopted to this day. Sixty years ago, those who adopted these interventionist policies in Italy and Germany did so because they wanted to destroy economic liberty, free enterprise, and individualism. Only if these institutions were abolished could they hope to achieve the kind of totalitarian state they had in mind.

Many American politicians who have advocated more or less total government control over economic activity have been more devious in their approach. They have advocated and adopted many of the same policies, but they have always recognized that direct attacks on private property, free enterprise, self-government, and individual freedom are not politically palatable to the majority of the American electorate. Thus, they have enacted a great many tax, regulatory, and income-transfer policies that achieve the ends of economic fascism, but which are sugar-coated with deceptive rhetoric about their alleged desire only to "save" capitalism."

The deception has been wildly successful. I can't help but think many Americans will soon share this sentiment: They thought they were free. People who claim American isn't fascist because it doesn't have the racism are either ignorant or dishonest. Economic fascism is the core of fascism. In fascism, government picks winners and losers at the point of its gun. This create deep divisions in the people as they fight to be chosen as winners and to make some other people losers. In these battles, people naturally align with those similar to themselves and against those who are different. The result is racism, and the more aggressive the government, the more virulent the racism. Racism isn't a cause of fascism, it's an inevitable consequence of it.

TAX AND SPEND:

I don't know if this is much of a silver lining, but at least when the government collapses, the police state will end.

"The Madoff case is classic. All that government regulation, so little awareness! The reports got filed on time. The SEC was tipped off to chicanery. Yet nothing was done. Why not?

Mises told us why not. The government does not know how to price anything rationally. It cannot determine which cases are worth pursuing and which are not. There are no official guidelines that provide insight.

Here is the operational rule. Bureaucrats pursue those cases that justify their continuing employment. This goal includes the survival of their bureaucracies.

Civil Service laws protect most Federal employees. Bureaucratic immunity from budget cuts protects the bureaucracies. So, bureaucrats pick the easy targets in the same way that lions pick zebras: the young, the old, and the sick."

Nice example.

"[Hayek] argued that the amount of decentralized and highly specialized knowledge in society is enormous when compared to the knowledge available to a government committee. This should be obvious to anyone. What was not obvious to Western intellectuals was his conclusion: government planning is unable to match the efficiency of individual planning in a free market society."

This is the fatal flaw of central planning.

"To run a really successful tyranny, the leaders must have increasing wealth as well as more reliable data. They need wealth to hire the programmers, the data collectors, and the police."

"Yes, governments have access to ever-growing quantities of data. But the public has far greater access to low-cost information that it uses to increase the overall complexity of society. The task of monitoring what is going on becomes ever-more utopian. The government is always falling behind, for the reasons Hayek described. The greater the complexity of society, the less able the State is to monitor it, assess it, and use the data to control it."

They also need more and more guns which also cost money too. It can't go on.

"The police State is going bankrupt. It has issued more promises to voters and more promises to pay investors in Treasury debt than it can possibly fulfill. When it goes belly-up, as the USSR did, and as Red China did, the Keynesian system will be exposed as the little man behind the curtain – with a badge, a gun, and a printing press."

Great metaphor.

More on Republican spending cut hypocrisy:

"Perhaps the campaign’s most telling exchange took place on Fox News two weeks ago, when the Tea Party-embracing Senate candidate in California, Carly Fiorina, was asked seven times by Chris Wallace to name “one single entitlement expenditure you’re willing to cut” in order “to extend all the Bush tax cuts, which would add 4 trillion to the deficit.” She never did. At least Angle and Paul have been honest about what they’d slash if in power — respectively Social Security and defense, where the big government spending actually resides."

I can't help but laugh.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

The enviromarxists take aim at the nascent space tourism business before it even gets off the ground. This is an easy target to hold back human development. An activity currently only for the super-rich. It sucks that Branson is listening to them.

POLICE STATE:

The number of people who reject  the TSA nude-scanners and gropes grows. Letters matter.

Does this make you feel safer?

"Vodka shots proved to be the undoing of seven police marksmen who turned up for training at a rifle range so drunk they missed all targets."

If you think this is anything other than the norm, you're fooling yourself.

WAR:

Blaming US officials because some loon waterboarded his girlfriend is absurd. I understand this guy doesn't think Americans should waterboard terrorists, but making this link ruins any credibility his arguments might have.

Jonah Goldberg calls for Obama to murder Julian Assange. According to Goldberg, Americans who kill 10s of thousands of Afghans are heroes, but the man who informs the people about it should be murdered.

POLITICS:

This headline tells a lot about Obama:

"Obama: Appeals for common ground, yet jabs GOP"

In other words, his words are meaningless. He can't be trusted. He'll say whatever he thinks will help his agenda. He's an phenomenally successful politician. They all lie, cheat, and steal to get more power for themselves. They'd sell their mothers to cannibals if they thought it would get them more power. And Obama is one of the worst.

Yet another mistaken admonition to not vote:

"The first reason is that voting is an unethical act, in and of itself. That's because the state is pure, institutionalized coercion. If you believe that coercion is an improper way for people to relate to one another, then you shouldn't engage in a process that formalizes and guarantees the use of coercion."

Bull****. This is only true if you vote for candidates who support coercion. Often you can vote for candidates who support removing the government's power of coercion. I was happily surprised to see all the libertarians I get to vote for this year. I haven't seen this many libertarians on my ballot since I left Texas nearly ten years ago. Ignore these people who say don't vote. What they really mean is don't vote for coercion. Instead, vote for people who will take away government's power of coercion. Vote libertarian.

MEDIA:

Interesting insight into the Stewart/Colbert rally for Obama:

"It’s funny that no one seems to have noticed that the Jon Stewart rally was the whitest thing to have hit Washington since the 1925 Klan march."

Funny how that propaganda thing works. Rally draws tens of thousands. Thats an order of magnitude less than Glenn Beck's rally drew. Do you think the media will report the difference? Of course not. The media will pretend these tens of thousands are way more important than the hundreds of thousands Beck drew.

LOCAL:

OMG, here's a situation that could only be created by government:

"Franklin Mayor Carl Bray made news after a Sept. 1 run-in with Springboro police in which he was cited for riding his motorcycle on a sidewalk to get around an accident.

The incident became exacerbated because of Bray’s actions with the police officer when a Taser device was pointed at him."

Of course somebody on a motorcycle would try and bypass an accident on a sidewalk if possible. Why shouldn't he? What's wrong with that? Think about this. Is this something that he should be electrocuted and possible killed over? We've created an insane, malevolent police state that is unable to recognize how dangerous it is.

MISC:

The Dept. of Justice files brief saying genes should not be patentable. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Maybe the government won't use that tool to steal our bodies.

Incredible, interactive European history map shows evolution of peoples throughout Europe.

If you're one of few corporations controlling hundreds or thousands of government granted monopolies you can get together and control an entire marketplace like Intel, Toshiba and Samsung.

Nebraska kicks previously unbeaten Mizzou's butts. I'm tired of hearing about how unbeatens should be automatically placed at the top of the heap. Baloney. Strength of schedule matters. Think about it. There's ten teams at the bottom of the NCAA every year. Suppose a decent team scheduled all ten of the bottom teams one year. It would almost certainly go undefeated with huge wins in its favor. Should it be ranked number one because of it? Of course not. If you want to be in the hunt for a national championship, play some competitive teams. Don't whine about how your conference is too weak and no tough teams out of conference will play you. Move to a better conference.

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ECONOMY:

Big-wig corporate insiders are selling stock at an unprecedented rate.

TAX AND SPEND:

Why nobody wants to talk about America's $200 trillion debt.

REGULATION:

Judge orders God to break up into several less powerful deities. How funny.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Hyperinflation is arriving:

"The two key commodities that have been rising as of late are oil and grains, specifically wheat, corn and livestock feed. The BLS report on Producer Price Index of commodities is here. 

  

Grains as a class have risen over 33% year-over-year. Refined oil products have risen just shy of 13%, with home heating oil rising 18% year-over-year. In other words: Food, gasoline and heating oil have risen by double digits since 2009. And the 2010-‘11 winter in the northern hemisphere is approaching."

It gets worse:

"Furthermore, as regards the Federal Reserve policy, the upcoming Quantitative Easing 2, and the actions of its chairman, Ben Bernanke: There is an increasing sense in the financial markets that Backstop Benny and his Lollipop Gang don’t have the foggiest clue about what they’re doing. 

  

Consider: 

  

Bruce Krasting just yesterday wrote a very on-the-money précis of the trial balloons the Fed is floating, as regards to QE2: Basically, Bernanke through his WSJ mouthpiece said that the Fed was going to go for a cautious, incrementalist approach, vis-à-vis QE2: “A couple of hundred billion at a time”. You know: “Just the tip—just to see how it feels.”

  

But then on the other hand, also just yesterday, Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge had a justifiable freak-out over the NY Fed asking Primary Dealers for their thoughts on the size of QE2. According to Bloomberg, the NY Fed was asking the dealers how big they thought QE2 would be, and how big they thought it ought be: $250 billion? $500 billion? A trillion? A trillion every six months? (Or as Tyler pointed out, $2 trillion for 2011.)

  

That’s like asking a bunch of junkies how much smack they want for the upcoming year—half a kilo? A full kilo? Two kilos? 

  

What the hell you think the junkies are gonna say?"

Prediction:

"Therefore, I am confident in predicting the following sequence of events: 

• By March of 2011, once higher commodity prices reach the marketplace, monthly CPI will be at an annualized rate of not less than 5%. 

• By July of 2011, annualized CPI will be no less than 8% annualized. 

• By October of 2011, annualized CPI will have crossed 10%. 

• By March of 2012, annualized CPI will cross the hyperinflationary tipping point of 15%. 

After that, CPI will rapidly increase, much like it did in 1980."

That ought to be fun.

"Once the Fed realizes that the rising CPI is not a sign of a reignited economy, but rather a sign of the collapsing dollar, they will pursue a puerile “inflation fighting” scheme of incremental interest rate hikes—much like G. William Miller, the Chairman of the Fed from January of ‘78 to August of ‘79, pursued so unsuccessfully. 

  

2012 will be the bad year: I predict that hyperinflation’s tipping point will be no later than the first quarter of 2012. From there, it will accelerate. By the end of 2012, I would not be surprised if the CPI for the year averaged 30%. 

  

By that point, the rest of the economy—unemployment, GDP, all the rest of it—will be in the toilet. By that point, the rest of the economy will no longer matter: The collapsing dollar will make 2012 the really really bad year of our Global Depression—which is actually kind of funny. 

  

It’s funny because, as you know, I am a conservative Catholic: I of course put absolutely no stock in the ridiculous notion that “The Mayans predicted our civilization’s collapse in 2012!”—that’s all rubbish, as far as I’m concerned. 

  

It’s just one of those cosmic jokes that 2012 will turn out to be the year the dollar collapses, and the larger world economies go down the tubes. 

  

As cosmic jokes go, all I’ve got to say is this: 

  

Good one, God."

Aren't you glad you voted for those Republicans and Democrats who make this all happen all those years now? While everybody is distracted the donkey and elephant show, the man behind the curtain is destroying our currency, our economy and our lives with it.

HEALTH CARE:

So you think Republicans are against state run health care. How's Medicare Part D working out for us?

"The authors find little evidence that the large increase in prescription drug use created by the passage of Part D was associated with any change in outpatient service use, hospitalization, functional health, or general health status for most of those affected. They conclude that “much of the additional use of prescription drugs that results from gaining prescription drug insurance is [of ] relatively low value in terms of health benefits,” although they cannot conclusively rule out small improvements."

In other words, Medicare Part D was just another way to transfer wealth from the American people to political connected special interests, in this case Big Pharma.

While we're talking about government-created Big Pharma,

"What would you say to a person who claimed that some 90% of medical studies were false – flawed in their parameters, riddled with basic error, skewed by presumption and bias? (No, it’s not me sayin’….) I’m talking about an insider: a highly esteemed, widely acclaimed, much admired, often cited medical researcher who has to turn down speaking engagements left and right. He’s a professional with a flair for statistics and penchant for credibility. His initial groundbreaking research (meta-research, actually) hit the medical scene years ago, but he’s still going strong and in more public headlines these days as the focus of an in-depth Atlantic Magazinefeature."

I'd say this is the inevitable result of government domination of health care research. This is just another example that proves government corrupts everything it touches, and government has thoroughly corrupted science. This wouldn't happen in a competitive environment because in a competitive environment, companies busted for fraudulent or sub-par research would go bankrupt and the researchers would get fired.

Obama tells John Stewart that Obamacare is the first step in transforming America's health care system. He doesn't go on to say to full-blown socialized medicine, but that's exactly what he means.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global temperatures dropping rapidly thanks to la Nina. Tell me about it. it's 36 here right now.

POLICE STATE:

Both CNN and ABC speak out against the nude-scanners and gropes at the airport. The propagandists for the aristocrats are getting a taste of what it's like to live like a peasant, and they don't like it. They're beginning to realize they're not all part of the aristocracy, and they don't like it.

Pilot who refused both the nude-scanner and the grope sues TSA. I just learned at psychiatrists recently created a mental illness for people who reject authority. The criteria include actively defying or refusing to comply with the rules of adults (check), deliberately doing things that would annoy other people (check), blaming others for the consequences of his actions (check), being angry and resentful (check) and significant impairment in occupational function (check). So if Roberts continues to miss work because he won't submit to the nude scanners or grope, he could be declared mentally ill. That's insane. This could and will be applied to anybody who resists government. I love this quote:

"Usually individuals with this disorder do not regard themselves as oppositional or defiant, but justify their behavior as a response to unreasonable demands or circumstances."

Of course the demands of authority are never unreasonable.

WAR:

Report of two mail bombs being intercepted on trip from Yemen to Chicago. It's kind of hard to defeat this with tanks. It's really sad that every time I read a report like this, I have to wonder if it's a false flag operation or an October surprise. Especially since the Times Square not-bomber. That wasn't even a bomb. It was just a bunch of firecrackers disguised to look like a bomb. Yet we're supposed to believe the person that confessed was a hardcore jihadist. Baloney. If he was, he would have made an actual bomb. And I have yet to see any pictures that show the guy who confessed being bald on top like the guy in the surveillance video.

US intelligence budget tops $80 billion. And for that we get very little. That's three times more than it was in 1998. We could get far more accurate and timely intelligence at a fraction of the price by purchasing intelligence from competing intelligence gathering firms.

POLITICS:

The Abigail Adams Project lists positions for candidates.

Obama's imperial travel arrangements.

MISC:

Four driverless vans successfully navigate Marco Polo's path from Italy to China. No word on how many people the other 12 killed. Just joking.

"Though the vans were driverless and mapless, they did carry researchers as passengers just in case of emergencies. The experimenters did have to intervene a few times. The vans got snarled in a Moscow traffic jam and humans were needed to handle toll stations. At one point, a van stopped to pick up hitchhikers."

Humans aren't irrelevant yet. You still need them to pick up hitchhikers. If you think I'm just being a curmudgeon about irresponsible trust in technology, check out the story about the guy with the prosthetic arms who killed himself driving a car.

"It is not yet clear if it was the prosthetic arms that caused the accident, such as failing to respond or locking up, but the entire situation begs the question of whether or not he should have been allowed to drive at all, both for his own safety and the safety of others."

With government corrupting science and making it unsafe, I have a lot of questions.

Dow Jones predicted from tweets. Who said twitter was useless?


John Locke believed:

"In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions", basis for the phrase in the American Declaration of Independence; "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".^[19]"

Such a state never existed. Mammals have had leaders for millions of years, much longer than humans have existed. We evolved having clan leaders similar to other great apes and wolf packs. I don't know why this is so hard for people to recognize or admit.

"Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society"

People didn't invent government. Government evolved along with us just like property, free markets, money, etc. The form, power and rationalizations for government have changed over the centuries, but government has been around longer than human's have.


Faults with the Constitution illustrate it was intended to become a central authority from the beginning. It fails to mention the most glaring mistake: giving the federal government the power to seize property in the form of taxes and imminent domain.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Cute video explaining how government kills businesses.

TAX AND SPEND:

A month or so ago, I posted an article about the real national debt being $137 trillion, but I can't find that link in my blog. Maybe I got one of the digits off. That was the highest estimate I'd heard at the time. But this guy says the real "fiscal gap" is $202 trillion. Look for "fiscal gap" to become the new euphemism for government debt.

Clergyman makes the moral case against Social Security.

REGULATION:

Baltimore handing out tickets for transfat violations.

HEALTH CARE:

The director of the Congressional Budget office says:

"Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf says that the greatest effect ObamaCare will be driving people out of the job market.  Read that again.  The greatest effect of ObamaCare will NOT be lowering healthcare costs, it will NOT be covering more Americans, it will NOT be better quality care.  No.  The greatest effect of ObamaCare will be driving people out of the job market.  CNSNews explains, "He explained that people would choose not to work because they could subsist on the generous federal insurance subsidies and Medicaid payments contained in the health care overhaul.""

I bet Democrats hate this guy with a passion.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Husband and wife doctor and nurse sentenced to 33 and 30 years respectively for proscribing pain medication. All the evidence is sealed so nobody can see it. Secret courts are the province of totalitarian governments.

POLICE STATE:

While mounting cameras on tasers sounds like a good idea, don't fall for it. This has nothing to do with accountability as the headline says. Just the opposite. This is about building up support for the electrocution of citizens by police. Except for the extremely rare exception when some honest police officer leaks a tape of police abuse to blow the whistle on the abuse, we'll only see tapes that are blessed by the police department. In all other cases the police department will lose the tape, claim it wasn't running at the time or hide behind some policy claiming they have no power to release the tape just like they do with the cameras mounted on police cars. But in fact, pretty much all taser uses are abuse. Remember when police only used their weapons in self-defense? Neither do I, but that's what they used to tell us. It was never true. Remember when they sold us the idea of tasers saying police would only use it in self-defense? That was a lie too.

WAR:

What you're not supposed to know about war. It's a racket.

"Murray Rothbardquoted Buckley as saying in the January 25, 1952 issue of Commonweal magazine that the Cold War required that

we have got to accept Big Government for the duration — for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged … except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores. … [We must support] large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards and the attendant centralization of power in Washington.

"We" must advocate the destruction of the free society in the name of defending the free society, said "Mr. Conservative," a former CIA employee."

No thanks. I prefer a military powerful enough to deter and defend against aggression, and that's it. We do not need one base in a foreign country to do that. Bases in foreign countries divert resources from defending America and put a bullseye on our backs, making us less safe.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

Remember all that baloney that legal Hispanic immigrants and Hispanic American citizens supported illegal immigration? As I long claimed, it was a bunch of crap.

POLITICS:

Obama says he has kept 70 percent of his campaign promises. Factcheck says he's kept 24 percent. And this is from a liberal newspaper.

The Democrat party has out-raised the Republican party by $270 million this election cycle. But third party sources favor Republicans. That's why Democrats want to stop them. And while Republicans are enjoying them right now, they ultimately want get rid of them too. Government wants to control everything. Guess where the Democrats are getting all that money from. Public employee unions. They're using our tax dollars to empower politicians to steal more of our money from us and funnel it to them.

MEDIA:

I thought "everybody knew" that Jefferson had fathered children with his slaves. It's common knowledge everywhere I go. People joke about it. But apparently there's strong reason to believe this claim is false, intentionally created to undermine Jeffersonian principles and advance the cause of collectivists.

"I went on a tour of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, yesterday with some friends.  It had been a long time since I had visited The Great Man’s home, and I fully expected to be exposed to a strong dose of political correctness, which now pervades all of American society.  It didn’t take long before the school-marmish tour guide announced that “historians tell us” that Jefferson fathered six children with slave Sally Hemmings.

She didn’t say which historians say this, nor did she indicate why anyone would expect historians to have knowledge of DNA science, which would be necessary to come to such a conclusion.  Nor did she mention that there are many prominent scholars who have objected to (and ridiculed) this assumption.  For example, as Professor Marco Bassani writes in his great new book, Liberty, State, & Union: The Political Theory of Thomas Jefferson:

“John Works, a Jeffferson descendant in radical disagreement” with the Jefferson slave child story “has established a ‘Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society,’ charging a board of well-known scholars (including Lance Banning, Robert Ferrel, Harvey C. Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr. and Paul Rahe — the latter dissenting) with the task of looking anew at the whole matter.  In spring 2001, the results were published without much fuss since the conclusion was that the charges weren’t proved and that they were in all likelihood a hoax.”

Professor Bassani, who teaches political theory at the University of Milan, gets to the heart of the matter when he writes:

“If the spokesman of American freedom had, in fact, fathered children with a slave woman and kept them in slavery, then the ultimate hypocricy of the way America was founded, and of a history told only through Dead White Males, as has always been claimed in radical [Marxist] circles, would be exposed once and for all.”"

This might be another Big Lie. I had never heard that possibility mentioned before this article. Apparently Jefferson and Washington owning slaves isn't hypocrisy enough. I won't condemn the Founding Fathers for being human and men of their times. They advanced the world in the greatest leap forward in history. The Declaration of Independence laid the groundwork for abolishing slavery all around the world and as well as freeing and empowering peasants around the world as well. I won't condemn them for being unable to abolish slavery at that moment.

MISC:

Estimating the age of death from ancient bones is virtually impossible, so estimates of the age of death of our ancient ancestors is unreliable.

Amazing quote from government worshiper Joe Biden.

"Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive," he said. "In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States. ... No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years."

Of course he goes back to Lincoln.

Mohammed is the most popular name for newborn boys in Britain. Britain as we know it is history.

Robert Murphy plugs his plan to pressure Paul Krugman into debating him and tells how he came up with the idea, celebrating entrepreneurship all the way.

Scientists discover the same thing Dr. Atkins espoused long ago and the same thing paleo dieters know today: to live a longer, healthier life, cut out the carbs. It's like our bodies were designed by nature for a low carb diet for millions of years or something.

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ECONOMY:

According to Rasmussen:

"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters think a free market economy is better than an economy managed by the government. That’s up five points from December 2008 following Barack Obama’s election as president but consistent with findings in surveys since then.

Only 14% think government control of the economy is better. (To see survey question wording, click here)."

That's great news. But the bad news is the aristocrats disagree.

"The Political Class isn’t so sure. Ninety percent (90%) of Mainstream voters prefer a free market economy. Among Political Class voters, however, just 34% feel that way, while 30% like a government-managed economy better and 35% are undecided."

And there you have the gulf that separates aristocrats from the people.

Insight into the nearly invisible banking crisis.

"We've only had 294 failures this cycle, but it is a big deal: adjusted to current dollars, the Depression banking crisis was $100 billion, the S&L crisis was $923 billion, and the current crisis is nearly $8 trillion.

So while FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair said the current crisis would be "nothing compared with previous cycles, such as the savings-and-loan days," it's actually much bigger, because the financial sector had grown to be nearly half the economy by 2006 — as measured by the earnings of the S&P 500.

But the question is, Why haven't there been more bank failures? In 2008, there were 25 failures, last year there were 140, and so far this year 129 have been seized on Friday nights. The greatest real-estate bubble in history has popped — first residential and now commercial — and we only have 294 failures?"

Read the article for the answer.

This is the inevitable result of government spending and inflationary monetary policy.

"Consumers are buying more luxury items but spending remains tight for everyday essentials such as food and dental care, a USA TODAY analysis finds, suggesting a growing divide between haves and have-nots."

The politically connected rich people always get richer in the political economy. They get to buy items before price inflation hits. Then prices rise and everybody else pays the higher prices, making them poorer. Eventually the money spreads through the economy, but regular people end up with way less than they have to pay in higher prices. Every government intervention in the marketplace exacerbates natural income inequality so a free market economy is as fair as it gets.

Even liberals are predicting a double-dip recession.

TAX AND SPEND:

Obama's claim that taxes are lower now than under Reagan is a lie.

Republicans plan to cut $100 billion from budget in January if they take the House. This may be revolutionary in Washington, but with total federal unfunded liabilities well over $100 trillion, this is just 1/10 of a percent cut. It's meaningless, it's symbolic, and Obama won't let it happen anyway.

REGULATION:

This is why this election will change nothing: despite all this talk about reducing the size of government and making it adhere to the Constitution, 61 percent of Americans support giving the President an internet kill switch. Maybe their copy of the Constitution is different than mine, but my copy doesn't give government any power whatsoever over the internet. Maybe Americans don't realize the internet wasn't around when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and that nobody has proposed let alone ratified a constitutional amendment granting government that power. The supposed tea party values are a joke. They're slogans. They're worthless.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Occasionally libertarian Cato is calling for the Fed to inflate more.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Evidence that climategate's Phil Jones illegally deleted emails to avoid FOI requests.

"Acton tells the Sci Tech Committee that nothing has been deleted, but when asked for the documents that Jones specifically asked to be deleted, the university refuses the FOI request on the basis that they no longer have the documents."

Sounds like deleted to me.

Belief that man causes global warming continues to fall.

POLICE STATE:

Is it ironic that the if regular people did the same things to others that TSA agents do to airline customers, they would go to prison for life? Ironic wouldn't be the first word I'd choose. Suggestion to start a letter-writing campaign to Disney to put and end to the nude-scanners and gropes. For the children.

Did Obama really say this?

"The federal government is probably less intrusive now than it was 30 years ago."

Probably.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Apparently the Chinese learned a lot from the downed Ares spy aircraft in 2001, as many of us predicted. I still think it was irresponsible of them not to have abandoned that plane and ditched it in the ocean.

POLITICS:

The US drops out of the top 20 least corrupt nations. If this table was honest, that would have happened about 100 years ago.

If you thought ACORN was really going away and Congress really had cut off funds to it, you're a fool.

"Like a zombie in a horror movie, ACORN is alive! Even worse, it's still in the business of registering Mickey Mouse and dead people to vote -- and the person running its current get-out-the-vote operation is under indictment for felony voter registration fraud."

The zombie comparison is spot on.

Gary North predicts two years of gridlock. Gridlock is a myth. The best we can hope for is two years of gridlock on Obama's huge agenda items, but Congress will silently pass hundreds of new laws, each of them a new, impoverishing act of violence against the American people. We're in a train headed off a cliff at 100 MPH. Republicans want us to believe they'll slow the train to 99 MPH as if that wills save us. But they won't even do that. They might accelerate the train less than Democrats, but the train is going to keep accelerating. Either way we die. Nobody is trying to slow down the train, let alone stop it, let alone turn it around, except Ron Paul.

"Voters got the nation into this canoe and allowed Congress to start paddling a long time ago. Voters could not hear the falls. Anyone who looked at the map of the river of red ink could see where we were headed, but both parties had an incentive to keep this map away from the voters."

It would be more accurate to say voters pushed Congress to start paddling a long time ago. This is an interesting observation:

"I think the Tea Party represents a larger minority of voters who sense that something is wrong, but they are not sure what. They have believed the government all their lives. They believed that the government can overcome a recession, though they are not sure exactly how. They have allowed the Congress to write checks against their future income. These people are common workers.

The people whose futures are really at risk are the top 20% of income earners. They pay most of the Federal taxes. They invest in Treasury debt. Their assets are the most easily confiscated. But they trust the system. They went to college. They studied Keynesian economics. They took American history classes that taught that Roosevelt saved capitalism from itself. They believe it.

They also believe that the government-managed economic system still works well for them. They are mainstream Republicans and Democrats. They still keep the faith. They regard Tea Party types as wild-eyed amateurs who may capsize the canoe."

The true believers will be the next to question government itself.

Political commercials show how successful the left has been at redefining the terms of political debate for the last 100 years.

"Anyone who does not totally buy into the "progressive" agenda and orthodoxy of politically correct, left-leaning Democratic Party is, by definition, "extreme" if not outright bigoted or "crazy" (as Reid has labeled his opponent, Sharron Angle).The point of all this is not simply to bemoan what's happened to political debate in this country, but to point out how successful the Left has been in redefining the terms of that debate. Over the last 30 years, liberals, through their dominance in the media, the universities, the public school systems and major cultural institutions, including television and Hollywood, have redefined what is acceptable and unacceptable in American society. And the docile, largely silent majority of ordinary Americans, who don't relish confrontation and controversy, have allowed these institutional forces to have their way in changing American culture. Up to now."

Don't forget the Republicans, who all support the income tax, the Fed, the Dept. of Education, the FCC, the FTC, the FDA, the EPA, etc., etc. etc. just as much as Democrats. Republicans are every bit as much to blame as Democrats. I cannot understand this insane support many Americans have for Republicans.

MEDIA:

As if NPR isn't rotten enough because of government funding, its CEO is working with the FCC to architect a scheme whereby NPR would become the dominate news network funding by our tax dollars. Both the FCC and government funding of NPR are unconstitutional, but that little detail won't stand in the way of bureaucrats.

MISC:

I'm no fan of the socialist pledge of allegiance, but I love that this crowd broke the rules and said it anyway. This is a sign the American people, en mass, are rejecting authority. It's about time. You have to reject authority before you can be free.

NASA to auction patents. Naturally they won't put them into the public domain. Only the rich and powerful may benefit from the monopoly because they can can feed government's insatiable lust for money.


Here's an old essay from Robert Murphy addressing my contention that an anarcho-capitalist society using only private sector law enforcement would devolve into government by warlords. Here's the email I sent to Murphy concerning this essay:

"I've always claimed an anarcho-capitalist society would inevitably devolve into a society of warlords, so I was happy to discover this essay by you addressing the issue. After reading it, I stand by my claim. You fail to address the root cause of violence, and your argument fails because of it. Government worshipers invariably misjudge the character of humans. They invariably misjudge that government attracts the most violent and depraved people in the country and that it brings out the worst in everybody that works for it. I think anarcho-capitalists are equally guilty of misjudging the character of humans, and I think this quote illustrates that:

"Nonetheless, if the contract theory of government is correct, the vast majority of individuals can agree that they should settle these issues not through force, but rather through an orderly procedure (such as is provided by periodic elections).

But if this does indeed describe a particular population, why would we expect such virtuous people, as consumers, to patronize defense agencies that routinely used force against weak opponents?  Why wouldn’t the vast bulk of reasonable customers patronize defense agencies that had interlocking arbitration agreements, and submitted their legitimate disputes to reputable, disinterested arbitrators?  Why wouldn’t the private, voluntary legal framework function as an orderly mechanism to settle matters of “public policy”?

Again, the above description would not apply to every society in history.  But by the same token, such warlike people would also fail to maintain the rule of law in a limited State."

I don't agree with the contract theory of government, but in this quote you fail to address why the people with a government choose not to use force. The answer is the government would crush them like a bug otherwise. The government cannot be defeated in physical conflict by any private individual or organization, therefore people tend to behave peacefully. The cost of taking property by coercion is too high.

Mammals have been fighting over territory and food - property - for tens of millions of years at least. Humans have at least tens of millions of years of genetic programming pressuring us to fight or steal property when it's easier than working to obtain it. Every human has that programming built into their minds to a greater or lesser extent. That genetic programming didn't change in the last couple thousand years. The only thing that stops humans within a country from fighting and stealing to this day is the certainty that government will crush them like a bug, unless they work for the government of course. Communication and weapon advancements has allowed government to control ever larger tracks of land, but this instinct in humans is as strong today as it ever was. We see it all the time with the never-ending wars all over the world.

But in a society where competing police forces couldn't be crushed like a bug by a higher power, the human instinct to fight and steal property would run rampant just as it has throughout millions of years of evolution. The police forces would seize property, consolidate their territory, establish themselves as a government, then fight each other on the borders to further advance their power the same way humans and our ancestors have been doing for millions of years. No amount of rational discussion can change millions of years of genetic programming. People can't just decide to stop being human. This is why rational arguments about liberty fail to move the majority of the population. It's why I try to make appeals to instinct as well as reason in my essays.

Human nature won't allow a society without some form of government. Instinct is the geneses of the state, not reason. There's no such thing as a human society without government, no matter how much we wish there was. Government is older than humanity. Wolves have pack leaders. Great apes have leaders and a hierarchy of authority. Humans have innumerable types of government, and we can change the people, the rules or the form, but there's no such thing as a society without it. The best we can hope for is to create the smallest, weakest government we can that still has enough power to fend off all internal and external predators, then tie it at the end of a long pole and try to keep control of it."

Here he talks about the legal system in such a society. Here he talks about the appeals process in such a society.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

How government has set up the new mortgage fraud to get rid of visible bailouts except for Fannie and Freddie.

"The actual closing took place this September, and within 10 days of closing, a letter of notification of assignment from none other than Fannie Mae was mailed to me. This letter was sent to inform me that; "the ownership of your first lien mortgage loan has been transferred by Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. to Fannie Mae." Look carefully at this part: "The transfer of ownership of your mortgage loan to Fannie Mae has not been publically recorded." Also included; "Fannie Mae is a shareholder owned company with a public mission. We do not make mortgage loans but instead provide funds to lenders by purchasing the mortgage loans they make." You will have to excuse me here while I laugh out loud! This statement not only is ludicrous and false, but also is based on the assumption that all of us in the public are idiots! Oh, I see, they just hold and own all the loans and take full responsibility for them, but they don’t do the initial paperwork. First, where in the world does Fannie Mae get its money? They are trillions in debt, and are losing billions, so how can they do this? Does anyone dare to guess?

This situation gets even better for the banks. The bank in question here, Wells Fargo, not only got paid up front to do the loan, but also gets paid by Fannie Mae for the life of the loan to service it. All this takes place without any risk of default whatsoever to the bank. In essence, they handle the paperwork, get paid up front, and continue to get paid for the life of the loan, and the particular loan is off their books immediately. Their reserve requirements are never altered, and all risk is eliminated and transferred to Fannie Mae. Talk about "stimulus" potential! This is in essence simply a transfer of risk to us lowly taxpayers."

The mafia is small potatoes compared to Washington aristocrats.

"The effect of this is many fold, but the bottom line is that banks will look healthier than they really are and continue to pass off all risk, the losses and debt at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be mostly hidden from the public, and the real estate markets will appear to be better off than is actually the case. This will probably continue at least until the "free" fiat money runs out and interest rates rise to where they should. At that time, watch out, as trillions of dollars in losses will be revealed. In other words, we will all pay for this one way or another!The federal government now owns and controls most of the U.S. mortgage market, so will the banks involved in this charade go bankrupt when this con game falls apart? No. But Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will. So who will end up being responsible for all these losses that are sure to come? We will, you and I, but the banksters will still have their wealth, their massive homes, their yachts, and their private planes, while all the rest of us suffer in order to pay for it all!"

I keep saying our apparent wealth is an illusion. We are very near the end of the road to serfdom.

This might be a clearer description of the mortgage fraud crisis:

"We now have a new "gate" – foreclosuregate. The big banks have played fast and loose with the paperwork on loans and titles. It looks as though millions of home mortgages could not be successfully defended in a court of law, and even if they can be defended, the entire court system would shut down if every underwater mortgage debtor demanded to see the paperwork, which the lenders cannot supply. "I'll see you in court!" will cease to have any meaning. Hardly anyone will get into court.

Here's the problem. We have been trained to view the courts as a free resource. But when anything is free, it is rationed by standing in line. The courts cannot function, once millions of people say, "I'll see you in court."

Word is getting out that the lenders cannot prove that they possess valid title to the homes. This means that home owners cannot legally be evicted if they stop paying. They need only demand proof that the agency to which they are making payments holds title.

I wrote about this over a year ago. Now the day of reckoning is here. The escape route is becoming visible to underwater mortgage payers: "Stop paying until the lender can prove that he holds legal title." The lender must make property tax payments despite the nonpayment by home owners.

The best hope that the lenders have is the fear of foreclosure by the tax man. But if home owners pay their property taxes, this threat goes away. People can live rent-free except for paying property taxes. At some point – maybe soon – this is going to dawn on desperate, underwater debtors.

The dam looks like it is about to burst. The mainstream media are sensing that the illegally handled paperwork (digitswork) is a Huge Story, one that Americans will read about or watch on the Evening News. That means there will be added coverage. Then more people will find out."

So people may just stop paying their mortgages. But the previous article tells us Fannie and Freddie ultimately own nearly all mortgages. So bankers only risk might be political because taxpayers ultimately own the mortgages.

TAX AND SPEND:

Paul Krugman still claims that Obama didn't spend enough, was too conservative, and the Fed didn't print enough to fix our economy. In Krugman's world, it's never enough. I bet he says the same thing about Zimbabwe and the Weimer Republic. I think he's a candidate for a padded cell.

REGULATION:

Rumor that Obama is targeting Google for an anti-trust attack. How's working with Obama paying off for you, Google? This is wonderful reminder that government is god to corporations, no matter how big or well connected. Like petty Greek gods, the Washington aristocrats may favor a corporation one day then, no matter how much tribute they've paid, they may send a lightening bolt its way. Or several. Or just crush it like a bug. There's always more tribute to be had from others.

Tom Smith's Incredible Bread Machine.

The case against the FTC in a nutshell.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The governor of the Bank of England entertains the idea of abolishing fractional reserve banking in favor of Misesian-style 100 percent reserve banking. Don't expect to hear that out of Bernanke's mouth.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Yet another former climate fraud switches gears and calls for honest science.

Carbon offsets in America aren't worth a nickel. Literally. It's nice to see this attempt at expanding the political economy failed. So far.

I bet we see this polar bear in lots of future alarmist articles.

Since 2005, we've experienced a very unusual low in hurricanes.

POLICE STATE:

Brazilian authorities arrest, arraign and take away the passports of two US air marshals for assaulting a woman. The marshals then used fake passports apparently supplied to them by the US government to leave Brazil illegally. Apparently they didn't want their day in court. Imagine if any one of us tried to the same. Laws don't apply to the ruling class. They only apply to us, and the ruling class uses them as weapons against us.

Suggestion that the religious right is driving libertarians out of the tea party. You know, I used to be optimistic about the tea parties, but now I'm not. However nobody drove me out. The last Dayton Tea Party really finished it for me. Everybody there worshiped government. Maybe that's why there were only half the number of people at the first Dayton Tea Party I went to a year and half ago. But my optimism left when the tea party candidates all talked like Republicans always talk when they're out of power. Republicans always say they're for constitutional government, smaller government and free markets. They're always lying. The tea party candidates are parroting those same slogans with no specifics. Nothing is going to change. The same government worshiping Republicans will be in power and no Republican other than Ron Paul will be for constitutional government. We're about to arrive at the endpoint on the Road to Serfdom. We're going to wake up one day and have nothing, and stupid partisans will look at each other in disbelief then point fingers at each other and continue to vote for the same sociopaths who brought us to this point because the other party's sociopath is supposedly worse.

POLITICS:

The chairman of the Philadelphia Democrat party admits they pay people "street money" to vote.

In order to win re-election, incumbent Democrat claims he voted for McCain. He didn't take a lie detector test though. It probably wouldn't work on these sociopath liars anyway.

All these people who complain that congressmen have no knowledge of the Constitution are barking up the wrong tree. It's obvious their constituents don't care. Blame them. There's no one congressman in Congress who supports the Constitution with the exception of Ron Paul.

MEDIA:

Here we go again with that old canard about lack of bipartisanship. If only it were true and Congress would stop passing bills. According to Congress's website today, this Congress has passed 284 bills into law so far. The aristocrats and their accomplice press want us to believe they're not working together, but it's a bunch of bull. Gridlock is a myth. It's a fantasy. Continuing the fantasy, Obama wants a "greater spirit of cooperation" after the election. Passing ~300 bills into law in two years isn't good enough for our chief government worshiper. Every law is an act of violence against the American people. Obama wants to do more damage.

LOCAL:

Ohio state government is making it easy for cities to become surveillance cities. Oh, boy!

"“We value the civil liberties of Ohioans,” Vedra said. “We’d be using cameras that are already in use, and there would be many safeguards in place.”"

What a bunch of baloney.

MISC:

I'm glad to see these kinds of questions suddenly popping up:

"Earlier, Jeffrey Tucker observed, “It’s too bad that everyone can’t just agree to let people alone to do and believe what they wish provided they do not impose on others.” The question this raises is a simple one that libertarians sometimes overlook: What drives the interventionist (or the statist)?"

He answers his own question:

"The answer is best conveyed by the phrase “social norms.” Whether leftist or rightist, the interventionist is motivated by the desire to establish — or change — the perception of what is socially “normal.” I distinguish interventionist from statist here, because many interventionists do not advocate full state control; they do, however, believe the government can normalize — or “nudge” people towards — certain social behaviors."

I disagree. It's a reflection of our instincts. It's often easier to take something from somebody else, through deception or force, than it is to obtain it through hard work and trade. Therefore natural selection has ingrained in every animal on earth the instinct to use coercion to intervene in the lives others. Being human, with our big brains, we rationalize every instinct, but we still follow them. Any rationalization will do. Focusing on the rationalizations is a distraction from the root cause: instinct. Some have it more or less than others. Libertarians have overcome it more than other people who follow other ideologies. Rational arguments don't work against instinct. We have to make arguments that engage the instinct: i.e. we have to emphasize how government victimizes the vast majority of people, even those who think they are benefiting.

Great description of Washington D.C. in this essay:

"Their job was inspecting the railroad tracks for cracks, which they did with a magnetometer aboard a caboose, in which they lived for long stretches. That caboose was home for them. It sounded like a pretty good life to me, better than being another sorry-ass lawyer in the cubicle orchards of Washington. The city is like a damn crossword puzzle, with little squares you fill in with people."

I call it Frankencity.

We need a storm classification system. A storm just blew through Dayton, and it was hyped like it was the biggest storm in history. The hurricane ratings work. No matter how much they hype them, a storm is a category something. You know what that means. If the hurricane rating system didn't exist, news agencies would treat every tropical storm like it was a class five hurricane, and people wouldn't know the difference. That's how regular storms are treated.

Praise for The Social Network.

"It is not only a super exciting and wonderful movie on its own terms; it is probably the finest movie about free enterprise made in our times. It gets entrepreneurship in the real world exactly right. It deals brilliantly with all the important issues from the motivational drive behind web startups (it is not necessarily money) and the impossibility of slicing and dicing ideas into ownership units."

"The Social Network shows how the commercial marketplace gave a code geek a chance to do that and how he did it. It is a film that celebrates the good guys, ridicules the bad guys, shows the reality of what any successful person will face, makes the legal system look like the pathetic enemy of enterprise that it truly is, and provides a tribute to entrepreneurship that is long overdue."

High praise.

Five possible countries to use as a haven from the collapse of the US.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

This graph about job growth over the last decade versus who controlled Congress is designed to fool Americans into thinking that Republicans are good for growth and Democrats are bad. This confuses correlation with causation. Both parties are bad for economic growth. The job growth early in the decade was fueled by inflationary monetary policy from the Fed. The lost jobs occurred when the bubble created by the Fed during the illusionary boom times burst.

CNBC publicizes Murphy's campaign to get Krugman to debate him.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

More devaluation of the dollar. More inflation.

"You know it’s coming, so get ready.  Today: Dollar down 0.5%, Corn up 1.9%, Wheat up 1.2%, Oats up 4.5%, Soy up 1.5%.  Bernanke has now been proved a liar in regard to his 2006 statements, and yet he continues to dissemble – while the banking system strips Americans to the bone.

Vote next week?  For whom?  Have you heard any candidate or politician promise to put a stop to this crap, or recover the money stolen from Americans by the banks?  Nope.  So gimme a stick – I don’t want to bite my tongue."

The two parties keep us distracted from theft by the Fed.

EDUCATION:

British government bans man from teaching for life because of incompetence. As funny as this is, it's nobody else's business if a person want to hire this man to teach.

HEALTH CARE:

New analysis reveals what we already knew: Obamacare will significantly add to the deficit. Claims to the contrary were frauds.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Researchers find oil, which oozes from the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico all the time, on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico. That's like finding dirt on the ground. There probably is more than usual around Deepwater Horizon, but this is much ado about next to nothing.

POLICE STATE:

More people unwilling to fly because of TSA nude-scanners. Airlines are going to go out of business.

Look inside one of the nude-scanner vans roaming our streets, bathing people in dangerous radiation, and taking nude pictures of them. If this isn't an unreasonable search, I don't know what is. Do you think you have a right to privacy under your clothes? The feds don't.

"The Z Backscatter Van (ZBV), manufactured by American Science and Engineering (AS&E), can be used to detect contraband such as car bombs, drugs and people in hiding.

But the vans, which can also see through clothing and into some buildings, are raising privacy concerns as well as questions about health risks -- and what might happen if the technology gets into the wrong hands."

The wrong hands? It's already in the wrong hands.

"Constitution Attorney Noel Francisco says most, if not all, state privacy laws would prohibit individuals or private companies from abusing the vans, while the Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement agencies from doing the same.

"If you take this thing and point it at somebody's house or point it at somebody's car, you're engaging in a search of that individual," Francisco said. "You can't do that without a warrant or probable cause.""

How hard is that to understand?

Article calls the FBI the bureau of Frame-ups, Bullying and Intimidation.

TSA tactics are similar to the tactics used by counter-terrorism agents on captured terrorists. After reading stories of people who have been stopped by border security, the same is true there. I believe this is by design to intimidate the people and empower the government.

POLITICS:

Congresswoman hopes to steal millions from taxpayers and earmark it to her daughter's client. They're all corrupt.

Republican hypocrites and their phone pledge to America:

"However, what the Republicans forget to mention is that it is Republicans who controlled the U.S. House of Representatives during the last six years of Clinton’s presidency and the first six years of Bush’s presidency. Republicans are the ones who have ignored the proper limits imposed by the Constitution on the federal government. Republicans are the ones who have drafted unclear and muddled laws. Republicans are the ones who have shown a lack of respect for clear Constitutional limits and authorities. Republicans are the ones who have allowed Congress to create ineffective and costly programs that add to the massive deficit year after year.

Here are the four pieces of legislation that an overwhelming majority of House Republicans voted to pass on the same day they published their Pledge:

• The Family Health Care Accessibility Act

• The Emergency Medic Transition Act

• The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Reauthorization Act

• The Training and Research for Autism Improvements Nationwide Act

I wonder what clauses would be included with these bills citing the specific constitutional authority upon which they are justified?"

Gridlock is a myth.

Report that the religious right is pushing libertarians out of the tea parties. Sounds about right to me. The last Dayton Tea Party was a borderline religious event.