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EDUCATION:

Voucher students in Dayton flock to Catholic schools. That's like saying people dying from thirst in the desert flock to oases. Duh. Dog bites man. This obvious information isn't news. The news is that people continue to send their children to government schools which continue to destroy their future and the future of our country.

MISC:

The Wall Street Journal reports on the tea party in Washington D.C. I wonder if any other major news outlets will. It looks like a pretty big crowd, though this video doesn't show it all.

This headline might as well read, Heisman candidate and leader of best college football team in the country beats the snot out of kindergartners. Why do people report the obvious like it's newsworthy?

On the anniversary of 9/11, Cato reprints essay reminding the American people that far and away the biggest failure on 9/11 was government. This essay excoriates calls for big government from the left and the right. Big government is not the solution to our security issues, it is the problem. Free people are the solution. Free people, born and raised understanding the unassailable fact that nobody can save you from attack but yourself, would have stopped the 9/11 terrorists with far fewer American lives lost. Anybody who would say otherwise is a self-serving fool who should immediately be shoveled into the dustbin of society. Hats off to Cato for making this case while the beasts of big government were trampling every freedom we hold dear. Includes passing references to predicted big government problems we're wrestling with today.

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ECONOMY:

Keynesian economics are failing us during this recession, as always. It should be called fantasy economics.

Chart shows there hasn't been any real economic growth in the US for 10 years. It was all an illusion created by the Fed's printing press. Our current recovery is also an illusion created by the Fed's printing press. I keep talking about the burden of government has brought the US to decline. This graph shows the burden of government has brought us down to a plateau. But like everything else in the universe, our economy has inertia. We're on the way down, not up. In order to go back up, in order to return to a trajectory of greatness, we must dramatically reduce the size and scope of government.

Reason lampoons the New York Times's claim that taxpayers have made money off of TARP.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama's health care speech inspires Medicare for Dummies essay.

Reason documents a few of Obama's lies on health care.

Calling President Obama a liar again, Thomas Sowell goes on to call his health care speech "both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud." Sowell pulls no punches in this essay.

"One of the secrets of being a glib talker is not getting hung up over whether what you are saying is true, and instead giving your full attention to what is required by the audience and the circumstances of the moment, without letting facts get in your way and cramp your style. Obama has mastered that art.
Con men understand that their job is not to use facts to convince skeptics but to use words to help the gullible to believe what they want to believe. No message has been more welcomed by the gullible, in countries around the world, than the promise of something for nothing. That is the core of Barack Obama's medical care plan."

God bless Thomas Sowell.

Part 4 of Ann Coulter's series about liberal lies on health care.

Of course there will be death panels.

Medicare for all? Do you George McGovern has heard the news that Medicare for a few has bankrupted the country? Naturally he loves Medicare. Who wouldn't love having the government take money from others by force and give it to them?

No matter what Obama's rhetoric says, Democrats are still trying to push the same bad bills in Congress.

John Stossel writes what Obama should have said to Congress.

LIBERTY:

William Faulkner explains our duty to be free.

"Years ago our fathers founded this nation on the premise of the rights of man. As they expressed it, "the inalienable right of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
In those days they knew what those words meant, not only the ones who expressed them, but the ones who heard and believed and accepted and subscribed to them. Because until that time, men did not always have those rights. At least, until that time, no nation had ever been founded on the idea that those rights were possible, let alone inalienable. So not only the ones who said the words, but the ones who merely heard them, knew what they meant. Which was this: "Life and liberty in which to pursue happiness. Life free and secure from oppression and tyranny, in which all men would have the liberty to pursue happiness."
And both of them knew what they meant by "pursue." They did not mean just to chase happiness, but to work for it. And they both knew what they meant by "happiness" too: not just pleasure, idleness, but peace, dignity, independence and self-respect; that man's inalienable right was the peace and freedom in which, by his own efforts and sweat, he could gain dignity and independence, owing nothing to any man."

Prosecutor tries to silence pain medicine advocate in a foreseeable consequence of the war on drugs.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Obama is supporting an international tax cartel called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This is another one-world-government precursor organization.

Putin warns against attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The Obama administration makes the Keystone Cops look on the ball. Obama's willing to talk to unilaterally talk to North Korea to persuade it to rejoin six party talks to persuade it to give up its nuclear program. Obama is getting stupider and farther from the goal by the day.

Just to really drive the point home, Obama plans to talk to Iran even though Iran won't talk about halting its nuclear program. That should be a great way to waste time and distract Obama from stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons. I bet they set off their first nuclear test while Obama and Khamenei are watching a woman be stoned to death.

Obama likes to talk about nuclear disarmament, but he's enabling proliferation.

MISC:

Today is 9/11.

Obama's buddies in ACORN Washington D.C. are in on the underage prostitution ring too. Why Bush didn't break up this organized criminal group is beyond me. You know Obama and Holder won't.

Patriotic cakes go wrong.

Pakistan captures Taliban commanders.

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ECONOMY:

Because labor unions harm competitiveness, they have almost died out in the competitive private sector. But because government has no competition, they're thriving in the government sector (not the public sector).

"The one sector where unions have managed to hold their ground is in government. Union density among government workers has held steady at between 33 and 36 percent of total public employment. Unions can survive and thrive in the government sector because, by definition, there is no real competition. The costs of unionization can be passed along to taxpayers without losing market share."

Labor unions are bad for workers and management because they put businesses out of business. But this is true only because government granted unions the power of coercion. If unions were voluntary, they'd be thriving in America and they'd be making companies more competitive. If unions were voluntary, they'd be partners in productivity, increasing the wealth and standard of living for all Americans.

HEALTH CARE:

In speech decrying fearmongering by his opponents, Obama claims more will die if we don't pass his health care plan. Do you think think Obama understands irony? Hypocrisy? Or does he just not care? Once again this begs the question: is he stupid or evil (or both)? Virtually every speech he gives and every policy Obama supports begs that question.

I stopped reading Obama's speech about a third of the way into it. It was a crock of manure. It just repeated the same discredited claims he's been making all summer without addressing the primary issue - how government has made prices skyrocket and quality lag. Here's some informative criticism:

"President Obama’s address to Congress and the nation Wednesday evening was yet another illustration of his seemingly endless ability to soar to genuinely impressive rhetorical heights without ever landing back on truthful ground.
...
Sometimes the prevarications were so obvious that even the president’s most ardent supporters – like the news staff of The New York Times - had to concede that he was playing fast and loose with the facts. For instance, the Times quoted Obama’s repeating of his familiar claim that “if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance, nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have."
"That is technically true,” the Times carefully admitted, “but there is a real possibility that existing policies could change as a result of the legislation. The government, for instance, would set new standards, and employers that already offer insurance would have to bring their plans into compliance.” In other words, when, as is inevitable, the cost of providing health insurance is more than the federal fine Obama seeks for not providing it, companies will drop their employee plans, forcing millions of people into the government-run health care system against their will."

But all Obama has to do is sway one senate Republican to support his bill. We still don't know if he did that. By all accounts, the gang of six which includes Olympia Snow hasn't budged.

Obama can climb the mountain and make all the sermons he wants. He can promise mana from heaven. It's bull. We have to live with bill Congress passes, and this essay from Cato destroys Obama's claims about the health care bills.

This story has to be bogus. It claims that because of Obama's speech, a few blue dog Democrats who were afraid of the costs of Obamacare are suddenly sure that it won't raise the debt.

"Especially important for the White House was the reaction of several conservative Democrats, who will be critical to passing a bill that can clear the House and Senate. They cheered the president's pledge to ensure that an overhaul would not add to the government's debt.
"If the details live up to the quality of the speech, then it's a good plan," said Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat who has been critical of the liberal healthcare bill developed by House leaders."

If the details live up the speech? As if congressman Cooper is unaware of the details in the House bills. Or the Senate bills. The president can promise to fart only gold dust, and it's meaningless. Congress writes the bills. We know what they say. Gold from farts isn't in them.

EDUCATION:

I'm glad to see Cato agrees with me about the president's speech to school kids:

"Even so, there's something grotesquely collectivist about the idea of the president addressing a captive audience of 50 million schoolchildren, hectoring them to turn off the X-Box and hit the books.
After all, the president has no constitutional power over education and no proper role in it. Our Constitution's framers thought schooling was too important to be left to a federal government that would be far removed from local communities, and whose principal responsibility was to deal with large national concerns, like defense, that the states and localities couldn't handle."

I said it better, but this is still good.

GLOBAL WARMING:

France to tax CO2 emissions. In a related story, French people soon to guillotine rulers.

WAR:

Malou Innocent shoots down 5 myths being used to support our flawed mission in Afghanistan.

TAXES:

Obama isn't interested in tax reform. Just the opposite. He's just trying to squeeze more blood from productive people and buying more votes with giveaways.

POLITICS:

Republican congressman calls for hearings investigating Obama's unaccountable czars.

MISC:

Japan has launched an automated space freighter to resupply the space station. Cool. How much you want to bet flying this shuttle costs less than 1 percent of the cost it takes to fly our space shuttle?

Economic calculation and the courts: a theory of hoaxes. I've seen plenty of cases where prosecutors acted as willing accomplices for individuals making obviously false accusations. This should be interesting. Only 8 pages.

Defending corporations. Only 23 pages.

Now Obama's ACORN buddies have expanded into child prostitution.

Using different words, Boortz brings up the question I continually ask: is Obama stupid or evil? These are the only two possible explanations for the two comments Boortz highlights and for pretty much all of Obama's policies. Michael Barone discusses convenient fantasies of Barack Obama, but this begs the same question.

Microsoft opens open source foundation. That's like the Soviet Union creating a freedom foundation. What a joke.

Because of these surveillance cameras, I'm marking Lancaster, Pennsylvania off of my places to visit.

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ECONOMY:

Even the liberal media has realized this apparent recovery is a fake.

"There is something affected, something not believable, something agitpropish, about all the cheers for the glorious economic recovery we are supposed to be experiencing. Even some of the recovery's biggest boosters don't quite believe it.
I'm thinking of the reporter on National Public Radio a few days ago who, at the end of a segment, offered a passing warning that the bust did not come to an "organic" end, but rather was artificially stopped by government intervention.
...
A year ago this month, the whole country was in agreement that we had been living an illusion for the previous ten years and that the prosperity we thought we were enjoying was not sustainable. There was no dissent on this point. Even Obama admitted it. Today, the illusion is even more egregious than it was, and yet people are once again embracing it as if it will not end.
The policy response to the downturn has been one of the most shortsighted and economically irrational in the entire history of mankind. Why did they do it? It's all for the politics of the short term.
The entire economic structure has been phonied up in order to make a success of the Obama cult. This is the driving motivation, alongside the obvious desire on the part of financial and banking big shots for a bailout."

The graph of investment linked in the article shows the story. Investment in the US has dropped to 1999 levels and it's still falling. We've lost 10 years of our lives and 10 years of accumulated wealth. Our economy won't begin recovering for real until several years after investment begins to grow again.

President Obama says some Americans have selective amnesia on the economy, then he goes on to prove that he's one of them.

HEALTH CARE:

Republican Senator Tom Coburn explains the consequences of government run health care to a constituent at a town hall meeting including how health care innovation will practically stop. This is excellent.

It turns out this trigger I've been hearing about is just another way to for government to take over the health insurance industry without Democrats taking responsibility for it. The idea is that any law passed now won't include the government option directly, but if the private sector doesn't meet some goals specified by government, then the government option will be triggered into existence. The trick is that the law will guarantee the goals can't be met so the government option will be a fait accompli. It's kind of funny that Democrats claim the president hasn't taken the lead on health care, that's why he's giving this speech tonight, "despite having given 27 speeches entirely on health care, and another 92 in which it figured prominently." If these politicians weren't so powerfully dangerous, they'd be funnier than the Keystone Cops.

Blogger asks three Ohio politicians who will pay for Obamacare. The answers are entertaining.

Obama and stooge on health care translated.

Details of the Baucus health care oppression plan.

Thomas Sowell calls President Obama a liar. Good for him. Everybody else is too scared to be that honest. Sowell doesn't have to worry about being called a racist, but I'll bet liberals start calling him an Uncle Tom.

"One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess-- for a program that would not take effect until 2013.
Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years-- more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election.
If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election."

Facts are stubborn things.

Obama and Democrats are pushing seniors into supporting Republicans.

Text and video of Obama's health care speech before Congress.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

How the Fed corrupts and dominates economics and stifles criticism. Liberals are figuring it out. Talk radio people are suddenly harping on the Fed printing money. People are figuring it out.

SPENDING/DEBT:

Republicans should filibuster Democrats' attempt to raise the debt ceiling. Default is a synonym for cut spending.

WAR:

Iran meddling in Afghan war. Duh. If Iran had invaded Canada, we'd be meddling in that war. I don't know where US aristocrats get the idea that they can send US troops anywhere in the world to kill anybody they declare an enemy, but it's bad when other governments meddle. We need to get our troops out of Afghanistan and focus on stopping North Korea and Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

POLITICS:

Glenn Beck is a right-wing political terrorist. These loonie leftists are nuts. (I know it's redundant.) Why any major news outlet would give a loon like that a forum is beyond me.

I think it would be great to get Barney Frank out of Congress and into Obama's cabinet. He can't do any more damage there than any other stooge, but he's done tremendous damage in Congress.

List of Obama's czars. But it doesn't include Obama's new manufacturing czar.

Republican congressman shouts "You lie." at Obama during speech before Congress. McCain and others call for him to apologize, and he apologizes. Why? Obama does lie. Every American should point it out. Nobody has to sit quietly and listen to the president lie to them. He's not our king. Politics in America is supposed to be rough and tumble. This idea that everybody has to bow down to the president and be respectful to him is a load of crap. This gets back to the idea that the president appearing before Congress assumes the appearance of a monarch. It's baloney. If the president comes to Congress and tries to lord power over them like Obama did tonight, the congressmen should respond like MPs in Britain when they challenge their Prime Minister. Frankly, the Constitution, because of separation of powers, should bar the president from making speeches in Congress. But this outburst might help Democrats' health care agenda.

MISC:

Teenager creates solar panel from human hair. That's quite an accomplishment, but will it really be production worthy? How long will hair last in the sun?

Hugo Chavez and Oliver Stone are two peas in a pod.

Obama is trying to use funding for the arts to push leftist propaganda. He knows every trick in the book, and he's using all of them to destroy freedom and America.

Congress wants to tax tourists to fund a campaign to invite more tourists to America. Only government would think is a good idea.

Congressman at town hall tells his constituents that it's his town hall meeting, not theirs. This isn't notable because it's an exception. This is how they all feel.

Doug Bandow makes the case that Congress has the power to force the president to seek warrants for wiretaps even during wartime. I think he's basing that argument on this clause from the Constitution: "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces". I don't see it. Bandow seems to be taking an expansive view of the terms government and regulation. Trying to force the president to get warrants before wiretapping enemy suspects interferes with his power as commander-in-chief. It's like making a rule forcing soldiers to get a warrant before they shoot. That can't be what it means. I'll have to read up on the arguments of the founders on what "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces" originally meant. Some day. I think it means basic rules concerning duration of tours, theft, assault, housing, promotions, medals etc. He also seems to think waterboarding is torture. I disagree. I do agree that anybody who broke the law has to be held accountable. Policy makers can't be above the law. I don't agree that a special prosecutor is how to do that. Special prosecutors instantly become rogues out for personal glory instead of justice. In fact, we have evidence that CIA agents who surpassed the limits were prosecuted through standard procedures. If there's evidence of more crimes, they should be prosecuted through standard procedures too. And nobody should be prosecuted for waterboading.

All this talk about Obama looking backwards and prosecuting former policy makers gives me an idea. Since policy makers should not be above the law, the next president should prosecute Obama for seizing GM (and other things) for abrogation of rights under color of law. What if the next president had prosecuted Wilson, LBJ for taking away our rights? (I leave out Lincoln and FDR because they died in office.) We'd live in a much freer and more prosperous country today.

In fact, pretty much every government official could be prosecuted for the same reason. The FCC denies our free speech rights. The Dept. of Commerce denies our freedom to pursue commerce. The Dept. of Agriculture denies our freedom to pursue farming. The Dept. of Education takes our money by force for an illegal function. Etc. If we elect a libertarian president, he could wipe out big government through prosecution in just one term. Obama's opening up Pandora's box, and it may boomerang and destroy big government.

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ECONOMY:

Gold tops $1,000.

Do we really need a new study to tell us that Obama is repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression? Yes we do. We need more of them. We need as many of them as we can possibly get. Even though we know Obama is repeating those mistakes, we need tons of studies to confirm it, document it and keep it in the news to combat the pervasive mantra of the Keynesians that Obama is doing the right thing.

"Indeed, it is not impossible that the US will experience the kind of economic collapse from first- to third-world status experienced by Argentina under the national socialist governance of Juan Peron."

That's the path both parties have us on - the Road to Serfdom.

HEALTH CARE:

I fall for this all the time. It's not a public option. It's a government option. Just like it's government schools. And government roads. And government airwaves. I need to quit falling for this public crap.

LIBERTY:

DHS report for an American citizen including credit card number and expiration. This is ridiculous. Most of this information should be private between traveler and the company he or she is doing business with, and therefore DHS should have no access to it without a warrant.

POLITICS:

I think Boortz is right that Obama's speech to students made panicked conservatives look like fools, but he's wrong about the speech being innocuous. There was no liberal propaganda in the speech, but there was plenty of propaganda supporting a big government, interventionist nanny state. Because many acted without thinking, they made the wrong arguments. They should have made their arguments from a libertarian perspective. Actually, they should just become libertarians.

MISC:

Why America's political system is so corrupt.

"Because democracy is open to any and all who can get elected — either through connections, personality, or personal wealth — it is a social system where leadership positions become a hotbed for sociopaths. Maslow's self-actualizing man won't have an interest in politics. But those stuck on the need for esteem are drawn to it like flies to dung.
With leadership in such dysfunctional hands, it is no wonder. "In comparison to the nineteenth century, the cognitive prowess of the political and intellectual elites and the quality of public education have declined," Hoppe writes in Democracy.[11] "And the rates of crime, structural unemployment, welfare dependency, parasitism, negligence, recklessness, incivility, psychopathy, and hedonism have increased.""

It's great to find other people who've figured this stuff out. At least in a hereditary government, the ruler is just the worst person in the royal family, and you can hope for a good ruler. In the US, our rulers are the worst people in the entire country, and there is no hope for good rulers. Obviously, that's an exaggeration. Reagan was a good person. Ron Paul is a good person. But those two examples highlight how bad everybody else is.

Fighting for capitalism against impostors like George Bush, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.

"The role of government in a capitalist society is very simple: provide transparency and enforce fraud."

And enforce contracts - the rule of law. This essay reminds me of another reason we're better off with Obama in power than McCain. Like George Bush, McCain pretends to support free markets. People fall for that crap. Guys like Bush and McCain can destroy free markets all day long and the people let them because they pretend to support free markets.

But we know Obama doesn't support free markets. He's pretended to be a lot of things, including a supporter of free markets, but for some reason the American people always see through that claim of Democrats but never see through that claim of Republicans. So the people have united against Obama's destruction of economic freedom in a way they never did against Bush and would never have done if McCain had been elected.

Latest Email to Representatives on Health Care

Please oppose all the Democrats' health care oppression plans including the misrepresented Baucus bill. This bill costs 9/10s as much as the other bills, and that doesn't include the half a trillion of hidden costs forced onto health insurance companies, health care providers and state governments. And co-ops are just another name for the public option. Government will run them and subsidize them to force private insurance companies out of business.

Please oppose any health care reform bill that expands the size and scope of government. Government isn't the solution to our health care problems. Government is the problem. The only real health care reform is one that extracts government from our health care system so prices can fall and quality can rise.

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HEALTH CARE:

Max Baucus introduces so-called compromise health care oppression bill. This bill sounds almost exactly like Democrats' other health care oppression bills, but the visible cost is $900 billion instead of $1 trillion, though I'm sure it hides another half a trillion in costs just like the others. I don't know how a bill that's at least 9/10s of the way to full Obamacare can be called a compromise. It also renames the public option as health care coops as if government won't run them exactly the same as the public option. This bill is designed to attract RINOs like Olympia Snow. We're going to have to put up one heck of a fight to kill this oppression plan. We need the people of Maine to really come through on this, or their RINOs will harm us all.

Obama to get specific on health care oppression. He's got nothing to lose. He's already the least popular new president in polling history other than Ford. He's already lost his honeymoon. He's already trapped between the great mainstream of America and his radical leftist base. He's already suffered the damage from this health care oppression plan. He might as well get specific and try to twist some arms.

FEDERAL BUDGET / DEBT:

Government to spend more on interest payments than on any other programs besides Social Security and Medicare.

"The re-estimates of projected deficits and federal indebtedness just released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget show that deficits are worse than forecast just a few months ago and federal indebtedness is greater. At a symposium on deficits and debt in late spring hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the foremost federal budget experts in the country were unanimous on three things: Deficits would rise, not decline, from forecasts; total federal indebtedness over the next decade would continue to surpass any previous estimates; and the United States was nearing a level of indebtedness that could undermine both the nation's economy and its security."

It took experts to notice that? What this article is really saying is bunches of so-called experts, like those in the Obama administration that projected much smaller debts and deficits, didn't see it. The press has ruined the word expert by applying it to idiots, and we need to take it back. People who are constantly wrong are not experts.

"Our current-year deficit will hit 11.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest percentage since the end of World War II. By the end of the next decade, the United States will spend more money paying the interest on the public debt than it will on any other governmental activities except Medicare and Social Security.
America will be spending more to service its debt than it will spend on education, the environment, infrastructure, scientific research, national defense and all the other things our Founding Fathers thought were important to the nation."

Obama's right about one thing. He didn't create this problem. George Bush didn't create it either, though Bush made worse and Obama is making it far worse. This is the result of decades of loose monetary policy, growth of government and growth in taxes.

POLITICS:

Obama has put himself in a position where it's impossible for him to win. Progressives are unhappy he fired his Marxist, 9/11 truther, green jobs czar. Every decision Obama makes will either anger the vast majority of Americans or his radical leftist base. He can't win. This firing provides insight into why Obama's popularity is in free fall:

"[T]he rise and fall of Mr. Jones is one more warning that Mr. Obama can't succeed on his current course of governing from the left. He is running into political trouble not because his own message is unclear, or because his opposition is better organized. Mr. Obama is falling in the polls because last year he didn't tell the American people that the "change" they were asked to believe in included trillions of dollars in new spending, deferring to the most liberal Members of Congress, a government takeover of health care, and appointees with the views of Van Jones."

In other words, Obama pretended he wasn't a radical leftist, and even though the evidence that he was a radical leftist was overwhelming, many voters chose to be ignorant.

MISC:

In another sign of the decline of America, placebos are getting more effective, meaning people are becoming less rational. We see that in politics every day.

This Obama speech for school kids is drippingly paternal. He has no business expecting things of school kids. He's not one of their parents. He should not try to assume the role of a surrogate parent. He has no business making their education about the country. That's collectivism. As I predicted, this speech isn't about liberal versus conservative, but it promotes collectivism, the nanny state, government control of education and the expectation that the president and the Federal government should be involved in our daily lives. That's political, and I reject it all. No child should be forced to watch it.

How government policy including the minimum wage, subsidized college loans and child work laws are stealing productive years from America's youth.

"It turns out that half of college graduates under the age of 25 are working in jobs that require no college education at all. Think of Starbucks, the Gap, Target, and the like. Not that there is anything wrong with these jobs. But here's the thing: these positions used to be held by young people before they finished college (which is in turn devoting itself to remedial education on the basics)."

Thanks to the government monopoly on education, a bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma. How'd you think that's going to work out for us?

Why intellectuals don't like capitalism - it seems boring.

"To a "man of system," to borrow Adam Smith's terminology, capitalism just isn't that exciting. Participants in the market economy are wholly beholden to consumer wants. The academics envision a grand world, where Great Men fight Great Wars, periodically inventing Great Things or developing Great Ideas. Instead, the market provides us with incremental processes, which expend enormous piles of resources, in a quest to make better Triscuits. It is hardly the stuff of high drama, to say nothing of Great History.
...
The idea that great statesmen are not needed — to say nothing about being wanted — can no doubt be galling to many who decry capitalism for its excesses. For the people who derive their self-worth from being paternalistic, this is a sorry state of affairs indeed."

Great observation.

"The fundamental problem with government intervention is not that our leaders lack sufficient wisdom to guide the global economy. The fundamental problem is that such wisdom is impossible. The science of human action has very clear implications about what can, in fact, be known, and it therefore places very sharp limits on the potential wisdom of the man of system. Radical schemes aiming at creating utopia are doomed to failure — or worse — and this is indeed disheartening for the critical idealist.
Yes, some might look down upon capitalism because it is at its heart about the search for a better, cheaper Triscuit rather than "nobler things." But it delivers the goods, and it does so in abundance. Interventionist alternatives do not."

Exactly.

Because government obtains revenue by force, it cannot calculate the allocation of resources. We know whether to buy more apples or more oranges based on our desire and their price. Farmers know whether to plant corn or wheat based on prices. There are no prices to guide bureaucrats. They have no way to know how much something is worth. Great example of number of fighters given.

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ECONOMY:

Gold nears $1,000.

Obama's debt is pouring fuel on the recession.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama to make case for public option when he lords power over Congress. The reality of the great mainstream of America on one side and his radical leftist supporters on the other is quickly transforming this dangerous demagogue into a pin ball. His transformation from radical to reactionary is almost Clintonesque.

Obama will try to invent a sense of crisis to push his health care oppression agenda. Obama in the White House with Democrats in charge of Congress is a crisis.

Patients with terminal illnesses in Britain are being denied food, fluids and drugs that could prolong their lives and sedated until they die. The bureaucrats who provide this "guidance" might well be called death panels. Obama and Democrats want to take us along that path.

Cato explains that Obama's speech about health care will be an attempt to further deceive the public. Changing the name of the public option to a co-op changes nothing. Government will still run the program. Government will still subsidize the program. Government will still use the program to put private insurance out of business.

"President Obama keeps saying you'll be able to keep your current health plan, even though the Congressional Budget Office says that isn't true. The president says a new government program wouldn't drive private insurers out of business, even though his allies expect it to do just that. He says he wants choice and competition, yet proposes insurance regulations that would drive most private plans out of existence. He doesn't want the government to take over the health sector, just like he didn't want to take over General Motors. The administration pretends to distance itself from a new government program by embracing...another new government program."

POLITICS:

Incumbent congressmen afraid for their jobs. They should be. Whenever Democrats are in power, they have this problem. Since their power base is the radical leftist wing of their party, they're always stuck between those radicals and the great mainstream of Americans.

One of Obama's Marxist advisers, green jobs adviser Van Jones, resigns. Too bad we can't get the Marxist in the oval office to resign. I'm sure Obama wants to replace Van Jones with Bill Ayers, but reality is setting in for him.

The print media is surprised by Van Jones's resignation. That's why papers are going the way of the dinosaur.

Charles Krauthammer reports that Obama is the least popular new president in polling history other than Gerald Ford, who was in the dumpster after pardoning Nixon. The American people may be slow sometimes, but they eventually get it right. Before the election, too many Americans ignored the fact that Obama was the most leftist member of the Senate - even further left than the socialist "independent". Suddenly the American people care that he's the most leftist president in history.

Legislators busted for playing solitaire during session. I don't have a problem with this. Listing to a bunch of windbags' speeches has got to be one of the most boring and worthless jobs in the world. I'm sure they have their speeches and votes prepared.

MISC:

South Americans march against Chavez. I think this guy's days are numbered. He's done so much damage to Venezuela, they're going to throw him out.

Leftist eco-terrorists strike again - toppling two radio towers. It's amazing how these violent acts by leftists tend to be ignored by the press which instead promotes fantasies of right-wing terrorism.

Because nobody owns this lobster fishery, lobster fisherman literally fight over traps, locations and policies. This is the tragedy of the commons in action. Ownership rights is the solution.

Can Bill Moyers be any more biased?

Obama claims to want to promote saving, but if he was serious, he'd abolish the income tax which punishes saving. But Obama's plan to "allow" tax refunds to be easily used to purchase government bonds is a transparent ploy to grab more money from taxpayers.

The 9th Circuit says Ashcroft can be sued for issuing material witness warrants after 9/11 without probable cause. Don't those warrants have to be signed by a judge? If so, how can Ashcroft be held responsible? If not, that's clearly unconstitutional and the entire government should be sued along with Ashcroft. The point of constitutional protections is to protect us from government during a crisis when government is most prone to abuse its power.

Japan's population decline is so dangerous that the government is paying people to have kids. I would prefer to see a private charity do this.

What if McCain Had Won?

It's easy to bash Democrats for their outrageously destructive policies, but I think many voters have selective amnesia about the Republicans. Before the election I said America would probably suffer less damage if Obama was elected because Republicans would unite against him and he'd have problems with his own party. If McCain had been elected, many Republicans would have felt obligated to support his liberalism, and Democrats would have welcomed it too. On the issues of today, what would have happened if McCain had been elected?

Tax and trade: Every Republican in the House voted against tax and trade, and the bill is in serious jeopardy in the Senate. But McCain supported tax and trade, just with lower caps than Democrats supported. If McCain had been president, tax and trade would have been guaranteed to become law.

Health care: Democrats' health care oppression plan may still become law, but it's in serious jeopardy in both the House and the Senate. McCain's health care plan would have actually improved health care in America, unlike the Democrat plan, but if McCain had won the election, Democrats would still control both houses of Congress and would have set the agenda on health care. In order to get McCain's signature, they would have compromised from their extreme position, and some bipartisan health care oppression-lite bill would have become law, further harming our health care system.

War: McCain would have done very similar things in Iraq in Afghanistan, and he would have probably already started a new war with Iran.

Stimulus: McCain would have probably signed a smaller, tax rebate based stimulus bill similar to the useless bill passed when Bush was president.

Budget: The Federal budget would have ballooned under McCain, but at a slightly slower pace than Obama.

Taxes: Democrats would have pushed through their cigarette and cigar tax, probably at a lower rate to get McCain's signature. Congressional Democrats would still let the Bush tax cuts expire, leading to the biggest tax increase in history (unless the tax and trade tax was bigger).

Interrogations: McCain would have outlawed harsh interrogation techniques, but he wouldn't have attacked the CIA.

Illegal Immigration: Democrat plans for comprehensive illegal immigration are more than likely stillborn because of the animosity they've earned on earlier issues. If McCain was president, comprehensive illegal immigration reform would be a near certainty.

In my opinion, as bad as things are with Obama in the White House, and as dangerous as Obama is, his radical presidency is over. It's very likely neither health care oppression or tax and trade will become law under Obama, but they surely would have under McCain. We'd have been worse off with McCain as President because the liberal agenda would have advanced further under him. Every vote for McCain instead of the Libertarian party harmed our country.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

The New York Times is shocked that teen unemployment is at record levels and can't seem to figure out that the that's the inevitable consequences of raising the minimum wage. This will depress the earning ability of these teens for the rest of their lives.

BUDGET/DEBT:

Rep. Pete Stark claims the more debt the government has, the wealthier we are. Then the interview gets interesting.

HEALTH CARE:

The CBO reports the House health care oppression bill would raise Medicare premiums for prescription drugs by 20 percent.

The IRS would gain the most power from Democrats' health care oppression.

"In short, health care reform, as currently envisioned by Democratic leaders, would be built on the foundation of an expanded and more intrusive IRS.
Under the various proposals now on the table, the IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an "acceptable" health insurance plan; for finding and punishing those who don't have such a plan; for subsidizing individual health insurance costs through the issuance of a tax credits; and for enforcing the rules on those who attempt to opt out, abuse, or game the system. A substantial portion of H.R. 3200, the House health care bill, is devoted to amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to give the IRS the authority to perform these new duties."

That should be enough to kill this bogus plan.

GLOBAL WARMING:

A couple of days ago I posted an article claiming that the arctic was warmer than at any time in the last 2,000 years. I pointed out that that conclusion contradicted observations from even the last three years. I predicted we'd quickly see articles refuting this claim. Here we go: article shows that that claim is based on cherry-picked science and doesn't reflect the whole body of evidence about arctic temperature history. Since the first article is based on data that is hidden from peer review, it can't be analyzed for accuracy, but an analysis of another set of arctic temperature data shows no rise in temperature as claimed in the article.

The planet cooled in August. With graph of global temperatures from 1979 to present that shows almost no warming over that period.

Jonah Goldberg has just discovered the link between sunspots and climate and the Maunder Minimum.

Scientists identify climate effects from sunspot activity that heat the planet. Study shows wobble in Earth's rotation causes and ends ice ages. Please don't wobble for a while.

MISC:

Communist party ousts local chief over unrest. There's another reason China is on it's way to surpassing America: accountability. There's no accountability in US government. California Democrats bankrupt the state, and they keep their jobs. Barney Frank blocks legislation to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they are financially sound, and he keeps his job. Chris Dodd protects Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, takes a sweetheart deal from Countrywide Mortgage, and he keeps his job. Ben Bernanke helps create the greatest economic crisis in the US since the Great Depression, and he gets a promotion. George Bush starts two wars, fights them horribly, almost loses both, and he gets re-elected (though voters did finally punish Republicans in 2006 and 2008). This lack of accountability is insane and is the direct result of American voters.

Michael Moore confuses capitalism with socialism. No doubt this is on purpose.

Boortz suggests we substitute the word 'employers' whenever liberals use the word 'rich'. Interesting.

The European Union is calling for salary caps on US executives. They should shut up and worry about destroying their own continent.

I don't want any president making speeches to school kids of any kind. Many are saying Obama's speech won't be political. What they really mean is it won't be liberal versus conservative. But it will indisputably be pro-government. The forced circumstances are pro-government. That's political. It's abhorrent to have a president force a pro-government message on captive school children. If this was voluntary, that would be fine, but these children are forced by law to be captives in government schools. Now they are being forced to subordinate themselves to the president lecturing to them from on high. I can't help but seeing a comparison to Moses giving a speech to captive school children. Do you think that speech would have been about being open-minded? Do think it would have been about learning to think for yourself? Do you think any president lording power of captive school children will be any different? The president is not supposed to have influence on our daily lives. Obama, and Bush before him, used force to inject themselves into school children's lives. That's unacceptable.

Democrats railed against Bush the Elder's speech to students in 1991. I can't blame them. I blame them for supporting Obama's speech now.

I just got back from this tea party. It was fun. There were petitions to limit government. Lots of politician wannabes were talking to people, but incumbents couldn't be bothered to mingle. They just parachuted in for speeches, as did John Kasich. It was a big crowd, somebody suggested 18 thousand, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the twenties. The Dayton Daily News said Turner was going to attend the event, but he's not listed on the program. I'll call his office Monday and see if he attended.

The problem is it looks like the Republican powers that be have taken over these events. I talked to one independent running for Ohio senator, but other than that, it was all Republicans who have been in Washington before. No libertarians. Putting those Republicans back in office won't change anything but the drapes.

Just what we need - a new, extreme leftist Antioch College. Like there isn't enough liberalism in universities already.

Study shows that men can lose their minds when talking to a really good looking woman. I thought it was just me. This is one of the reasons I support separating boys from girls in classrooms.

21 things you can't say to Obama on vacation.

13 observations in science that don't make sense with current theories. Several cast doubt on the constant velocity of light.

Evidence for magnetic monopoles.

Rehabilitating Michael Vick

Rehabilitating Michael Vick

by Mark Luedtke

 

With OJ in jail, I'm hard pressed to think of any more loathsome celebrity on the loose than Michael Vick. An argument can even be made that Vick's crimes against innocent dogs were worse than OJ's alleged crime of passion. I'm not going to recount Vick's crimes here, but suffice it to say his actions showed the extreme lack of empathy that is the hallmark of a sociopath. It's unconscionable that his poster might be hanging on a child's wall in the near future. It's unconscionable that he might be signing autographs for children. It's unconscionable that he will be around animals in projects with the SPCA. I personally wouldn't let Vick anywhere near my dog or child.

Rarely does a person fall so far so fast. A few years ago many considered Vick one of the top 10 players in the NFL. He rolled in the kind of dough most people can only dream about. He thought he was untouchable. He lied about his crimes and kept on committing them. Today, after serving a 23 month sentence, he's $4 million in debt. Befitting his crimes, his fall was spectacular. I'd be happier if I never heard of Vick again.

It's galling to think that such a horrible man might return to one of the most privileged and highly paid professions in the world. But in America, we are ruled by laws, at least we're supposed to be, not personal feelings. Michael Vick was tried and punished for his crimes. Now Vick is free to pursue happiness just like every other American, and for Vick that means playing in the NFL. Other than making license plates, playing football is the only skill Vick has. Returning to the NFL provides his only opportunity to climb out of debt and lead a productive life.

Commissioner Goodell made a big show of maybe letting Vick come back and maybe not, but I don't think he had a choice. Banning Vick from football would have been like the CEOs of Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart and Meijer colluding to ban Vick from working in retail. Individually, each can refuse to hire him, but they can't collude. But the NFL is based on collusion. If Goodell had banned him, Vick would have sued the NFL for unfair hiring practices. That lawsuit, win or lose, would have invited scrutiny from Congress over the protected legal status of the NFL and other sports leagues as government sanctioned colluders. Goodell couldn't take that risk.

Every NFL owner could have refused to hire Vick, but that was never going to happen. NFL owners love to give troubled players second chances - as long as the player can help the owner make more money. Contrary to what ESPN and the NFL want us to believe, altruism plays little if any role in the decision-making. You never see owners giving second changes to fallen players who can't make them money.

As emotionally galling as it is, rationally, we should want Vick to play football and succeed again. That's in everybody's best interest. Americans love football. They pay billions of dollars every year to watch the best football players in the world. Michael Vick was one of those players, and he'll likely be one again. By playing football, Vick can add millions in value to our society every year. As a grocery store bagger, not so much.

Commissioner Goodell played his hand superbly. By demanding Vick work with Tony Dungy, by all accounts one of the NFL's great people with a missionary's heart, and by giving Vick plenty of rope to hang himself, Goodell gave Vick the best chance at rehabilitation back to productivity he'll ever have. By seemingly walking the fine line of being forgiving but not turning a blind eye to Vick's crimes, Goodell also polished the tarnished image of the NFL.

And the Eagles seem a perfect organization for Vick. They've been the most successful organization in the NFC for the last 10 years. Andy Reid is one of the league's top coaches. Donovan McNabb is a veteran, franchise quarterback who shouldn't be threatened by Vick. The Eagles reached the NFC Championship game last season. With the emergence of the wildcat offense, which seems designed to suit Vick's skills, Vick has an opportunity to improve the Eagles and lift them to a Super Bowl. If the Eagles make it to the Super Bowl, all the talk about Vick's crimes will fade away. Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie is betting that will happen.

But Goodell and Lurie's demand that Vick team up with the Humane Society and anti-dog fighting groups may not be the best idea. If Vick could help raise money for these groups, that would be great, but it seems more likely associating with Vick will taint these organizations and cost them revenue, at least in the near term. It's also a distraction from football, where he needs to succeed, and keeps Vick's crimes in the spotlight. While there's something to be said for never forgetting, these forced partnerships seem counterproductive all the way around. If the Eagles get to the Super Bowl, that may change. If they win it, there's no doubt Vick will be an asset in the future. Focusing on football seems to be a better strategy right now. And never let Vick near the animals.

It's hard to imagine, as far as Vick fell, that he'll put himself in a position to fall again. With Tony Dungy as a mentor and playing for the Eagles, it's even harder to imagine. I wouldn't be surprised to see Michael Vick become a Pro Bowl quarterback in a couple of years. The Eagles with Vick are a good bet to make it to the Super Bowl this year. But if Vick is a sociopath, he won't ever be fully rehabilitated. Americans should never forget Vick's crimes or character.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

The US lost more jobs and the official unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent. That's a 26 year high (since 1983, when Ronald Reagan and Paul Volker allowed interest rates to rise so the American people could fix the economy).

FED / INFLATION:

Accounting fictions of the Treasury and the Fed created by legal tender laws.

Should the government stop dumping money into a giant hole? Funny.

Excellent half hour interview with Ron Paul.

WAR:

NATO air strike kills "up to" 90 in Afghanistan. "Up to" is a way of inflating the number to make it look worse than it probably is. Notice whenever the terrorists kill anybody the media reports only the number of casualties that are certain at that time. When the US military kills somebody, they find the highest number they can and report it. Another thing always assumed in reporting like this is that these civilians are innocent. I.e. they don't support the enemy. I think it's more likely the civilians surrounding the enemy support the enemy. But all that is neither here nor there. We have never declared war on the Taliban, so we shouldn't be in Afghanistan. It's a losing proposition anyway.

Reason highlights the futility of staying in Afghanistan.

POLITICS:

I don't understand this concern over Van Jones. He's an adviser to the president. I'm concerned because Obama is at least as radical as Van Jones and he's our president. This must be a convenient target for those who fear to say the president is a radical leftist and Marxist wannabe to rail against. Obama must be having the biggest laugh at Americans for still not recognizing how dangerous he and his agenda are.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Obama upset that Israel didn't bend to his will, instead continuing to build settlements in occupied territory. Poor little Barack doesn't like it when people don't follow his dictates. This just highlights how counterproductive it is for the US to be involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. When both sides want peace, they'll make peace. In the absence of peace, they'll either fight a perpetual war or one of them will get serious and defeat the other, and they'll get peace through victory. For all you who say that victory can't be won through fighting, I'll remind you you said the same thing about Sri Lanke.

MISC:

New economics paper supports Rothbard's view that the Great Depression was caused by government policies, most importantly the policy of propping up wages above their natural value, not monetary policy as asserted by Milton Friedman.

Private sector innovation for security.

The Ohio government's education analysis is hidden behind IP laws. The government decided that school districts all over Ohio performed better than expected (by whom?), and they will brook no criticism. The IP laws say so. On the one hand, if your expectations are low enough, any achievement looks like success. On the other, hiding your analysis behind IP laws is bull****. They're from the government. They're here to help. Who are we to question?

Cash strapped states are shutting prisons. It seems wrong on the surface, but given the nature of government and a little bit of serious thought, it suddenly becomes clear how the wealth leads to grotesque abuse of imprisonment.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Deficits matter because they crowd out private investment. According to the Heritage Foundation:

"Yhe Office of Management and Budget has released its annual mid-session review that updates the budget projections from this past May. They show that this year, Washington will spend $30,958 per household, tax $17,576 per household, and borrow $13,392 per household."

Put in perspective by the article:

"The typical American household makes about $46,000 a year. Are we to believe that the Federal government will spend, in the name of the American people, $31,000 per household? That each household will be taxed – income taxes, Social Security taxes, corporate taxes, etc. – $17,000? That is what the figures say. Dividing $46,000 by $17,000 is 37%. Can that be possible? Add to this another $13,000 in debt. That is what the government's statistics report. Anyone who thinks an extra $13,000 in household debt doesn't matter is living in la-la land. This includes economists.
...
The government is debating whether the deficit will be $900 billion a year or a mere $700 billion. Both figures would have been laughed off by both parties as fantasyland scare tactics in August 2008. That is how fast and how far the terms of acceptable political discourse have shifted in just one year.
...
When Bernanke, Geithner, and other high officials assure the public that the Federal Reserve will unwind its huge increase in the monetary base, once the economy starts growing again, investors dismiss any suggestion that this proposed unwinding will be a replay on steroids of Bernanke's mild reduction of growth in the FED's balance sheet, 2006–2007. That created the worst recession in post-World War II history."

Tuesday I wondered what the Fed was hiding by paying interest on bank reserves which keeps the banks from loaning out the money, supposedly what all this liquidity was supposed to provide. This article concludes with the claim that the Fed is loaning those bank reserves to the government to buy long-term debt.

"[I]f we are to believe the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve has been lending the commercial banks' excess reserves to the government. The FOMC is using the commercial banks' money to buy T-bonds and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds."

What a convoluted scam. It's a big financial circle that seems to be designed to make the Federal government look more financially sound. The Fed creates money out of thin air, gives it to banks, then offers to pay the banks interest if they keep that money at the Fed, then it loans that money to the government. What the article doesn't point out, and I'm not sure why, is government spending accounts for 67 percent of the typical American household income. We're insane. Sure, Obama and Democrats have made these numbers significantly worse, and want to make them even far worse, but Bush and Republicans made them significantly worse before that. And the budget grew while Clinton and Gingrich were in power too. And Bush before them. And Reagan before him. Both parties love deficits. Both parties think government spending is a good thing. American voters are committing suicide by voting for either of the two anti-American parties.

HEALTH CARE:

Great video shows Obama health care oppression organizer, chief astroturfer, explaining to his astroturf buddies how to shout down health care oppression protesters at a town all. Contrasted with highly misinformed grass roots health care protester.

Leftist organization calls leftist protesters "right-wing terrorists" and the heirs of bin Laden. They think like Obama. They obviously can't count either.

Suggestions to put consumers back in charge of their health care to cut costs.

Ann Coulter's third in a series about liberal lies about health care oppression.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Senate Democrats divided on tax and trade legislation which is bad for the European Union since its already suffering under punishing yet ineffective tax and trade restrictions.

Article claims the Arctic is the warmest it's been in the last 2,000 years. This claim flies in the face of the growing arctic ice extent. Maybe these cores don't include the last two years as arctic ice increased. I expect a little analysis will reveal this study is phony and ginned up by propagandists, but you won't read that in newspaper. New evidence supporting the Medieval Warm Period.

Sunspots may be disappearing completely. Yikes.

FEDERAL RESERVE / INFLATION:

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the one world government crowd was trying to hijack the end the Fed movement for its own ends. But let's slay one dragon at a time. Hannity, Beck and Coulter are part of the one world government movement, but I could see how the media owners could use those pundits to help build support to abolish the Fed then use the maintream media to build support for a global monetary system. Since the mainstream media and the right-wing media are owned by the same few organizations, maybe they're smart enough to play both sides against us. I don't give them that much credit though. I don't this kind of conspiracy theory is useful. Frankly, it's a collectivist way of thinking. The way to make a better, more free world is to make clear, cogent arguments for freedom on every issue, support freedom on every issue and vote for freedom on every issue. As with everything of value in this world, it must be done by individually. Group thinking inevitably leads to ever more oppressive collectivism.

The moral costs of inflation from a personal point of view.

"But asset inflation—ultimately, the debasement of the currency—as the principal source of wealth corrodes the character of people. It not only undermines the traditional bourgeois virtues but makes them ridiculous and even reverses them. Prudence becomes imprudence, thrift becomes improvidence, sobriety becomes mean-spiritedness, modesty becomes lack of ambition, self-control becomes betrayal of the inner self, patience becomes lack of foresight, steadiness becomes inflexibility: all that was wisdom becomes foolishness. And circumstances force almost everyone to join in the dance.
...
Inflation is not a bogey for everyone—not for those who wish to restructure society, for example, or for those who want government control of ever more aspects of people’s lives. But for the rest of us, the consequences of its full-blown return are not likely to be good: for inflation is not an economic problem only, or even mainly, but one that afflicts the human soul."

Powerful.

WAR:

George Will is on a role, now calling for US troops to leave Iraq. US troops are already on the path to leaving Iraq unlike the buildup in Afghanistan, so I don't understand bringing this up. We should leave on the Iraqi timetable, whatever it is, and that's what we're doing. If the Iraqis devolve into civil war after we leave, that's their problem.

LIBERTY:

Supreme Court has second hearing on case where the Federal Election Commission barred the airing of a video critical of Hillary Clinton.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Mexican drug cartels are clearing land and planting pot plantations in national forests. The Federal government can't even stop the drug cartels from producing drugs on Federal property. How much more evidence does anybody need to realize the war on drugs is an abysmal failure and can only be an abysmal failure because it's a war on ourselves?

POLITICS:

We know unequivocally that harsh interrogation techniques work."According to the report, KSM was “an accomplished resistor,” who provided mostly “outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete” information until he was waterboarded. Subsequently, he became the “most prolific” source of important leads."But we've known that waterboarding worked for years. That's why we used it. We also know that the government prosecuted agents who went beyond the limits and broke the law. But we also know that extreme sleep deprivation is harmful to the brain. Limits on sleep deprivation should be set and going beyond them should be considered torture.

Nothing is going to happen to Charlie Rangel as long Democrats control the House and the White House. The question we should be asking is why didn't Bush's Justice Dept. or IRS bust Rangel. The answer is they're all corrupt and Democrats and Republicans agree that they won't prosecute each other for ubiquitous corruption like that.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Obama halts non-humanitarian aid to Honduras because the Honduras government enforced the rule of law against a power-grabbing leftist. Our president is punishing Honduras for supporting the rule of law while he undermines it here. Nice job, voters. I wish Obama would halt all non-humanitarian aid to every country. Honduras needs to hold its election and get on with its life. You can't help but be impressed with the way the Honduras government has stood strong in support of the rule of law versus the allied forces of radical leftists including the US.

North Korea announces it is in the final nuclear enrichment phase to make nuclear weapons. I hope we bomb every North Korean nuclear facility into dust tonight or the best case scenario is every person in the civilized world will have to live with nuclear blackmail for the foreseeable future.

MISC:

This paragraph from essay praising Amity Schlaes The Forgotten Man sounds as if it was written about Obama and AG Holder:

"By 1940, America had learned about FDR & Friends that "unpredictability was the only thing you could be sure of" (p. 374). While FDR would repeatedly announce that "we are bringing order out of chaos" (p. 208), Mrs. Shlaes shows unequivocally that his blasé attitude towards the rule of law was doing quite the opposite. How could the economy recover when FDR's own attorney general went into a court of law and sneered at "the supposed sanctity and inviolability of contractual obligations" (p. 233)?"

It's like deja vu.

"FDR comes across as a man infected with an endless drive for power. He was a consummate politician lucky to be "a great radio speaker born into the era of radio" (p. 129). And he had a moral character and sense of honor that would make a pimp blush. We have never stooped so low before or since. Even so desperate an FDR wannabe as Obama is a Thomas Jefferson in comparison to this man."

Obama hasn't come close to fully revealing himself yet.

"To give credit where credit is due, when it came to politics, FDR was an undoubted genius — but so were his contemporaries Stalin and Mussolini, so maybe that's not really much of a character reference. When it came to economics, he was crack-smoking stupid, and he doubtless caused much misery. But worst of all was his lawlessness."

Crack-smoking stupid. Man, that's funny.

Parents suspicious of Obama's back to school address to children.

"But critics objected to the language of one of the lesson plans, for students in pre-kindergarten through grade 6, which suggested that students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." Another assignment for students after hearing the speech was to discuss what "the president wants us to do.""

I wouldn't let my kid hear it. This is nothing but a way for him to suck in an audience of children captured in government schools. It's an application of force.

Britain suffering brain drain from high taxes. Guess where else that's happening...

Obama to data mine information on social networking sites. If Bush had done this, liberals including the mainstream media would have gone nuclear. But I don't mind it. If you're dumb enough to put private information in public for anybody to consume, that's your own fault. Of course Obama undoubtedly intends to use it for political purposes, not national security. This is a different situation from government taking pictures of people with security cameras. In that case, the government is creating the information. This would analogous to taking pictures of yourself everywhere you go, making them public, then complaining when the government examines them.

Cutting Federal raises from 2.4 percent to 2 percent isn't much, but it's better than nothing.

Lactose intolerance is normal. Being able to drink milk as an adult is not. Weird.

Massachusetts businesses fear they lost their gravy train when Ted Kennedy died. Poor little babies might actually have to compete on a level playing field. This shows just how grotesquely corrupt Kennedy was, taking money from taxpayers by force and funneling it to politically connected businesses, and how that grotesque corruption is celebrated by liberals. Notice the article doesn't talk about all the lost, more productive jobs that happened when Kennedy took that money from taxpayers by force. It's only concerned about the potential of losing less productive jobs that only exist because of government subsidies.

I'm glad to see somebody else has noticed that America is turning into the Soviet Union.

"It can be argued that the destabilization of our culture and economy, magnified by policies of the Obama Administration, conform to KGB plans for the collapse of the United States. The only question remains: Is Obama masterminding the current events for economic collapse, or is he just the hapless puppet holding the hot potato?"

Glenn Beck has done a great job showing that much of the groundwork for our collapse has been done by radical leftists for the last several years and even several decades. Obama is a powerful actor pushing us towards collapse, but the widespread work started long before anybody heard of him. And he brought his Marxist allies into our government. Everything we feared about Obama is true. If anything, he may be more dangerous than we feared. This KGB agenda reads like the liberal agenda in America. That's not surprising. Both are driven by Marxists seeking Marxist revolution in the US. I'm not worried about an external threat. We need to focus on the internal threat. The outsiders are just circling to grab any spoils.

I don't usually watch Beck, but Around the Horn was more boring than usual today. Beck looks like he's going to melt down. He should stick to presenting facts and commentary and leave the dripping melodrama alone.

The panel on Special Report was talking about Van Jones, and none of them had a problem that he was a communist, but all of them had a problem with him being a 9/11 truther. That's how far our country has fallen. How many people did the truthers kill? How many people did the communists kill? Truthers are harmless wackos. Communists are the most evil, deadly wackos the world has ever known.

Down with government utility monopolies.

Illegal immigration probably won't increase anytime soon because our economy is going to continue to flounder until it collapses.

California wildfire caused by arson.

Free kibbles

HEALTH CARE:

George Will highlights how Barack Obama lowered himself to a rabble rouser in the health care debate. But that's always who Obama has been. A rabble-rousing thug, often called a community organizer. I don't know why Obama ever had any credibility, but he blew it by taking the lead on health care oppression. Will is right. Our government is a joke. A destructive, unfunny joke, but a joke nevertheless.

Chris Dodd refuses to allow fellow senators or the public to see his committee's health care bill. Obviously he doesn't want the details attacked in town halls. Don't you just love the transparency Democrats brought to with them to power?

Obama plans to address a joint session of Congress about health care oppression. This guy is the most grandstanding president I've ever heard of. Did even FDR grandstand this much? Jefferson refused to go to Congress and deliver the State of the Union because it makes the look like a monarch lording power over the parliament. That's exactly what Obama wants to look like. That's why it's a slick move. A lot of Americans will fall for it. Some congressmen may fall for it. But Obama can never use this scam again to his advantage.

FEDERAL RESERVE / INFLATION:

The San Francisco Fed governor pretends the Fed is good at its job. Too funny.

Ron Paul's much anticipated book End the Fed is out.

POLITICS:

57 percent of Americans and 70 percent of independents think we should replace every incumbent in Congress. Hell, yeah! But Boortz is exactly right:

"When we get closer to election time these people will start to modify their beliefs a bit. They'll think that every member of congress should be replaced except their own."

And so nothing will change. It's always the other guy's problem, never our own.

Obama administration changes rules on union finance reporting to allow unions to hide money from their members. That's like the way Democrats blocked regulation Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. First Democrats give our power to these organizations, then they enable rampant corruption.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Oversupply of opium is driving down prices, so Afghans are producing less. How ironic. The war on drugs is so worthless and counterproductive that producers only cut production because of oversupply.

MISC:

Every human has 100 mutations in his his or her DNA. Wow.

I think it's obvious the rate of technological progress has slowed. The moon landing is still the greatest accomplishment of mankind. Computer technology hasn't changed significantly in over 15 years. The ever growing burden of government has led to stagnation and regression. When I was a kid, my elders used to say they were jealous because I was going to live in the greatest age ever. They were wrong. They lived in the greatest age ever. I live in the age of decline. People ask if America's best days are behind it. If we keep voting for the same old Republicans and Democrats, they are. If we keep voting for professional politicians, they are. We have the power to fix it by voting third party, but voters refuse to do it.

Pfizer pleads guilty to fraud and accepts $2.3 billion fine. Wow.

Freedom and the liberal.

"The latter-day "liberal" is actually the direct opposite of the true liberal as that term was originally understood. One of these self-styled modern liberals recently defined himself in the following language: "A liberal is one who believes in utilizing the full force of government for the advancement of social, political, and economic justice at the municipal, state, national, and international levels.""

It's not surprising that lovers of government, who lost the battle of ideas when freedom enabled the American people to build the greatest country in history, moved to America to take advantage of its greatness and stole the term liberal to try and win support for their disastrous and discredited policies.

Boortz brings up an old, never meaningfully reported story, recently revisited in Forbes, about how Ted Kennedy offered to work with Soviet Premier Andropov to set up a propaganda interview in order to oust Ronald Reagan.

"Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. "The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations," the memorandum stated. "These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign."
...
When President Reagan chose to confront the Soviet Union, calling it the evil empire that it was, Sen. Edward Kennedy chose to offer aid and comfort to General Secretary Andropov."

Kennedy was a super-slime among slime. No wonder the leftists lionize him. Democrats obviously owned the mainstream media, which was the only media, back then too. What's really twisted is the Republicans and their accomplice press lionize Kennedy too, illustrating that Republicans are just as bad as Democrats and jealous they weren't as successful at sucking power and money from the people to themselves.

This guy learned the most important lesson from Obama: carry the fraud to the most extreme limit possible. So he's claiming to be Jesus's son. I hope Obama's true believers will be converted to follow this guy instead.

Government school indoctrinates 5th graders in bogus liberal political clap-trap. Man this stuff makes me mad. Kids deserve better.

I haven't noticed that compact fluorescents give off lousy light. In fact, I like they light from them better than some incandescents I've had that seem yellowish. But government should have no say in individual choices of light bulbs. Article claims compact fluorescents aren't as bright as incandescents. I haven't noticed that, but the incandescents I replaced them with have just burned out. Maybe they were dim right before.

Black congresswoman claims Republicans are spreading fear to make Barack Obama fail because he's black. Same congresswoman praises Fidel Castro and Cuba's health care system. What a useful idiot. This is an embarrassment to every American, let alone her constituents.

I really like what this article has to say about Obama's FEMA director, so it's a good bet Obama will fire him.

"“We need to change behavior in this country,” he told about 400 emergency-management instructors at a conference in June, lambasting the “government-centric” approach to disasters. He learned a perverse lesson in Florida: the more the federal government does in routine emergencies, the greater the odds of catastrophic failure in a big disaster.
...
To avoid “system collapse,” as he puts it, Fugate insists that the government must draft the public. “We tend to look at the public as a liability. [But] who is going to be the fastest responder when your house falls on your head? Your neighbor.”"

How in the world can Obama have declared 31 major disasters in his first 5 months? The only major disaster I can think of in that time was his inauguration.

How would government seizure of the internet make it more secure? Easy. Shut it down. No internet is a secure internet. Think about it. Right before an election, Obama will claim there's a cyber-security threat. He'll shut down the internet and cut off that medium of debate. He'll clean up the mess after he wins the next election. Shutting down specifically targeted sites would make it secure too. Especially those sites critical of Obama, Democrats and their policies. Just claim they're compromised. Dumb conservatives don't know how to secure their sites like smart liberals. Obama's entire political success is based on silencing the opposition. You'd have to be a moron not to see the real goals of this power grab.

Letters show that Lockerbie bomber was released as a quid pro quo for BP oil deal. You have to be kidding me. I hope the liberals jump down the throat of Gorden Brown like they did when they claimed Bush went to war in Iraq for oil.

Michael Barone wonders at the disconnect of well intentioned liberals and the union thugishness and corruption that liberalism breeds.

Minnesota is finally getting around to checking if taxpayer money is funding mosques at Islamic schools.

Cop makes protester hold down anti-Obama sign, threatens him with trespassing if he doesn't, and tells the protester "It ain't [America] no more." I'll say. This is what happens when you let police power go unchecked. If you let them stop you from taking pictures of bridges, if you let them force you to show ID when you're not committing a crime, the inevitable next step is they will force their political beliefs on you. It's kind of funny to see conservatives suddenly realize the consequences of giving police so much power. It's like that old saying, a liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet. A conservative is a libertarian who hasn't been threatened by the police yet.

Press blames the Federal government for not burning away brush in wildfire area outside LA. Why is this a Federal problem? More accurately, why is this my problem? And every other American's problem? This illustrates why it's stupid to surrender power to the Federal government. They don't care about fires in LA like the people in California and LA care about the fires in LA. The Federal government doesn't care about your retirement or your health care like you care about your retirement and your health care. The environmentalists don't care about fires in LA either.

Sending astronauts on a one-way mission to Mars is nothing like pilgrims colonizing the US. First of all, the US is on the same planet as Europe. It has the same atmosphere, basic temperature, water flow, etc. Colonists knew it had the same dirt and would grow the same plants, etc. Colonists expected to live long, healthy, better lives in America and provide better lives for their children. Second, the first explorers of America returned to Europe before colonists went to America. Pretending sending astronauts on a suicide mission to Mars is related to pilgrims colonizing America is an outright lie of ridiculous proportions. But that doesn't mean we should dismiss the idea. Scientists so focused on going to Mars they're willing to commit suicide to do it might be the best candidates to survive such a long space journey anyway.