Let's Nationalize Everything

With all the takeovers by our government and people seemingly not minding this turn away from freedom, rights and the supreme law of the land, OUR CONSTITUTION, let's see what this nationalization craze would look like with something we would never even consider - our grocery stores. If you think it's ridiculous why isn't it equally ridiculous that this president is nationalizing our car manufacturers and our banks????

It's Time to Nationalize Grocery Stores
By Richard E. Ralston
April 26, 2009

One of the great scandals of our age is the fact that America spends more on food than any other nation. Many political leaders are now calling for urgent reform to bring spending on food under control. While food spending is rapidly increasing and many Americans are overweight, some do not have enough to eat.

In spite of this high spending, the United Nations reports that, according to surveys they sent to government officials around the world, the quality of U.S. food is ranked very low. Results from officials in France report that their food is the best in the world. Although that needs to be taken with a grain of Dijon, it might be true. More insulting is the higher ranking that British experts give their food.

Leaders in Congress now point to what they see as the heart of the problem: corporate greed in the form of grocery stores and restaurants operating on a for-profit basis. They promise to replace all private grocery stores with a national system of government commissaries, which will allegedly operate far more efficiently without the administrative overhead required to make a profit. As it will take some time to organize the national network of commissaries, initially groceries will be available only at offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles and U.S. Postal Service. These offices have a proven track record of operational efficiency and excellent customer service, and will be a model for the development of a government commissary system.

Congress and the Administration say they will achieve further efficiencies by prohibiting all advertising of food and food products. Consumers will find shopping to be much easier if personal preference is eliminated in favor of whatever foods government makes available.

To better control costs, the government will invest billions in new electronic food purchasing records. Everything you eat will be reported to the government, which will analyze the data to eliminate wasteful or unhealthy eating. All new food must be approved by a new Comparative Calorie and Taste Administration, which will eliminate most of the unnecessary brands of potato chips. And as anyone who shops in grocery stores knows, we have far too many brands of beer.

Food is surely a right, as it is necessary for human survival. Therefore all groceries available in government commissaries will be free of charge. This will be financed by an increase of 15 percent in income taxes, except for those making over $80,000 a year, whose taxes will be increased by 75 percent. Because the supply of food is not unlimited, a fixed amount of ration coupons will be distributed to insure that each consumer can obtain an equal amount of food.

All private restaurants will be closed, and limited cafeterias will be operated as government commissaries. Congressional liberals point to school lunch programs as a model and the proven results demonstrated by several generations of well-nourished, trim and fit students. Of course, we veterans also remember all of that great Army chow.

So far, conservative leaders are at a loss after hearing these proposals. Some of the more courageous conservatives are responding with proposals for Mandatory Food Purchasing. All citizens, including those who go to bed hungry every night, will be required to purchase membership in new Food Management Organizations. To further control costs, the purchase of certain cuts of meat and imported gourmet foods could require the FMO's advance approval.

Across the political spectrum, there is a developing consensus that the only appropriate response to the fact that some consumers cannot afford groceries is to impose a single, regimented, government-controlled food system on all citizens. All agree that this is sure to provide the same consistently high standards as public education.

Rumor has it that the clincher for those proposing grocery nationalization was stated recently by the White House: "The great thing about these proposals is that if we can somehow get this to work for groceries, we can apply the same idea to health care."

Richard E. Ralston is Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.

Copyright © 2009 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.
Send reprint requests to mail@afcm.org. Reprints must include above copyright statement.

Dissing The Rule of Law: California and Chrysler

The political objectives of the Obama administration is to keep the union happy and to hell with creditors and taxpayers. Your property rights are nothing when social justice and/or the public good come into play. This is no longer the land of the free and the brave but the land of the moochers and parasites.

"Years and years of bankruptcy law says if you are a secured creditor you come first in the line". Watch this discussion video at the WSJ.

Obama's Big Lie

It's time for Americans to wake up and smell the coffee. This administration is preparing to hoist one of the largest increases in taxes in recent history...and what are we doing? Not much. Are we going to take this cap and trade tax increase without a whimper? Remember when he promised not to raise a single tax?

Government: Our Thigh Master

It is fitting that Obama and company use Memorial Day to help us adjust to a changing role for the American government. From a defender of our Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness we chuck that outdated concept and adhere now to a government that will protect us from beer, ice cream and hotdogs. Just when you think Obama can't meddle in our lives any more than he has already he manages to think that controlling our eating habits is of national importance! Yup - Forget the Memorial Day celebrations of your past...now we'll be barbecuing vegetables covered in soy sauce and clinking glasses of milk and water. This government even wants to control how we eat, when we eat it and what we put in our stomachs. Will there be any end to this idiocy? Will we ever get back our freedoms?

MEMORIAL DAY MAKEOVER (Congress has an eye on your holiday menu) Wall St Jr.

Hot dogs, potato chips, soda and beer are staples of the traditional Memorial Day cookout, but Washington wants to redesign the menu. Just in time for your neighborhood block party, the Obama Administration and Senate Finance Committee are signalling a change in your diet.

President Obama has named Thomas Frieden, the New York City health commissioner who championed a ban on artificial trans fats, as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Frieden's campaign forced McDonald's to change the way it cooks french fries -- you may have noticed the taste -- and he has lately called for all restaurants to use less salt. Let's hope he spends at least some of his time considering flu pandemics and bioterrorism.

In any case, when Dr. Frieden arrives in Washington, he'll find an ally in Michael Jacobson, head of the Naderite Center for Science in the Public Interest. Mr. Jacobson has made a career attacking ethnic restaurants, fast-food chains and grocery manufacturers for allegedly unhealthy fare. While he may be the last guy you'd want at your barbecue, Mr. Jacobson was recently an honored guest at Senate Finance. At a hearing to brainstorm on ways to pay for Mr. Obama's new health-care entitlement, Mr. Jacobson recommended that Congress enact a 50% reduction in the salt content of America's food supply, a tax of up to one cent per ounce on soft drinks, and a tripling of the federal excise tax on beer, to roughly 16 cents a can.

Is government to be the servant of the people, or their (thigh)master? Mr. Jacobson's view of the role of government was illuminated by his gripe that since 1991 beer has been taxed at a flat $18 per barrel. "Since then, inflation has robbed the Treasury of more than one-third the value of the taxes," he said. (Wall Street Journal-READ)

Stop Exhaling - They're Out to Make You Pay to Do So

Hold on to your wallets - there are major industries who smell money and will work hand in glove with the Gores and politicians of the world to get a piece of the action while we, the ordinary folks who like to live an honest life will struggle to pay the ridiculous taxes that these people will demand so that we stop producing carbon dioxide. Anyone want to stop breathing?
Bjorn Lomborg writes in the Wall Street Journal-

Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.

The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that "there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."

This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.

This phenomenon will be on display at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen this weekend. The organizers -- the Copenhagen Climate Council -- hope to push political leaders into more drastic promises when they negotiate the Kyoto Protocol's replacement in December.

The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.

Later Mr. Bjorn writes about the industries that stand to gain from this Global Warming scam.

We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain. READ at WSJ

The Logical Consequences of Living Off the Government - Bankruptcy

The piper always has to be paid doesn't it. Only it took way too long for people to understand the consequences of government meddling in the economy. Government does not do anything well or correctly. It's only job is defence and to protect the individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of HIS happiness. I hope Michigan throws the bums out and demands a major reduction in their government budget!

Reporting from Sacramento and Washington -- After California voters Tuesday rejected almost the entire slate of ballot measures he had been championing as a means to fix the budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Washington, D.C., seeking to secure federal stimulus money for the state.

The failure of the ballot measures means California now faces a $21.3-billion deficit. The steep state budget cuts Schwarzenegger has proposed to address it could violate federal rules against certain spending reductions, costing the state hundreds of millions - if not billions - of dollars federal assistance...

Schwarzenegger said he received the voters' message "loud and clear: an overwhelming majority of people told Sacramento, 'Go and do your work yourself, don't come to us with your problems....""The message was clear from the people, go all out and make those cuts and live within your means," he said.

The "big five" elected leaders -- Schwarzenegger and the legislative chieftains from both houses -- are slated to begin closed-door meetings today upon the governor's return from Washington.

On Thursday, a small group of Senate and Assembly members will hold the first of what's expected to be a slew of daily public sessions to wrangle over the details of the budget. Schwarzenegger has called for cuts that would hit every corner of the state.

He announced plans to lay off 5,000 of the state's 235,000 workers and has proposed slashing education by up to $5 billion, selling state properties, borrowing $2 billion from local governments and potentially reducing eligibility for healthcare programs. (READ)


At American Solutions:

Yesterday, Californians soundly rejected a series of new tax increases that Gov. Schwarzenegger argued were necessary to solve the state's budget crisis.

Of the six ballot measures, only one passed -- the one to stop pay raises for elected officials during budget deficits.

The remaining five propositions, including the most controversial measure, Proposition 1A, were defeated by 2 to 1 margins.

The signal sent to politicians wishing to raise taxes in the midst of a recession couldn't have been clearer: (READ at American Solutions)

The Hypocrisy of The Anti - Waterboarding Crowd is Stunning

This whole waterboarding debate is ridiculous when we face life and death issues. To extract information during war you use all the tactics available to you. Our military has the moral obligation to save American lives from evil not play the saint. Thomas Sowell does a magnificent job of laying out this issue from a moral point of view.

One of the many signs of the degeneration of our times is how many serious, even life-and-death, issues are approached as talking points in a game of verbal fencing. Nothing illustrates this more than the fatuous, and even childish, controversy about "torturing" captured terrorists.

People's actions often make far more sense than their words. Most of the people who are talking lofty talk about how we mustn't descend to the level of our enemies would themselves behave very differently if presented with a comparable situation, instead of being presented with an opportunity to be morally one up with rhetoric.

What if it was your mother or your child who was tied up somewhere beside a ticking time bomb and you had captured a terrorist who knew where that was? Face it: What you would do to that terrorist to make him talk would make water-boarding look like a picnic.

You wouldn't care what the New York Times would say or what "world opinion" in the U.N. would say. You would save your loved one's life and tell those other people what they could do.

But if the United States behaves that way it is called "arrogance"-- even by American citizens. Indeed, even by the American president.

There is a big difference between being ponderous and being serious. It is scary when the President of the United States is not being serious about matters of life and death, saying that there are "other ways" of getting information from terrorists.

Maybe this is a step up from the previous talking point that "torture" had not gotten any important information out of terrorists. Only after this had been shown to be a flat-out lie did Barack Obama shift his rhetoric to the lame assertion that unspecified "other ways" could have been used...(Read the rest here)

Obama Throws The Rule of Law Out The Window

Over at the Wall Street Journal Todd J. Zywicki explains Obama's strong arming of Chrysler. It's stench is horrible and America is the worse for this sad disregard for the inviolability of contracts.

The rule of law, not of men -- an ideal tracing back to the ancient Greeks and well-known to our Founding Fathers -- is the animating principle of the American experiment. While the rest of the world in 1787 was governed by the whims of kings and dukes, the U.S. Constitution was established to circumscribe arbitrary government power. It would do so by establishing clear rules, equally applied to the powerful and the weak.

Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chávez. But it would never happen here, right?

Until Chrysler.

The close relationship between the rule of law and the enforceability of contracts, especially credit contracts, was well understood by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. A primary reason they wanted it was the desire to escape the economic chaos spawned by debtor-friendly state laws during the period of the Articles of Confederation. Hence the Contracts Clause of Article V of the Constitution, which prohibited states from interfering with the obligation to pay debts.
Hence also the Bankruptcy Clause of Article I, Section 8, which delegated to the federal government the sole authority to enact "uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies."

The Obama administration's behavior in the Chrysler bankruptcy is a profound challenge to the rule of law. Secured creditors -- entitled to first priority payment under the "absolute priority rule" -- have been browbeaten by an American president into accepting only 30 cents on the dollar of their claims. Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers union, holding junior creditor claims, will get about 50 cents on the dollar.

The absolute priority rule is a linchpin of bankruptcy law. By preserving the substantive property and contract rights of creditors, it ensures that bankruptcy is used primarily as a procedural mechanism for the efficient resolution of financial distress. Chapter 11 promotes economic efficiency by reorganizing ...(READ at WSJ).

Socialized Health Care via Obama is Still Socialized Bad Health Care

Shikha Dalmia at Forbes Magazine shows how socialized health care has been tried and always fails to deliver. Come on, do you really think the government can run the field of medicine? It's a joke and everyone knows it but politicians see in this a great way to lay their hands on money...it's called corruption.

True to the advice of his chief of staff to never let a good crisis go to waste, President Barack Obama is using the current economic crisis to sell a top item on the liberal wish-list: universal health care. "You can't fix the economy," he has repeatedly said, "without fixing health care."

But the president needs to take a chill pill before committing America to a huge new entitlement: One is hard pressed to find any evidence from abroad showing that universal coverage has grown the major industrialized economies more than ours in the past--or shielded them more than us from the global slump now.

At the president's behest, Democrats are exploring ways to ramrod a health care reform bill through Congress this fall by using procedural shenanigans to avoid a Republican filibuster. In his budget, Obama has already proposed an additional $634 billion--nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars--in health care spending over the next few years. If he gets his way, this money will be the first installment toward a government insurance plan that will compete with private plans to allegedly put affordable coverage within everyone's grasp.

But whatever else universal coverage might bring, there is no evidence that it will bring economic nirvana. If anything, contrary to what the president suggests, the correlation runs the other way for countries with universal coverage such as Canada, England, France, Germany and Japan. On nearly every economic front, their performance has been worse than America's--even, surprisingly, in controlling health care costs. Read at Forbes

Free Enterprise "Is Not an Owned Lackey of the Oval Office"

Hurray for Clifford S. Asness for having the courage to speak out against the Obama intimidation and meddling in the economy tactics. We need more brave men to come out and protest the White House Intrusion into the market place. Government get out of the way - leave us alone! Mr Asness even knows that his words of criticism may get him in trouble with the IRS. This IS scarey stuff and we the people must fight it.

...free enterprise system that has worked spectacularly for us for two hundred plus years. When it fails it fixes itself. Most importantly, it is not an owned lackey of the oval office to be scolded for disobedience by the President.

The President has just harshly castigated hedge fund managers for being unwilling to take his administration’s bid for their Chrysler bonds. He called them “speculators” who were “refusing to sacrifice like everyone else” and who wanted “to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.”

The responses of hedge fund managers have been, appropriately, outrage, but generally have been anonymous for fear of going on the record against a powerful President (an exception, though still in the form of a “group letter”, was the superb note from “The Committee of Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders” some of the points of which I echo here, and a relatively few firms, like Oppenheimer, that have publicly defended themselves). Furthermore, one by one the managers and banks are said to be caving to the President’s wishes out of justifiable fear...

...Last but not least, the President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out. Find me a hedge fund, even a failed one, that has asked for one. In fact, it was only because hedge funds have not taken government funds that they could stand up to this bullying. The TARP recipients had no choice but to go along. The hedge funds were singled out only because they are unpopular, not because they behaved any differently from any other ethical manager of other people's money. The President’s comments here are backwards and libelous. Yet, somehow I don’t think the hedge funds will be following ACORN’s lead and trucking in a bunch of paid professional protestors soon. Hedge funds really need a community organizer.

This is America. We have a free enterprise system that has worked spectacularly for us for two hundred plus years. When it fails it fixes itself. Most importantly, it is not an owned lackey of the oval office to be scolded for disobedience by the President.

I am ready for my “personalized” tax rate now. (read at The Business Insider)

America Needs An "Ethical Revolution"

Nick Provenzo at The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism writes about the crisis we're in and the solution (it's not government intervention and meddling).

So unlike the claims of some, the current crisis is not so much a battle between Wall Street and Main Street. The problem we face today rests on every street; it rests in our nation's unchallenged enshrinement of need as a virtue and its willingness to use government power to assuage that need. Instead of leaving people free to work toward improving their lives though their own efforts, we have created a system of perverse incentives; a system that has now collapsed as a system so-designed must.

What then is the answer to this panic? I hold that we simply ought to let the businesses that failed fail, expedite the liquidation of their assets at their current market value under streamlined bankruptcy laws, and once and for all remove our government from the business of creating perverse economic incentives.

Notice however that such a plan is not a serious proposal being debated within the halls of Congress. Instead we are told that we require more regulation of banking through "Financial Stability Oversight Boards," smaller CEO salaries, stricter business accounting rules, massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of banking, subsidies to borrowers, and perhaps most rich, we are told that we should expect our government to make money from it all as it essentially nationalizes the commercial banking sector. I'm sure the folks at Amtrak think that they are going to make money one day too, but institutions that respond to political wishes rather than the reality of the marketplace do not make money; they lose it and in our age they lose it to the tune of billions upon billions of dollars.

So for the market to be restored, we must first demand an ethical revolution, one that says that people have a right to their life, liberty and the freedom to pursue their own happiness, but not a right to claim the unearned or a right to have our government provide it for them. Our nation needs to learn a new mantra: Give us liberty, and death to government controls. (Read here at Center for the Advancement of Capitalism).

A Saudi Admires The West's Accomplishments Outloud

Rob Tracinski at The Intellectual Activist found this marvelous interview with an honest Arab, Ibrahim Al-Buleihi speaking about his admiration of Western Culture when interviewed by the Saudi Newspaper Okaz.

"If It Were Not for the Accomplishments of the West, Our Lives Would Have Been Barren"

'Okaz: "I begin with the crucial issue which distinguishes your thought and which your opponents always raise against you - namely, your being completely dazzled by the West, while you completely belittle Arabic thought. Truly, this is the most outstanding feature of your writings. There is also extreme self-flagellation which many see [in your writings]. What is the cause of this?"

Buleihi: "My attitude towards Western civilization is an attitude based on obvious facts and great accomplishments; here is a reality full of wonderful and amazing things. [Recognizing] this doesn't mean that I am blindly fascinated. This is the very opposite of the attitude of those who deny and ignore the bright lights of Western civilization. Just look around… and you will notice that everything beautiful in our life has been produced by Western civilization: even the pen that you are holding in your hand, the recording instrument in front of you, the light in this room, and the journal in which you work, and many innumerable amenities, which are like miracles for the ancient civilizations.… If it were not for the accomplishments of the West, our lives would have been barren. I only look objectively and value justly what I see and express it honestly. Whoever does not admire great beauty is a person who lacks sensitivity, taste, and observation. Western civilization has reached the summit of science and technology. It has achieved knowledge, skills, and new discoveries, as no previous civilization before it. The accomplishments of Western civilization cover all areas of life: methods of organization, politics, ethics, economics, and human rights. It is our obligation to acknowledge its amazing excellence. Indeed, this is a civilization that deserves admiration. … The horrible backwardness in which some nations live is the inevitable result of their refusal to accept this [abundance of Western ideas and visions] while taking refuge in denial and arrogance." (READ the interview)

America Was Founded on the Idea of SMALL Government

Amidst all the mania of Obama worship let's not forget that America was founded precisely for the idea of small and NON-intrusive government. What we have now is the exact opposite and I totally blame the Republican party for departing from this fundamental proposition. John Lewis gave the most interesting and impassioned speech of all Tea Party speakers. Listen to this speech and see if you don't agree.

An Honest Reporter Questions His Orthodoxies on Global Warming

Al Gore's global warming scam may have it's days numbered thanks to a new book out in Australia called "Heaven and Earth" written by one of Australia's foremost Earth scientists, Professor Ian Plimer. At The Sydney Morning Herald Paul Sheehan confesses that perhaps he has been wrong about man-made global warming and presents Dr. Plimer's evidence for natural causes regarding anything to do with climate.

What I am about to write questions much of what I have written in this space, in numerous columns, over the past five years. Perhaps what I have written can withstand this questioning. Perhaps not. The greater question is, am I - and you - capable of questioning our own orthodoxies and intellectual habits? Let's see...

...He (DR. Plimer) writes: "Past climate changes, sea-level changes and catastrophes are written in stone."

Much of what we have read about climate change, he argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modelling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive". Errors and distortions in computer modelling will be exposed in time. (As if on cue, the United Nations' peak scientific body on climate change was obliged to make an embarrassing admission last week that some of its computers models were wrong.)...

In fact Dr. Plimer states that we are currently in an ICE AGE!!!

...The history of time shows us that depopulation, social disruption, extinctions, disease and catastrophic droughts take place in cold times … and life blossoms and economies boom in warm times. Planet Earth is dynamic. It always changes and evolves. It is currently in an ice age."

...The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate.

...Over time, the history of CO2 content in the atmosphere has been far higher than at present for most of time. Atmospheric CO2 follows temperature rise. It does not create a temperature rise. CO2 is not a pollutant. Global warming and a high CO2 content bring prosperity and longer life. READ the full article here: "Beware The Climate of Conformity".