Thirty years of negotiations with Iran and we are brought to the brink with a Nuclear armed Iran. Thugs are called thugs because they do not obey the laws of civilized behavior. We have had 3 decades of all kinds of governments appeasing Iran and what they did, in fact, was embolden Iran as they saw that the West was weak and ineffectual. Now, the danger we are in is that we a have a weak president who is not taking this existential threat seriously. Like the story of the Three Little Pigs and the wolf...the only house that withstood the assaults by the wolf was the one built of stone. We have a house built of 30 years of hot air and war can be the only outcome.
The Obama administration's talks with Iran—set to take place tomorrow in Geneva—are accompanied by an almost universally accepted misconception: that previous American administrations refused to negotiate with Iranian leaders. The truth, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said last October at the National Defense University, is that "every administration since 1979 has reached out to the Iranians in one way or another and all have failed."
After the fall of the shah in February 1979, the Carter administration attempted to establish good relations with the revolutionary regime. We offered aid, arms and understanding. The Iranians demanded that the United States honor all arms deals with the shah, remain silent about human-rights abuses carried out by the new regime, and hand over Iranian "criminals" who had taken refuge in America. The talks ended with the seizure of the American Embassy in November.
The Reagan administration—driven by a ...
...Thirty years of negotiations and sanctions have failed to end the Iranian nuclear program and its war against the West. Why should anyone think they will work now? A change in Iran requires a change in government. Common sense and moral vision suggest we should support the courageous opposition movement, whose leaders have promised to end support for terrorism and provide total transparency regarding the nuclear program. READ at WSJ.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
A Nuclear Iran Appears to be a Certainty and All We Have is a Weak President
Bush did nothing to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions - Obama, an very weak leader, most certainly will not do anything except go around giving mealy mouth speeches while Rome burns. Obama is the wrong leader at a most dangerous time in the worlds history. A nuclear Iran run by crazed leaders with visions of extermination in their fried brains is here and we knew this was coming for at least a decade. Now we will all pay and pay dearly for not showing bravery and determination to rid the world of the crazies...it's the Nazi story all over again but this time with nuclear bombs.
Eliot A. Cohen at WSJ has an article that's worth reading if you have the stomach.
... And if President Obama does not have the courage to accept hazards and ugly surprises, and if he cannot bring himself to deploy his rhetorical skills to the mobilization of opinion at home and abroad, he should not start a shooting war, even if the Iranians are already waging one against us.
That leaves living with an Iranian bomb. But this too has enormous hazards. It will engender—it has already quietly engendered—a nuclear arms race in the region. It will embolden the Iranian regime to make much more lethal mischief than it has even now. In a region that respects strength, it will enhance, not diminish, Iranian prestige. And it may yield the first nuclear attack since 1945 some time down the road.
At the heart of the problem is not simply the nuclear program. It is the Iranian regime, a regime that has, since 1979, relentlessly waged war against the U.S. and its allies. From Buenos Aires to Herat, from Beirut to Cairo, from Baghdad to, now, Caracas, Iranian agents have done their best to disrupt and kill. Iran is militarily weak, but it is masterful at subversive war, and at the kind of high-tech guerrilla, roadside-bomb and rocket fight that Hezbollah conducted in 2006. American military cemeteries contain the bodies of hundreds, maybe thousands, of American servicemen and servicewomen slain by Iranian technology, Iranian tactics, and in some cases, Iranian operatives.
The brutality without is more than matched by the brutality within—the rape, torture and summary execution of civilians by the tens of thousands, down, quite literally, to the present day. This is a corrupt, fanatical, ruthless and unprincipled regime—unpopular, to be sure, but willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power. With such a regime, no real negotiation, based on understandings of mutual interest and respect for undertakings is possible. READ AT WSJ.
Eliot A. Cohen at WSJ has an article that's worth reading if you have the stomach.
... And if President Obama does not have the courage to accept hazards and ugly surprises, and if he cannot bring himself to deploy his rhetorical skills to the mobilization of opinion at home and abroad, he should not start a shooting war, even if the Iranians are already waging one against us.
That leaves living with an Iranian bomb. But this too has enormous hazards. It will engender—it has already quietly engendered—a nuclear arms race in the region. It will embolden the Iranian regime to make much more lethal mischief than it has even now. In a region that respects strength, it will enhance, not diminish, Iranian prestige. And it may yield the first nuclear attack since 1945 some time down the road.
At the heart of the problem is not simply the nuclear program. It is the Iranian regime, a regime that has, since 1979, relentlessly waged war against the U.S. and its allies. From Buenos Aires to Herat, from Beirut to Cairo, from Baghdad to, now, Caracas, Iranian agents have done their best to disrupt and kill. Iran is militarily weak, but it is masterful at subversive war, and at the kind of high-tech guerrilla, roadside-bomb and rocket fight that Hezbollah conducted in 2006. American military cemeteries contain the bodies of hundreds, maybe thousands, of American servicemen and servicewomen slain by Iranian technology, Iranian tactics, and in some cases, Iranian operatives.
The brutality without is more than matched by the brutality within—the rape, torture and summary execution of civilians by the tens of thousands, down, quite literally, to the present day. This is a corrupt, fanatical, ruthless and unprincipled regime—unpopular, to be sure, but willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power. With such a regime, no real negotiation, based on understandings of mutual interest and respect for undertakings is possible. READ AT WSJ.
The United Nations, G-20 Summit and Obama Wants Others To Help Us Run Our Economy at PJTV
Don't you feel that it's creepy for the United States President to be cavorting with basically half a room full of thug dictators like Chavez, the nuclear bomb nut from Iran and the other nut from Libya? AND APOLOGIZING FOR AMERICA! HOW DARE HE?
Yaron Brook from ARI and Terri Jones from IBD discuss Obama's New World Order, Violent Protests from the Far-Left at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh while Obama makes his apology tour and continues to push environmentalism by making us into a solar/battery nation. Well worth a listen at PJTV.
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2495
Yaron Brook from ARI and Terri Jones from IBD discuss Obama's New World Order, Violent Protests from the Far-Left at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh while Obama makes his apology tour and continues to push environmentalism by making us into a solar/battery nation. Well worth a listen at PJTV.
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2495
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Government Muzzles Free Speech! Yes in The United States!
Is this the first case testing one of our constitutional rights - Free speech? It looks like it is. The Obama administration is trying to muzzle the insurance company Humana from warning it's citizens that their health care coverage might be lower with the Obama plan now in congress/senate. Read up on this frightening new report intrusion into our liberties.
The Humana insurance company recently sent a letter to Medicare Advantage enrollees that suggested that health care reform would lower their benefits. The Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ordered Humana to stop. READ
The Los Angeles Times reports this afternoon that the Department of Health and Human Services has begun an investigation into actions taken by health insurer Humana. Did they commit claims fraud with Medicare, or unfairly refuse to provide services? No — they had the temerity to commit the heinous act of free speech with their customers: READ at HOT AIR
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration warned insurance companies Monday they face possible legal action for allegedly trying to scare seniors with misleading information about the potential for lost benefits under health care legislation in Congress."As we continue our research into this issue, we are instructing you to immediately discontinue all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your Web sites," said a notice from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. READ at la.times.com
The Humana insurance company recently sent a letter to Medicare Advantage enrollees that suggested that health care reform would lower their benefits. The Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ordered Humana to stop. READ
The Los Angeles Times reports this afternoon that the Department of Health and Human Services has begun an investigation into actions taken by health insurer Humana. Did they commit claims fraud with Medicare, or unfairly refuse to provide services? No — they had the temerity to commit the heinous act of free speech with their customers: READ at HOT AIR
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration warned insurance companies Monday they face possible legal action for allegedly trying to scare seniors with misleading information about the potential for lost benefits under health care legislation in Congress."As we continue our research into this issue, we are instructing you to immediately discontinue all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your Web sites," said a notice from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. READ at la.times.com
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Obama Fiddles While Iran Builds Nuclear Weapons
Obama either lives in the Land of Oz where lollipops and kindly lions live or else he has the heart of a thug and perhaps that's why there are so many pictures of him hugging Chavez and why he defends the return to power of Zelaya in Honduras. Here is the last paragraph of a very observant piece in the WSJ about Obama refusing to take the Iranian nuclear bomb crisis to heart as he dances fields of white lilies.
...The President brought his soaring sermon about "a world without [nuclear] weapons" before the U.N. General Assembly. He called for a new arms control treaty and won Security Council support for a vague resolution on proliferation. On cue yesterday, Iran showed the world what determined rogues think about such treaties. On the evidence of his Presidency so far, Mr. Obama will not let that reality interfere with his disarmament dreams">
Meantime, the U.S. and its allies dream. Mr. Obama used his global forum this week not to rally the world to stop today's nuclear rogues but to offer lovely visions of disarmament in some distant future. In the bitter decades of the Cold War, we learned the hard way that the only countries that abide by disarmament treaties are those that want to be disarmed. It's becoming increasingly, and dangerously, obvious that Mr. Obama wasn't paying attention.
...Standing together before the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh yesterday, Mr. Obama and the French and British leaders put on their game faces, calling for Iran to immediately admit IAEA inspectors. New deadlines were mentioned—talks with Tehran starting October 1, tougher sanctions by December, and so on. "Everything," said France's Nicolas Sarkozy, "must be put on the table now."
At least the French President tried to sound tough, which isn't hard when you stand next to Mr. Obama. The American said Iran will "be held accountable" but watered this down with extended remarks on Iran's "right to peaceful nuclear power," as if the mullahs, sitting on the world's second-largest natural gas and third-largest oil reserves, have any need for peaceful atomic energy. READ AT WSJ
Obama Cavorting With Evil Is a Loss For Us
If the good collaborates with evil and gives it a platform that is called collaboration and evil will always win. That is why when one is confronted by evil one either extinguishes the evil or runs away to protect himself. At the UN the good countries give a podium to the evil ones and that is what they crave. Libya, Iran, Venezuela the list goes on and on - what could we possibly learn from them. They are evil nations and need to be confronted by strength and force not appeasement. Mark Steyn has a good article decrying Obama's cavorting with these dictators and thugs.
..."It's a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice cream and a quart of dog feces and mix 'em together the result will taste more like the latter than the former. That's the problem with the U.N."
Absolutely right, if I do say so myself. When you make the free nations and the thug states members of the same club, the danger isn't that they'll meet each other half-way but that the free world winds up going three-quarters, seven-eighths of the way.
That's what happened in New York last week. Barack Obama is not to blame for whichever vagary of United Nations protocol resulted in the president of the United States being the warm-up act for the Lunatic-for-Life in charge of Libya.
That's what happened in New York last week. Barack Obama is not to blame for whichever vagary of United Nations protocol resulted in the president of the United States being the warm-up act for the Lunatic-for-Life in charge of Libya.
But it is a pitiful reflection upon the state of the last superpower that, when it comes to the transnational mush drooled by the leader of the free world or the conspiracist ramblings of a terrorist pseudo-Bedouin running a one-man psycho-cult of a basket-case state, it's more or less a toss-up as to which of them is more unreal.
To be sure, Col. Gadhafi peddled his thoughts on the laboratory origins of swine flu and the Zionist plot behind the Kennedy assassination.
But, on the other hand, President Obama said: "No nation can or should try to dominate another nation."
Pardon me? Did a professional speechwriter write that? Or did you outsource it to a starry-eyed runner-up in the Miss America pageant? Whether any nation "should try" to dominate another, they certainly "can," and do so with effortless ease, all over the planet and throughout human history.
And how about this passage?
"I have been in office for just nine months — though some days it seems a lot longer. I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world. These expectations are not about me. Rather, they are rooted, I believe, in a discontent with a status quo that has allowed us to be increasingly defined by our differences ... ."
Forget the first part: That's just his usual narcissistic "But enough about me, let's talk about what the world thinks of me" shtick. But the second is dangerous in its cowardly evasiveness: For better or worse, we are defined by our differences — and, if Barack Obama doesn't understand this when he's at the podium addressing a room filled with representatives of Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Venezuela and other unlovely polities, the TV audience certainly did when Col. Gadhafi took to the podium immediately afterward....
Friday, September 25, 2009
Bill Whittle in LA Speaking About America's True Values
If you want to hear an eloquent speaker who delivers a punch every time he speaks, listen to Bill Whittle in Los Angeles speaking to a crowd about what America is versus the vision Washington has for us. You will not be disappointed ....
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Frederic Bastiat - A Great Defender of Capitalism and Freedom from Do-Gooders
The purpose of government is to protect the rights of the individual. No more and no less. Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman and author. The quotes below are from "THE LAW" published as a pamphlet in 1850. He said, and is correct that socialism must inevitably degenerate into communism.
"Let Us Try Liberty" by Frederic Bastiat
Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty...
"The Desire to Rule Over Others"
This must be said: There are too many "great" men in the world - legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
"Proper Legislative Functions"
It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator...
It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person.
"Let Us Try Liberty" by Frederic Bastiat
Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty...
"The Desire to Rule Over Others"
This must be said: There are too many "great" men in the world - legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
"Proper Legislative Functions"
It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator...
It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person.
Moore Tries Again To Extol The Virtues of Socialism/Communism
Mr. Moore, the buffoon of the movie world is at it again...inspired by another attempt at debunking the only economic system that has brought health, wealth and happiness to millions of people. I can't wait to see the movie by this charlatan. But he has his admirers and people willing to finance this communist/socialist. Obama must love him. Walter Williams writes the following at CapMag.com.
...Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private ownership and control over the means of production. The distribution of goods and services and their prices are mainly determined by competition in a free market. Under such a system the primary job of government is to protect private property, enforce contracts and ensure rule of law.
...If one ranked countries according to whether they were closer to the capitalistic end of the spectrum or the socialistic or communistic end, then ranked countries according to per capita GDP and finally rank countries according to Freedom House's "Map of Freedom in the World," he would find a pattern that is by no means a coincidence. The people in those countries closer to the capitalist end of the economic spectrum have far greater income and enjoy greater human rights protections than those toward the socialist and communist end.
...Most of our country's serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism. Take the financial crisis. One-third of the $15 trillion of mortgages in existence in 2008 are owned, or securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing and the Veterans Administration. Banks didn't mind making risky loans and Wall Street buyers didn't mind buying these repackaged loans because they assumed that they would be guaranteed by the federalgovernment: read bailout by taxpayers. Under a capitalist system, financial institutions would not have been intimidated or encouraged into making risky loans and neither would they have been bailed out if they did so.
Social Security, Medicare and its coverage of prescription drugs have an unfunded liability that exceeds $100 trillion. When those roosters come home to roost, they will make the financial meltdown we've been though look like child's play. READ at CapMag
Mr. Williams concludes that it is capaitalism that has made this country great and the greatest country ever in the history of mankind.
...Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private ownership and control over the means of production. The distribution of goods and services and their prices are mainly determined by competition in a free market. Under such a system the primary job of government is to protect private property, enforce contracts and ensure rule of law.
...If one ranked countries according to whether they were closer to the capitalistic end of the spectrum or the socialistic or communistic end, then ranked countries according to per capita GDP and finally rank countries according to Freedom House's "Map of Freedom in the World," he would find a pattern that is by no means a coincidence. The people in those countries closer to the capitalist end of the economic spectrum have far greater income and enjoy greater human rights protections than those toward the socialist and communist end.
...Most of our country's serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism. Take the financial crisis. One-third of the $15 trillion of mortgages in existence in 2008 are owned, or securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing and the Veterans Administration. Banks didn't mind making risky loans and Wall Street buyers didn't mind buying these repackaged loans because they assumed that they would be guaranteed by the federalgovernment: read bailout by taxpayers. Under a capitalist system, financial institutions would not have been intimidated or encouraged into making risky loans and neither would they have been bailed out if they did so.
Social Security, Medicare and its coverage of prescription drugs have an unfunded liability that exceeds $100 trillion. When those roosters come home to roost, they will make the financial meltdown we've been though look like child's play. READ at CapMag
Mr. Williams concludes that it is capaitalism that has made this country great and the greatest country ever in the history of mankind.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Obama Began as a Community Organizer at Acorn-That's Where All Leftists Get Their Stripes
If you still are sitting on the fence about Obama and his nefarious connection to the leftist corrupt ACORN group then get informed. One man who has done monumental work to ferret out information on this Acorn organization is Glenn Beck on Fox News. He has made the tie from George Soros, to the Tides Foundation to Acorn and on and on...Their one aim is to turn America left and one of their heroes is Chavez - Dictator of Venezuela. John Fund at WSJ has a piece below delving into some of this Acorn shenanigans and how Obama has been denying any involvement and the exact opposite is the truth - he has been involved up to his ears.
Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.
"Frankly, it's not something I've followed closely," Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn't even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding. "This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," he said.
Mr. Obama added that an investigation of Acorn was appropriate after an amateur hidden-camera investigation had found Acorn offices willing to abet prostitution, but he carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group.
Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.
Mr. Obama's success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.
In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work." READ HERE
Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.
"Frankly, it's not something I've followed closely," Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn't even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding. "This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," he said.
Mr. Obama added that an investigation of Acorn was appropriate after an amateur hidden-camera investigation had found Acorn offices willing to abet prostitution, but he carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group.
Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.
Mr. Obama's success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.
In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work." READ HERE
Monday, September 21, 2009
Ask Yourself - Why is Obama Demanding Zelaya's Return to The Presidency of Honduras?
Obama is demanding the return of the leftist thug Zelaya to the Presidency in Honduras. He was ousted, lawfully, by their supreme court for violations of their constitution. The Honduran court had followed the rule of law in their deliberation and decision yet our administration has taken the position to support a dictator and not freedom. What's up with that? Just another sign of who got into the presidency of the United States. Too many signs are adding up to a power-luster on the left. That smells of big trouble for our own cherished institutions and constitution. Mary Anastasia O'Grady analyzes the Honduran situation at The Wall Street Journal.
...Thousands of readers have written to me asking how all this can happen in the U.S., where democratic principles have been recognized since the nation's founding. Many readers have written that they are "ashamed" of the U.S. and have asked, in effect, "How can I help Honduras?" A more pertinent question may turn out to be, how can they help their own country?
In its actions toward Honduras, the Obama administration is demonstrating contempt for the fundamentals of democracy. Legal scholars are clear on this. "Judicial independence is a central component of any democracy and is crucial to separation of powers, the rule of law and human rights," writes Ahron Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel and a prominent legal scholar, in his compelling 2006 book, "The Judge in a Democracy."
"The purpose of the separation of powers is to strengthen freedom and prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one government actor in a manner likely to harm the freedom of the individual," Mr. Barak explains—almost as if he is writing about Honduras.
He also warns prophetically about the Chávez style of democracy that has destroyed Venezuela and that Hondurans say they were trying to avoid in their own country. "Democracy is entitled to defend itself from those who seek to use it in order to destroy its very existence," he writes. Americans ought to ask themselves why the Obama administration doesn't seem to agree. READ AT WSJ.
...Thousands of readers have written to me asking how all this can happen in the U.S., where democratic principles have been recognized since the nation's founding. Many readers have written that they are "ashamed" of the U.S. and have asked, in effect, "How can I help Honduras?" A more pertinent question may turn out to be, how can they help their own country?
In its actions toward Honduras, the Obama administration is demonstrating contempt for the fundamentals of democracy. Legal scholars are clear on this. "Judicial independence is a central component of any democracy and is crucial to separation of powers, the rule of law and human rights," writes Ahron Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel and a prominent legal scholar, in his compelling 2006 book, "The Judge in a Democracy."
"The purpose of the separation of powers is to strengthen freedom and prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one government actor in a manner likely to harm the freedom of the individual," Mr. Barak explains—almost as if he is writing about Honduras.
He also warns prophetically about the Chávez style of democracy that has destroyed Venezuela and that Hondurans say they were trying to avoid in their own country. "Democracy is entitled to defend itself from those who seek to use it in order to destroy its very existence," he writes. Americans ought to ask themselves why the Obama administration doesn't seem to agree. READ AT WSJ.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Surgeon Dr. Thomas Hendricks Speaks Out In ATLAS SHRUGGED
"I have often wondered at the smugness at which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind — yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? … Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in the operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it — and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t." Surgeon, Dr. Thomas Hendricks in "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.
Listen to Yaron Brooks from The Ayn Rand Institute and Terry Jones from Investor's Business Daily defending the philosophic basis for a revolution for Individualism and not the idea that we are our brother's keeper. http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=1705
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Was Ayn Rand Right? Will Doctors Shrug?
Millions of people know who Ayn Rand was and her famous novel "Atlas Shrugged" about captains of industry disappearing in the face of a massive intrusion of the government in the free market. Is this story coming true? Will Doctors say enough is enough? We have a right to live and earn our living the way we see fit! Maybe Doctors will be leading the revolt started by the Tea Party people. Paul Hsieh, a doctor in Colorado writes about what's happening at PJTV.com.
In a recent editorial published by Investor’s Business Daily, associate editor (and PJTV.com regular) Terry Jones revealed stunning poll data showing that 45 percent of American physicians “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if Congress passed the proposed ObamaCare health legislation.
As a practicing physician, I’m not surprised. These numbers mirror the sentiments I’ve heard expressed by my professional colleagues. I’ve been in practice for over 15 years and I’ve never seen physician morale as low as it is today.
Older physicians have told me that they’re glad to be “getting out” and retiring soon. Medical students have asked me whether they should switch to engineering or pharmacology before it’s too late. Physicians in the middle of their careers are just hoping to survive any “reform.”
The same IBD poll also showed that an overwhelming majority (65 percent) of physicians were opposed to the proposed expansion of government in medicine. And they have every reason to be concerned, based on past experience.
One reason that many physicians are skeptical of the proposed “reform” is because they already know what government-run health care is like, in the form of Medicare. Medicare is “single-payer health care” for the elderly. Many proponents of universal health care want to create “Medicare for all,” claiming that it’s a model of efficient, compassionate care. But as the New York Times recently reported, more doctors are opting out of Medicare (or limiting the number of Medicare patients they are willing to accept) for two simple reasons: “reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.” READ HERE AT Pajamas Media
In a recent editorial published by Investor’s Business Daily, associate editor (and PJTV.com regular) Terry Jones revealed stunning poll data showing that 45 percent of American physicians “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if Congress passed the proposed ObamaCare health legislation.
As a practicing physician, I’m not surprised. These numbers mirror the sentiments I’ve heard expressed by my professional colleagues. I’ve been in practice for over 15 years and I’ve never seen physician morale as low as it is today.
Older physicians have told me that they’re glad to be “getting out” and retiring soon. Medical students have asked me whether they should switch to engineering or pharmacology before it’s too late. Physicians in the middle of their careers are just hoping to survive any “reform.”
The same IBD poll also showed that an overwhelming majority (65 percent) of physicians were opposed to the proposed expansion of government in medicine. And they have every reason to be concerned, based on past experience.
One reason that many physicians are skeptical of the proposed “reform” is because they already know what government-run health care is like, in the form of Medicare. Medicare is “single-payer health care” for the elderly. Many proponents of universal health care want to create “Medicare for all,” claiming that it’s a model of efficient, compassionate care. But as the New York Times recently reported, more doctors are opting out of Medicare (or limiting the number of Medicare patients they are willing to accept) for two simple reasons: “reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.” READ HERE AT Pajamas Media
Friday, September 18, 2009
How The Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability
Read this very important article on Health Care published at The Objective Standard edited by Craig Biddle. The article was written by Paul Hsieh with end notes.
Suppose you ran a restaurant that offered an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. For a modest price, customers could help themselves to as much as they wanted from a variety of your dishes. But you also set certain restrictions—for instance, customers were forbidden to share their food with other customers or take food off the premises (no “doggie bags”). Most people would find such rules completely reasonable.
Now suppose the government passed a law forbidding restaurants from setting such restrictions on buffet meals. What would happen? Your costs would skyrocket as customers shared buffet food with others who had purchased only a cup of coffee, and stuffed food into Tupperware containers to take home for dinner. Soon you would either have to raise the price of the buffet drastically or simply discontinue it.
Although most people would be outraged at a law forbidding restaurants from setting such rules for their buffets, some Republicans are proposing laws that would forbid health insurance companies from setting similar rules with respect to their offerings.
Currently, most health insurance policies cover medical problems that patients develop after they have purchased the policy, but not expenses arising from preexisting medical conditions. To remedy this alleged injustice, Republican governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Republican Congressman Mike Coffman of Colorado propose to forbid insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions.1 They argue that because individuals currently find it difficult or impossible to purchase insurance after they develop serious medical conditions, such as heart disease or cancer, the government should force insurance companies to accept such customers and to cover their preexisting conditions.
It is true that patients today with preexisting medical problems can have difficulty purchasing health insurance. But forcing insurers to cover such patients is not the solution. On the economic level, such coercion would create many new problems. For instance, under such legislation patients would have a strong incentive to delay purchasing insurance until they got sick, knowing they could not be denied coverage at that time. Why pay for insurance before you need it if you can wait and purchase it when you need it? Thus, many people would simply go without insurance until they needed medical care, at which time they would purchase an insurance policy and receive immediate coverage far in excess of the price paid for the policy. Such laws would legalize plunder.
To cover their increased costs, insurers would have to raise rates for everyone—as they have already had to do in states such as Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, where insurers are currently saddled with such legislation.2 And, of course, as insurance prices rose, politicians would demand that everyone be required to purchase insurance to “spread the costs more equally”—as politicians in Massachusetts have already done and as politicians in the Democratic-controlled Congress are currently proposing. The result would be mandatory insurance—with its associated problems of long waits for care, skyrocketing costs, and economic hardships for patients and doctors.3
Moreover, in conjunction with these economic problems, such legislation is immoral. Requiring insurers to cover preexisting conditions violates the rights of both insurers and customers to contract according to their own judgment. As the Founding Fathers so eloquently put it in the Declaration of Independence, the proper purpose of government is not to violate individual rights but “to secure these rights.”
Medical insurance does not grow on trees. It is a complex financial service created by businessmen seeking to make a profit. This service enables a pool of individuals to voluntarily share the risks of unlikely but expensive adverse events, such as a serious accident or illness…(READ at The Objective Standard).
Suppose you ran a restaurant that offered an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. For a modest price, customers could help themselves to as much as they wanted from a variety of your dishes. But you also set certain restrictions—for instance, customers were forbidden to share their food with other customers or take food off the premises (no “doggie bags”). Most people would find such rules completely reasonable.
Now suppose the government passed a law forbidding restaurants from setting such restrictions on buffet meals. What would happen? Your costs would skyrocket as customers shared buffet food with others who had purchased only a cup of coffee, and stuffed food into Tupperware containers to take home for dinner. Soon you would either have to raise the price of the buffet drastically or simply discontinue it.
Although most people would be outraged at a law forbidding restaurants from setting such rules for their buffets, some Republicans are proposing laws that would forbid health insurance companies from setting similar rules with respect to their offerings.
Currently, most health insurance policies cover medical problems that patients develop after they have purchased the policy, but not expenses arising from preexisting medical conditions. To remedy this alleged injustice, Republican governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Republican Congressman Mike Coffman of Colorado propose to forbid insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions.1 They argue that because individuals currently find it difficult or impossible to purchase insurance after they develop serious medical conditions, such as heart disease or cancer, the government should force insurance companies to accept such customers and to cover their preexisting conditions.
It is true that patients today with preexisting medical problems can have difficulty purchasing health insurance. But forcing insurers to cover such patients is not the solution. On the economic level, such coercion would create many new problems. For instance, under such legislation patients would have a strong incentive to delay purchasing insurance until they got sick, knowing they could not be denied coverage at that time. Why pay for insurance before you need it if you can wait and purchase it when you need it? Thus, many people would simply go without insurance until they needed medical care, at which time they would purchase an insurance policy and receive immediate coverage far in excess of the price paid for the policy. Such laws would legalize plunder.
To cover their increased costs, insurers would have to raise rates for everyone—as they have already had to do in states such as Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, where insurers are currently saddled with such legislation.2 And, of course, as insurance prices rose, politicians would demand that everyone be required to purchase insurance to “spread the costs more equally”—as politicians in Massachusetts have already done and as politicians in the Democratic-controlled Congress are currently proposing. The result would be mandatory insurance—with its associated problems of long waits for care, skyrocketing costs, and economic hardships for patients and doctors.3
Moreover, in conjunction with these economic problems, such legislation is immoral. Requiring insurers to cover preexisting conditions violates the rights of both insurers and customers to contract according to their own judgment. As the Founding Fathers so eloquently put it in the Declaration of Independence, the proper purpose of government is not to violate individual rights but “to secure these rights.”
Medical insurance does not grow on trees. It is a complex financial service created by businessmen seeking to make a profit. This service enables a pool of individuals to voluntarily share the risks of unlikely but expensive adverse events, such as a serious accident or illness…(READ at The Objective Standard).
Thursday, September 17, 2009
H.R.3200 Violates The Constitution
"Is Health Care Reform Constitutional?" is a must read article for anyone wanting to understand how the government is violating our rights to do business with whom we please and seek health care where we please and that includes crossing state lines to seek help. Investor's Business Daily does a good job of explaining how our government is violating the Constitution and therefore our Rights.
Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?
...A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point in their lives. Forcing them is the only way to get them covered, but it's not clear where the constitutional authority to do that comes from.
The Constitution specifically enumerates the powers given to each branch of government and says that any powers not mentioned revert to the states and to the people. Nowhere does it say that the feds can compel you to buy health insurance. But then, this is the administration that claims the right to a de facto nationalization of the banking system and auto industry, to set executive compensation and to fire corporate officers.
With regard to health care reform, the administration seems to be operating under a distorted version of the Commerce Clause that has been grossly misinterpreted over the years as allowing the feds to regulate and control just about everything. Because the sum total of millions of individual health decisions has a collective economic impact, the reasoning goes, government has the authority, even the duty, to regulate those decisions. It does not. ...(Read at IBD).
Also read this article: Grim Prognosis From Doctors Opposed to Health Care Plan
Doctor opposition to health care overhaul proposals is broad and deep, revealing concerns not just about soaring costs, declining care, possible rationing and a lack of limits on malpractice suits, but also about government competence and motives, detailed responses to a new IBD/TIPP Poll show.
As reported Wednesday, 65% of the 1,376 practicing physicians who responded to a mailed questionnaire over the last two weeks said they opposed health care plans that have emerged from the administration and Congress. Just 33% supported them
Perhaps the most shocking result: 45% of these professionals said they would consider closing their practices or retiring early if the reforms now under consideration were enacted.... READ AT IBD
Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?
...A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point in their lives. Forcing them is the only way to get them covered, but it's not clear where the constitutional authority to do that comes from.
The Constitution specifically enumerates the powers given to each branch of government and says that any powers not mentioned revert to the states and to the people. Nowhere does it say that the feds can compel you to buy health insurance. But then, this is the administration that claims the right to a de facto nationalization of the banking system and auto industry, to set executive compensation and to fire corporate officers.
With regard to health care reform, the administration seems to be operating under a distorted version of the Commerce Clause that has been grossly misinterpreted over the years as allowing the feds to regulate and control just about everything. Because the sum total of millions of individual health decisions has a collective economic impact, the reasoning goes, government has the authority, even the duty, to regulate those decisions. It does not. ...(Read at IBD).
Also read this article: Grim Prognosis From Doctors Opposed to Health Care Plan
Doctor opposition to health care overhaul proposals is broad and deep, revealing concerns not just about soaring costs, declining care, possible rationing and a lack of limits on malpractice suits, but also about government competence and motives, detailed responses to a new IBD/TIPP Poll show.
As reported Wednesday, 65% of the 1,376 practicing physicians who responded to a mailed questionnaire over the last two weeks said they opposed health care plans that have emerged from the administration and Congress. Just 33% supported them
Perhaps the most shocking result: 45% of these professionals said they would consider closing their practices or retiring early if the reforms now under consideration were enacted.... READ AT IBD
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
09.12.09 March on Washington: Hundreds of Thousands Fight For Freedom
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2431
Watch this interview at PJTV, of a Cuban and a couple who lived in Britain for 2 years (the husband is British and is seeking American Citizenship). They describe what government controlled Health care is really like.
By the way it appears that more than 100,000 attended the Washington D.C. rally on Saturday.
Watch this interview at PJTV, of a Cuban and a couple who lived in Britain for 2 years (the husband is British and is seeking American Citizenship). They describe what government controlled Health care is really like.
By the way it appears that more than 100,000 attended the Washington D.C. rally on Saturday.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Government Caused the Credit Crisis
The truth is coming out slowly and surely: The government created the credit crisis. Instead of staying out of the economy the government decided to meddle thinking they knew better. Come on - what does government do well? Uhhhh hold on I'm thinking.....Can I get back to you? Watch this video at Wall Street Journal.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Obama's Health Care Speech-"Nothing but Discredited Myths Recycled As The Truth"
Obama's latest Health care reform speech was nothing more than a rehash of old ideas that do not work. He is NOT an innovator - just a statist, a believer in old propaganda mythology. The worst myth is that a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington can solve problems that belong in the market place of a free enterprise system...and our system is called CAPITALISM - you know the one where millions of individual people make decisions based on thousands of different data points. Good ideas results in rewards; bad ideas results in rethinking and rebooting. Government is composed of people who do not have their money staked to their schemes and ideas so what do they care if it fails and millions of us suffer the consequences?
Reform: Millions of Americans finally got to hear the Democrats' pitch on health care reform, made by their top salesman. But they heard nothing new — just a lot of discredited myths recycled as the truth.
For the record, we support improving our health care system. As is, it has too many rules, too much government spending and too few market forces to keep costs low and quality high.
We spend north of $2 trillion every year on health care — 17% of our GDP, the most of any wealthy nation. If that sounds like a lot, remember this: An estimated 47% of that already is spent by the government. And government's share will grow even without "reform."
Look closely at the plans so far to emerge from Congress. What the Democrats have proposed, in essence, is a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of our nation's economy. When brought up in Congress, this idea has been rejected repeatedly. Yet, somehow, the idea never dies.
That's why the president's speech Wednesday night was a big disappointment.
Rather than a breakthrough that would remove government's stranglehold on a once-healthy market and move us toward true reform, we heard a lot of old bromides and myths — things we just can't let go uncorrected. Too much is at stake.
So following are 15 of the biggest misconceptions — and there are many more, we assure you — that we found in the speech: (READ AT IBD)
Reform: Millions of Americans finally got to hear the Democrats' pitch on health care reform, made by their top salesman. But they heard nothing new — just a lot of discredited myths recycled as the truth.
For the record, we support improving our health care system. As is, it has too many rules, too much government spending and too few market forces to keep costs low and quality high.
We spend north of $2 trillion every year on health care — 17% of our GDP, the most of any wealthy nation. If that sounds like a lot, remember this: An estimated 47% of that already is spent by the government. And government's share will grow even without "reform."
Look closely at the plans so far to emerge from Congress. What the Democrats have proposed, in essence, is a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of our nation's economy. When brought up in Congress, this idea has been rejected repeatedly. Yet, somehow, the idea never dies.
That's why the president's speech Wednesday night was a big disappointment.
Rather than a breakthrough that would remove government's stranglehold on a once-healthy market and move us toward true reform, we heard a lot of old bromides and myths — things we just can't let go uncorrected. Too much is at stake.
So following are 15 of the biggest misconceptions — and there are many more, we assure you — that we found in the speech: (READ AT IBD)
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Want Another Trillion Dollars Added to Our Debt? Obama Takes Over the Student Loan Market
The furor over President Obama's trillion-dollar restructuring of American health care has left his other trillion-dollar plan starved for attention. That's how much the federal balance sheet will expand over the next decade if Mr. Obama can convince Congress to approve his pending takeover of the student-loan market...(READ AT Wall St Journal).
Still doubt that this President will ruin this country? You're living in the clouds.
Still doubt that this President will ruin this country? You're living in the clouds.
Inflation Is Always Caused by Bad Government: NOT "Greedy Businessmen"
Remember Zimbabwe where Mugabe printed money like it was going out of style? People were carting around wagon loads of paper bills to pay for some bread (more pictures)? Walter Williams, my favorite economist (alone with Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman) explains that what causes inflation is an increase in the money supply not backed up by output - remember those printing presses we saw in the News a few months ago on TV? Who gets the blame though by our politicians? - the greedy businessman as he raises prices. Tell that theory to a Zimbabwean.
With the massive increases in federal spending, inflation is one of the risks that awaits us. To protect us from the political demagoguery that will accompany that inflation, let's now decide what is and what is not inflation. One price or several prices rising is not inflation. Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom. As the late Nobel Laureate Professor Milton Friedman said, "(I)nflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output."
Thinking of inflation as rising prices permits politicians to deceive us and escape culpability. They shift the blame saying that inflation is caused by greedy businessmen, rapacious unions or Arab sheiks. Instead, it is increases in the money supply that cause inflation, and who is in charge of the money supply? It's the government operating through the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Treasury…
Our highest rate of inflation occurred during the Revolutionary War, when the Continental Congress churned out paper Continentals to pay bills. The monthly inflation rate reached a peak of 47 percent in November 1779.
This painful experience with inflation, and collapse of the Continental dollar, is what prompted the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to include the gold and silver clause into the United States Constitution so that the individual states could not issue bills of credit. The U.S. Constitution's Article I, Section 8 permits Congress: "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." (Read here at CapMag.com)
With the massive increases in federal spending, inflation is one of the risks that awaits us. To protect us from the political demagoguery that will accompany that inflation, let's now decide what is and what is not inflation. One price or several prices rising is not inflation. Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom. As the late Nobel Laureate Professor Milton Friedman said, "(I)nflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output."
Thinking of inflation as rising prices permits politicians to deceive us and escape culpability. They shift the blame saying that inflation is caused by greedy businessmen, rapacious unions or Arab sheiks. Instead, it is increases in the money supply that cause inflation, and who is in charge of the money supply? It's the government operating through the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Treasury…
Our highest rate of inflation occurred during the Revolutionary War, when the Continental Congress churned out paper Continentals to pay bills. The monthly inflation rate reached a peak of 47 percent in November 1779.
This painful experience with inflation, and collapse of the Continental dollar, is what prompted the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to include the gold and silver clause into the United States Constitution so that the individual states could not issue bills of credit. The U.S. Constitution's Article I, Section 8 permits Congress: "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." (Read here at CapMag.com)
No more Failed Policies Of The Past that doubled the national debt in 8 years. Obama can do much better than that. He can double it in just 2 years. Yes, He Can. (Read more)
Friday, September 11, 2009
A Masterpiece Of Charlatanry For The Naive
Below is an excellent piece by Thomas Sowell regarding Obama's charlatanry.
...the charlatan-in-chief, Barack Obama, whose speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud.
To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone's intelligence.
To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already shown this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words.
…Even those who can believe that Obama can conjure up the money through eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients.
If he can't pull off that miracle, then government-run medical care in the United States can be expected to produce what government-run medical care in Canada, Britain and other countries has produced — delays of weeks or months to get many treatments, not to mention arbitrary rationing decisions by bureaucrats.
Obama can deny it in words, but what matter are deeds — and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds — whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists. (READ AT Investor's Business Daily)
...the charlatan-in-chief, Barack Obama, whose speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud.
To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone's intelligence.
To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already shown this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words.
…Even those who can believe that Obama can conjure up the money through eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients.
If he can't pull off that miracle, then government-run medical care in the United States can be expected to produce what government-run medical care in Canada, Britain and other countries has produced — delays of weeks or months to get many treatments, not to mention arbitrary rationing decisions by bureaucrats.
Obama can deny it in words, but what matter are deeds — and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds — whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists. (READ AT Investor's Business Daily)
Ideas Are Interesting Things...Right Ideas and Wrong Ideas
I just heard an incredible essay about America, Ideas and Liberty by Andrew Klavan the author of numerous books. You can listen to it at http://www.pjtv.com/video/Klavan_on_Culture/_September_11%2C_2009/2411/ but here's an excerpt of the speech by this eloquent man as I tried to write down his words:
Ideas are interesting things...
Ideas are known to us only by physical means but have no physical presence...by our brain chemistry. Ideas take the shape of our culture and our cultural moment...
Ideas have qualities and characteristics. There are good ideas and false ones....
Ideas create a force on human action....Ideas create a tension between themselves and our behavior and the resolution of that tension can set the very course of history.
Our nation once tore itself apart because its' practice of slavery could not co-exist forever with its' principle of liberty. That liberty is the great American Idea...
As our founders knew, embracing the idea of liberty means leaving other attractive ideas behind. You can't be free in all things...
The price of liberty is great...
You can't be free and have guaranteed financial security...
Ideas are interesting things...
Ideas are known to us only by physical means but have no physical presence...by our brain chemistry. Ideas take the shape of our culture and our cultural moment...
Ideas have qualities and characteristics. There are good ideas and false ones....
Ideas create a force on human action....Ideas create a tension between themselves and our behavior and the resolution of that tension can set the very course of history.
Our nation once tore itself apart because its' practice of slavery could not co-exist forever with its' principle of liberty. That liberty is the great American Idea...
As our founders knew, embracing the idea of liberty means leaving other attractive ideas behind. You can't be free in all things...
The price of liberty is great...
You can't be free and have guaranteed financial security...
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
An Extreme Animal Rights Nut Will Be the New Regulatory Czar
I had to include this YouTube video of Sarah Chang playing Massenet's "Meditation From Thais" to sooth my AMERICAN soul against this weirdo, crazy Sunstein. ugh. Listen to this music while you read about this little, ugly, anti-American person and his lunatic ideas.
AN EXTREME LEFTIST ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST MAY BE OUR NEW REGULATORY CZAR!!!!!!!!! Imagine what will happen to our farmers and cattle ranchers and their ability to bring grain and meat to your table! This guy wants to end that.
...Cass Sunstein is a radical animal rights activist.
Don’t believe us? Sunstein has made no secret of his devotion to the cause of establishing legal “rights” for livestock, wildlife, and pets. “[T]here should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, scientific experiments, and agriculture,” Sunstein wrote in a 2002 working paper while at the University of Chicago Law school.
“Extensive regulation of the use of animals.” That's PETA-speak for using government to get everything PETA and the Humane Society of the United States can't get through gentle pressure or not-so-gentle coercion. Not exactly the kind of thing American ranchers, restaurateurs, hunters, and biomedical researchers (to say nothing of ordinary consumers) would like to hear from their next “regulatory czar.”
A version of the same paper also appeared as the introduction to Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, a 2004 book that Sunstein co-edited with then-girlfriend Martha Nussbaum. In that book, Sunstein set out an ambitious plan to give animals the legal “right” to file lawsuits. We're not joking:
“[A]nimals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law … Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf.”
It doesn't end there. Sunstein delivered a keynote ...READ HERE
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
More Than Enough Evidence To Throw Out The Man Made Global Warming Hoax NOW
Isn't it about time that Americans recognize that man-made global warming is the most ridiculous theory ever presented to the world? Kind of on the order of the Spanish Inquisition where the Church insisted that in order to obtain confessions out of wayward Catholics you had to torture them. Wait, Wait I'm working on the analogy...OK here it is. Well, the modern day inquisition torturers are the Michael Moore's and other Hollywood types (politicians and dishonest scientists looking for government grants to fund their studies) who go around making up things and showing just enough film footage of whatever to make you believe that global warming is man-made. There is just too much evidence against man-made global warming and for Sun induced warming and cooling! In fact we are actually in a cooling period and have been for several years!
Climate Change: A team of international scientists has finally figured out why sunspots have a dramatic effect on the weather. It shows the folly of fearing the SUV while dismissing that thermonuclear furnace in the sky.
Mankind once worshiped the sun. Now the world studiously ignores it as nations prepare to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in December. Something is indeed rotten in Denmark.
Our own government is committed to fighting climate change whether it be though Son of Kyoto or our own growth-capping, job-killing cap-and-trade legislation known as Waxman-Markey.
Despite the sun being the major source of all energy on earth, supporters of man-caused global warming have dismissed the sun's role in climate change. They say the historic 11-year solar cycle changes the amount of energy reaching the earth by about only 0.1% — not enough to account for temperature rises this century.
…The study found that chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures during solar maximums act in a way that amplifies the sun's influence. The slight increase in solar energy in the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone, warming the air in the tropics where sunlight is most intense.
The additional energy also helps produce more ozone that absorbs even more solar energy. The increased sunlight causes a slight warming of ocean surface waters across the subtropical Pacific.
This stratospheric energy absorption and sea surface warming can intensify winds and rainfall, and ultimately influence global weather in ways that amplify the sun's influence. READ AT IBD
Climate Change: A team of international scientists has finally figured out why sunspots have a dramatic effect on the weather. It shows the folly of fearing the SUV while dismissing that thermonuclear furnace in the sky.
Mankind once worshiped the sun. Now the world studiously ignores it as nations prepare to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in December. Something is indeed rotten in Denmark.
Our own government is committed to fighting climate change whether it be though Son of Kyoto or our own growth-capping, job-killing cap-and-trade legislation known as Waxman-Markey.
Despite the sun being the major source of all energy on earth, supporters of man-caused global warming have dismissed the sun's role in climate change. They say the historic 11-year solar cycle changes the amount of energy reaching the earth by about only 0.1% — not enough to account for temperature rises this century.
…The study found that chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures during solar maximums act in a way that amplifies the sun's influence. The slight increase in solar energy in the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone, warming the air in the tropics where sunlight is most intense.
The additional energy also helps produce more ozone that absorbs even more solar energy. The increased sunlight causes a slight warming of ocean surface waters across the subtropical Pacific.
This stratospheric energy absorption and sea surface warming can intensify winds and rainfall, and ultimately influence global weather in ways that amplify the sun's influence. READ AT IBD
Saturday, September 05, 2009
A Cry Against America's Descent Into Socialist Slavery
It is always worth repeating what Socialism always leads to: poverty for all except for the ruling class - the anointed ones that know better than anyone how everyone should live. The need to make the case for Capitalism is now more urgent since Obama and his minions and our worthless "cave-in"congress are bringing us to the brink of a proven failure: the anti-freedom system of government that is Socialism. Below is a former Soviet Union citizen, now living in America crying out to us to not allow this descent into socialist slavery. I call it slavery because we will all be working for the government NOT for ourselves. Americans are CAPITALISTS - We are nurtured at the feet of our forefathers who fought to the death against tyranny and oppression. But socialism is much worse than what George Washington fought against - because socialism is a cancer that eats at individualism, the pursuit of happiness, and ends up destroying your liberty completely.
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble.
In kindergarten we sang songs about Lenin, the leader of the Socialist Revolution. In school we learned about the beautiful socialist system, where everybody is equal and everything is fair…
... God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures.
The government-assigned salary of the proletariat (blue-collar worker) was 30%-50% higher then any professional. Without incentive to improve their life, professionals drank themselves to oblivion. They — engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers — earned a government-determined salary that barely covered the necessities, mainly food.
Raising children was a hardship. It took four to six adults (parents and grandparents) to support a child. The usual size of the postwar family was one or two children. Every woman had the right to have an abortion and most of them did, often without anesthesia.
…In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. Only the ruling class of communist leaders had access to special stores, medicine and accommodations that could compare to those in the West.
The rest of the citizenry had to deal with permanent shortages of food and other necessities, and had access to free but inferior, unsanitary and low-tech medical care. The egalitarian utopia of equality, achieved by the sacrifice of individual self-interest for the collective good, led to corruption, black markets, anger and envy. READ AT IBD
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble.
In kindergarten we sang songs about Lenin, the leader of the Socialist Revolution. In school we learned about the beautiful socialist system, where everybody is equal and everything is fair…
... God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures.
The government-assigned salary of the proletariat (blue-collar worker) was 30%-50% higher then any professional. Without incentive to improve their life, professionals drank themselves to oblivion. They — engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers — earned a government-determined salary that barely covered the necessities, mainly food.
Raising children was a hardship. It took four to six adults (parents and grandparents) to support a child. The usual size of the postwar family was one or two children. Every woman had the right to have an abortion and most of them did, often without anesthesia.
…In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. Only the ruling class of communist leaders had access to special stores, medicine and accommodations that could compare to those in the West.
The rest of the citizenry had to deal with permanent shortages of food and other necessities, and had access to free but inferior, unsanitary and low-tech medical care. The egalitarian utopia of equality, achieved by the sacrifice of individual self-interest for the collective good, led to corruption, black markets, anger and envy. READ AT IBD
Are We At The Edge of The Fiscal Cliff?
It seems that the people, not just in America but around the world in places like Japan have had enough of loss of freedom, corruption and this sense of entitlement that politicians feel they have. It is time for the people to throw out the bums and find a better class of politicians that will uphold American values and our CONSTITUTION. This document is NOT just a piece of paper with a bunch of words that have no meaning today. The words have plenty of meaning especially today with the socialists trying to turn this country to the radical left, with race baiters trying to foment hatred among us and scummy crooks in Washington and at the state level living off of our hard work by taxing us to death!
Friday, September 04, 2009
"Mercy to the Guilty is Cruelty to the Innocent." Adam Smith
Has the West become a country of weak kneed, cringing, hand wringing cowards? Is America becoming like the late, GREAT, England? France? These are countries who have turned over their nations to Sharia law without even batting an eyelash. They have diminished themselves by giving up their greatness as a people to people who are barbaric in their customs and beliefs. Why has the West arrived at this point of self-immolation? Our intellectuals on the left are depraved powerlusters. We the people have to take back our country and our ideals of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" as endowed to us by our Forefathers.
Many in Mr. Obama's administration are avowed communists like Van Jones or socialists like many in the Democratic party. But as Ayn Rand wrote there is no difference between these two totalitarian systems..."except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." What would you like your choice to be: murder/suicide or freedom? Is our Constitution to be discarded after it enabled the creation of the most productive, humane, life-giving system of government in history? Hopefully Mr. Jones, a hater of all that is American will be a nightmare memory only (read here). Here is a defender of Americanism, American Exceptionalism (more on this later) and Freedom - Thomas Sowell.
Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi-- the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people-- is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.
In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
He wrote this long before Barack Obama became President of the United States. But this administration epitomizes the "concessions and smiles" approach to countries that are our implacable enemies.
Western Europe has gone down that path before us but we now seem to be trying to catch up...
The ostensible reason for releasing al-Megrahi was compassion for a man terminally ill. It is ironic that this was said in Scotland, for exactly 250 years ago another Scotsman-- Adam Smith-- said, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America as well, where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded or blown up by the terrorists themselves. Tragically, those with this strange inversion of values include the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. Read at CapMag.com).
Many in Mr. Obama's administration are avowed communists like Van Jones or socialists like many in the Democratic party. But as Ayn Rand wrote there is no difference between these two totalitarian systems..."except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." What would you like your choice to be: murder/suicide or freedom? Is our Constitution to be discarded after it enabled the creation of the most productive, humane, life-giving system of government in history? Hopefully Mr. Jones, a hater of all that is American will be a nightmare memory only (read here). Here is a defender of Americanism, American Exceptionalism (more on this later) and Freedom - Thomas Sowell.
Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi-- the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people-- is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.
In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
He wrote this long before Barack Obama became President of the United States. But this administration epitomizes the "concessions and smiles" approach to countries that are our implacable enemies.
Western Europe has gone down that path before us but we now seem to be trying to catch up...
The ostensible reason for releasing al-Megrahi was compassion for a man terminally ill. It is ironic that this was said in Scotland, for exactly 250 years ago another Scotsman-- Adam Smith-- said, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America as well, where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded or blown up by the terrorists themselves. Tragically, those with this strange inversion of values include the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. Read at CapMag.com).
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Of Lying Congresses and Presidents and Gullible Citizens
Red ink is all we will see for decades under this administration. This posting by Walter Williams is particularly critical today in light of the "health care" bill that is awaiting passage. The question is do most Americans realize what an obligation this will be in our old age and our children and their children. Any politician who makes promises should be looked at with a wary eye. They are usually lying. And Obama and this congress are no exception. Also as Mr. Williams points out there are 41% of Americans (121 million) who DO NOT PAY TAXES! These are Obama's prime constituencies. Now do you understand how high our taxes will rise?
President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress... Let's check out their past dishonesty.
At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That's nine times Congress' prediction. Today's Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress?
Another part of the Medicare lie is found in Section 1801 of the 1965 Medicare Act that reads: "Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine, or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer, or employee, or any institution, agency or person providing health care services." Ask your doctor or hospital whether this is true.
...Roughly 121 million Americans -- or 41 percent of the U.S. population -- are completely outside the federal income tax system. These people represent a natural constituency for big-spending politicians. Since they have no federal income tax obligation, what do they care about higher taxes or tax cuts?. (READ at CapMag)
President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress... Let's check out their past dishonesty.
At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That's nine times Congress' prediction. Today's Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress?
Another part of the Medicare lie is found in Section 1801 of the 1965 Medicare Act that reads: "Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine, or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer, or employee, or any institution, agency or person providing health care services." Ask your doctor or hospital whether this is true.
...Roughly 121 million Americans -- or 41 percent of the U.S. population -- are completely outside the federal income tax system. These people represent a natural constituency for big-spending politicians. Since they have no federal income tax obligation, what do they care about higher taxes or tax cuts?. (READ at CapMag)
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Mark Lloyd the Diversity Czar and Killer Free Speech and Press?
Mark LLoyd. Ever heard of him? Seems like he slipped by us and here we are with a man that wants to destroy our freedom. Well we got Obama and that came with the whole tamale didn't it. All one had to do was look at his associations, the church he attended and the "comrades" he had. IBD has an article calling our attention to this ominous situation we find ourselves in "Diversity Czar Threatens Free Speech".
1st Amendment: Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity "czar" says Venezuela is an example we should follow.
...But as angry constituents flood town hall meetings and call in to talk radio, a man dedicated to silencing them sits at the right hand of the president.
They share a common hero — Saul Alinsky — who wrote the community organizer's bible, "Rules for Radicals." It speaks of confrontation or, as candidate Obama put it, of "getting in their faces" as a way to obtain power, not from the people or for the people, but over the people.
Lloyd has written that we make too much of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press — for "the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."
We thought we were democratically governed. We thought we could vote as we choose after a vigorous and open debate. Once the major networks served as information gatekeepers controlling what we saw and heard. Now talk radio, the Internet and cable news have enhanced democracy by promoting the free flow of information and discourse. Lloyd wants to stop all that. (READ AT IBD)
1st Amendment: Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity "czar" says Venezuela is an example we should follow.
...But as angry constituents flood town hall meetings and call in to talk radio, a man dedicated to silencing them sits at the right hand of the president.
They share a common hero — Saul Alinsky — who wrote the community organizer's bible, "Rules for Radicals." It speaks of confrontation or, as candidate Obama put it, of "getting in their faces" as a way to obtain power, not from the people or for the people, but over the people.
Lloyd has written that we make too much of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press — for "the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."
We thought we were democratically governed. We thought we could vote as we choose after a vigorous and open debate. Once the major networks served as information gatekeepers controlling what we saw and heard. Now talk radio, the Internet and cable news have enhanced democracy by promoting the free flow of information and discourse. Lloyd wants to stop all that. (READ AT IBD)
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