Letter to Tim Phillips, President of Americans For Prosperity

I am interested in your work but don't know what your philosophy is and how you defend American values. The most important thing to defend are the philosophical underpinnings of America as our founding Fathers envisioned them and that is Individual Liberty: the right to Life, liberty and the pursuit of our own individual happiness.

All too common today is the call for sacrifice for the happiness of others. This is not America - America was founded on the freedom that each individual has, being an American, to pursue his own happiness. Agreeing with the government on the basics and only disagreeing on the side issues is NOT a defense of our American way of life.

The proper role of government is to defend us against our enemies and collect just enough taxes to run a small government not this behemoth that we the people have allowed to grow. The government today is involved in EVERY aspect of our lives. We have to ask permission of government officials for practically everything we do.

Is this the America of George Washington? Is this what he fought for and was willing to die for? Is this what Thomas Paine envisioned when he so eloquently declared "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!"

Is this what so many early American ragtag soldiers died for so that we the citizens now cow-tow to government minions who seem to fall over themselves fawning over the current President without so much as raising a peep over his totalitarian urges?

We must fight and defend the Grand Ideas of our country not the minutia - whether it's this type of government control of our healthcare or that type. THEY SHOULD NOT be in the healthcare business - or dictating to our Auto industry or "fixing" our banks - or telling us where to drill and what kind of energy we need or saving some minow fish in the west at the expense of farmers!

Our liberties have been draining away for the past 100 years. Obama is just cashing in on the ignorance and helplessness of Americans today. We don't know our history or understand the philosophy behind the stirring words and deeds of our Forefathers and therefore we cannot defend it properly. It's time and proper that we the people should change this stunning ignorance of what we should be defending.
Sincerely,
Margaret Sanchez
for more information on how to defend American Values go to:

"The Gaping Maw Of Government"

Rob Tracinski over at The Intellectual Activist Daily writes:

Those who accuse the Democrats of a policy of "tax and spend" get it backward. The Democrats never figure out where the money is coming from before they spend it. They always spend it first, point to the resulting fiscal disaster, and then demand higher taxes to pay for the runaway spending.

In fact, the really crushing burden of government spending comes from a program created more than 70 years ago: Social Security. We're still raising taxes to pay for the spending commitments Congress made in 1935.

Here's the latest ominous news: increased chatter about piling a national sales tax on top of all of the existing taxes, as a way of paying for Obama's new socialized medicine scheme. No, I don't think we will see this national sales tax soon. Congress will spend the money first, and only then will they get around to figuring out new ways to tax us for it.

The worst part about a national sales tax, by the way, is not just the fact that it will funnel more private money into the gaping maw of the government. Consider also the sheer economic disruption of creating a totally new kind of tax, which will require individuals and businesses to rethink all of their economic plans. That's enough to create a recession all by itself. (Also read Once Considered Unthinkable, US Sales Tax Gets Fresh Look)

Throw The Bums Out

Sylvia Bokor has an written a very interesting article on how the liberals and conservatives of both the Republican and Democratic party are one and the same. Americans must wake up and realize that we are already a socialist lite country...now with Obama we will become socialist heavy. If we value our liberties and our the American Way of Life let's throw these rotten politicians out of office and vote in only people who hold freedom of the individual as their highest value. Sylvia Bokor titles here article "America At A Crossroads". We certainly are there with this administration. We either choose government control over our lives or freedom. Which shall it be America? We need a George Washington now!

Today's political mix includes liberal and conservative Republicans, and liberal and conservative Democrats. The Republican and Democrat tags no longer accurately identify political doctrine. The designations liberal and conservative have also changed from their original meaning.

Today's liberalism is a perversion of Classical Liberalism, which stressed the essential goodness and rationality of man and his ability to recognize and solve problems, all of which led to systematic improvement in man's life, exemplified by the Enlightenment.

The corruption began in 1848. Karl Marx and Friedich Engels, ignoring the vast improvements the Enlightenment made possible, argued that the state should advance the welfare of individuals. Since the state has no income except by taxing those who produce, those who produce were sentenced to provide for those who did not, violating the rights of producers.The corruption spread in the 1930s when Roosevelt signed into law the minimum wage, progressive taxation, Social Security and established Fannie Mae to provide low-interest mortgages. Classical Liberalism was dead. Liberalism and the welfare state became one: Socialism.

Conservatism originally supported limited government and free enterprise. But it also held that political, social and religious institutions represented ageless wisdom and that the source of individual rights were "gifts from God," not man's nature. Rights, therefore, were considered privileges meted out in obedience to God.

The communist victory in Russia disarmed conservatives. They recognized that their own views did not contradict communism. Politically "You are your brother's keeper" was collectivism. Seeking to disassociate themselves from communism, conservative patriotism devolved into "my country right or wrong." By 2008, John McCain solidified this view explicitly with the campaign slogan "Country First," stressing duty and placing the group above the individual: nationalism...(Read the whole article here).

Dereliction of the White House Press Corp

You've heard Obama constantly intoning the mantra "yes but we've created or saved 150,000 jobs" as the numbers of unemployed swell every month...well there's a very good examination of this phony statement in The Wall Street Journal and how the White House Press Corp in its heated anxiousness to worship at the alter of "the anointed one" has absolutely been derelict in their duty to be the front line of protection between politicians and the people. It's disgusting really...

"Saved or created" has become the signature phrase for Barack Obama as he describes what his stimulus is doing for American jobs. His latest invocation came yesterday, when the president declared that the stimulus had already saved or created at least 150,000 American jobs -- and announced he was ramping up some of the stimulus spending so he could "save or create" an additional 600,000 jobs this summer. These numbers come in the context of an earlier Obama promise that his recovery plan will "save or create three to four million jobs over the next two years."...

"To begin with, the number is pure fiction -- the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being 'saved.' And if we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it."

Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures "jobs saved." As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama's jobs claims are "based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs." Nice work if you can get away with it.

And get away with it he has (read at WSJ).

Obama My Shepard

I found this poem by an unknown author -

Obama is the shepherd I did not want.

He leadeth me beside the still factories.

He restoreth my faith in the Republican party.

He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line, I shall fear no hunger for his bailouts are with me.

He has anointed my income with taxes, My expenses runneth over.

Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life,

And I will live in a mortgaged home forever.

I am glad I am American, I am glad that I am free.

But I wish I was a male dog ...And Obama was a tree.

Presidential Extortion

Steve Stanek at Capitalism Magazine writes about how Obama is throwing out the rule of law in the United States. Remember that it is the job of lenders to extract maximum value for it's shareholder. This has been made impossible by Obama's demand that banks play the tune he calls or else. Is this extortion or not!

Until earlier this month, this was a nation of laws, not of men, a nation where justice was blind, meaning we are all equal under the law.

That changed when President Barack Obama's extortionate threats against the "holdout" Chrysler lenders caused them to accept the government’s 29 cents on the dollar offer for the money Chrysler owes them.

Obama publicly vilified these lenders, who had every legal, contractual, and moral right to hold out for a better return on the money they gave Chrysler. Behind the scenes, administration officials allegedly threatened to destroy the lenders by "unleashing the White House press corps" on them, according to Tom Lauria, an attorney representing the lenders.

If true—and there is little reason to doubt it, given the president's public conduct—the president or his agents should face criminal charges. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes extortion by the president. (READ HERE)

The Tragic Waste of Human Minds In The Middle East

MOHAMMED BIN RASHID AL MAKTOUM has an interesting article at WSJ where he talks about the rising tide of young people under the age of 25 in the Middle East-no wonder there are so many young men willing to take up arms against the evil west when they can't find jobs or feed their families. Their corrupt governments should be forced out and a democratic non-religious government instituted where individual rights are upheld for both men and women.

Arabs appreciate the fact that President Barack Obama has decided to deliver a major speech in an Islamic country (Egypt) about relations between the United States and Muslims, many of whom were alienated by American foreign policy in recent years.
More than half of the 300 million residents of the Middle East are people under 25 years of age. The region has the fastest growing labor force in the world.

With an already high unemployment rate of 15%, the Middle East must create 80 million new jobs in the next five years just to keep apace of our demographics. Unemployment is a problem afflicting all 22 member states of the Arab League, but it is most conspicuously a youth issue. Fifty percent of the jobless are under the age of 25, roughly double the world average. Women have an especially difficult time finding jobs.

These increasingly restive youths are particularly vulnerable to those who would preach radicalism and hostility toward the West, especially the U.S.

Why did Arabs fail to make deep structural reforms in education and in stimulating employment opportunities? The Arab world's track record on education, particularly girls' education, is discouraging. Sixty-five million adult Arabs are illiterate and two-thirds of them are women. More than 10 million Arab children between the ages of 6 and 15 are still not enrolled in any schooling, and on current trends this number will increase by 40% over the next decade. This is a monumental waste of human capacity...(READ)

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".

Where Are The Republicans? Nowhere.

While the article below was written in 2005 it is very timely today. One needs to ask the question: WHERE ARE THE REPUBLICANS? Sadly, nowhere...America has only the left today and that means the discredited ideology of socialism - the takeover of the economy by the government and perhaps the disappearance of individualism, and American can do spirit. Read John Lewis' great analysis of the right and understand how a man like Obama was able to become President of the noblest country in history.

The evidence of the past two decades is unimpeachable: the political right in America no longer stands for individual rights, limited government and capitalism. The "rightists" now advocate expanding the welfare state, increasing government intrusion into our intimate private affairs, and sacrificing American lives to foreign paupers. They call it "advancing the cause of freedom."

This is not what the right once stood for. Fifty years ago one could recognize serious problems in their positions, but also that by and large they favored individual liberty, opposed the growth of government beyond necessity, and advocated a strong military defense. In contrast, the left wanted socialism, the welfare state, and, following Vietnam, military humility.

Historically, and in broad terms, the right often tried to uphold the virtues of productiveness, independence, self-reliance, and American self-interest. They opposed the New Deal and the Great Society, as well as foreign wars that were not in America's interests, as assaults on freedom. It was Democrats such as Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson who brought America into such wars, and who institutionalized massive redistribution of wealth at home. The right co-opted many statist measures of the left—such as anti-trust—but they generally saw America's proper condition as peaceful production and free enterprise.

When the socialist assault began, the right became the opposition, facing a tide of motivated leftists who claimed that science and history were on their side. But what arguments, and what moral principles, did those on the right have for their own programs? Only vague statements of American ideals and virtues, held as floating ideas rather than with secure understanding. Consequently, "normalcy" in the 1920's was accompanied by huge increases in foreign aid, and ever larger infringements on domestic, especially economic, affairs.

They called on "Rugged Individualism" as an ideal—but could not say why this was morally right. They said "the business of America is business," but had no answer when told this was rule by robber barons. They proclaimed that "what is good for GM is good for America," but could not defend GM's profits. They spoke up for "capitalism" but wilted when told that it did not make everyone equal. They often maintained that America should pursue its own interests, but could not say why those interests did not include American soldiers dying for foreigners overseas...(READ at Capitalism Magazine).

Does Obama Want to Be "The Devalued Leader of a Devalued Government" Like Gordon Brown?

Larry Elder writes in The Atlasphere about Obama: "He does not pay the slightest attention to the founding principles of this country — a limited government and a maximum of responsibility by its citizens."

Following is the courageous British MEP Daniel Hannan speaking to and about the England's Prime Minister Gordon Brown who is doing the exact same thing to his country as our President is doing to his own country - sellling it down the road to the highest bidder.

“Prime Minister,” MEP Hannan said, “I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate.

“You’ve spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase ‘British jobs for British workers’ and that you have subsidized, where you have not nationalized outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks?

“Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words. Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G-20 country.

“The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity.

“Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child.

“Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition.

“Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging — in other words, to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the waterline under the accumulated weight of your debt.

“We are now running a deficit that touches 10 percent of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure — more than Pakistan, more than Hungary, countries where the IMF have already been called in.

“Now, it’s not that you’re not apologizing; like everyone else, I have long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things.

“It’s that you’re carrying on, willfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. ... In the last 12 months, 100,000 private-sector jobs have been lost, and yet you created 30,000 public-sector jobs.

“Prime Minister, you cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit.

“You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we’re ‘well-placed to weather the storm,’ I have to tell you (that) you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know and we know — and you know that we know — that it’s nonsense!”

The Shame of Going from Excellent Health Care to Socialized Health Care

With the reality of an Obama "universal Health Care" fraud - oops I mean scheme, ever looming over this nation - it would be good for everyone to pause and understand what this means in reality not in the fantasy land of Washington bureaucrats: as always Thomas Sowell explains it the best.

If you don't think government bureaucrats can make questionable decisions, then you haven't dealt with many government bureaucrats.

It is one thing to deal with bureaucrats when you are at the Department of Motor Vehicles and in good health. It is something else when you have to deal with bureaucrats when you are lying on a gurney and bleeding or are doubled over in pain on a hospital bed.

People who believe in "universal health care" show remarkably little interest -- usually none -- in finding out what that phrase turns out to mean in practice, in those countries where it already exists, such as Britain, Sweden or Canada.

For one thing, "universal health care" in these countries means months of waiting for surgery that American get in a matter of weeks or even days.

In these and other countries, it means having only a fraction as many MRIs and other high-tech medical devices available per person as in the United States.

In Sweden, it means not only having bureaucrats deciding what medicines the government will and will not pay for, but even preventing you from buying the more expensive medicine for yourself with your own money. That would violate the "equality" that is the magic mantra. (READ)

"Elections Have Consequences" (Judd Gregg)

For those of you who voted for Mr. Obama there's a future of haunting consequences that will bite you for a long time to come. Remember Judd Gregg who was nominated to be Obama's Commerce Secretary? He withdrew his name when he realized he would be working for a socialist. He doesn't call it socialism in the article but anyone with a brain knows what Obama's budget is: BIG GOVERNMENT and that by any other name is Socialism.

"From health care to global warming, financial regulation, spending and tax policy, Mr. Gregg doesn't pull any punches in his criticism of the new president. He may be "a charismatic person" with "a very strong understanding of who he is and what he wants to do," but when it comes to the substance of what Mr. Obama seeks to accomplish, Mr. Gregg is less charitable. "They have a goal," the senator says, "and he's very open about it. They are going to grow this government."

Mr. Gregg believes the stakes are high. "This is the first time a budget's had real meaning in a long time," he says. In recent years, presidential budgets have been formulaic exercises. Even if Congress went on to adopt them, they would only serve, at best, as rough guidelines for the real work of crafting the appropriations bills that actually set discretionary funding levels. But this budget "is real, and he [Mr. Obama] intends to push it."

That's bad news, in Mr. Gregg's view, because "We're headed on an unsustainable path. The simple fact is these [budget] numbers don't work and the practical implications of them are staggering for the nation and the next generation."

His "main concern," he says, "is that if you look at the Obama budget, it projects on average about a $1 trillion deficit [every year] over the next 10 years." And as a result of all that spending, "You see the size of government growing from 21% [of gross domestic product] to 22%, to 23%, 24%, 25% . . . toward 30%." (READ WSJ)

Our Constitution Is The Law of The Land

Because our GOVERNMENT RUN Schools are so abysmal we do not know our Declaration of Independence or understand our Constitution. It's time we get acquainted with these two amazing and historic documents. Things are happening in the USA that leave no doubt now about where we have been headed for the past 80 years - Socialism.

Larry Elder writes: The New Deal, launched almost 80 years ago, represented a giant leap toward collectivism. But only in the last few weeks, as a result of President Barack Obama's New Deal Reloaded, have some 20 states rediscovered the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.

Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution sets forth the limited duties and obligations of the federal government.

The Founding Fathers designed a federal government that focuses primarily on national security, the rules of naturalization, and a handful of other matters. And the Ninth and 10th amendments to the Constitution leave all other rights and powers to the people and to the states, respectively.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, standing with members of his state Legislature, said: “The 10th Amendment was enacted by folks who remembered what it was like to have a very oppressive government — to be under the thumb of tyrants in an all-powerful government. Unfortunately, the protections it guarantees have melted away over the course of the years.”

During the early days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Supreme Court actually ruled that the Constitution meant what it said and said what it meant...(Larry Elder at The Atlasphere).

Walter Williams writes: Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks.

He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war.

Today it’s the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George’s actions look mild in comparison.

Our constitutional ignorance — perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we’ve become a nation of wimps, sissies, and supplicants — has made us easy prey for Washington’s tyrannical forces.

But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans’ characteristic spirit of rebellion.

Eight state legislatures have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution; they include Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

There’s speculation that they will be joined by Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania...

The Founders tried to limit that power with the 10th Amendment, which reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (READ)

The Culmination of Our Morality of Self-Sacrifice is Barack Obama but What We Need is a JOHN GALT

Do you ever ask yourself why we are always asked to sacrifice for this, sacrifice for that, in ever escalating demands? Has it ever occurred to you that it's a great way to control us? Obama is the result of this morality of sacrificial lambs at the alter of the poor, the needy, the planet, the bears, the atmosphere etc. But have we ever asked why we had to sacrifice ourself for everybody else and for everything else on this earth? The famous literary character, John Galt, warned us 50 years ago that it was this morality of self-sacrifice that was destroying the world and that we needed to discover a new morality- the morality of living by holding "three things as the supreme and ruling values of ones life: Reason - purpose - and self-esteem." (For The New Intellectual by Ayn Rand).

America Abandons its Allies and It's Role As Defender of The Free World

Caroline Glick has written a very important article describing the shambles and ruin that Obama is making of our foreign policy and how he is making the world dangerous and allowing evil to flourish. It is disheartening to watch this administration tear down this country and the free world policy by anti-reason policy. Is it time to ask the question - Does this man love his country?

Whether they are aggressors like Russia, proliferators like North Korea, terror exporters like nuclear-armed Pakistan or would-be genocidal-terror-supporting nuclear states like Iran, today, under the new administration, none of them has any reason to fear Washington...

But while the media couldn't get enough of the new US leader, America's most stable allies worldwide began a desperate search for a reset button that would cause the administration to take back its abandonment of America's role as the protector of the free world...

Tokyo was distraught by the administration's reaction to North Korea's three-stage ballistic missile test. Japan recognized the betrayal inherent in Defense Secretary Robert Gates's announcement ahead Pyongyang's newest provocation that the US would only shoot the missile down if it targeted US territory. In one sentence, uttered not in secret consultations, but declared to the world on CNN, Gates abrogated America's strategic commitment to Japan's defense.

India, for its part, is concerned by Obama's repeated assertions that its refusal to transfer control over the disputed Jammu and Kashmir provinces to Pakistan inspires Pakistani terror against India...

Then there is Iraq...

Hearing Obama's statements, and watching him and his advisers make daily declarations of friendship to Iran's mullahs, Iraqi leaders are considering their options for surviving the rapidly approaching storm.

Then there is Europe... his words were anything but music to the ears of the leaders of former Soviet satellites threatened by Russia. The Czech, Polish, Georgian and Ukrainian governments were quick to recognize that Obama's strong desire to curry favor with the Kremlin and weaken his own country will imperil their ability to withstand Russian aggression...

And as for Russia, like Iran, which responded to Obama's latest ode to the mullahs by opening a nuclear fuel plant and announcing it has 7,000 advanced centrifuges in operation, so Moscow reacted to Obama's fig leaf with a machine gun, announcing its refusal to support sanctions against North Korea and repeating its false claim that Iran's nuclear program is nonaggressive.

Finally there is Israel. If Obama's assertions that Israel must support the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state, his declarations of support for the so-called Saudi "peace plan," which requires Israel to commit national suicide in exchange for "peace" with the Arab world, and his continuous and increasingly frantic appeals for Iran to "engage" his administration weren't enough to show Israel that Obama is sacrificing the US's alliance with the Jewish state in a bid to appease the Arabs and Iran, on Tuesday Vice President Joseph Biden made this policy explicit.

Let's Remember that The Government is Our Servant NOT the Other Way Around

It would do us well to remember what 1776 was all about: The fact that those early Americans decided that the age old idea that the people were at the beck and call of the king, the ruler, the cleric, the landowner was wrong and immoral. They came up with the brilliant idea that government should be the servant of the people. Dr. John Lewis makes this point and reminds us that liberty has to be fought for and protected but that it seems that we are giving it up in order to be coddled and "taken care of" from the cradle to the grave.

The Cello - And An Amazing Composition

Listen and watch this amazing Youtube video of this man playing all the parts of the cello...how did he record this?

Socialism is the Power of the State Over Your Life-It is Something Worth Defeating If You Love Life

What we are fighting now is the great enemy for the past 2000 years: STATISM - the powerful government that wants to rule our every move and pick our pockets to boot.

Ayn Rand Private Roads, Schools and Post Offices

Listen to a great mind speaking - Ayn Rand says that all depressions are caused by the government. Our government started this one and Obama is making it worse.

Milton Friedman Defends Greed

Phil Donahue is the most sanctimonious creep I've ever laid eyes on or heard. But the late Milton Friedman a famous economist, just shreds him to pieces in a very kind way and lays him out flat with a couple of punches. Yes, Donahue, even you live under the banner of greed which more rational people would call self-interest. If you don't have self-interest, aka greed then you will die - Mr. Donahue.

Mr Obama Is Silent On Pirate Attack; Thomas Jefferson Fought Them

Do you find this pirate business as astounding as I do? There has been 6 attacks this week alone and 66 attacks this year by Somali pirates. Thomas Jefferson had tremendous problems with pirates attacking American commercial vessels. But he stood up and fought them any way he could. Why aren't we attacking their base of operations in Somalia? Where's our President and his leadership on this issue? Silence.

Is this an sign as to how Mr Obama will address future attacks on us? Can we count on this President to defend our interests? Isn't this THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB an American president has - TO DEFEND AMERICANS AND OUR HOMELAND? Well, maybe he's too busy plunging us into this mountain of debt we will be trying to shovel our way out of for the next few decades than to concentrate on the evils that confront us everyday. The following are comments from a former CIA agent.

"The American response to date has been incredibly naïve and woefully ineffective. Now, predictably, you have an American taken hostage. All of which should have been prevented. You’ve got a failed state in Somalia and pirates operating in an area of ocean that is larger than the state of Texas but we’ve been trying to deal with this from the ocean side, by sending the navy and with a limited application of technology, such as satellites and drones. We can’t afford to patrol that big a piece of the ocean; it’s too expensive to leave a naval task force out there."

"...The pirates have a base of operations and infrastructure. They’re not going out 400-plus nautical miles from shore in shitty boats; they have fuel supplies, docks, mechanics, and support infrastructure, on the beach. It’s all findable and disrupt-able. We need a contingent of agency personnel in Ethiopia and Somalia to go after this infrastructure, leadership and control elements in Somalia, and an aggressive humint [human intelligence] effort in Lebanon to follow, and choke off the money.

This is a challenge to confront, but it has to be dealt with. A band of thugs are tying up international shipping along a gigantic stretch of Africa that’s an approach area for the Suez Canal. Last year, the hijackers made $80 million, which is a staggering sum of money in that country. Up until now, little has been done to deal with it because of the expense, complexity and necessary commitment of manpower and resources required. Also, given the long history of Al Qaida in Somalia, no one wants to discuss the possibility that it may have a role in this pirate activity as a revenue stream. That’s a question that could be answered if we had better humint (human intelligence) in Somalia.

...In 1803-05, Jefferson sent Captain Eaton to conduct a covert action attack against the pirates and their infrastructure and leadership on the beach. Captain Eaton assembled a handful of of U.S. Marines and a group of Arab, Greek and North African mercenaries and attacked the Basha from the desert, overland side, while the Naval task force bombarded the sea side. (READ)

Michigan is One of Those Robber States That Will INCREASE TAXES On its Citizens

Gee! We have such creative politicians in Lansing.

Look! See the politician think.

See him come up with new ways of robbing Michiganders of the little bit of money they have left after paying all the national taxes, current state taxes, county taxes and city taxes, property taxes, cigarette taxes, land taxes, etc.

Here is a new list of idiotic taxes these people have come up with to steal our money:

High school sports

Bottled water

Entertainment

Vending machine items

Vacant houses

Property transfers

Abandoned vehicles

Septic systems

Court filings

In addition, they want to give expanded taxing authority to local governments and school boards and increase the gas tax by fifty cents a gallon.

You would think that would be enough. What more do they want? The governor wants to impose a graduated income tax. That would increase a middle class family’s income taxes by 50% or more. In addition, two democratic lawmakers would like to see your income tax increase by 25% for their pet project.

Get ready Michigan for a big migration to friendlier states just like people from California are leaving that robber state. (To see how the politicians of your state will rob you of more of your money go here.) Join your State's Tax Tea Party April 15th.

Pirates: We Need Millions for Defense not as Tribute to Obama

The nation's first Secretary State, Thomas Jefferson, told Congress it must choose "...between war, tribute and ransom." He believed war was the only reasonable choice, and advocated the creation of a navy. Tribute paid to the pirates was "money thrown away," and the only thing they truly understood was gunpowder and shot. Just as Luther 250 years earlier, Jefferson called for a united military alliance among the European powers, along with America, to blockade North Africa and provide for a military solution against the pirates. Europe chose to continue paying tribute.

"Would to Heaven we had a navy to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into non-existence," said George Washington in 1786. Said one American envoy, "There is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is terror."

... It was 19th century colonialism that finally put an end to centuries of North African piracy, just as it was the Western nations that finally ended the Slave Trade.

Unfortunately the slave trade, taking of captives for ransom, and terrorism lives on Islamic societies (Read the rest of this most interesting history of the epidemic of pirates in the 1800's).

The pirates in the water's off Africa are not new what's new is the the fact that Western nations have done nothing to rid us of this evil. For America, it appears this is the first time an American ship, carrying aid to Africa by the way, has been hijacked. Now ask yourself, why now? Under Obama's tenure?

• 'It was believed to be the first US merchant ship hijacked since the North African Barbary Wars in the early 19th century, underlining the anarchy raging off Somalia despite an international naval effort against piracy.' (Read)

Apparently, the reason this "profession" is so attractive to these rogues is that most ships are insured against pirate attacks and when one occurs the captain and his crew surrender rather than fight. So you may ask why don't they fight? They carry no weapons to fight with thanks to laws prohibiting it. We need more money spent on defense not bailing out businesses that don't even want the money like GM!

Is Obama the First Strongman of The United States?

More and more evidence is gathering that we have elected a fascist, a strongman. We may have elected ourselves a man whose secret desire is to become a dictator. Well, there were signs before the election and many people decided to focus on his physical appearance and his "charm" instead of his past and his words. We will pay dearly for this mistake as we seem to have already started to pay in fact. Judge Andrew Napolitano writes about how Obama is using the same strongman techniques he used with GM, now on the banks.

The Federal government committed extortion and they’re not being held accountable. What’s next? Listen to this: I recently met with the Chair and CEO of one of the country’s top 10 bank holding companies. His bank is worth in excess of $250 billion, has no bad debt, no credit default swaps, no liquidity problems, and no subprime loans. He told me that he and others were forced by Treasury and FDIC threats to take TARP funds, even though he did not want or need them.

There is simply no authority in the U.S. Constitution for Congress to exercise the level of control it now seeks over private industry.

The FDIC — with Treasury backing — threatened to conduct public audits of his bank unless his board created and issued a class of stock for the Feds to buy. The audit, which he is confident his bank would survive, would cost it millions in employee time, bad press, and consequent lost business.

He pleaded with the Feds to leave his successful bank alone. He begged his board to let him tell the Feds to take a hike. But they gave in. The Feds are now just a tiny shareholder, but want to begin asserting more and more control. This is a classic extortion: Controlling someone’s free will by threatening to perform a lawful act. (Blackmail is the threat is to perform an unlawful act in order to control someone else’s free will.) There are no exceptions in the statutes prohibiting extortion for government persons.

This happened in September 2008, but the demands for more control are more recent. It sounds to me like Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke, and Sheila Blair have all read a biography of Benito Mussolini. I guess they skipped the last chapter.

There is simply no authority in the U.S. Constitution for Congress to exercise the level of control it now seeks over private industry. ..(READ).

Rob Tracinski at TIA Daily writes: "In every dictatorship, there is a tradeoff between power and prosperity. Every strongman takes actions that clearly and obviously diminish his nation's ability to produce wealth, but which increase his regime's ability to control the lives of the people. Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, for example, are all notorious for exercising political control over oil production—their main source of wealth—even when that has resulted in a decrease in foreign investment and thus in long-term output. "

"No, we're not in a dictatorship yet, but it is ominous that the Obama administration is making the same tradeoff."

Learn How We Got To This Financial Meltdown

Richard Salsman writing for The Objective Standard's Spring 2009 edition explains how we arrived at this economic abyss. And you probably won't believe the answer - but think about it and look back on history and you will see the truth. And President Bush helped this mess by giving it a big push. Here is an excerpt to wet your curiosity but go to the article itself it's free and accessible at www.theobjectivestandard.com.

...The above interpretations ignore the plain fact that America today does not enjoy a free-market system—let alone a free-market financial sector—nor has it enjoyed one for most of the past century. Only through a profound misunderstanding of what constitutes a free-market system could anyone honestly blame capitalism for the financial crisis. For decades the American politico-economic system has been a mixed system—a combination of some freedom of choice and action offset by large (and growing) coercive interventions. It was precisely these coercive elements—the regulation, taxation, and subsidization—that caused today’s financial crisis. Washington’s recent and massive interventions did not follow from free-market “failure”; they followed from the market distortions caused by prior government intervention in the economy. Government interventions have both instigated and aggravated the latest financial crisis.

By surveying the government interventions that caused the latest turmoil and wealth destruction in housing and banking, this article will demonstrate that the current financial crisis was caused not by a return to free markets or pro-capitalist policies in the past decade, but by a tragic progression toward socialism. More importantly, it will demonstrate that altruism—the notion that being moral consists in sacrificing oneself for the needs of others—is the basis for this government intervention, and thus the root cause of the crisis.

Of course, in order to recognize that capitalism is innocent of the latest charges against it, we must bear in mind what capitalism is. Capitalism is the social system of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.11 Capitalism upholds the rule of law and equality before the law, forbids government favors to any person or group (including businesses), entails the complete separation of state and economics, and thus leaves each individual free to act on his own judgment for his own sake. With that in mind, let us consider the relevant facts surrounding the financial crisis.

...Perhaps no single U.S. government intervention has destroyed more capital or wasted more taxpayer funds in recent years than the establishment of “Fannie Mae,” “Freddie Mac,” and “Ginnie Mae”—“government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs) that for years have been used by politicians to secure campaign funds and votes by promoting artificially cheap home mortgages and “the American dream of home ownership.” The quaint, disarming nicknames for the GSEs actually stand for the Federal National Mortgage Association, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, and the Government National Mortgage Association. Read more if you want to know the history and reason for why we are where we are today.

Stand Tall Obama - Stand Tall against Tyrants

Why is this man, Obama grovelling at King Abdullah's feet? Good question! Does he find an affinity with this king of a desert country that produces nothing but oil (which by the way was nationalized aka stolen from the countries that actually discovered and brought up this oil...the Arabs did not even know what it was!)

Yesterday when Barack Obama met with the Queen of England in the Queen’s Palace in the United Kingdom, he merely offered her a handshake. However, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a man who presides over a nation where women are considered to be less than 3/5 human, got a whole bow from Barack Obama (READ).