Is Greece a Mirror for the Fate of America?

Arthur Brooks hit it on the head with his article of "Slouching Towards Athens - The Obama Agenda and the Europeanization of America". I had been thinking about the American can do and stick to it spirit being eroded by a bloated, overreaching, hypocritic, paternalistic government ever since Obama became President. This article by Brooks says it all. Will our children have the American spirit when they grow up? Will America become another European birth to cradle welfare state? Are we for all intents and purpose already there? Can we reverse this creeping socialism which Obama is rapidly now forcing down our throats? Only time, which we don't have anymore, will tell. But as Americans we must fight this insidious socialism which is nothing but slavery to the state.

...Why are citizens rioting and striking in Greece? Despite the worst economic crisis in decades, labor unions and state functionaries demand that others pay for the early retirements, lifetime benefits and state pensions to which they feel entitled. In America, however, the tea partiers demonstrate not to get more from others, but rather against government growth, public debt, bailouts and a budget-busting government overhaul of the health-care industry.

In other words, the tea partiers are protesting against exactly what the Greeks are demanding. It is an example of American exceptionalism if there ever was one.

Instead of celebrating this ethical populism, however, many political leaders here denounced the legitimacy of the tea party protesters. "It's not really a grass-roots movement," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed after the tax day tea party protests in April 2009. "It's 'astroturf' by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich."...

...The increasing size of the federal work force is an early indication of what lies ahead. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in the last year the federal government added 86,000 permanent (non-Census) jobs to the rolls. And high-paying jobs at that: The number of federal salaries over $100,000 per year has increased by nearly 50% since the beginning of the recession.

Today, the average federal worker earns 77% more than the average private-sector worker, according to a USA Today analysis of data from the federal Office of Personnel Management. To pay for bigger government, the private sector will bear a heavier tax burden far into the future, suppressing the innovation and entrepreneurship that creates growth and real opportunity, not to mention the revenue that pays for everything else in the first place.

If these trends are not reversed, it is hard to see how our culture of free enterprise will not change. More and more Americans, especially younger Americans, will grow accustomed to a system in which the government pays better wages, offers the best job protection, allows the earliest retirement, and guarantees the most lavish pensions. Against such competition, more and more young, would-be entrepreneurs will inevitably choose the safety and comfort of government employment—and do so with all the drive that is generally thought to be "good enough" for that kind of work. Read "Slouching Toward Athens" at the Wall Street Journal

The Global Warming "Debate" is Falling Apart

Rob Tracinski at TIADaily.com has a great piece describing how the Climate Warming "debate" is falling apart.

"..And best of all is the story below, about a debate at the venerable old Oxford Union, in which prominent skeptics defeated alarmists in a vote by the students—and by a good margin. Intellectual climate change is possible, and it is only a matter of time before it comes, in full force, to the US."

Tracinski will have his Daily blog free for a while so take advantage and read his excellent analysis of the events of the day from an Objectivist's point of view. Read below.

For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that "global warming" is or could become a global crisis….

Last week, members of the historic Oxford Union Society, the world's premier debating society, carried the motion "That this House would put economic growth before combating climate change" by 135 votes to 110….

Mr. James Delingpole, a blogger for the leading British conservative national newspaper The Daily Telegraph, seconded the proposition, saying that–politically speaking–the climate extremists had long since lost the argument. The general public simply did not buy the scare stories any more. The endless tales of Biblical disasters peddled by the alarmist faction were an unwelcome and now fortunately failed recrudescence of dull, gray Puritanism. Instead of hand-wringing and bed-wetting, we should celebrate the considerable achievements of the human race and start having fun….

Lord Monckton repeatedly interrupted Lord Whitty to ask him to give a reference in the scientific literature for his suggestion that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic. Lord Whitty was unable to provide the source for his figure, but said that everyone knew it was true. Under further pressure from Lord Monckton, Lord Whitty conceded that the figure should perhaps be 92%. Lord Monckton asked: "And your reference is?" Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering "Your reference? Your reference?" Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.

Lord Leach of Fairford, whom Margaret Thatcher appointed a Life Peer for his educational work, spoke third for the proposition. He said that we no longer knew whether or not there had been much "global warming" over the 20th century, because the Climategate emails had exposed the terrestrial temperature records as defective….

Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as "Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society". At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, "If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and"–glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box–"measure it!" "Oxford Union Debate On Climate Catastrophe" at The SPPI Blog .

EPA's Policies Have Stymied Innovations

The EPA is one of the most retarded and useless agencies we have. For example they have refused to allow the genetic engineering of bacteria and fungus that might have been able feed on the oil and change it thereby to something less noxious for the environment. Why do we even have an Environmental Protection Agency if it's not to PROTECT the environment? Seems like an oxymoron.

I dislike President Obama's style and substance. A whiner and left-wing ideologue, he is remarkably slow-witted when out of range of speechwriters and teleprompters. I'll say one thing for him, though: He brings a sense of irony to government.

The latest example is the incomprehensible choice of William Reilly, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to co-chair the presidential commission to investigate the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

During Reilly's tenure, the EPA implemented policies that prevented the development of a high-tech method to mitigate the effects of the oil washing onto the magnificent beaches along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida.

During the 1980s microorganisms genetically engineered to feed on spilled oil were developed in laboratories, but draconian federal regulations discouraged their testing and commercialization and ensured that the techniques available for responding to these disasters remain low-tech and marginally effective.

They include methods such as deploying booms to contain the oil, spraying chemicals to disperse it, burning it and spreading absorbent mats.

At the time of the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, there were great expectations for modern biotechnology applied to "bioremediation," the biological cleanup of toxic wastes, including oil. Reilly, who at that time headed the EPA, later recalled:

"When I saw the full scale of the disaster in Prince William Sound in Alaska ... my first thought was: Where are the exotic new technologies, the products of genetic engineering, that can help us clean this up?"

Reilly should have known: Innovation had been stymied by his agency's hostile policies toward the most sophisticated new genetic engineering techniques. The regulations ensured that biotech researchers in several industrial sectors, including bioremediation, would continue to be intimidated and inhibited by regulatory barriers. Those policies remain in place today, and the EPA's anti-technology zealots show no signs of changing them...READ: Obama Slips Up on Oil Spill Panel" at IBD editorials.

It's Time To Take a Stand and Fight Big Government

For those of you who are concerned about big government getting into every aspect of our lives the time has come to do something. You don't know what to do or how to get started? Read below then go to TIADaily.com

The passage of the health care bill has made the current political environment more serious and urgent than ever before. The vote on that bill demonstrated that it is not enough to mobilize massive public opposition to statism—that the Democrats will push it through anyway, with contempt for the views of the governed. They will do it because they regard opposition to their agenda as passing, temporary, and ultimately ineffectual. They believe they can shove through this legislation—and more, in whatever time they have remaining—and that once it is in place, it can never be rolled back. ..

If we don't prove them wrong, we are in very big trouble.

Just how big is demonstrated by the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, because she brings to the forefront the main issue of Barack Obama's presidency. As I wrote in the May 13 edition of TIA Daily:

This year, we are called upon to decide the most important political issue there is: are they any limits on the power of government?

We saw this in the health care debate, when Democratic congressmen were quizzed on the constitutionality of the law and answered with a collective shrug of indifference….

And now, with Elena Kagan, we discover that even the First Amendment is not safe, that Congress may also claim the power to censor our speech, should the "general welfare" dictate that the benefits of our freedom are outweighed by the "costs to society."

If there is a single theme to Obama's term in office so far, it is his attempt to break the last of the bonds that used to limit the power of government.

At the same time, however, there is also a lot of reason for hope. The primaries and special elections that have been held so far this year have been a bloodbath for incumbents, for the party establishment—of both parties—and especially for the appropriators, the politicians who are on the committees most directly responsible for runaway government spending...

It's time to get educated and to take a stand against BIG GOVERNMENT. Do you want to be told how to live your life from birth to death? Will you accept the high rate of taxation that is coming down the pike to pay for all this government intervention in our lives? Do you want to send most of your money to Washington for them to spend on welfare programs? You can start educating yourself at: Read the rest at TIADaily.com.

Dear Mr. President - Please Stay Out of the BP Oil Spill Mess

As Obama blunders from one intrusion into our economy to another we should remember that the American Presidency was set up with limited powers ON PURPOSE. And that was to avoid an over-reaching powerful executive that could thwart the progress of the citizens. Now tie this to the BP oil spill and the one thing we don't need is Obama grabbing more power for the White House. We drill for oil with the understanding that it is a tough, difficult and costly enterprise. Accidents will happen but that doesn't mean that our Presidents (Bush or Obama) need to get involved in every catastrophe. They are not God nor our father. Accidents like the Gulf coast oil spill or Alaska's oil spill should be handled by the people involved. We need the brains of competent people resolving these types of accidents - not politicians. Rob Tracinski writing at The Intellectual Activist makes some good points.

...Since when is the president responsible for managing the response to every industrial accident, from mine collapses to oil-rig blowouts? Since when is it any of his business?

It is British Petroleum's business. It is their responsibility to cap the well (as they now seem to be doing), to do whatever they can to mitigate the spill, and to pay for the damages and the cleanup. The courts should be involved in adjudicating the exact extent of the damages and of BP's responsibility, but that is really the whole of the federal government's legitimate involvement.

The federal government, in our political system, was designed to do very little: to provide for the national defense and to adjudicate a delimited set of legal cases that involve interstate actions. Even the police, which are a legitimate function of government, are not really a federal responsibility. And "industrial accident cleanup" is definitely not among the enumerated powers granted to Congress in Article I.

But nobody cares about the Constitution any more. Under the novel theory of government we've been living under for most of the past century, there is nothing that is not the business of the federal government. And so even as he is being criticized for making an unconvincing show of being "engaged" on the oil spill problem, President Obama has been trying to use that very failure as an excuse for further expansion of the government's role. His response to every criticism has been the same as the response given by Wesley Mouch—the flailing central planner in Atlas Shrugged—when his interventions fail: "I need wider powers."

And so Obama has said that his biggest mistake was to trust the oil companies to handle the spill—rather than putting the government in charge right away. And he has issued a moratorium on new permits for offshore oil exploration, until a new federal commission can convene and come up with a plan for more restrictions and taxes to impose on oil companies...

..When asked about the top achievements of his administration, he replied: "I minded my own business." So should President Obama. ... (The Intellectual Activist - "Mine Your Own Business")

"Government is Instituted to Protect Property of Every Sort" James Madison

When we have government that is bent on taking more than half of what we own it is time to refresh ourselves with the writings of one Founding Father who understood the proper role of government - that it should be limited and that their main raison d'etre is to protect the individual's right to HIS property. Visit TAKING LIBERTY.

James Madison, Property

29 Mar. 1792Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.


The Founders' Constitution
Volume 1, Chapter 16, Document 23
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s23.html
The University of Chicago Press

Walid Shoebat on Islam

Pamela Geller's Powerful Entreaty For Us to Fight Against the Encroachment of Sharia in the US

For more of Pamela Geller and her courageous fight against the invasion of Islamic Sharia in America go to http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/atlas-articles/

Why Won't Liberals Do What It Takes to Protect America and Americans?

You know what? It's time for us as Americans to demand that our government, so intent on taking us to the poorhouse, do what it's supposed to be doing; the reason why we have a government - Protect us from religious fanatics bent on world domination and wiping out the only truly free country the world has EVER seen: America. The question is why won't the left work to free us from radical Islam? Why? Why? Why?

The more we learn about failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, the stranger the initial reporting about him becomes. The liberals’ rush to downplay any possible connections to Islam and label him a “homegrown” terrorist were blatant attempts to freeze the story before the truth was known. Now, the facts about Shahzad are showing a liberal establishment that can’t face a reality it created.

First there was New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg dismissing the then-unknown suspect as “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill (i.e. ObamaCare)” to Katie Couric. Shortly thereafter, MSNBC personality Contessa Brewer was “hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country” because “[t]here are a lot of people who want to use terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry.”

So instead the liberal chattering class indulged in updated bigotry. After two terrorist attacks on New York City landmarks in 1993 and 2001 by Islamists, the current mayor of the city immediately points to the most likely culprit in 2010: Tea Party activists upset with the government takeover of healthcare. But why, Mayor Mike, would people angered by federal overreach target a local tourist site like Times Square? The symbolic value would be lost. Then again, maybe attention to constitutional distinctions between different levels of government is the kind of “political agenda” motivating “mentally deranged” people these days. ..Read at Center for Individual Freedom - " The Fact About The Failed Times Square Bomber: Why the Liberal Establishment Can't Face Reality".

Obama Perfects The Game of Divide and Conquer

It's bad enough that the Obama Administration is taking us to the edge of financial ruin with his profligate spending of money we DON'T have, but to bad mouth Arizona for trying to defend their state against Mexican thugs who are enriching themselves because of American drug addicts is beyond the pale. READ THE BILL! This is nothing but a means of pitting American against American. Hitler chose the Jews for everyone else to hate - Obama has to do it piecemeal and Arizona is his test case...Beware of more to come.

Members of the Obama administration, who soundly condemned Arizona's new immigration law, are now admitted that they have never even read it. Could President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderón find themselves in the same boat based on comments they made today at their joint appearance on the White House lawn?

Let’s review. The first person who had to admit he had never read the Arizona law Attorney General Eric Holder made his admission last week. On Monday, it was Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's turn. On Tuesday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley revealed that he, too, had not read the bill, despite commenting on it. Given how inaccurate these officials have been in their descriptions of the law, maybe members of President Obama’s team simply had no option but to plead ignorance.

After all, how do you take a law that clearly states the following: "A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, or town or other political subdivision of this state may not consider race, color or national origin,” and then claim that it is racist or could lead to racial profiling? Not only that but other parts of this very short law also include additional safeguards against racial profiling. For example, the law requires that the police may only ask for ID if they have “lawful contact” with “lawful stop, detention or arrest” and that authorities must have "reasonable suspicion" that a suspect is an illegal alien.

Failure by members of President Obama’s administration to read the four page text of Arizona's law is no a small matter, since some on his team managed to create quite a stir in various appearances on Sunday talk shows by bringing up concerns about racial profiling and racism.

Take, for example, Ms. Napolitano's warning on "This Week" on May 2: "Unfortunately, I think it [the law] does and can invite racial profiling." If these various "news" shows had been doing their job, they would have challenged Napolitano and other officials on these claims. Even just reading parts of the law -- verbatim -- to Ms. Napolitano or other administration officials during their appearance on the program would have been enough to force them to admit their ignorance. (READ "Mr. Obama, Please Read Arizona's Immigration Law" by John Lott.

The brave and historical speech of Malalai Joya in the LJ

The Bravest Woman in Afghanistan - Malalai Joya

"A new survey shows many British think relations with the U.S. have deteriorated since the president took office."

Obama needs to keep our friends close and our enemies far - not the other way around.

...A new survey of British public opinion reveals chastened hopes for close ties with the United States. The poll, conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Legatum Institute and the Royal United Services Institute, carried out between May 10 and 12, finds that overall public support for the relationship remains strong. Some 66% of those surveyed hold a favorable view of the U.S. and 62% agree that America is Britain's most important ally.

Moreover, a full 82% of Britons want their nation's relationship with the U.S. to stay as close as it is or even be strengthened. New Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg might take note of this in light of his previous plea for the British to "release ourselves from the spell of default Atlanticism."

As much as the British people still feel a commitment to the special relationship, they also feel that their love is unrequited. An overwhelming 85% believe that Britain has little or no influence on U.S. policies, and 62% think that America does not consider British interests. The Obama administration has reinforced these perceptions over the past year.

In stark contrast to the stratospheric hopes that Mr. Obama would dramatically improve America's relations with the world in general and the U.K. in particular, a full 74% of the British people now think that their relationship with the U.S. has stayed the same or even worsened since Mr. Obama's election... Read: "Obama and the 'Special Relationship' " at WSJ.

Europe, IMF and the European Central bank Admit Quietly that Government Healthcare is Unsustainable. Surprise!!!!

So the cat is out of the bag. Europe admits that government run healthcare is UNSUSTAINABLE. Are you surprised? Of course not. Most Americans know that government run anything leads to bankruptcy, failure and mediocrity. Let's take back America for Americans before it's too late for us. Let's learn the lesson of Greece and go back to Capitalism, the system which is "based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." ("What Is Capitalism?" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand). Read "Guess What Greece Has to Jettison" by

Policy Failure: Greece was told that if it wanted a bailout, it needed to consider privatizing its government health care system. So tell us again why the U.S. is following Europe's welfare state model.

The requirement, part of a deal arranged by the IMF, the European Union and the European Central bank, is a tacit admission that national health care programs are unsustainable. Along with transportation and energy, the bailout group, according to the New York Times, wants the Greek government to remove "the state from the marketplace in crucial sectors."

This is not some cranky or politically motivated demand. It is a condition based on the ugly reality of government medicine. The Times reports that economists — not right-wingers opposed to health care who want to blow up Times Square — say liberalizing "the health care industry would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe."

Of course most of the media have been largely silent about the health care privatization measure for Greece, as it conflicts with their universal, single-payer health care narrative.

The public health system in the Hellenic Republic is operated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, where centralized decisions and rules are made.
It provides free or low-cost treatment through what is essentially a single-payer system established in 1983 when the Socialist Party was in power. Family members and retirees are also covered. Like the systems in Britain and Canada, it has agonizingly long waiting lists...READ the rest here at IBD.

I Don't Recognize America Anymore - Do You?

As the Government payroll gets larger and larger and Obama is looking to add more people on the dole - I mean on the Union payrolls Americans have to sit down and take a good long look at what we are becoming. A reflection of socialist Europe. We must fight this cancer creeping through our society spreading ever faster as Washington is changing the meaning of our country. Read this excellent commentary by Bill Frezza, "Are the Greek Riots a Picture of Our Future?"

...Wake up America! How many million unionists are we expected to carry on our public payrolls? How long can we keep government employees on defined-benefit pension plans while the rest of us scramble to fund our 401(k)s ? How many more people are we going to drop from the income tax rolls as we lean on a smaller and smaller slice of citizens to carry an ever greater percentage of the load, leaving the rest free to vote for tax increases? How large a swath of our population can we pretend to keep supplied with newly manufactured economic rights like free healthcare as Social Security and Medicare careen toward insolvency? How much more do we think we can borrow from the Chinese to fund day-to-day government operations? How long do we think we can afford to police the world?

What the world's political leaders and those who elect them need most right now is a shocking example of the only possible outcome of trying to practice redistributive justice on a national or even global scale. Rescuing Greece is a mistake. What they deserve is a good hard dose of exactly what they are asking for - unvarnished socialism.

Throw Greece out of the European Union. Let them default on their debts. Teach buyers to beware before they invest in sovereign bonds. Dare Greece to print Drachmas by the wheelbarrow. Put the whole country on the public payroll then challenge them to demonstrate what a truly egalitarian society looks like. Maybe a dramatic spectacle of what a workers paradise looks like under the media's glare will teach us what's in store if we don't change our ways.

Democracy is broken. You can't mix Freedom and Free Lunch. One or the other has got to go.

Protecting Free Speech Also Means the Speech of Corporations Who Are Made Up Of People

The most important job of the Supreme Court is to protect the free speech of Americans. And they did that recently. This is a major victory of all of us. So what is a corporation? Are they made up of sheep? Cows? Dogs? No! Corporations are made up of people that have a right to voice their opinion...regardless of whether Washington likes it or not. We must be ever vigilant of our rights as individuals, groups, or corporations. If we allow one type of speech to be regulated we will all lose our rights to free speech eventually.

...The court's opinion earlier this year in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission said that politicians could not enact limits on independent campaign contributions targeting corporations or unions. President Barack Obama famously chided the justices for this opinion during his State of the Union Address.

Congress is considering a bill that would again specify who could no longer speak freely, including companies that received Troubled Asset Relief Program funding (meaning the key banks) and U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-based companies. The same restrictions would not limit the speech of unions with large foreign activities. Political parties would get discounts on broadcast advertisements to respond to corporations or unions.

Citizens United has been viewed as a case about campaign reform, but it's better read as a broad, 21st-century primer on free speech....

...Citizens United is part of a line of cases beginning in the 1940s that protected the rights of unions to endorse candidates in print and through television broadcasts. Justice William O. Douglas wrote in one such case that the Constitution required "no point of view be restrained or barred," so that voters "have access to the views of every group in the community."

Speech rights are the same whether exercised through pamphlets or the Web, and whether by individuals or through associations of individuals, incorporated or not. "When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," the justices warned in Citizens United. "This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves." Read at WSJ "Tech-Savvy Justices Protect Free Speech".

"The Morally Corrupt and Economically Foolish"

Now the President feels he needs to cap our salaries. He will decide what is an adequate salary not the marketplace. Look folks, do you still have any doubts that this man is against free markets and allowing us to run our lives the way we see fit? The article below should help you along the road to understanding that what we have in our beloved White House is an anti-American values President.

Freedom: In voicing his feelings Wednesday about earned wealth, President Obama shone a bright light into the thought recesses of the far left. And what a dark and ugly place it can be.

During a two-day swing through Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, the president went off teleprompter and blundered into another Joe the Plumber moment, that unguarded instant during the 2008 campaign in which he told a potential small-business owner that he planned to spread the wealth around.

"Now, what we're doing, I want to be clear, we're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned," Obama said in Quincy, Ill. "I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."

Remarks prepared for the occasion reportedly don't include the president's thoughts about how much money he'd let Americans make. But without the help of a teleprompter to carefully steer him away from his gut feelings, he wandered into a Marxist bramble.

It takes a certain kind of person to think he or she has — or should have — the moral authority to cap other people's incomes. Especially when that person and his wife somehow made $5.5 million in the first year of his presidency, a job that pays $400,000 a year.

In a free society, it's not the president or any other government official or branch that decides when someone has "made enough money," even if liberties are being lost in that free society...READ "Obama's Salary Cap" at IBD.

The ObamaCare Future

Like any other country that has socialized medicine - this one will deliver poor quality care to Americans. Socialism is socialism everywhere it is practiced. You can't turn a rat into a thorough-bred even if you are the annointed one.

President Barack Obama's health care bill aims to achieve universal coverage while at the same time reducing costs. In reality, this contradictory strategy will ensure that Americans enjoy less health care, of poorer quality, and from fewer doctors.

And while the full effects of ObamaCare might not be felt until Tax Day 2014, the promise of free health care to millions of Americans will begin to prove hollow long before then...

...America's primary care system is already under stress. Low reimbursement rates, bureaucratic paperwork and long hours are driving family physicians out of medicine and pushing new doctors into specialized practices. Half a century ago, one in two doctors practiced general medicine. Today, 7 in 10 specialize.

And the gap is growing. A mere 1 in 12 medical-school graduates now head to family medicine. In 2009, the American Academy of Family Physicians warned that we'd be short 40,000 family doctors in a decade, if present trends continued. Today, medical schools produce one primary care doctor for every two who are needed.

ObamaCare will add strain to an already burdened system. The new bill seeks to increase the load on family doctors while holding the line on costs by putting price controls on government insurance plans. In due course, price controls on private plans will be inevitable.

...The combination of increased coverage and emphasis on primary care, experts say, will increase demand for primary care docs by as much as 29%, or 44,000 doctors, over the next 15 years.

But just as demand is increasing, doctors are making plans to exit. A 2009 survey by medical recruiters Merritt Hawkins found that 10% of respondents were planning to leave medicine within three years.

Another poll of physicians conducted in 2009 by Investor's Business Daily found that 45% of doctors would consider early retirement if ObamaCare passed. Read "Sign of Times with Obamacare: 'The Doctor is Out Permanently'".

Now It's a Takeover of Our Financial Sector? When Will The Destruction Of Our Economy End?

Misgovernance: Barely a month after the 2,600-page health care bill became law, Congress has teed up another landmark piece of legislation: a 1,600-page financial overhaul. So what's the big hurry?

As with the health care measure, no one seems to know exactly what's in this massive new bill. And what we have seen leaves a lot to be desired.

Legislation that radically changes the way we conduct our daily lives is usually subject to long deliberation and thorough debate before a decision is reached. But not in this Congress.

The financial reform that Sen. Chris Dodd has put forward contains little if any input from opposition Republicans. With their 59-41 majority in the Senate, Dodd and his Democrat colleagues are convinced they no longer need to compromise.

In his speech on financial reform last Thursday in New York, President Obama made his case and invited Americans to "debate" it. But that very day, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to the surprise of nearly everyone, announced there could be a vote on Dodd's bill as early as Monday. Read: "Why No Debate" at IBD.

An Iranian Missile Strike in US by 2015?

While Obama and minions are trying to figure out how they can separate us from our money and turn our economy into a third world nation Iran is building nukes and they are not for North Korea or Russia. They are intended for America. It is without question that Obama's stance and demeanor, words and actions have emboldened thugs like Ahmadinejad. We the people must wake up and see this existential threat for what it is. Obama must do his principle job! The job we voted him to do! It's NOT to meddle in our economy and take us down the road to the poor house. IT IS TO PROTECT AMERICAN LIVES AND PROPERTY!

...If only we were working as hard to defend ourselves as they are to destroy us.

In any discussion of the Iranian nuclear threat, the assumption is always that Tehran's target is Israel. Iran's quite mad president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has pledged to wipe Israel off the map as part of his grand scheme to usher in the age of the 12th Imam. Tehran may have a bigger fish that it wants to fry, namely us.

"With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015," said the 12-page Defense Department report, released Monday, on the "Military Power of Iran," a copy of which Reuters obtained.

There is no shortage of such assistance. A recent report by the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center said production of medium-range missiles remains one of Tehran's "highest priorities" and that China, North Korea and Russia are all helping
Iran produce such missiles.

Iran has long worked with North Korea, particularly on intercontinental ballistic missiles... Iran's cooperation with North Korea began in the 1980s…

A country capable of orbiting a satellite is capable of putting a warhead anywhere on this planet. We forget that such a missile wouldn't have to be accurate. A single nuclear warhead detonated over the American heartland would emit an electromagnetic pulse that would fry our technological infrastructure and catapult America and its economy back to the 18th century.

Iran has long been testing the in-flight detonation of its Shahab series over the Caspian Sea. Such tests would make no sense unless the Iranians were planning for the day when an Iranian missile with a nuke would detonate high over an Iowa cornfield and devastate the American nation...READ at IBD "Tehran's Other Target: America 2015"

"A Republic If You Can Keep It"

In 1787 as the Constitutional Convention was closing, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government we would have with our new Constitution. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

No one can deny that what occurred at that most famous of conventions was the birth of perhaps the most astounding idea in human history-truly the most radical in history.

And we were the inheritors of that idea. But have we "kept it"? That is the question of the moment and my assessment is that that is what we are fighting for today. Surely one must thank Obama for putting the stakes so high - for crystallizing that we as Americans have been derelict in our duty to preserve our republic as our Founding Fathers envisioned it: Small government and many liberties for the people.

It's time for each of us who love America to stand up and defend the idea of America - that is Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness with a government that is strictly circumscribed by the Constitution. Let's do it. It can be done - we just have to put our mind to the task of taking back our Republic.

Obama Will Continue To Tax Us Till Our Dying Breath

I seem to remember that our forefathers fought the British for excessive taxation by the King. It seems so quaint - their taxation problems compared to ours. It's time to lower taxes on the portion of Americans who have to carry the burden of runaway government and it's time for government to curtail its heavy handed intervention in our economy. Leave us ALONE!

...A recent Rasmussen survey reported that 66% of Americans believe the nation is over-taxed. There's a reason. Under President Barack Obama taxes are going up—a lot.

House Ways and Means Committee Republicans have issued a summary of the 25 tax increases signed into law by Mr. Obama so far. They total $670 billion over the next 10 years, including 14 tax hikes (including an annual tax on every insurance policy and an annual tax on brand-name drugs) that break Mr. Obama's solemn 2008 campaign pledge never to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.

Many of these taxes are part of the ObamaCare monstrosity. New levies on investment, drugs, medical devices and insurance policies eventually will hit ordinary Americans, and the public knows it. A late March Fox News poll asked, "If major health care reform legislation is passed, do you think your taxes will increase, decrease or stay about the same?" Seventy-five percent think their taxes will increase.

Tax concerns will hurt congressional Democrats. In rural areas, their opposition to repeal of the death tax antagonizes farmers and ranchers. Then there are America's 32 million small-business owners, who feel put upon by the administration's tax everyone-and-everything philosophy.

Families, especially in the suburbs, are pressed by rising property, sales and state income taxes in addition to the federal tax increases. And don't forget the 53 million investors whose battered accounts are only now recovering. There's a new 3.8% surtax on certain kinds of investment income for high earners, but it is not indexed for inflation, so it will bite an increasing number of people over time... Read "Why Republicans are Winning On The Tax Issue" at WSJ

Toyota's Problem Is NOT For The Government To Solve - It Properly Belongs In the Free Market Arena

The fact that our government is intervening now in every aspect of our daily lives should be a major cause for concern for every American who is dedicated to individual freedom and rights. An excellent article at WashingtonExaminer.com explains how the government intervenes in affairs it has no business in interfering with - private enterprise. Posturing and meddling by politicians and pressure groups is not the American way and results in only group warfare and a degradation of everyone's freedom. We must get the government out of our private enterprise system - let the Market determine consequences and rewards NOT government.

...But pressure groups are only a symptom. The cause is the government’s power to intervene in the market to pick winners and losers. In the auto industry alone, the government controls everything from whom car companies can hire (unionized employees) to what kind of vehicles they must build (hybrids).

And elsewhere it decides which businesses are “too big to fail,” which industries “deserve” massive subsidies, and which unproven technologies warrant billions of taxpayer “investment.” That’s a recipe for pressure group warfare.

This is not what Madison and Jefferson had in mind. Their vision was of a strictly limited government, which would perform one basic function, guard individual rights. Its role was to protect the individual’s rights to life, liberty, and property from infringement by thugs and frauds, while otherwise leaving people free to produce and trade in a free market.

In the original American system, it’s the job of the market to pick winners and losers, and the job of the courts, not Congress, to arbitrate disputes, such as that between Toyota and drivers harmed in accidents.

The truth is Toyota’s troubles should not be a political issue. On a free market, Toyota would have to address the real or alleged problems with its cars and work to restore its reputation with consumers, or suffer the consequences.

And if the company were proved in a court of law to be guilty of negligence, it would be held accountable. In any case, there would be no need for the circus now taking place, with all its sordid political posturing and favor-trading.

So here’s a proposal. Make Washington come up with a plan to disentangle government from the economy. It might even start with a congressional investigation. (Read the article by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins - What's Really Driving the Toyota Controversy?)

America is Exceptional - Obama Must be Joking! Right?

Although our President is very obviously anti-American, we the people are not. This article shows why American exceptionalism is true and our President is wrong.

In yet another example of this administration's rejection of American exceptionalism, science adviser John Holdren says the U.S. can't be expected to always be on top. How uninspiring. How wrong.

A little more than a year ago, the president himself said much the same thing at a NATO conference. "I believe in American exceptionalism," Barack Obama said, "just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." In other words, America might think it's special, but so do other countries. And there's no reason to believe they're wrong. It's all relative.

...In no nation, however, have the people had the freedom we have. No other nation has ever worked so hard for justice, so long for equality and so earnestly for openness. No nation has ever been as welcoming to foreigners or as protective of dissenters. None has ever been as selfless and charitable.

Nowhere on this planet is upward mobility as unencumbered as it is here. Opportunity is woven tightly into the American fabric. From the world over, people arrive at our door wanting what we have. Many of them are dumbfounded when those of us who've been here since birth don't realize how fortunate we are.

America is indeed exceptional, and those who say it isn't are guilty of an ugly form of wishful thinking. (READ at IBD "America The Also-Ran")

Nations That Persecute It's Rich Is a Nation That Will Fail

There has never been a nation on this earth that has prospered while its politicians persecuted and badmouthed the rich. Never. I don't know who wrote this but read it and pass it on.

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Americans Must Wake Up and Save America

Obama's Socialized Medicine Plan is Deserving of One Action: REPEAL

Maybe there is still hope that the Republicans will do the right thing: Repeal this monstrosity and anti-American piece of legislation - Obamacare. The American people do not want this!

The same day that President Obama signed health-care reform, Sen. Jim DeMint introduced legislation to repeal it. “This fight isn’t over yet,” vowed the South Carolina Republican. “The American people cherish their freedom and will defend it this November.” His bill, which has 14 other Senate co-sponsors, may seem quixotic; it obviously won’t pass anytime soon, and the GOP is divided on how exactly “repeal” would work. Yet the broader movement that DeMint has championed may play a significant role in the 2010 elections.

Back in mid-January, well before the House of Representatives approved Obamacare, the free-market Club for Growth (CFG) began asking federal lawmakers, candidates, and ordinary citizens to pledge their support for a repeal-and-replace strategy. As of Thursday afternoon, 67 incumbent House and Senate members had signed the CFG’s online “Repeal It” pledge, along with 287 official candidates. None of them are Democrats (no surprise there), but the Republican signatories include moderates and conservatives alike.

...The language for candidates reads as follows: “I hereby pledge to the people of my district/state upon my election to the U.S. House of Representatives/U.S. Senate, to sponsor and support legislation to repeal any federal health care takeover passed in 2010, and replace it with real reforms that lower health care costs without growing government.” (Read at National Review Online "Pledging to Repeal").

The Allies and Friends of America are Now to Be Dissed

Obama and Hillary turn on our friends and coddle up to dictators, middle Eastern thugs out to build a nuclear bomb and invite to our White House all sorts of leftists and socialists. What's going on? Here is another report to depress you by Charles Krauthammer.

What is it like to be a foreign ally of Barack Obama's America?

If you're a Brit, your head is spinning. It's not just the personal slights to Prime Minister Gordon Brown — the ridiculous 25-DVD gift, the five refusals before Brown was granted a one-on-one with The One.

Nor is it just the symbolism of Obama returning the Churchill bust that was in the Oval Office. Query: If it absolutely had to be out of Obama's sight, could it not have been housed somewhere else on U.S. soil rather than ostentatiously repatriated?

Perhaps it was the State Department official who last year denied there even was a special relationship between the U.S. and Britain, a relationship cultivated by every U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt.
And then there was Hillary Clinton's astonishing, nearly unreported (in the U.S.) performance in Argentina last month. She called for Britain to negotiate with Argentina over the Falklands.

For those who know no history — or who believe it began on Jan. 20, 2009 — and therefore don't know why this was an out-of-the-blue slap at Britain, here's the back story:

In 1982, Argentina's military junta invaded the (British) Falkland Islands. The generals thought the British, having long lost their taste for foreign lands, would let it pass. Besides, the Falklands have uncountably more sheep than people. They underestimated Margaret Thatcher (the Argentines, that is, not the sheep). She was not about to permit the conquest of a people whose political allegiance and ethnic ties are to Britain. She dispatched the navy. Britannia took it back. READ AT IBD "Administration Not Interested In Old Friends".

The Looting Has Been Signed Into Law With the Health Care Bill - Now Comes Gang Rule

A few decades ago a penniless, Russian immigrant made it big in America. How? By writing about her philosophy of individualism, freedom and limited government. She hit a chord among the people of her adopted country. Her ideas are more important today as Washington takes over our lives and is force feeding us statism and gang rule bit by bit.

...The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang.

...Statism-in fact and in principle-is nothing more than gang rule. A dictatorship is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country. When a statist ruler exhausts his own country's economy, he attacks his neighbors. It is his only means of postponing internal collapse and prolonging his rule. a country that violates the rights of its own citizens, will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Those who do not recognize individual rights, will not recognize the rights of nations: a nation is only a number of individuals. ("The Roots of War" in CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL by Ayn Rand (1966)

The Government Workers Paradise vs The Private Sector Hell

Ayn Rand had some wise insights into statism versus freedom. For example this gem:

"The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of : one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang."

It turns out there really is growing inequality in America. It's the 45% premium in pay and benefits that government workers receive over the poor saps who create wealth in the private economy.

And the gap is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), from 1998 to 2008 public employee compensation grew by 28.6%, compared with 19.3% for private workers. In the recession year of 2009, with almost no inflation and record budget deficits, more than half the states awarded pay raises to their employees. Even as deficits in state capitals widen and are forcing cuts in services, few politicians are willing to eliminate these pay inequities that enrich the few who wield political power.

Let's walk through the math. In 2008 almost half of all state and local government expenditures, or an estimated $1.1 trillion, went toward the pay and benefits of public workers. According to the BLS, in 2009 the average state or local public employee received $39.66 in total compensation per hour versus $27.42 for private workers. This means that for every $1 in pay and benefits a private employee earned, a state or local government worker received $1.45.

The BLS study breaks down where that 45% premium comes from. It turns out that public employees earn salaries that are about one-third higher on average than what is provided to private workers per hour worked. But the real windfall for government workers is in benefits. Those are 70% higher than what standard private employers offer...Read at WSJ "The Government Pay Boom".

The French Abandon The Green Thing - America should Too

Even that most socialist of countries - France, has backed away from the deceitful tax called cap-and trade. Why? Because Sarkozy and ilk were afraid that it would make France uncompetitive. America - listen up- even the french are doing it - abandoning the green thing that is.

Environmental Regulations: While U.S. politicians try to keep the idea alive here, the French have announced cancellation of their version of cap-and-trade. They say it will hurt their competitiveness. Vive la France.

Moments of crisis concentrate the mind wonderfully, or at least they should. In France, as public-sector workers mount a nationwide strike and fallout continues from the ruling party's heavy defeat in regional elections, Prime Minister Francois Fillon has indicated that his government will abandon plans to introduce a domestic carbon tax.

"We have to amplify measures that help reinforce the competitiveness of our economy," Fillon told the Reuters news agency. But what about all those green jobs? What about saving planet Earth from imminent planetary doom? Sacre bleu!

France would have been the largest country to impose a carbon tax as part of its efforts to tackle alleged man-induced climate change. It still hopes for an EU-wide tax, which would hamper everybody's economy. Unlike here, France prefers not to lead by example, hoping others will follow.

When the new tax was first approved by parliament last year, President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed it as a vital weapon against global warming. But it was struck down by France's highest court just 48 hours before it was due to come into effect. Read at Investors.com

How Small America Has Become - The End of Greatness

America has taken another giant step away from greatness and toward becoming another insignificant welfare state. Socialist Washington will take from Peter to pay Paul. We will no long be the country of the "free and the brave" but be beggars at the feeding trough of Washington D.C. That's what Obama/Pelosi/Reid wanted-that's what they'll get. Their dream of a downtrodden, shoddy nation is within their grasps. It is up to us the defenders of freedom to bring America back to greatness.

Sunday's vote exposed the ugly truth that ObamaCare is not really about health care at all. It's all about who pays for it and who controls it — in effect a massive wealth-redistribution scheme.

Those who believe this will lead to some medical nirvana will likely be disappointed. Fact is, this poorly designed monstrosity will lead to lower-quality care, higher costs, fewer practicing physicians, higher taxes and fewer jobs.

We've done more than 150 editorials in the past year or so documenting these problems. Democrats surely understand them. Yet, despite a recent CNN poll showing that 59% of Americans oppose ObamaCare, Congress approved it anyway.

Why? Because it's not really about health care. It's the largest wealth grab in American history, masquerading as health care "reform," another step in the socialization of Americans' income in the name of "fairness" and "spread(ing) the wealth around," as Obama himself has put it.

That's why we call the program a lie.
"Enacting a Lie"
The idea behind all this, simply put, is control. This is a vast expansion of government that will require as much as $3 trillion in added spending over a decade. All claims of deficit neutrality are a joke.

This is socialization through the tax code. That $3 trillion has to be paid for. As we showed last week, the health care bill levies $569.2 billion in new taxes over the next 10 years alone.

At the same time, as noted by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, it will increase U.S. budget deficits by $562 billion.

Who'll pay all these taxes? Those deemed "rich" by Democrats, and businesses... Read the rest of this article at Investors.com

What If Atlas Did Shrug - Nancy Pelosi?

How would Pelosi get all the cash that she has planned to gouge us for if Atlas shrugged? Remember the famous novel by Ayn Rand where she depicts an America run amok by big government? The industrialists, inventors, businessmen and philosophers go on strike and refuse to work for the benefit of statists. Well America is there. This immoral behemoth of a health care bill will finally put the socialist nail in the coffin of American productivity.

Prime Minister Netanyah Confronts Obama's Hostility Towards Israel

"Why has US President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel?"

For everyone including Jews who voted for Obama this article by Caroline Glick should convince you that Mr. Obama is anti-freedom and for everything that smells of statism. Obama's staged rage against Israel is nothing short of astonishing. Every president and the American People have been pro-Israel - In comes Obama and he now shows all the faces of a man bent on destroying this tiny prosperous country. Why? Because he wants to cow-tow to the likes of Ahmadinejad of Iran and Syria and Turkey and....all the bad guys. It's a sad day for freedom ever since we elected this man out of left field. Read the following article by Caroline Glick who analyzes the Middle East.

Why has US President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel?

Some commentators have claimed that it is Israel's fault. As they tell it, the news that Israel has not banned Jewish construction in Jerusalem — after repeatedly refusing to ban such construction — drove Obama into a fit of uncontrolled rage from which he has yet to recover.

While popular, this claim makes no sense. Obama didn't come to be called "No drama Obama" for nothing. It is not credible to argue that Jerusalem's local planning board's decision to approve the construction of 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo drove cool Obama into a fit of wild rage at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Obama himself claims that he has launched a political war against Israel in the interest of promoting peace. But this claim too, does not stand up to scrutiny.
On Friday Obama ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum.

First, Israel must cancel the approval of the housing units in Ramat Shlomo.
Second, Israel must prohibit all construction for Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods built since 1967.

Third, Israel must make a gesture to the Palestinians to show them we want peace. The US suggests releasing hundreds of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

Fourth, Israel must agree to negotiate all substantive issues, including the partition of Jerusalem, (including the Jewish neighborhoods constructed since 1967 that are now home to more than a half million Israelis), and the immigration of millions of hostile foreign Arabs to Israel under the rubric of the so-called "right of return," in the course of indirect, Obama administration-mediated negotiations with the Palestinians. To date, Israel has maintained that substantive discussions can only be conducted in direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials... Read "Why Obama is Waging War Against Israel" at Jewish World Review. Also read "Biden's Lost Cause" by Caroline Glick. This article also shows how the United States under Obama is undermining Israel and it's interests.

Doctors Refuse To Be Slaves Of The State - We Should Back Them - Or We Will Become Slaves Also

It is generally understood that an American will not bow over or kiss anyone's hand of (except Obama). Well doctors appear to be weighing in and they say no to being slaves of the state. Hurray for them.

...Our questionnaire went out Aug. 28 to some 25,600 doctors nationwide. Of that substantial sample, we got 1,476 responses. One hundred of those were retired, leaving 1,376.

At the time, virtually no one had stopped to ask doctors how they felt about the medical takeover being discussed in Congress. We thought it was vital to ask them, since any overhaul would rise or fall on its implementation by doctors themselves.

To say we were stunned with the results is an understatement.

Of the physicians queried, 45% said they'd consider closing their practice or retiring early if the overhaul then being considered were enacted. Also, 65% said they opposed the government's attempts at taking over the health care system. Just 33% supported it.

Given that the White House and Congress both promised then — as they do now — to provide health care coverage for 31 million new patients while at the same time cutting costs from the $2.4 trillion a year we spend on medical care, we thought it was important to reveal that doctors wouldn't go along with it.

What we found was that of the 800,000 physicians practicing in the U.S. in 2006, as many as 360,000 might leave the profession. So with the proposed overhaul, we'd be trying to cover 31 million more patients with up to 45% fewer doctors.

Impossible. It can't be done.

What came after the Sept. 16 article in which we detailed our poll results was bizarre and in some ways disheartening. A number of liberal groups attacked us for telling the truth, hinting that we were lying, part of an ideological conspiracy or just incompetent...(Read at IBD "...Doctors Could Hang It Up")

Urgent: It's The Eleventh Hour and You must Write To your Senators and your Representative

TIME TO WRITE YOUR TWO SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE AND STATE LOUD AND CLEAR YOU ARE AGAINST ENSLAVING OUR DOCTORS AND TAKING OVER ONE-SIXTH OF ECONOMY. DO YOU WANT A POLITICIAN TELLING YOU WHAT HEALTH CARE YOU CAN HAVE OR NOT HAVE? WRITE...

Click here for writing to your senators and rep.

"Our enemies get courted; our friends get the squeeze. It has happened to Poland, the Czech Republic, Honduras and Colombia. Now it's Israel's turn"

The hypocrisy of this administration is beyond comprehension. Obama and his minions have been dissing our friends and cozying-up to the bad guys. What is one to think about this? What? Please tell me? Treason? A desire to destroy America as we know it? Explain this to me. All I see is danger-danger for our country, danger for our principles, danger for our freedoms.

In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has endorsed "healthy relations" between Iran and Syria, mildly rebuked Syrian President Bashar Assad for accusing the U.S. of "colonialism," and publicly apologized to Moammar Gadhafi for treating him with less than appropriate deference after the Libyan called for "a jihad" against Switzerland.

When it comes to Israel, however, the Administration has no trouble rising to a high pitch of public indignation. On a visit to Israel last week, Vice President Joe Biden condemned an announcement by a mid-level Israeli official that the government had approved a planning stage—the fourth out of seven required—for the construction of 1,600 housing units in north Jerusalem. Assuming final approval, no ground will be broken on the project for at least three years.

But neither that nor repeated apologies from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prevented Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—at what White House sources ostentatiously said was the personal direction of President Obama—from calling the announcement "an insult to the United States." White House political chief David Axelrod got in his licks on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday, lambasting Israel for what he described as "an affront." READ at WSJ, "Obama Turns Against Israel".

"It is Fair to Assess That No Wind Energy---Would Exist if it had to Compete on Market Terms"

Why is the Obama administration covering up all sorts of data? Chalk up another scandal for the Obama Administration. Spain is telling us that wind power DOES NOT create jobs it robs jobs. They are being honest and warning us! Are we listening? this administration's overreach into areas where government should not be directly contravenes our Constitution. But the more wider problem is with us. We must learn our history and become convinced of the uniqueness of this nation. There has been nothing....nothing like America in the long and troubled history of humanity. This oasis of freedom has chugged along for some 200 years but it needs to be refreshed, sustained and fought for at every step.

Scandal: Spain exposed the boondoggle of wind power in 2009, discrediting an idea touted by the Obama administration. In response, U.S. officials banded with trade lobbyists to hide the facts.

It was a cold day at the Energy Department when researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Spain released a study showing that every "green job" created by the wind industry killed off 4.27 other jobs elsewhere in the Spanish economy.

Research director Gabriel Calzada Alvarez didn't object to wind power itself, but found that when a government artificially props up this industry with subsidies, higher electrical costs (31%), tax hikes (5%) and government debt follow. Fact is, these subsidies have the same "Cuisinart" effect on jobs as wind-generating propeller blades have on birds. Every green job costs $800,000 to create and 90% of them are temporary, he found.

Alvarez made no bones about the lessons of Spain for the Obama administration, which has big plans for "green jobs." His report warned of "considerable employment consequences" from "self-inflicted economic wounds." It forecast that the U.S. could lose 6.6 million jobs if it followed Spain, and it "should certainly expect its results to follow such a tendency."

A few months later, Danish researchers at the Center for Politiske Studier came to the same conclusion about subsidized wind power from their own country's experience.
"It is fair to assess that no wind energy to speak of would exist if it had to compete on market terms," their report said.

Straightforward experience, facts and the logical conclusions about policy failure in Europe should be de rigueur in science, and the reports coming from nations with long experience in wind power ought to be taken seriously.

But they had no place in the Obama administration, which had declared a "green jobs" agenda with $2.3 billion in tax credits to create 17,000 "high-quality green jobs."...
(READ "The Big Wind-Power Cover-Up" at IBD

Do You Want The French Health Care System? Watch Out What You Ask For...

There are a number of government run health care systems out there in the world. All you have to do is look at them and you'll see where we're headed-to bad health care.

Health Systems: Health care in France is often held up as a model the U.S. might follow. Yet the French have their own problems that show there's no such thing as a free lunch — or a free doctor's visit.

Call it the grass-is-greener syndrome. Advocates of national health care, acknowledging the flaws in ObamaCare yet despising the current U.S. system that has the best medicines, the best medical equipment and the shortest waiting lists, have turned their eyes lovingly to places like France.

As City Journal contributing editor Guy Sorman notes, the French would also love to have the low-cost, high-service system some Americans gush about. Unfortunately, they don't. France's system isn't that cheap and is financed by high taxes on labor that have heavy economic consequences.

Sorman notes that a Frenchman making a monthly salary of 3,000 euros has 350 of them deducted for health insurance. Then the employer throws in an additional 1,200 euros. This raises the cost of labor to prohibitive levels and puts a brake on economic growth. This helps explain why French unemployment hovers around 10%.

France imposes an additional tax levy to cover the constant deficits that national health insurance runs.

The French Parliament raises this levy, which applies to all forms of income, every year. Altogether, Sorman writes, "25% of French national income goes toward what's called Social Security, which includes health care and basic retirement pensions for all."

Drugs developed in America at enormous expense do cost less in France, which decides what drugs are to be used and at what prices. American patients in effect subsidize the French, who take the same pills at half the price because American pharmaceutical companies don't want to lose the French market...Read "Vive Le French Care?" at IBD.

The Terminator's Disastrous Green Jobs Policy-Are You That Surprised?

Surprised? The Governor Terminator stated several years ago that Green jobs would be good for California. Think again. It's been a disaster. Read "California Greenin" at Investors.com.

Global Warming: Remember the promise that green jobs would flourish in California? Well, here's the reality: The cost of going green is actually lost jobs.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, Californians were told that their state would become a font of green jobs churned out by the growing green economy.

The law, a kind of mini-Kyoto Accord that requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, was supposed to create 120,000 new jobs by 2020, according to a state Air Resources Board estimate.

...looked just at green jobs, the state's independent Legislative Analyst's Office looked at what the Global Warming Solutions Act will actually do to the overall economy. The picture is not rosy.

"It seems most likely to us that implementation of (the global warming legislation) will result in the near term in California job losses, even after recognizing that many of the programs phase in over time," wrote legislative analyst Mac Taylor...

...But the reasons for the job losses — higher energy prices, changes in the types of energy used, vehicle fuel standards, business contractions and relocations, regulatory compliance — aren't likely to change. This strongly suggests that job losses will go on beyond the near term.

At one time, California was known for its overflow of original ideas that helped move the country forward. Sacramento's global warming bill, however, is a mistake the rest of the states, as well as Washington, should learn from.

Obama's National Job Approval - Not Good

The Leftist Gang of South America and the Death by Starvation of Cuban Orlando Zapata Tamayo

The first part of this video with Mary Anatasia O'Grady shows exactly what kind of leaders we have today. The face of perfidy of the moment is Felipe Calderon, Mexico's President. Mexico recently hosted the Rio Summit where Castro was invited. Felipe Calderon although right of center, cozied up to the Castro Brothers, (you know, the ones that have murdered thousands of Cuban dissidents in the past 50 years) in order to be included in lucrative oil development contracts off the shores of Cuba. Guess who was not invited to the party? The President of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo. Why-because Honduras had ousted a leftist president last year.

The second part of O'Grady's report concerns our old friends the Castro brothers in that island prison called Cuba. A brave man, Orlando Zapata Tamayo died last week after 86 days in prison for daring to complain about the communist regime. He started a hunger strike and as he lay dying in his jail cell the Cuban thugs brought in an air conditioner to hurry up his death. Where is the Obama administration's outrage? All I've seen is the usual mealy mouthed utterances by our Secretary of State. WHEN WILL CUBA BE LIBERATED? The mighty United States has lived by this squeaky mouse for over 50 years and watched as it has murdered thousands of dissidents. Does America stand for freedom anymore? Will she ever speak out against injustice again? How little it would take to get rid of the Cuban thug regime! How much suffering has been dealt to a people for so long!

Parents-It's Time to Get Rid of Our Lousy State Run Schools

As a parent, the most important thing we can do to improve things in America is to get rid of state run schools - the Public schools. These are cesspools of corruption and violence where our kids are getting a lousy or no education at all. If poor countries can establish good private schools for reasonable fees then so can we. Watch this video and take heart that we can get rid of this abomination we call Public education. Watch John Stossel' interview a man who says it can be done - and it's being done in places like Ghana. Parents will take their kid out of public schools and pay 1 dollar a week for him to attend private schools. America it's time to get rid of state run schools.

"Socialism is Sacrificing the Individual to the Whole" Goebbels

There are lessons to be learned from history and sadly we don't have to go back too far to find what the results of government control of the economy are. We have the Soviet Union under the communists. We have China under the communists. We have Germany under the Nazis. Remember, communism and fascism (Nazis) are just two sides of the same coin. Under Communism the public owns the means of production so there is no private property. Under fascism the government allows you to pretend that you own your property but they "hold total power over its use and disposal". Currently, we are headed towards fascism. Ayn Rand explained: "The Fascist New Frontier" pamphlet, 5.

During the Hitler years-in order to finance the party's programs, including the war expenditures-every social group in Germany was mercilessly exploited and drained. White-collar salaries and the earnings of small businessmen were deliberately held down by government controls, freezes, taxes. Big business was bled by taxes and "special contributions" of every kind, and strangled by the bureaucracy....At the same time the income of the farmers was held down, and there was a desperate flight to the cities-where the middle class, especially the small tradesmen, were soon in desperate straits, and where the workers were forced to labor at low wages for increasingly longer hours (up to 60 or more per week).

But the Nazis defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the Nazi argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the Nazis said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its Nazi usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. "Socialism" for the Nazis denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism-in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics.

"To be a socialist," says Goebbels, "is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."

By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals. (The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff 1982).

Wonderful Video of Our Orbiting Astronauts Speaking to Wall Street Journal

Sometimes a human being needs fuel to inspire one's life amidst the pomposity of our craven politicians.

Fighting the Good Fight - Against Tyranny in All It's Forms

"Look at Europe...Can't you see past the guff and recognize the essence? One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass - as God. No motive and no virtue permitted-except that of service to the proletariat. That's one version (communism). Here's another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race-as God. No motive and no virtue permitted - except that of service to the race (fascism). Am I raving or is this the cold reality of two continents already? Watch the pincer movement. If you're sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We've closed the doors. We've fixed the coin. Heads-collectivism, and tails-collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your should to a council-or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique....Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. ("The Soul of a Collectivist" in For The New Intellectual by Ayn Rand).

Also listen to Lord Monckton on PJTV demolish Al Gore's "global warming' scam. What does this have to do with the above quote from Ayn Rand. Control. Control of us the little people. Between the demolished Global Warming scam and Obama's turning of America to the left we must be vigilant and brave as we struggle as a nation to retain our heritage of liberty and small government. Tyranny has to be fought from all the sides that it is being imposed on us.

Washington Spends Like a Drunken Sailor - Except That The Sailor Spends His Own Money!

Maybe this is a good idea! An amendment to the Constitution to limit spending by our drunken sailors in Washington. I say it's an idea that is worth looking into.

...In what promises to be a consequential election year, Republican leaders are eager to get the masses who make up the Tea Party movement on their side. But Tea Partyers remember that the GOP Congress and GOP president themselves spent way too much — even expanding the fiscally doomed Medicare entitlement program. Some Tea Party leaders even accuse Republican spendthrifts of practicing socialism.

GOP Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana and John Campbell of California may have just hit on a way of focusing the energy of a movement that's been accused by Democrats such as former Senate aide and Forbes columnist Dan Gerstein of being "incoherent, indiscriminate" and "all over the place" in its complaints.

The three have proposed a Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution that would restrain the federal government to the average expenditures of the post-World War II era — 20% of the U.S. economy. It would take a declaration of war or a two-thirds vote by Congress to waive the spending constraints.

Tea Partyers will no doubt be impressed by the fact that the idea comes from no less than Thomas Jefferson. In 1798, the Declaration's author wrote: "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government."

There really is no credible argument against the idea. In common-sense fashion, the constraint would be suspended during a declared war, and any other real emergency would surely be recognized as such by two-thirds of lawmakers...Read "Tea Party Amendment" at IBD.

Chile's Freedom and Small Government Promotes Life vs Haiti's Big Government Promotes Death

America is at a crossroads. We can either continue with Obama style Big Government with his insistence on spending the United States into oblivion and controlling more and more of our lives or we can go the way of small government, limited government and government that is not a hindrance to the individual's life and stays within its bounds as proscribed by our Constitution.

How Milton Friedman Saved Chile

Milton Friedman has been dead for more than three years. But his spirit was surely hovering protectively over Chile in the early morning hours of Saturday. Thanks largely to him, the country has endured a tragedy that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse.

...By contrast, Saturday's earthquake in Chile measured 8.8. That's nearly 500 times more powerful than Haiti's, or about one million Hiroshimas. Yet Chile's reported death toll—711 as of this writing—was a tiny fraction of the 230,000 believed to have perished in Haiti.

It's not by chance that Chileans were living in houses of brick—and Haitians in houses of straw—when the wolf arrived to try to blow them down. In 1973, the year the proto-Chavista government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Chile was an economic shambles. Inflation topped out at an annual rate of 1000%, foreign-currency reserves were totally depleted, and per capita GDP was roughly that of Peru and well below Argentina's.

What Chile did have was intellectual capital, thanks to an exchange program between its Catholic University and the economics department of the University of Chicago, then Friedman's academic home. Even before the 1973 coup, several of Chile's "Chicago Boys" had drafted a set of policy proposals which amounted to an off-the-shelf recipe for economic liberalization: sharp reductions to government spending and the money supply; privatization of state-owned companies; the elimination of obstacles to free enterprise and foreign investment, and so on...READ the rest here at WSJ