Mr. Moore, the buffoon of the movie world is at it again...inspired by another attempt at debunking the only economic system that has brought health, wealth and happiness to millions of people. I can't wait to see the movie by this charlatan. But he has his admirers and people willing to finance this communist/socialist. Obama must love him. Walter Williams writes the following at CapMag.com.
...Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private ownership and control over the means of production. The distribution of goods and services and their prices are mainly determined by competition in a free market. Under such a system the primary job of government is to protect private property, enforce contracts and ensure rule of law.
...If one ranked countries according to whether they were closer to the capitalistic end of the spectrum or the socialistic or communistic end, then ranked countries according to per capita GDP and finally rank countries according to Freedom House's "Map of Freedom in the World," he would find a pattern that is by no means a coincidence. The people in those countries closer to the capitalist end of the economic spectrum have far greater income and enjoy greater human rights protections than those toward the socialist and communist end.
...Most of our country's serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism. Take the financial crisis. One-third of the $15 trillion of mortgages in existence in 2008 are owned, or securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing and the Veterans Administration. Banks didn't mind making risky loans and Wall Street buyers didn't mind buying these repackaged loans because they assumed that they would be guaranteed by the federalgovernment: read bailout by taxpayers. Under a capitalist system, financial institutions would not have been intimidated or encouraged into making risky loans and neither would they have been bailed out if they did so.
Social Security, Medicare and its coverage of prescription drugs have an unfunded liability that exceeds $100 trillion. When those roosters come home to roost, they will make the financial meltdown we've been though look like child's play. READ at CapMag
Mr. Williams concludes that it is capaitalism that has made this country great and the greatest country ever in the history of mankind.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Obama Began as a Community Organizer at Acorn-That's Where All Leftists Get Their Stripes
If you still are sitting on the fence about Obama and his nefarious connection to the leftist corrupt ACORN group then get informed. One man who has done monumental work to ferret out information on this Acorn organization is Glenn Beck on Fox News. He has made the tie from George Soros, to the Tides Foundation to Acorn and on and on...Their one aim is to turn America left and one of their heroes is Chavez - Dictator of Venezuela. John Fund at WSJ has a piece below delving into some of this Acorn shenanigans and how Obama has been denying any involvement and the exact opposite is the truth - he has been involved up to his ears.
Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.
"Frankly, it's not something I've followed closely," Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn't even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding. "This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," he said.
Mr. Obama added that an investigation of Acorn was appropriate after an amateur hidden-camera investigation had found Acorn offices willing to abet prostitution, but he carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group.
Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.
Mr. Obama's success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.
In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work." READ HERE
Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.
"Frankly, it's not something I've followed closely," Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn't even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding. "This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," he said.
Mr. Obama added that an investigation of Acorn was appropriate after an amateur hidden-camera investigation had found Acorn offices willing to abet prostitution, but he carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group.
Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.
Mr. Obama's success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.
In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn's leaders prior to their political arm's endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: "I've been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work." READ HERE
Monday, September 21, 2009
Ask Yourself - Why is Obama Demanding Zelaya's Return to The Presidency of Honduras?
Obama is demanding the return of the leftist thug Zelaya to the Presidency in Honduras. He was ousted, lawfully, by their supreme court for violations of their constitution. The Honduran court had followed the rule of law in their deliberation and decision yet our administration has taken the position to support a dictator and not freedom. What's up with that? Just another sign of who got into the presidency of the United States. Too many signs are adding up to a power-luster on the left. That smells of big trouble for our own cherished institutions and constitution. Mary Anastasia O'Grady analyzes the Honduran situation at The Wall Street Journal.
...Thousands of readers have written to me asking how all this can happen in the U.S., where democratic principles have been recognized since the nation's founding. Many readers have written that they are "ashamed" of the U.S. and have asked, in effect, "How can I help Honduras?" A more pertinent question may turn out to be, how can they help their own country?
In its actions toward Honduras, the Obama administration is demonstrating contempt for the fundamentals of democracy. Legal scholars are clear on this. "Judicial independence is a central component of any democracy and is crucial to separation of powers, the rule of law and human rights," writes Ahron Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel and a prominent legal scholar, in his compelling 2006 book, "The Judge in a Democracy."
"The purpose of the separation of powers is to strengthen freedom and prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one government actor in a manner likely to harm the freedom of the individual," Mr. Barak explains—almost as if he is writing about Honduras.
He also warns prophetically about the Chávez style of democracy that has destroyed Venezuela and that Hondurans say they were trying to avoid in their own country. "Democracy is entitled to defend itself from those who seek to use it in order to destroy its very existence," he writes. Americans ought to ask themselves why the Obama administration doesn't seem to agree. READ AT WSJ.
...Thousands of readers have written to me asking how all this can happen in the U.S., where democratic principles have been recognized since the nation's founding. Many readers have written that they are "ashamed" of the U.S. and have asked, in effect, "How can I help Honduras?" A more pertinent question may turn out to be, how can they help their own country?
In its actions toward Honduras, the Obama administration is demonstrating contempt for the fundamentals of democracy. Legal scholars are clear on this. "Judicial independence is a central component of any democracy and is crucial to separation of powers, the rule of law and human rights," writes Ahron Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel and a prominent legal scholar, in his compelling 2006 book, "The Judge in a Democracy."
"The purpose of the separation of powers is to strengthen freedom and prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one government actor in a manner likely to harm the freedom of the individual," Mr. Barak explains—almost as if he is writing about Honduras.
He also warns prophetically about the Chávez style of democracy that has destroyed Venezuela and that Hondurans say they were trying to avoid in their own country. "Democracy is entitled to defend itself from those who seek to use it in order to destroy its very existence," he writes. Americans ought to ask themselves why the Obama administration doesn't seem to agree. READ AT WSJ.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Surgeon Dr. Thomas Hendricks Speaks Out In ATLAS SHRUGGED
"I have often wondered at the smugness at which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind — yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? … Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in the operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it — and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t." Surgeon, Dr. Thomas Hendricks in "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.
Listen to Yaron Brooks from The Ayn Rand Institute and Terry Jones from Investor's Business Daily defending the philosophic basis for a revolution for Individualism and not the idea that we are our brother's keeper. http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=1705
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Was Ayn Rand Right? Will Doctors Shrug?
Millions of people know who Ayn Rand was and her famous novel "Atlas Shrugged" about captains of industry disappearing in the face of a massive intrusion of the government in the free market. Is this story coming true? Will Doctors say enough is enough? We have a right to live and earn our living the way we see fit! Maybe Doctors will be leading the revolt started by the Tea Party people. Paul Hsieh, a doctor in Colorado writes about what's happening at PJTV.com.
In a recent editorial published by Investor’s Business Daily, associate editor (and PJTV.com regular) Terry Jones revealed stunning poll data showing that 45 percent of American physicians “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if Congress passed the proposed ObamaCare health legislation.
As a practicing physician, I’m not surprised. These numbers mirror the sentiments I’ve heard expressed by my professional colleagues. I’ve been in practice for over 15 years and I’ve never seen physician morale as low as it is today.
Older physicians have told me that they’re glad to be “getting out” and retiring soon. Medical students have asked me whether they should switch to engineering or pharmacology before it’s too late. Physicians in the middle of their careers are just hoping to survive any “reform.”
The same IBD poll also showed that an overwhelming majority (65 percent) of physicians were opposed to the proposed expansion of government in medicine. And they have every reason to be concerned, based on past experience.
One reason that many physicians are skeptical of the proposed “reform” is because they already know what government-run health care is like, in the form of Medicare. Medicare is “single-payer health care” for the elderly. Many proponents of universal health care want to create “Medicare for all,” claiming that it’s a model of efficient, compassionate care. But as the New York Times recently reported, more doctors are opting out of Medicare (or limiting the number of Medicare patients they are willing to accept) for two simple reasons: “reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.” READ HERE AT Pajamas Media
In a recent editorial published by Investor’s Business Daily, associate editor (and PJTV.com regular) Terry Jones revealed stunning poll data showing that 45 percent of American physicians “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if Congress passed the proposed ObamaCare health legislation.
As a practicing physician, I’m not surprised. These numbers mirror the sentiments I’ve heard expressed by my professional colleagues. I’ve been in practice for over 15 years and I’ve never seen physician morale as low as it is today.
Older physicians have told me that they’re glad to be “getting out” and retiring soon. Medical students have asked me whether they should switch to engineering or pharmacology before it’s too late. Physicians in the middle of their careers are just hoping to survive any “reform.”
The same IBD poll also showed that an overwhelming majority (65 percent) of physicians were opposed to the proposed expansion of government in medicine. And they have every reason to be concerned, based on past experience.
One reason that many physicians are skeptical of the proposed “reform” is because they already know what government-run health care is like, in the form of Medicare. Medicare is “single-payer health care” for the elderly. Many proponents of universal health care want to create “Medicare for all,” claiming that it’s a model of efficient, compassionate care. But as the New York Times recently reported, more doctors are opting out of Medicare (or limiting the number of Medicare patients they are willing to accept) for two simple reasons: “reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.” READ HERE AT Pajamas Media
Friday, September 18, 2009
How The Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability
Read this very important article on Health Care published at The Objective Standard edited by Craig Biddle. The article was written by Paul Hsieh with end notes.
Suppose you ran a restaurant that offered an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. For a modest price, customers could help themselves to as much as they wanted from a variety of your dishes. But you also set certain restrictions—for instance, customers were forbidden to share their food with other customers or take food off the premises (no “doggie bags”). Most people would find such rules completely reasonable.
Now suppose the government passed a law forbidding restaurants from setting such restrictions on buffet meals. What would happen? Your costs would skyrocket as customers shared buffet food with others who had purchased only a cup of coffee, and stuffed food into Tupperware containers to take home for dinner. Soon you would either have to raise the price of the buffet drastically or simply discontinue it.
Although most people would be outraged at a law forbidding restaurants from setting such rules for their buffets, some Republicans are proposing laws that would forbid health insurance companies from setting similar rules with respect to their offerings.
Currently, most health insurance policies cover medical problems that patients develop after they have purchased the policy, but not expenses arising from preexisting medical conditions. To remedy this alleged injustice, Republican governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Republican Congressman Mike Coffman of Colorado propose to forbid insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions.1 They argue that because individuals currently find it difficult or impossible to purchase insurance after they develop serious medical conditions, such as heart disease or cancer, the government should force insurance companies to accept such customers and to cover their preexisting conditions.
It is true that patients today with preexisting medical problems can have difficulty purchasing health insurance. But forcing insurers to cover such patients is not the solution. On the economic level, such coercion would create many new problems. For instance, under such legislation patients would have a strong incentive to delay purchasing insurance until they got sick, knowing they could not be denied coverage at that time. Why pay for insurance before you need it if you can wait and purchase it when you need it? Thus, many people would simply go without insurance until they needed medical care, at which time they would purchase an insurance policy and receive immediate coverage far in excess of the price paid for the policy. Such laws would legalize plunder.
To cover their increased costs, insurers would have to raise rates for everyone—as they have already had to do in states such as Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, where insurers are currently saddled with such legislation.2 And, of course, as insurance prices rose, politicians would demand that everyone be required to purchase insurance to “spread the costs more equally”—as politicians in Massachusetts have already done and as politicians in the Democratic-controlled Congress are currently proposing. The result would be mandatory insurance—with its associated problems of long waits for care, skyrocketing costs, and economic hardships for patients and doctors.3
Moreover, in conjunction with these economic problems, such legislation is immoral. Requiring insurers to cover preexisting conditions violates the rights of both insurers and customers to contract according to their own judgment. As the Founding Fathers so eloquently put it in the Declaration of Independence, the proper purpose of government is not to violate individual rights but “to secure these rights.”
Medical insurance does not grow on trees. It is a complex financial service created by businessmen seeking to make a profit. This service enables a pool of individuals to voluntarily share the risks of unlikely but expensive adverse events, such as a serious accident or illness…(READ at The Objective Standard).
Suppose you ran a restaurant that offered an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. For a modest price, customers could help themselves to as much as they wanted from a variety of your dishes. But you also set certain restrictions—for instance, customers were forbidden to share their food with other customers or take food off the premises (no “doggie bags”). Most people would find such rules completely reasonable.
Now suppose the government passed a law forbidding restaurants from setting such restrictions on buffet meals. What would happen? Your costs would skyrocket as customers shared buffet food with others who had purchased only a cup of coffee, and stuffed food into Tupperware containers to take home for dinner. Soon you would either have to raise the price of the buffet drastically or simply discontinue it.
Although most people would be outraged at a law forbidding restaurants from setting such rules for their buffets, some Republicans are proposing laws that would forbid health insurance companies from setting similar rules with respect to their offerings.
Currently, most health insurance policies cover medical problems that patients develop after they have purchased the policy, but not expenses arising from preexisting medical conditions. To remedy this alleged injustice, Republican governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Republican Congressman Mike Coffman of Colorado propose to forbid insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions.1 They argue that because individuals currently find it difficult or impossible to purchase insurance after they develop serious medical conditions, such as heart disease or cancer, the government should force insurance companies to accept such customers and to cover their preexisting conditions.
It is true that patients today with preexisting medical problems can have difficulty purchasing health insurance. But forcing insurers to cover such patients is not the solution. On the economic level, such coercion would create many new problems. For instance, under such legislation patients would have a strong incentive to delay purchasing insurance until they got sick, knowing they could not be denied coverage at that time. Why pay for insurance before you need it if you can wait and purchase it when you need it? Thus, many people would simply go without insurance until they needed medical care, at which time they would purchase an insurance policy and receive immediate coverage far in excess of the price paid for the policy. Such laws would legalize plunder.
To cover their increased costs, insurers would have to raise rates for everyone—as they have already had to do in states such as Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, where insurers are currently saddled with such legislation.2 And, of course, as insurance prices rose, politicians would demand that everyone be required to purchase insurance to “spread the costs more equally”—as politicians in Massachusetts have already done and as politicians in the Democratic-controlled Congress are currently proposing. The result would be mandatory insurance—with its associated problems of long waits for care, skyrocketing costs, and economic hardships for patients and doctors.3
Moreover, in conjunction with these economic problems, such legislation is immoral. Requiring insurers to cover preexisting conditions violates the rights of both insurers and customers to contract according to their own judgment. As the Founding Fathers so eloquently put it in the Declaration of Independence, the proper purpose of government is not to violate individual rights but “to secure these rights.”
Medical insurance does not grow on trees. It is a complex financial service created by businessmen seeking to make a profit. This service enables a pool of individuals to voluntarily share the risks of unlikely but expensive adverse events, such as a serious accident or illness…(READ at The Objective Standard).
Thursday, September 17, 2009
H.R.3200 Violates The Constitution
"Is Health Care Reform Constitutional?" is a must read article for anyone wanting to understand how the government is violating our rights to do business with whom we please and seek health care where we please and that includes crossing state lines to seek help. Investor's Business Daily does a good job of explaining how our government is violating the Constitution and therefore our Rights.
Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?
...A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point in their lives. Forcing them is the only way to get them covered, but it's not clear where the constitutional authority to do that comes from.
The Constitution specifically enumerates the powers given to each branch of government and says that any powers not mentioned revert to the states and to the people. Nowhere does it say that the feds can compel you to buy health insurance. But then, this is the administration that claims the right to a de facto nationalization of the banking system and auto industry, to set executive compensation and to fire corporate officers.
With regard to health care reform, the administration seems to be operating under a distorted version of the Commerce Clause that has been grossly misinterpreted over the years as allowing the feds to regulate and control just about everything. Because the sum total of millions of individual health decisions has a collective economic impact, the reasoning goes, government has the authority, even the duty, to regulate those decisions. It does not. ...(Read at IBD).
Also read this article: Grim Prognosis From Doctors Opposed to Health Care Plan
Doctor opposition to health care overhaul proposals is broad and deep, revealing concerns not just about soaring costs, declining care, possible rationing and a lack of limits on malpractice suits, but also about government competence and motives, detailed responses to a new IBD/TIPP Poll show.
As reported Wednesday, 65% of the 1,376 practicing physicians who responded to a mailed questionnaire over the last two weeks said they opposed health care plans that have emerged from the administration and Congress. Just 33% supported them
Perhaps the most shocking result: 45% of these professionals said they would consider closing their practices or retiring early if the reforms now under consideration were enacted.... READ AT IBD
Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?
...A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point in their lives. Forcing them is the only way to get them covered, but it's not clear where the constitutional authority to do that comes from.
The Constitution specifically enumerates the powers given to each branch of government and says that any powers not mentioned revert to the states and to the people. Nowhere does it say that the feds can compel you to buy health insurance. But then, this is the administration that claims the right to a de facto nationalization of the banking system and auto industry, to set executive compensation and to fire corporate officers.
With regard to health care reform, the administration seems to be operating under a distorted version of the Commerce Clause that has been grossly misinterpreted over the years as allowing the feds to regulate and control just about everything. Because the sum total of millions of individual health decisions has a collective economic impact, the reasoning goes, government has the authority, even the duty, to regulate those decisions. It does not. ...(Read at IBD).
Also read this article: Grim Prognosis From Doctors Opposed to Health Care Plan
Doctor opposition to health care overhaul proposals is broad and deep, revealing concerns not just about soaring costs, declining care, possible rationing and a lack of limits on malpractice suits, but also about government competence and motives, detailed responses to a new IBD/TIPP Poll show.
As reported Wednesday, 65% of the 1,376 practicing physicians who responded to a mailed questionnaire over the last two weeks said they opposed health care plans that have emerged from the administration and Congress. Just 33% supported them
Perhaps the most shocking result: 45% of these professionals said they would consider closing their practices or retiring early if the reforms now under consideration were enacted.... READ AT IBD
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
09.12.09 March on Washington: Hundreds of Thousands Fight For Freedom
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2431
Watch this interview at PJTV, of a Cuban and a couple who lived in Britain for 2 years (the husband is British and is seeking American Citizenship). They describe what government controlled Health care is really like.
By the way it appears that more than 100,000 attended the Washington D.C. rally on Saturday.
Watch this interview at PJTV, of a Cuban and a couple who lived in Britain for 2 years (the husband is British and is seeking American Citizenship). They describe what government controlled Health care is really like.
By the way it appears that more than 100,000 attended the Washington D.C. rally on Saturday.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Government Caused the Credit Crisis
The truth is coming out slowly and surely: The government created the credit crisis. Instead of staying out of the economy the government decided to meddle thinking they knew better. Come on - what does government do well? Uhhhh hold on I'm thinking.....Can I get back to you? Watch this video at Wall Street Journal.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Obama's Health Care Speech-"Nothing but Discredited Myths Recycled As The Truth"
Obama's latest Health care reform speech was nothing more than a rehash of old ideas that do not work. He is NOT an innovator - just a statist, a believer in old propaganda mythology. The worst myth is that a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington can solve problems that belong in the market place of a free enterprise system...and our system is called CAPITALISM - you know the one where millions of individual people make decisions based on thousands of different data points. Good ideas results in rewards; bad ideas results in rethinking and rebooting. Government is composed of people who do not have their money staked to their schemes and ideas so what do they care if it fails and millions of us suffer the consequences?
Reform: Millions of Americans finally got to hear the Democrats' pitch on health care reform, made by their top salesman. But they heard nothing new — just a lot of discredited myths recycled as the truth.
For the record, we support improving our health care system. As is, it has too many rules, too much government spending and too few market forces to keep costs low and quality high.
We spend north of $2 trillion every year on health care — 17% of our GDP, the most of any wealthy nation. If that sounds like a lot, remember this: An estimated 47% of that already is spent by the government. And government's share will grow even without "reform."
Look closely at the plans so far to emerge from Congress. What the Democrats have proposed, in essence, is a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of our nation's economy. When brought up in Congress, this idea has been rejected repeatedly. Yet, somehow, the idea never dies.
That's why the president's speech Wednesday night was a big disappointment.
Rather than a breakthrough that would remove government's stranglehold on a once-healthy market and move us toward true reform, we heard a lot of old bromides and myths — things we just can't let go uncorrected. Too much is at stake.
So following are 15 of the biggest misconceptions — and there are many more, we assure you — that we found in the speech: (READ AT IBD)
Reform: Millions of Americans finally got to hear the Democrats' pitch on health care reform, made by their top salesman. But they heard nothing new — just a lot of discredited myths recycled as the truth.
For the record, we support improving our health care system. As is, it has too many rules, too much government spending and too few market forces to keep costs low and quality high.
We spend north of $2 trillion every year on health care — 17% of our GDP, the most of any wealthy nation. If that sounds like a lot, remember this: An estimated 47% of that already is spent by the government. And government's share will grow even without "reform."
Look closely at the plans so far to emerge from Congress. What the Democrats have proposed, in essence, is a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of our nation's economy. When brought up in Congress, this idea has been rejected repeatedly. Yet, somehow, the idea never dies.
That's why the president's speech Wednesday night was a big disappointment.
Rather than a breakthrough that would remove government's stranglehold on a once-healthy market and move us toward true reform, we heard a lot of old bromides and myths — things we just can't let go uncorrected. Too much is at stake.
So following are 15 of the biggest misconceptions — and there are many more, we assure you — that we found in the speech: (READ AT IBD)
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Want Another Trillion Dollars Added to Our Debt? Obama Takes Over the Student Loan Market
The furor over President Obama's trillion-dollar restructuring of American health care has left his other trillion-dollar plan starved for attention. That's how much the federal balance sheet will expand over the next decade if Mr. Obama can convince Congress to approve his pending takeover of the student-loan market...(READ AT Wall St Journal).
Still doubt that this President will ruin this country? You're living in the clouds.
Still doubt that this President will ruin this country? You're living in the clouds.
Inflation Is Always Caused by Bad Government: NOT "Greedy Businessmen"
Remember Zimbabwe where Mugabe printed money like it was going out of style? People were carting around wagon loads of paper bills to pay for some bread (more pictures)? Walter Williams, my favorite economist (alone with Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman) explains that what causes inflation is an increase in the money supply not backed up by output - remember those printing presses we saw in the News a few months ago on TV? Who gets the blame though by our politicians? - the greedy businessman as he raises prices. Tell that theory to a Zimbabwean.
With the massive increases in federal spending, inflation is one of the risks that awaits us. To protect us from the political demagoguery that will accompany that inflation, let's now decide what is and what is not inflation. One price or several prices rising is not inflation. Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom. As the late Nobel Laureate Professor Milton Friedman said, "(I)nflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output."
Thinking of inflation as rising prices permits politicians to deceive us and escape culpability. They shift the blame saying that inflation is caused by greedy businessmen, rapacious unions or Arab sheiks. Instead, it is increases in the money supply that cause inflation, and who is in charge of the money supply? It's the government operating through the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Treasury…
Our highest rate of inflation occurred during the Revolutionary War, when the Continental Congress churned out paper Continentals to pay bills. The monthly inflation rate reached a peak of 47 percent in November 1779.
This painful experience with inflation, and collapse of the Continental dollar, is what prompted the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to include the gold and silver clause into the United States Constitution so that the individual states could not issue bills of credit. The U.S. Constitution's Article I, Section 8 permits Congress: "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." (Read here at CapMag.com)
With the massive increases in federal spending, inflation is one of the risks that awaits us. To protect us from the political demagoguery that will accompany that inflation, let's now decide what is and what is not inflation. One price or several prices rising is not inflation. Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom. As the late Nobel Laureate Professor Milton Friedman said, "(I)nflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output."
Thinking of inflation as rising prices permits politicians to deceive us and escape culpability. They shift the blame saying that inflation is caused by greedy businessmen, rapacious unions or Arab sheiks. Instead, it is increases in the money supply that cause inflation, and who is in charge of the money supply? It's the government operating through the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Treasury…
Our highest rate of inflation occurred during the Revolutionary War, when the Continental Congress churned out paper Continentals to pay bills. The monthly inflation rate reached a peak of 47 percent in November 1779.
This painful experience with inflation, and collapse of the Continental dollar, is what prompted the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to include the gold and silver clause into the United States Constitution so that the individual states could not issue bills of credit. The U.S. Constitution's Article I, Section 8 permits Congress: "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." (Read here at CapMag.com)
No more Failed Policies Of The Past that doubled the national debt in 8 years. Obama can do much better than that. He can double it in just 2 years. Yes, He Can. (Read more)
Friday, September 11, 2009
A Masterpiece Of Charlatanry For The Naive
Below is an excellent piece by Thomas Sowell regarding Obama's charlatanry.
...the charlatan-in-chief, Barack Obama, whose speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud.
To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone's intelligence.
To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already shown this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words.
…Even those who can believe that Obama can conjure up the money through eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients.
If he can't pull off that miracle, then government-run medical care in the United States can be expected to produce what government-run medical care in Canada, Britain and other countries has produced — delays of weeks or months to get many treatments, not to mention arbitrary rationing decisions by bureaucrats.
Obama can deny it in words, but what matter are deeds — and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds — whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists. (READ AT Investor's Business Daily)
...the charlatan-in-chief, Barack Obama, whose speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud.
To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone's intelligence.
To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already shown this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words.
…Even those who can believe that Obama can conjure up the money through eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients.
If he can't pull off that miracle, then government-run medical care in the United States can be expected to produce what government-run medical care in Canada, Britain and other countries has produced — delays of weeks or months to get many treatments, not to mention arbitrary rationing decisions by bureaucrats.
Obama can deny it in words, but what matter are deeds — and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds — whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists. (READ AT Investor's Business Daily)
Ideas Are Interesting Things...Right Ideas and Wrong Ideas
I just heard an incredible essay about America, Ideas and Liberty by Andrew Klavan the author of numerous books. You can listen to it at http://www.pjtv.com/video/Klavan_on_Culture/_September_11%2C_2009/2411/ but here's an excerpt of the speech by this eloquent man as I tried to write down his words:
Ideas are interesting things...
Ideas are known to us only by physical means but have no physical presence...by our brain chemistry. Ideas take the shape of our culture and our cultural moment...
Ideas have qualities and characteristics. There are good ideas and false ones....
Ideas create a force on human action....Ideas create a tension between themselves and our behavior and the resolution of that tension can set the very course of history.
Our nation once tore itself apart because its' practice of slavery could not co-exist forever with its' principle of liberty. That liberty is the great American Idea...
As our founders knew, embracing the idea of liberty means leaving other attractive ideas behind. You can't be free in all things...
The price of liberty is great...
You can't be free and have guaranteed financial security...
Ideas are interesting things...
Ideas are known to us only by physical means but have no physical presence...by our brain chemistry. Ideas take the shape of our culture and our cultural moment...
Ideas have qualities and characteristics. There are good ideas and false ones....
Ideas create a force on human action....Ideas create a tension between themselves and our behavior and the resolution of that tension can set the very course of history.
Our nation once tore itself apart because its' practice of slavery could not co-exist forever with its' principle of liberty. That liberty is the great American Idea...
As our founders knew, embracing the idea of liberty means leaving other attractive ideas behind. You can't be free in all things...
The price of liberty is great...
You can't be free and have guaranteed financial security...
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
An Extreme Animal Rights Nut Will Be the New Regulatory Czar
I had to include this YouTube video of Sarah Chang playing Massenet's "Meditation From Thais" to sooth my AMERICAN soul against this weirdo, crazy Sunstein. ugh. Listen to this music while you read about this little, ugly, anti-American person and his lunatic ideas.
AN EXTREME LEFTIST ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST MAY BE OUR NEW REGULATORY CZAR!!!!!!!!! Imagine what will happen to our farmers and cattle ranchers and their ability to bring grain and meat to your table! This guy wants to end that.
...Cass Sunstein is a radical animal rights activist.
Don’t believe us? Sunstein has made no secret of his devotion to the cause of establishing legal “rights” for livestock, wildlife, and pets. “[T]here should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, scientific experiments, and agriculture,” Sunstein wrote in a 2002 working paper while at the University of Chicago Law school.
“Extensive regulation of the use of animals.” That's PETA-speak for using government to get everything PETA and the Humane Society of the United States can't get through gentle pressure or not-so-gentle coercion. Not exactly the kind of thing American ranchers, restaurateurs, hunters, and biomedical researchers (to say nothing of ordinary consumers) would like to hear from their next “regulatory czar.”
A version of the same paper also appeared as the introduction to Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, a 2004 book that Sunstein co-edited with then-girlfriend Martha Nussbaum. In that book, Sunstein set out an ambitious plan to give animals the legal “right” to file lawsuits. We're not joking:
“[A]nimals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law … Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf.”
It doesn't end there. Sunstein delivered a keynote ...READ HERE
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
More Than Enough Evidence To Throw Out The Man Made Global Warming Hoax NOW
Isn't it about time that Americans recognize that man-made global warming is the most ridiculous theory ever presented to the world? Kind of on the order of the Spanish Inquisition where the Church insisted that in order to obtain confessions out of wayward Catholics you had to torture them. Wait, Wait I'm working on the analogy...OK here it is. Well, the modern day inquisition torturers are the Michael Moore's and other Hollywood types (politicians and dishonest scientists looking for government grants to fund their studies) who go around making up things and showing just enough film footage of whatever to make you believe that global warming is man-made. There is just too much evidence against man-made global warming and for Sun induced warming and cooling! In fact we are actually in a cooling period and have been for several years!
Climate Change: A team of international scientists has finally figured out why sunspots have a dramatic effect on the weather. It shows the folly of fearing the SUV while dismissing that thermonuclear furnace in the sky.
Mankind once worshiped the sun. Now the world studiously ignores it as nations prepare to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in December. Something is indeed rotten in Denmark.
Our own government is committed to fighting climate change whether it be though Son of Kyoto or our own growth-capping, job-killing cap-and-trade legislation known as Waxman-Markey.
Despite the sun being the major source of all energy on earth, supporters of man-caused global warming have dismissed the sun's role in climate change. They say the historic 11-year solar cycle changes the amount of energy reaching the earth by about only 0.1% — not enough to account for temperature rises this century.
…The study found that chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures during solar maximums act in a way that amplifies the sun's influence. The slight increase in solar energy in the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone, warming the air in the tropics where sunlight is most intense.
The additional energy also helps produce more ozone that absorbs even more solar energy. The increased sunlight causes a slight warming of ocean surface waters across the subtropical Pacific.
This stratospheric energy absorption and sea surface warming can intensify winds and rainfall, and ultimately influence global weather in ways that amplify the sun's influence. READ AT IBD
Climate Change: A team of international scientists has finally figured out why sunspots have a dramatic effect on the weather. It shows the folly of fearing the SUV while dismissing that thermonuclear furnace in the sky.
Mankind once worshiped the sun. Now the world studiously ignores it as nations prepare to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in December. Something is indeed rotten in Denmark.
Our own government is committed to fighting climate change whether it be though Son of Kyoto or our own growth-capping, job-killing cap-and-trade legislation known as Waxman-Markey.
Despite the sun being the major source of all energy on earth, supporters of man-caused global warming have dismissed the sun's role in climate change. They say the historic 11-year solar cycle changes the amount of energy reaching the earth by about only 0.1% — not enough to account for temperature rises this century.
…The study found that chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures during solar maximums act in a way that amplifies the sun's influence. The slight increase in solar energy in the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone, warming the air in the tropics where sunlight is most intense.
The additional energy also helps produce more ozone that absorbs even more solar energy. The increased sunlight causes a slight warming of ocean surface waters across the subtropical Pacific.
This stratospheric energy absorption and sea surface warming can intensify winds and rainfall, and ultimately influence global weather in ways that amplify the sun's influence. READ AT IBD
Saturday, September 05, 2009
A Cry Against America's Descent Into Socialist Slavery
It is always worth repeating what Socialism always leads to: poverty for all except for the ruling class - the anointed ones that know better than anyone how everyone should live. The need to make the case for Capitalism is now more urgent since Obama and his minions and our worthless "cave-in"congress are bringing us to the brink of a proven failure: the anti-freedom system of government that is Socialism. Below is a former Soviet Union citizen, now living in America crying out to us to not allow this descent into socialist slavery. I call it slavery because we will all be working for the government NOT for ourselves. Americans are CAPITALISTS - We are nurtured at the feet of our forefathers who fought to the death against tyranny and oppression. But socialism is much worse than what George Washington fought against - because socialism is a cancer that eats at individualism, the pursuit of happiness, and ends up destroying your liberty completely.
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble.
In kindergarten we sang songs about Lenin, the leader of the Socialist Revolution. In school we learned about the beautiful socialist system, where everybody is equal and everything is fair…
... God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures.
The government-assigned salary of the proletariat (blue-collar worker) was 30%-50% higher then any professional. Without incentive to improve their life, professionals drank themselves to oblivion. They — engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers — earned a government-determined salary that barely covered the necessities, mainly food.
Raising children was a hardship. It took four to six adults (parents and grandparents) to support a child. The usual size of the postwar family was one or two children. Every woman had the right to have an abortion and most of them did, often without anesthesia.
…In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. Only the ruling class of communist leaders had access to special stores, medicine and accommodations that could compare to those in the West.
The rest of the citizenry had to deal with permanent shortages of food and other necessities, and had access to free but inferior, unsanitary and low-tech medical care. The egalitarian utopia of equality, achieved by the sacrifice of individual self-interest for the collective good, led to corruption, black markets, anger and envy. READ AT IBD
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble.
In kindergarten we sang songs about Lenin, the leader of the Socialist Revolution. In school we learned about the beautiful socialist system, where everybody is equal and everything is fair…
... God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures.
The government-assigned salary of the proletariat (blue-collar worker) was 30%-50% higher then any professional. Without incentive to improve their life, professionals drank themselves to oblivion. They — engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers — earned a government-determined salary that barely covered the necessities, mainly food.
Raising children was a hardship. It took four to six adults (parents and grandparents) to support a child. The usual size of the postwar family was one or two children. Every woman had the right to have an abortion and most of them did, often without anesthesia.
…In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. Only the ruling class of communist leaders had access to special stores, medicine and accommodations that could compare to those in the West.
The rest of the citizenry had to deal with permanent shortages of food and other necessities, and had access to free but inferior, unsanitary and low-tech medical care. The egalitarian utopia of equality, achieved by the sacrifice of individual self-interest for the collective good, led to corruption, black markets, anger and envy. READ AT IBD
Are We At The Edge of The Fiscal Cliff?
It seems that the people, not just in America but around the world in places like Japan have had enough of loss of freedom, corruption and this sense of entitlement that politicians feel they have. It is time for the people to throw out the bums and find a better class of politicians that will uphold American values and our CONSTITUTION. This document is NOT just a piece of paper with a bunch of words that have no meaning today. The words have plenty of meaning especially today with the socialists trying to turn this country to the radical left, with race baiters trying to foment hatred among us and scummy crooks in Washington and at the state level living off of our hard work by taxing us to death!
Friday, September 04, 2009
"Mercy to the Guilty is Cruelty to the Innocent." Adam Smith
Has the West become a country of weak kneed, cringing, hand wringing cowards? Is America becoming like the late, GREAT, England? France? These are countries who have turned over their nations to Sharia law without even batting an eyelash. They have diminished themselves by giving up their greatness as a people to people who are barbaric in their customs and beliefs. Why has the West arrived at this point of self-immolation? Our intellectuals on the left are depraved powerlusters. We the people have to take back our country and our ideals of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" as endowed to us by our Forefathers.
Many in Mr. Obama's administration are avowed communists like Van Jones or socialists like many in the Democratic party. But as Ayn Rand wrote there is no difference between these two totalitarian systems..."except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." What would you like your choice to be: murder/suicide or freedom? Is our Constitution to be discarded after it enabled the creation of the most productive, humane, life-giving system of government in history? Hopefully Mr. Jones, a hater of all that is American will be a nightmare memory only (read here). Here is a defender of Americanism, American Exceptionalism (more on this later) and Freedom - Thomas Sowell.
Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi-- the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people-- is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.
In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
He wrote this long before Barack Obama became President of the United States. But this administration epitomizes the "concessions and smiles" approach to countries that are our implacable enemies.
Western Europe has gone down that path before us but we now seem to be trying to catch up...
The ostensible reason for releasing al-Megrahi was compassion for a man terminally ill. It is ironic that this was said in Scotland, for exactly 250 years ago another Scotsman-- Adam Smith-- said, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America as well, where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded or blown up by the terrorists themselves. Tragically, those with this strange inversion of values include the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. Read at CapMag.com).
Many in Mr. Obama's administration are avowed communists like Van Jones or socialists like many in the Democratic party. But as Ayn Rand wrote there is no difference between these two totalitarian systems..."except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." What would you like your choice to be: murder/suicide or freedom? Is our Constitution to be discarded after it enabled the creation of the most productive, humane, life-giving system of government in history? Hopefully Mr. Jones, a hater of all that is American will be a nightmare memory only (read here). Here is a defender of Americanism, American Exceptionalism (more on this later) and Freedom - Thomas Sowell.
Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi-- the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people-- is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.
In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
He wrote this long before Barack Obama became President of the United States. But this administration epitomizes the "concessions and smiles" approach to countries that are our implacable enemies.
Western Europe has gone down that path before us but we now seem to be trying to catch up...
The ostensible reason for releasing al-Megrahi was compassion for a man terminally ill. It is ironic that this was said in Scotland, for exactly 250 years ago another Scotsman-- Adam Smith-- said, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America as well, where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded or blown up by the terrorists themselves. Tragically, those with this strange inversion of values include the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. Read at CapMag.com).
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Of Lying Congresses and Presidents and Gullible Citizens
Red ink is all we will see for decades under this administration. This posting by Walter Williams is particularly critical today in light of the "health care" bill that is awaiting passage. The question is do most Americans realize what an obligation this will be in our old age and our children and their children. Any politician who makes promises should be looked at with a wary eye. They are usually lying. And Obama and this congress are no exception. Also as Mr. Williams points out there are 41% of Americans (121 million) who DO NOT PAY TAXES! These are Obama's prime constituencies. Now do you understand how high our taxes will rise?
President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress... Let's check out their past dishonesty.
At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That's nine times Congress' prediction. Today's Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress?
Another part of the Medicare lie is found in Section 1801 of the 1965 Medicare Act that reads: "Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine, or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer, or employee, or any institution, agency or person providing health care services." Ask your doctor or hospital whether this is true.
...Roughly 121 million Americans -- or 41 percent of the U.S. population -- are completely outside the federal income tax system. These people represent a natural constituency for big-spending politicians. Since they have no federal income tax obligation, what do they care about higher taxes or tax cuts?. (READ at CapMag)
President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress... Let's check out their past dishonesty.
At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That's nine times Congress' prediction. Today's Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress?
Another part of the Medicare lie is found in Section 1801 of the 1965 Medicare Act that reads: "Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine, or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer, or employee, or any institution, agency or person providing health care services." Ask your doctor or hospital whether this is true.
...Roughly 121 million Americans -- or 41 percent of the U.S. population -- are completely outside the federal income tax system. These people represent a natural constituency for big-spending politicians. Since they have no federal income tax obligation, what do they care about higher taxes or tax cuts?. (READ at CapMag)
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Mark Lloyd the Diversity Czar and Killer Free Speech and Press?
Mark LLoyd. Ever heard of him? Seems like he slipped by us and here we are with a man that wants to destroy our freedom. Well we got Obama and that came with the whole tamale didn't it. All one had to do was look at his associations, the church he attended and the "comrades" he had. IBD has an article calling our attention to this ominous situation we find ourselves in "Diversity Czar Threatens Free Speech".
1st Amendment: Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity "czar" says Venezuela is an example we should follow.
...But as angry constituents flood town hall meetings and call in to talk radio, a man dedicated to silencing them sits at the right hand of the president.
They share a common hero — Saul Alinsky — who wrote the community organizer's bible, "Rules for Radicals." It speaks of confrontation or, as candidate Obama put it, of "getting in their faces" as a way to obtain power, not from the people or for the people, but over the people.
Lloyd has written that we make too much of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press — for "the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."
We thought we were democratically governed. We thought we could vote as we choose after a vigorous and open debate. Once the major networks served as information gatekeepers controlling what we saw and heard. Now talk radio, the Internet and cable news have enhanced democracy by promoting the free flow of information and discourse. Lloyd wants to stop all that. (READ AT IBD)
1st Amendment: Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity "czar" says Venezuela is an example we should follow.
...But as angry constituents flood town hall meetings and call in to talk radio, a man dedicated to silencing them sits at the right hand of the president.
They share a common hero — Saul Alinsky — who wrote the community organizer's bible, "Rules for Radicals." It speaks of confrontation or, as candidate Obama put it, of "getting in their faces" as a way to obtain power, not from the people or for the people, but over the people.
Lloyd has written that we make too much of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press — for "the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."
We thought we were democratically governed. We thought we could vote as we choose after a vigorous and open debate. Once the major networks served as information gatekeepers controlling what we saw and heard. Now talk radio, the Internet and cable news have enhanced democracy by promoting the free flow of information and discourse. Lloyd wants to stop all that. (READ AT IBD)
Monday, August 31, 2009
With a "Republican" Like McCain Who Needs Enemies?
I just returned from vacation in America's beautiful west, in fact, near McCain's home state. I'm starting to believe that it's time McCain take a vacation from politics - a permanent one. This guy is loony and he just does not seem to understand the dire situation we are in economically thanks to Bush number 2 and now this committed socialist we have in the White House. For Mr. McCain, maybe it's time he enjoy his old age and settle down to live out the rest of his life in his mansions in Arizona and wherever else he has them and allow us poorer folk to fight the good fight without his incessant and foolish meddling during these very dangerous times as our country is forced to the extreme left. What we need are leaders that will put us back on track - the track that leads us back to our fabled Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
Health Care: "First, do no harm" is never the maxim of Washington politicians. With a public uprising killing ObamaCare, Sen. John McCain wants "to sit down with the president" and resuscitate it.
There seems to be a disconnect in McCain's head, however, between getting good reforms and what he knows the Democrats will do as the majority...
The American people, already spooked at this year's government spending spree, are rightly scared to death at the costs of Obama-Care — another matter on which the administration has been deceptive. Tuesday, new numbers showed that the federal budget deficit will be far higher than expected — nearly $1.6 trillion for the year, amounting to more debt than since the aftermath of World War II.
After a $787 billion politicized stimulus package, and unemployment still headed to double digits, the people are letting their representatives know in person that enough is enough. And their voices are being heard. Even liberal Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a strong proponent of government-managed reform, pronounced Obama-Care dead for the year before a large Wisconsin crowd last week.
...Key Democrats now admit that a popular uprising has succeeded in derailing the radical health care revolution that Democrats have in mind. Even left-wing politicians now see that Americans prefer standing pat to socialism. Why does Sen. McCain want to get us back on such a dangerous track? (Read at IBD)
Health Care: "First, do no harm" is never the maxim of Washington politicians. With a public uprising killing ObamaCare, Sen. John McCain wants "to sit down with the president" and resuscitate it.
There seems to be a disconnect in McCain's head, however, between getting good reforms and what he knows the Democrats will do as the majority...
The American people, already spooked at this year's government spending spree, are rightly scared to death at the costs of Obama-Care — another matter on which the administration has been deceptive. Tuesday, new numbers showed that the federal budget deficit will be far higher than expected — nearly $1.6 trillion for the year, amounting to more debt than since the aftermath of World War II.
After a $787 billion politicized stimulus package, and unemployment still headed to double digits, the people are letting their representatives know in person that enough is enough. And their voices are being heard. Even liberal Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a strong proponent of government-managed reform, pronounced Obama-Care dead for the year before a large Wisconsin crowd last week.
...Key Democrats now admit that a popular uprising has succeeded in derailing the radical health care revolution that Democrats have in mind. Even left-wing politicians now see that Americans prefer standing pat to socialism. Why does Sen. McCain want to get us back on such a dangerous track? (Read at IBD)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Obama Merry-Go-Round of Anti-Americanism
And it goes on and on and on and on....when will the merry-go-round stop? Nobody knows. The current evil that our military did was fight Al Qaeda and actually use torture to extract crucial information! Wow! Maybe Obama and Holder have some supernatural power to extract information from these terrorists (who by the way will die gladly for their cause) using soft pillows and Hilton Hotel luxury beds. IBD's "The Justice Department's War on Heroes" asks how will our sworn enemies view this weakness. All these people understand is power - I'll leave it to you to guess what may happen under this administration to our soil and people.
National Security: Appointing a prosecutor to harass CIA interrogators exposes this administration's priorities: The global war on terror takes a back seat to terrorizing some of America's most selfless warriors.
If you look closely, you can see insidious attempts to weaken Americans' post-9/11 resolve to win against Islamist terrorism, no matter what it cost or how long it took.
Pentagon staff members were informed a mere two months after President Obama's inauguration, for instance, that we were no longer engaged in a "global war on terror"; what America was now waging was an "overseas contingency operation."
Then in April, as the American Spectator's Matthew Vadum pointed out Monday, the president signed a law re-jiggering 9/11 into a "National Day of Service" that will demean the Pearl Harbor Day of the 21st century "into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing." (Read the rest if you stomach it at IBD).
National Security: Appointing a prosecutor to harass CIA interrogators exposes this administration's priorities: The global war on terror takes a back seat to terrorizing some of America's most selfless warriors.
If you look closely, you can see insidious attempts to weaken Americans' post-9/11 resolve to win against Islamist terrorism, no matter what it cost or how long it took.
Pentagon staff members were informed a mere two months after President Obama's inauguration, for instance, that we were no longer engaged in a "global war on terror"; what America was now waging was an "overseas contingency operation."
Then in April, as the American Spectator's Matthew Vadum pointed out Monday, the president signed a law re-jiggering 9/11 into a "National Day of Service" that will demean the Pearl Harbor Day of the 21st century "into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing." (Read the rest if you stomach it at IBD).
Monday, August 24, 2009
Most Government Run Things are Crap and We The People Have to Pay For It.
So in the end Americans are the dupes for politicians desire to control us in every way imaginable. Do you want a government hack looking over your records and telling the doctor what he can do and not do to keep you alive and healthy? Over at CapMag.com Richard E. Ralston writes:
George Orwell is alive and writing new fiction about Congress legislating expanded government control of health care. Or at least it seems that way.
A growing and ominous trend lately is the inversion of language to couch further government intervention in the name of liberating "reform."
…For instance, if you want to eliminate the secret ballot in union-organized elections and force workers to vote in clear sight of their employer and a union enforcer, call it "The Employee Freedom of Choice Act."
There are many more flagrant examples of doublethink in the debate on health care. And it becomes increasingly difficult to have a sane discussion when too many words are used as the opposite of their proper meaning. It can even confuse journalists.
President Obama has frequently reassured us that, if we are happy with our present insurance, there is no cause for alarm—our right to keep it will not be denied. Of course, it will no longer exist in a few years, so the right to keep it is pointless…
If you have an individual insurance policy, your right to keep it will be meaningless when it cannot compete with government insurance. Private insurers will be forced out of the game as the public plan draws unlimited credit from a government cashier playing with a stacked deck from a dealer who forces the other players to cover the government's bets. Yet this is the solution offered to head off the so-called "predatory" nature of a free market, in the name of promoting "healthy competition." (Read CapMag.com)
George Orwell is alive and writing new fiction about Congress legislating expanded government control of health care. Or at least it seems that way.
A growing and ominous trend lately is the inversion of language to couch further government intervention in the name of liberating "reform."
…For instance, if you want to eliminate the secret ballot in union-organized elections and force workers to vote in clear sight of their employer and a union enforcer, call it "The Employee Freedom of Choice Act."
There are many more flagrant examples of doublethink in the debate on health care. And it becomes increasingly difficult to have a sane discussion when too many words are used as the opposite of their proper meaning. It can even confuse journalists.
President Obama has frequently reassured us that, if we are happy with our present insurance, there is no cause for alarm—our right to keep it will not be denied. Of course, it will no longer exist in a few years, so the right to keep it is pointless…
If you have an individual insurance policy, your right to keep it will be meaningless when it cannot compete with government insurance. Private insurers will be forced out of the game as the public plan draws unlimited credit from a government cashier playing with a stacked deck from a dealer who forces the other players to cover the government's bets. Yet this is the solution offered to head off the so-called "predatory" nature of a free market, in the name of promoting "healthy competition." (Read CapMag.com)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
A Marine Corp Vet Bravely Stands Up To The Left and Demands To be Left Alone
A Marine Corp vet stands up to be counted. How? He demands that the government stay away from his kids, his healthcare and he reminds us that it was the Nazis who were the Nationalist Socialist Party and took over almost the whole economy of Germany. A great video defending America: the America of individualism and freedom.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Will America End Up Under The Rot of Socialism?
“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” — Thomas Jefferson
Our Found Fathers had a very basic premise upon which they based all the worth of the new nation they invented: a man's right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness. This is so profound an idea that to this day many do not understand it. They did not say for man to sacrifice - no their dictum was for a man to be left alone so he could pursue his values as he sees fit so long as he abides by the law of the land.
What is it about this idea that liberals like Obama and Pelosi find so repelling? What is it in the soul of a liberal that wants to rule over everyone and proscribe his every move and even ideas?
"The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of "conservatism" and "liberalism" which has lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men.
The goal of the "liberals"-as it emerges from the record of the past decades-was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot-by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (Ayn Rand in " 'Extremism,' or The Art of Smearing" in Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal pg 178)
"One of the Great Frankenstein Experiments in American History"
Rick Perry, one of a very small number of successful governors said this recently about Obamacare:
"To me, this is one of the great Frankenstein experimentations in American history. We've seen that movie before. It was from 1932 to 1940."
..."I grew up in a house with no running water, 16 miles from the closest place that had a post office," he recalls. "I had a very parochial view of the world."
The Wall Street Journal continues the interview:
He became an Air Force pilot and went off to countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Italy, returning to Paint Creek in 1977—only to grow restless on the family farm. He sought a political outlet.
In 1985, Mr. Perry represented a rural West Texas district in the state legislature; in 1990, he was elected state commissioner of agriculture; in 1998, he was elected lieutenant governor under then-Gov. George W. Bush. He became governor when Mr. Bush won the presidency in 2000, and Mr. Perry was chosen by the voters themselves in 2002 and 2006.
Mr. Perry now has the distinction of being the longest-serving governor in Texas history...
When I ask him if Mr. Obama's policies would send this country down the same path as California, Mr. Perry lunges forward, "If you want to know what this guy's policies are doing, it's been written about before."
"Read that book. Read this book," he says, gesturing toward the nearby table. ..."The Road to Serfdom" by Frederick Hayek and "The 5000 Year Leap" by W. Cleon Skousen. "Read Amity Shlaes's 'The Forgotten Man.' Amity's book is very eye-opening—scary—for me."
To the governor, one of the scariest policies is the national health-care bill. "I think it'll die. I think Americans are catching on. That's the reason that Rahm Emanuel and his guys were trying to push it through so fast, because they know [that once] Americans see what this is going to do—limiting their access to health care, costing them more—they're going to oppose it. And interestingly, you know who's against this more than anybody? The elderly. They figured this bill out...(Read at WSJ)
"To me, this is one of the great Frankenstein experimentations in American history. We've seen that movie before. It was from 1932 to 1940."
..."I grew up in a house with no running water, 16 miles from the closest place that had a post office," he recalls. "I had a very parochial view of the world."
The Wall Street Journal continues the interview:
He became an Air Force pilot and went off to countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Italy, returning to Paint Creek in 1977—only to grow restless on the family farm. He sought a political outlet.
In 1985, Mr. Perry represented a rural West Texas district in the state legislature; in 1990, he was elected state commissioner of agriculture; in 1998, he was elected lieutenant governor under then-Gov. George W. Bush. He became governor when Mr. Bush won the presidency in 2000, and Mr. Perry was chosen by the voters themselves in 2002 and 2006.
Mr. Perry now has the distinction of being the longest-serving governor in Texas history...
When I ask him if Mr. Obama's policies would send this country down the same path as California, Mr. Perry lunges forward, "If you want to know what this guy's policies are doing, it's been written about before."
"Read that book. Read this book," he says, gesturing toward the nearby table. ..."The Road to Serfdom" by Frederick Hayek and "The 5000 Year Leap" by W. Cleon Skousen. "Read Amity Shlaes's 'The Forgotten Man.' Amity's book is very eye-opening—scary—for me."
To the governor, one of the scariest policies is the national health-care bill. "I think it'll die. I think Americans are catching on. That's the reason that Rahm Emanuel and his guys were trying to push it through so fast, because they know [that once] Americans see what this is going to do—limiting their access to health care, costing them more—they're going to oppose it. And interestingly, you know who's against this more than anybody? The elderly. They figured this bill out...(Read at WSJ)
Friday, August 21, 2009
Oops! Now The Arctic IS NOT Melting - which is it?
Ayn Rand brought a new phrase to the English language: "Hatred of the good for being the good". She wrote "Today we live in an age of envy". In order for a man to live as a man, he has to pursue values: food, education, career, spouse, children and more. Each man is as successful as his intelligence and abilities allow him to be and in a Capitalist country where man is free to pursue his values all is possible. But this IS the good and this is what control freak politicians cannot abide. Obama is the culmination of a century of control freaks that have taken our freedoms bit by bit. Remember government or politicians cannot control a free man pursuing his values as he sees fit and this upsets some mostly the left, but Republicans have abdicated their job as watch dog for liberty which is why we are in such a dangerous place today. As Rand wrote decades ago:
"The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of "conservatism" and liberalism" which has lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men."
"The goal of the "liberals"-as it emerges from the record of the past decades-was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot - by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (The goal of the "conservatives" was only to retard that process). Read " 'Extremism' or The Art of Smearing" in CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL (1966).
Besides the possible government take over of Health care another leftist/fascist propaganda malarkey - global warming.....is being paraded as fact as the greeners present it but it is actually an anti-fact...is there such a thing? Anti-Fact? A fact is a piece of knowledge based on research and conclusions as to what the data is saying. Therefore, an anti-fact is something parading as fact. Why this big push to downgrade our industrial/information revolution society? Why this desire to dismantle this progress we've struggled to arrive at for the past 3000 years? Gerd Leipold, an outgoing executive of Greenpeace let it slip out recently:
"We will definitely have to move to a different concept of growth. The lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model." The Age of Envy is still with us and envy leads to control of your life and my life. IBD has an article: "Consensus Thaws on Global Warming". Malarkey is malarkey and eventually the truth will out.
Global Warming: What's the climate change scare really about? Not what the alarmists want the public to think. Just ask the retiring head of Greenpeace. In an unguarded moment, he might spill the secret again.
During an Aug. 5 interview with the BBC, Gerd Leipold, outgoing executive director of Greenpeace, admitted that his organization emotionalizes issues to influence the public. At the time, he was admitting his group had made an error in its July 15 news release that claimed "we are looking at ice-free summers in the Arctic as early as 2030."
"I don't think (the Greenland ice sheet) will be melting by 2030," he said. "That may have been a mistake."
Or maybe it was one of those examples that Greenpeace embellished to stir fear in the public? If so, it wouldn't be an isolated case. Others have admitted they're willing to bend the truth in order to draw attention to the cause.
Twenty years ago, Stanford University environmentalist Stephen Schneider told Discover magazine that it's perfectly fine "to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have. . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
Al Gore noted the power of propaganda when he once told Grist, a magazine for environmentalists, that "it is appropriate to have an overrepresentation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience."
So why all the distortions about global warming? To save the planet, to save us from ourselves? No. To choke economies in developed nations, particularly the U.S.
...When all the pretense about science is stripped away, it becomes clear that the global warming scare is not about the planet, but about establishing egalitarianism across the world. It's about making everyone more equal by slowing growth in rich nations rather than increasing growth in poor and developing countries.
"The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of "conservatism" and liberalism" which has lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men."
"The goal of the "liberals"-as it emerges from the record of the past decades-was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot - by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (The goal of the "conservatives" was only to retard that process). Read " 'Extremism' or The Art of Smearing" in CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL (1966).
Besides the possible government take over of Health care another leftist/fascist propaganda malarkey - global warming.....is being paraded as fact as the greeners present it but it is actually an anti-fact...is there such a thing? Anti-Fact? A fact is a piece of knowledge based on research and conclusions as to what the data is saying. Therefore, an anti-fact is something parading as fact. Why this big push to downgrade our industrial/information revolution society? Why this desire to dismantle this progress we've struggled to arrive at for the past 3000 years? Gerd Leipold, an outgoing executive of Greenpeace let it slip out recently:
"We will definitely have to move to a different concept of growth. The lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model." The Age of Envy is still with us and envy leads to control of your life and my life. IBD has an article: "Consensus Thaws on Global Warming". Malarkey is malarkey and eventually the truth will out.
Global Warming: What's the climate change scare really about? Not what the alarmists want the public to think. Just ask the retiring head of Greenpeace. In an unguarded moment, he might spill the secret again.
During an Aug. 5 interview with the BBC, Gerd Leipold, outgoing executive director of Greenpeace, admitted that his organization emotionalizes issues to influence the public. At the time, he was admitting his group had made an error in its July 15 news release that claimed "we are looking at ice-free summers in the Arctic as early as 2030."
"I don't think (the Greenland ice sheet) will be melting by 2030," he said. "That may have been a mistake."
Or maybe it was one of those examples that Greenpeace embellished to stir fear in the public? If so, it wouldn't be an isolated case. Others have admitted they're willing to bend the truth in order to draw attention to the cause.
Twenty years ago, Stanford University environmentalist Stephen Schneider told Discover magazine that it's perfectly fine "to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have. . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
Al Gore noted the power of propaganda when he once told Grist, a magazine for environmentalists, that "it is appropriate to have an overrepresentation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience."
So why all the distortions about global warming? To save the planet, to save us from ourselves? No. To choke economies in developed nations, particularly the U.S.
...When all the pretense about science is stripped away, it becomes clear that the global warming scare is not about the planet, but about establishing egalitarianism across the world. It's about making everyone more equal by slowing growth in rich nations rather than increasing growth in poor and developing countries.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Presidential Visions For Our Own Good
Some good reading about Obama's Health care PLAN - yea it's a plan alright - the most liberal leftist we've ever had for a President is going to plan our medical care. Thomas Sowell writings can be read at Capitalism Magazine.
Obama's Cronies vs American Citizens: Whose Medical Decisions?: Part 1
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5623
Obamacare's Phony Arguments: Whose Medical Decisions?" Part 2
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5622
Obama's Bait and Switch: Whose Medical Decisions?" Part 3
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5625
The Obama Vision: Whose Medical Decisions?" Part 4
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5624
Obama's Cronies vs American Citizens: Whose Medical Decisions?: Part 1
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5623
Obamacare's Phony Arguments: Whose Medical Decisions?" Part 2
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5622
Obama's Bait and Switch: Whose Medical Decisions?" Part 3
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5625
The Obama Vision: Whose Medical Decisions?" Part 4
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5624
"You Scare Me" by Lou Pritchett
it is hard not to agree with this.
Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core. You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame' America crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where thegovernment sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the goldenegg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics againstcertain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challengingyou on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consideropposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient. You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reilllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I willprobably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
Lou Pritchett TRUE - CHECK: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it. Big surprise.Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits. Keep it going. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. (Thomas Jefferson)It's happening right now.
Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core. You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame' America crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where thegovernment sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the goldenegg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics againstcertain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challengingyou on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consideropposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient. You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reilllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I willprobably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
Lou Pritchett TRUE - CHECK: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it. Big surprise.Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits. Keep it going. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. (Thomas Jefferson)It's happening right now.
Monday, August 17, 2009
With Politicians like Dodd and Kerry Defending Thugs Like Chavez and Zelaya - Who Needs Enemies?
Mary Anastasia is the only reporter I know of that does crucial and impeccable reporting on the Americas. Here she reports on US senators from the left like Kerry and Dodd who kowtow to tyrants like Chavez and Castro while shunning true freedom loving leaders to our south. It's a crying shame that these elected officials represent Americans. How do these Dodds and Kerrys get reelected over and over again? Oh...I forgot they bring home the bacon don't they....But can freedom-loving South Americans depend on United States political hacks to help them maintain their democratic form of government? The prognosis is gloomy indeed.
...As a U.S. senator, Mr. Kerry has the luxury of treating Latin America like his playground, as Democrats have done for decades, foisting on it ideas that Americans reject. Venezuelans still recall how Connecticut's Chris Dodd played the role of chief Chávez cheerleader in the Senate while the strongman was consolidating power.
But Mr. Obama is the president and commander in chief, and millions of people in this hemisphere are counting on the U.S. to stand up to Venezuelan aggression. Playing footsie under the table with Mr. Chávez on Honduras while the Venezuelan is threatening the peace isn't going to fly in a hemisphere that prefers liberty over tyranny.
Both Colombian and U.S. officials allege that the Venezuelan National Guard and high-ranking members of Mr. Chávez's government are in cahoots with criminal enterprises that run drugs in South America. The evidence suggests an alliance between the terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—the largest exporter of cocaine from that country—and members of Mr. Chávez's cabinet. There is also evidence in documents and video captured from the FARC that the rebels have influence at high levels of the Ecuadoran government.
The cocaine business is a big revenue raiser for the terrorist organization and for its business partners on the continent. This is why Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has agreed to allow U.S. drug-surveillance planes to use Colombian military bases.
In Quito, Mr. Chávez flew into a rage about that agreement. "The U.S. is the most warlike government in the world," he told his South American peers and Mr. Zelaya. "The Yankee military pays no mind to its president," he said, artfully exempting Barack Obama from blame. "In Colombia [the U.S. military] has immunity. They can rape women, they can kill and they can destroy in every direction. You can't do anything to them. It's horrible."...(Anti-American Amigos at WSJ).
...As a U.S. senator, Mr. Kerry has the luxury of treating Latin America like his playground, as Democrats have done for decades, foisting on it ideas that Americans reject. Venezuelans still recall how Connecticut's Chris Dodd played the role of chief Chávez cheerleader in the Senate while the strongman was consolidating power.
But Mr. Obama is the president and commander in chief, and millions of people in this hemisphere are counting on the U.S. to stand up to Venezuelan aggression. Playing footsie under the table with Mr. Chávez on Honduras while the Venezuelan is threatening the peace isn't going to fly in a hemisphere that prefers liberty over tyranny.
Both Colombian and U.S. officials allege that the Venezuelan National Guard and high-ranking members of Mr. Chávez's government are in cahoots with criminal enterprises that run drugs in South America. The evidence suggests an alliance between the terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—the largest exporter of cocaine from that country—and members of Mr. Chávez's cabinet. There is also evidence in documents and video captured from the FARC that the rebels have influence at high levels of the Ecuadoran government.
The cocaine business is a big revenue raiser for the terrorist organization and for its business partners on the continent. This is why Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has agreed to allow U.S. drug-surveillance planes to use Colombian military bases.
In Quito, Mr. Chávez flew into a rage about that agreement. "The U.S. is the most warlike government in the world," he told his South American peers and Mr. Zelaya. "The Yankee military pays no mind to its president," he said, artfully exempting Barack Obama from blame. "In Colombia [the U.S. military] has immunity. They can rape women, they can kill and they can destroy in every direction. You can't do anything to them. It's horrible."...(Anti-American Amigos at WSJ).
Sunday, August 16, 2009
America's Unfree Markets by Yaron Brooks and Don Watkins
Since day one of the financial crisis, we have been told that the free market has failed. But this is a myth. Regardless of what one thinks were the actual causes of the crisis, the free market could not have been the source because, whatever you wish to call America’s economy post World War I, you cannot call it a free market. America today is a mixed economy -- a market that retains some elements of freedom, but which is subject to pervasive and entrenched government control.
The actual meaning of “free market” is: the economic system of laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, the government’s sole purpose is to protect the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness from violation by force or fraud. This means a government is limited to three basic functions: the military, the police, and the court system. In a truly free market, there is no income tax, no alphabet agencies regulating every aspect of the economy, no handouts or business subsidies, no Federal Reserve. The government plays no more role in the economic lives of its citizens than it does in their sex lives.
Thus a free market is a market totally free from the initiation of physical force. Under such a system, individuals are free to exercise and act on their own judgment. They are free to produce and trade as they see fit. They are fully free from interference, regulation, or control by the government.
Historically, a fully free market has not yet existed. But it was America’s unsurpassed economic freedom that enabled her, in the period between the Civil War and World War I, to become an economic juggernaut, and the symbol of freedom and prosperity.
That freedom has largely been curtailed. But one sector that remains relatively free is America’s high-tech industry. Throughout the late 20th century, the computer industry had no significant barriers to entry, no licensing requirements, no government-mandated certification tests. Individuals were left free for the most part to think, produce, innovate and take risks: if they succeeded, they reaped the rewards; if they failed, they could not run to Washington for help.
The results speak for themselves.
Between 1981 and 1985, about 6 million personal computers were sold worldwide. During the first half of this decade, that number climbed to 855 million. Meanwhile, the quality of computers surged as prices plummeted. For instance, the cost per megabyte for a personal computer during the early 1980s was generally between $100 and $200; today it’s less than a cent.
That is what a free economy would look like: unbridled choice in production and trade with innovation and prosperity as the result.
But this is hardly what the economy looks like today.
The latest Federal budget was $3.6 trillion dollars, up from less than $1 billion a century ago. Taxes eat up nearly half of the average American’s income. A mammoth welfare state doles out favors to individuals and to businesses. Hundreds of thousands of regulations direct virtually every aspect of our lives. The Federal Reserve holds virtually unlimited control over the U.S. monetary and banking systems.
All of this represents the injection of government force into the market..(continue reading at The Ayn Rand Center For Individual Rights)
The actual meaning of “free market” is: the economic system of laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, the government’s sole purpose is to protect the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness from violation by force or fraud. This means a government is limited to three basic functions: the military, the police, and the court system. In a truly free market, there is no income tax, no alphabet agencies regulating every aspect of the economy, no handouts or business subsidies, no Federal Reserve. The government plays no more role in the economic lives of its citizens than it does in their sex lives.
Thus a free market is a market totally free from the initiation of physical force. Under such a system, individuals are free to exercise and act on their own judgment. They are free to produce and trade as they see fit. They are fully free from interference, regulation, or control by the government.
Historically, a fully free market has not yet existed. But it was America’s unsurpassed economic freedom that enabled her, in the period between the Civil War and World War I, to become an economic juggernaut, and the symbol of freedom and prosperity.
That freedom has largely been curtailed. But one sector that remains relatively free is America’s high-tech industry. Throughout the late 20th century, the computer industry had no significant barriers to entry, no licensing requirements, no government-mandated certification tests. Individuals were left free for the most part to think, produce, innovate and take risks: if they succeeded, they reaped the rewards; if they failed, they could not run to Washington for help.
The results speak for themselves.
Between 1981 and 1985, about 6 million personal computers were sold worldwide. During the first half of this decade, that number climbed to 855 million. Meanwhile, the quality of computers surged as prices plummeted. For instance, the cost per megabyte for a personal computer during the early 1980s was generally between $100 and $200; today it’s less than a cent.
That is what a free economy would look like: unbridled choice in production and trade with innovation and prosperity as the result.
But this is hardly what the economy looks like today.
The latest Federal budget was $3.6 trillion dollars, up from less than $1 billion a century ago. Taxes eat up nearly half of the average American’s income. A mammoth welfare state doles out favors to individuals and to businesses. Hundreds of thousands of regulations direct virtually every aspect of our lives. The Federal Reserve holds virtually unlimited control over the U.S. monetary and banking systems.
All of this represents the injection of government force into the market..(continue reading at The Ayn Rand Center For Individual Rights)
Saturday, August 15, 2009
"I Have Nationalized The German People" (Adolph Hitler)
The Ayn Rand Lexicon writes this: "Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it - at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens."
Apparently, Obama will allow Doctors to own their businesses but will mandate what they can treat, who they can treat and how much they can charge. This is fascism whichever way you turn it around. The Germans hated private individuals, private property, individual rights - their idea was to crush individualism and their main goal was control over the individual.
Until, these bureaucrats change math as well, 2+2=4 and government control over the economy = destruction of the principles of our founding: The right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Richard E. Ralston is Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine and recently wrote the following: "AMERICAN FASCIST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM".
Many years ago America started down a path that has gradually limited the free practice of medicine and the relationship between physicians and patients. You can never really have a private meeting with your doctor anymore, because the government is always in the room with you. Now, under the electronic medical records provisions of President Obama's stimulus package, whatever happens in that room will be reported to the government with the rest of your medical history—without your permission.
American medicine is constrained in a Byzantine web of regulations, legislation and bureaucracy. It is a mess, and the status quo cannot be defended. It should be reformed.
Americans are appropriately concerned at the prospect of socialized medicine. Some advocates want exactly that, and many politicians are pushing us in that direction.
But the system we now have and the course it is on is more accurately described as fascist. Factions vie for the patronage of political-power brokers.
When Hitler was asked why, as the leader of the National Socialist party, he did not nationalize businesses, he responded that such action was not necessary, because "I have nationalized the German people."
This practice has been evolving for generations and takes place at all levels of government. At the state level it takes several forms. Medical licensing was created to protect the public, but it can and has been used to limit the entry of new competition for current practitioners. It has also been used to threaten the careers of currently… (Read at CapMag.com)
Apparently, Obama will allow Doctors to own their businesses but will mandate what they can treat, who they can treat and how much they can charge. This is fascism whichever way you turn it around. The Germans hated private individuals, private property, individual rights - their idea was to crush individualism and their main goal was control over the individual.
Until, these bureaucrats change math as well, 2+2=4 and government control over the economy = destruction of the principles of our founding: The right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Richard E. Ralston is Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine and recently wrote the following: "AMERICAN FASCIST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM".
Many years ago America started down a path that has gradually limited the free practice of medicine and the relationship between physicians and patients. You can never really have a private meeting with your doctor anymore, because the government is always in the room with you. Now, under the electronic medical records provisions of President Obama's stimulus package, whatever happens in that room will be reported to the government with the rest of your medical history—without your permission.
American medicine is constrained in a Byzantine web of regulations, legislation and bureaucracy. It is a mess, and the status quo cannot be defended. It should be reformed.
Americans are appropriately concerned at the prospect of socialized medicine. Some advocates want exactly that, and many politicians are pushing us in that direction.
But the system we now have and the course it is on is more accurately described as fascist. Factions vie for the patronage of political-power brokers.
When Hitler was asked why, as the leader of the National Socialist party, he did not nationalize businesses, he responded that such action was not necessary, because "I have nationalized the German people."
This practice has been evolving for generations and takes place at all levels of government. At the state level it takes several forms. Medical licensing was created to protect the public, but it can and has been used to limit the entry of new competition for current practitioners. It has also been used to threaten the careers of currently… (Read at CapMag.com)
Friday, August 14, 2009
Some People Get Goose Bumps Over Obama - Hmmm Sounds like Idolatry
Every breath you takeEvery move you makeEvery bond you breakEvery step you takeIll be watching you("The Police" 1983)
...We see Barack Obama's smile broadcast 24/7, in a fashion we have not seen previously of earlier presidents. A Newsweek editor referred to Obama as a "god." MSNBC's Chris Matthews claimed physical ecstasy when Obama speaks. A Washington Post reporter swooned over Obama's "chiseled pectorals."
There are similar Big Brother attacks on recent critics of the Obama administration's health care initiatives. Once-praised dissent has become subversive. Protesters are a mob to be ridiculed by the government as mere health-insurance puppets.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is suspicious of the nice clothes the protesters wear. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi used a few isolated incidents to claim that the health care dissidents were "carrying swastikas and symbols like that" to compare Obama and Democrats to the Nazis.
...Doublethink is common. Presidential sermons on fiscal responsibility tip us off that deficits will soar. Borrowing an additional trillion dollars to manage health care is sold as a cost-saving measure. Racial transcendence translates into more racial identity politics, reflected both in rhetoric and presidential appointments.
The government wants to determine how some executives should be paid. The administration assures millions of citizens it will now intrude into everything from buying homes and cars to how they go to the doctor.
...George Orwell, a man of the left, warned us that freedom and truth are not just endangered by easily identifiable goose-stepping goons in jackboots. More often he felt that state collectivism would come from an all-powerful government — run by a charismatic egalitarian, promising to protect us from selfish, greedy reactionaries.
Orwell was on to something. (READ AT IBD)
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Concentrating Concentrating Power in The White House: The CZARS of America
From what I could gather there are NOW 45 CZARS in America with more in the planning stage (see below).
1. Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) czar, Richard Holbrooke
2. AIDS czar, Jeffrey Crowley [openly gay white man]
3. Auto recovery czar, Ed Montgomery
4. Behavioral science czar, position not yet filled
5. Bailout czar, Herbert Allison Jr., [replaced Bush bailout czar Neel Kashkari, Assistant
6. Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability confirmed by Senate]
7. Border czar, Alan Bersin
8. Car czar, Ron Bloom [Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury , under Senate oversight]
9. Climate change czar, Todd Stern
10. Copyright czar, not appointed yet
11. Counterterrorism czar, John Brennan
12.Cybersecurity czar, position will be vacant on August 21st [upon the departure of Melissa Hathaway]
13. Disinformation czar, Linda Douglass [This is a new media buzz since our earlier list, a response by pundits to the White House request for informants: see Glenn Beck and Lew Rockwell]
14. Domestic violence czar, Lynn Rosenthal
15. Drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske
16. Economic czar, Larry Summers
17. Economic czar number two, Paul Volcker
18. Education czar, Arne Duncan
19. Energy czar, Carol Browner
20. Food czar, Michael Taylor [a former Monsanto executive, or, the fox in charge of the henhouse]
21. Government performance czar, Jeffrey Zients
22. Great Lakes czar, Cameron Davis
23. Green jobs czar, Van Jones [who has a communist background]
24. Guantanamo closure czar, Daniel Fried
25. Health czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle
26. Infotech czar, Vivek Kundra [Shoplifted four shirts, worth $33.50 each, from J.C. Penney in 1996 (source). His last day in DC government was March 4 but on March 12 the FBI raided his office and arrested two staffers.]
27. Intelligence czar, Dennis Blair [Director of National Intelligence, a Senate confirmed position. He is a retired United States Navy four-star admiral]
28. Latin-American czar, Arturo Valenzuela (nominee) [although this post is referred to as a czar, he is nominatied to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and so is subject to Senate confirmation. Voting on his confirmation was delayed to clarify his position on Honduras. Watch WaPo’s Head Count to track status of confirmation.]
29. Mideast peace czar, George Mitchell
30. Mideast policy czar, Dennis Ross
31. Pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg
32. Regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein
33. Religion czar, aka God czar Joshua DuBois
34. Safe schools czar, Kevin Jennings [appointed to be Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, a newly created post (that does not require Senate confirmation); openly gay founder of an organization dedicated to promoting pro-homosexual clubs and curricula in public schools]
35. Science czar, John Holdren
36. Stimulus oversight czar, Earl Devaney
37. Sudan czar, J. Scott Gration
38. TARP czar, Elizabeth Warren [chair of the [Congressional Oversight Panel for the Trouble Assets Relief Program; note that Herb Allison is frequently called the TARP czar]
39. Technology czar, Aneesh Chopra
40. Trade czar, Ron Kirk
41. Urban affairs czar, Adolfo Carrion
42. War czar, Douglas Lute [retained from Bush administration, married to Jane Holl Lute, currently a Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security]
43. Water czar, David J. Hayes [a Deputy Interior Secretary and therefore subject to Senate oversight]
44. Weapons czar, Ashton Carter [actually Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and so subject to Senate confirmation]
45. Weapons of mass destruction czar, Gary Samore
Positions being planned:
Income redistribution czar
Land-use czar
Mortgage czar, formally “consumer financial protection czar” (source)
Radio-internet fairness czar
Student loan czar, to oversee a program of mandatory service in return for college money (source)
Voter list czar
Zoning czar
Obama has moved swiftly to concentrate power in the White House, bypassing the review of our elected representatives in Congress in most of the posts listed above. Even though cabinet positions are part of the executive branch, the cabinet secretaries must be approved by Congress, they are funded by Congress, and they can be called before Congress to testify. Most of these czars, on the other hand, are appointed by Obama at his sole discretion, and are answerable only to him. If subpoenaed by Congress, they can claim executive privilege. (Frontpage.American Daughter.com)
Even Senator Byrd is worried about this concentration of power in the person of Obama.
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who for decades has battled White House power and championed congressional clout, is questioning President Obama's appointment of "czars" to oversee key policy areas, including energy and climate.
"The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances," Byrd wrote in a letter to Obama. "At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials."
Byrd specifically cited the creation of a new White House Office of Energy and Climate Change, which is headed by Carol Browner. He also noted new offices for health reform and urban affairs policy and the appointment of White House staff to coordinate on technology and management performance policies. (Read)
1. Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) czar, Richard Holbrooke
2. AIDS czar, Jeffrey Crowley [openly gay white man]
3. Auto recovery czar, Ed Montgomery
4. Behavioral science czar, position not yet filled
5. Bailout czar, Herbert Allison Jr., [replaced Bush bailout czar Neel Kashkari, Assistant
6. Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability confirmed by Senate]
7. Border czar, Alan Bersin
8. Car czar, Ron Bloom [Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury , under Senate oversight]
9. Climate change czar, Todd Stern
10. Copyright czar, not appointed yet
11. Counterterrorism czar, John Brennan
12.Cybersecurity czar, position will be vacant on August 21st [upon the departure of Melissa Hathaway]
13. Disinformation czar, Linda Douglass [This is a new media buzz since our earlier list, a response by pundits to the White House request for informants: see Glenn Beck and Lew Rockwell]
14. Domestic violence czar, Lynn Rosenthal
15. Drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske
16. Economic czar, Larry Summers
17. Economic czar number two, Paul Volcker
18. Education czar, Arne Duncan
19. Energy czar, Carol Browner
20. Food czar, Michael Taylor [a former Monsanto executive, or, the fox in charge of the henhouse]
21. Government performance czar, Jeffrey Zients
22. Great Lakes czar, Cameron Davis
23. Green jobs czar, Van Jones [who has a communist background]
24. Guantanamo closure czar, Daniel Fried
25. Health czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle
26. Infotech czar, Vivek Kundra [Shoplifted four shirts, worth $33.50 each, from J.C. Penney in 1996 (source). His last day in DC government was March 4 but on March 12 the FBI raided his office and arrested two staffers.]
27. Intelligence czar, Dennis Blair [Director of National Intelligence, a Senate confirmed position. He is a retired United States Navy four-star admiral]
28. Latin-American czar, Arturo Valenzuela (nominee) [although this post is referred to as a czar, he is nominatied to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and so is subject to Senate confirmation. Voting on his confirmation was delayed to clarify his position on Honduras. Watch WaPo’s Head Count to track status of confirmation.]
29. Mideast peace czar, George Mitchell
30. Mideast policy czar, Dennis Ross
31. Pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg
32. Regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein
33. Religion czar, aka God czar Joshua DuBois
34. Safe schools czar, Kevin Jennings [appointed to be Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, a newly created post (that does not require Senate confirmation); openly gay founder of an organization dedicated to promoting pro-homosexual clubs and curricula in public schools]
35. Science czar, John Holdren
36. Stimulus oversight czar, Earl Devaney
37. Sudan czar, J. Scott Gration
38. TARP czar, Elizabeth Warren [chair of the [Congressional Oversight Panel for the Trouble Assets Relief Program; note that Herb Allison is frequently called the TARP czar]
39. Technology czar, Aneesh Chopra
40. Trade czar, Ron Kirk
41. Urban affairs czar, Adolfo Carrion
42. War czar, Douglas Lute [retained from Bush administration, married to Jane Holl Lute, currently a Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security]
43. Water czar, David J. Hayes [a Deputy Interior Secretary and therefore subject to Senate oversight]
44. Weapons czar, Ashton Carter [actually Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and so subject to Senate confirmation]
45. Weapons of mass destruction czar, Gary Samore
Positions being planned:
Income redistribution czar
Land-use czar
Mortgage czar, formally “consumer financial protection czar” (source)
Radio-internet fairness czar
Student loan czar, to oversee a program of mandatory service in return for college money (source)
Voter list czar
Zoning czar
Obama has moved swiftly to concentrate power in the White House, bypassing the review of our elected representatives in Congress in most of the posts listed above. Even though cabinet positions are part of the executive branch, the cabinet secretaries must be approved by Congress, they are funded by Congress, and they can be called before Congress to testify. Most of these czars, on the other hand, are appointed by Obama at his sole discretion, and are answerable only to him. If subpoenaed by Congress, they can claim executive privilege. (Frontpage.American Daughter.com)
Even Senator Byrd is worried about this concentration of power in the person of Obama.
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who for decades has battled White House power and championed congressional clout, is questioning President Obama's appointment of "czars" to oversee key policy areas, including energy and climate.
"The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances," Byrd wrote in a letter to Obama. "At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials."
Byrd specifically cited the creation of a new White House Office of Energy and Climate Change, which is headed by Carol Browner. He also noted new offices for health reform and urban affairs policy and the appointment of White House staff to coordinate on technology and management performance policies. (Read)
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