Obama Rails Against Partisan Minority...but offers nothing in returnn

Mr. Obama's address was yet another attempt to shift blame onto others...evidently George Bush is getting rather stale as a punching boy.

SEIU: Learning to Spell...

In yet another example of the idiocy of the modern American government union movement, SEIU has misspelled yet another banner/sign.   This is the SEIU area outside of Al Sharpton's counter protest in Washington, DC last Saturday.  Read the sign closely and figure out what is wrong...

But then, most of the SEIU union members I know are  illiterate Cretans any way...If this is any indication of the intellectual ability of our government employees, no wonder the government is so fucked messed up.

What A Moron...

The President marks the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina taking his wife out in the rain on the exclusive resort island of Martha's Vinyard...

Ann Althouse says,

Drudge uses that picture to link to an AP story about Obama's commitment to Katrina victims: "Five years after Hurricane Katrina's wrath, President Barack Obama sought to reassure disaster-weary Gulf Coast residents Sunday that he would not abandon their cause." The AP story has Obama "[s]tanding in front of a large American flag with students arrayed behind him," so why does Drudge show Obama and his elegantly dressed wife entering (or leaving) a fancily gated establishment and mishandling an umbrella? That picture says so much: Obama is distracted by the trivial problems of taking his wife out somewhere expensive while the poor people of the Gulf are waiting and waiting for help. The disapproving glance of his wife gets more attention than the appeals of the hurricane victims. He's fortunate enough to have the kind of weather problem that can be solved by a simple umbrella, which wouldn't be any help at all in a hurricane. And yet his handling of an umbrella in a drizzle is incompetent, so how could he deal with a hurricane? The picture says: How can Obama understand/care/do anything about Katrina?

Emphasis is mine...

JournoList Successor Up & Running?

JournoList's successor seems to be up and running.  A large number of rerports covering the Glenn Beck rally, "Restoring America" are using the exact same phrasing to describe the rally in Washington, DC, yesterday.  Try googling the phrase "overwhelmingly white" and you'll get dozens of hits to articles describing the rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  When you throw in Google Maps giving directions to the FDR Memorial (when you put in the Lincoln Memorial)  you begin to think "collusion."

Salon's, Mark Benjamin,

Tea parties "overwhelmingly white"? A term that a peculiar number of articles seem to be using ... but no evidence of liberal collusion in the media here.

The Spokesman Review,

...Sarah Palin and other speakers at the “Restoring Honor” rally exhorted a sprawling and overwhelmingly white crowd to concentrate not on the history that...

The San Francisco Chronicles's Kate Zernike,

While the crowd at Dunbar was mostly African American, the audience at Beck's rally was overwhelmingly white, though a number of speakers and performers ...

The Washington Post's Amy Goldstein and Carroll Morello,

... Sarah Palin and other speakers at the "Restoring Honor" rally exhorted a sprawling and overwhelmingly white crowd to concentrate not on the history that ...

Now, doesn't that sound like collusion to you?  When you have this many diseparate news organizations using the exact same phrasing, then it's called propaganda and conrolling the narrative.  That's exactly what JournoList did and its successor seems to up and running already.

MTA Police...

Here in Maryland we have a number of police forces. The State Police, various County Police force and of course city police forces. Then there is the Maryland Transportation Police. You'd think they would enforce security on the various transportation services in Maryland. That is their mandate.


What they often do is to write traffic violations on the approaches to Baltimore City, just north of the I-695/I-95 intersection. Additionally, they can occasionally be found ejecting people without tickets on the light rail line that runs from the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) to the Hunt Valley Mall.

On the other hand, what they can't be found doing is traveling on the Metro, Baltimore's subway system. I travel on the subway to and from work 5-6 days a week. I've done so since early March of this year. Because I work various shifts, I've ridden on the Metro from as early as 6 A.M., until as late as the last train runs at midnight. Not once have I seen a MTA Police officer riding the subway.

A recording plays intermittently telling passengers that the trains are being monitored for "MTA's Forbidden Acts." Those forbidden "acts" are smoking, eating or listening to music without headphones. How in the hell they expect to do anything about it beyond me. I, myself, have seen on another car, 2 masked men, jump the gates and dash up the stairs to the surface as well as having had several very young teenage thugs attempt to rob me once. But, never have I seen an MTA Police Office travel on a subway car. While there are what appear to be cameras on each car, I seriously doubt that anyone is actually doing any "monitoring" at all.

Not a trip goes by without some kid either smoking or blasting away with a boom box...both of which are "unlawful acts" according to signs posted on the wall of each car. Someday, I suppose, the MTA Police will actually catch some miscreant doing one of the three unlawful acts, but I'm not holding my breath. After all, writing traffic tickets is a sure fire money maker for the agency rather than enforcing any sort of laws on a subway trains.

Sarah Palin's Speech In Washington, DC August 28, 2010

Here, in four parts via the Freedom Lighthouse, is Sarah Palin's speech at Glenn Beck's "Restoring America"s gathering....a gathering that attracted as many as 500,000 people, while Al Sharpton's protest gather as many as...3,000.

Part I



Part II


Part III


Part IV


I'm not a big supporter of Glenn Beck.  I generally find him to be a bufoon.  That being said, he does often make valid points.  My main objections to him come from his too often, histrionics...but he is an enterainer at heart. 

Obama Pays Off Supporters...

...and the Indymac Boys Get Sweetheart Deal

How Obama Stole the 2008 Democratic Nomination

I found an interesting article over at PajamasMedia.com by Gigi Gaston, a documentary film maker (and registered Democrat) who has completed a new documentary detailing how the Obama team and it's Chicago Way political machine operatives stole the party nomination from Hillary Clinton.  They couldn't have done it without the tacit approval of  the MSM.  Ms. Gaston states,

What I witnessed in Texas — and later in many other states — were things I could never forgive.


The New Black Panther case — think that was an isolated incident? It certainly wasn’t. That type of lawless behavior got started in the primaries. I listened to first-hand accounts of Obama’s supporters threatening Clinton’s. I heard accounts of Obama supporters stopping fellow Democrats from voting Hillary by any means possible — intimidation, locking doors to prevent entry, sending elderly voters to the wrong address, putting false start times on buildings, fabricating counts, using false information on caucus sign-in sheets, even stealing and altering caucus results.

I recorded eyewitness accounts of people being bussed in from out of state to caucus in Indiana.

And in Kansas. And Iowa.

Here is a great comment by jojo on the first thread: 

But the Clintons, as Kennedy clones, have their own brand of “clean hands” gangsterism, recognisable as old fashioned fascist tactics: the “Clinton/Kennedy Youth” barracking anyone who questioned their programs, heckling and silencing speakers who opposed – or even expressed reservationS about the programs and the means of effecting them, driving them from the podium; threatening any who looked as if they would have impact on how people thought if different from the “Party Line”; having the propaganda machinery and personnel in their pockets; bribing with government (the People’s ) money groups which supported their gradual takeover/change of America as Constitutional Republic; the mealy mouthed “elite” anti-American academic faculties disallowing entry into the universities if not active proponents of the “Party Line”, beating the drum and blowing the trumpet for their programs to disenfranchise large swathes of the “common people” of the USA,using “political correctness” to get around the restraints in the Law /Constitution of free speech,and free assembly, and in many ways fracturing the society by pitting citizen against citizen — ALL in the service of “fairness and equality”, and so on.


Mains sales : more subtle but quite similar to the Obama cadres with the same ultimate goal to make America something other than what she is : the proud example for “common people” throughout the world and the centuries since her creation, to be free of obeisance to ARBITRARY authority and rule by “elites”. To be self-governing.

The Clinton/Kennedy plan seems to be, to have been, the modus operandi of the Democratic Party for the past 40 years, since the “revolutionaries of the 1960s” for which the Kennedys and the Clintons, and now in spades Obama are the foremost icons, became a force in public life of the USA.

Some choices the “Democratic Party” of the USA has offered for the stamp of approval from the “common people” who they so evidently despise as anything other than instruments in their takeover of the USA in these past 50 years.

That in a nutshell is the state of the modern Democratic Party nomination process...with the introduction of ever more caucuses...it will be even easier to steal further elections by a political team who is corrupt enough, just as Mr. Obama's team was corrupt enough to do so.

Tea Party Trophy

A Real Waterbed...

Here's a great video from Germany on a real waterbed...

Sen Michael Bennet D-CO Admits Stimilus Package A Failure

Senator Michael Bennet, D-CO, said in a town meeting last Saturday, 21 August, 2010, that the trillions the Obama administration has spent has been wasted. 

We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet” and, “in my view we have nothing to show for it.” Speaking of the debt, he said our debt almost equals the economy. Regarding the current job situation, Bennet said the situation has been dire for over a decade saying, “We have created no net new jobs in the United States since 1998” which were the last two years of the Clinton administration. Pointing to a slide showing budget expenditures, he said that currently 65 percent of the budget was for social security, Medicaid and Medicare expenditures and that we could not grow our way out of debt.

Those remarks were made in one of the few town hall meetings held by Democrats this summer.  This meeting was held in Greeley, Colorado, and reported by the local paper, the Greeley Gazette.  My own Senators (Mikulski & Cardin, both D) and Congressman (Sarbanes, D-MD2) have failed to hold any either.  It's time to make these spendthrift legislators accountable for their actions.  They have spent $3,000,000,000,000.00 in the past year in stimulus packages and bailouts.  Nothing has come out of this but more debt.  Mr. Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are proposing to spend ever more money in an attempt to rape the country to pay off ever more of their rapacious union supporters (SEIU-government employees in particular have faired far better than the average worker in this country).

Fed Turns Down New Jersey For Hundreds Of Millions Of Education Funds

The Federal Dept of Education turned down the State of New Jersey for having ONE incorrect page of a 1,000 page grant application.

Freedom Of Speech

Recently the Left has begun attempts to place limits upon political speech.  One form of that is in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United v. FEC.  In that case, the Supremes ruled that corporate bodies (companies, small businesses, as well as unions and membership based groups) may now choose to a voice in politics.  All too often, however, free speech is seems to be such a difficult concept to grasp by the  liberal left.   They often feel that such freedom only applies to those with whom they agree with, and that any possible opposition to them is evil and must be stopped forthwith.

Freedom of speech means that you have to allow all of those who don't agree with you the chance to voice their opinions.  That's the dichotomy between the liberal and conservative movements in this country.  Liberals see opposition to be EVIL, thus must be supressed; while conservatives see those in  conflict with them to be MISGUIDED...and thus, should be convinced to the correct course.

As a young man, I volunteered for the United States Marine Corps.  In the last unit I served from August of 1983 until June 1984, HMM-266 the Griffins (now VMM-266, the third unit to activate to fly the MV-22).  There was a banner that hung upon the walls of the "Ready Room".  It said: 

"FIRST TO GO, LAST TO KNOW, We Will Defend To The Death Your Right To Be Misinformed" UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

In a nutshell, that's what freedom of speech means.  You have the right to be misinformed.  That being said, you don't have the right to keep OTHERS from being misinformed either.

Earlier this year, Senator Charles Schummer, D-NY, introduced a bill that  would have the effect of stiffling political speech.  His bill, The Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act (“DISCLOSE Act”), would in his words,

“Anyone who wants to hide, will not do an ad after this legislation passes. And I think there are a lot of people who like to hide … so I think there’ll be many fewer of them.”

The reality is that by forcing everyone (businesses, etc) to disclose whom they are contributing money to, would have a chilling effect upon political speech. 

Their solution was the DISCLOSE Act, a piece of legislation that creates a burdensome new regulatory scheme as well as requires that political ads feature disclaimers which may be as long as 14 seconds in length. This will increase the costs to small businesses and membership based organizations that seek to have a voice – many won’t be able to afford the additional compliance costs and will have their voices silenced.

This of course would add not just regulations, but would have the additional effect of having to hire more governmental workers to ENFORCE the act...thus adding yet more to the size and scope  of government at a time when we need just the opposite.  The time has come for us, as a nation to roll back, not just this attempt to further expance the size and scope of government, but to down size the government, just as many companies have reduced their work forces.

We don't need more regulations that muzzle our natural right to free expression.  We need to stand up and fight yet more attempts to reduce the people of this country to servitude to the government.

Reason TV: Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful

Obama's Failed Stimulus Package Cost More Than Entire Iraq War

Here are some facts about Mr. Obama's spending when compared to the cost of the Iraq War, but first, a graph showing the costs of both:

• Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
• Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
• Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
• Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
• Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
• The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
• During Bush's Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)

  

ATR: 14 Ways to Reduce Spending

The organization American's for Tax Reform has come up with 14 ways to reduce spending by the federal government.  It's a shame that none will be implemeneted...

1. Resurrect the “Byrd Committee.”
2. Give the public five days to read bills before a floor vote.
3. Put every federal transaction and contract online in real time.
4. Term limit appropriators.
5. Sitting Congressmen and Senators should not be able to name buildings or other monuments to themselves, and none should be named for them while they are still living.
6. Block grant education funding and welfare to the states.
7. Freeze the salary and benefit levels of federal employees.
8. Require all eligible federal employees to compete for their job with a private sector bidder.
9. Only hire one new federal employee for every two that retire from government employment.
10. Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act.
11. Reform farm subsidies along the lines of the 1996 “Freedom to Farm” Act.
12. Leave defense cuts on the table.
13. Stop using “emergency” spending loopholes to get around budget rules.
14. Freeze discretionary spending at 2007 levels.

 

Recovery Summer: Worst Economy Since The 1930's

It now appears that Mr. Obama's "Recovery Summer" has turned into the worst economy since the 1930's.  Many of the benchmarks used  to measure how the economy is progressing are showing just the opposite.  In fact, they show what appears to be a reversal and not just a double dip recession but the advent of a genuine depression.

David Rosenberg, one of the country's top economists, who predicted the advent of the recession in 2007, now says that the US is in the midst of a depression. 

The bottom line, argues Rosenberg and others: the US economy has collapsed into another Great Depression.  Citing the period from 1929 to 1932 and the eerie similarities, Rosenberg said, "We may well be reliving history here. If you're keeping score, we have recorded four quarterly advances in real GDP, and the average is only 3 percent." The same happened during the early 1930s stock market rebound of 50 percent after the 1929 crash.  The Great Depression followed the brief economic upswing.

Housing starts for the summer, which are normally much higher than the 100,000 (this is down by 65% for the period from 1956-2007) or so starts that have been reported, are vastly higher than commercial construction starts that have been reported to be "dead, dead, dead!"

This isn't what Mr. Obama and his party promised us during the 2008 election cycle.  The Democratic Party has controlled Congress since the 2006 election cycle, when Nancy Pelosi promised "the most ethical Congress EVER!"  With more than $3,000,000,000,000.00 spent on bailouts and economic stimulus, the unemployment rate which wasn't supposed to rise above 8% has started to inch back up above 9.5% once more.

On the other hand, I don't believe the GOP has the answers to the deep underlying causes of the unfolding ecnomic collapse.  It's no longer whether or not that party is for reducing taxes, any reduction in taxation MUST be accompanied by huge reductions in spending.  The Republican Party hasn't shown that they are in favor of doing so...their actions over the past decade show the opposit.  Now the country is in the position of being able to repudiate the economic policy of the ruling Democratic Party, but I trow, that the GOP will continue the same policies, but only at a smaller scale, a la 2002-2006.

This November, we have the opportunity to end deficit spending by electing politicians who understand that we can't continue to spend money we don't have...I only hope that voters, once they go to the polls, will remember this.

FIRST F-22 FIGHTERS DELIVERED TO LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE

Here are some in-flight Photos of the F-22's as the first aircraft delivery was taking place to Langley AFB in Va. Langley has been chosen to be the first operational AFB for the first wing of F-22's. The first two pictures are above Hampton Roads and Langley, Virginia.

The Aircraft flying along with the F-22 in these photos is an F-15, which will eventually be replaced by the F-22 which is a much more capable aircraft overall.

In wargames against the F-15, two F-22s were able to operate without being detected while they went head to head against eight F-15s. The F-22s scored kills against all the F-15's while avoiding dection by either the F-15s or Ground Based Radar.. Maj. Gen. Rick Lewis said:

'The Raptor Operated Against All Adversaries with Virtual Impunity; Ground Based Systems Couldn't engage and NO Adversary Aircraft survived'!

They're the first military aircraft ever built that is equipped with a 'black-out button'. What that means is this:  The best conditioned fighter pilots are capable of maintaining consciousness up to in the vicinity of 15+ G. The Raptor is capable of making 22+ G turns.

If someday an adversary builds a missile that is capable of catching up to one of these airplanes and a Raptor pilot sees that a strike is imminent, he hits the 'b.o.b.' and the airplane makes a virtual U-turn, leaving the missile to pass right on by.  They know that in the process he will temporarily lose consciousness, so the Raptor then automatically comes back to straight and level flight until he Wakes back up.



DON'T MESS WITH THE USA !

Teenagers...

Dr Seuss On Obama Care

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks,
or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals,
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like this speaker Nan ,
I do not like this 'YES, WE CAN'.
I do not like this spending spree---
I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.
I do not like your smug replies,
when I complain about your lies.
I do not like this kind of hope.
I do not like it. nope, nope, nope!

Go green - recycle Congress in 2010!

Obama's Religious Tolerance

One Quarter of Americans Believe Obama Is Muslim

A new poll finds that one quarter of Americans believe that Mr. Obama is Muslim. 

A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama’s recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center.

Here is the video that is often used to support this belief.



But then, the MSM (Amy Sullivan of Time Magazine) immediate attacks and call all those people morons.  Now that's a way to increase your readership, call 25% of your perspective subscribers "morons." 

AP Bans Use of "Ground Zero Mosque"

On Friday, the Associated Press distributed an email that forbids its writers from using the phrase "Ground Zero Mosque."  I guess they want to change the narrative again since a vast majority of the rubes (above 65%) are opposed to a 15 story mosque being built within sight of ground zero and named Cordoba house, the capital of muslim Al-Andalus (Spain).

How Obama Revived The Freedom Movement

From Reason TV:  John J. Pitney, Jr. on how Libertarianism has been revived by Mr. Obama's auhoritarian methods.

Good news, bad news?

By JP Bender

Is a double-dip recession looming? Prognosticators are telling us so. I’m telling you “no”.

That’s probably good news to most of you. But you would be wrong. It’s bad news, because we are in fact racing toward a mega depression that will be worse than anything the country has ever experienced. A double-dip recession would be far better by comparison.

I realize that depression is a strong word, but the towering icebergs of local, state and federal debt are about to sink the country into a Titanic dive.

I was educated in top Catholic Universities, owned two successful businesses, and spent the last 25 years of my 70 in journalism. My background, education, training, and living my life to the fullest, have given me the opportunity to live and study key factors that will change my life – factors over which I can have little, if any, control.

The current economic situation has been building for decades and neither political party has clean hands.

When I returned from military duty in Southeast Asia, I quickly realized that this was no longer the world of my father. While I was gone, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson decided to reinvent the United States, within their interpretation of the Constitution, and that made me feel like an outsider.

Nixon, Ford and Carter continued to expand government services, increase government spending, and attempt to control our lives from cradle to grave.

Ronald Reagan first conceived the notion of not going to war to defeat the enemy, but rather outspend the enemy into complete economic collapse. It worked to a point. While succeeding in destroying the old Soviet Union, he lubricated the slippery slope of out-of-control spending, coupled with tax cuts, to achieve a victory that would become self-defeating.

Reagan’s successors, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43, followed suit. They got away with fiscal irresponsibility because America had recovered so quickly from its previous insane spending spree, and no one complained, as our leaders shoveled billions out to special interests.

Many Americans realized that this type of economic self-destruction couldn’t last forever so they foolishly had bought into the 2008 campaign promises of hope and change. But neither hope nor change was defined. The mere phrase of “hope and change” resonated with pro-Clinton followers and anti-Bush bashers.

President Obama quickly established an agenda to create change. But he never really offered any solid packages. Instead, he allowed Democrat congressional leaders to write the bills, line up the support and champion the causes, all the while taking bows. Predictably, Obama’s radical agenda of higher taxes, out-of-control spending, and massive government overreach, created an out-of-control government.

He of course was the figurehead, while Congress were the grunts in the field; they set the course, they provided the numbers, they provided the votes, and in a way it was a dual presidency. It is important to remember this because when it all collapses (and it will), there will be a lot of finger pointing. And don’t worry; there will be enough blame to go around for every elected official – federal, state and local.

The late Senator from Illinois, Everett McKinley Dirksen, was fond of saying, “a billion here – a billion there – pretty soon we are talking about real money.” He would use that line when talking about the wild spending of Congress. I wonder what he would think today about the trillions that we now spend – and owe?

How far we have sunk when the national debt is measured in multi-trillions and we have no clue when or how it ever can be paid off.

Taking a long hard look at today’s economy, I can see nothing but gigantic economic hurricanes ahead. These storm clouds are ominous and deadly. There are no shelters to offer protection or safe havens. If you think that Congress, the President, financial planners, or institutions will be the guiding lights, remember that they are the problem – not the solution.

When we don’t like what OPEC says, we silently say, “Let them drink their damn oil.” When we don’t like what the Arabs say, we silently say, “Let them eat their damn sand.” We say those things because we’re offended that they’re taking advantage of us.

When we falter and head into the largest and deepest depression in the history of the world, we will be unable to pay even the interest on our debt, much less the principal. Then the Asians will get stiffed, and they will be offended because we are taking advantage of them. It’ll be their turn to say about us, “Let them eat their damn money, and screw their democratic principals of freedom of religion, press and gun ownership.”

We laugh at Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned. But Americans are fiddling, wasting valuable resources debating Roe v. Wade, gay rights, civil unions, and immigration reform, when we should be balancing the federal checkbook.

If the madness doesn’t stop really very soon, the unlimited U.S. credit card will be cancelled, open lines of credit will be closed, and international trade will crumble. With what will we buy the oil to which we have become addicted? The dollar will be only somewhat more valuable than useless.

From where I stand and from what I can see, this massive depression could last 15 years or longer and there will be no World War or willing lenders to bail us out. Economic collapse will cause massive domestic foreclosures, lawlessness and skyrocketing crime, 25-35 percent unemployment, widespread starvation, escalating suicide rates, and untold numbers of killings.

Of course the rest of the world will not be immune to the U.S depression. It will soon spread to every nation and hamlet on the globe, further exacerbating existing tensions, insults and vendettas. The radicals will attack to further their insane agendas, and we won’t have the assets to counter. But that’s okay, because we will welcome them in the name of diversity.

The day of reckoning approaches.

Cabinetmaker Looking For Work

Does anyone know of any companies hiring cabinetmakers?  I'll relocate.  Seriously, things are so bad here in the Metro-Baltimore-Washington DC area that I'd be happy to move.  I'd prefer to stay east of the Mississippi...

My email is to the right below my picture feel free to contact me.

Pelosi: Invetigate Those Who Oppose Ground Zero Mosque

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, wants to investigate those who oppose the building of a Muslim mosque near Ground Zero in NY City...instead of applauding those who are exercising their 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Speech, Mrs. Pelosi seeks to intimidate or silence those who oppose this.  That's rather Stalinist isn't it?  Rather against the spirit of our Constitution which guarantees our G-d giver right to freely express our opinions on any matter we so desire to expound upon

“there is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some.”


“I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up?”

 

Of course...after receiving harsh critizism to her threats to investigate anyone who opposes the mosque, her office issued this statement this morning: 

"The freedom of religion is a Constitutional right. Where a place of worship is located is a local decision.


"I support the statement made by the Interfaith Alliance that 'We agree with the ADL that there is a need for transparency about who is funding the effort to build this Islamic center. At the same time, we should also ask who is funding the attacks against the construction of the center.'

"For all of those expressing concern about the 9/11 families, we call upon them to join us in support of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act when Congress returns in September."

Yid With a Lid translates this as: 

OK people are pissed off about the first statement, which I admit was stupid, but I can't walk it back completely so I will add an investigation of the mosque funders so I can now appear to be even handed.

Harry Reid Arguing Against Birthright Citizenship

I rarely agree with anything that Harry Reid has to say...however, in 1993, he introduced a bill that would end "birthright citizenship" for children of those who are in this country illegally.  It's well past time to end the "anchor baby" laws.



Personally, I don't care where you or your ancestors came from, so long as you came here legally.  If you can't follow the laws that Congress has enacted regarding immigration...then you are breaking the law.  That's all there is to it.

Ground Zero Mosque

Bill Whittle on the ground zero mosque...



While I agree with Mr. Obama that Muslims have the right to build mosques pretty much wherever they can afford to do so...building one nearly on the site of Ground Zero and naming it for the capital of Muslim Spain...is inapporpriate.  I'll support such a most when the Roman Catholic Church is permitted to build a cathedral in Mecca...Muslims have a very long history of taking over sacred, or near sacred ground (See the mosque built on the siate of a Hindu temple in India, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, etc) and destroying sites that are dedicated to other faiths (the Buddha statues in Afghanistan).

The Contract from America

Here's the Contract from America...

We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.

Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)

2. Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)

3. Demand a Balanced Budget
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. (63.37%)

6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)

9. Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)

10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)

CBS Is Letting YOU Rate the President

CBS News is allowing you to rate the president...here is how the poll stands @ 9:35 am today

The Economy

A:4.77%
B: 4.56%
C: 5.27%
D: 17.80%
F: 67.60%

Foreign Policy
A: 6.80%
B: 4.19%
C: 7.67%
D: 21.66%
F: 59.68%

Health Care
A: 7.14%
B: 3.01%
C: 2.87%
D: 8.31%
F: 78.67%

Afghanistan
A: 5.67%
B: 13.60%
C: 25.96%
D: 22.84%
F: 31.93%

Iraq
A: 5.79%
B: 10.08%
C: 24.39%
D: 23.77%
F: 35.96%

Threat of Terrorism
A: 6.63%
B: 4.92%
C: 9.74%
D: 21.19%
F:  57.52%

Energy and the Environment
A: 5.66%
B: 5.56%
C: 12.70%
D: 21.03%
F: 55.04%

Social Issues
A: 6.71%
B: 4.69%
C: 10.82%
D: 18.95%
F: 58.84%

Bipartisanship
A: 6.60%
B: 3.12%
C: 4.00%
D: 8.08%
F:  78.20%

Obama's Overall Job as President
A: 6.28%
B: 4.03%
C: 3.69%
D: 22.25%
F: 63.76%

Those numbers show just how unhappy the country is.  CBS is one of the most liberal of the news organizations in the nationa and if their views are saying this...then the Democrats and Obama are in deep trouble.

Obama's Bill of Rights

Vegan NOT!: Why I Eat Meat

While I'm basically a religous believing type...I do accept the theory of evolution...after all, how long is a day to G-d?  8 millions years of evolution have propelled us humans toward eating meat and other high protein food in order to power our (relatively speaking) huge brains. 

It appears that Austrolopithecus was eating meat roughly 800,000 years before anthropologists previously thought was possible. 

As early as 3.4 million years ago, some individuals with a taste for meat and marrow — presumably members of the species best known for the skeleton called Lucy — apparently butchered with sharp and heavy stones two large animals on the shore of a shallow lake in what is now Ethiopia.  Scientists who made the discovery could not have been more surprised. They said the cut marks on a fossilized rib and thighbone were unambiguous evidence that human ancestors were using stone tools and sometimes consuming meat at least 800,000 years earlier than previously established. The oldest confirmed stone tools are less than 2.6 million years old, perhaps only a little before the emergence of the genus Homo. 

This is a hugely important discovery.  It also gives credence to the theory that eating meat, first as scavengers and later as hunters helped early humans to develop a much higher level of intelligence.    When our first distant ancestors climbed down from the trees to begin our journey as humans, they ate only fruits and vegetables.  After climbing down they added tubers, etc.  It's not a diet that has a very high  calory countent, nor does it lend much to the development of high intelligence, because it requires a large or long digestive system which has it's own drawbacks. 

"You can't have a large brain and big guts at the same time," explains Leslie Aiello, an anthropologist and director of the Wenner-Gren Foundation in New York City, which funds research on evolution. Digestion, she says, was the energy-hog of our primate ancestor's body. The brain was the poor stepsister who got the leftovers.

 High energy levels require much more fuel than a browsing on a vegan diet does.  That can only come from protein. 

"What we think is that this dietary change around 2.3 million years ago was one of the major significant factors in the evolution of our own species," Aiello says.  That period is when cut marks on animal bones appeared — not a predator's tooth marks, but incisions that could have been made only by a sharp tool. That's one sign of our carnivorous conversion. But Aiello's favorite clue is somewhat ickier — it's a tapeworm. "The closest relative of human tapeworms are tapeworms that affect African hyenas and wild dogs," she says.   So sometime in our evolutionary history, she explains, "we actually shared saliva with wild dogs and hyenas." That would have happened if, say, we were scavenging on the same carcass that hyenas were.  But dining with dogs was worth it. Meat is packed with lots of calories and fat. Our brain — which uses about 20 times as much energy as the equivalent amount of muscle — piped up and said, "Please, sir, I want some more."  [read the whole thing!]

I'll take my steak rare please...

Photo Essay: Then And Now

Here's a link to a great photo essay on then and now.  Included in the "now" pictures is this disgusting picture of a near fatal case of "dunlop disease."

WOW!  That's gross.

Leftist Attack Krauthammer

The "Professional Left" is now attacking Charles Krauthammer as a bigot.  The ignorant followers of Jane Hamsher have begun to demonize Charles Krauthammer...as a racist and a bigot.  Eventually the left has to realize that by using the "race card" as much as they have this past 18 months, that it will become useless.  Having been labeled as a racist by a former employee, I'm quite conginizant of how ugly discussions about this can get. 

Mr. Krauthammer is probably the best of the "Professional Right's" spokesmen and being labeled like this is...simply sad.

Obama's Florida "Vacation"

Since when does spending 27 hours in Panama City Beach, Florida count as a vacation?  When you are President of the US trying to save your presidency after 18 months of coordinated stupidity and arrogance.  I grew up in Panama City...and while I moved away from there for a variety of reasons, I still count myself as a Florida boy.

I have, literally, hundreds of friends who still live there.  I lived in North Shore...a 'burb of Lynn Haven, FL.  It's a quiet town that doesn't offer much in the way of year round employment, but there are far worse places to live or grow up.  It's a small town, and has a small town atmosphere, which, frankly, I cherish.  I look at the people where I live now (the Peoples Republic Of Maryland, where government is king) and I'm glad that I had the experience of growing up there.

But, Mr. Obama, spent just over a day there "talking to business leaders".  Bullshit.  He spoke to those syncohpants whom the White House approved of.  No-one who wasn't a registered Democrat was permitted to enter his presence.  That's rather surprising, as there are more registered GOP voters in NW Florida than anywhere else in the state (as a percentage of the population).  But the real telling point is where is Mr. Obama going to be on vacation until the 29th of August?  Martha's Vinyard...the same place the wealthy and powerful vacation.  That's a far cry from the "Heart of the Red-Neck Riveira" that is "Panama Beach Floreeda."

Yet again, this adminstration proves it's disengenous-artlessness.

Root of the 2008 Financial Collapse

The root of the 2008 financial collapse can to be traced to two competing views. The first view is that there was a failure of market discipline and the second a failure of the regulatory agencies and interference of politicians. The first has been attributed by Stiglitz as a failure of the capitalist system, and by Gorton as a failure of the various regulatory agencies. My view is that political interference through the agencies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wherein politicians directly forced the pseudo-governmental mortgage insurance agencies to lend money to those who had either no ability to pay back money borrow (many @ 125% of the home's value), or who had no incentive (very little or no money invested as a down-payment).


The politicians who were most directly involved in this, Rep Barney Frank (D MA5) and Senator Chris Dodd (D CT) were the authors of the 2315 Dodd-Frank "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010". This Act uses the failure of regulatory agencies as the basis of the financial collapse and refuses to recognize that it will in fact worsen future systemic risk.

That there was very little discipline in the various markets has become obvious, but that is more a feature of political interference, than of regulatory failure. Contrary to the media pushed meme of regulatory failure (this has been the talking points of the MSM and Democratic Party for most of the past 18 months), regulators didn't fail to mitigate the risks inherent in the system, they induced it. To make matters worse, politicians openly encouraged it.

In 2003, then President Bush attempted to reign in the Governmental sponsored enterprises (GSE)'s of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but was forcefully rebuffed by the above named politicians with the assistance of Senator Charles Schumer (D NY). Again in 2005 Senator John McCain (R AZ) introduced legislation that would have kept the GSE's from lending in risky financial sub-prime lending was defeated by Democratic Senators from Connecticut, New York and California. This ensured that the GSE's and those financial institutions that were deemed too big to fail (TBTF) would do so...

What the Wall Street Reform Act guarantees is that the government will, in the future, be forced to bail out any financial institution that does fail. Those companies protected by the act, are too large to be effectively regulated in the first place, and secondly use book keeping methods that ensure their failure in the future. But by choosing "Wall Street" as a political scapegoat ignores the political causes of the financial collapse. Kevin Villani argues that,

While some (e.g. Krugman, 2009, and Stiglitz, 2009) blame Reagan and Bush era deregulation, there are few specific references to either legislation or administrative action. The reduction of bank branching barriers preceded Reagan, as did the decision lending to the eventual complete elimination of Glass-Steagall restrictions in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 signed by President Clinton. Moreover, this deregulation has not been directly implicated in specific activities that created the crisis, and such diversification has generally made the banks stronger. Others note the failure to adopt new derivative regulations, e.g. Levine (2009), Johnson (2010). but this failure generally reflects the ongoing political turf wars among Congressional Committees (e.g. Agriculture versus Finance) rather than ideology, as demonstrated once again in the Dodd-Frank debates. While derivatives were used to ultimately prick the bubble there is no compelling link between the disputed regulatory proposals and the sub-prime mortgage lending bubble. Kevin Villani, "How Politicians & Regulators Caused the Sub-Prime Financial Crisis of 2007...", 2010, Page 5

The interference of politicians who often don't understand the economic impact of the policies they desire virtually guarantees that there will be a repeat of the 2007-8 financial crisis. Neither of the principal "authors" of the Dodd-Franks bill have a back ground in either economics or finance and because of this have built a bill that isn't either understood, nor is effective in correcting the actual market regulatory problems. It will merely exacerbate those issues that are now enshrined in the system and guarantee a repeat of the massive bailouts of 2009-2010. Villani concludes that,

...Dodd-Frank ignored the source of the consumeer problem, i.e. that Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank pushed quotas that led to unqualified people getting mortgages. So if it dos it's job of protecting consumers, then lenders will be in violation of affordable housing, CRA and other goals. This blame the lender mentality motivating the creation of a new watchdog agency can harm consumers in several ways. First, lawyers are among the few winners in the financial system collapse: ex ante consumer education remains preferable to ex post class action, which could seriously discourage home mortgage lending in the future [this has in fact occured, editor]. Second, mandating certain features, for example prohibiting a pre-payment penalty, means that ll consumers will pay for what could be an increasingly expensive feature valuable only to a few. So quotas remain, and all borrowers will likely pay for more credit.

Therein lies the problem. Politcally motivated lending to those unqualified, unable to actually pay for the money they borrow will guarantee that the system collapses again at some future date.

Real Or Fake? Which Spending Project is Real?

10 Reasons Why Obama's Presidency is In Meltdown

In November 2008, Americans bought the largest bait and switch sales pitch in history.  Barack Obama campaigned as a moderate Democrat politician.  Once he was elected, he didn't lurch to the left, he never "left it".  If the news media had actually not participated in operating as the defacto propaganda arm of his campaign (google JournoList, to see the coordination that many prominent far left liberal "journalists" participated in presenting his message) and had actually covered him as Americans expect new media to do...he would never have been elected president, and would probably have been beaten far worse than Nixon beat McGovern in 1972.

Here Nile Gardener of the British paper, The Daily  Telegraph gives his 10 reasons why Obama's presidency is failing...

1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people

In a previous post I noted how the Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime, extravagant, decaying and out of touch with ordinary Americans. The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Spain at a time of widespread economic hardship was symbolic of a White House that barely gives a second thought to public opinion on many issues, and frequently projects a distinctly elitist image. The “let them eat cake” approach didn’t play well over two centuries ago, and it won’t succeed today.

Don't agree here?  Then why would his wife, on his birthday, spend $375,000.00 on an exclusive vacation in Spain, with more than a million dollars  spent for her security...at taxpayer expense. 

2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership
This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.

This man has never actually run anything...not even his campaigns...he hired  people to do that for him.  Now that he's the big cheese, he's lost and has absolutely no idea what to do, much less what is necessary to "lead" the greatest nation on earth.

3. Obama fails to inspire
In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2004 Convention speech in Boston which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, President Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.

About all he can do is give a good speech...and even those are becoming boring.

4. The United States is drowning in debt
The Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook offers a frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt. Under its alternative fiscal scenario, the CBO projects that US debt could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent in 2035. While much of Europe, led by Britain and Germany, are aggressively cutting their deficits, the Obama administration is actively growing America’s debt, and has no plan in place to avert a looming Greek-style financial crisis.

He campaigned on being fiscally responsible after 8 years of GOP irresponsibility...and has added more to the debt than any single president in our history, in only 18 MONTHS!

5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat
The relentless emphasis on bailouts and stimulus spending has done little to spur economic growth or create jobs, but has greatly advanced the power of the federal government in America. This is not an approach that is proving popular with the American public, and even most European governments have long ditched this tax and spend approach to saving their own economies.

Ameircan's just don't really trust the government to do anything well...except kill people...that it does very well.  Witness the collapse of the Iraqi Army in less than 10 days.  But our government doesn't do anything well.  The mess in the Gulf of Mexico is an excellent example.  For 85 days, the government didn't DO anything except keep the press out of the area in fear of the country learning the true extent of the damage.

6. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake
In an extraordinary act of political Harakiri, President Obama leant his full support to the hugely controversial, unpopular and divisive health care reform bill, with a monstrous price tag of $940 billion, whose repeal is now supported by 55 per cent of likely US voters. As I wrote at the time of its passing, the legislation is “a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers.”

The country is overwhelmingly opposed to this with 70% of independents as well as 95% of conservatives vigourously opposing it.  More than 65% want to see it repealed.

7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive
While much of the spilled oil in the Gulf has now been thankfully cleared up, the political damage for the White House will be long-lasting. Instead of showing real leadership on the matter by acing decisively and drawing upon offers of international support, the Obama administration settled on a more convenient strategy of relentlessly bashing an Anglo-American company while largely sitting on its hands. Significantly, a poll of Louisiana voters gave George W. Bush higher marks for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with 62 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance on the Gulf oil spill.

This goes back to his lack of experience actually DOING anything besides running for political office.

8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration
It is hard to think of a single foreign policy success for the Obama administration, but there have been plenty of missteps which have weakened American global power as well as the standing of the United States. The surrender to Moscow on Third Site missile defence, the failure to aggressively stand up to Iran’s nuclear programme, the decision to side with ousted Marxists in Honduras, the slap in the face for Great Britain over the Falklands, have all contributed to the image of a US administration completely out of its depth in international affairs. The Obama administration’s high risk strategy of appeasing America’s enemies while kicking traditional US allies has only succeeded in weakening the United States while strengthening her adversaries.

Obama is clueless, even more so than Jimmy Carter was.

9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security
From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the War on Terror, President Obama’s leadership has often been muddled and confused. On Afghanistan he rightly sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield. At the same time however he bizarrely announced a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces beginning in July 2011, handing the initiative to the Taliban. On Iraq he has announced an end to combat operations and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 troops despite a recent upsurge in terrorist violence and political instability, and without the Iraqi military and police ready to take over. In addition he has ditched the concept of a War on Terror, replacing it with an Overseas Contingency Operation, hardly the right message to send in the midst of a long-war against Al-Qaeda.

Because he has no real clue about what the threats to this nation are...he is unable to meet the threats that are mounting against America.  First and foremost at the moment is the threat of a nuclear armed Iran...

10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness
Barack Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, and has made apologising for his country into an art form. In a speech to the United Nations last September he stated that “no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.” It is difficult to see how a US president who holds these views and does not even accept America’s greatness in history can actually lead the world’s only superpower with force and conviction.

And this one is the real root of his problems.  He doesn't understand that what makes America so great is that we don't depend upon the government to solve all of ourr problems.  We depend upon ourselves...

ACTUAL PASSPORT LETTER-----HILARIOUS

This letter is a thing of beauty (even if the language is a bit rough). You definitely feel the guy's pain. An actual letter to the passport office.

Dear Sirs,

I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this.

How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a cable TV from them back in 1987, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.

For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my social security card, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver's license, on the last eight damn passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at election times.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Maryanne, my father's name is Robert and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die.

I apologize, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my address?

What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthal asses working there.

Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach.

And would someone please tell me, why would you care whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone.

Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? Nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some idiot to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile? (bureaucratic morons) Hey, you know why we can't smile?

We're totally pissed off.

Signed - An Irate Citizen.

P.S.. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 ........I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the yingyang..........However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor, WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN INDIA.

Sincerely,
You Sure In The Hell Should Know Who I Am.
And you want to run our health care system?

Reagan insider: 'GOP destroyed U.S. economy

A very good friend sent me the article below...here's his comment on it.

I think many voters realize how bad the past GOP was fiscally hence why they lost the presidency and congress. This also explains the distaste for DC Republican incumbents now. Interesting article and I could not disagree with most of it.

How: Gold. Tax cuts. Debts. Wars. Fat Cats. Class gap. No fiscal discipline

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse."

Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "destroyed" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse."

Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider -- someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology -- says about America, helps all of us better understand how America's toxic partisan-politics "holy war" is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.

But why focus on Stockman's message? It's already lost in the 24/7 news cycle. Why? We need some introspection. Ask yourself: How did the great nation of America lose its moral compass and drift so far off course, to where our very survival is threatened?

We've arrived at a historic turning point as a nation that no longer needs outside enemies to destroy us, we are committing suicide. Democracy. Capitalism. The American dream. All dying. Why? Because of the economic decisions of the GOP the past 40 years, says this leading Reagan Republican.

Please listen with an open mind, no matter your party affiliation: This makes for a powerful history lesson, because it exposes how both parties are responsible for destroying the U.S. economy. Listen closely:

Reagan Republican: the GOP should file for bankruptcy

Stockman rushes into the ring swinging like a boxer: "If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation's public debt ... will soon reach $18 trillion." It screams "out for austerity and sacrifice." But instead, the GOP insists "that the nation's wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase."

In the past 40 years Republican ideology has gone from solid principles to hype and slogans. Stockman says: "Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts -- in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses too."

No more. Today there's a "new catechism" that's "little more than money printing and deficit finance, vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes" making a mockery of GOP ideals. Worse, it has resulted in "serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy." Yes, GOP ideals backfired, crippling our economy.

Stockman's indictment warns that the Republican party's "new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one:"

Stage 1. Nixon irresponsible, dumps gold, U.S starts spending binge

Richard Nixon's gold policies get Stockman's first assault, for defaulting "on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world." So for the past 40 years, America's been living "beyond our means as a nation" on "borrowed prosperity on an epic scale ... an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves."

Remember Friedman: "Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct." Friedman was wrong by trillions. And unfortunately "once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors. And without discipline America was also encouraging "global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve." Yes, the road to the coming apocalypse began with a Republican president listening to a misguided Nobel economist's advice

Stage 2. Crushing debts from domestic excesses, war mongering

Stockman says "the second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40% of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970." Who's to blame? Not big-spending Dems, says Stockman, but "from the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."

Back "in 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts," but Stockman makes clear, they had to be "matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration's hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces -- the welfare state and the warfare state -- that drive the federal spending machine."

OK, stop a minute. As you absorb Stockman's indictment of how his Republican party has "destroyed the U.S. economy," you're probably asking yourself why anyone should believe a traitor to the Reagan legacy. I believe party affiliation is irrelevant here. This is a crucial subject that must be explored because it further exposes a dangerous historical trend where politics is so partisan it's having huge negative consequences.

Yes, the GOP does have a welfare-warfare state: Stockman says "the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending, exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget -- entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans' fiscal religion."

When Fed chief Paul Volcker "crushed inflation" in the '80s we got a "solid economic rebound." But then "the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts." By 2009, they "reduced federal revenues to 15% of gross domestic product," lowest since the 1940s. Still today they're irrationally demanding an extension of those "unaffordable Bush tax cuts [that] would amount to a bankruptcy filing."

Recently Bush made matters far worse by "rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures." Bush also gave in "on domestic spending cuts, signing into law $420 billion in nondefense appropriations, a 65% percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy." Takes two to tango.

Stage 3. Wall Street's deadly 'vast, unproductive expansion'

Stockman continues pounding away: "The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector." He warns that "Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation." Wrong, not oblivious. Self-interested Republican loyalists like Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner knew exactly what they were doing.

They wanted the economy, markets and the government to be under the absolute control of Wall Street's too-greedy-to-fail banks. They conned Congress and the Fed into bailing out an estimated $23.7 trillion debt. Worse, they have since destroyed meaningful financial reforms. So Wall Street is now back to business as usual blowing another bigger bubble/bust cycle that will culminate in the coming "American Apocalypse."

Stockman refers to Wall Street's surviving banks as "wards of the state." Wrong, the opposite is true. Wall Street now controls Washington, and its "unproductive" trading is "extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives." Wall Street banks like Goldman were virtually bankrupt, would have never survived without government-guaranteed deposits and "virtually free money from the Fed's discount window to cover their bad bets."

Stage 4. New American Revolution class-warfare coming soon

Finally, thanks to Republican policies that let us "live beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore," while at home "high-value jobs in goods production ... trade, transportation, information technology and the professions shrunk by 12% to 68 million from 77 million." As the apocalypse draws near, Stockman sees a class-rebellion, a new revolution, a war against greed and the wealthy. Soon. The trigger will be the growing gap between economic classes: No wonder "that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1% of Americans -- paid mainly from the Wall Street casino -- received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90% -- mainly dependent on Main Street's shrinking economy -- got only 12%. This growing wealth gap is not the market's fault. It's the decaying fruit of bad economic policy."

Get it? The decaying fruit of the GOP's bad economic policies is destroying our economy.

Warning: this black swan won't be pretty, will shock, soon

His bottom line: "The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing ... it's a pity that the modern Republican party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach -- balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline -- is needed more than ever."

Wrong: There are far bigger things to "pity."

First, that most Americans, 300 million, are helpless, will do nothing, sit in the bleachers passively watching this deadly partisan game like it's just another TV reality show.

Second, that, unfortunately, politicians are so deep-in-the-pockets of the Wall Street conspiracy that controls Washington they are helpless and blind.

And third, there's a depressing sense that Stockman will be dismissed as a traitor, his message lost in the 24/7 news cycle ... until the final apocalyptic event, an unpredictable black swan triggers another, bigger global meltdown, followed by a long Great Depression II and a historic class war.

So be prepared, it will hit soon, when you least expect.

I have to agree with pretty much all of this.  This is the main reason why I no longer consider myself to be a Republican.  To quote a politician of the opposing party, "I didn't leave my party, my party left me."  The GOP has lost sight of what it stands for and has become "Democratic Lite".  This is not a party that I can support.  I have become far more libertarian than anything else.  The less government intervention, as far as I'm concerned, the better. 

Plug The Damn Hole!

Now only if we could before 2012...big sigh