Items from the "Obama Hit Parade"

Polls show America is recovering from it's disturbing case of ObamaWorship:

Poll: Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama's Reelection

When it comes to how Americans view President Obama going into the new year, there appears to be very little spirit of Auld Lang Syne. Instead, according to the new Washington Whispers poll, many voters aren't forgetting what they dislike about Obama and want him out office.

In our New Year's poll, when asked what news event they fear most about 2012, Americans by a margin of two-to-one said Obama's reelection. Only 16 percent said they fear the Democrat won't win a second term, while 33 percent said they fear four more years.

Source

Demonstrating the economics acumen that turned the American economy from a developing disaster into a full-blown disaster:

Obama thanks EPA workers, vows allegiance to agency mission

President Barack Obama defended the work of the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday, saying he would stand with the agency that has taken a beating from Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail for regulations that the GOP maintains will cripple the economy and kill jobs.

Obama, making his first-ever visit to the EPA, took issue with those claims, saying he did not buy the notion that there is a choice between clean air and clean water and a growing economy. He said the mission of the agency was "vital."

"That is a false debate. We don't have to choose between dirty air and dirty water or a growing economy. We can make sure that we are doing right by our environment and in fact putting people back to work all across America," Obama told about 800 EPA employees gathered at headquarters in Washington, reminding them that before Republican President Richard Nixon created the agency in 1970, rivers caught fire and were devoid of life.

Source

 Even more evidence that ObamaCare is the worst legislation ever to be written and passed into law in secret:

Doctors Say Obamacare Is No Remedy for U.S. Health Woes

America’s doctors have conducted a full examination of the president’s health reform law — and their diagnosis of its effects on our healthcare system isn’t good.

Nearly two-thirds of doctors expect the quality of care in this country to decline, according to a new survey from consulting giant Deloitte. Just 27 percent think that the law will lower costs. And nearly seven of every 10 doctors believe that medicine is no longer attractive to America’s “best and brightest.”

Few people know more about our healthcare system than doctors working on the frontlines. Policymakers should pay heed to their indictment of Obamacare and revisit the disastrous law.

Source

Broader unemployment numbers paint a grim picture of the “recovery”

The good thing about our economy is that despite the serious problems it often has, the market will self-stabilize fairly quickly, as history has repeatedly shown. That is, if the politicians have the good sense to remove barriers and leave it otherwise alone.

However, when politicians impede the recovery through bad policies and foolish actions, the result is the Great Depression and, in this case, the Great Recession.

Even though there was slight improvement in the jobless number for December [the U-3 rate], a one-tenth of a percent decline in the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent, the economy is still sputtering.

Unemployment was already headed upward when Barack Obama took office in January of 2009 and rose steadily from 7.6 percent to 10.2 percent in October 2009, ending the year at 10.0 percent. Apparently the gods of the economy didn’t hear the president’s predictions that his nearly $800 billion stimulus would keep unemployment at 8.0 percent or less.

Three years later the unemployment rate is still substantially higher than Mr. Obama’s predicted peak. Plainly, the stimulus failed; a shining example of how the bad judgment of politicians impedes economic recovery. And the liberals running the government failed to learn anything from that mistake.

In politics, however, one takes even the smallest bit of good news and makes the most of it, so it was no surprise when Mr. Obama said, “We’re starting to rebound. … We’re heading in the right direction and we’re not going to let up.” He went on to say that the country has made “steady progress” since he took office, blithely ignoring inconvenient facts clearly demonstrating the contrary.

The good news is that unemployment has fallen from a high of 10.2 percent in October of 2009 to the current 8.5 percent rate, down 1.7 points over that 22-month period, and that is, of course, welcome news.

The unwelcome news, though, is that the unemployment rate rests nearly 3 points above the 1948-2007 average of 5.6 percent. Also, the 8.5 percent number reflects only the people currently active in the job market, and ignores the misfortunes of those who are underemployed or who have become discouraged and stopped looking for a job. An accurate picture of unemployment cannot ignore those Americans, as the U-3 rate does.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the official source for unemployment data and in addition to the number of people reported as unemployed reflected in the U-3 rate, it also reports the U-6 rate that includes the underemployed and those who have given up. The U-6 rate stood at 8.8 percent in December 2007, stood at more than 15 percent in January 2009 when Mr. Obama took office, rose to a high of 17.4 percent in October 2009, and was at 15.2 percent at the end of December 2011.

Acknowledging the true unemployment picture reflected by the U-6 rate, it is difficult to make a case that things have gotten noticeably better than they were when Mr. Obama took office.

Worse still, using the methodology for computing the unemployment rate used during the Great Depression and up until 1994, the current unemployment rate is around 23 percent. Essentially, the only reason the Obama economy looks even marginally decent is that the BLS changed the way it calculates unemployment.

Having frequently taken credit for a recovery, however, Mr. Obama is now obliged to take responsibility for everything that occurs after the recovery began, such as the news on median household income.

According to a Sentier Research report, median household income has actually fallen during the recovery, and in fact has fallen even more than it did during the recession. Gordon Green, former chief of the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, and co-author John Coder say that real income fell by 3.2 percent during the recession, but it has dropped 6.7 percent in the recovery, twice as much decline in the recovery as in the recession. Nothing to brag about here.

Despite these discouraging numbers, the president and his fellow Washington liberals continue policies based upon bad judgment. Mr. Obama tried to stimulate the economy by throwing nearly $800 billion at it. It didn’t work. He tried to stimulate green energy alternatives by throwing a half-billion dollars at Solyndra. That failed miserably. He tried to help the lower income folks by cutting their contribution to Social Security, which put a few extra dollars in their pocket each payday, but also increased the Social Security program’s deficit, and now he wants to extend that reduction.

And, last year he increased the size and cost of government yet again by creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will further impede business operations and raise costs by arming yet another band of bureaucrats with investigative power, and giving them loose standards to use in deciding who and when to investigate.

What the government ought to be doing instead is improving conditions that foster employment, and that means restoring certainty about the future in the minds of businesses and consumers. The “more regulations and laws” mentality of liberal Washington Democrats is the opposite of that prescription, and will further delay the recovery.

Please leave a comment.

“Stupid” sometimes has fatal consequences

There are two items in the news today that illustrate both how stupid some people are, as well as how serious the consequences of being stupid sometimes can be. 

We might be tempted to think that as many such examples as there are of idiotic behavior having horrible consequences that people would begin to figure out that they should stop and carefully think things through before acting.

Holding that particular belief gives people far more credit than they have earned, as the following two tragic stories more than amply illustrate.

The aftermath of these two events also illustrates how some people – too many people – will try to relieve the stupid people of responsibility for their stupid behavior. 

In the first incident, from Fox News:

A teenage mom took action recently when an intruder broke into her Oklahoma home. Sarah McKinley shot and killed the man after calling 911 and speaking to a dispatcher who, upon being asked by McKinley if she should shoot the suspect, answered that she should do whatever necessary to ‘protect her baby.’ McKinley says she did just that. 

According to the 18-year-old’s account, two men began beating on her front door, prompting McKinley to take her three-month-old baby and lock herself in a room with a gun before calling emergency dispatch. 

When the intruders finally got through the door, the mom had no more time left to wait for police and made a judgment call. “I waited ’til he came in the door, and when he did I shot him. I didn’t know what else to do … I wanted [the police] to hurry and get here before I had to do it, but they didn’t get here quick enough,” she said. 

On today’s America Live, Megyn Kelly pointed out that under Oklahoma law it is legal to use deadly force against an intruder, in certain circumstances. Prosecution in the case has decided not to charge McKinley with any crime.

The intruder had a second accomplice, however, and he has absorbed the charges, set to be tried for first-degree murder. In Kelly’s Court, Lis Wiehl and Joey Jackson got into a heated debate over the legal decision, with Wiehl saying the prosecution got this ‘exactly right.’ Do you agree? 

And in the second incident: 

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) - An armed eighth-grader gunned down by police officers in the hallway of his Texas middle school Wednesday was brandishing a pellet gun that looked like a firearm, and he refused repeated orders to lower the weapon before the officers opened fire, police said. 

The carbon-dioxide powered pellet gun 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was holding looked like a handgun, and the initial report to police that sent officers rushing to Cummings Middle School Wednesday morning was for a student seen holding a gun, Orlando Rodriguez, Brownsville's interim police chief, said at a news conference. 

Robert Valle, a 13-year-old who was among the school's 750 students locked down in their classrooms during the confrontation, said he heard police run down the hallway and yell "put the gun down," before several shots were fired. 

"He had plenty of opportunities to lower the weapon ... and he didn't want to," Rodriguez said. Two officers fired three shots, striking Gonzalez at least twice, he said. The autopsy results are pending. 

In the case of the mother defending herself and her son, it is difficult to think that anyone would conceive that the woman should be charged in this case. But, liberals have the capacity to defend the most outrageous conduct. 

In the case of the 15 year-old student, his parents are understandably grief-stricken that their child is dead, but in their grief want to blame police instead of their son. Most 15 year-olds are in the 10th grade, so we must wonder why this boy was only in the 8th grade. 

Reportedly, he assaulted one student prior to the shootout, and verbally threatened to shoot at police. 

It is difficult to feel any sympathy for the cretins who broke into the young mother’s home, or the kid who took a real-looking gun to a school and threatened to shoot people. They acted stupidly and got what they deserved. 

It is equally impossible to blame the young mother for defending herself and her child in her own home, or the police who thought the gun was real and acted when the boy refused to drop it. They are innocent and should be commended for acting appropriately in a dangerous situation.

A Banner Year for Government Awards

or

The 2011 “Hineys”

By

Dennis Evers

Hollywood really has it together when it comes to honoring their own. These actors that get paid millions of dollars for pretending to be someone else deserve the accolades the industry bestows upon them. Let’s face it, when you nearly break your arm patting yourself on the back with awards like the Oscars, the Golden Globes and countless others, people really want to hear what you have to say about things like politics, the environment and animal rights.

There is, however, a segment of society that fails to get the recognition they deserve - the zealous government employee. I’m not talking about the millions of hard working government employees that go to work everyday and make twice what the private sector makes, or those that have a better retirement fund, or more holidays off, I’m talking about those tireless public servants, bureaucrats and politicians who go beyond the call of duty to enforce and create laws and do things that make this great country a better, safer, more gender-neutral, less competitive, environmentally-friendly, PC place to live.

They deserve their own award, and I would like to propose a name that many of us regular tax-paying citizens often find us calling them under our breath - the “Equine Hiney,” or simply, the “Hineys.”

Because competition has gotten out of hand in America, it’s not really good for their self-esteem to have a winner per se, so we will simply brand the top examples all as “runner ups’ so they can share the accolades equally, without the fear of being branded a “loser.”

With that clarification, I would like to present the top nominees, again, in no particular order, they’re all winners.

The TSA for arresting numerous low-life criminals for rape, child pornography, assault, thievery, child molestation and various drug-related crimes. Unfortunately, all of those arrested were TSA employees.

 

Senators Patrick Leahy, Susan Collins, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Charles Schumer and Olympia Snowe. Forget minor issues like rampant unemployment, skyrocketing energy and food prices, a deadlocked Congress and an oppressive lack of hope. An intrepid, grossly overly paid group of lawmakers (the same group that can legally get rich by illegal insider trading) has bigger fish to fry - rogue maple syrup producers. Their MAPLE (Maple Agriculture Protection and Law Enforcement) Act will send these dirty syrup counterfeiting bastards away for a long time by making the sale of fraudulent maple syrup a felony offense with up to a five-year maximum penalty. Finally - finally some sanity in Washington. 

Mayor Jack Scott of Cordova Alabama. When many of Cordova’s residents were left homeless when a tornado destroyed the town, FEMA was good enough to offer emergency single-wide trailers for the displaced survivors to start the difficult process of reclaiming their lives. Not so fast, says Mayor Scott, who won’t allow the single-wide trailers in the town limits because he doesn't want run-down mobile homes parked all over his city, and he has the town ordinance to back him up. By the way, he cites that ordinance from a temporary single-wide FEMA trailer that the town hall and police department both are now housed in.

The Oak Park Michigan carrot cops and Planning and Technology Director Kevin Rulkowski. Julie Bass decided to replace her lawn with a raised bed vegetable garden. Her five aesthetically pleasing planters, overflowing with lush vegetation in the form of carrots, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and more are a hit with the neighborhood kids who enjoy helping out. Unfortunately, someone didn’t like the concept and called the city on her. After inspecting Julie’s vegetable patch, they issued her a warning and told the upstanding citizen and mother of six that all unpaved portions of the site shall be planted with grass or ground cover or shrubbery or other “suitable” live plant material. Director Kevin Rulkowski says, “If you look at the dictionary, suitable means common.” There is no specific ordinance that forbids vegetables, just some bureaucrat’s interpretation that “suitable” means “no vegetables.”  She demanded her right to a jury trial, so the city planned to throw the book at her. Julie could have spent 93 days in jail except for the avalanche of ridicule the city received. They dropped the charges, but recently added new ones with the same 93 days in jail penalty- unlicensed dogs. Really?

Montgomery County Md. Vegetables aren’t the only thing at the top of bureaucratic hit list, the American dream is right up there, as well. Rogue, entrepreneurial, prepubescent capitalist lemonade stand vendors seem to be a favorite. When some kids set up a lemonade stand on a street near the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland during the US Open, a Montgomery County inspector shut the stand down for not having a government approved “permit.” Forget the fact that half of the proceeds were going to help pediatric cancer victims, and that these were good kids just trying to help out. None of that matters to a bureaucrat - they were in clear violation of “the code.” One of the fathers was nailed with a $500.00 fine as things escalated. Fortunately, a local TV station grabbed some video of the incident and it went viral, bring an avalanche of complaints against the stupidity. After enough pressure, the county backed off and let the kids set up nearby. The kids’ response was to donate 100% of the proceeds to the cancer victims.

NYC Sanitation Dept.  One of the best examples of why we need to eliminate about half of all government jobs is 83 year-old Darbe Pitofsky of New York. While going out for a cup of coffee, she dropped a brown bag of old newspapers in a public trash can. Shortly thereafter, a sanitation worker jumped out of his vehicle and chased her down, demanding identification and threatening to “put her away” if she didn’t comply. “He just frightened the hell out of me, scared me to death, I was terrified.” He issued her a citation for disposing of household waste that carries a fine of $100.00 and when she complained he threatened to raise it to $300.00. Darby has appealed the citation.

Honorable Mentions:

The moronic wonks that show just how stupid they believe citizens are by taking perfectly good words we’ve used for centuries, (words or phrases that keep politicians up at night, particularly if they offer a truthful representation of the current state of affairs) and magically “swap” them for new improved words that eliminate the harmful nuance and excite the MSM.

Words like:

Kinetic military action (war)

Overseas contingency operative (terrorist)

Leading from behind (who knows)

Investment (taxation)

Eliminating spending in the tax code (more taxation)

Jobs created or saved (who knows)

And finally, every politician that voted to ban our great American light bulbs and replace them with hazardous, Chinese-made, mercury-laden, early-dying, crappy-light-producing, buzzing CFL’s.

If you have a politician or government employee you would like to nominate for a “Hiney,” please drop me a line. Please limit nominees to two or three hundred a week.

Dennis Evers is a former police chief, wannabe-political satirist & cartoonist, and author of a real book, “How to Handle a Crisis,” and can be reached at dennis@howtohandleacrisis.com

What happened to the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?"

Look at the areas of our lives that the federal government regulates or controls: education, commerce, employment, the environment, transportation, energy, mining, oil and gas drilling, healthcare, banking, immigration (well, not so much) … The list goes on.

At what point is there too much government? Many Americans believe we have long since passed that threshold. The federal government has co-opted Americans from freely deciding many routine things that not so long ago were theirs to decide. The degree of government control is demonstrated by a huge collection of rules and regulations.

Last year’s Federal Register – the daily publication for Rules, Proposed Rules, and Notices of the Federal Government – contained more than 81,000 pages. The Tax Code’s length is nearly 17,000 pages, and the Code of Federal Regulations this year has 165,000 pages.

According to the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., that jointly studied the federal government, agencies spent an estimated $55.4 billion in budgetary expenditures to administer and police the regulatory enterprise in a recent year. Adding the $1.75 trillion in off-budget compliance costs, the total regulatory burden is $1.8 trillion.

“In 1787, there were four federal crimes. Now there are over 4,000,” an article in the American Spectator told readers earlier this year. “In an average year, Congress will pass about 200 bills and agencies will enact over 3,500 regulations,” the article continued. Many of those regulations – written by bureaucrats, not Congress – have the force of law and carry prison terms.

William Anderson of Frostburg State University writes that “The only thing that stands between almost any American and doing a stretch in federal prison is the choice of whom prosecutors will target. This is a serious problem that shows no signs of disappearing. The transformation of federal courts into indictment and conviction machines imperils the U.S. business environment. Entrepreneurs and business owners face enough uncertainty in the current economic climate without having to worry about going to prison because an ambitious federal prosecutor can convince a jury that someone violated a vague, murky law.”

As serious a problem as this is, it is not the most serious threat Americans face at the hands of their government.

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead believes we have gone over the edge where policing is concerned. “Among those federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions are the State Department, Department of Education, Department of Energy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service,” to name just a few of the 73 agencies that have Offices of Inspectors General that exercise police powers, frequently using SWAT teams that evoke visions of a police state.

Predictably, overzealous and sometimes poorly trained SWAT teams abuse American citizens without cause, like the California man and his three young children rousted from their home at 6 a.m. by a Department of Education SWAT team looking for information on the man’s estranged wife’s education loan. Yes, that’s right: a SWAT team was sent to break into his home because of an education loan.

Much worse, a young ex-Marine was killed after a SWAT team crashed into his home during a drug raid and opened fire. According to news reports, the father of two young children grabbed a gun in response to the forced invasion but never fired. He was allegedly fired upon 71 times, but police found nothing illegal in his home.

Mistakes are bound to happen, of course, but that raises the question of how many times the federal government should be allowed to abuse or kill innocent citizens with impunity? The answer is: Never!

Mr. Whitehead notes that “Nationwide, SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling.” Even worse, he continues, “All too often, botched SWAT team raids have resulted in one tragedy after another for the residents with little consequences for law enforcement” because “judges tend to afford extreme levels of deference to police officers who have mistakenly killed innocent civilians but do not afford similar leniency to civilians who have injured police officers in acts of self-defense.”

How did our government, conceived in ideals of liberty at a cost of the lives of patriots fighting for that liberty, turn into an overbearing mechanism that micro-manages our lives, and even unleashes military-like power against its citizens without accountability?

We have allowed government to grow in size and power, supported by citizens who have been conned into believing that government knows better than they how to do everything, and encouraged by a cadre of Americans who prefer depending on government support to having to fend for themselves. The interests of the people have been trampled by statists and socialists who happily wallow in the power they gain from a huge, domineering government apparatus like pigs in mud.

John Adams was right about a nation with democratic ideals: “It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.”

RIP, America, and Happy New Year.

Please leave a comment.

The third and final installment of the 2011 edition:

No. 362 of 365

Quote Teddy Roosevelt: "A gentleman told me recently that he doubted I would vote for the Angel Gabriel if found at the head of the Democratic Party, to which I responded that the Angel Gabriel would never be found in such company. Speaking quite dispassionately, and simply as a historian, the Democrats can be trusted invariably to walk in the darkness even when to walk in the light would be manifestly to their advantage."

No. 359 of 365

Ask your liberal neighbor to explain the logic of Obama's "stimulus" pork program. Say, "So let me get this right, the government takes money from taxpayers to put more workers on the government payroll that is paid for by taxpayers, and this helps the economy how exactly?" When he goes on to give a vague (and probably inaccurate) Keynesian explanation, you can cut him off with, "By that explanation, thieves are good for the economy, too— they help spread the wealth around; but I'll stick with the old-fashioned idea that we don't need the government to spread the wealth around, we can do that ourselves with our own free-market choices that support real free-market jobs and independent charities. What's the beef you liberals have with freedom anyway?"

No. 358 of 365

When your liberal neighbors knock excitedly on your door to show you ultrasound pictures of the baby they're expecting, look mortified and then say, "But surely, it's not yet a child, it's still a choice."

No. 354 of 365

Start a "Take a Liberal to Lunch" program to provide counseling for liberals whose high hopes for hope 'n' change are running out.

No. 353 of 365

Next time a liberal upbraids you for "maintaining narrow, traditional moral values" remind him that "tradition" is simply the inherited wisdom of our ancestors, which keeps us from making moral fools of ourselves, and anyway, which of these traditional moral values would he flat-out like to do away with: compassion, fidelity, honesty, restraint, deference, courage, chivalry, self-denial... (Actually, all of them, but he won't be able to say that.)

No. 339 of 365

Even an agnostic liberal might be a little taken aback to learn that Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, a book that inspired the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is dedicated to "the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom— Lucifer." Point out that Alinsky was at least one radical who knew where liberalism led.

No. 338 of 365

Show them the neglected conservative flick The Wild Geese with Roger Moore, Richard Burton, and Richard Harris. A collection of truly free-market soldiers (mercenaries) blow the hell out of Communist, Cuban-aided Africans, to rescue a democratic African leader. True, the bad guy is a wealthy investor, as your liberal friend will undoubtedly point out to you, but you can say, "Yeah, you're right; he reminds me of George Soros."

No. 337 of 365

Remind a liberal that California used to be a reliable Republican state. It voted Republican in every presidential election from 1952 to 1992 with only one exception (1964). Remind a liberal further that in those days, California was renowned for having some of the most right-wing voting districts in the country (in Southern California's Orange County); and remind the liberal even further that in those days California was equally renowned for its prosperity. Since 1992, the state has been overwhelmingly Democrat, and — while flooded with illegal immigrants — native Californians have been fleeing to other states, and the economy has gone down the toilet. Is that all just a coincidence?

No. 336 of 365

Force them to sit down and watch the movie Patton. Then ask them just how well we'd have done in World War II with an army led by men like Barack ("We could learn from the Nazis' outreach to Islam") Obama, draft-dodging Bill Clinton, Al ("All these explosions must be bad for the environment") Gore, Jimmy ("America has to get over her inordinate fear of National Socialism") Carter...

No. 329 of 365

Quote Richard Lamm, former Democratic Governor of Colorado: "Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it."

No. 327 of 365

When the holidays roll around, always say: "Merry Christmas," never "Happy Holidays." Not only do 70 percent of Americans prefer it—according to Rasmussen polls—but you are much more likely to offend a liberal. While 88 percent of Republican voters prefer "Merry Christmas," only 57 percent of Democrats do.

No. 326 of 365

Pick a fight with a liberal on: PEAK OIL.

"Peak oil"—the idea that we've reached the peak of oil production and that it's about to run out—is an S & M fantasy scenario designed by liberals to justify their fetish for higher taxation, greater government control, more regulation, and the mass switchover to expensive, pointless energy sources that don't work, such as wind and solar power. As Dennis Miller says: "Relax. We'll replace oil when we need to. American ingenuity will kick in and the next great fortune will be made. It's not pretty but it is historically accurate. We need to run out of oil first. That's why I drive an SUV—so we run out of it more quickly. I consider myself to be at the vanguard of the environmental movement and I think individuals who insist on driving hybrids are just prolonging our dilemma and I think that's just selfish..."

No. 325 of 365

Defend Israel. Show them pictures of Gaza's ritzy new shopping mall; quote the Japanese journalist who said: "Gaza and the West Bank are the only places in the world where I see refugees drive Mercedes;" remind them that life expectancy for Gaza Arabs—seventy-two years—is nearly five years higher than the world average, with a higher literacy rate than Turkey's. Then explain: "And it's ALL the result of years and years of EVIL ISRAELI OPPRESSION!"

No. 324 of 365

Conservative history: Quote "liberal fascist" Woodrow Wilson as an early example of America-hating, One World Government addiction. Asked whether the League of Nations might compromise American sovereignty, he replied that he looked forward to the day "when men would be just as eager partisans of the sovereignty of mankind as they were now of their own national sovereignty."

No. 321 of 365

Pick a fight with a liberal on: "PEACE ACTIVISTS."

Oh, yeah right, like the "peace activists" on the "peace convoy" bringing aid to the people of Gaza in May 2010? The ones who engaged in the traditional "peace activist" activity before they set sail from Turkey of preparing suicide videos; the ones who armed themselves with iron bars, knives, and guns, and tried to beat up, slice open, and shoot the brutal Israeli soldiers who boarded their ships armed with paintball guns. So what you're saying, right, is that "peace" is the new "war"?

No. 320 of 365

Reclaim rock for conservatism: Speculate that the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" was almost certainly an attempt by London School of Economics-educated Mick Jagger to convey to his youthful audience two of the bedrock concepts of conservatism: life is unfair; don't expect the state to bail you out.

Please leave a comment.

Who are the rich 1 percent that Occupy Wall Street hates so much?

The protests which began as and are identified as “Occupy Wall Street” are protests against social and economic inequality, high unemployment, and greed, as well as corruption, and the undue influence of corporations—particularly that of the financial services sector—on government.

The protesters' slogan We are the 99% is how they refer to what they perceive as a growing difference in wealth in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.

Those patriots in the Occupy (insert location) movement have inspired a critical look at those whiney, rich fat cats on Wall Street and in corporate America that the protesters despise so.

Here are some examples of the excessive salaries these people are paid: Philippe P. Dauman, CEO of Viacom, made $84.5 million last year. Leslie Moonves, of the CBS Corporation, got $56.9 million; Michael White of DirecTV was paid $32.9 million; Brian L. Roberts of the Comcast Corporation and Robert A. Iger of the Walt Disney Company, $28 million; and Gregg W. Steinhafel of Target, $23.5 million.

Who needs that much money, anyway? All that those people do is run businesses, and all businesses do is take people’s money, right? They are the 1 percent that OWS so patriotically protests against.

It’s just so unfair that these corporate bigwigs rake in millions when the rest of us struggle along barely making ends meet. Contrast those astronomical salaries and the conspicuous consumption that they allow, and then contrast it with the plight of those poor athletes, entertainers and journalists who are in the 99 percent.

Leading all athletes in total compensation with $62,294,116, of which $60,000,000 is in endorsements, is golfer Tiger Woods. On the Sports Illustrated Fortunate 50, leading the list of salaried earnings is the Atlanta Falcon’s Matt Ryan with $32,250,000, while the lowest on the list is Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat, with piddling $14,500,000 in salary.

According to Vanity Fair magazine, the list of people working in the salt mines of Hollywood lists James Cameron as the richest man in that hellish ghetto in 2010 with total earnings of $257 million, mostly from the box office and DVD sales of his Oscar-winning movie.

“The Tourist” star Johnny Depp grabbed the second spot on the Top 40 list of top-earning stars, directors and producers. The list estimated Depp's haul for the year at $100 million, excluding other non-film–related income.

And what about those fabulous folks who sing for a living? Forbes.com has published a list of the highest earners in the music world over the last 12 months, and in that group are: U2 at $130 million; AC/DC - $114 million; Bruce Springsteen - $70 million; Britney Spears - $64 million; Jay-Z - $63 million and Lady Gaga - $62 million. Seventeen year-old teeny bopper heartthrob Justin Bieber banked a cool $53 million last year.

Katie Couric made around $15 million a year when she anchored “CBS Evening News,” leading television news people. Diane Sawyer is raking in $12 million a year for her anchor job at “Good Morning America.” NBC “Today” co-anchor Matt Lauer draws $12 million while his co-host Meredith Vieira and NBC’s Brian Williams make about $10 million a year each. However, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann is dissed with a measly $4 million.

And how much do those high-profile liberals make – other than the aforementioned news folk – who are so good at telling the rest of us how to live?

Actor Alec Baldwin has a net worth of $65 million, and makes $300,000 per episode of “30 Rock.” Morgan Freeman gets $5-10 million per picture and has net worth $150 - 200 million. Gadfly movie producer Michael Moore has a net worth of $50 million. Tom Hanks earned $35 million last year, “Saturday Night Live’s” Tina Fey, $13 million, while Joy Behar, the co-host of “The View” and host of “The Joy Behar Show,” has a net worth of $8 million.

Relative to political party affiliation, those greedy Republicans lead the way in net worth, right? Well, no, according to Forbes magazine’s Top 20 list. Seventeen of the top 20 are Democrats, including Bill Gates, 56 billion; Warren Buffett, $50.0 billion; Wal-Mart’s Jim Walton, 20.1 billion Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, $13.5 billion; Lawrence Ellison, Oracle co-founder, $39.5 billion; Googles’ Larry Page, $15 billion.

So, big salaries aren’t restricted to Wall Street and corporate fat cats; there are lots of other fat cats, too. And when you add up all the athletes, entertainers and others making big bucks, Wall Street and the corporate world come in a distant second. But maybe it’s just how they make their money that makes it obscene when they collect a huge salary.

But why is it a bad thing warranting scorn and hatred to run a large company that provides jobs to thousands of people, and provides income to thousands more who own stock outright or in a retirement program or other investment?

We can hold different opinions on which of these folks contributes the most to society: the person that runs a company that provides jobs to thousands of people; the actor that plays the lead in an Oscar-winning film; the rock and roll screamer who sells millions of records. Whichever we might think provides the greatest service, we need to recognize and admit that each of them does something that people willingly spend their money on, and that is how they got rich. They made a good movie, a good CD, or a useful and desirable product. They didn’t just wake up one day and find a pot of gold beside their bed.

Economist Dr. Walter Williams defends one of the liberals’ most hated American icons, Wal-Mart. “Look at how Wal-Mart Stores generated wealth for the Walton family of Christy ($25 billion), Jim ($21 billion), Alice ($21 billion) and Robson ($21 billion). The Walton family's wealth is not a result of ill-gotten gains, but the result of Wal-Mart's revenue, $422 billion in 2010. The blame for this unjust concentration of wealth rests with those hundreds of millions of shoppers worldwide who voluntarily enter Wal-Mart premises and leave dollars, pounds and pesos.” Wal-Mart and its owners were made rich voluntarily by the other 99 percent.

And, in closing, a question: If the GOP is the party that exists to serve its Wall Street masters, then why does Wall Street give most of its money to the Democrats?

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Campaign reveals good ideas from Republican presidential candidates

The Republican debates certainly have been, well, interesting. The candidates have managed to dredge up all kinds of dirt on each other, and talk liberally about each other’s shortcomings.

Political insiders tell us that it’s good to get all the dirt and negatives out now, so that whoever wins the nomination won’t have all of that coming out during the more critical campaign. Maybe so.

They say politics is a dirty game. But really, politics isn’t inherently dirty; the players are dirty, and the public perceives this, according to a bipartisan survey commissioned by the Project on Campaign Conduct. Of those surveyed:
     • 59% believe that all or most candidates deliberately twist the truth.
     • 39% believe that all or most candidates deliberately lie to voters.
     • 43% believe that most or all candidates deliberately make unfair attacks    
        on their opponents.
     • 67% say they can trust the government in Washington only some of the 
        time or never.
     • 87% are concerned about the level of personal attacks in today's political 
        campaigns.

Does negative campaigning work; is mudslinging effective? Herman Cain is the most visible recent target of mudslinging, being accused by three women of having made unwanted advances, and another alleging a long-term affair. Are these charges true? Who knows, other than the women making the accusations and Mr. Cain. But have you noticed that since he suspended his campaign, you don’t hear much from those women?

Nobody’s perfect, of course, as is more than amply illustrated by President Barack Obama, whose dismal performance has disappointed nearly everyone at one time or another and left the nation in the economic doldrums. The Republican field also has weaknesses, as we learn daily. However, despite the mudslinging that covers up nearly everything else, there are some good ideas from people who have much to offer in the way of experience and accomplishments.

Rick Perry served five years as a pilot in the United States Air Force, was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1998 and assumed the governorship in December 2000 when then-governor George W. Bush resigned to become President of the United States. He has served as Governor of Texas ever since, and the state has been at the top of all states in job creation and for low unemployment rates through the current downturn.

Gov. Perry wants a part-time, bi-annual Congress. This would be a return to the original concept of citizen legislators. That change would save a good bit of money on the operation of Congress, and having Representatives and Senators who live and work in the real world certainly couldn’t hurt.

Just imagine all of the laws they couldn’t pass with that schedule, the legislative mischief that we would avoid, and the insider trading that Congresspersons could no longer indulge in.

He also wants to impose 18-year term limits on the federal judiciary, which sounds like a reasonable idea. Why should judges enjoy lifetime tenure when neither the president nor members of Congress do? Congress should not be a career choice, and neither should the federal judiciary.

Newt Gingrich earned a history PhD from Tulane University and taught college history and geography before entering politics and being elected to the House of Representatives. Rising to become Speaker of the House, he engineered the first Republican majority to be re-elected in 68 years. Among the first pieces of legislation passed by Congress with Mr. Gingrich as Speaker was the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, which subjected members of Congress to the same laws that apply to businesses and their employees. He led the way in Congress and negotiated with President Bill Clinton to pass welfare reform, and led the House when it produced the first balanced budget in 30 years.

Mr. Gingrich’s ideas are frequently criticized, even ridiculed, and it is true that the man has dozens of ideas and not all of them are equally great ideas, It is common for his critics to take what he says out of context, or to deliberately misstate the premise of his ideas.

He thinks teaching kids about work and responsibility by paying them to work in their school assisting janitors, librarians and office staff makes sense. Given how many Americans have to be taken care of by taxpayers because they are unprepared to get and hold a job, helping young people develop a work ethic and learn the value of earning their own way can’t hurt, and would go a long way toward reversing the dependency that the big government folks in Washington so dutifully cultivate.

Perhaps Mr. Gingrich’s and Gov. Perry’s ideas need fine-tuning or modification, but it certainly cannot hurt to consider reforming how our government operates, or finding ways to help young people learn the value of work.

All the Republican candidates have baggage; they are human, after all. But we are not electing a savior. We tried that in 2008, and it did not come out well. We are electing a president who will be , like the rest of us, a fallible human being. What we want is someone who has a record of accomplishment, and some productive ideas to make things better. 

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Thinking about mountains and molehills, and tempests and teapots

America’s fairly recent infection by hyper-sensitivity rises to fever pitch at this time of the year, when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, and also the secular celebration of Christmas – which, incidentally, is not limited to Christians – and Jewish Americans celebrate Chanukah, the Festival of Lights. Since there are far more Christians in the US (78 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian) than those of other faiths, or those who claim no religion, things associated with Christianity and Christmas attract the most attention.

People get upset by all manner of things, such as someone saying or doing the “wrong thing.” And, at this time of year the sight of religious objects like a cross, a nativity scene, or a menorah gets some folks upset. But those things have no inherent power; they can’t hurt anyone or turn people into zombies. Nevertheless, people run to the courts to have those objects removed.

The infection has reached the point where one person or a few people who are “offended” by something can now deny hundreds or even thousands of people the opportunity to enjoy whatever that something is. It is the tyranny of the minority.

People are too easily offended these days, and in response to the rising instances of offense being taken by someone or some group, the nannies in governments coast-to-coast have decreed that anything and everything that might give offense to anyone should be forever banished from the Earth.

The nannies are now said to be contemplating adding an Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not offend another soul, for if thou shalt give offense, thou shalt be really, really sorry.” The nannies also advocate the creation, passage and ratification of an Eleventh Amendment in the Bill of Rights: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against offenses real and imagined, shall not be violated, under pain of death, or something just as bad.”

One object viewed as terribly offensive is a cross erected in the Mojave National Preserve in the desert on the California-Nevada border near Las Vegas, put there nearly 80 years ago as a memorial for veterans of World War I by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The VFW originally owned the land on which the memorial was erected, but later donated it to the federal government.

The sensitivity police at the American Civil Liberties Union mounted a legal challenge to the cross sitting there in the desert, perhaps at the behest of an offended descendent of a defeated Central Powers soldier. Or maybe just because it was a cross, in a desert.

The ACLU bases its objections on the principle of separation of church and state, as if the mere presence of a religious symbol on government property somehow conveys the idea that whatever government body owns that property embraces whatever religion the symbol represents. The concept separating religion and government has come to command great respect – reverence, if you will – as if it actually was part of the US Constitution, which it is not. If only the property rights and other guarantees of liberty in the Bill of Rights, like our right to keep and bear arms, commanded as much respect.

The hullabaloo arising from religious symbols appearing in places where some people don’t like them is sort of puzzling. Most folks understand that placing crosses, menorahs, the star and crescent or the Festivus pole on government property really does not mean the government actually endorses or promotes the beliefs represented by the symbol. There is nothing frightening or threatening in the mere appearance of religious symbols, where ever they appear.

Religion has been a key force in this nation since before its creation, and adherence by generations past to the dominant religious principles provided a crucial stabilizing cultural influence, without which the nation would have floundered, and likely would have failed. What the various symbols, so feared by some, represent is nothing more than that reality being demonstrated through natural and traditional activities, nothing more. As we see happening now, our disintegrating culture parallels the increasing hostility toward religion.

Today complaints about religious symbols, particularly nativity scenes at this time of the year, are routine. This mania has more recently spread to people and businesses that merely wish folks a “merry Christmas” or a “happy Chanukah.” The nannies prefer the bland and inoffensive phrase “happy holidays.” This is understandable: Nothing is more offensive than someone wishing you well.

But in America if we don’t like or believe in Christmas, that’s okay. The First Amendment says that we are free to be, or to not be religious. So, a nativity, even if it’s on government property, doesn’t require anyone to look at it, if they’d rather not. No one is obligated by religious symbols to do anything, or believe anything in particular. Why do people allow themselves to be manipulated and offended by the appearance of inanimate objects?

When someone wishes you a “merry Christmas,” have the grace to accept their good wishes, and perhaps even respond with a polite “thank you.”

Merry Christmas! Happy Chanukah!


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“Over-taxing taxes” and “unfair fairness” define the United States

One of the more interesting topics in the US today is how to tax people and how much to take from them. Some believe that the tax system needs to be dramatically overhauled. Others think the wealthiest Americans can and should pay an even higher percentage of their income to the taxman.

There is a strong feeling that our tax system is hopelessly messed up and desperately needs to be overhauled so that it raises enough revenue to operate our government as it was designed, which is to say limited in size and scope, and that tax rates do not punish one group of Americans while absolving another group of its responsibility to contribute to the support of its government.

As currently configured our tax system creates inequality while attempting to make everyone equal, and robs the economy of billions of dollars due to its complexity. The two sections of tax code, one written by the IRS and the other written by Congress, comprise nearly 17,000 pages. You can buy your own copy for just $1,153.

A study by The Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics explains that $431 billion, or 30 percent of the total income tax collected, goes just to comply with and administer the US income tax system. The Internal Revenue Service spends $12.4 billion for administrative costs, and another $9.3 billion for comprehensive audits. Americans spend $31.5 billion on compliance.

Our government and the cost of running it have grown proportionately as the statist idea that government should do more and more for the citizenry has taken hold. According to Michigan-based Mlive.com, one in six Americans receives government assistance. Medicaid roles rose to 50 million in 2010 from 42 million in 2007, and the number of Food Stamp recipients hit an all-time high of 44.2 million in January, up 4.7 million from last year. Is it really true that all of those millions of people require the monetary support of taxpayers?

Plainly, this situation is out of control, and getting worse. In order to fund the government’s crazy spending addiction President Barack Obama and his liberal, big-government comrades want the “rich” paying more in taxes, a position he repeatedly states just to be certain his fawning followers do not forget. In a recent speech Mr. Obama used the word “fair” umpteen times in one form or another: fair share; fair play; fair shot. There’s nothing like fomenting a little class envy to get the voters all excited.

Naturally, Mr. Obama doesn’t tell us precisely what he thinks “fair” is, perhaps because it’s easier to get people all worked up with generalities, as he did in the 2008 presidential campaign. But we know from experience that he means the wealthy will be called upon to bear an even greater “fair share” of the nation’s burdens than they already do.

Cato Institute senior fellow Richard Rahn wrote in The Washington Times that whereas the top one percent of taxpayers earns just 20 percent of total income, it pays 38 percent of all income taxes; the top 10 percent earns 46 percent of total income, but pays 70 percent of income taxes. Conversely, the bottom 50 percent earns 13 percent of total income, but pays less than three percent of income taxes. Most of us agree that at some low earnings level people do not make enough to warrant taxing them, but currently 47 percent of American households pay no income taxes, and some of them actually receive money from the government. Their fair share is apparently zero dollars, or less than zero. What stake do these people have in how politicians behave? Instead of criticizing the wealthy, they should be thanking them for paying their share of the government’s huge cost.

Where tax rates are concerned, a “fair rate” depends upon who you are and how much you earn. But the term “fair” implies the treating of all sides alike. After all, isn’t what’s good for the goose, good for the gander?

Well, no; not in America today.

If the Bush tax cuts for the highest income earners are allowed to expire, as the president and other liberals want, the highest rate will return to 39.6 percent. Having Uncle Sam take four of every 10 dollars you earn seems like a lot. What’s the point of getting a good education, learning a valuable skill and working to get a good paying job if the federal government is going to take nearly half of it?

And how many people now advocating that the rich pay 40 percent of their earnings in federal income taxes would support that rate if they had to pay it? It’s a very safe bet that not many would. But when it’s the other guy, well, that’s different.

So, in order to come closer to funding its spending addiction, the government punishes the wealthiest Americans, who are frequently the most productive and the biggest spending citizens, with immorally high taxes on their income. Given the dismal record of government for efficiency and frugality, that money would accomplish far more good left in the hands of those who earned it.

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Bones: Unmanned Crossing

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Dangerous Executive Orders Still on the Books

From Godfather Politics:

Executive Orders (EO) have been used by presidents since the days of George Washington. The first EO addressed Washington’s normal household expenses which ones were to be accepted and paid by the Treasury Department. Pretty innocuous. The FBI was formed under an executive order by Teddy Roosevelt on July 26, 1908. The first time it was used to make a law was in 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson. It was said to be an ‘emergency’ measure and Congress was encouraged to validate it. They did and now the door was now open to ignore the Constitution. This is the same method used by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 to close all the banks in the country. Americans were ordered to turn in all their gold to local banks.

The general purpose of an executive order is to provide the President with a mechanism for executing laws passed by Congress, not control of lives. These EOs are issued by the President as directives to agencies responsible for implementing laws.

However, some presidents take Executive Orders too far confusing EO with executive lawmaking. This “rule by executive order” observation was made no clearer than by Paul Begala, a former Bill Clinton aide: “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kind of cool.”

While Begala thought this action “cool,” others did not. House Majority Leader Dick Armey said, “With the stroke of a pen, he may have done irreparable harm to individual rights and liberties.” He went on to add, “President Clinton seems bent on using his powers until someone says stop. President Clinton is running roughshod over our Constitution.”

Anti-Hoarding Laws and Executive Orders

Congress has 30 days to object to an Executive Order (EO) before it becomes law. No objections were raised against these Command and Control emergency “Readiness Laws” when they were put in place. Has the emergency arrived that needs them and are they slowly being introduced?

Bill Clinton grouped together the following EOs under EO #12919 released on June 6, 1994. These are the tools used to shred the Constitution and take away your rights under its protection:

10995 — Federal seizure of all communications media in the US (tested last month).

10997 — Federal seizure of all electric power, fuels, minerals, public and private.

10998 — Federal seizure of all food supplies and resources, public and private and all farms and equipment (including what you are storing for emergencies in your home right now).

10999 — Federal seizure of all means of transportation, including cars, trucks, or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and water ways.

11000 — Federal seizure of American people for work forces under federal supervision, including the splitting up of families if the government so desires (this happened before in Europe during the Nazi regime).

11001 — Federal seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private.

11002 — Empowers the Postmaster General to register every single person in the US.

11003 — Federal seizure of all airports and aircraft.

11004 — Federal seizure of all housing and finances and authority to establish forced relocation. Authority to designate areas to be abandoned as “unsafe,” establish new locations for populations, relocate communities, build new housing with public funds.

11005 — Seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, both public and private.

11051 — Provides FEMA complete authorization to put above orders into effect in times of increased international tension of economic or financial crisis (FEMA will be in control in case of “National Emergency”).

These EOs are not aimed at anti-hoarding but rather at seizure or confiscation of items and facilities “to provide a state of readiness in these resource areas with respect to all conditions of national emergency, including attack upon the United States.”

You’ll find most ‘seizure’ legislation ends with this phrase. These Executive Orders don’t define what specifically constitutes a national emergency…The specifics on hoarding are left up to the individual states.

Read more: Dangerous Executive Orders Still on the Books | Godfather Politics

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